Volume 3: The Early Years, 1986-88
1. The identification of a new disease in cattle
When were the first cases of BSE?

1.41 There is anecdotal evidence to suggest that there may have been earlier, undiagnosed cases of BSE. Various farmers and veterinarians gave evidence of seeing cows in the early to mid-1980s with similar symptoms to those of BSE. ¹

1.42 One of the most well-documented cases occurred in Malmesbury, Wiltshire. A veterinarian, Mr Ray Williams, examined at least five cows between October 1983 and May 1985 on the farm of Mr Paul Lysley. He described the initial symptoms as being:

. . . seen a few weeks post calving with hyperexcitability, inco-ordinated gait, with progressive weight loss despite appetite being near normal, including parlour concentrates. Two cases last year became so inco-ordinated that they fell down on several occasions and were eventually slaughtered. ²

1.43 In January 1985 Mr Williams saw a further cow from a different unit of the same farm (Cow 36) which showed similar symptoms. He sent Cow 36 to the University of Bristol Veterinary School at Langford. Cow 36 was slaughtered and the partial post-mortem report described the cow as having 'progressive nervous signs, hyperaesthesia, tremors, mania and hind leg ataxia'. ³ Mr Williams sent at least one further cow from Mr Lysley's farm to the CVL in 1987. This animal was killed in December 1987 and the histological examination of the brain confirmed the presence of BSE. ⁴

1.44 In his written statement, Mr Williams said: 'In hindsight everyone involved now believes that the cases described above were all classic cases of BSE in adult dairy cows.' ⁵

1.45 Mr Richard Sibley wrote to the Inquiry as Chair of the BSE Group of the British Cattle Veterinary Association (BCVA), which is a specialist division of the British Veterinary Association (BVA). The BCVA has 1,600 members, of whom 1,000 are practising veterinary surgeons working with cattle in farm animal veterinary practices. Mr Sibley's written submission on behalf of the BCVA had this to say of the ability of the passive surveillance system to detect cases of BSE:

The referral of cases or samples from practitioners to VI Centres has established a rudimentary disease surveillance system, whereby data is collected by the centres and submitted to a central database. However, the data depends entirely on the submissions received from private practices. Not all practices submit samples or refer cases to their local VI Centre. Private laboratories provide a similar and competitive service. Many practices have their own in house facilities . . .

The supposition that practices would refer all cases to their local VI Centre, which would then collect data, is incorrect. Submission of cases and samples was based on a voluntary commercial decision of the attending veterinary surgeon. It may be that the original geographical recorded incidence of this disease was influenced by the vigilance and activity of veterinary surgeons in those areas and the relationship they had with their local VI Centre . . .

The surveillance of this disease up to June 1988 and indeed the surveillance of any non-notifiable disease is based upon the vigilance and inquisitiveness of the farmer and attending veterinary surgeon, with the voluntary referral to a VI Centre. ⁶

1.46 Epidemiological evidence given to the Inquiry suggests that it is likely that the first cases of BSE pre-dated by some years - possibly as many as ten or more - the first case of BSE to be diagnosed as such. ⁷ Earlier cases may well have been slaughtered before clinical symptoms developed, but we consider it possible that individual cases showing clinical symptoms were never referred to the SVS. In June 1987 Mr Wells carried out a review of selected brain sections held by the CVL and a small number of veterinary schools. ⁸ The sections were chosen on the basis of the clinical history of the cows from which they had been taken. In this context it is right to observe that Mr Wells only discovered one positive case of BSE - Cow 142.