Volume 4: The Southwood Working Party, 1988-89
3. Response to the first meeting
Action in relation to medicinal products

3.2 Immediately after the first meeting of the Working Party, Dr Pickles wrote a minute to Dr Gerald Jones of the DH Medicines Division ¹ in what she described to Mr Lawrence as an 'attempt to galvanise Medicines Division into some action' (see vol. 7: Medicines and Cosmetics). She sent a copy of her minute to Dr Martin in anticipation that he might raise the matter at the next meeting of the Medicines Commission, of which he was a member. Dr Martin told us that he did inform the Medicines Commission in the summer of 1988 about the potential risk that was developing in cattle and the implications that it had for both veterinary and human pharmaceuticals. ² He did not, however, expect the Commission necessarily to pass on the information to the Veterinary Products Committee (VPC) or the Committee on Safety of Medicines (CSM), whose chairmen were not members of the Commission. He was alerting the Commission as the senior body with the final say in whether any pharmaceutical should be banned commercially. ³

3.3 On 30 August Sir Richard wrote to Sir Donald Acheson saying that there was a need to address the use of serum in pharmacological work and asking whether it would be possible to check the policy of the pharmaceutical companies concerned 'through the usual channels'. ⁴ In response to this he received a letter from Dr Jones on 22 September informing him:

We are currently examining the potential problems of BSE with respect to medicinal products. This will involve consideration of a number of different issues including the difficult one of use of bovine serum or BSA [bovine serum albumin] in pharmaceutical manufacture. Also we will be discussing with our expert advisory committees. I will ensure that your advisory group has all the information relating to medicinal products as soon as it becomes available. ⁵

3.4 On 6 October Sir Donald himself wrote to Sir Richard, saying:

I am informed that a considered view on the whole issue of biologicals and bovine spongiform encephalopathy should be available in late November. You will appreciate that a number of our advisory committees including the Committee on Safety of Medicines and the Committee on Dental and Surgical Materials, together with their subcommittees, will have had to consider this important issue before we can reach the type of conclusion which is authoritative and which will be of most use to your Committee. ⁶