Volume 4: The Southwood Working Party, 1988-89
3. Response to the first meeting
Action in respect of occupational risks

3.5 On 24 June Dr Pickles wrote to Dr David Gompertz of the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) about occupational risks from exposure to BSE. She commented:

Whilst there is no evidence that scrapie let alone BSE can be pathogenic for humans, it may sound as if we run the risk of being alarmist . . . so far the popular press have not woken up to the potential here. I think we all deep down believe there is no human risk, but with the present state of knowledge about these sorts of agent it will take years to prove it. And of course we might be wrong. ¹

Copies of this letter were sent to Mr Cruickshank and Mr Wilesmith, and to the new CVO, Mr Keith Meldrum, and the Director of the CVL, Dr William Watson.

3.6 On 12 September 1988 Dr Pickles met Dr Gompertz and others, including representatives from the CVL, to discuss occupational risks relating to BSE. She wrote on the following day to Dr Muriel Brown of the Civil Service Occupational Health Service:

. . . we discussed precautions that should be taken by people handling known BSE-infected material and bovine products more generally. Mr Sweasey and Mr Wilesmith were with us and we saw the recommended precautions for CVL staff. They were clearly more than adequate. Maybe those handling suspected BSE cattle before they reach the laboratory need some advice too: this will be looked into. Otherwise we saw no need to advise occupational groups who deal with cattle and bovine products more generally because of any danger from BSE. However, it would not be inappropriate to remind people that caution is needed in dealing with all animals and that increasing numbers of animal pathogens are known to be transmissible to humans. This is more a case of better education than regulations. The HSE will now be holding some more internal meetings on this issue. We were not persuaded that the topic needs to be raised formally on the ACDP agenda. ²

3.7 Dr Gompertz in his minute of the meeting added: 'These were only tentative opinions of an ad hoc meeting.' ³