Volume 4: The Southwood Working Party, 1988-89
5. The second meeting
Ox-brain

5.11 The minutes of the meeting record:

11. The format and a number of sections of the draft Report were discussed in detail. As a result, a re-draft will be circulated prior to the next meeting. Apart from the areas already mentioned it was agreed to include a brief bibliography and, as part of the recommendations, a list of topics for the Research Committee to consider. It was felt that the labelling of processed food which contained ox-brain was worthy of consideration, but that it was inappropriate to recommend banning all ox-brain for human consumption. ¹

5.12 Dr Pickles's note to alert the CMO to matters which MAFF might raise at short notice with him records:

Another question is identification of brain in human processed food such as pies. Current regulations would prohibit any material from known affected animals entering the human food chain but of course there will be unidentified infected animals. The group rejected the idea of a ban on UK ox-brain for human consumption or the labelling of country of origin or the prohibition in processed food, but will suggest there is a case for labelling to indicate whether processed food contains brain to enable an informed customer to make his/her own choice. Sir Richard will be writing to MAFF about this. If accepted, it is likely the 'meat' pie industry will find alternatives to brain, rather than include it but with labelling. Like the milk question above, this move may raise fears about the safety of eating any cow products, including beef, which might come from infected but clinically well animals. ²

5.13 When giving evidence to us Sir Richard commented:

We were concerned, I was concerned, as you know even before the Committee was set up and I went to talk to butchers in Oxford about ox-brain and the availability of ox-brain. We continued to be concerned because, I think I can remember Sir Anthony saying, what about the animals that are not showing symptoms but will obviously have some of the agent in their brain and nervous core; and we all thought 'What can we do about this? But it is the whole British cattle herd. How were we going to deal with that? Was there some way we could find the part of that which was at most danger and somehow exclude it from the human food chain?' ³

5.14 While Dr Kimberlin remembered pharmaceutical products being discussed he had no recollection of discussion about risks from food. He told us: 'I got a sense that they were covering a lot of the ground. I felt under considerable pressure, frankly; but the issue of food never came out as such.' ⁴ He said that he would have had something to say about whether or not ox-brain was something that humans should be permitted to eat in the context of his risk assessment factors.

5.15 At the time that he gave evidence to the Working Party Dr Kimberlin was in the course of advising a major manufacturer of pet foods which was concerned whether offal from cattle should continue to be incorporated in its products. His work on analysing existing data to assess the risks was not yet complete. He added that this work had been carried out in confidence and that it would have been absolutely unthinkable from his client's point of view to tell the Southwood Working Party about it.

5.16 Dr Kimberlin told us that, in retrospect, there were aspects of the meeting which, from his viewpoint, were a little unsatisfactory. He had not been given in advance any indication of the areas in which his assistance was being sought. The time available for his contribution was compressed because the meeting was running behind schedule:

I think it is possible that I only spoke for 15 minutes against the clattering in the background going on as the buffet lunch was being prepared . . . Richard Southwood just said something along the lines of 'Well Dr Kimberlin before we have lunch do you have anything to add?' I had not really done anything, so why was I there? ⁵

5.17 The Working Party, however, pointed out that Dr Kimberlin was present throughout the meeting and was invited to comment on all items discussed. Had he wished, he could have written to them after the meeting to raise any additional matters.