Volume 4: The Southwood Working Party, 1988-89
1. Introduction to Southwood

1.1 We turn now to consideration of the appointment of, and the advice given by, the Southwood Working Party, chaired by Sir Richard Southwood. This is an area we consider in some detail, for the Working Party's advice had important impacts, both in the short term and in the long term. The Working Party were asked to advise on the risks posed by BSE and the measures that should be taken to counter those risks. They addressed both matters, but sought to make it plain that they were doing their best on very limited data, that much further research was necessary, that their assessment of risk might be wrong and that, were it wrong, the consequences would be extremely serious. Unhappily, the Southwood Report was treated by many officials in the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (MAFF) and the Department of Health (DH) and, at times, by Ministers as if it contained definitive conclusions based on an evaluation of adequate data by expert scientists in relation to the extent both of the risk and of the precautionary measures necessary to counter that risk.

1.2 In his written statement prepared for the Inquiry, Sir Richard explained:

We were also conscious that there were uncertainties in virtually every aspect and that all we had to go on were analogies with scrapie in sheep and goats, and kuru and CJD in humans. We accepted that the agent seemed to be what was termed a 'slow virus' and therefore it could be a long time before the many necessary experiments would give results. Therefore these should be started as soon as possible, for until there was more knowledge, policy would have to be based on probabilities rather than scientific certainty. ¹

1.3 When giving oral evidence to us, Sir Richard said of his Report:

We were very particular about the wording of paragraphs; and that we did not want it to be too reassuring. We wanted to point out that there were enormous uncertainties. And that if these uncertainties turned out to be more likely than we had judged there could be catastrophic and very profound consequences. ²

1.4 How was it that this message seems to have been lost on so many? We shall first give a factual summary of the work of the Southwood Working Party before turning to consider the issues that arise in relation to their Report.