Volume 4: The Southwood Working Party, 1988-89
4. Preparations for the second meeting

4.1 After their first meeting, the members of the Working Party set about improving their knowledge of transmissible spongiform encephalopathies (TSEs) by reading published research papers, by correspondence and discussion with colleagues, and by considering information provided by MAFF. Shortly after the first meeting Mr Lawrence passed on information provided by Mr Wilesmith on the transmission experiments that were in train. In October Dr Hugh Fraser, a pathologist at the NPU, informed Sir Richard that BSE had been experimentally transmitted to mice. Sir Richard considered this to be 'exciting news' which made it clear that they were dealing with an organism like the scrapie agent. ¹