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

5.1 The minutes of the second meeting on 10 November 1988 record that discussion included veterinary and biological products, incidence of TSE in mink in the United States, monitoring of CJD and an update on BSE epidemiology.

5.2 In relation to the first of these, it was considered that advice could be given to manufacturers on a number of practical steps which should be taken on a voluntary basis. Sir Richard agreed to write to the CSM on this issue. It was also agreed that:

... the Report should contain a section on veterinary and medicinal products advising that the VPC and Biological[s] Subcommittee should have regard to the emergence of BSE in making recommendations and that they should take account of the products currently in use as well as new ones. ¹

5.3 On the instructions of Sir Richard, Dr Kimberlin was scheduled to attend to provide his input to the Working Party at midday. In the event he travelled down from Edinburgh with Dr Martin and was present throughout the meeting. He was invited to speak on any matter under discussion and intervened on a number of occasions.

5.4 Dr Fraser's results (see paragraph 4.1) were discussed and the Working Party agreed that they seemed to confirm the hypothesis that BSE was very closely related to scrapie and that meat and bone meal (MBM) was the source of the disease. Dr Hope's advice was considered. Dr Kimberlin expressed the view that cattle-to-cattle transmission was 'possible' rather than 'likely'. Cattle could prove to be a 'dead-end host'. When giving evidence to us Dr Kimberlin explained what he had meant by dead-end host:

... what I mean is a host species which is susceptible and can be infected but will not naturally sustain that infection endemically. In other words the natural animal-to-animal transmission is not efficient enough to keep that infection going in the host; there has to be intervention, you have to feed the stuff, you have to inject it, you have to do something. Of course the precedent of that was TME [in mink] and indeed kuru [in humans]. We had two remarkable precedents of dead-end hosts. ²

5.5 The minutes provide the following record of Dr Kimberlin's contribution to the discussion:

Dr Kimberlin was in attendance throughout the meeting and had commented on a number of aspects at various stages. These have been recorded in earlier sections of this note. At this latter stage Dr Kimberlin made a number of other points including, if the analogy is made with scrapie, his conclusions that as regards the latter a link with CJD has not been established and that this should be referred to in the Report.

... Dr Kimberlin also emphasised that spongiform encephalopathies did not just 'hop about' from species to species. He also gave his view on the research priorities which were (a) the epidemiological investigation, (b) the vertical transmission, (c) infectivity in different tissues and (d) routes of infection. ³

5.6 Mr Meldrum, who had taken over as CVO in June, had submitted a note to the Working Party before the meeting seeking their advice on the disposal of milk from suspect cattle. The note stated that:

MAFF are now coming under some pressure to destroy the milk derived from animals suspected of being affected with BSE. The veterinary profession, in particular the Veterinary Public Health Committee of the British Veterinary Association, the Milk Marketing Board, the general public and media have all pointed to the discrepancy between our policy on carcass disposal and continued consumption of milk from suspect animals. ⁴

5.7 The note continued by adding that the destruction of milk would not involve undue financial hardship to the owner (because of the very low milk yield from the large majority of infected animals, which also proved unmanageable in the milking parlour).

5.8 The Working Party agreed to recommend to Mr Andrews that, although the risk of transmission via milk from suspect cattle was very low, it would be prudent to advise that such milk should be destroyed.

5.9 A paper on rendering plants presented by MAFF was discussed. The Working Party concluded that it would probably never be possible to be wholly sure that material rendered by existing plants was safe. It was agreed that Sir Richard would write to the Permanent Secretary at MAFF recommending that the ruminant feed ban be extended beyond 31 December 1988. ⁵

5.10 In addition, there was discussion about the significance of the placenta as a source of infection, to which the Report would need to refer in relation to research into BSE transmission. The Working Party also agreed to include a recommendation in the Report that clinicians and pathologists should be looking out for any evidence of a change in the incidence of human spongiform encephalopathies. The CMO was considered the appropriate person to take the initiative on this.