Volume 6: Human Health, 1989-96
7. Human health developments from January 1996 to 20 March 1996
Communication to MAFF and DH of concerns expressed at SEAC meeting on 5 January 1996
Who received the minutes of SEAC meetings?
Mr Eddy's minute

Who received the minutes of SEAC meetings?

7.88 As we have seen, production of the final agreed minutes of the 5 January meeting was not completed until March, after Professor Collinge had provided his amendments. Dr Wight told us that this was normal and that drafting the minutes could often take months. This placed an obligation on the officials present at SEAC meetings to draw to the attention of those in their respective Departments any matters of immediate importance.

7.89 When a draft of the minutes was provided to SEAC on 29 January, it was distributed widely within MAFF, including the CVO, and to Dr Rubery and other officials in DH. ¹ Mr Eddy told us that this would have been in accordance with the 'standard procedure, normal circulation list' of SEAC minutes within the Department. ² However, Dr Rubery explained that within DH, SEAC papers were given limited circulation because they often contained early preliminary results of research. She informed the Inquiry that initially she did not routinely receive copies of the papers. ³ Dr Wight confirmed that circulation within DH was 'pretty limited'. She said that neither the CMO nor Dr Metters would have routinely received copies of the minutes of SEAC meetings. ⁴

7.90 Following the meeting, on 8 January 1996, Mr Eddy sent a lengthy minute to Mr Meldrum which gave a chronological summary of the Committee's discussions. ⁵ The minute was also copied to Mr Haddon, Mr Kevin Taylor, Dr Richard Cawthorne (Veterinary Head of Notifiable Diseases Section), Dr Render, Dr Danny Matthews (Senior Veterinary Officer and Technical Adviser to SEAC) and Dr Wight in DH. A day later Dr Wight sent a minute to the CMO regarding the SEAC meeting, which was copied to Dr Metters, Dr Rubery, Mr Mike Skinner and Dr R Skinner. ⁶

7.91 Mr Eddy told us that it was not normal to provide senior officials with a minute summarising SEAC's deliberations. He explained that the minute he sent on 8 January:

. . . was probably rather longer than the norm, and . . . was replying to a specific request from [the CVO]. So I do not think you could see that as typical. If we go on to February, again that was perhaps not typical . . .

. . .

The normal situation would be if SEAC had reached a significant conclusion, then I would relay that to people who needed to know within the Department. But the word 'conclusion' I think is important here. I mean if SEAC were simply continuing their consideration of a subject, and had not reached a particular watershed, then normally one would not bother people with saying: SEAC have continued to look at X and have not got anything particular they want to tell you at this time. ⁷

7.92 Mr Meldrum told us that he had specifically requested the information regarding SEAC's meeting because he 'still had a running concern about CJD, both in farmers and in the young people'. ⁸

7.93 Dr Wight also regarded the distribution of a minute summarising the recent deliberations of SEAC to officials within the Departments as an unusual occurrence:

The Secretariat was responsible for preparing the minutes following SEAC meetings. In the circumstances, it was not my practice to prepare a separate minute summarising what had taken place at SEAC meetings after every meeting. Indeed, it was unusual for me to prepare such a minute. On the occasions when I did prepare a note following a SEAC meeting, my practice was to record the outcome of the meeting and not separately to record the views of individual committee members. ⁹

7.94 Dr Wight explained that she would consider sending such a minute 'if there was something that was relevant to public health, or there was a particular action that the Department needed to take forward that senior officers needed to be aware of'. Dr Wight described the matters that would be of particular interest to DH:

I think we were beginning to see increasingly really since 1994 I suppose, perhaps even earlier, 1993 when we had the first case in a farmer, the issues that the Department needed to follow up, rather than MAFF taking the lead and following up, it was for the Department.

. . .

That is really why I wrote the minute because I thought there was something here that I just need to flag up. We do not know what it means but I thought it was worthy of a note.

. . .

They were flagging minutes if you like. One of the main actions that came out of that January meeting, as you will see, was the need for research. And I can remember spending quite a lot of time trying to sort out what we were going to do in terms of developing a good mouse bioassay. That seemed to me a key concern at the time. Certainly if we were going to try to understand more and more what might be going on in the cases, it was crucial that we had some way of assaying those properly. ¹⁰

Mr Eddy's minute

7.95 Mr Eddy began his minute of 8 January by reminding Mr Meldrum that he had asked for a 'short note on the main issues and action points arising from SEAC on 5 January', and saying that he had covered 'issues as they arose during the course of the meeting and not by importance'. ¹¹ Under the heading 'CJD Update' he recorded the information provided by Dr Will regarding a suspected case of CJD in a former abattoir worker and the concern expressed by Dr Smith about the number of CJD cases in occupations linked to the production of meat. ¹²

7.96 He then summarised the information Dr Will had given regarding the age distribution of cases. He recorded that Dr Will 'continued to have no concern about the incidence of disease in those aged over 30 but the number of cases under 30 was worrying'. However, he made no mention of the particular concerns of Dr Will and Professor Collinge that the number of young cases occurring in such a short space of time was worrying and could indicate a link to BSE. In concluding his summary of the discussion of the age distribution in the recent cases of CJD, Mr Eddy recorded:

Dr Will admitted that he could not prove that cases had been missed in the past and that was still a possibility but it would be unwise to assume that it was the only explanation. ¹³

7.97 Mr Eddy recalled the manner in which his minute was drafted, as follows:

My minute of 8 January 1996 was dictated from notes I had taken at the SEAC meeting on 5 January 1996 (I no longer have my original notes of the meeting). I usually took notes at the meeting and would use them to cross-check the first draft minutes of the meetings drawn up by the junior officials who attended the SEAC meetings. In preparing my minute of 8 January 1996 I cannot now recall to what extent I supplemented, from memory, my original notes. I also cannot recall whether, and if so to what extent, I selected material from my notes when preparing my minute. However, given the length of my minute and given that that minute was largely reproduced as the SEAC Minutes I consider it extremely unlikely that I would have left out of my minute something that had been recorded in my notes. Similarly, I think it highly unlikely that I would have consciously decided to leave out of my minute something that I recalled at the time. ¹⁴