Volume 9: Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland
Part 2: Scotland
11. Comment
Dr Kendell's public statement in 1995 on the safety of beef

11.40 Dr Kendell became CMO for Scotland in 1992. He had a background in psychiatry, and had some clinical experience of CJD. However, he had no experience in public health medicine or food safety when he took office. He told us that he initially 'knew nothing really about the cattle industry or about abattoirs' and relied heavily on advice from Mr Scudamore (ACVO with responsibility for Scotland). His view was that 'it was the agriculture department's job to ensure that everything was right and proper on farms and in abattoirs'. ¹

11.41 Between 1992 and 1995 BSE did not present any new issues requiring his consideration, although he would have been kept generally informed about the progress of the epidemic through his quarterly meetings with other CMOs. Within SHHD, his main adviser on BSE was Dr Rosalind Skinner, who was promoted into Dr McIntyre's post in 1993. She in turn relied first on Dr Pickles and then Dr Wight at DH for information in briefing the CMO. Alarm bells do not appear to have been ringing in the Scottish Office throughout this period. SEAC papers and minutes were not brought to the CMO's attention. The only independent sources of information Dr Kendell mentioned to us were Professor Ingrid Allen of the Medical Research Council (and a member of SEAC), and Dr Will of the CJDSU, with whom he described himself as being in close contact during 1995, often discussing CJD.

11.42 During 1995 Dr Kendell told us he developed a number of concerns in connection with BSE. These had grown throughout the year, partly through his contacts with Dr Will, and partly through what he was learning generally. During August his thinking began to change. In October he was present at what he told us was a stormy Whitehall meeting between Dr Calman and Mr Packer, and was also made aware of some concerns over slack abattoir enforcement. Although there is a conflict of evidence about the constitution and timing of such a meeting, we do not doubt Dr Kendell's recollection that Dr Calman was concerned. ² In December, like Dr Calman five years earlier, Dr Kendell found himself called upon as Scottish CMO to make a public statement on the safety of beef, not least in school meals, and to refute the concerns being expressed by Sir Bernard Tomlinson (see paragraph 10.73).

11.43 He told us the decision to make a statement on 7 December was his own, though he strongly suspected it was at the request of the Scottish Office press office. However, he did not consult with anyone about the wording, and sent a copy to Ministers only the next day. Its purpose was described in a statement to us:

The statement reflected my own opinion, based on my assessment of the information available to me at that time, and I would not have been prepared to make any statement that was not based on my honest opinion. It was intended to reassure the people of Scotland that, despite the things they might have read or heard there was no good reason for them to alter their eating habits, while at the same time making it clear that I was not in a position to give a categorical assurance that 'beef was safe to eat'. ³

11.44 One of the general issues this Inquiry has explored is the effect that 'authoritative' public statements of reassurance had on the public's perceptions about BSE. We were interested in two particular aspects of this: namely, the deterioration and ultimate loss of confidence by the public in what they were being told; and the effect that reassuring statements had on the zeal with which those who were being relied upon for rigorous enforcement action carried out their responsibilities. We have looked at the role that statements made by the CMOs played, since particular public trust is placed in what they have to say. Here, we look specifically at the circumstances surrounding Dr Kendell's December statement.

11.45 Dr Kendell has told us it was directly intended to reassure the public without giving any categorical assurance that beef was safe to eat. ⁴ As regards the possibility of BSE being transmissible to humans, he has told us that it was well known to everyone at that time that the possibility existed.

11.46 However, we have a fundamental concern that 'everyone' did not appreciate that the possibility existed. The Government had been at some pains to damp down public speculation about human risk and the numbers of people who had been exposed to risk before the precautions were brought in. This approach undoubtedly contributed to the violence of the reaction following the announcement on 20 March 1996 and the belief of members of the public that they had been deliberately misled. Moreover, it was not the case that everyone understood that the removal of risk was conditional on the successful and thorough application of the precautionary measures. As we have seen repeatedly through each of the key stages in combating BSE, that gap in perception influenced the way many people responded in feeding and medicating animals, and handling meat and its products.

11.47 We asked ourselves two questions in connection with Dr Kendell's statement in December 1995:

• First, its timing. Was it inappropriate given what Dr Kendell had told us of his growing doubts and reservations during 1995?
• Second, its contents. Did it contribute to a misleading public concept of risk?

11.48 We put these points to Dr Kendell and referred him to his oral evidence that he was becoming increasingly concerned from early 1995 onwards that BSE might have implications for human health. He had told us that he was puzzled by the occurrence of CJD in dairy farmers, although there were plausible explanations for this; that he had tried to persuade Dr Will to devote more time to CJD surveillance, over his other responsibilities; and in particular that in August 1995 he was 'certainly more concerned' that two cases in young people had been identified. We referred him also to his evidence about his concerns over breaches in the SBO ban.

11.49 We told him of our concern that his statement in December was inappropriate in the light of his knowledge and reservations. Did he offer reassurance that was counterproductive because it failed to make plain that BSE might be transmissible and that confidence in the safety of beef depended upon the implementation of Regulations designed to protect against the remote possibility of transmissibility?

11.50 Responding to these points, Dr Kendell told us:

I was keenly aware of the potential threat to human health posed by BSE and of the gravity of the consequences if it ever did transmit to man. Indeed by 1995 I did not regard the possibility as 'remote' and I never used that adjective in that context. At the time of my press statement on 7 December 1995, however, I did not consider that there was any evidence that BSE either had spread to Man or was likely to do so . . .

If unjustified and mounting public anxieties about the safety of British beef had persuaded me to issue a press statement at the end of October or in early November, I might well have felt obliged to say that safety depended on rigorous compliance with the SBO regulations. By 7 December, however, my concerns had been relieved by Mr Hogg's firm stance and the ban on the use of bovine vertebral column in MRM. Like Professor Pattison and Dr Will, I was confident by then that in future the SBO Regulations would be properly observed, and so far as I know they were. I was also aware at that time that Dr Collinge's transgenic mice . . . which had been inoculated with brain tissue from BSE cattle were still alive and well 50 days after the point at which normal mice would have succumbed suggesting that BSE might not be transmissible to Man after all. ⁵

11.51 Dr Kendell went on to comment on the difficulty which all public health practitioners experience in persuading the public to take important risks to health seriously and not to be alarmed by other much lesser risks. He told us: 'The other even more pertinent issue is how difficult it is to create an appropriate, but not excessive, degree of public concern about a health hazard'. A recent 'sobering experience' of public over-reaction to information about third-generation oral contraceptives 'was still fresh in my and my colleagues' minds in December and made me wary of saying anything about CJD and BSE that might be seized upon by the media to increase still further the fears about beef I was then trying to reduce'. ⁶

11.52 We acknowledge the difficulties faced by those called on to make public comments in relation to BSE and the delicate balance between providing necessary information and not creating unwarranted alarm. However, we thought Dr Kendell's arguments were inconsistent. Whatever action was being taken to tighten up enforcement in December 1995, and in particular to ban MRM, it remained the case that seven years had now passed during which gaps or failures in enforcement had impinged on the food eaten by millions of people. As quoted above, Dr Kendell told us that by 1995 he did not regard the possibility of transmission to man as remote. He had not been following the scientific experiments on BSE, and we saw no evidence that Professor Collinge's latest experiments on mice would have carried such weight with him at this point as to remove his concerns.

11.53 Having decided to make his statement, Dr Kendell should not have done so without making it plain that the safety of eating beef was dependent on strict compliance with the precautionary measures introduced by the Government in response to the emergence of BSE. At this point in the heated and increasingly polarised public debate, Dr Kendell's statement is unlikely to have changed anybody's basic perceptions. However, as we have observed elsewhere, such public statements by a CMO have a special authority of their own and their terms are crucial. They become keystones for judgements not only in the world at large, but within Government Departments and by Ministers, who rely on them as an authoritative basis for policy-making. Notes to editors or supplementary observations in newspaper interviews are ephemeral and not the considered and substantive core material being communicated. Indeed, they can sometimes contribute to the message becoming diluted and wrenched out of context.