Britain's programme of research into BSE left important gaps, a member of the government's Spongiform Encephalopathy Advisory Committee told the official BSE inquiry last week.
Jeffrey Almond of the University of Reading believes the agriculture ministry should have commissioned more research into the threat posed to human health. A three-year programme on the biology of BSE and related diseases, initiated by the Agricultural and Food Research Council in 1991, was also too short to yield definitive answers, according to Almond. And a hiatus before the start of a successor programme allowed research teams to break up. "My lab essentially emptied," Almond told the inquiry.
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