Woffinden0001

INSIDE STORY
Mark Purdey has a theory about Mad Cow Disease. Its implications are so terrifying that he believes there are those who want him silenced. If his theory is correct, we may all eat UK beef with impunity. But that's where the good news ends. Bob Woffinden investigates

EVERY morning at seven, Mark Purdey gets up to milk his herd of pedigree Jersey cattle on his isolated Somerset farm. There are breathtaking views over Taunton Vale; but one suspects these do not fully compensate for the hardships he and his wife and their four Young children have had to endure. Home and business are run from two cluttered caravans. It is all they can afford, although Purdey does earn a little extra playing the saxophone in local pubs.

Purdey is an organic farmer. More to the point, he is a passionately committed campaigner. He holds a core belief, of almost atavistic simplicity, which has devastating repercussions. He believes that we are all being steadily poisoned by the chemicals in the environment. Further, he considers there is an inextricable link between BSE, the disease affecting UK cattle, and human well-being – not through the theoretical dangers of eating beef, but because they form a demonstrable link in the chain of chemical exposure.

In agricultural circles, where many are aware of him, Purdey generates heated debate. To some, he is a source of great wisdom; to others, especially those in official positions, he is a fool and a fraud. Yet his influence appears to be steadily increasing. Tom King, former secretary of state for both defence and Northern Ireland, described him as "an outsider scientist with unacknowledged views, which I thought deserved proper consideration, and a proper discussion with ministry scientists."

King wrote to Gillian Shepherd, then Secretary of State for Agriculture, with the result that earlier this year, the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (MAFF) convened a meeting of senior officials at its central veterinary offices at Weybridge to allow Purdey to put his views. Recently, he has published lengthy articles in the Ecologist and the Journal of Nutritional Medicine, and in June delivered a paper at the Royal College of Physicians in London to the British Society for Allergy and Environmental Medicine.

He first got in touch with me a couple of years back, after Mark Ackerman and 1 had made Poisoned Lives, a First Tuesday documentary about the 1981 Spanish cooking oil disaster in which hundreds of people died. We argued that the supposedly contaminated rapeseed oil had nothing to do with the epidemic. Some people who became ill had never had the oil. The illness was actually produced, we suggested, by organo-phosphorous pesticides. "Do you realise," Purdey said, "that the Poisoned Lives story has some parallels with the BSE epidemic in this country?"

BOVINE Spongiform Encephalopathy, aka BSE, aka Mad Cow Disease, began to create press headlines from about 1988. Cows lost coordination and showed an excessive sensitivity to stimuli, became apprehensive, and lost milk yield - unmistakable signs of neurological damage. BSE quickly became the major cause of death in British dairy cattle. MAFF scientists determined that the epidemic had been caused by the feed given to cows. For some years, scraps of meat and bonemeal from sheep and, indeed, other cows, had been a cheap source of protein for animal cake manufacturers.

However, in the government fervour of the early Eighties for freeing businesses from bureaucratic restrictions, MAFF had relaxed regulations in the rendering industry. As a result of the removal of a solvent-extraction process and of a secondary steam-heat treatment, an aberrant form of a normal body protein, prion protein (PrP), responsible for the disease scrapie in sheep, had survived the rendering process and crossed species to cause BSE in cattle.

The feed containing the contaminated meat and bonemeal was banned on July 18, 1988. MAFF did not draw particular public attention to this. If its theory was correct, then there was only one agency to blame for the crisis: MAFF. Even though MAFF couldn't have foreseen BSE, the controls it relaxed had existed to knock out pathogens which may have been present. Yet if the disease had crossed species from sheep to cattle by feeding, then what was to stop it crossing from cattle to humans through milk and beer The equivalent disease in humans, known as Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, is an especially devastating one.

The Government withdrew what were deemed to be the only infective parts of the animals (notably the spleen, brain and spinal cord), and affirmed that this eliminated the risk to human health. Officials also predicted that BSE would then gradually die out. This is the position to which MAFF, with only minor adjustments, has adhered from the outset. The theory secured all the prime bureaucratic objectives: it held no one responsible for the crisis, it allayed public anxiety, and it safeguarded the country's beef and dairy industries.

Down in Somerset, Mark Purdey was not convinced. There were a number of unresolved contradictions. Scrapie had been in sheep for over 200 years, but always at a low level - so why had BSE suddenly reached epidemic proportions? A number of farmers and vets maintained that BSE had been around for some years prior to the mid-Eighties, but that there hadn't then been a sophisticated enough diagnosis for that set of symptoms. Faced with a ban at home from 1988, feed compounders had naturally exported their products overseas (a practice that was not ended until September 25, 1990), yet there had only ever been isolated cases of BSE in other countries - often directly attributable to the import from Britain of already-infected animals.

Wasn't it significant that, with one possible exception, there hadn't been a case of BSE among home-reared cattle on fully organic farms, even though some had used the theoretically contaminated meat and bonemeal (because organic farmers were then allowed to buy in up to 20 per cent of conventional feed)?

The one thing that would most evidently undermine the logic of the Government's position would be if cows which had never had the feed developed the disease. Purdey told me two years ago that this is what would happen. At that stage, there was only one such cow - statistically insignificant, of course. Then the figures began to creep up: 3, 10, 31, 52. A term was coined: the animals were described as BABs (born after-the-ban) cows. According to the Government's own figures, there have now been more than 10,000 BABs cows.

TRUE to his bucolic existence, Mark Purdey, 39, often resembles a scarecrow., with unkempt hair and dishevelled clothes. But few would gainsay the warmth and openness of his personality. He is hardly the dogmatic idealist that. some have portrayed; indeed, he is clearly galvanised by intellectual discussion. After Haileybury school, he declined a place at Exeter University to read zoology and psychology, preferring to build up 1-1 is own farm business. Like others before him, his outlook was shaped by reading Rachel Carson's Silent Spring, so his farming progressed in tandem with a passionate interest in the environment.

His pacific existence was shattered early one morning in 1984 when a MAFF official appeared on his doorstep, instructing him to comply with a warble-fly treatment order. "When she arrived, it was as if my whole life became focused," Purdey recalled. "Prior to that, 1 knew what was happening in the farming industry. The propaganda put out by the chemical companies is enormous. So, 1 was concerned, but 1 hadn't been actively campaigning."

MAFF had designated warble fly treatment zones, largely concentrated in the south-west. Purdey's Somerset farm fell within one of the zones. He was therefore required to administer an organo-phphorous (OP) treatment to all his cows. "If our cows ever had warble flies, I'd rub on Derris compound, a natural treatment. But the OP is a systemic insecticide, poured along the backs of cows. It gets into the bloodstream, and the whole cow becomes a poisonous medium so that internal parasites, like warble flies, are destroyed. Warble flies were in less than 1 per cent of cows at that time; yet every cow had to receive this treatment. The overwhelming majority were being exposed to this toxic burden quite unnecessarily."

Purdey refused to comply. MAFF appeared ready to make an example of him, so he took the Ministry to court. He argued that he should be exempt from the warble-fly order on three grounds: the dangers to the cows themselves; the dangers to those administering the treatment (at the time, his wife Margaret was pregnant); and the dangers to the public, in the form of residues in the milk.

MAFF adamantly refuted the suggestion that there could be a danger from residues in the milk. But Purdey had enlisted authoritative support. Dr Alistair Hay, of Leeds University, gave evidence for him.

Mr Justice Stocker found in Purdey's 'favour - albeit on a technicality. But this judicial success was quickly put into grievous perspective. Triumphantly, he appeared on BBC2's Out Of Court with his solicitor, Peter Ward, whose legal expertise had made the victory possible. A few weeks later, Ward, who had also steere anti-nuclear cases through the courts a helped to set up Lawyers Against Nuclear Proliferation, died when his car unaccountably.ploughed into a stone wall.

The following year - as Hay explained in a Guardian article -- MAFF quietly issued new instructions regarding the use of Fenthion, one of the warble-fly insecticides, extending the period for the subsequent withdrawal of the milk from six hours to five days. In effect, this took Fenthion off the market. No farmer was going to throw his milk away for five days.

The Government's war on the warble fly continued, however, with alternative OP treatments; and not coincidentally, as Purdey would argue, BSE began to appear.

.The first government committee appointed to look into BSE, headed by Professor Sir Richard Southwood, estimated that 20,000 ttle would die as a result. It rapidly became clear that Southwood had massively under-estimated the problem. To date, the figure stands at 132,400.

Purdey noted that the BSE symptoms of nervousness, apprehension and uncoordinated movement not only paralleled those of chronic OP poisoning, but were exacerbated by changes in environmental conditions. He logged the incidence of BSE county by county, and compared it with the designated warble-fly treatment areas. He believed there was a correlation. And in the June issue of Dairy Farmer, a columnist wrote, "It does seem that the greatest concentration of BSE cases are in what were the worst warble areas."

Although there is still doubt about whether anyone understands the precise function of PrP, it appears to be a signalling mechanism, involved in nerve transmissions in parts of the brain. However, the PrP in BSE cattle had undergone either a mutagenic change (of fundamental character) or a morphological change (of shape), and thus gone on to deceive the animal's defence mechanisms. Therefore, the PrP is not degraded (as it should be, once it has served its purpose). It builds up and, after a long incubation period, exceeds the tolerance threshold and is "switched on", as a multi-replicating, carcinogenic-like infection. This cluster-bomb effect creates the fatal degenerative disorder.

Purdey believes that, although the Government's theory is not completely wrong, it misses the bull point: which is that 0Ps caused the change in prions, and thus led to BSE. "The prion change is just one facet of the disease process. There are others, like increased uptake of calcium into the nerve-cells, and a loss of receptors at nerve ends. Yet ministry scientists isolated the prion as the sole indicator of the disease, and neglected to consider the other aspects of the pathology." If he is right, then the poor cow stood no chance.

The animals received a plethora of OP doses: worming boluses; lice and parasite controls; flysprays; insecticide-laced ear- tags; and even a cocktail of residues in the feed. (Incredibly, the officially recommended method of disposing of surplus sheep dip was to spread it over pasture.)

All this was over and above the warblefly treatment. Britain was the only country to have prescribed this twice a year, regardless of the fact that when it was administered many of the cows, as either spring or autumn calvers, would be in the early stages of pregnancy when the embryo is vulnerable. Moreover, the cow as a species was especially vulnerable to 0Ps, having a low level of cholinesterase, the enzyme protecting the nerves.

Over the years, Purdey frequently despaired of finding academic endorsement of his views in Britain. He did, however, cultivate international contacts. One of these, Professor Satoshi Ishikawa, a Japanese expert on OP pesticides, wrote to him saying, "your description [linking] mad cows to organophosphates is exactly true." But Purdey wanted to test his theory.

He was given the opportunity when one of his own cows, Damson (bought in from a conventional farm) developed BSE. "Before calling in the Ministry, 1 bloodtested her. In a sense, that's illegal, because once you suspect BSE you must report it. The red blood cell acetylcholinesterase was down by about 20 per cent in Damson, compared with three control cows. That wasn't proof that it was OP poisoning, but it did suggest that cholinesterase could be involved in the biochemistry of the disease.

"I wanted to treat her with an oxime and atropine that Professor Ishikawa had recommended. My vet, Christopher Budge, managed to get hold of some from the Musgrove Hospital in Taunton where it had been stockpiled in case Saddam Hussein had used (OP-based) nerve gases in the Gulf war. 'We injected the cow, and within 90 minutes we got a dramatic remission of symptoms. We wanted to treat her over a six-month period. It was a hopelessly uneconomic, unrealistic aim, but it would have been a scientific trial."

The treatment received extensive publicity. Quoted in the press, MAFF officials implied that this may not, after all, be a case of BSE. Further injections were prevented and the cow was slaughtered. The post-mortern report then confirmed that Damson was BSE positive.

Christopher Budge, the vet, told the Independent, "If 1 can help to clarify his theory, 1 am happy to do so." Tragically, he was deprived of the opportunity. A few weeks later, he was killed outside Taunton when his car veered into the path of an oncoming lorry - "for no apparent reason," as the inquest was told.

AFTER the success of his court case, Purdey himself had become embroiled in strange events. The legal fees been considerable and Purdey was forced to sell his Somerset farm and buy a cheaper one in the West Country. At that point, a rather mysterious man purchased the adjoining property. "He'd been very pally with us before we moved in, but his dress, his demeanour, even his way of talking, all struck me as odd. Then he moved in, and began making our lives hell. He'd argue about everything.

He initiated problems with the electricity cables running across his land. Afterwards 1 learned he'd been telephoning the water board five days a week, trying to get us cut off. He had eight Doberman dogs that were chasing our cows. Some nights we couldn't sleep, wondering what was going to happen next."

One day - a day when he'd planned to go to the House of Commons - Purdey found himself barricaded in his house by one of his neighbour's war memorabilia vehicles. "It was parked across the front of the driveway. We couldn't get the lorry in to pick up the milk."

Later, the neighbour, who had a small armoury of weapons, began firing towards the Purdey family. "He riddled the base of our milking parlour with shots. We called the police, and he said he'd been shooting vermin. The policeman who came out on that occasion was very friendly. 'You realise people are employed to behave in this way' he told us. 'I can't give you any more clues, but you were the one who took the pesticide case to court, weren't you?'

Purdey and his wife had been worried that the neighbour's presence might make their property unsaleable. Eventually, they did manage to sell it and buy a farm near Haverfordwest in Dyfed. The night before they were due to move in as the Guardian reported on June 2, 1988, it was burned to the ground. "The local police said it was an electrical fault but no electricity was on at the time." Friends gave them temporary shelter on a nearby farm. And the troublesome neighbour put his house on the market the week they moved out.

THERE was a second result, less personally harrowing but no less disturbing of Purdey's court victory over MAFF.He began receiving letters from across the country, all from people who claimed to be victims of chemical exposure.

"They had nearly all been told by doctors that they were malingerers, or were imagining their symptoms. But what interested me was that the symptoms described were frequently identical. They would include fatigue, problems of coordination, sweating, eye problems, muscle twitching, cramps, problems of temperature regulation, and various forms of mild paralysis. But all this is a consistent clinical pattern of deletion of the cholinesterase enzyme in the nerves."

Acetylcholinesterase is the enzyme which regulates the smooth functioning of the nerves. It is targeted by OPs, with the result that the nerve impulses go into constant overdrive. In other words, the symtoms were those of acute OP poisoning.

From these initial cases, Purdey drafted a report on alleged pesticide victims, which Sir Richard Body invited him to present to the House of Commons

committee on agriculture. (It was on the day he was due to meet Body that he had been barricaded in his farm). In cornpiling his report, Purdey had been struck by one observation. "Some of the victims, especially those suffering long-term or occupational exposure, developed diseases that were close, if not identical to, the common form of motor neurone disease (MND). The pattern of acute (ie immediate) poisoning is acknowledged by the scientific community. The more puzzling - and even more disturbing - biochemical question concerns the long term effects of OPs. Could prolonged exposure to these chemicals cause neurological damage?"

As James Bridges, professor of toxicology at the Robens Institute, observed, 'We know about acute poisoning, and we can try to manage the risk; it's so much harder to manage the risk if we don't know what it is. That's the position with chronic poisoning." Purdey wondered whether there was a link between OP pesticides and what appeared to be the increasingly common occurrence of neuro-degenerative diseases like MND, Parkinson's, Alzheimer's, multiple sclerosis (MS) and myalgic encephalomyelitis (ME). He began studying the medical literature of other countries.

It was, however, no cerebral neurological journal but BBC2's Horizon programme which alerted him to the island of Guam in the south Pacific. Debilitating illnesses such as motor neurone disease occurred there at an incidence rate of more than 50 times that of Europe or North America. "The natives ate a flour made out of cycad, from a kind of palm tree. Researchers also found two other areas with similar clusters of these diseases, in southern New Guinea and the Kii peninsula in Japan. From these three geographical areas, scientists eventually isolated a natural toxin in the nut, which was found to speed up the excitory neurotransmitters and lead to early senescence.

"The pattern of damage caused by this naturally-occurring chemical replicated what 1 was finding with 0Ps. These synthetic toxins were being increasingly used in agriculture, horticulture, fishfarming, forestry and as flame-retardents in industry. So it is certainly feasible that a chemical agent is a trigger factor in neurological disease."

It has hitherto been assumed that the body's natural detoxification systems would safely deal with harmful chemicals. Evidence is now increasing that this is not the case. Moreover - as with BSE - there is likely to be a critical point of exposure at which the accumulated chemicals block enzymes trying to clear them, and then cause escalating levels of damage. "All these micro-doses have a cumulative effect on the body," claimed Purdey. "I believe we're all being poisoned every day by these chemicals."

If a person has an inherent susceptibility - for example, in the liver, the organ which detoxifies harmful substances - then he or she would be at increased risk. In fact, the disease would result from the interaction of the environmental toxins with the defence mechanisms of a particular individual. How these factors interacted would determine precisely which debilitating illness (whether Parkinson's, Alzheimer's, MND) would be diagnosed.

Medical authorities seem to accept both that the incidence of neuro-degenerative diseases is increasing and that the age of their onset is diminishing. What no one can say is whether this is due merely to more accurate diagnosis, better reporting and increased life-expectancy; or is a result of the environmental conditions. However, there is tentative support for Purdey's thesis. According to a paper published in the Canadian Journal of Neurological Sciences in 1987, researchers discovered "that a significant correlation exists between pesticide use and the prevalence of Parkinson's disease."

These findings were buttressed by a 1993 paper in the US journal, Neurology. This found "evidence on behalf of an association between pesticide exposure, most prominently to insecticide products, and Parkinson's disease." What made this of particular interest was that the authors had looked exclusively at young-onset Parkinson's. Dr Goran Jamal, of the Institute of Neurological Sciences in Glasgow, is one of the few in Britain overseeing research into the long-term effects of pesticides. He has noted damage to the peripheral nervous system of farmers, but emphasises the findings are preliminary.

In respect of the neurological damage possibly caused by the increasing use of pesticides, one of the most interesting illnesses is ME, simply because this is a seemingly new clinical condition. The country's leading expert, the neurologist Professor Peter Behan, of Glasgow University, has established that there is an association between OP exposure and a syndrome which is indistinguishable from a chronic fatigue syndrome.

Dr Charles Shepherd, medical adviser to the ME Association, considers that the vast majority of cases are attributable to a viral infection: "There are a number of other small but significant trigger factors, of which neuro- toxins, primarily 0Ps, appear to be one; whether neuro-toxins other than 0Ps are capable of transmitting the syndrome is pretty speculative. "

It may be significant that ME - originally considered to be a stress disorder affecting students - is now widely known as "farmers' flu". Shepherd has noted that farmers who have originally become ill as a result of chemical exposure have subsequently gone on to develop ME, and has observed "similar abnormalities in their immune system and hypothalamic function" as in other ME victims.

The relevant point here may be the immuno-toxicity of OP pesticides. If Ops damage the immune system, victims would be more susceptible to infection; in other words, the "viral infection" theory of ME could be masking the neuro-degenerative effects of pesticides.

THE Government's present theory regarding the level of born-after-the-ban cows with BSE is that, notwithstanding the ban, farmers irresponsibly continued to use the feed. "That's an outrageous assertion ' " counters Purdey. "Farmers have pedigree cows; they weren't going to endanger their livestock." So the cracks in the Government's theory are becoming wider. It is no surprise that Germany and France are so concerned. Not only has the disease been contracted by thousands of animals which were never exposed to the ostensible cause of it (even on the Ministry's own experimental low-cost production farm at Liscombe, Exmoor, where BSE has developed but no feed concentrate was ever used); but experiments have failed to produce either the symptoms or the pathology of BSE. In the US, they have tried assiduously to reproduce the disease as MAFF says it occurred here. Researchers have slaughtered scrapie-infected sheep, rendered them in line with UK mid-Eighties practices, and fed them to cattle. Four years on, the cattle remain in rude health.

MAFF announced earlier this month that tests had shown some calves under six months were infected with BSE. If the source of infection had been removed six years ago, as MAFF has consistently claimed, how was this to be explained?

Purdey believes that 0Ps cause a loss of receptors in areas of the brain, and results in an increased uptake of calcium into the nerve-cells, which in turn causes a ballooning etlect, attributable to a vacuolation of neurones in the brainstem. (Interestingly, ME research is beginning to suggest an abnormality in the bloodflow in the brain-stem). These vacuoles have been noted in BSE post-mortems. A paper co-authored by Professor J B Cavanagh, formerly of the MRC, described such vacuoles as being "apparently limited to organophosphorous neuropathy".

DR JAMES Hope, of theAFRC neuro-pathogenesis unit at Edinburgh, referred in a paper to the fact that the structural surface of the prion protein molecule mimics that of cholinesterase; in which case, anything that targets cholinesterase (like 0Ps) will inevitably target PrP - and so could underlie the sole cause of BSE.

If Purdey's theory is correct, then it should provide comfort for the Government: there would be no need for especial precautions about eating beef. Indeed, Purdey believes there is no such cause for concern, and I've seen him heartily eat several lunches containing beef products.

It is his larger message that alarms the bureaucrats. He views BSE as merely an early-warning of the chemical timebomb that confronts us all as a result of the Government's comparatively cavalier attitude to the licensing of OP pesticide products.

Other European countries have been more circumspect. In America also, attitudes appear to be changing. Last autumn, the New York Times reported that "children, who ... eat more fruit and juice than adults, are at much greater risk than previously recognised ... the administration is proposing banning the most dangerous pesticides or limiting their use to a few crops". At almost the same time in Britain, MAFF was announcing, despite growing public disquiet, that a ban or moratorium would be "inappropriate".

The widespread use of pesticides has accelerated far ahead of any objective scientific evaluation of them. "There was a World Health Organisation report in 1981 saying we don't know what the longterm, low-level effects of pesticides are; we should find out," explained Dr Andrew Watterson, of the De Montfort University, Leicester. "In 1993, 12 years later, a follow-up report said basically the same thing: we don't know what the longterm effects are; we should find out."

"To get a definitive answer," said Dr Jamal, "you'd need to follow two parallel populations over 10 years. But is it morally right to wait that long? My instinct is that these things are dangerous - but in the absence of scientific certainty, it is a question that the public, and not the scientific community, has to resolve "

viously recognised ... the administration is proposing banning the most dangerous pesticides or limiting their use to a few crops". At almost the same time in Britain, MAFF was announcing, despite growing public disquiet, that a ban or moratorium would be "inappropriate".

FOR the moment, then, Mark Purdey's theories remain precisely that: theories. There may well be no one scientist in Britain who wholly endorses his views; and even other leading campaigners, like the redoubtable Elizabeth Siginund, regard him cautiously. But academics and journalists from other parts of the world are increasingly seeking out his opinions.

In Britain, it seems there are still those who wish to blight his prospects. He was in the process of starting up an organic milk service with Express Dairies when, one Christmas Eve, MAFF suddenly claimed his milk - which had hitherto been in the premium Band A for hygiene - was tainted. Because of the holiday period, he was unable to get an independent assessment of its quality. By the time this had been obtained, Express Dairies had not surprisingly cancelled the order. A wall of his stone barn fell out (and demolished the caravan which housed his library), just after he had obtained planning permission to convert it into the family home. The steel cable which carried his telephone line was found to be severed on the day that a news story appeared about him. On the Saturday that the Press Association put out a news release about his meeting with MAFF officials, his phone went dead. Purdey says all this has left him "financially and emotionally derelict".

MAFF have now responded to the meeting that officials had with him earlier this year. Their conclusions were that "the epidemiological and pathological findings" about BSE did not support his hypothesis. Purdey considered it the archetypal bureaucratic response: in examining his theory, MAFF appeared to have conducted tests he did not ask them to undertake, and neglected to perform those which he did.

As a result of the publicity he is beginning to receive, however, he may now be offered adequate funds from private individuals to conduct the tests which he regards as essential, finally to establish whether or not 0Ps are as neuro-toxic as he believes.