 When this event hit the headlines, I was around 5-6 years old. Although I didn't really grasp what it was, I could tell from my parents' faces that it wasn't a good thing. All the beef burgers and the freezer were thrown in the bin, and we were only allowed to eat fillet of fish whenever we went to McDonald's. Subconsciously, this must have influenced my becoming a vegetarian in my early teens. Nowadays, there are hundreds of veggie-friendly options. Mmm, tofu. But back in 2001 and 2002, it was a little bit more difficult. Well, that's enough talking about my dietary choices. Let's get started with the video. Piles of bodies are burning in fields, all throughout the British countryside. It is the 1990s, and this hellish scene is scarring the British pride in their farming products. The mass culling is understandably no-one's first choice, but it seems the only way to stamp out an animal-born disease that has made the leap to humans. The cattle farming industry makes up roughly 38% of the UK's entire agricultural product, and the last thing the country needs is piles of dead, unsellable cows. The disease is always fatal, with a prognosis of roughly 13 months after onset of symptoms. It is officially known as bovine spongiform encephalopathy, which, if consumed, infected meat can cause variant crutsveiled jacob disease. More casually known as mad cow disease. Welcome to Scandal, a plainly difficult documentary series. It is the 1940s, and the United Kingdom, as well as the rest of the world, is collecting itself after nearly six years of devastation. War has bludgeoned the UK economy, industry has been stripped of resources and manpower, and a victorious, yet now poor nation, seeks some way to move forward. The country is in debt, and has been operating under rationing for many of the essentials for the average British person's diet, sugar, meat, fats and cheese. At the start of the war, Britain was importing half of its meat, 80% of its fruit, and 70% of its cereals and fats from abroad. As such, this became the wake-up call for the UK to become more food independent, as well as build thriving rural communities and economies. Successive governments fostered this economic development. The growth continued in the 1970s, with the UK joining the EEC. Now there was an even bigger reason to farm more. Tariff free trading. The UK by the 1980s had achieved over 100% domestic milk demand, and 97% meat demand. Quite a turnaround of importing 50%, some 40 years before. This market was worth £5 billion to the UK economy. But how was this turnaround achieved? Well, glad you asked, as this would prove to be a vital cog in the wheel of disaster. The UK had made use of a scheme of selective breeding to create cattle, with the ability to produce more milk, coupled with a high protein diet. The industry found that soy based feed was good, but not good enough. Instead, they discovered that meat and bone meal yielded as good, if not better, milk produced than the more natural alternative. And what was better was that it was made of animal waste, and was as such a hell of a lot cheaper than soy. You may ask what those waste products are. Well, I don't think you're going to like it. Imagine every bit of livestock that you think you would normally throw in the bin. You know, the bones, blood and pretty much everything else left over, but vitally also the brain as well. It was all mashed together to make feed. Much of the livestock products used were from cows. So basically, the industry was feeding cows, cows. The high protein feed was mainly for increasing milk production, and as such, dairy cows were the most unknowingly cannibalistic population in the farming industry. But these dairy cows would eventually find themselves in the slaughterhouse, as around two-thirds were eventually used for beef production. The cattle to enter the human food chain, they had to be killed in a licensed slaughterhouse in the UK. But the numbers in the country had dwindled to around a thousand registered premises, by the 1980s. The side effect was that cattle had to travel longer distances. Now, I'm not going to describe the slaughterhouse process, but it should be said that the waste products that made up meat and bone feed came as a byproduct from the rendering process, part of the whole meat production line. Rendering is a process of recovering any waste products from livestock, and vitally for our story, in the 1980s, was completely unregulated in the UK. And thus, diseased animals quite often found themselves being turned into feed. 1983 An Unknown Illness It is October 1983, veterinarian Mr Ray Williams is attending a cow that has been exhibiting some strange behaviour. He is at Coleman Farm in Wiltshire, and over the next year, Williams would see at least five more cows exhibiting very similar symptoms. The animals are showing signs of distress, shaking, poor coordination and trembling of the head. The cows, although showing normal hunger, were also losing weight. The animals were destroyed and thus no autopsy was made, but these few victims would prove to be just the start of a mysterious condition. In January 1985, Mr Williams discovered another cow from the same farm, but a different unit exhibiting the same strange symptoms. Not wanting to miss out on finding out what the cause was, he sent this cow, which would now be named Cow 36, to a veterinary school in Langford. The animal was slaughtered and given a partial post-mortem. In the report, the cow was stated to have progressive nervous signs, hyperanesia, tremors, mania and hind leg ataxia. But whilst Williams was dealing with this strange illness, little did he know that another farm called Pitcham, over a hundred miles away in Sussex, had an animal showing the very same strange symptoms. Cow 133, as it was officially known, was observed in December 1984 to have lost all of its coordination and was experiencing severe shaking. Six weeks later, it died, much to the confusion of local veterinarian Mr David B. B, like Williams, at the same time would see several more cows showing the same symptoms. Almost like it was spreading amongst the farm's population. B coined the new illness, Stent Farm Syndrome, after the owner of the farm, Peter Stent, and sent a number of tissue samples to the Central Veterinary Laboratory. The first officially diagnosed case of BSE was from Cow 142. Pathologist Carol Richardson examined the cow and saw similarities with the samples that B had sent in previously. She diagnosed the illness as a bovine scrapie, which was confirmed by the Consultant Pathology Unit. As a side note, scrapie is a known condition, even known as early as 1732. It is fatal and is a degenerative disease affecting the nervous systems of sheep and goats, but it is not known to be transmissible to humans and as such, infected meat can be consumed. The name comes from the behaviour of the infected individuals scraping their bodies against rocks. Cow 142's autopsy results will be reviewed a number of times. One such was in June 1987, when it confirmed the illness was a form of transmissible spongiform encephalopathy or the less of a mouthful BSE. A couple of months later, the UK government would accept the new disease, but although the cause of the strange symptoms was discovered, an unknown number of cattle had been infected. Although the early signs were there from 1983, it is now thought to have occurred in cows as early as the 1970s. It's very likely it was spread through the meat and bone meal that was fed to cattle and in the late 1980s, the numbers of infected animals would soar as more and more unknowingly infected cattle were slaughtered and rendered. However, when the causal link was suggested, in 1988 meat bone meal was banned for feeding to cattle, but by now hundreds of thousands of cattle were potentially infected with mad cow disease. The British Ministry of Agriculture accepted that it had a new disease, but it was very slow to act, only banning awful for human consumption in 1989, which was suggested by the Southwood report. The Thatcher government, sorry I said that wrong didn't I, the Thatcher government, were adamant that British beef was safe among the concerns over BSE, saying the illness couldn't jump species. But experiments at Oxford University had already shown the disease could infect other species, when in 1988 mice were infected with BSE by brain to brain injection. The Southwood report also advised that the government should slaughter and dispose of any cow that was suspected to have transmitted the disease. The government complied, but only offered a 50% compensation to farmers, which seemed like a bit of a half-ass measure, especially when BSE can take several years to manifest any symptoms after infection. The lack of financial incentive led to many turning a blind eye to potentially infected animals, with some farmers later being accused of selling cattle off the books. However, this was too little, too late, as the USA in 1989 banned British beef from its shores. The government by 1990 was assuring the British public and the wider world market that British beef was safe to eat. The Conservative government said there was no evidence of catching the disease through the consumption of meat. Well, until there was. Hello, John here. Have you ever wondered who made the racket in the background to this video, or the other scandal episodes, or even the outro songs on pretty much every recent Plain Difficult episode? Well, wonder no more, as it was made by me, John. And you can now listen to the songs in full on my new YouTube channel made by John, stream them on Spotify, or even if you fancy, buy them to keep forever on Beatport and iTunes. I enjoy making my personal mix of Acid House, Breakbeat and Ambient, and I hope you'll enjoy listening to it as much as I did making it. Max the Cat and the Jump to Humans Enter Siamese Cat, Max. The feline had for most of its life been given a diet of British beef. Not so strange, however, what made Max unique was that he began exhibiting symptoms congruent with a feline form of BSc. Max was confused, losing weight, had trouble keeping balance, and the signature of the illness, uncontrolled quivering. The cat became the first known case outside of a laboratory of BSc jumping species. Scientists knew it was possible. In the same year they had shown mice could develop a condition through eating infected food. BSc had now officially jumped species. Max and a number of other cats including a tiger became infected, showing the risk of transmitting the disease through consumption of infected meat. Despite the ever-growing storm clouds of thousands of cows developing BSc, a 100% compensation scheme to farmers and tons of meat being destroyed, the UK government doubled down with the line that British beef was still safe. The Agriculture Minister John Gummer today enrolled his daughter Cordelia in his campaign to persuade people that eating beef is safe. It was a little hot for her, but later he munched it himself to prove to the world that he at least is confident there's nothing to worry about. Secretary of State for the Environment John Gummer appeared on TV virtually forcing his daughter to eat a beef burger. Nothing like dragging your children into politics at a young age. And guess what happened to him? He eventually got made a member of the House of Lords. Anyways, no matter how much head and the sand stances the government made, by 1992 an estimated 100,000 cattle had become infected with BSc. This amounted to roughly three in every 1,000 cows having the potential to be infected. Between 1992 and 1993 some 4.4 million cattle had been slaughtered and disposed of, mainly by burning the corpses in the fields of the British countryside. This proved to be financially decimating for the British farming sector and as such the government continued to claim the safety of British beef with the chief medical officer reaffirming the safe to eat party line. Even though the numbers of the infected reached the peak of the outbreak, the human tragedy was yet to unfold. In late 1994 a few people in Britain were showing symptoms of a rare illness. Brutsfeldt, Jakob disease. So rare is Cij that between 50 and 60 people get the disease per year in the UK. Well what's so strange you might think? Rare illnesses exist. What is odd is that traditionally the condition rarely affects anyone under the age of 55 and the new victims were nearly 30 years younger. During the late 1980s and early 1990s there were at least four cases of farm workers all over the age of 55 being taken ill as CJD which proved to be a very strange coincidence. It was kind of looking like there was a vocational link to cattle and CJD. A 19 year old man named Stephen Churchill would die in May 1995 apparently linked to this rare illness. A younger 16 year old girl had been identified around the same time but Stephen was the first of the under 55 cases to succumb to the illness. Needless to say the unusual deaths in young people often warrant thorough autopsies. James Ironside a pathologist at the National CJD Surveillance Unit saw the brains of the patients and showed unusual spongiform symptoms. He named this new condition variant CJD or VCJD. In total in 1995 four people would die from VCJD but in September the government stated that there was insufficient evidence to link BSE and VCJD. But eventually on the 20th of March 1996 the government would begrudgingly capitulate and Stephen Dorrell the Secretary of State for Health said there was actually a link between VCJD and infected beef. Seven days later the EU would enact a ban on British beef. But why did children get so much of the issues? Well the FATCHER government in the 1980s had removed the requirement for school dinners to have any nutritional value as such schools were using mechanically recovered meat which was not much better than meat bone meal. In response to the EU ban on British beef the UK sought to legally challenge the export ban and introduced a scheme to slaughter and destroy all cattle over the age of 30 months. This rift between the UK and EU during this period which heavily affected the UK farming economy has been argued to be one of the sparks that started off the Brexit movement of which a large number of farmers voted for in the EU referendum. Millions of cattle burned in the fields of the UK countryside as the UK government attempted to get a handle on the outbreak. However British beef was still on the menu in British switches albeit not allowing to be sold on the bone but there was still rest of people. In 1997 local councils stopped serving beef in roughly 2000 schools across the country. Over the next 20 years 178 people would go on to contract and die of the disease. But let's quickly pause here to discuss the CJD and how it affects the human body. The CJD. The contraction of the CJD has appeared to be a bit of a lottery of genetics as millions of people ate infected meat but there are under 200 known death. Clearly the odds are low although you'd never like to know your chances when you're taking the spin on the roulette wheel of death. The CJD is caused by things called prions officially called protonaceous infectious particles. They are misfolded proteins that have the ability to transmit their misfolded shape onto normal variants of the same protein. In an uninfected person prions begin as a string of amino acids that then fold themselves into three dimensional shapes. Sometimes during protein folding issues can happen and the prion protein can't be used by the body. These are usually recycled but can cause issues if large enough quantities build up. After eating infected meat the malicious prions infect healthy brain proteins in the body. They then build up on the brain and cause more misfolded prions. In doing so this kills off brain cells. Naturally the dying of brain cells creates reduced cognitive and physical functions. What is scary is that these dangerous prions can survive in the nerve tissue such as brain or spinal cord for a long time after death which if eaten spreads the disease. Potentially the CJD can lie dormant in your body for many years. As such some countries have banned on British citizens donating blood if they live during the crisis. But was there any accountability for the continued sale and denial of infected meat? The Inquiry At the height of the disaster an inquiry was announced in December 1997. The new Labour government under the premiership of Tony Blair had been in power since May the same year. In its executive summary published in October by Nick Brown the secretary for agriculture at the time stated the public was repeatedly reassured that it was safe to eat beef. Some statements failed to explain that the views expressed were subject to proper observance of the precautionary measures which had been introduced to protect human health against the possibility that VSE might be transmissible. These statements conveyed the messages not merely that beef was safe but that VSE was not transmissible. The inquiry also slated the government for its lack of consideration for the amount of infected material needed to be eradicated from the meat. More serious was a failure to give rigorous consideration to the amount of infected material that was proving capable of transmitting the disease. The false assumption was made that any cross-contamination of cattle feed in feed mills from pig or poultry feed containing ruminant protein would be onto a small scale matter. As the 90s came to a close the numbers of infected cattle were reduced as the population of cows were essentially eradicated from the UK. The restrictions on beef were slowly raised. Meat on the bone and offal were still restricted well into the mid-2000s even for UK markets and the EU would lift its ban in 2006 after a 10-year embargo on British beef although France continued to impose a ban on British beef illegally long after. Plainly summary Personally it seemed like the government at the time was during the reigns of two Conservative Prime Ministers, Batcha and John Major were more willing to play down and in some cases outright ignore the warning signs to the risk of millions of British citizens. All of this was to try and prop up a significant portion of the UK economy. Incompetence, profits over safety or a bit of both will be up to you to decide. Regardless, many hundreds would pay the price and maybe still will. This is a plain difficult production. All videos on the channel are creative commons attribution share alike licensed. Playing difficult videos are produced by me John in a currently nice corner of southern London UK. Help the channel grow by liking commenting and subscribing. I'd like to thank my Patreons and YouTube members for your support and also if you enjoyed any of the music in this video you can listen to it on my second channel made by John stream it on Spotify or even if you feel like buy it on iTunes. As such all of the links are in the description below. And all that's left to say is Mr Music, play us out please.