NR AEBE
AU Fitzpatrick,M.
TI Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease and bovine spongiform encephalopathy. Scientists who inflame public anxieties must share responsibility for resulting panic.
QU British Medical Journal 1996 Apr 20; 312(7037): 1037
KZ BMJ. 1996 Mar 30; 312(7034): 790-1. PMID: 8608273 BMJ. 1996 Mar 30; 312(7034): 791-3. PMID: 8608274
PT comment; letter
VT
EDITOR - Recent editorials on the danger of bovine spongiform encephalopathy causing Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease in humans confirm that academic scientists are as much in the grip of the irrationality of the mad cow panic as is the public.[i,ii] a Paul Brown recalls his judgment of last November that the available evidence suggested "a negligible risk to humans,"[iii] only to confess that it now appears that I was wrong."[i] However, he adduces no new evidence to justify this about turn, simply repeating the now familiar refrain that "no better explanation is presently forthcoming."
Being unable to advance a better explanation than that offered by a hypothesis for which there is only the weakest circumstantial backing is a dubious basis for endorsing that hypothesis. Yet, within a few sentences, Brown is raising the spectre of "a potential medical catastrophe." If an eminent scientist can swing in four months from characterising bovine spongiform encephalopathy as a negligible risk to warning of potential catastrophe is it any wonder that the public is confused and frightened?
With rhetorical flourish, Sheila M Gore demands, "let us have done with misleading the profession, the public, and the press" and insists that "all evidence must be quantified."[ii] As there is no evidence for a link between bovine spongiform encephalopathy and Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease it cannot be quantified; what is misleading is to imply that the link is something more than the weakest of hypotheses. Yet this is exactly the effect of the statement that there is "no better explanation" or that this is "the most likely cause. Echoed in parliament and the press, such statements have fuelled the mad cow panic. Gore's powerful metaphors about British beef consumers continuing "to play Russian roulette" can only contribute to the hysteria.
Gore emphasises the need to learn the lessons of the AIDS crisis. Back in 1987 I argued that there was no evidence to justify the promotion of fears of an imminent explosion of HIV infection among heterosexuals in Britain.[iv] Now, nearly a decade later, we have a health scare not about a disease but about the possibility of a disease, Scientists who inflame public anxieties about uncommon or rare or possibly non-existent diseases (like bovine Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease) must take their share of the responsibility for the resulting panic and its consequences.
MICHAEL FITZPATRICK General practitioner
Barton House Health Centre London N16 9JT
References
i. Brown P. Bovine spongiform encephalopathy and Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease. BMJ 1996 312,790-1 (30 March.)
ii. Gore S. Bovine Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease? BMJ 1996 312,790-1 (30 March.)
iii. Almond JW, Brown P, Gore SM, Hofman A, Wientjens DPWM, Ridley RM, et al. Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease and bovine spongiform encephalopathy: any connection? BMJ 1995;311:1415-21(25 November.)
iv. Fitzpatrick M - The truth about the AIDS panic. London. Junius, 1987.
ZR 4
MH Anxiety/*etiology; Creutzfeldt-Jakob Syndrome/*psychology; Encephalopathy, Bovine Spongiform/*psychology; Human; Public Opinion; *Science; Social Responsibility; Truth Disclosure
SP englisch
PO England
OR Prion-Krankheiten 3