NR ANKG
AU Gould,M.
TI Scientists mistakenly study bovine instead of sheep tissue
QU British Medical Journal 2001 Okt 27; 323: 954
PT news
VT
A five year project to detect the presence of bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) in sheep could have been ruined by a labelling error in the laboratory, which meant researchers mistakenly experimented with cow brain tissue instead.
The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs has ordered an independent audit of the £217000 ($325500) project, which was carried out by the Edinburgh based Institute for Animal Health. Results should be known within two weeks. It has also ordered an audit into the government's Veterinary Laboratories Agency, which supplied the tissue samples to test the hypothesis that sheep infected with scrapie were harbouring BSE.
Early results of the study carried out by the institute suggested that 1% of the national sheep herd might be contaminated with BSE, leading to predictions of a mass cull.
But the institute's director, Professor Chris Bostock, said that he had longstanding concerns about the 2867 brain samples collected from 1990 to 1992. He told the BMJ that they were not specifically collected for his research.
Professor Peter Smith, chairman of the Spongiform Encephalopathy Advisory Committee (SEAC), said he would reserve judgment on the cause of the error until the audits were published. "I would hope that it was as a result of a simple labelling error, which in itself was catastrophic, but sadly it happens."
Mark Gould London
SP englisch
PO England