http://bmj.com/cgi/content/full/323/7319/954/a
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News roundup
Scientists mistakenly study bovine instead of sheep tissue
Mark Gould London
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 £217 000 ($325 500) 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.
Allegations that the government had tried to suppress news of the error were
denied in the House of Commons this week.
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 and came from veterinary investigation centres where cows with BSE
were subject to postmortem examination. But he said the semiliquid samples
would not have been recognisable.
"By the time we had got the pool of brain material it had been
macerated and autolysed—someone described it as looking like porridge,"
Professor Bostock said.
He said that whatever the outcome of the audits a repeat of the experiment
using reliable tissue would take five years and then only provide a picture of
infection in 1990.
"It would be better to do something more practical that might give more
effective answers for the present."
The institute is also concerned that a previous analysis by the Veterinary
Laboratories Agency of the tissue samples showed the presence of some sheep
tissue, whereas the latest analysis by the laboratory for the government
chemist declared the sample 100% bovine.
Professor Peter Smith, chairman of the Spongiform Encephalopathy Advisory
Committee (SEAC), agreed that the study was "opportunistic." Although
he believed that many scientists thought it useful to see if sheep were being
infected with BSE after eating contaminated feed in 1990, others doubted its
value to show anything about the present state of infection.
Professor Smith 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."
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