Still haunted by CJD

BBC2, 9pm BRITAIN’S biggest food scandal, mad cow disease, has been responsible for the deaths oXfXnXeXaXrlXy y2d0y0d ypdedoypyldedsince 1996, with more cyadsyedsydsytdildlyedxypected to surface. ydyd It’s a ydydy crisis dydy that d has cost the NHS more than £1billion pounds and almost wrecked the British beef industry in the 90s, with four million cows dying from the cattle disease BSE and people refusing to eat the meat.

Now this compelling documentary tells the story of a largely forgotten chapter of our recent history, with access to the politicians, scientists and families at the centre of the crisis.

We see Tommy Goodwin visiting the grave of his son Grant, who died from variant CreutzfeldtJakob disease in 2009 at the age of 30.

He says: “I would never have believed they would put infected food substances out into the world.

“I thought the Government and the food industry was there to look after us. This thing was totally avoidable.”

Elsewhere, grief-stricken mum Annie McVey tells how her 15-year-old daughter Claire succumbed to the disease.

She says: “I knew she was dying, I just couldn’t think of a time she wouldn’t be there. I wanted to know who to blame.”

As the film tells how CJD began with a mysterious brain disease affecting cows in 1987, to the discovery that the cause was infected cattle feed made from dead animals, what becomes apparent is a story of greed, corruption and catastrophic political misjudgment.

With no cure and an unknown number of Britons still silently infected, this is an alarming insight into a man-made disease.