Openness on BSE key for reassuring public

THE public have every right to be concerned as BSE, so-called mad cow disease, appears in Scotland after a decade.

The disease is devastating in animals and in humans leads to Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, a horrific form of rapidly advancing and lethal dementia.

There is, however, cause for hope even as a cow on an Aberdeenshire farm has died while others are being culled as a precaution.

Firstly, monitoring systems put in place after the large-scale BSE outbreaks of the late Eighties appear to have worked.

The alarm was raised, the farm concerned was quarantined and the animal concerned has not entered the food chain.

The nature of BSE – it cannot spread from animal to animal and is not airborne, unlike foot-and-mouth disease – means there is little prospect of a mass outbreak or an epidemic leaping beyond farm gate after farm gate.

Now is a time for cool heads. The death of this cow could be the result of a single sporadic mutation.

Authorities will also be looking at the possibility of contaminated feed. The original large-scale outbreak was a result of animals being fed infected products from other animals, a practice now banned.

While serious questions remain, assurances that the risk to human health is minimal are legitimate. Scottish beef – which took so long to claw back its reputation for excellence – remains safe.

What is key now is transparency. In the absence of facts, unhelpful speculation can fill the vacuum. The antidote to that is scrupulous openness.

Yes, the investigation into this outbreak must be thoroughgoing, with any possible threat to health explored completely.

Equally, a key sector of the agriculture industry must have a reassuring and genuine clean bill of health.

The public expect Fergus Ewing, SNP Cabinet Secretary for the Rural Economy, to be all over this investigation and, crucially, to keep them informed every step of the way.