DAVID CHESKIN/PA Chronology Of A Crisis
	Whatever happened to Mad Cow Disease?
	By KATE NOBLE

Posted Sunday, July 20, 2003; 16.11BST
In 1996, BSE — or Mad Cow Disease — spread food hysteria across the Continent, as 10 people died from a new form of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease that was linked to contaminated beef. At one point, epidemiologists from Imperial College, London, predicted that vCJD could kill millions. So far, 139 have died, just a handful of them outside the U.K. The crisis is one of the most potent examples of how science can get risk wrong. A timeline:

1986 Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE), an infection that riddles the brain full of holes, is identified in cattle at a farm in West Sussex, England.

1987 The British government announces that large numbers of cattle are infected with BSE. The probable cause: feed that contained meat or bone of sheep infected with scrapie.

1988 The government orders the slaughter of all BSE-infected cattle, above, and bans meat and bone meal in cattle feed.

1989 Britain bans human consumption of cattle brains, spinal cords and other body parts that some scientists suspect could affect human health.

1990 Donald Acheson, the Chief Medical Officer, assures the public that beef is safe to eat. To prove the point, Agriculture Minister John Gummer publicly shares a hamburger with his daughter.

1992 The infection peaks: three cows in every 1,000 have the disease.

1994 A new form of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (vCJD) is identified. The use of meat and bone in animal feed is banned in all E.U. countries, except Denmark. Six cases of vCJD.

1995 Stephen Churchill dies. He is the first confirmed vCJD fatality.

1996 Scientists conclude that vCJD is linked to exposure to BSE. The E.U. bans exports of British beef. Ten people die from vCJD. Mad cow mania is born.

1997 Scientists from London's Imperial College predict that up to 10 million people could die from vCJD. Ten more deaths from vCJD.

1998 Imperial College scientists predict that some 500,000 people will die in the epidemic. An enquiry into the BSE crisis hears from the father of Clare Tomkins, a vegetarian for 12 years and one of 18 to die from vCJD.

2000 Scientists predict up to 136,000 deaths from vCJD, while 28 people actually die from the disease. Since 1996, 4.5 million cattle have been slaughtered, left, at a cost of almost 33 billion.

2001 A team from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine says deaths from vCJD may number only a few thousand. Scientists investigating whether sheep could have BSE admit that for five years they had unwittingly tested cow brains, not sheep. Twenty more deaths from vCJD.

2002 Scientists predict that there will be 32 deaths from vCJD this year, and that fatalities will increase by 20% a year. Seventeen people die from the disease.

2003 In February, epidemiologists predict 7,000 will die from vCJD by 2080. By May, they say a maximum of 540, possibly as few as 40. Ten have died so far this year from vCJD, with four suspected cases.

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