July 10, 2003 Press Association by Alan Erwin

Food Safety Agency chiefs were today considering calls for lifting the ban on all cattle over 30 months entering the food chain.

Instead, they want the control replaced with new BSE testing measures which, it is estimated, will save around £300 million a year.

Making the switch would result in a worst case scenario of an extra 2.5 cases of BSE-related variant CJD cases during the next 60 years, according to risk assessments.

But Don Simms, whose son Jonathan is undergoing world-first drug treatment in a desperate final bid to halt the spread of vCJD, insisted no cash saving can justify the extra exposure.

The Belfast businessman said: "Money has been put before human life here.

"The Food Standard Agency was set up to protect UK citizens from falling ill. Does that remit not include the 2.5 people they predict will succumb to this evil disease?

"This is Russian roulette and for those people who have had to endure watching their loved ones dying of vCJD it's not acceptable."

Mr Simms, who won a landmark High Court battle to allow neurosurgeons to inject the blood-thinning compound Pentosan Polysulphate directly into 19-year-old Jonathan's brain, insisted safety studies were still shrouded in uncertainty.

Plans to severe cattle heads and inspect their brains for signs of BSE may not guard against the disease lurking in the carcass, he warned.

Mr Simms said an EU study to find if BSE travelled through cows' bodies via the vagus nerve in a similar way that scrapie did in sheep was so far inconclusive.

"This should not be allowed to go ahead until we know the full facts," he stressed.

"It only takes 0.1 gram of infectious agent to be fed to cows to send them to their death and the vagus nerve weighs at least 10 grams.

"That could equate to 100 infectious doses of vCJD entering the food chain if this gets through."

As he urged the public to lobby their MPs in protest against the plans, Mr Simms added that his son continued to show slight signs of improvement.

"Johnny remains in a stable condition," he said.

"Since having the pioneering treatment we see small but significant changes for the better.

"But we are not holding up Pentosan as a penicillin or cure for this evil."