MANY MPs, especially those with constituencies in south-west England, want
the government to come clean about Nancekuke, near Portreath in west Cornwall.
During the Second World War laboratories there produced and tested sarin nerve
gas, and it was a chemical weapons station in the Cold War era. Since the site
was closed down in the 1970s, concerns have grown about the health of its former
workers. The latest horror is that some of the station鈥檚 nasties were dumped
down local mineshafts.
Lewis Moonie, a new junior defence minister, tells me that records indicate
it is scrap metal from 鈥渄econtaminated chemical plant, service pipework, cubicle
fronts and structural steelwork鈥�. The quantities are unknown. The materials
would have been dumped between 1976 and 1978, after the decision to close the
station but before the Chemical Defence Establishment left the area.
Whatever the rights and wrongs of a complex history, Moonie admitted, one
thing is clear: detailed records that should have been kept were not. And it
appears that the 鈥渘asties鈥� in the mineshaft are not retrievable.
Advertisement
The latest news about the site is that there have been calls for an
investigation into potential contamination of local water supplies. The
Environment Agency has agreed to test for traces of nerve gas contamination at
the site.
SHOOTING a bolt into the brains of cattle to stun them before slaughter can
spread tiny pieces of brain tissue around their bodies, according to a group of
veterinary scientists at the University of Bristol
(快猫短视频, 23 October 1999, p 6).
Clearly, if an animal has BSE, then there is a risk of
contaminating its meat with the prion protein thought to cause the disease.
At the last cabinet reshuffle, Baroness Hayman was promoted from junior
health minister to minister of state in the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries
and Food (MAFF), with responsibility for meat hygiene. I asked her about the
Bristol findings.
She said that the research team, funded by the MAFF, was looking for signs of
brain tissue in the jugular vein of cattle stunned by various methods. So far,
brain tissue has turned up in the blood of only 1 of 16 animals stunned with the
penetrative type of bolt gun used in Britain. The jugular veins of 14 animals
stunned by a non-penetrating concussive gun were clear of brain tissue.
But 4 out of 15 animals stunned with a penetrative bolt gun used in the US
and some European countries had brain tissue in their blood. The MAFF is now
considering further research into the matter, Hayman said.
The stakes for British farming are so high that the MAFF has a moral
obligation to fund such research and immediately.
WITH tuberculosis on the rise in Britain, I was interested to read that Ian
Keymer, former pathologist at London Zoo, says that hedgehogs carry up to 16
diseases known to affect people, including tuberculosis
(快猫短视频, 2 October 1999, p 27).
Young children, he says, are particularly at risk if they
touch droppings left by animals foraging in our gardens.
Chris Mullin, the junior minister for the environment, transport and the
regions, tells me that his experts say all mammals carry a range of pathogens
that can, in theory, be passed to humans. They doubt that hedgehogs carry
significantly more pathogens than any other mammal. In any case, the important
point is whether hedgehogs can really pass any of their diseases to humans.
Handling droppings is not a good idea, but to imagine that we can protect
ourselves from all exposure to bacteria seems futile, said Mullin.
