A Dutch language version of the following article
was published in the NRC
Handelsblad, 1st April 1996. I wrote it in response to the crisis
which arose a couple of weeks earlier about a possible link between BSE
and CJD.
BSE: THE PRICE OF DOMESTICATION
Jo Swabe
During the past few weeks, it has been virtually impossible
to open the newspaper, or switch on the television, without being reminded
of the horrors of `mad cow disease’. The disclosure that Bovine
Spongiform Encephalopathy may well, despite earlier assurances, be
connected with Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, has created waves of panic that
stretch far beyond the British Isles. Although fears of contracting the
disease undoubtedly exceed the risk of infection, clearly public confidence
in beef products, along with faith in the British
government’s integrity, have taken a sharp and sudden dive for the
worse. Europe-wide bans confirm the ubiquity of people’s fears. The Dutch
government has, for example, ordered the destruction of all existing British
beef stocks, bovine semen and embryos, in addition to the slaughter of
thousands of veal calves - the exportation of which campaigners sought
so vehemently to prevent in recent months. Even pet foods are now being
treated with suspicion, particularly given growing evidence of novel spongiform
encephalopathies in other species, including cats.
Undoubtedly the embers of the first BSE scare of 1988
have today been fanned into a great and uncontrollable blaze by scientific
speculation and media attention. Fears of infection and food safety have
been greatly fuelled by both public and political debate. As a consequence,
millions of cattle are threatened with destruction, livestock farmers are
faced with ruin and the meat industry with severe losses and job cuts.
In many respects, the recently proposed measures to combat public anxiety
and the risk of contamination are no better than locking the cow shed door
after the cattle have bolted. But there is consensus that public fears
should be allayed and political confidence restored by whatever means necessary.
The extreme public response to the possibility of BSE crossing the species
divide cannot, however, be blamed entirely upon inflammatory reporting
and political misinformation. The problem is in fact far more complex and
deeply rooted than recent discussions have revealed.
Although it would be erroneous to describe recent events
as a storm in a teacup, the truth remains that the transmission of disease
between domesticated animals and humans is far from an exceptional occurrence.
There are a multitude of zoonoses - i.e. diseases that can be naturally
transmitted between vertebrate animals and humans - to which humans are
susceptible. The consumption of contaminated animal produce is just one
of the ways in which such diseases can be transferred. Salmonellosis and
toxoplasmosis are just two of the many infections that can be transmitted
in such a fashion. In the past, terrible diseases such as anthrax and tuberculosis
could also be added to this list. Our interactions with other creatures
have in fact always had a profound affect on human health, especially since
animals were first domesticated. The domestication of animals resulted
in a new-found intimacy between humans and other species; animals were,
for the first time, incorporated into the bounds of human social organisation.
This development, as the eminent historian William H. McNeill in his book
Plagues and Peoples demonstrates, also had far-reaching consequences for
the delicate ecological balances between humans, animals and disease-producing
microorganisms. It created the ideal circumstances under which infectious
disease could be communicated from animal herds to human populations upon
a scale which, for reasons of socio-ecological dynamics, had never before
been possible. McNeill contends that most of the distinctive epidemic diseases
of humanity, such as tuberculosis, smallpox and measles, most likely transferred
to humans from animal herds. Human diseases often share a common ancestry
with animal ones: measles, rinderpest and distemper, for example, are all
closely related pseudo-myxoviruses. Humankind’s great dependency upon other
animals to service a multitude of needs has also rendered our species extremely
vulnerable to the effects of animal disease in other ways. Throughout the
course of history, epizootics, such as rinderpest, bovine pleuropneumonia
and foot-and-mouth disease, have resulted in great economic damage, considerable
hardship, malnutrition or starvation and, consequently, the reduction of
human immunity to other infections. Thus, although humankind has reached
an apparently high degree of control over the natural world, our species
has become both increasingly dependent upon and vulnerable to it.
The devastating animal plagues of the late eighteenth
and nineteenth centuries played a major role in the establishment of a
state enforced veterinary regime. Strict governmental regulations, particularly
with regard to the transportation of cattle and hygiene, and veterinary
inspection were instituted to reduce and preclude the damage and dangers
of epizootic disease. Veterinary controls and international cooperation
have proved highly effective over the years. As a consequence, it is all
too often forgotten that veterinary medicine has played a crucial role
in protecting both the economy and human health, in addition to animal
well-being. In our modern urbanised society, the vast majority are estranged
from agricultural production and have little contact with food-producing
animals; yet our dependency upon these animals has greatly increased. During
this century, particularly in the post-war period, rapid population growth,
a reduction in manpower in rural areas, the development of the animal feed
industry and increasing consumer demands have necessarily led to the intensification
of livestock farming practices. These developments have gone hand in hand
with an increasing risk of infection, as increasingly more animals are
kept in increasingly smaller spaces. The risks posed by intensive farming
methods have been greatly reduced by strict veterinary controls, although
every now and then livestock disease leads to some consternation. In our
everyday lives, however, we are generally oblivious to the potential dangers
and problems which animal disease can cause. The current commotion surrounding
BSE provides us with a sharp reminder that humankind is still highly vulnerable
to the forces of nature.
All too often do we cling to the idea that we have achieved
a high level of dominion over that natural world. Even within current academic
discourse, the notion of `the death of nature’ has achieved popularity.
We would, however, be making a grave error to assume that humankind has
reached the zenith of its control over the natural world. To the contrary,
natural disasters, such as floods, earthquakes, drought and volcanic eruptions,
continue to strike us with a vengeance. Moreover, we are still threatened
by terrible new epidemic diseases; take, for example, the HIV, Ebola
and Marburg viruses which have appeared in recent years. Scientific understanding
of these diseases is still in its infancy, yet the public prefer immediate
explanations and ready-made solutions to the problems that they present.
We demand to know why modern medicine cannot find a cure and from whence
such dreadful afflictions came. Both wild or laboratory animals, particularly
other primates, have been singled out as possible culprits for these diseases.
At present no satisfactory answer has been provided to such questions:
the same, of course, applies to our current understanding of both CJD and
bovine spongiform encephalopathy.
Finally, to explain prevailing anxieties, we must also
not underestimate the seemingly innate human abhorrence of disease, particularly
when it affects the brain. The present panic about BSE and CJD is in fact
highly reminiscent of responses to rabies during the nineteenth century.
There are, moreover, many comparisons that can be drawn between today’s
crisis and events of the past. Like rabies during Victorian times, Creutzfeldt-Jakob
disease is today still exceptionally uncommon. Furthermore, both diseases
affect the brain in a highly disturbing manner. Namely, they appear to
have an almost `decivilising’ effect on their victims, seemingly robbing
them of their humanity. Eye-witness accounts of the appearance, gait and
behaviour of CJD victims reveal frighteningly close similarities to the
images and behaviour of stricken cattle that shocked the nation when first
televised during the late 1980s. Rabies too results in the horrific degeneration
of its human victims into an animalistic state. During the nineteenth century,
the fear of rabies reached epidemic proportions, resulting in the widespread
persecution and destruction of thousands of dogs; the vast majority of
which were guilty only of ugliness, epilepsy or distemper. The Victorian
fear of rabies reached a greater virulence of the disease itself and is
echoed in modern times by strict British quarantine controls. Today, a
similar lot appears to have befallen British cattle; many of which, although
probably untainted by BSE, are doomed to destruction in a political bid
to regain public confidence in beef. Whether or not fears of a link between
BSE and Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease prove unfounded remains to be seen. Whatever
the case, recent events have ultimately led us to contemplate our potential
vulnerability to other animals.
