Chief vet refuses access to key tape

THE BSE inquiry has been denied access to a tape recording of an interview given by the Government's former chief veterinary officer, Keith Meldrum, in which he expressed his views on John Gummer, the Tory agriculture minister at the height of the scare over "mad cow" disease.

Mr Meldrum told the inquiry yesterday that he had refused to hand over the tape of the interview with a university academic studying the reaction to bovine spongiform encephalopathy because he had been making personal comments about his family and friends as well as colleagues.

Lord Justice Phillips, who is chairing the inquiry, asked Mr Meldrum whether he would be prepared to reconsider his decision and release the tape to the inquiry, which has so far had access to most of the documentation relating to BSE that it has requested.

"I am happy to review that overnight," said Mr Meldrum. "I am in some difficulty because I have listened to the tape, and many of the comments on that tape are of a very personal nature - about my family, about myself, about my colleagues and so forth.

"I have some difficulty now in releasing all of it. I have no wish to make particular comments or see comments about previous ministers, as to how I viewed Mr Gummer and his ability, for instance, to put over a message to the public, which is, I think, extremely good," said Mr Meldrum. "I think I get into great difficulty because it is very much a personal view of personal situations."

The interview took place in 1993, when government measures designed to curb the spread of BSE and protect the public were still being widely flouted by abattoirs.

The secretariat of the BSE inquiry does not have the power to demand production of the tape from the Food Safety Directorate of the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, which commissioned the study by a researcher at the University of Surrey's department of psychology.

It also emerged yesterday that the inquiry had asked government officials for more details of minutes taken during meetings between ministers and scientific advisers at which it emerged that safety regulations were being flouted.

Mr Meldrum told the inquiry that every attempt had been made to inform the public about developments over BSE and that there had been no cover- ups. "My view always has been that the public should be able to take a judgement on the safety of food. The only way you can do this is by ensuring that they have the full facts," he said.

"My concern expressed to the researcher for this particular project was: how do you in fact ensure that the consumer, the public, is fully informed about the risk and risk assessment necessary to look at the safety of food?

"And the problem is that there is no direct route to the public except through the media, the television, the radio or the press."

Mr Meldrum became chief veterinary officer at the agriculture ministry in June 1988 and oversaw most of the important measures to control the BSE epidemic, including the ban on specified offal, controls over the use of cattle protein in animal feed and the cull of cattle over 30 months old. He has now retired from the ministry and is an adviser to the Meat and Livestock Commission. He is due to give further evidence to the inquiry today.