UK 9/11 Memorial for 67 victims, why not the same for 160+ Human BSE UK victims?

[Beaaware]

Not many of you probably know this but there is a memorial site in London by the River Thames which has a plaque in memory of those innocent UK victims who have died from the human form of mad cow's disease (vCJD). These victims are from all walks of life just like those who died in the 9/11 disaster, they were not born with this deadly disease but it was transmitted to them, ultimately leading to their deaths. What bothers me is that no politician or royal figure is ever in attendance at the annual Human BSE memorial, held on 12th November each year, why is this not given any media coverage? Why do politicians seem afraid to be involved? Is this because this dreadful lethal disease is still killing people today? Why are the victims of Human BSE ignored?

Can we add Malaria to the list of transmittable diseases that could be prevented/improved. I lived in a Malaria free african country which 40 years later sadly has malaria back.

onagar, the point of the thread is to highlight the annual human bse memorial held in London each year on 12th November and why no politician or royal family member has ever to my knowledge attended, the day is in fact to commemorate ALL victims worldwide who have been unlawfully killed by vCJD, there are simultaneous memorials being held in Ireland and the USA, but as I am sure you are aware the UK has the most victims to date, the UK is classified as a high risk nation. This memorial is sadly kept out of the media for unknown reasons.
Yes I do mean that meat, vaccines, blood bags, medicines, make-up, gelatine, dairy products, surgical/dental instruments and even wine should have come with warnings labels, as early as 1985 it was known by government scientists that BSE could cross the species barrier and be transmitted to humans, were we told, no, so for the majority of us we have been kept in the dark, that is why so many people have died and are still dying from human BSE in 2011. I remember on the news ministers telling us that BSE could not be transmitted to humans, I remember the pathetic sight of John Gummer pretending to feed his daughter a beef burger trying to fool us that beef was safe, I remember the nurse at my local surgery telling me that childhood vaccines were safe and did not contain bovine material, how wrong these people were and many knew it. Vegetarians have died from this, explain that?

Gelatine is used in snacks and sweets. Even if you are vegetraian you still probably consume certain animal products. The capsules for vitamin pilss and medicines, I think, contain gelatin.

Blood transfusions ran the risk of infecting the receiver.

www.guardian.co.uk/society/2009/feb/18/blood-supplies-cjd-bse

The Red Cross in America has rules for donating blood that relate to Britain

"At this time, the American Red Cross donor eligibility rules related to vCJD are as follows:

You are not eligible to donate if:

From January 1, 1980, through December 31, 1996, you spent (visited or lived) a cumulative time of 3 months or more, in the United Kingdom (UK), or
From January 1, 1980, to present, you had a blood transfusion in any country(ies) in the (UK). The UK includes any of the countries listed below.

Channel Islands
England
Falkland Islands
Gibraltar
Isle of Man
Northern Ireland
Scotland
Wales"

The disease can remain latent for many years. People may yet be affected. Are we sure that all deaths have been correctly diagnosed?

Beaaware is right. Politicians and actors and charities have many memorials for the dead, but it seems not to be teh case for BSE. Why? I think it is pretty clear why.

unlawfully killed by vCJD implies intent to kill? If you have evidence call your local police station.

As for the idea of requiring labels saying that "this will give you BSE" that is ludicrous. If you were sure that was the case you would ban the sale.

A terrible thing happened and harmed a lot of people. Personally I'm disgusted that the practices that led to it happening were not already banned and sadly I expect they still go on. If you want to push for awareness of that then fine, but this smacks of conspiracy theory stuff.

In a way I get what the OP is saying about the picking and choosing of 'events' to memorialise (sorry not great with words), but I also think that there has to be a line drawn somewhere.

I'm sure we would all have a memorial for people dying of whichever cause is close to our hearts but the simple fact is it just wouldn't work.

I do however wonder why every year we are shown endless footage of 9/11 when things like the Dunblane massacre seem to be pushed aside further and further every year.

Who decides what is more important and worthy of a memorial?

unlawfully killed by vCJD does imply intent to kill, you are correct, but do you think for one minute I or any of the families affected could stand a chance of justice against the Conservative government ministers & scientists who were in office between 1985 - 1996, just look who is our current 'head of justice' , there is no chance sadly. If the victims were not unlawfully killed then what were they?

'If you want to push for awareness of that then fine, but this smacks of conspiracy theory stuff.

How can you describe the deaths of hundreds of citizens as a 'conspiracy theory'? It is a fact, and they die horrible deaths as their brains deteriorate and they can no longer walk. Read accounts of their deaths. Open your eyes. The EU banned the meat and Britain didn't. Don't be naive, they aren't going to ban everything that may have a link to it - the cost would be enormous. As Riven said, her doctor didn't tell her the full facts. That's not a conspiracy, it's a fact.

How can you describe the deaths of hundreds of citizens as a 'conspiracy theory'?

claig you are agreeing with fedupalready that it was deliberate murder then?

'The lying doctor told me all blood products were safe and screened for vCJD'

Do you think the doctor didn't know, when tens of thousands of ordinary citizens did know? Why did he say that? Does he bear responsibility? Do those who never informed the public of the true facts bear responsibility?

I am saying that they didn't inform people of the facts. I leave it to you to decide what that implies.

It's obvious why they don't want to publicise it and attend memorials. If they did, then people might start asking questions. People might ask who was to blame and did they lie to the public?

I have got a low opinion of the government, but you are mixing up stupidity and negligence with some plan to kill loads of people.

I thought the full moon was passed?

I didn't say they planned to kill loads of people. I said they didn't inform people of the facts. It was a tragedy, and it seems to have been caused by a lessening of safety standards. But after the true facts became apparent, not all of them were told to the public, which put the public at risk.

'I thought the full moon was passed?'

Obviously not, judging by your contribution.

claig you didn't, but you were complaining about my reaction to people who were saying that there was 'intent to kill'.

I think Beaaware is very angry at the deaths, and a lack of commemoration of them by authorities that may well bear some responsibility due to not telling everything they knew. All of these sneering, ignorant people who don't understand half as much as Beaaware does about it, demonstrate wilful ignorance and no empathy for something that may yet affect people that they know in the future.

Beaaware knows far more about BSE than any of us does. In her anger about it, she does sometimes say the wrong thing, but I think her meaning is clear to anyone who has eyes to see. Negligence is also culpability. If you drive recklessly and negligently, then you will be liable to prosecution.

So witty, claig. You're really wasted on this board.

quote from the Guardian magazine by Kevis Toolis

" BSE is porbably the most cybnical act of biological warfare ever waged against a civilian population by a western government. The British government put the narrow business interests of its farming and meat industries before the health of its own population.
On December 22 1984 Sussex farmer Peter Stent called out his local vet to examine a sick cow who was losing weight, trembling and had an arched back. Soon another 8 cows in the Jersey dairy herd fell ill with the same odd disintegrating muscular coordination, some bacame aggressive, all cows died. The animal pathologist recorded the cause as "spongiform encephalopathy - acute"
"If the disease turned out to be bovine scrapie, it would have severe repercussions for the export trade (in cattle) and possibly also for humans if, for example, it was discovered that humans with spongiform encephalopathies had close association with cattle", wrote RAY BRADLEY, head of pathology at the Central Veterinary Laboratory, in the first memo about the new disease circulated to SENIOR CIVIL SERVANTS in December 1986. " It is for this reason I have classified this document confidential".
BRADLEY'S memo set the tone for the government's official response for the next decade as CIVIL SERVANTS and MINISTERS waged a propaganda war to convince themselves and an increasingly sceptical population that British beef was safe to eat. The then agriculture minister John Gummer fed his 4 year old daughter Cordelia a hamburger on primetime TV in May 1990 and various tame scientific committees met to endorse the claim "THERE IS NO EVIDENCE THAT THE BOVINE DISEASE IS TRANSMISSABLE TO HUMANS"". Ministers kept repeating that the new BSE disease was just like scrapie, and NOT INFECTIOUS TO HUMANS.
In December 1995, just 4 months before the link between BSE & vCJD was finally acknowledged, the then prime minister JOHN MAJOR wrote to the mother of a vCJD victim: " I SHOULD MAKE IT CLEAR THAT HUMANS DO NOT GET MAD COW DISEASE".
Major's brazen denial was one in a long line of instutional lies, self-justification, omissions and contortions of the growing scientific evidence of the risk to human population from mad cow disease. Driven by short-term political expediency, each and every arm of the British state, from civil servants in the Ministry of Agriculture to ministers in the Department of Health and 10 Downing Street, colluded in a conspiracy of denial. TELLING THE TRUTH EVEN ABOUT THE RISKS OF INFECTION , THEY REASONED, WOULD CAUSE " PANIC" AND HIT THE MEAT TRADE AT HOME AND ABROAD. For two decades, Britain's rulers ignored and minimised the REAL HEALTH risk of this deadly TSE disease to millions of their own citizens.

Some more facts for those who are unaware, quoted from the Guardian magazine in 2001:

In 1996, the British government finally banned all animal-rendered protein from being fed to farm animals and ordered the mass slaughter of all cattle over 30 months old. 4.7 million beasts, in a bid to remove BSE infection from the 10 million strong national herd.
But the measures were almost always too little too late. Because of the long incubation period in cattle, upto 5 years, large numbers of apparently healthy but infectious animals were fed to the British population as pies, sausages, steaks and Sunday roasts. In total, an estimated 750,000 BSE-infected cattle entered the British food supply.

As late as 1995 , British slaughterhouses were still allowed to "mechanically recover meat", even though the end product was almost certain to contain the most dangerous BSE-infected parts of the cow.
MRM (mechanically recovered meat) was classified as real meat and added to baby food, hamburgers, pies and sausages to bulk out the beef content.
It's hard to think of a better way to spread the BSE agent around in human foodstuffs. The food industry itself is still refusing to disclose how much MRM was fed into the human food chain and what sort of products contained the meat substitute.

In 1997, 17 year old Stacey Robinson and 24 year old Pamela Beyliss from Queniborough, Leicestershire were the first two victims to develop human mad cow disease, they were in the same hospital ward. Pamela's last words were " Will I be saved".

As a safety measure , the USA and a host of other countries, ban blood transfusions from anyone who has lived in Britain in the last 20 years for more than three months. But cow by-products end up in a bewildering range of everyday items, from jelly in pastries to office furniture. Bovine serum is used in the manufacturer of insulin and polio vaccines. Beef tallow, industrialised processed fat, finds its way into creams, ointments, gelatine in pill coatings and even toothpaste.

Prions are amongst the most infectious agents known to man. In cattle, just one gram of BSE infected brain tissue is enough to infect a 500kg cow.

Prions cannot be killed by heat, radiation, boiling or chemical destruction. Anyone who has had a surgical operation in Britain in the past 15 years has already potentially been exposed to vCJD through the use of surgical instruments - prions cannot be destroyed by the normal sterilsation techniques.

So much more about BSE/vCJD in this fascinating article written by Kevin Toolis for the Guardian magazine dated 22.09.2001.

Conspiracy theories I dont think so, unlawfully killed 100%.

Oh I get it. You think "Conspiracy theory" means it didn't happen. Usually it means the opposite. It means what you saw happened did happen, but what you imagined without any evidence probably didn't.

We all know it happened. Just that most of us don't believe it was part of a secret conspiracy by the government who secretly put BSE in food as part of "biological warfare waged against a civilian population by a western government"

Neglect - yes, Stupidity and greed - yes, secret evil plan to kill voters - no.

onagar...perhaps you are right.But it is the complete disregard for the population that people in positions of authority can have.It is just collaterol damage to them and I really feel that many of the people that should be implicated in this do not give a damn...unless they are adversly affected[financially,politically or careerwise]...

"Complete disregard for the population that people in positions of authority can have"" and often wilful elimination of them (9/11) in order to further corrupt military industrial interests and create a surveillance society in the name of the war on "terror" actually intended to track and quash. Aint it great living in a democracy???! 4 years in prison, anyone? Bet you're quaking in your boots. Keep on singing from the same hymn sheet in an insecure bid to not seem to be different and not seeing the wood for the trees.

Conspiracy theories, my arse.

intended to track and quash DISSENT I should've written above..........

mamadiva.. I think a lot of decisions around memorials etc are made by victims/ families of the victims

eg I know at 10 year anniversary of Lockerbie the town said they didnt want to keep being innudated with press .. they didnt want to parade their grief publicly anymore.. they wanted to move on. Of course they will always remember

I think the reason we get 9/11 programs and re-runs for weeks before hand is that the americans are more open with their emotions than the british

dons hard hat and prepares to be flamed for stereo typing