Rolfe
Adult human female
Mmmm. We were certainly not supposed to let on about the Pregsure vaccine having been identified as the cause of BSE when the epidemiologists originally figured it out. I think there was some worry that Pfizer might sue for defamation or something.
But Pfizer withdrew the vaccine voluntarily, and "a strong association with" gradually morphed into "everybody knows it was that vaccine". Too many people knew. It was only a question of when we would be allowed to say so. The lid was only going to stay on it for a few months, tops.
(I do remember one afternoon, a farmer brought in a dead calf, and started speculating about the Bluetongue vaccine as a possible cause. The Bluetongue vaccine had been compulsory the previous year so there was a bit of vague suspicion. But we knew we'd seen cases of BSE before the Bluetongue vaccine had been used, so I told him that. I remember saying, "I'm quite confident it's not the Bluetongue vaccine that's causing this," with my fingers crossed behind my back and a distinct emphasis on the word "Bluetongue". I didn't tell him we already knew it was the BVD vaccine he'd been using for several years!)
But that line had a very definite shelf life. You don't have several rival teams of researchers in different countries all coming to the same conclusion independently and desperate to publish, and keep it quiet for long. I don't see why it would be any different in human medicine.
Rolfe.
But Pfizer withdrew the vaccine voluntarily, and "a strong association with" gradually morphed into "everybody knows it was that vaccine". Too many people knew. It was only a question of when we would be allowed to say so. The lid was only going to stay on it for a few months, tops.
(I do remember one afternoon, a farmer brought in a dead calf, and started speculating about the Bluetongue vaccine as a possible cause. The Bluetongue vaccine had been compulsory the previous year so there was a bit of vague suspicion. But we knew we'd seen cases of BSE before the Bluetongue vaccine had been used, so I told him that. I remember saying, "I'm quite confident it's not the Bluetongue vaccine that's causing this," with my fingers crossed behind my back and a distinct emphasis on the word "Bluetongue". I didn't tell him we already knew it was the BVD vaccine he'd been using for several years!)
But that line had a very definite shelf life. You don't have several rival teams of researchers in different countries all coming to the same conclusion independently and desperate to publish, and keep it quiet for long. I don't see why it would be any different in human medicine.
Rolfe.
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