Out of sight, out of mind? BSE 30 years on: continuing environmental risks to human health

Abstract

Thirty years after the BSE crisis, new research has confirmed that prions can persist in the environment in many forms and can be transported by many different intermediate vectors. We review the research on prion persistence and on attempts to develop methods for reducing infectivity. In some locations, previously BSE-contaminated land is proposed for development. Knowledge of the potential risks of prions to human health has declined since the publicity of the BSE epidemic in the 1990s and early 2000s, but there remains a real potential for infection at these sites. We discuss some possible uses of the sites and propose that all should require sealing off land to make as impermeable a barrier as possible between potential infectivity and humans. Risk assessment should be a mandatory part of any development proposals, but there are many unknown quantitative factors which limit the usefulness of such assessments.