MAD cow disease was all the Tories' fault, wasn't it?

First they closed down the country's coal mines, then they killed our cows and infected people with the human form of the bug.

Just look at Agriculture Minister John Gummer - he even fed his daughter Cordelia with one of the Establishment's death-burgers.

But how much of the public "debate" about BSE and its human form, variant Creutzfeldt Jakob Disease, has been emotive rather than clinical?

Few of us are entitled to judge how the authorities handled a bewildering phenomenon.

For the record, human variant CJD is a condition that leads to kuru-type amyloid plaques forming in the cerebellum and cerebrum, surrounded by vacuoles and prion protein accumulation at high concentration, indicated by immuno-histochemical analysis. Spongiform changes are evident in the basal ganglia and thalamus, with sparse distribution throughout the cerebral cortex.

To most of us it's something to do with BSE (which boils down to television footage of drooling cattle staggering around in a pool of slurry) being transferred to humans.

Prion theory

Clearly, politicians and civil servants covered up whatever was known years ago about BSE and CJD - but no one person was "responsible" for BSE or CJD.

Scientists remain divided about how a virus-like agent can infect brain tissue - the prion theory is popular, but some think there's a genetic aspect too.

Meanwhile, I feel sorry for people with mental illnesses such as Alzheimer's - which struck down both my paternal grandparents and left them confused, incoherent and enfeebled.

There isn't a political scapegoat for that degrading condition. And the victims are usually old, so they don't really count.

While the families of 84 human variant CJD victims are in line for massive handouts, thousands of others whose loved ones are shuffling about with blank stares in nursing homes will have to grin and bear it.