Lord Walsingham's letter (31 May) highlights the correct aetiological needle in the causal haystack of BSE origins.

But that's only half the battle when considering the additional task of getting DEFRA to accept the validity of these findings. For years MAFF/DEFRA scientific group has consumed public funds to discredit and suppress emerging research findings which dissent from their scrapie hypothesis on the origins of TSE.

My request for data revealed that MAFF officials and the British Agrochemical Association had jointly designed a public funded research project that was tailored to discredit my phosmet-BSE theory. The public should be expected to fund only impartial scientific investigations that further the best interests of human and environmental well-being -- not the commercial interests of the agrochemical industry.

My data request also revealed how Michael Meacher's officials tried to sabotage their minister's repeated requests to meet me to discuss the OP-BSE theory.

To appease mounting public interest in the publication/broadcasting of my self-funded research findings, Baroness Hayman made a seemingly authentic invite for me to submit a proposal to DEFRA for funding my research.

After sitting on my proposal for over a year, DEFRA rejected it after the publicity had waned. Its rebuff was based on irrational, unscientific and irrelevant reviewer comments.

Until the experts dispel their mindset myth on the meat and bone origins of TSEs and accept a causal role of metals and oxidative stress, then BSE will continue to make surprise attacks in countries around the world. Countries like Israel, Finland, and Japan where no plausible meat and bone origin can be identified.

Mark Purdey
High Barn Farm, Elworthy, Taunton, Somerset.

Mark Purdey's website is www.purdeyenvironment.com