UK - vCJD Testing by Coroners called for...

Coroners are refusing to carry out post-mortem tests for an infection that

causes the human form of mad cow disease, despite pleas that they could help to monitor the disease.

Professor John Collinge, a leading expert on variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease (vCJD), warned that systematic testing was vital to find out whether many people were “silently infected” with the potentially fatal condition.So far 164 people are confirmed to have died of the disease but scientists say that there is no accurate indication of how many people may be carrying it.“There is a concern that what we have seen so far may be the first wave, occurring in individuals who are particularly genetically susceptible, but there may be more people who are silently infected in the community than the number of clinical cases we have seen would suggest,” Professor Collinge told BBC Radio 4’sToday programme. But experts in the law governing coroners courts say that the tests can be ordered only if the Government changes the law. The Spongiform Encepalopathy Advisory Committee (SEAC), whose job is to monitor the progress of the disease and advise the Government, has been warning for two years that it was important to find out how many people were carrying the infection. The only reliable way of doing that, SEAC says, would be to ask coroners to test the brain and spleen of young people during post-mortem examinations so that they could be tested for the presence of the infectious agent, a protein known as a prion. Professor Collinge, a member of SEAC, said that systematic testing was needed to establish how many more people were likely to get the disease and whether the current measures to protect the spread of infection were appropriate. He urged coroners to request the test when ordering post-mortem examinations. “I would hope that they would be able to help with this because I don’t see any other way for us to get this information at the moment,” he said. “We have been very vocal in terms of saying these data are absolutely vital if we really want to manage the process properly," said Professor Graham Medley, another member of SEAC. “My understanding is the Department of Health is very keen to push this forward, it’s really just using coroners as an opportunity to do some sampling. I’m not sure why there has been some apparent reluctance on behalf of coroners.” In response, Dr Michael Powers, QC, an expert in coronial law, said that coroners would be happy to order the test if the Government changed the law. He told Today that at present they are able to order a post-mortem examination only to find the cause of death, and not test for other infections that may have been present. Dr Powers said: “This is a function which is outside the coroners’ statutory authority. Because they are not, those tests, directed to ascertaining the death in an individual case.” The Coroners and Justice Bill going through Parliament could be altered to put a duty on coroners to order the test, he said. “That would completely solve the problem,” he said. Christine Lord, whose son Andy Black died of vCJD, told Today: “This is a public health issue. I, as a mum, have lost a child, a very dear, loved child, through an avoidable disease. “The coroners, by actually blocking this, are actually not protecting public health. They just seem to be protecting their particular role in Government. “At the end of the day, they are public servants and their job is to protect us.” A Department of Health spokesman said that a pilot study will take place later this year, with the co-operation of some coroners, to obtain tissue samples from post-mortem examinations. “It is important to obtain a better understanding of the prevalence of vCJD so that we can prevent secondary transmission from person to person,” the spokesman said. “SEAC has recommended that studies of tissues, such as spleen, collected at post-mortem would provide important data on the prevalence of vCJD infection in the population. “The Health Protection Agency is running the pilot with the co-operation of NHS Bereavement Services and NHS Blood and Transplant’s consent team. “Some coroners have agreed to participate in the pilot study and appropriate funding will be made to them and to the other organisations incurring additional costs.”