The establishment says no-one is to blame for the BSE scandal or the horror of vCJD. It says there are no culprits or guilty parties, no-one to take responsibility, but vCJD didn't just happen like some terrible natural disaster. It was man-made, manufactured in the UK and more importantly, it was allowed to grow and flourish.
vCJD is still portrayed as something unforeseeable and unpreventable instead of an avoidable, preventable disease. If the Government and officials had not passed the buck, not remained silent, not ignored evidence, not withheld crucial information, then 171 victims of vCJD (April 2008) could still be alive and the desperate three that are still battling this cruel disease would not be impaired and disabled.

My son had a terrible, noisy and distressing death. For four long days and nights I held my son as he fought to stay alive. Although Andy's brain had been systematically destroyed by vCJD, his 24-year-old body refused to give up. His heart was strong. I held him as his lungs tried to suck in every last gasp. His body didn't want to die. It was in perpetual motion as his chest and diaphragm tried to force air in. His rasping and deafening breaths filled every corner of my bedroom and this horror, despite morphine, went on for four days and nights. Even though I held him tightly, rocking him back and forth as I did when he was a baby, the metal bed that had become his home shook with the power of his young body refusing to give up or let go.

My beloved, beautiful, gentle, kind boy was reduced to a shell. He was blind, deaf, quadriplegic, unable to recognise or remember anything or anyone. Those last images of my Andy are burned on my soul and broken heart.

Many men and women are responsible for what happened to my son. All have escaped judgement. There has been no public-accountability. No-one has lost their job. No-one has lost their status. No-one has lost their reputation. My son lost at least 50 years of life and love.