Your response: from Professor Philip Thomas

Do you represent a special interest group?

The statistical team at City University that has been producing estimates of the size of the vCJD outbreak since April 1996.

Comment:

Paragraph 15: you should be aware that the estimates made by the Oxford zoologists Ghani, Anderson et al. are not the only statistical estimates around. We at City University have been making estimates since April 1996, estimates that are increasingly being validated by the numbers of observed cases. Our consistent view is that

1. it has been possible to make good estimates of the likely size of the outbreak of vCJD since March 1996;

2. that the size of the outbreak will be limited to hundreds of cases, with a best estimate of about 100. I suggest that para 15 ought to include a reference to the paper published in the British Food Journal, which gives detail on our methods: Thomas, Philip and Newby, Martin "Estimating the size of the outbreak of new-variant CJD", British Food Journal, Vol. 101, No 1, pp44-57, 1999.

Paragraph 16. Contrary to your suggestion that it is not possible to make a cost-benefit analysis of the various protective measures in place, City University has already done so for some of the more important measures. Some estimates are contained in the paper cited above and further estimates are contained in the second submission of our evidence requested by the BSE Inquiry: Newby, M. J. and Thomas, P.J., "Ranking the preventative measures for new-variant CJD using data on human deaths to the end of 1998" WS313A, 18 March 1999.

You should be aware, also, that we have reviewed the latest papers by Ghani et al and Andrews, Farringdon et al published in Nature and The Lancet respectively in August 2000, and submitted this review to the BSE Inquiry in September 2000. This submission, entitled "Convergence of estimates for the eventual size of the outbreak of vCJD: comments on recently published papers." may be emailed to you as a Word attachment if you get back in contact with me.

I suggest that contact with me and City University is necessary for you to get an unbiased perspective on the work going on to estimate the size of the vCJD outbreak.