In response to Mark Purdey (Letters, WDDTY, vol 9, no 12), we've never read any research by him. It appears we've come to similar conclusions by separate paths.

We presented the first known original hypothesis about organophosphorus poisoning to Margaret Thatcher on 6 August 1990. This was passed on by the Prime Minister's office to the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, reference number BOV9. Since 1995, the work has been available publicly on our web site: http://www.cs.man.ac.uk/~parishb/bse.htm, which is well known to the BSE Internet community. This discovery was sent to John Major in March 1996 and registered on 28 May 1998 with the European Parliament's Department of Research (ref no 016509 02.V1.1998). On 22 April 1998, the discovery was notarised by our solicitor in Norwich.

Most of our knowledge came from A R Parish's research into Sudden Infant Death (SIDS), which began in 1985. He proposes that cot death is caused by disrupted brain protein synthesis, which produces a specific brain nutritional deficiency. Most of our discovery stemmed from studying organochlorine and organo-phosphorus insecticide poisoning and linking it with the organochlorine insecticide and anaesthetic trichloroe-thylene that was used in gas and air in childbirth until 1980 (Med Hypotheses, 1997; 49: 177-9; Nutri Ther Today, 1995; 3: 4; 6-7).

With reference to Michael Davidson's justified criticism concerning the warble fly and sheep, we're afraid that this resulted from a minor misunderstanding with WDDTY's subeditor. Our original research is available on http://www. onlineshopper.co.uk/bse Dr Anthony Parish and Benjamin Parish.

LETTERS O/M