Mother offered hush money after son dies from BSE-infected meat

A mother whose son died from variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (vCJD) in 2007 after he ate BSE-contaminated meat has revealed she turned down a lb120,000 payment by the UK government because she believes it was ‘hush money’.

Christine Lord-whose story has been featured in WDDTY-is campaigning for a simple blood test that would reveal how many people have vCJD, the human form of BSE, which started to appear in Britain’s livestock around 15 years ago.

Some experts believe that one in 2,000 people in Britain carry the disease, which can lie dormant for years before it becomes a virulent killer. Christine’s son, Andrew, was just 24 when he died a quadriplegic, and was blind and deaf.

She has told his story, and her subsequent campaign, in her new book, Who Killed My Son?

Official figures state that just 177 people in the UK have died after eating contaminated meat.

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