Mark Purdey
Encyclopedia
John Mark Purdey was a British organic farmer
who came to public attention in the 1980s, when he began to circulate his own theories regarding the causes of bovine spongiform encephalopathy
(BSE or "mad cow disease").
Purdey's interest in the disease was triggered when four cows he purchased for his farm developed the disease, though no animal raised on his farm ever contracted it. He published a number of papers in which he set down his belief that BSE was not an infectious disease, contrary to the mainstream scientific view, but that it had an environmental cause. He suggested this cause might be Phosmet
, a systemic organophosphate
insecticide that was being spread along the spines of intensively farmed
cows to eradicate warble fly
. Purdey believed that the chemicals, derived from military nerve gases, disturbed the balance of metals in the animals' brains, giving rise to the misfolded proteins called prions that are regarded as the cause of BSE. Through the High Court, he successfully challenged the British government's compulsory warble fly eradication program, which would have compelled him to treat his own cattle with the insecticide.
In his later papers on BSE, Purdey suggested that a combination of high manganese
and low copper
in the soil, together with high environmental oxidizing agents, might "initiate a self-perpetuating free radical mediated neurodegenerative disease process (e.g., a TSE
) in susceptible genotypes." He also argued that transmissible spongiform encephalopathies
(TSEs or prion diseases) are linked to Parkinson's
and Alzheimer's. His work was published in a number of minor peer-reviewed journals. He delivered lectures around the world to farmers and academics, and was invited to present his research to the British government's Phillips Inquiry into BSE. He called himself an "underground scientist" and "eco detective." He received a number of awards from New Age and organic farming organizations.
Nonetheless, Purdey's views have not been accepted by mainstream scientists. The Phillips Inquiry concluded that "[t]he theory that BSE is caused by the application to cattle of organophosphorus pesticides is not viable, although there is a possibility that these can increase the susceptibility of cattle to BSE." His papers, published primarily in the journal Medical Hypotheses, are exclusively theoretical and contain no original biochemical research.
, Hertfordshire
, to what The Daily Telegraph describes as a "long line of gifted eccentrics." The Telegraph reports that an ancestor of his reportedly walked from Inverness to London to set up Purdey's gunsmiths, and that, after suffering shell shock
during the First World War, his grandfather, Lionel Purdey, lobbied Lord Kitchener
to recognize shell shock as an illness that needed treatment.
He was educated at Haileybury College, Hertfordshire, but was reportedly expelled after his A-levels. He turned down a place at London University to study zoology and psychology and, according to The Guardian, "embarked on a kind of post-hippie bucolic existence."
In his mid-twenties, he set up an organic dairy farm, first in Ireland, and later in Pembrokeshire, on which he bred a herd of pedigree Jersey cattle. He wrote on his website that he introduced semen from New Zealand, Denmark, and Canada, in order to produce a "high fat, high yielding, pasture-fed Jersey cow" with an ability to produce milk from a "self-sufficient arable/legume-grass rotational system with minimal reliance upon purchased in concentrate feed." In 1997, one of his cows was the highest yielding Jersey cow in the UK, with 10,150-litre lactation, after she had been sold to a conventional farm. He is reported to have enjoyed playing the saxophone to his cows to keep them calm.
He married Carol MacDonald in 1974, a marriage that produced a son and a daughter. When that relationship broke up, he set up home with Margaret Unwin, with whom he had four daughters and two sons. They married one year before his death. He died of a brain tumour on November 12, 2006 on his farm in Elworthy, West Somerset
.
and Lord King
, the former defence secretary, who regarded Purdey's work as a "classic piece of scientific investigation." It was King who, in April 1993, formally alerted the Ministry of Agriculture to Purdey's research, after Purdey forwarded King a letter from Professor Satoshi Ishikawa of Kitasato University, who wrote that Purdey's description "about Mad cows to organophosphates compounds and warble fly is exactly true."Letter from Satoshi Ishikawa to Mark Purdey", December 22, 1992, cited in "Scientists after Southwood; section 5, Challenges to the Government's approach, Mr. Mark Purdey", Phillips Inquiry, volume 11, p. 304.
Teresa Gorman
, MP for Billericay and Ted Hughes
, the poet laureate, were also supporters, while readers of The Guardian contributed to a fund to help pay for his research into BSE and its human equivalent, Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease
(CJD).
His legal victory attracted letters from farmers who believe that using OP compounds had caused them health problems. Purdey began to educate himself about the science of OPs just as the first recorded case of BSE was confirmed. He became convinced there was a connection, in part because cattle in Britain had been given unusually high doses of OPs; and in part because the theory that BSE was spread by contaminated meat and bone meal (MBM) did not, he argued, explain why the disease was not occurring in countries that had imported the same MBM from the UK.
The Telegraph writes that public support for Purdey increased after the BBC aired a documentary about his theory in 1988.
Farmer
A farmer is a person engaged in agriculture, who raises living organisms for food or raw materials, generally including livestock husbandry and growing crops, such as produce and grain...
who came to public attention in the 1980s, when he began to circulate his own theories regarding the causes of bovine spongiform encephalopathy
Bovine spongiform encephalopathy
Bovine spongiform encephalopathy , commonly known as mad-cow disease, is a fatal neurodegenerative disease in cattle that causes a spongy degeneration in the brain and spinal cord. BSE has a long incubation period, about 30 months to 8 years, usually affecting adult cattle at a peak age onset of...
(BSE or "mad cow disease").
Purdey's interest in the disease was triggered when four cows he purchased for his farm developed the disease, though no animal raised on his farm ever contracted it. He published a number of papers in which he set down his belief that BSE was not an infectious disease, contrary to the mainstream scientific view, but that it had an environmental cause. He suggested this cause might be Phosmet
Phosmet
Phosmet is a phthalimide-derived, non-systemic, organophosphate insecticide used on plants and animals. It is mainly used on apple trees for control of coddling moth, though it is also used on a wide range of fruit crops, ornamentals, and vines for the control of aphids, suckers, mites, and fruit...
, a systemic organophosphate
Organophosphate
An organophosphate is the general name for esters of phosphoric acid. Phosphates are probably the most pervasive organophosphorus compounds. Many of the most important biochemicals are organophosphates, including DNA and RNA as well as many cofactors that are essential for life...
insecticide that was being spread along the spines of intensively farmed
Factory farming
Factory farming is a term referring to the process of raising livestock in confinement at high stocking density, where a farm operates as a factory — a practice typical in industrial farming by agribusinesses. The main products of this industry are meat, milk and eggs for human consumption...
cows to eradicate warble fly
Warble fly
Warble fly is a name given to the genus Hypoderma, large flies which are parasitic on cattle and deer. Other names include "heel flies", "bomb flies", and "gad flies", while their larvae are often called "cattle grubs" or "wolves." Common species of warble fly include Hypoderma lineatum , Hypoderma...
. Purdey believed that the chemicals, derived from military nerve gases, disturbed the balance of metals in the animals' brains, giving rise to the misfolded proteins called prions that are regarded as the cause of BSE. Through the High Court, he successfully challenged the British government's compulsory warble fly eradication program, which would have compelled him to treat his own cattle with the insecticide.
In his later papers on BSE, Purdey suggested that a combination of high manganese
Manganese
Manganese is a chemical element, designated by the symbol Mn. It has the atomic number 25. It is found as a free element in nature , and in many minerals...
and low copper
Copper
Copper is a chemical element with the symbol Cu and atomic number 29. It is a ductile metal with very high thermal and electrical conductivity. Pure copper is soft and malleable; an exposed surface has a reddish-orange tarnish...
in the soil, together with high environmental oxidizing agents, might "initiate a self-perpetuating free radical mediated neurodegenerative disease process (e.g., a TSE
Transmissible spongiform encephalopathy
Transmissible spongiform encephalopathies , also known as prion diseases, are a group of progressive conditions that affect the brain and nervous system of many animals, including humans. According to the most widespread hypothesis they are transmitted by prions, though some other data suggest an...
) in susceptible genotypes." He also argued that transmissible spongiform encephalopathies
Transmissible spongiform encephalopathy
Transmissible spongiform encephalopathies , also known as prion diseases, are a group of progressive conditions that affect the brain and nervous system of many animals, including humans. According to the most widespread hypothesis they are transmitted by prions, though some other data suggest an...
(TSEs or prion diseases) are linked to Parkinson's
Parkinson's disease
Parkinson's disease is a degenerative disorder of the central nervous system...
and Alzheimer's. His work was published in a number of minor peer-reviewed journals. He delivered lectures around the world to farmers and academics, and was invited to present his research to the British government's Phillips Inquiry into BSE. He called himself an "underground scientist" and "eco detective." He received a number of awards from New Age and organic farming organizations.
Nonetheless, Purdey's views have not been accepted by mainstream scientists. The Phillips Inquiry concluded that "[t]he theory that BSE is caused by the application to cattle of organophosphorus pesticides is not viable, although there is a possibility that these can increase the susceptibility of cattle to BSE." His papers, published primarily in the journal Medical Hypotheses, are exclusively theoretical and contain no original biochemical research.
Personal life
Purdey was born in Much HadhamMuch Hadham
Much Hadham is a village and civil parish in the district of East Hertfordshire, Hertfordshire, England, formerly known as Great Hadham. It is situated on the B1004 road, midway between Ware and Bishop's Stortford...
, Hertfordshire
Hertfordshire
Hertfordshire is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in the East region of England. The county town is Hertford.The county is one of the Home Counties and lies inland, bordered by Greater London , Buckinghamshire , Bedfordshire , Cambridgeshire and...
, to what The Daily Telegraph describes as a "long line of gifted eccentrics." The Telegraph reports that an ancestor of his reportedly walked from Inverness to London to set up Purdey's gunsmiths, and that, after suffering shell shock
Shell Shock
Shell Shock, also known as 82nd Marines Attack was a 1964 film by B-movie director John Hayes. The film takes place in Italy during World War II, and tells the story of a sergeant with his group of soldiers....
during the First World War, his grandfather, Lionel Purdey, lobbied Lord Kitchener
Herbert Kitchener, 1st Earl Kitchener
Field Marshal Horatio Herbert Kitchener, 1st Earl Kitchener KG, KP, GCB, OM, GCSI, GCMG, GCIE, ADC, PC , was an Irish-born British Field Marshal and proconsul who won fame for his imperial campaigns and later played a central role in the early part of the First World War, although he died halfway...
to recognize shell shock as an illness that needed treatment.
He was educated at Haileybury College, Hertfordshire, but was reportedly expelled after his A-levels. He turned down a place at London University to study zoology and psychology and, according to The Guardian, "embarked on a kind of post-hippie bucolic existence."
In his mid-twenties, he set up an organic dairy farm, first in Ireland, and later in Pembrokeshire, on which he bred a herd of pedigree Jersey cattle. He wrote on his website that he introduced semen from New Zealand, Denmark, and Canada, in order to produce a "high fat, high yielding, pasture-fed Jersey cow" with an ability to produce milk from a "self-sufficient arable/legume-grass rotational system with minimal reliance upon purchased in concentrate feed." In 1997, one of his cows was the highest yielding Jersey cow in the UK, with 10,150-litre lactation, after she had been sold to a conventional farm. He is reported to have enjoyed playing the saxophone to his cows to keep them calm.
He married Carol MacDonald in 1974, a marriage that produced a son and a daughter. When that relationship broke up, he set up home with Margaret Unwin, with whom he had four daughters and two sons. They married one year before his death. He died of a brain tumour on November 12, 2006 on his farm in Elworthy, West Somerset
West Somerset
West Somerset is a local government district in the English county of Somerset. The council covers a largely rural area, with a population of 35,075 in an area of ....
.
Views of Purdey
His anti-establishment views, his doggedness, and his willingness to educate himself brought him some high-level contacts in the UK, including the Prince of WalesPrince of Wales
Prince of Wales is a title traditionally granted to the heir apparent to the reigning monarch of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and the 15 other independent Commonwealth realms...
and Lord King
Tom King, Baron King of Bridgwater
Thomas Jeremy King, Baron King of Bridgwater, CH, PC , is a British politician. A member of the Conservative Party, he served in the Cabinet from 1983–92, and was the Member of Parliament for the constituency of Bridgwater in Somerset from 1970-2001...
, the former defence secretary, who regarded Purdey's work as a "classic piece of scientific investigation." It was King who, in April 1993, formally alerted the Ministry of Agriculture to Purdey's research, after Purdey forwarded King a letter from Professor Satoshi Ishikawa of Kitasato University, who wrote that Purdey's description "about Mad cows to organophosphates compounds and warble fly is exactly true."Letter from Satoshi Ishikawa to Mark Purdey", December 22, 1992, cited in "Scientists after Southwood; section 5, Challenges to the Government's approach, Mr. Mark Purdey", Phillips Inquiry, volume 11, p. 304.
Teresa Gorman
Teresa Gorman
Teresa Ellen Gorman is a British politician, and was Conservative Member of Parliament for Billericay, in the county of Essex in England until 2001 when she stood down...
, MP for Billericay and Ted Hughes
Ted Hughes
Edward James Hughes OM , more commonly known as Ted Hughes, was an English poet and children's writer. Critics routinely rank him as one of the best poets of his generation. Hughes was British Poet Laureate from 1984 until his death.Hughes was married to American poet Sylvia Plath, from 1956 until...
, the poet laureate, were also supporters, while readers of The Guardian contributed to a fund to help pay for his research into BSE and its human equivalent, Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease
Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease
Creutzfeldt–Jakob disease or CJD is a degenerative neurological disorder that is incurable and invariably fatal. CJD is at times called a human form of mad cow disease, given that bovine spongiform encephalopathy is believed to be the cause of variant Creutzfeldt–Jakob disease in humans.CJD...
(CJD).
His legal victory attracted letters from farmers who believe that using OP compounds had caused them health problems. Purdey began to educate himself about the science of OPs just as the first recorded case of BSE was confirmed. He became convinced there was a connection, in part because cattle in Britain had been given unusually high doses of OPs; and in part because the theory that BSE was spread by contaminated meat and bone meal (MBM) did not, he argued, explain why the disease was not occurring in countries that had imported the same MBM from the UK.
The Telegraph writes that public support for Purdey increased after the BBC aired a documentary about his theory in 1988.
Further reading
- Connor, Steve. "Mark Purdey: One-man BSE campaigner", The Independent, November 17, 2006.