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Inside Out: one mother's fight for answers
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This week's BBC South Inside Out follows the harrowing journey of Southsea mother Christine Lord as she searches for answers about the death of her son, Andrew, from variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease or the human form of Mad Cow Disease, BSE.
Torn apart by witnessing the suffering of her 24-year-old son as he is robbed of his personality, his senses and eventually his life, Christine begins an investigation to find those she feels are responsible, including former Government ministers.
Followed by the Inside Out team, journalist Christine visits the Sussex farm where the first case of BSE was spotted, before uncovering discrepancies in the Government advice on beef and an emotionally charged meeting with John Gummer, the Agriculture Minister during much of the BSE crisis.
Speaking in the programme, which goes out tomorrow (Friday 2 May) on BBC One South at 7.30pm, Christine explains what drives her search.
She says: "I am extremely angry that this tragedy has happened to my fit, young, handsome son and I want some answers. I want to find out who is responsible for killing my son...
"I have to be his voice in the wilderness because it feels like we've been forgotten, that the broader public have forgotten about it but everyone over the age of 10 has been exposed to this."
Christine filmed much of the programme herself, which gives the piece an added insight into the unfolding tragedy.
Through home video footage of Andrew, a budding radio presenter, and personal reflections, viewers witness Christine's pain as she watches her son slip away.
Andrew's 24th birthday outing to the funfair brings home to Christine the extent of vCJD's impact on her son: "I stood with Andrew as they [his friends] got on the waltzer and went on the roller coaster and all the other things that young people do...
"I wondered what was going on in Andrew's head because all his friends were full of beans and dancing around, and he was laughing with them.
"But there was a sense of bewilderment on his face a lot of the time and we brought him home.
"In the car he started trembling and immediately I had a picture of the footage of the mad cows that was on TV in the Eighties. My son was had these really wide eyes and his teeth were chattering. I knew it wasn't the cold."
As scientists still do not know how vCJD is transmitted Christine goes through a questionnaire of products.
She says: "Contact lens fluid, HRT, homeopathic remedies, school dinners, everything you could possibly think of is in here. I do lie awake at night thinking that perhaps if he hadn't had those immunisations, perhaps if he hadn't had those school dinners, then he wouldn't be dying.
"So there is a lot of guilt, but I think about guilt and I think there are a lot of guilty people out there that have created this... I'd like to talk to people involved in this and allowed this to happen."
Through her own research and discussions with scientists, Christine comes to believe that Andrew may have been infected through school dinners.
She then finds she has to face up to some harrowing thoughts: "I keep seeing my son, five, six, seven, eight, right up to he was 11 or 12, but especially when he was little, holding his dinner money, saying 'mum I've got my dinner money', and I gave him the money that killed him. And that's a terrible thing to carry."
You can follow Christine's moving fight for answers, including her meeting with John Gummer, in Inside Out, on BBC One South, 7.30pm, Friday 2 May 2008.
HB
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