Hugh Pennington

The big puzzle about anthrax is that terrorists have so far used it so little. After all, the bulk of the world’s population lives in countries where it occurs naturally, and where it isn’t difficult to get live material to start a culture. The notion that you need to be trained in biological warfare to grow it is ludicrous. In principle, any doctor, dentist, vet, microbiology...

I attended my first post-mortem in the summer holidays between leaving school and matriculating as a medical student. I have been to hundreds since, and am very familiar with the smell of a hospital morgue: meaty, like an old-fashioned butcher’s shop, with the added low-key, sickly-sweet pungency of unopened intestines and peritoneum so characteristic of an abdominal operation in life....

The remarkable thing about the Phillips Inquiry into BSE is not its cost, £27 million, or its 16 volumes, weighing in at 25 kg, or its overrun – it went on for more than double the year originally planned – but its thoroughness. Digesting the massive final report will be more than enough for most. But there is a lot more: witness statements and transcripts of oral evidence...