§ Viscount Lambtonasked the Secretary of State for Education and Science (1) why, when the laboratory at Pirbright found that Mr. R. Brewis was suffering from foot-and-mouth disease, no official communication was made to him; and why, despite the fact that Mr. Brewis's disease was confirmed by his Department, he has never been officially informed that he is no longer infectious;
(2) whether his Department's laboratory at Pirbright officially informed the Walkergate Isolation Hospital in Northumberland that Mr. R. Brewis was suffering from foot-and-mouth disease when he was a resident patient there.
§ Mr. Goronwy RobertsThe Animal Virus Research Institute at Pirbright is not under the direct control of the Department, but is an independent research institute financed largely by grants from the Agricultural Research Council. It is 55W primarily a research organisation but because of its knowledge of the foot-and-mouth virus, it acts as a reference laboratory for the identification and type of specimens for the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food and for other bodies.
I understand that by arrangement the laboratory accepted certain specimens sent by the physician attending Mr. Brewis, and informed him—the physician—of the results of tests made on them. It was no pant of the duty of the Institute to communicate this information to any other person or organisation, and it did not, in fact, do so.