The parents of a 32-year-old who died of mad cow disease say they blame Margaret Thatcher for their son’s death.
Peter and Eve Buckland said they believe the former prime minister, who died earlier this month, was responsible for their son Mark Buckland’s death from variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (vCJD), the human variant of the disease.
Engineer Mr Buckland died at the Martlets Hospice in Hove in May 2006.
An inquest revealed he contracted vCJD through a blood transfusion in September 1997.
Animals can develop mad cow disease if they eat feed contaminated with matter from infected cattle.
Peter Buckland, who lives in Worthing, said Mrs Thatcher’s decision to “let the market decide” prices created “terrible consequences” for safety standards and put abattoirs under pressure from feed suppliers.
He said: “She put profit before everything else and forced UK abattoirs into a situation where they had to reduce their costs to survive.
“I cannot forgive what she did to him and all the other victims of the illness.
“As far as I am concerned she killed him.”
Mr Buckland has written a book on the issue, as yet unpublished, called The Witches of Westminster.
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