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John Mark Purdey (25 December 1953 – 12 November 2006) was an English 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").〔("Mark Purdey" ), ''The Daily Telegraph'', 18 November 2006.〕 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.〔(Mark Purdey ), ''markpurdey.com''.〕 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, M. "Are Organophosphate Pesticides Involved in the Causation of Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE)? Hypothesis Based upon a Literature Review and Limited Trials on BSE Cattle," ''Journal of Nutritional Medicine'', 1994, 4, 43–82; see also Purdey, M. "High-dose exposure to systemic phosmet insecticide modifies the phosphatidylinositol anchor on the prion protein: the origins of new variant transmissible spongiform encephalopathies?", ''Med. Hypotheses'', volume 50, issue 2, pp. 91–111, 1998.〕 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 oxidising agents, might "initiate a self-perpetuating free radical mediated neurodegenerative disease process (e.g., a TSE) in susceptible genotypes."〔(Biography ), ''markpurdey.com''.〕 He also argued that transmissible spongiform encephalopathies (TSEs or prion diseases) are linked to Parkinson's and Alzheimer's.〔Purdey, M. "Mad Cows and Warble Flies: A Link between BSE and Organophosphates?," ''The Ecologist'', 1992, 22(2), 52–57, cited in ("Scientists after Southwood; section 5, Challenges to the Government's approach, Mr. Mark Purdey" ), Phillips Inquiry, volume 11, p. 304.〕 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.〔("Scientists after Southwood; section 5, Challenges to the Government's approach, Mr. Mark Purdey" ), Phillips Inquiry, volume 11, p. 304.〕 He called himself an "underground scientist" and "eco detective."〔 He received a number of awards from New Age and organic farming organisations.〔 Nonetheless, Purdey's views have not been accepted by mainstream scientists. The Phillips Inquiry concluded that "()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."〔("Volume 1: Findings and Conclusions. Executive Summary of the Report of the Inquiry. 3. The cause of BSE" ), Phillips Inquiry, October 2000.〕 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 Hadham, 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 recognise shell shock as an illness that needed treatment.〔("Mark Purdey" ), ''The Daily Telegraph'', 18 November 2006; also see Purdey, Lionel. (''History of the Purdey Family )''.〕 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, 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.〔Woffinden, Bob. ("Obituary" ), ''The Guardian'', 21 November 2006.〕 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 12 November 2006 on his farm in Elworthy, West Somerset.〔 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Mark Purdey」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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