Nota: nutrendo mucche con altre mucche contaminate, si bioaccumulano le sostanze radioattive.

 LONDON (Reuters) - A long-awaited report into mad cow disease will be published within hours, painting a dismal picture of the Conservative government's handling of the disaster.

 Agriculture Minister Nick Brown will make a statement to parliament about the inquiry with former ministers in the firing line. A compensation scheme for victims of the human form of BSE and their dependants is also expected to be outlined.

 More than four years after scientists discovered a link between mad cow disease and its human equivalent, doctors are still mystified by the illness for which there is no cure.

 Eighty-four people have been struck down by new variant Creutzfeldt- Jakob disease or vCJD. More than 70 have died and no one is sure how many others may be harbouring the disease.

 Estimates of new infections range from hundreds to millions -- a compensation pledge could be like writing a blank cheque.

 CONSERVATIVES IN FIRING LINE

 Sources close to the two year inquiry, led by senior judge Lord Phillips, say it will blame some former Conservative ministers and officials in charge of health and food safety at the time of the outbreak.

 The report may not focus on individuals but the implication of its damnation of institutional failure will be clear.

 Conservative agriculture spokesman Tim Yeo has already apologised for the mistakes made by his party during the crisis.

 BSE first broke out in British herds in 1986 and peaked in 1992. Four years later scientists identified vCJD.

 The livestock industry was hammered as the world turned its back on British beef after pictures of cows trembling uncontrollably and collapsing were shown around the globe.

 "Lack of information about the disease...a deregulatory culture which devastated rather than helped the farming industry and government emphasis on promotion of the industry before protecting consumers was at the heart of the BSE crisis," Sheila McKechnie, head of the Consumers' Association said.

 "When measures were introduced they were too late and crucial research was not funded on time."

 Dr Steve Dealler, a BSE expert, said more aggressive action should have been taken to curtail the public health crisis. But he said little could have been done for today's vCJD victims.

 "The cases we are seeing at the moment almost certainly would have been infected long before any ban could have come in or long before any action could have been taken," he said.

 Dealler believes a conflict of interest between the Department of Health and the Ministry of Agriculture, which was trying to protect the cattle industry, was behind the mishandling of the BSE crisis.

 "The Ministry of Agriculture got itself to such a point that it couldn't go back and say we were wrong. It had to cross its fingers and hope BSE wasn't going to infect humans."

 John Gummer, agriculture minister for four years until 1993, famously fed his young daughter a beefburger in front of  television cameras to back his assertion that British beef was safe. His name is expected to figure in the report.

 Phillips took evidence from almost 1,000 witnesses, including McKechnie. His report will run to 16 volumes.

 Government officials will not discuss details of a possible compensation scheme but neither will they deny one has been agreed, despite Treasury misgivings about the cost.

 For farmers, there could be a silver lining having lost about a billion pounds following a worldwide ban on UK beef.

 The National Farmers Union believes the report will reaffirm the fact that the epidemic is now under control with numbers of infected cattle falling sharply.

 Scientists think BSE was caused by feeding the carcasses of sheep infected with a related brain disease to cattle.