The transcript may be read here.From Monmouth
It is so frustrating hearing the propaganda being spouted endlessly by these scientists who know better, but who snuggle up to the government. Quite wicked. The BBC has been so watered down now that it seems impossible for truth to get out at all. This TB fiasco is much on the lines of what happened over FMD. It does seem as if they want to get rid of all our native breeds. Very scary. People should not believe a word they come out with.
From a member of the National Foot and Mouth Group
".....I am attaching the file I prepared with extracts from PQ 2164 - the invaluable one which gave us all the number of affected, infected, SOS, Contigs and DC's, inc Wigtown - which I updated 20 Feb 2003 with the final figures from the Defra website - when the affected premises kept going up and up after the end of the outbreak as they discovered more holdings that had been slaughtered out - but the number of IP's never increased. I hope you can down load it - you'll recognise it I am sure - it also has the figures for Anglesey (which were almost as appalling as Wigtown) and the awful Gt Orton figures. I hope that by the time we are finished with this, Roy Anderson will be as aware of them... See file below
From Cumbria
As you may imagine I find it almost impossible to conceal my anger over the events of recent weeks! More & more & more, DEFRA, HMG, Roy Anderson, Prof. Thomas and others simply confirm what a masty deceitful buch of liars they are! My loathing of these people has not diminished. It is staggering that even when black is proven to be black these underlings will still confirm it is actually white!
I noted with continuing disbelief that "451.000 sheep were illegally killed at Gt Orton". Yet again I must question that figure. No account of the number of lambs slaughtered at Gt Orton was ever made. I was told by a vet who worked there "It would be mind blowing to know how many lambs were killed here!"Travelators were running 12 hours a day and more, transporting lambs to their mass graves.
Mary, I actually saw it.
Damn these liars! A civil war is looming!
Kind regards.
From Michael
Don't we live in a crazy World. Watching the news the other night.... am I the only person in the UK to think that the police over reacted outside parliament the othe night? I am not in favour of hunting, but neither would I ban it. But the police were a disgrace, just as they were during FMD.
When are we going to be told that the so called scientist, the one who instigated the contiguous slaughtering of animals, the one and only Roy Anderson, is no more than a phoney and fraud as was his Imperial College team? We all knew that the real science was ignored. ....What a pathetic world we live in.
From Gary in Kansas"... it's been a long time coming, to read and hear what Mary posted up on her Warmwell website, the interview with this epidemiologist.....almost four years ago. At least a few of us original group have now a chance to read this news. Maybe that interview on BBC, Radio 4, is now an archive, or maybe it's over-written with the Police Riot in London, today. But I did get to listen to it....and it does show that someone has been doing some research about the whole FMD fiasco in the UK in 2001.
I just hope some of the original FMD group members get to see this one, too.
Anderson....well, after listening to him speak on the BBC Radio 4 program, I would have to say that's the most self-ego-protecting b......d I have ever heard utter a word. My prayers and sympathies to everyone affected by that crazy man's thinking. I only wish people like Dot Boag could still be here with us all, to see this article you've shared with us today.
On the criticism made by Prof Anderson of the Belfast research
"...I've read it a few times. At first I just thought it was my feeble mind (I am terrible with numbers), but yes, it does seem gobblydegook, but ...
On a further reading, do you think he means that you can't group all the results together (but isn't that what statistical analysis is?), Instead, he seems to be saying that you can find one source then trace everything that arose from that to see the effect of time of slaughter for those in that chain. But that sounds more like nonsense than any useful analysis. How in the world can you trace where each infection had come from? That would take some sort of sophisticated forensic work, wouldn't it? And what use would it be for a real-world epidemic?????"From Cornwall
"Nick did an interview with BBC TV South West which appeared on the 6.30 pm news today. Prior to the interview the reporter phoned up Nick Honhold ( Papers appearing in the Veterinary Record recently, by N. Honhold, BVSc, MSc, PhD, DipECVPM, MRCVS ) so that Nick could talk to him before the interview.
The BBC broadcast said in the introduction that " half a million animals had been slaughtered in the South West during the outbreak of fmd in 2001..........." Bloody hell - when will the BBC get their figures right ? !
They edited out all the contentious stuff which Nick said - his attacks against TB, the MAFF vets who lied to us and the police who intimidated us. But at least they broadcast Nick showing the farmer's personal tragedy, and Dr Honhold saying the cull was a total waste - the only statement they had from DEFRA was that "it was difficult to come up with an accurate model at the time " !Dr Honhold had not spoken to any other farmer who was culled out in the Contiguous Cull during FMD 2001, and although I have nothing but praise for any research work done to prevent a future contiguous cull, I do find it sad that all the work being done on FMD is carried out from University research units and none appears to be done "in the real world".
Few researchers have any concept of the truth of what actually went on during FMD - what the field boundaries really meant on the ground. Honhold was a vet "on the ground" working in Cumbria. It appears that the vets in the SW were working off a different interpretation of "contiguous". In Cumbria the wording " a fifty meter boundary" was taken to mean that if you had animals grazing within 50 meters of an IP, you were contiguous.
However, in the SW the fifty meters was used as : if you had a boundary fence between your farm and the IP which measured 50 meters in length or more, then you were considered to be contiguous and were culled out, regardless of where the animals actually were in relation to the IP. It astounds me that at a time when farmers' livelihoods were on the line, MAFF couldn't get their act together to instruct their vets what the "rules of the game" were.
It also astounds and saddens me that after three and a half years not one person, a MAFF / DEFRA vet, a solicitor or MP has ever actually been on our farm to see the actual "boundary" - even the vet who slaughtered our animals never even went further than the farm buildings which are one mile from the IP. The culling was done solely by postcode from Page Street. They didn't even have accurate maps of the area - let alone any knowledge of who owned which fields.
Dr Honhold was shocked and appalled to hear that we had a 37 acre woodland separating us from the boundary of the IP and that our animals were housed over one mile away from the infected animals. He had no idea that we had our drive blocked by police in a riot van or that we were subsequently imprisoned on our farm for twelve months after the culling by a Form A which declared our farm to be an Infected premise.
Yet what happened to us was not a one-off............there are numerous other similar stories..............
Each of the 10,000 contiguous farms culled out in the contiguous cull has its own story to tell of a life's work lost, of farmers left isolated on their farms after the culling with no support, many of whom were deeply traumatised from have seen their animals brutally slaughtered in front of them.
I do wish that not just Page Street and Defra, but also the researchers, would leave their desks and ask the farmers what really happened in the countryside during 2001. Statistics can never reflect the true horror of what happened .............the mindless brutality of the actual slaughter and the thousands of farmers whose lives were destroyed by the Government's handling of the FMD outbreak in 2001
AB TEST RESULTS FOR FMD WHICH DEMONSTRATE VERY LOW NUMBER OF PREMISES WERE ACTUALLY INFECTED
Source of Data: Parliamentary Question 2164 & DEFRA Website
As of today, 20 February 2003, the total number of a AFFECTED PREMISES on the DEFRA website now stands at 10,472
This is the total number of premises where animals have been slaughtered.
According to Parliamentary Question and Answer PQ 2164:
The total number of premises that were sampled is 2,372
Of those that were sampled only 1,328 returned positive results demonstrating that they were either infected or had been infected and animals now carried antibodies.
Therefore, although 10,472 farms and premises were slaughtered only 1,328 were definitely confirmed to have had the disease when lab tested.
We know from the papers and letter of Dr Paul Kitching and Dr Alex Donaldson in the Vet Record of the 19 May 2001 that if samples were sent to Pirbright for testing, from animals that were either exhibiting clinical signs or had been exposed to the disease, the tests would provide positive results.
(Note: If DEFRA now has further epidemiological data which does not support the above it would be timely for such information to be published).
Furthermore, the level of incidence of disease that was confirmed in the lab, county by county, shows that some counties had hardly any infection confirmed, yet massive numbers of farms and premises were slaughtered.
For example, Gloucestershire, Hereford & Worcestershire, Shropshire, Wigtownshire. At Great Orton burial pit – where approximately ½ a million animals were slaughtered, only 1 farm was definitely confirmed to have antibody positive sheep.
SEE FOLLOWING INFORMATION
INFECTED PREMISES CONFIRMED BY LAB TESTS - RATIO TO NUMBER OF FARMS CULLED - IN GLOUCESTERSHIRE, HEREFORD/WORCESTERSHIRE & SHROPSHIRE, WALES, AND WIGTOWNSHIRE
Source of data: Answer to Parliamentary Question 2164
County No of IPs* No tested No +ve Total Farms Ratio
Culled
Glos 72 46 13 346 1:26
Here/Worc 66 49 15 394 1:26
Shrops 12 8 5 131 1:26
Wales 115 102 60 806 1:13
Wigtownshire 15 13 2 218 1:109
*An IP was a premise declared as infected by DEFRA either on the basis of clinical signs or if testing positive. It is important to note that the reliance on clinical signs to confirm the presence of the disease, particularly for sheep, was considered unreliable. The total number of farms slaughtered includes all Infected Premises, Dangerous Contacts, Contiguous Culls and Slaughter on Suspicion cases.
Note:
We understand that if samples from animals showing clinical signs were submitted for laboratory testing then the lab test results would have provided positive results if the animals were infected with FMD.
This view of Dr Paul Kitching and Dr Alex Donaldson of IAH Pirbright – is expressed in the Vet Record of 19 May 2001, p640. They also write:
“We believe that laboratory support for a diagnosis of FMD in sheep, in particular, is essential.”
ANGLESEY
We understand that there were 13 IPs on Anglesey
Of these: 5 tested +ve
5 tested –ve
3 were not tested.
Of approx. 244 farms culled as a firebreak, only 7 were tested - all were negative.
We also understand that the 1st outbreak was in Gaerwaen abattoir.
Apparently there was some delay in the slaughter at the abattoir of a matter of days which allowed the virus to spread, possibly by the movement of vehicles and personnel, or by other vectors and thus infect other premises. As shown above it appears only 5 became infected and have been confirmed on laboratory testing.
We draw your attention to the number of farms culled on the basis of only 5 positive IP’s identified in laboratory test results.
The ratio is 244 divided by 5. This is 1:49.
The Anglesey figures were supplied to NFMG and submitted to the Anderson Inquiry.
GREAT ORTON
These figures were supplied by DEFRA Carlisle and submitted to the Cumbria Inquiry by Will Cockbain – NFU County Chairman – NFMG also then submitted them to the Anderson Inquiry.
Will Cockbain – NFU County Chairman – Giving evidence to Cumbria Inquiry
“Reference to the 3km cull was also made by county NFU chairman Will Cockbain
of Rakefoot Farm, Keswick, who told the inquiry that chief vet Jim Scudamore
had justified the slaughter by claiming the sheep flock was "heavily
infected", although MAFF had failed to produce any evidence at the time to
support this.
According to Mr Cockbain, the results of blood tests carried out at Gt Orton
had only been revealed to him a short time before the inquiry and these had
shown that sheep from 115 farms had been tested. Sheep from only one farm
had tested positive, with one additional "mild positive" and three
"inconclusive". "This shows that Jim Scudamore's initial reason for the 3km
cull was wrong," he said.”
Will Cockbain’s data as supplied to NFMG:
Great Orton
There were sheep from 115 farms tested, 5786 animals in total, between the 7th and
23rd of April 2001.
One farm had a positive test on 9 sheep.
One farm had what Andrew Hayward (DVM Cumbria) termed "mild" positive with 2 sheep testing positive.
Three farms were inconclusive and the rest, 110 farms had negative tests.
No farms were culled as a result of finding clinical signs of FMD, I asked if any clinical signs had been found and he said no. To the best of my knowledge 451,000 sheep were slaughtered at Gt Orton.
NFMG - 20 February 2003