Thousands of animals slaughtered on Westcountry farms
during the foot and mouth epidemic were killed unnecessarily, according to
a former Government vet.
Dr Nick Honhold, a
vet for the Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs (Defra)
during the 2001 outbreak, said the contiguous culling of cattle in an
attempt to control the spread of the disease didn't work.
The
controversial policy - in which healthy livestock were slaughtered because
they were on farms adjacent to ones that were infected by the disease -
was heavily criticised by farmers and farming leaders at the
time.
They claimed in many cases there was no evidence the animals
slaughtered could have come into contact with the disease and that the
contiguous cull was "unnecessary and unjustified".
This has now
been supported by Dr Honhold, who used data from Defra's own databases and
found "no evidence" that the contiguous cull helped to hasten the end of
the outbreak.
He believes that, to stop the spread of the disease,
infected animals should have been slaughtered faster.
Dr Honhold,
who worked in Carlisle during the crisis, told the WMN: "At one point it
was taking eight days between a case being reported and the animal being
killed. That is far too long and all the vets knew it."
During the
outbreak the contiguous cull was described by Anthony Gibson, the regional
director for the South West National Farmers' Union (NFU) as "one of the
most bloody, tragic and disgraceful misjudgements made in the name of
science".
Dr Honhold's findings came as no surprise to David Hill,
who was Devon NFU chairman during the crisis.
Mr Hill, whose farm
in West Devon narrowly escaped being included in the contiguous cull, said
Dr Honhold's comments supported everything he had ever said about the
contiguous cull.
"I always said the contiguous cull was irrelevant
and unnecessary and based on nothing but the definition of the word
contiguous, which was completely crazy," said Mr Hill, who added that it
was a "miracle" his own farm escaped the cull when so many nearby were
included.
"The contiguous cull was a mathematical exercise based on
a mathematical model, which upset me at the time and upsets me now. The
number of animals killed to satisfy a mathematical model was
horrendous."
Mr Hill said the contiguous cull process was flawed
because it did not take into account a wide range of factors linked to the
spread of foot and mouth disease including wind direction, distance
between farms, whether there was tree cover between properties and whether
there was water between them.
"It was in my view just a desperate
attempt to follow a mathematical model, which the Government were provided
with," he said.
"I am sure that when someone first used the word
contiguous in connection with the cull, nobody meant it to be followed
quite so closely. Contiguous is a word loved by lawyers because it is so
precise in its meaning of something touching or being in
contact.
"Because the Government followed that meaning so closely
it multiplied many times over the number of animals killed and the cost of
dealing with the foot and mouth epidemic."
Around ten million
animals were slaughtered during the epidemic, two thirds of which were
killed in the contiguous cull. The total cost of the crisis was more than
£8 billion.
Dr Honhold, a veterinary epidemiologist who now works
for the Department for Agriculture and Rural Development in Belfast, makes
his claims in an article published in the latest edition of the Veterinary
Record.
He writes: "The outcome of our research suggests that the
necessity for an extensive and intensive contiguous cull was not as it
seemed to be at the time of the outbreak, when it was claimed to be
essential for the control of the epidemic."
Dr Honhold says the
research concentrated on the three areas in England which had the largest
numbers of clustered infected premises during the outbreak, the South
West, Cumbria and the Settle/Clitheroe area.
Dr Honhold says the
research proves the most effective way to control the disease was to
slaughter the infected animals quickly and not to target healthy cattle in
surrounding areas.
He says the disease could only spread from
infected farms because there is no other reservoir in nature for the
virus.
Dr Honhold also criticises the "models" the Government used
to try to accurately predict how the disease would spread.
He said:
"The models assumed the disease would spread in straight lines, but it
didn't. There was pressure on the vets to predict where the disease would
travel but the models were not working."
Defra have admitted "some
shortcomings" in the approach to the control of the disease.
A
spokesman for the department said: "Defra accepts that no model is
perfect, and that subsequently some shortcomings have been identified with
the contiguous cull model. However modelling is still a valuable
tool."
Dr Honhold has called on the Government to "learn from their
mistakes" and to adopt new policies to combat any future
outbreaks.
He said: "What happened, happened. But we need to change
our policies because this could be with us again tomorrow."
On a
recent foot and mouth simulation exercise in Cornwall, Animal Health
Minister Ben Bradshaw said he could not "rule out" a contiguous cull being
used during a future outbreak.
pandrews@
westernmorningnews.co.uk
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