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Foot and Mouth - UK - August 2007           emails

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August 10/13 ~ Dairy herd on the Pirbright estate

"Samples can be obtained by taking blood, but also non-invasively from the nose and from milk". The email from Mary Marshall below raises the important issue of testing milk. This, as she says, can be done quite easily without the need to inject into the skin.
We are now wonderering if it was being done as a matter of simple routine on Pirbright animals. It has come to our notice that the milk collection service for the dairy herd on the Pirbright estate was cancelled on Wednesday, August 1st, 24 hours before Mr. Pride on his own farm rang his vet about clinical signs in his catttle.
No mention has been made of this herd on the Pirbright estate. Is it still alive? Was FMD found in milk samples? Was a candidate animal to test supposedly inert dead vaccine found to be clinically infected, and did that alone stop the routine milk collection?
We are still wondering which was, in fact, the index case in this outbreak. But even this, interesting as it may to those of a detective bent, is not as important for disease control as the central fact: Testing milk for FMD virus is straightforward. If virus is anywhere where there is a dairy herd it can be pinpointed easily by testing the milk. Is it being done?

August 10/13 ~ "VS recognizes the value of milk as a sample for FMD surveillance, as well as the value of this test in moving milk safely inside of quarantine zones.." The United States Animal Health Association

but the USAHA document here continues: " ARS and APHIS have done proof-of-concept work using the ARS/Tetracore developed real-time PCR assay for FMDV nucleic acids in milk......Due to the loss of some crucial staff at Foreign Animal Disease Diagnostic Laboratory (FADDL), they have not been able to move ahead with the optimization of this assay for milk...By March 2006, FADDL should have in a place a Head for the newly formed Proficiency and Validation Services Section, which will enable them to move forward with the optimization and validation of this assay in milk....."
So, a familiar story of underfunding and frustrating difficulties. News of progress with this would be gratefully received.
( Incidentally, and as many now know, the ARS/Tetracore developed real-time PCR assay was the very machine that Sir David King turned away in 2001. Magnus Linklater when the journalist asked Professor King, UK's Chief Scientific Advisor, why it was not being considered was apparently told "I would need five hours to explain the science to you," he said. "Unfortunately I don't have that time." )

August 10/13 ~ More slaughter imminent - unless movement restrictions can be eased

Another aspect of the frozen situation in Surrey is the welfare issue. The restrictions on livestock movements are now causing problems of overcrowding. Issues of providing food, drink and temporary housing are becoming critical, particularly on intensive pig farms.
In 2001, movement restrictions led to scenes of utter misery for animals. So-called "welfare culls" killed healthy animals as much as the panicky contiguous culling did. Literally millions of animals died in horrible conditions; not just those who - in that much repeated phrase - "would have been slaughtered anyway". The loss of breeding stock was terrible but it was grim to see even meat animals consigned to such an end.
The NPA, alive to any political pressure that can be applied, is asking producers to keep a photographic record of their mounting pig welfare problems and warning that piglets will have to be killed "in-situ". This is a situation that is going to have to change urgently. Scotland and Wales, but not England, are allowing controlled welfare movements.

August 10/13 ~ " the laboratory must move into the field and test animals quickly before irreversible actions are taken." ProMed

'ProMED' means 'Program for Monitoring Emerging Diseases' and is the Internet-based reporting programme of the International Society for Infectious Diseases (ISID). The moderators are international experts in their field who screen, review, and investigate reports before posting to the network. ProMED-mail is independent and free of political constraints. To read on ProMed that diagnostic testing should now be "out of the laboratory" is very cheering. On Saturday, a ProMED moderator, in the course of a five paragraph comment about the UK situation, (www.promedmail.org)wrote:
"....In the past -- that is, pre-1980 -- when we killed "contact" herds it was not questioned and laboratory techniques then could not have handled the volumes of samples. Today all that is different and thousands of samples are run each day. This brings home the point that the laboratory must move into the field and test animals quickly before irreversible actions are taken..." (More)
For six years warmwell and others have been asking that the analysis of samples should happen at the place where samples are actually taken, using already available, ever more affordable diagnostic kits, rather than be taken by car, train or air to the reference laboratory. Results can now be obtained in the field within minutes rather than hours and days, can detect FMDv before the onset of clinical disease and the "irreversible actions" such as we saw at Hunts Hill farm can be avoided. The "prototype RT-PCR" mentioned to our correspondent seems not to have been used on the suspect pig there. It is hard for an outsider to discover much - yet we read here for example:
"...We have performed 5 minimal infectious dose experiments with FMDV type O1 Lausanne using the original "Pirbright set-up" although using updated technology ......Two diagnostic methods for very fast, sensitive and specific detection of FMD virus using real time RT-PCR has been submitted, one of them for UK Patent and the other for international patent protection. DEFRA has naturally been granted unrestricted access to testing of samples from the UK using the new assays..."
Even on a farm with a lame pig so close to an IP, it seems that precipitate action might have been avoided. Mention of patents does make one consider what the reason might be for the apparent secrecy surrounding the use of rapid diagnosis in the UK . Ironic perhaps then that we were reliably told this week that "the whole portable PCR field will be transformed with very cheap machines that are highly automated within the year".

August 10/13 ~ "The government has a responsibility to use the technologies that can identify disease before signs appear if these technologies are available. They are available, and they are being used in the lab. ."

Mary Marshall's email suggests that the present practice of testing only sheep in a high risk area is a practice that should be challenged. She asks the question that has evidently occurred to many in addition to ourselves:
"Why were samples not taken as part of the inspections, from the first day and subsequent days, from ALL of the susceptible animals on a contiguous farm, especially if Defra considers the animals on these farms to be of such high risk? "
"... If virus is detected outside the surveillance zone, vaccination should then be automatically triggered. If no virus is detected outside the surveillance zone over several days, possibly coupled with more widespread testing of milk, then an easing of movement restrictions in other regions of the UK would be justified." Read in full. Quoting the ProMed comment above, she concludes, " To implement the diagnostic policies that I suggest, the government must be committed to provide a 21st century biocontainment facility as part of a national disease control strategy and ensure that their labs have sufficient resources and funding to function effectively. "

August 10/13 2007 ~ " Whilst hoping for the best, a point source, we should have taken precaution against the worst, a plume."

Ruth Watkins, MRCP MRCPath (a specialist in Clinical Virology) in the paper written this weekend especially for warmwell and farmtalking, has given ten reasons why she is convinced that vaccination in this outbreak should have been undertaken. She also gives a fascinating insight into her field of expertise: the microscopic world of cells and how vaccine protects them from attack by wild virus. She explains, "All virus families have different characteristics, and to some we may never be able to make protective neutralising antibody at all such as Hepatitis C virus. How lucky we are to have such a good vaccine against FMD - it is theoretically possible to eliminate FMD from the world by vaccination....decades of scientific research has provided us with excellent vaccine to all the major serotypes of FMD virus.".
As she says, we are lucky too that
"...that we have these scientific and vaccine establishments in the UK, and we should be ready to take advantage of the benefits they can give us."
Her email and paper can be read here. She warns, " With global warming we may expect the incursion of a number of exotic viruses into the domestic animals of Northern Europe, which - if they are insect borne or infect a wildlife reservoir - may not be eliminated. May we have diagnostics and vaccines ready to meet them..."

August 10/13 ~ FMD - uncomfortable issues still to answer

The Lightwater site, at Worldpress.com succinctly sets out the issues that are worrying many of us. Underfunding, maladministration, government spinning that they are not to blame - particularly the leaking of information about Merials staff and their operation "aimed at deflecting criticism from Government" Read in full

August 10/13 2007 ~ the role of rapid on-site RT-PCR during this outbreak

Saturday morning saw confirmation of negative results for the Matthews calves and DEFRA's revocation of the temporary zone around Manor Farm. The Today programme (Saturday) interviewed the free-range farmer whose 362 animals were killed as a precaution. Mr Emerson at Hunts Hill farm revealed that vets had been checking with him every day but on Wednesday, one lame pig with slight lesions just above the hoof (coronary band) gave enough cause for alarm that samples were taken. After lengthy discussions with Page Street it was decided - on the strength of this one pig and because Hunts Hill farm was so close to the other two outbreaks- to kill all the animals on site, of all species, immediately. (The pig was, in fact, clear of disease as were all the other animals. Mr Emerson was quoted: "knowing now that my animals were never infected makes it worse.")
Pigs can excrete a great deal of virus early on if infected, true - but what of these samples? It would be interesting to know if they were or were not checked by rapid on-site diagnosis. We should very much like to know more about the role for all speciesof the rapid on-site RT-PCR being used by the UK as an indicator of disease in its various phases. Which species are being tested by rapid diagnosis and how often - in short, exactly how is the new technology being applied during this outbreak? Or is this - for reasons one can only guess at - information that must be kept secret? There are many others who want to know about rapid testing. One of the most recent emails to warmwell, from the Chairman of Mitchell's Auction Company in Cumbria, reminds us yet again of the UK refusal to contemplate testing real time RT-PCR back in 2001.

August 10/13 2007 ~ We fear a bad end and a wrong answer to the question of ultimate responsibility.

Our summary of the situation so far before we collapse into the weekend: Pirbright is a 'government' laboratory but it has no government power to control events. It survives at the whim of the Government and of the Treasury. It cannot criticise its paymasters. Like so much else whose usefulness ought to be taken for granted and isn't, Pirbright has been starved of funding, equipment and staffing and has suffered a loss of morale. Yet the expertise we need is still based at Pirbright. It is not Pirbright's fault if commercial considerations, including its close relationship with Merial, have had to take the place of its former "public service" ethos - and it is not Pirbright that is shaping policy; it is the politics that needs big business as its life blood. Farmers across the country are suffering for what happened in Surrey and a lot has been said about the irony that the crisis came from the very Institute set up to avert it. Perhaps live virus in a vaccine being tested somewhere on the Pirbright site failed fully to be attenuated or got out by human means. As in all walks of life, this sort of thing can happen. But we fear a bad end and a wrong answer to the question of the ultimate responsibility for what happened at Pirbright.
The jackals are gathering. Reputations and careers may be made sacrifices in the financial storm that's coming. It is, as always, the big players who will battle over big money. The drama of "who was to blame" will unfold like something on reality TV. Throughout this whole crisis mainstream journalists have missed by miles the key question, which is this:
Is it right that our disease control policy is based wholly on unfair and out-of-date "health" regulations, forcing those decent small farmers, who also need to make a profit, to fight the Goliath of the non-vaccination policy?
It is the EU's protectionist policy, enshrined in the OIE regulations that discriminate against vaccination in returning disease free status, that constantly postpones a more sane, more humane, science-based animal health policy in the UK. The Pirbright virus escape would - in a less crazy world - have been a small local irritation, quickly solved by the ability of available modern technology to cure and protect.

August 10 2007 ~" If the present policy is successful, it will be a measure of good luck in ignoring these two variables..."

Email received this afternoon from Dr Colin Fink (Clinical Virologist & Hon. Senior Lecturer in Biological Sciences University of Warwick) He says, in brief, that Debby Reynold's latest briefing was "reasonably coherent" but that the present 'no vaccination' strategy , makes no acknowledgment of the possibility of wild life vectors. (See also below) Dr Fink says
" the present policy assumes one distribution of virus by primary intent only ( ? accident ? sabotage ). Vaccination around the present areas, as I suggested earlier would prevent any further environmental virus distribution from having much clinical effect and would lower any re-excretion rates of virus into the environment. - a basic tenet of vaccination.
If the present policy is successful, it will be a measure of good luck in ignoring these two variables.
One of the more worrying aspects of the clinical presentation of the second affected animal group in this outbreak, was the profound onset of the illness simultaneously in a number of animals. This strongly suggests a high viral load within the environment that infected this group all together. That to my mind would be one reason why vaccine for this outbreak should be used sooner rather than later."
Read in full

August 10 2007 ~ Miserable news. We got so used to this in 2001...

Livestock culled on Hunts Hill farm did not have foot and mouth disease. DEFRA says that tests on the 362 cows, sheep, pigs and goats slaughtered on Wednesday, (some of which may have appeared to have initial clinical symptoms of foot and mouth), show that none of these animals were, in fact, carrying the foot and mouth virus.
Horrible news. See first paragraphs of the Telegraph article. And it casts doubt on our assumption below that they would not have been culled unless an on-site rapid diagnosis, rather than mere clinical inspection, had indicated disease. Ironically, these negative results will be seen as good news - and of course in a way, it is. But failure of rapid diagnosis - reliance on a clinical diagnosis that turns out to be wrong - this is shameful when we have access both to excellent diagnostic equipment giving results within a fraction of the time it takes in the lab and vaccines that will, as Dr Fink says above, "prevent any further environmental virus distribution from having much clinical effect and would lower any re-excretion rates of virus into the environment." Killing first and checking afterwards is something we had hoped could never happen again in a modern civilised country - and it does nothing at all to protect others.
So much for our optimism about the possible efficient deployment of on-site rapid testing. The question must remain: why were these animals killed? What machine is being used for on-site testing? What was the reason to keep paths open near infected farms? Nick Green got some distinctly odd replies to his questions today.

August 10 2007 ~ "..we could still find ourselves in the bizarre situation where the meat on the shelves is imported from countries where Foot and Mouth Disease is prevalent "

In the Scotsman, Dan Bugloss says of Brazil, "...the Irish party confirmed suspicions that the vaccination regime was haphazard at best and sometimes completely non-existent. Meanwhile, the EU continued to import Brazilian beef, allegedly from regions declared clear of the disease....
Yorkshire Dales Country News today quotes Dr Charles Trotman, CLA's Rural Economy Adviser: " "understanding between parties in the food chain is essential .... I hope that the chief executives who control the big supermarkets will instruct their meat buyers to... avoid the temptation to try and make a quick profit at the expense of those who have had to shoulder the economic burden of this disease."
Douglas Chalmers, Director CLA North told the paper that " we could still find ourselves in the bizarre situation where the meat on the shelves is imported from countries where Foot and Mouth Disease is prevalent. Not only would this compound the agony for home producers, but it would have had a longer term effect for British farmers and processors. With home produced meat now available again, it is to be hoped that no one will try to take advantage of the situation..."

August 10- 13 2007 ~ Suspect animals were to be monitored, not immediately culled on suspicion

The latest available DEFRA interim epidemiology report can be found at www.defra.gov.uk [PDF] (500 KB) (apologies. Link mended - but it is slow) or here. It shows the situation as at 10:00 am yesterday and tells us that since 3rd August 2007 suspicion of FMD has been reported on 37 holdings, in the counties shown in the table it shows.
"Five holdings are still under investigation; disease has been ruled out on the remainder."
Movements from Surrey have been traced: "para 23. Investigations have confirmed that no sheep from Surrey or from the surveillance zone that overlapped into the neighbouring county of Hampshire were moved to or sold through Bicester sheep fair at Thame market on 3rd August. 24. In summary, the risk of spread of infection out of Surrey through movements of silently infected sheep during the risk period is very low."
Within the zones, testing seems (to us) to have been very efficiently carried out.
A "dangerous contact" had been identified next to the second outbreak; a single holding that is "highly likely to have been exposed to infection through a personnel contact ... Additionally, stock on the DC premises are adjacent to the IP and only separated from it by a farm track and a lane."
However, these animals were, according to the Aug 9 report (10.00 am) , to be carefully monitored every day rather than culled on suspicion. "target=new> Read report (pdf)
All this suggests to us that a rapid on-site portable PCR test may well have found evidence of disease on the free range farm where the 362 animals were killed yesterday. However, we still wait for news of the lab test results.
UPDATE: As we say above and the Telegraph very brefly reports, all the cows, pigs, sheep and goats at Hunts Hill Farm turned out to be free of infection.

August 10 2007 ~ " it has been decided not to vaccinate at this time."

A new DEFRA statement has appeared "....In line with this decision tree and the emerging conclusions of epidemiology investigations it has been decided not to vaccinate at this time. However, this approach will be kept under constant review as the disease situation develops and the Forward Vaccination Centre will be kept in place.
As part of the evidence base for this decision Defra has today published an interim epidemiology report into the outbreak of Foot and Mouth Disease in Surrey...."

August 10 2007 ~ Information about differentiation tests needs to be clearer. (Boring but very important)

Yesterday's Farmers Weekly article "Vaccine best for foot-and-mouth?" reported that Dr Tony Andrews "... believes there would be difficulty in acknowledging the difference between a vaccinated animal or infected animal and, therefore, stresses the need for clearer answers...." but Anthony Gibson of the NFU (and we remember his sense and humanity in 2001 with gratitude) said the NFU was confident there was a validated test.
Dr Andrews is right that things need to made clearer. We begin to understand his stance on vaccination (even though we do not share it). The OIE Code Commission have accepted the principle of herd based NSP serosurveillance as a basis for countries regaining FMD free status. In other words, while tests to distinguish vaccinated from unvaccinated animals are accepted in the OIE Terrestrial Animal Health Code
("... a serological survey is conducted to demonstrate that antibodies to the disease are as result of vaccination and not natural infection.")
- there is STILL not yet an internationally accepted NSP (non-structural protein) test for individual use in any species. The test shows whether antibodies, produced when the animal tried to fight off real live virus, are present in the blood. Such antibodies are NOT produced as a result of vaccination so differentiation can be made. Even though tests - such as those assessed in 2004 by Bruderer et al - are shown to be effective, the OIE will, at present, only accept whole herd tests for the purposes of international trade. Full validation for individual tests requires panels of seven FMD serotypes in at least three target species. Testing has to be carried out in high security accommodation - and needs to be carried out where both vaccination and exposure to virus can occur. We speculate that work has been going on recently at Pirbright. It seems to warmwell more than likely that this testing may be significant in the present crisis. Meanwhile, it is a dreadful irony that such work cannot continue. Once it is done then the last (non trade) obstacle to vaccination will be removed. And as page 37 Version 1.2 - ( Volume 2 Foot and mouth disease) of DEFRA's Exotic Animal Disease Generic Contingency Plan (Consultation Version- July 2006) makes clear:
Public opinion - Public are likely to support a vaccinate to live policy and this would be in line with FMD Inquiry recommendations. Food Standards Agency advice is that labelling of products from vaccinated animals would not be required. A shared statement (i.e:here) on the use of vaccination as part of FMD control strategies has been produced in partnership with consumer organisations.
In April we wrote about the question of "Validation" (only when it suits) "... It needs to be pointed out and repeated that the mathematical modelling that drove that discredited 2001 policy was not validated and no validation was ever attempted. As Dr Martin Hugh-Jones commented: "Any model is only as good as its ability to be validated....One of the criticisms of the Anderson FMD model was that it could not be validated. Nor, for that matter, was validation ever attempted with the very expensive result that we all witnessed."

August 10 2007 ~ NFU moves towards court case

www.thelawyer.com "South West firm Thring Townsend was instructed yesterday (9 August) by the National Farmers Union (NFU) in relation to a potential action for losses suffered by farmers as a result of last week's foot and mouth outbreak."

August 10 2007 ~ New Case is NOT foot and mouth "I just wanted to be 100% sure"

The farmer involved, Laurence Matthews, at Manor Farm, says that he had called DEFRA as a precaution when he noticed a possible problem with some of his calves - especially since it was his land that was involved in the second outbreak; John Gunner's animals. He says there has been "no traffic" between his farm (calves only) in Wotton and the second outbreak site at Normandy. The calves (3 - 5 weeks old) are all housed in the same building and any infection can spread easily. Mr Matthews is reassured that the suspect calves are now looking a lot better. Confirmatory tests will be known this afternoon - but one assumes that rapid diagnostic on-site PCR was used to ensure such confidence this morning..
There is no news yet about the test results from the 362 animals killed yesterday. 576 animals have been destroyed so far and the human misery this causes is examined by the Telegraph today. "Every animal has its own unique value to us," said the free range farmer yesterday. "We were absolutely devastated."

August 10 2007 ~ A new possible case. A New Temporary Control Zone

Late last night an announcement was made that a new control zone has been placed on a site in Surrey outside present areas. There was frustration as no further details emerged. The new 3km zone is now known to be east of the existing surveillance zone and southwest of Dorking. DEFRA's emergency response centre at Reigate is not far away. The Times is raising the spectre of sabotage again. All DEFRA would say is: "This precautionary measure follows an inconclusive assessment of clinical symptoms by Animal Health veterinary staff. The national movement ban remains in place. In addition, in the Temporary Control Zone, general licences will not apply for the movement of animals to slaughter and collection of dead animals from farms." but fears that the outbreak of foot and mouth disease had spread from the initial control zone is going to send shivers through the farming community. More as soon as we know.
There are those who have the time and interest to wait in front of television, radio and the internet for news. Farmers, whose stomachs are turning, many of whom have no representation, have to get on with the farming day. They - unlike the officials working hard in Surrey - are not able to earn overtime. Open information, given as soon as it is known, is important and we cannot see any "public good" reason why it should be withheld.
UPDATE - see above.

August 10 2007 ~ Defra can find the time and money to send us all pointless bumph that we don't need, let alone have time to read, but when the countryside is hit with something like FMD we get absolutely nothing

An ironic query sent by a farmer needs no further comment.
The NPA site too had included, just before its jokey footnote about painting pigs black and white, the sentence
"There is also a desire among the vets for an improved cascade of information from Defra in London. ..."
but we note that this sentence has now been removed.

August 9 ~ The Ministry knows best....

More on the subject of getting the science wrong, non-admission of Government mistakes, official ignorance, compensation claims side-stepped...but this is a different problem and one that spans 30 years. A document Sheep dipping - Advice for farmers and others involved in dipping sheep has appeared on the Health and Safety Executive website. It contains grim warnings about sheep dipping.
Sheep dips, (designated 'veterinary medicines') were found to eradicate scab in sheep, thirty years ago, if they contained organophospherous compounds. These had actually been developed as chemical warfare agents. Farmers themselves, such as the doughty campaigning Lancashire farmer, Brenda Sutcliffe, became aware that OPs were causing depression, brain damage and premature death and demanded their total ban. But the Ministry knew best. Until 1989, the law required compulsory dipping twice a year. By 1992, dipping for scab at last ceased to be compulsory but MAFF (now DEFRA) announced instead that it would not hesitate to prosecute sheep farmers who did not deal promptly and satisfactorily with an outbreak of scab.
Fear of compensation demands have, as often before and since, made the government very chary about any admission of responsibility. The wording of the HSE document is careful. Warnings are general and apply to all dips. However, the sentence,"Some agricultural pesticides contain OP or SP active ingredients. These products are not authorised for use as veterinary medicines and must never be used for this purpose" would seem to be incontrovertible. (The FWi article today brought our attention to the existence of the booklet.)

August 9 ~ Bad news that can't be buried

Unfortunately, the Fallen Stock relaxation is hardly making much of an improvement. For those who remember The Good Life, this is the Margo Leadbetter method of collection; picking one runner bean at a time and carrying it delicately across the garden to a sack. The Fallen Stock vehicle can go to one farm for collection - but then it must return to base for Cleaning and Disinfection (C&D). So instead of maybe 30 - 40 carcasses per day, they will be lucky to collect 4. There will be a problem with leakage and smell. A bit of a stink.
Scotland, we hear, have allowed on-farm burial at least in the short term. As one emailer writes today, "Pity the fallen stock aren't a bit closer to the minions in Page St." Yes, and pity the Fallen Stock scheme, has been clung to for fear of admitting it was a piece of "legislative madness" ( as Dan Buglass in the Scotsman put it) to begin with.

August 9 ~ "the worker bees at the local Defra office do try to be helpful, despite the insane orders they receive from headquarters..."

Jonathan Miller's top ten are now up. For the jaded, they are as refreshing as a cold beer pressed to one's forehead. Others may not be quite so refreshed. His list of the good, the bad and the ugly begins; "Never mind the disinfectant, send the whitewash..." However, as our choice for a paragraph title shows, he is very happy to give credit where it is due, and from others we have heard, the DEFRA footsoldiers in Surrey do indeed seem to have been human and kindly. Sad agreement too with the following on the subject of the internet:
"....while the networks are activating quickly, frankly we lack real political clout. We do not have a clunking great fist. The challenge is to convert our command of the facts and superb intelligence into meaningful pressure. I admit this is a tough problem when our democracy is so intangible, and note that it is a problem not unique to this issue..."
Read in full
UPDATE Even so, and although Jonathan Miller is undoubtedly right, the bloggers are uniting...( Alas, this cartoon will have to self destruct very soon)
Here, back in the fray, is the famous organic centre Sheepdrove,: "Join us in calling for the right to vaccinate now...Why not let the farmers decide? We could use our own risk assessments and make a decision on whether or not to protect our stock against FMD."

August 9 ~ Another twist - of the knife

HSE are investigating a case of Legionnaires' Disease at IAH Pirbright, thought to predate the problems with virus escape ( the escape estimated to have been in the third week of July according to Fred Landeg ( pdf ec.europa.eu) . We discover from the IAH annual report dated 2004, that the ISO10 building at Pirbright, where the person with Legionnaires disease had been working, had been built the previous year to replace SAPO-4/ACDP-2 containment level accommodation
"for work on exotic viral diseases and vaccine development."
In other words, the lab where exotic viral diseases and vaccine development has been taking place was an environment where a worker could have caught a disease. According to this HSE account of a tragedy in 2002, that case was caused the failure of biological monitoring of the ventilation system. "...Vacancies in management posts were blamed for the shortage of risk assessments and absence of in-house monitoring." Underfunding perhaps.
The BBC report tells us " Legionnaires' Disease is caused by a bacterium that causes problems if it is converted into aerosol form from a water - for instance, in showers or spas - and then inhaled."

August 9 ~ Updated questions and answers at DEFRA

Click here for Tuesday's updated "FMD disease emergency vaccination - question and answer brief" from the DEFRA site. See also DEFRA's general Question and Answer page Aug 2007 - section on vaccination Extract:
"Suppressive vaccination (to kill) might be considered where the number of animals to be culled is likely to exceed the immediately available disposal capacity. In those instances, animals in defined areas would be vaccinated first and slaughtered only as disposal capacity became available. It could also be used where there is an urgent need to reduce the amount of virus circulating in an area and reduce the risk of spread beyond that area."
This is just "stamping out" by another name. The worst of all possible worlds for the animals and for the farmer.
Killing vaccinates rather than keeping them together would seem to make no sense. Anyone who has understood Notes on Vaccination and Transmission will see why. We are depressed to see mention of "suppressive" vaccination in the brief.
We notice too from Fred Landeg's presentation to the Standing Committee on Food Chain and Animal Health (SCoFCAH), ( pdf ec.europa.eu) in Brussels yesterday made no mention of vaccination in the presentation but did give further details - for example that the first lesions were dated 26th July and the clinical symptoms- first noticed on the sick animals on 29th July- were reported the following Thursday 2nd August. FMD was confirmed the next day and it became public knowledge that Friday night.
As we know, Member States are allowed to proceed straight away with emergency vaccination. No permission needs to be sought from the EU. The updated brief may be possibly be preparing us for something.

August 9 ~ Dutch Socialist Party MP backs vaccination and calls for EU policy to be changed to make vaccination compulsory

Krista van Velzen wants to see preventative vaccination against Foot-and-Mouth Disease made compulsory. She was quoted (Tuesday) in the online edition of the SP (Dutch Socialist Party) newspaper: "The outbreak of Foot and Mouth Disease in Great Britain has once again made it clear that the current EU policy is wrong" adding that there is no support in the Netherlands for such animal-unfriendly policies. The Dutch MP is calling on agriculture minister Gerta Verburg to put the argument at European level for compulsory vaccination. (Many thanks to Brent for this link)
It may be remembered that Dutch farmers, having been promised that their vaccination policy in 2001 was to allow animals to live, were then appalled to learn that all vaccinates were going to be slaughtered after all. An eminent Dutch vet from Utrecht, Peter Poll, said at the Bristol Conference in England in 2001 that he thought it very likely that the Dutch veterinary associations themselves " will no longer cooperate in an eradication programme as carried out in Spring 2001" .

August 9 ~ "Some days I've taken 12 showers" says Dr. John Copps, deputy director of the National Centre for Foreign Animal Disease in Winnepeg

From www.canada.com ".....Dr. Copps..... who is monitoring the outbreak in Britain that may have been caused by a lab breach.... "Anything they learn, we'll try learn from them." .... says the federal lab near downtown Winnipeg, which houses the only live foot-and-mouth virus in Canada, has the advantage of being much newer and farther from farms than the British lab under investigation. "Some days I've taken 12 showers," he says, as evidence of the multi-layered safety procedures at the Manitoba lab, home to some of the nastiest diseases on earth."

August 9 ~ New cull involves "suspected"cows - but also sheep, pigs and goats at a farm advertised as "free range"

From the moderator (AS) at ProMed today. "We are informed by ProMED-mail rapporteur Joe Dudley that according to local media reports, the new culling operation involves cows, sheep, pigs and goats at a farm in the village of Normandy, Surrey. The farm is advertised on the web as a producer and vendor of "free range" pork/bacon, beef/veal, lamb, and mutton products.
Culling of other susceptible species on suspected or confirmed-infected premises does not necessarily mean that these animals have been found infected; possibly, the suspicion involves bovines. Details are expected to be included in UK's follow-up report to the OIE.
All 3 outbreaks so far -- including the new one, which at this stage is regarded as suspected -- are located in the village of Normandy. An additional cattle herd was culled in Elstead, about 7 km south of Normandy, in a 2nd farm property of the owner of the index farm. There are, thus, 2 protection zones.." Read in full
Feeling sickened, we await test results. One wonders if all the susceptible animals have been killed or just the cows.

August 9 ~ EU says restrictions are to stay in place at least until 25 August.

Brussels says that the situation has not yet "stabilised" since culling at a third farm was ordered yesterday afternoon. A European Commission spokesman said it would be "premature" to alter the EU measures and EU vets will gather in Brussels on Thursday 23rd August to assess the situation. See EUobserver
It should be remembered that at this stage we do not know how the virus got into the country around the Pirbright labs and we do not even know which was the index case. We will post the results of the tests on yesterday's culled animals as soon as we can find them.

August 9 ~ Cracked Mirror

A very unpleasant article in the Mirror this morning is an example of how some journalists are tarring all farmers with the same old smear of being heartless and greedy. The Mirror is read by around one and a half million people. Yet again one feels great concern that the decent, hard-working family farmers - those that are hanging on despite terrible economic hardship - are, on top of all their other worries - being reviled as well. An extract from a private email today gives an example of a farmer who can only keep going by working at another part time job as well. And this is common now; (another reason why the RPA situation is so scandalous) :
"...tired - trying to make some hay with very tired equipment and old tractor - nothing 10 or 15 k wouldn't fix quite quickly but.... fed up with farm, fmd, overtime at work to pay for farm eqpt - most days it all seems worthwhile, others -well, lets not dwell on those. Yesterday was one of those.."
Particularly disgraceful in the article was the suggestion that the grief of the Surrey farmers was not genuine. In spite of its evident support for vaccination, we found the whole piece one of the nastiest attempts to deepen the chasm between town and country that we have seen since 2001. As Huw Rowlands, a Cheshire farmer, wrote yesterday, it is time a distinction was made in the public mind between the powerful agri-business interests who are not representative of all farmers and the real farmers who often have no representation at all.

August 8 ~ Of course vaccination should have been the immediate reaction for all susceptible animals considered to be at risk.

The EU FMD vaccine bank contained (and stilll contains?) some 5 million doses of O1 BFS 67 vaccine in the form of highly concentrated inactivated antigen stored over liquid nitrogen. In this case the vaccine has to be formulated and bottled by Merial, which will take a couple of days only. The much respected Hugh Pennington notwithstanding, talk of not using vaccination "yet" or "until things get out of control" may one day be looked back on with utter incomprehension. The CVO in her very brief press conference today did not allow the V-word to pass her lips - and nor was she asked by any of those press who could get a word in. But vaccination should have started at the perimeter of the Surveillance zone and quickly worked inwards. The first round could have been completed on day one. Contemplating the days passing without it is a bitter frustration.
Meanwhile, television shows us shimmering pictures of marksmen with their rifles (humane slaughter or medieval butchery?) walking away away from the infected area still wearing their 'protective' suits. So much for biosecurity.
It is very apparent that DEFRA is being advised and negotiated with by the big players. Their reasons for not wanting vaccination are well known and well described today by the Scotsman - but union leaders know little about infectious disease or what needs to be done to eradicate the disease beyond the crude term "stamping out". Policy is created by a powerful group at DEFRA's shoulder, while DEFRA chooses to interpret good diagnostic information from the Vet labs without using the expertise within these labs for shaping their policy.

August 8 ~ There's more at stake than paying compensation to farmers if Pirbright is found to be responsible for the leak

Part of our very wobbly translation of this Swiss report account from Tagesschau this afternoon is as follows:
"..... Veterinary experts from the 27 Member States of the European Union have met in Brussels to discuss the UK's foot and mouth situation. With EU Commission experts they discussed whether preventative measures should be intensified or eased. Independent British invsetigators ...warned of hasty assumptions. "There is no definitive answer to the question of where the virus came from" - but the likely probablity is that it came from one of two laboratories in Pirbright 60 kilometres from London.
The point whether Pirbright will be able to remain a reference laboratory of the European Union for all FMD work, bluetongue illness and vesicular illnesses, has not yet been discussed. This year the British laboratory has received (the equivalent of ) approximately 773 thousand euros towards its work."
Could we be seeing the end of Pirbright as a World Reference Laboratory? (No wonder everyone in Government circles wants Merial - whose safety report in February was satisfactory - to turn out to have been the party at fault.)
We notice today that New Zealand's director of MAF's investigation and diagnostic centres, Hugh Davies, has said that no foot-and-mouth samples are kept in New Zealand because there are kits which can diagnose the virus in other ways." radionz.co.nz And it may well be that the days of Pirbright's monopoly for FMD diagnosis is drawing to an end anyway.

August 8 ~ Restrictions eased for movement to slaughter and for fallen stock for "certain parts of the country"

We know no more detail at 3.30 pm. It sounds as though farmers may need to go on line to get the general licence but at 3.30 there were no news releases on the DEFRA site for today and nothing we could find about this - although we'd welcome information from those luckier in their searches. It has been disappointing in this crisis that mainstream reporters have often seemed favoured with information before so many people who are directly involved - very many of whom are not the sort of farmers who are represented by the agri-business unions. These unions - and especially the NFU are certainly in the loop if not actually directing the loop's curve. But there are many very anxious tenant farmers, smallholders and animal owners who are not getting official information and are not being consulted. There is a lot of speculation that this movement easing is because DEFRA has suddenly realised that farmers are going to break the regulations out of sheer necessity - so, like the footpath question - they have seen the wisdom of changing a decision that may have been ill advised. However the CVO insisted the change was due to her own veterinary assessment.
UPDATE: Debby Reynolds (with the NFU's Kevin Pearce there too ) has just given a press conference. Eased movements for everywhere outside the two zones. More bad news Slaughter on suspicion , a phrase we'd hoped never to hear again, is about to take place on "an adjacent farm" and " I cannot rule out that disease is developing on the premises." The CVO would not tell reporters any more and could not give any details of the animals that will now die. No mention of any test result for them. She referred people to the website for more information. (Which finally updated with brief notes of today's news at 5.04)

August 8 ~ Allotment is out of the picture

The Merial staff member who accompanied investigators to his allotment is said by a Merial statement to be uninvolved in any leak. There is no evidence at all to link that member of staff to any leak, they say. They add that media attention (and we can all picture what they mean) camped outside the person's house is "unhelpful". So we are left with the following possibilities.
• The wind transfer suggestion has no evidence to support it (The 1981outbreak was that was supposedly windborn was certainly an individual carrying it on the Ferry to the Isle of Wight - not windborne).
• Flood from a storm drain with material not heat inactivated before disposal is possible. - bad lab. practice
• Sabotage : indeed possible -for a variety of possible reasons

August 8 ~ Continued reliance on the NFU as an authority is perverting coverage

When one listens to such broadcasts as this (Sky) on vaccination one has to take a few deep breaths. Hugh Pennington pops up yet again saying that we'd vaccinate if the outbreak got "out of control" - whereas ring vaccination is precisely what prevents this. We are reminded again of Jonathan Miller's exasperation today
"....Another crime scene is the newsrooms of the national media who are blundering about oaf-like on this story. The word "vaccination" was banned from the BBC 6 o'clock national news program yesterday. Sky has a very pretty girl outside Pirbright who knows the square root of fuck all about FMD and would struggle to define or even spell epizootic. Sky has a medical correspondent who seems to be getting around this, but their continued reliance on the NFU as an authority is perverting their coverage and making them look ever more naive and stupid. ..."
It is time that our pundits understood one basic fact at least. That is that an animal that has been vaccinated cannot become a "carrier" (misnomer) unless it has already been be exposed to wild, live FMD virus. That is why vaccination should have begun at once, starting from the outside of the zone and working in. There has been no evidence anywhere of outbreaks having been caused by vaccinated animals acting as "carriers". (I have the authority to say this because I have been working on this subject, unpaid and unswayed by any interest, every single day for the last six years.) No vaccinated animal has ever hampered any FMD eradication efforts anywhere in the world.
As for the general chorus of praise for DEFRA one must just point out that information for local people has been very much lacking, ring vaccination is not being openly and authoritatively debated, information on the infectivity of the strain and its characteristics are woefully lacking, and secrecy seems to pervade the department even now. The usual David King response of waiting for animals to develop symptoms and then killing them has been in evidence ever since Saturday. The NFU appears next to the chief vet at Defra news conferences, and no pronouncement that would not get NFU approval seems ever to be aired except on websites such as this. We hate to say it when we'd had such hopes - but something is still rotten in the state of Defra.

August 8 ~ Culling is solely to protect our beef export industry, whilst supermarkets happily continue importing beef from FMD endemic countries

Huw Rowlands, a Cheshire farmer writes to make the distinction between agri business (represented by the NFU) and the agriculture of family farms firmly based in and contributing to the rural economy.
"....Culling infected animals is intended solely to protect our beef export industry, whilst supermarkets happily continue importing beef from countries such as Brazil, where foot-and-mouth disease is endemic. Can anyone explain the sense in this? And what about the contribution towards climate change of needlessly shipping vast quantities of meat around the globe?.." Read in full

August 8 ~ No punches pulled

The journalist, Jonathan Miller, has an outspoken (and blessedly funny) blog whose illustrations alone are worth a visit. However, he has some pungent remarks today on the opaque nature of the HSE report (which he deconstructs for us), speculation about the desk upon which the buck should finally stop, remarks that we would never have dared to make about the quality of reporting in the mainstream media, and - this is the most worrying of all perhaps - the extraordinary article written by Sir Brian Follett in the Sunday Times. It seems almost incredible that Sir Brian, who heard, in the course of the RS Inquiry, all the most pertinent remarks concerning the 2001 epidemic and was privy to the carefully reasoned arguments of the real scientists, should have written such an article unless pressure was applied. Jonathan Miller says,
".....the suspicion of spin always too close.... I am working on a list of the 10 top things about FMD..... An early candidate for the top most stupid thing is from Sir Brian Follett in The Sunday Times who sagely declares: "the reason we slaughter animals is because, in island countries, it works. We can keep the virus out."
This is pretty delusional, isn't it Sir Brian? "
As for Sir Brian's arguments, they have all been convincingly refuted and we will publish this as soon as we get the green light.

August 8 ~ " I stopped eating my cornflakes and wondered how Catlow would respond.."

On the subject of the Talking Heads wheeled in by the media, Nick Green, the Cumbrian hero of 2001, has just been watching the interview this morning with David Catlow, the BVA vet: "The BBC presenter then asked Catlow, "Why do we conduct the research into FMD vaccine in this country when that is clearly a threat to the local farming community and when we never use the FMD vaccines here in the UK?"
An excellent question. I stopped eating my cornflakes and wondered how Catlow would respond...." Read in full

August 8 ~ Vets and government officials were last night debating whether to start vaccinating

The Guardian reveals that vaccination may be a little closer. This would be emergency vaccination (to live, we hope and assume) of cattle in the exclusion area rather than contiguous culling. (Although we have seen no official report anywhere, the killing of the animals on the smallholding, see below, later showed no virus present.) The Guardian:"The consensus is that vaccination is the most effective way of halting infection if the disease spreads to other areas. This becomes more likely the more outbreaks there are."
If these outbreak really can be isolated, if rapid on-site testing really is finally being used by the government (albeit very quietly), if vaccination is going to be used at last to protect animals and farmers from the utter misery we have seen this week, warmwell can fold its tents and have a rest at last.

August 8 ~ No news is good news

In spite of a rumour that had reached our ears yesterday, there are no reports of new cases anywhere yet. Interest still focuses on how the virus could have escaped. Who actually owns the Pirbright land now seems important, particularly if drains were responsible. If Merial only rents their part then it does look as though legally the IAH - for whom we have a lot of sympathy in view of the way they have been starved of funds - may find itself responsible since Merial has said it does not release water from the shared Pirbright site. "We ensure that the water we use in our virus production is treated. We then transfer it to the IAH who treat it further and release it." (See BBC)
There is speculation too that a worker at the Pirbright site may have released virus into the countryside via his allotment. The map does show a stream passing from the allotments, through the paddock, by the nursery/compost/animal feed farm toward Willey Green and then north toward Pirbright.

August 7/8 2007 ~ A prototype on-site rapid diagnostic machine is being used in Surrey

Extraordinary news. Certainly not generally known. A very impressed Bryn Wayt has sent this email to many contacts. "... a very nice and helpful lady vet and phoned and confirmed that, "a prototype RT-PCR unit had been used on the first IP, and the VO on the second site would be using it." His email is worth reading in full. We feel the manufacturer is irrelevant - as long as rapid test results can be obtained before the long wait for lab confirmation.
As for the question about whether the strain would have been needed in order to test the cattle at Woolfords farm with a portable machine - we are told that it does not matter what sort of FMD virus is involved. One test detects them all. It appears that Pirbright has been doing quite a bit behind the scenes with portable devices. And the very good news is that the whole portable PCR field will be transformed with very cheap machines that are highly automated within the year.
We find this news exciting - but once again, it has to be teased out and we are very grateful indeed both to those who ask the searching questions - and those who give the answers.

August 7/8 ~ Was it Bill or was it Ben?

HSE initial report
".... large scale production at the Merial site (10 000 litres) and a series of small scale experiments (less than 10 millilitres in each case) at the IAH site.....We have initiated further studies intended to provide additional molecular information on the virus types in use at both organisations. ... detailed technical analysis... results are ...expected within a week.
There would have been differences between the viruses used in the two different labs. (Virus for vaccine production is modified compared to the "field virus") With recent technology it should be possible to determine the lab of origin. And the choice of lab to investigate - because of IAH's monopoly - looks likely to be limited to one. Stranger than any fiction is that the key suspect should be the only one able to carry out the forensic investigation. (The HSE have served five notices on the Institute's two labs Pirbright and Compton, for breaching safety rules in the past four years.)

August 7 2007 ~ The two farms' cleansing and disinfection is to be paid for, says Hilary Benn, "due to the exceptional circumstances"

Gordon Brown has been careful to apologise to the farmers and promise help - and to thank everyone for their cooperation. But no word at all on vaccination. No question asked on that. The revised zones can be found at DEFRA's announcement

August 7 2007 ~ HSE initial report statement released - accidental or deliberate human activity suspected

Neither lab has been pinpointed as the culprit but the balance tips towards IAH. Initial report points: Merial and IAH experiments have been mentioned. No evidence that there were breakdowns in the filters. They are still pursuing "lines of enquiry"...pipework and structure. Potential for virus to have escaped via humans, contaminated material might have travelled between the site and the farm. Very much an interim report - They have found no major gap in security. Unfortunately the SKY presenter does not realise that the Merial production of vaccine will not be posing any risk sine no live virus is used in the making of the 300,000 doses of vaccine ordered for possible use. Wind and flooding apparently virtually ruled out. The Sun this morning made rather more definite remarks claiming that decontamination rules were flouted regularly. The presence of builders on the site was not mentioned.
Peter Kendall (NFU) has appeared on television and duly made the expected angry remarks - although Pirbright does not make the bureaucratic difficulties for farmers and one feels a sympathy for the underfunded Institute, once such a hugely respected centre of excellence for foot and mouth.

August 7 ~ The Netherlands order vaccine - and are inspecting every imported animal

www.volkskrant.nl/ (Translation) 6.44 pm " The Dutch minister has ordered 265,000 doses of vaccines. And has asked the Food Safety Authority to stand by for a possible vaccination campaign. It does not however mean that a decision to start vaccinating has been taken."
No signs of FMD have yet been found in the Netherlands, "according to a spokesperson for the Food and Consumer Product Safety Authority. The VWA has been busy since Saturday carrying out checks of livestock at the 150 companies that have been involved in about 380 livestock transports between the Netherlands and Great Britain since the beginning of June. The VWA spokesperson expects that the last inspections will be carried out on Wednesday. The VWA has commissioned veterinarians to carry out the checks. The doctors are examining every animal for symptoms of the disease. They are also taking random blood tests. No symptoms of FMD have been found in the past few days." ( Source. Thanks for this link to FMD News - a service provided by the FMD Surveillance and Modeling Laboratory, University of California at Davis )

August 7 ~ Media concentration on 'who is to blame' and mention of "compensation" is a red herring for decent farmers

There is controlled anger as well as the much mentioned"nervousness". Here is a West Country sheep farmer all too aware of the bitter paradoxes of the non-vaccination policy:
"As a livestock farmer myself, with cattle, sheep and goats on my farm, I am angry to find myself trapped between two contradictory policies relating to FMD.  On the one hand, I am barred by the State from protecting my animals by vaccinating them against this unpleasant but non fatal disease that only affects cloven hoofed animals (not humans).  I am allowed, even encouraged, to vaccinate my animals against a wide range of other diseases.
If my animals contract FMD, this non fatal disease, or if the livestock on a nearby farm are even suspected of having contracted this non fatal disease, they will be killed by DEFRA slaughter men, probably in circumstances far from humane.
My only defence against my animals suffering this fate is to 'exercise bio security measures'; primarily to prevent any contact with my animals from the world outside.  On the other my animals from the world outside.  On the other hand, I am told by the State, that the rural tourist industry is much more valuable than my activities as a livestock farmer; and that consequently I must not prevent persons from the outside from walking along the footpaths through my fields...." Read in full
DEFRA now (6.08 pm) finally announces that footpaths in the immediate area will now be closed off.

August 7 2007 ~ Brigadier Birtwhistle can only cite "consumer confidence" as an argument against vaccination

Regular readers will be sharing our dismay and disillusionment at the recurrence of arguments that were soundly put to rest in 2001, especially in the mouth of the respected Brigadier Birtwhistle on BBC News 24 this evening.He said vaccination would be difficult because consumers would not want to eat vaccinated products. It is simply not true.
Even in 2001, research from Taylor Nelson Sofres (TNS) showed that eight out of ten people in the UK, or 83% to be precise, said that they were not any less likely to consider buying and eating British produced meat as a result of the FMD crisis. That was then. Now we have seen far more good sense spoken about the eating of vaccinated meat - something most of us do all the time. Even Sir John Krebs is an ally here:
"The Food Standards Agency was unambiguous in its view that vaccination would not pose a food safety risk and that, since farm animals are regularly vaccinated against numerous diseases, there was no need to label products. If the industry was correct in assuming that people would not want meat and milk from vaccinated animals, there does seem to me to be a bit of a paradox." Wooldridge Lecture 2003

August 7 2007 ~ "authorities will indeed find it easier to avoid massive stamping-out strategies." Bernard Vallat, Director General of the OIE

Bernard Vallat, Director General of the OIE itself, is in favour of vaccination to treat animal disease. In his Preface to the Rev. sci. tech. Off. int. Epiz., 2002, 21 (3), 417-123 he writes of the OIE's "...recognition of new diagnostic tests capable of distinguishing infected animals from those that have been vaccinated (particularly when emergency ring vaccination is used to prevent the disease from spreading within a country or zone), that can be used for mass epidemiological screening of animal populations.....
The amendments to the FMD chapter in the Code ... provide alternatives to stamping-out without vaccination ....considerably reducing the period of embargo on countries that resort to emergency vaccination but do not slaughter vaccinated animals,
by using the new diagnostic tests on the herds involved, (proving) that the virus is not in circulation, means that authorities will indeed find it easier to avoid massive stamping-out strategies. "
His views - unlike ours - can hardly be discounted. Protection zones have again been extended this afternoon. We, like Director General Vallat, can only hope that there will be enough calm and reasoned arguments to overwhelm the old "cure by killing" mindset, here in the UK. The sight of weeping farmers is something we just cannot bear when the alternatives are so patently there.

August 7 2007 ~ "... the classical scenario to use vaccination successfully without, in the long term, compromising the export status of the whole of the UK."

Email today from a farmer whose experience is extensive both with livestock and with animal health matters. She is also one of the few who has a full grasp of the EU Directive. She, too, has been alarmed by the article in the Farmers Weekly mentioned below in which a vet, rather oddly dubbed "independent", claims he is "adamant the government should still refrain from vaccination". This article will have been highly influential and there were no counter-arguments made. Our correspondent points out:
"The products of vaccinated animals could easily be marketed within the area - and besides saving animals from being destroyed, the risk of transmitting the virus out of the restricted zones could be minimized.
This is still to be considered a localized outbreak and if this outbreak should spread beyond the boundaries of the protection zones it might be only controllable by measures that were already scandalous in 2001. Every additional animal that gets infected enhances the risk and by the time clinical signs are obvious the virus is already on the move to claim the next victim.
The Government should stop listening to useless "consultants" and use vaccination before it is too late.
These are arguments that should be in the public domain - especially for farmers who may be hearing only the views of the anti-vaccination talking heads.

August 7 2007 ~" These cattle do not benefit at all from all the work on FMD vaccines done on their doorstep..."

Anne Bosanquet has sent us the letter she has written to Abigail Woods, following Dr Woods' Guardian article today
Extract of her letter: "....surely the point is, these cattle, in the immediate area under threat of contracting this highly infectious disease, do not benefit at all from all the work on FMD vaccines done on their doorstep. Although they are at risk from escaped pathogens, the vaccines produced here are for the benefit of foreign beasts and not our own. I thought the improvements in the latest FMD vaccines was that tests could now discriminate between infected and vaccinated cattle -so why cannot our own cattle be afforded this protection now?"
Mrs Bosanquet very kindly writes to warmwell: "Part of the reason that vaccination is being contemplated at all, (in the teeth of economic pressures from the usual suspects) is the sheer pressure and reasoned quality of your own website. We all know that what happened last time was absolutely intolerable and that needs to be articulated to politicians again and again and again. If ever there was a case for vaccination it's this one."

August 7 2007 ~ Disposal -best scientific analysis deems it necessary to carry carcases 90 miles on roads?

Dr Iain Anderson, (Lessons Learned report) who opined on BBC 24 today that we were "in very much better shape" than last time, gave it as his view that the "best scientific analysis" must have decided the solution of taking the killed animals 90 miles by public road. He appeared somewhat surprised by the interviewer's suggestion that perhaps it was a political decision to avoid the repetition of easily photographed pyres, recalling the horrors of 2001.
On-farm burial has been asked for in the Protection Zone. It would be reassuring to know that all alternatives have been considered as per Article 3.6.6.6. of the OIE Terrestrial Animal Health Standards Commission (Unofficial version of the Meeting in Paris 2-13 October 2006 Report)
"Decision makers, in addition to biosecurity considerations, need to understand the economic, social and aesthetic impact of various disposal technologies....A disposal option hierarchy may be incapable of fully capturing and systematizing the relevant dimensions at stake, and decision makers may be forced to consider the least preferred means. It therefore requires a comprehensive understanding of any array of dead animal disposal technologies and must reflect a balance between the scientific, economic, and social issues at stake."
(Still no mention of vaccination in the past few hours, no emails or texts are mentioning vaccination, it would seem. No interviews with vaccination experts.)

August 7 2007 ~ Report by Health and Safety on Pirbright due very soon

It has, we understand, been handed to the Ministers concerned (Correction. It was still being compiled at 5.00 pm) - and we wait to hear what its findings are. In spite of some degree of improvement in openness ( as described here) what are described as "the legal and political implications" may, it is feared, prevent details of the findings of the report being made public.
The report has been "delayed" - not altogether unexpected but this delay is "for no particular reason" we were told at about 5.00 pm.
It seems highly unfair to IAH Pirbright to be pre-empting the findings by suggesting in the media how "angry" everyone is likely to be. The Institute has been consistently deprived of funding in recent years - partly because of the RPA debacle. Neither security nor morale can be high in such circumstances. (Like many others, we find it unfortunate that journalists must sell news by finding the most dramatic way of presenting it rather than giving balanced information at such times. The BBC used to be cherished for its fair and balanced reporting.)

August 7 2007 ~ There are 75 farms with 750 cattle, 1,500 sheep and 200 pigs in the Protection Zone - they could all be vaccinated within 24 hours

We are reliably told that it should be possible to get the most-at-risk animals vaccinated within 24 hours using just 3 or 4 vaccination teams.. However, there is no debate on vaccination at the moment on BBC News 24. It may be felt odd, by many readers, that Prof. Pennington, an undoubted expert in his own field, is considered an authority in this field. He has apparently said that they might not have the right vaccine, as it is an imported virus. And to suggest that "we don't know which animals to vaccinate" is bizarre. We are astonished too by the words of "independent vet consultant Tony Andrews" quoted - without challenge- by the usually excellent Farmers' Weekly. The Uruguay experience in 2001 speaks for itself - but that was six years ago and things have moved on even further. Why are the newspapers not asking the real experts with practical experience in the field?
It is unthinkable that this is because no one knowledgeable is talking urgently about it.
It should not be forgotten that the still unlevel playing field rules that make vaccination the poor relation as far as the resumption of exports are concerned (six month wait as opposed to three months without vaccination) apply only to the carefully delineated region that has made use of emergency vaccination. It would not apply to the whole country. Does anyone dispute this? The grief and misery of both farmers involved in Surrey is very real - and the infection of this too is horribly likely to spread unless humane measure are put in place right away.
We really do hope that DEFRA is taking blood samples regularly. In the Netherlands, blood samples of 19,000 animals have already been taken - and of course it goes without saying that this is done responsibly with precautions taken to make sure that any possible virus is not carried to the next clean farm. There are less than 3,000 animals in the most-at-risk area in Surrey.

August 7 2007 ~ Consternation that Trading Standards in the Protection Zone have told farmers they may not close footpaths

Farmers in the Protection Zone immediately around the outbreaks have "begged" Hilary Benn and Gordon Brown to close paths - but according to the landowner, Lawrence Matthews, on whose grazed land the second outbreak has been confirmed told BBC News that there is no sign of closure at all. As he says, we don't even know which is the index case. Chris Huhne told News 24 that both he and Menzies Campbell had asked Gordon Brown on Saturday to close paths. He expressed himself "very concerned".

August 7 2007 ~ ".... if a veterinary risk assessment shows that measures additional to the basic slaughter policy were required...."

One wonders who is giving the veterinary risk assessment here. The line above is taken from the stock reply received by those begging the CVO to begin vaccinating Here. Can the mind-set really still the same as that in 2001? After six long years of patient argument? The case for vaccinating now is so evident - and if it were done properly and swiftly there would be no need for further talk of culling on non-infected premises. Once again, we urge a thorough and patient look at the paper vaccination and transmission which was written by a world expert now at EU FMD.

August 7 2007 ~ "Who would notice the infection in deer? Does DEFRA have a plan?"

An emailer asks some urgent questions about the effect of flooding at the Pirbright site and the likelihood that wild deer will indeed have been exposed to infection. (see also below) He asks what clearly identifiable symptoms they have - or do they, like sheep in 2001, fight off the disease without anyone noticing?
(We understand that clinical disease is mild or inapparent in the red and fallow deer but more severe in the roe deer. The appearance and distribution of the lesions are similar to those in sheep - but see the paper cited below)
"Who does DEFRA expect to inspect wild deer and report symptoms and to whom? What is their plan for containing the spread of FMD in deer?" Like many others, he expresses a wish for far more information to come from DEFRA. Many smaller farmers are starved of news and feel unrepresented - and are anyway are doing vital work on the farm and are far too busy taking advantage of the weather to be glued to the internet (if they even have it).

August 6/7 2007 ~ Not good news. Clinical signs found in another herd.
            NOW will you vaccinate?

Another herd has been identified with clinical signs within the larger protection zone. Debby Reynolds has ordered that the herd be culled as soon as practicable. As an emailer comments , if as many as 39 of the Woolfords cattle really tested positive for disease "it may be that this has rumbled around longer than a week or so. That is not good news, if this small farm is not the index case."
This is the very moment that emergency ring vaccination of all susceptible animals starting from the outside of the surveillance zone should begin. The 67 strain, now designated FMDV-O1 BFS 1860/UK/67, was particularly prone to air-borne spread and could even still be air-borne. (Rounding up the now possibly infected roe deer that roam freely in the Protection Zone and killing them all in a pen would not prove easy, either. Vaccination is now urgent and essential.)
UPDATE: Last night about fifty cows were killed at the second farm. This brings the total already slaughtered to about 150. Samples have been "taken to a laboratory" for testing.
We have had six years to get, validate and refine on-site rapid diagnostic tests. It has not been done. Clinical examination - even where symptoms are apparent - is no substitute for an efficient swift testing of all animals in the protection zone.
On the theory of spread by flooding, a map-reading emailer queries whether the virus could have been carried uphill by flood water...

August 6/7 2007 ~ CNN presenter says Vaccination hides disease -

A CNN World News Europe presenter, in covering the latest news about the FMD outbreak in the UK gave some "background information" about FMD: "the only way to stop an outbreak is by culling. Vaccination is not popular because it hides the disease". Hearing this does rather deprive one of the will to live. .. Unfortunately it is often people who direct public opinion who spout such things with such apparent authority. (Ben Bradshaw too apparently clings to this belief) - yet its repetition cannot make it any less misleading. We can only, yet again, refer to the experts on virology. When a few months ago the Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton also unwisely told the Countess of Mar (Hansard) that vaccination "could spread the disease further and thus be dangerous", Dr Colin Fink wrote
" Mary, As I am sure that you know, this is complete and utter rubbish and shows that all the 'Virologists' invented by Fred Landeg in Page Street, in answer to a question from the Countess of Mar are a myth. DEFRA cannot be allowed to go on peddling this mis-information with such arrogance and insularity. They cannot even advise their representatives properly and know nothing of how vaccines work. You may publish this comment if you wish - I am angry about this."
Read Dr Fink's email in full. It is important that an expert practising virologist's understanding about vaccination is seen. We also refer people again to the very important paper written for warmwell in 2001 on vaccination and transmission

August 6/7 2007 ~ Bio-security was "fairly relaxed"

On the question of what Professor Brian Spratt may discover at Pirbright, this extract from The Dairy Farmer of August 2001 is relevant - if the same situation still exists:
"..... Ex-Pirbright employees visited pubs at weekends, and used farm footpaths, despite a requirement of quarantine after handling viruses. They described bio-security as 'fairly relaxed'. ...
Pirbright was experimenting with FMD virus last year. Three trials were at Level 2, and considered "mainly safe", but also listed was 'Genetic Manipulation of Foot and Mouth disease', (Ref. 53trans/1) at Levels 3 & 4. (Note the Ref numbers were the same for the two projects)
I understand level 4 work is bio-weapons. .... "
while a page that has been on warmwell for five years now adds authority to the extract above.
The Western Morning News (Monday): "It seems ironic that the very institution designed to protect animal health appears to be at the centre of the latest outbreak of foot and mouth disease. We should be concerned that what has until now been seen as a world-class institution could possibly have undermined its own work. .... Brigadier Alex Birtwhistle, who was at the heart of the 2001 FMD epidemic, was right when he said that if the Government didn't get to the heart of the problem promptly 'the country will never forgive them twice'."

August 6 2007 ~ As part of Defra's contingency plan and in order to ensure full preparedness, 300,000 doses of strain-specific vaccine have been ordered from the UK's vaccine bank, to be made up from antigen. No decision has been taken on whether or not to use the vaccine.

The Defra website gives Key points set out by Debby Reynolds Vaccination teams are to move into the area but the CVO stresses that " this is not an indication that a decision has been taken to vaccinate. It has not."
Professor Brian Spratt will begin his review into biosecurity arrangements at the Pirbright site tomorrow. Included in the evidence will be the outcome of the immediate investigation currently being carried out by officials from the HSE, Defra, and the Veterinary Medicines Directorate. Production of vaccine will be carried out at the Merial laboratory "..obviously we would not be doing this without careful consideration and assessment of the risks. Producing vaccine from antigen does not involve use of live virus."

August 6 2007 ~" I am so fed up with the B...idiots who sent the FMD carcasses by road, 90 miles, when the rest of us have been told no movement."

"Somehow they don't associate risk of spread with driving 90 miles through farmland with livestock in the fields." This comment has just arrived and will, no doubt, be being echoed up and down the country - particularly along the 90 mile route from Elstead to Frome. (The Farmers' Guardian report by Alastair Driver confirmed today that the slaughtered cows had indeed been sent off to the Wessex Incineration plant, at Frome. ) Another FG report today tells us that despite varying reports on the minimum length of time the movement restrictions will be in place - no timeframe has been put in place for any lifting of them.

August 6 2007 ~ "Because the animals were infected with the very vaccine strain itself, the vaccine should be the absolute perfect match."

icWales (link mended, apologies) quotes Dr Ruth Watkins speaking today outside the Pirbright laboratory
"..Because the animals were infected with the very vaccine strain itself, the vaccine should be the absolute perfect match. The vaccine should work as well or better than any could work."
She said vaccination is "very important", and works as well as culling.
"I think the world was disgusted with us last time to see us kill so many animals and incinerate them (vaccination) is a way of controlling the infection and eliminating it while minimising the number of animals that have to be culled." And "If you get to economics it must be cheaper," she added.

August 6 2007 ~ 104 redundancies since 2005 - " a risk that we will lose critical expertise"

(Correction: This may have been misleading. The 104 redundancies were in the IAH as a whole, so this presumably included Compton and Edinburgh - but the cuts are no less damaging for that)
"Year on year, we are able to do less science or we are able to employ less people and this is an area of work that spans from foot an"d mouth through to bluetongue virus, ....We are forced to look at this whole of our activity to see where we can juggle the research, so there is a risk that we will lose critical expertise. ..." Professor Martin Shirley of Pirbright.
In November last year, Professor Shirley was answering questions about the effect of the cuts at the Institute. Thanks again to Jo Rider who draws our attention to this extract from the Research Council Institute's Fourth Report.

August 6 2007 ~ Still much to be revealed on virus escape

Although both Merial and Pirbright have been very definite in their horrified denials of possible breaches of security, such an escape is , as we say below, not unprecedented. A ProMed moderator in the Aug 3 posting (and an informed reader was able to give detail) recalled the 1960 virus escape from Pirbright which was the presumed cause of FMD infection on a farm one mile from Pirbright.
"Following this incident, disease security measures were improved and air filtration was introduced to the isolation units." (Source: Animal Health, A Centenary 1865-1965, pp 149-150.)
Rumour has also reached warmwell of air conditioning/bio security breakdowns at Merial - we think in late June this year. Depending on the ambient temperature of the facility, any 'escaped' spores would plume if it was colder outside, and could then blow miles in the wind. Anxiety remains. As for the presence of builders at the Pirbright site, Dr Paul Sutmoller, chair Animal Health Committee, ELA - European Livestock Association, has just sent us the following:
"If I remember well, the last bio-security break at Plum Island, infecting cattle in the holding area outside the laboratory occurred during a period of major constructions going on at the main laboratory. Jack Hyde may be able to comment."

August 6 ~ Fallen stock

Again, thanks to the NPA website and Pat Gardner's ever eagle eyes. This is their advice to pig producers in the light of the movement restrictions
"NPA will continue to press for burial rather than fallen stock collection. In the meantime:
• If you can delay a collection, if only until Tuesday or Wednesday, please do. The issue may be clearer by then.
• If you have someone who can pick up from an off-site collection area, this may not pose much risk - but the decision is yours.
• Don't allow collection if the collector has to come on the farm. Make whatever disposal arrangements you deem most sensible given the current need for the best possible biosecurity.

August 6 ~ Start date 29/07/2007? The Saturday before the Thursday?

There is at last a report on the OIE site Debby Reynolds has apparently reported that the "Start date" was 29/07/2007. The 29th of July? But that was the Saturday before the Thursday evening when "symptoms were reported to the local Animal Health office". Is this a mistake - or were symptoms actually noticed five days earlier? It matters.
(Update. It has been suggested that the "start date" could be an estimate based on the assumed age of the lesions. The BBC today reports that "an investigation of the cuts on the mouths of the cows suggested that they were infected sometime between 18 and 22 July")

August 6 ~ "We need to know much, much more about Pirbright."

The journalist Jonathan Miller, much in justifiably pugnacious evidence in 2001: "... If the questions are being asked at all, they are not being answered in public. .... It seems clear there were warnings - ignored - of an inherently unsatisfactory biosecurity environment. There seem to me also some commercial questions to consider ..... What exactly are these relationships? All these contracts are doubtless marked "commercially confidential". They will not want us to know....." Read in full
And an email just arrived about the cuts in funding at Pirbright suggests that builders are - or were -working on the main laboratory complex. . One wonders if they too were asked to follow rules about showering and having no contact of any kind with susceptible animals for 3/5 days.
UPDATE: We have received the following from Dr Paul Sutmoller: "If I remember well, the last bio-security break at Plum Island, infecting cattle in the holding area outside the laboratory occurred during a period of major constructions going on at the main laboratory. Jack Hyde may be able to comment. Dr Paul Sutmoller, chair Animal Health Committee, ELA - European Livestock Association"

August 6 2007 ~ "The UBI peptide-based vaccine/diagnostic system will be particularly attractive to FMD-free countries for defensive serosurveillance and for contingency plans for emergency vaccination in the event of an outbreak."

Pirbright/Merial are not alone, of course, in producing vaccines. UBI's most advanced foot and mouth vaccine for pigs is described as having "clear-cut distinction of vaccinated from unvaccinated animals (VPI tests) and clear differentiation of vaccinated from convalescent animals". Moreover, they claim "absolute safety from biohazard risk, both during manufacture and use." (See UBI site) A similar vaccine for cattle is also under development.
Intervet too produces modern inactivated FMD vaccines for cattle, buffalo, pigs, sheep and goats. Their vaccines of sufficient potency start to generate the first degree of protection after 2-3 days. More information - and useful, simply-expressed technical explanation is available from various pages on the Intervet website.
We were concerned to hear that David Drew, Vice Chairman, no less, of the EFRA Select Committee was heard saying on Radio Gloucester that FMD vaccines "needed to be developed". Perhaps he was misreported but it hardly helps to give the impression that there are not already highly developed vaccines. Even those vaccines available in 2001 successfully eradicated in Uruguay an epidemic as extensive as our own when just vaccinating cattle alone led to the extinction of virus spread.
UBI says "This growing worldwide market for FMD vaccines gives our peptide-based product potential blockbuster status" . (The suspicion is inescapable that 'potential blockbuster status' may be so coveted by UK commercial hunger that postponing UK FMD vaccination - even at a time of crisis - seems preferable to making use of a rival product.)

August 6 2007 ~ Did they shower? Did they ignore 3 or 5 day ruling?

Within minutes of each other, two separate warmwell readers raise queries about the possibility that stringent security rules may have been ignored - or not enforced - at the Pirbright site. Email forum latest. "Surely, if it is dangerous for one of them to visit a farm within 5 days, wouldn't it also be dangerous to mingle with local farmers at a pub, or in a shop?...."

August 6 2007 ~ " the case for a humane, civilised and scientifically sound policy has strengthened over the past few years to the point where it is beginning to look unassailable"

Magnus Linklater has kindly sent warmwell his article written for today's Times. He looks back shudderingly to six years ago when the "farming establishment closed ranks against any suggestion that there might be a more humane approach." On the question of vaccination, many readers will share our reaction to this gem:
" I remember asking the government's chief scientist, Sir David King, to explain to me why it was not being considered. "I would need five hours to explain the science to you," he said. "Unfortunately I don't have that time." ...."
But, " Let us not go back there, however. The fact is that there has been, since then, a sea change in attitudes within the Department ....the realisation that the science on which so many of those decisions in 2001 were based, was less sound than we were told..
..Again, there is no point in going back into that debate. What is important now is to record how far science has advanced in the meantime. There are accepted tests which can distinguish between infected and vaccinated animals....We know, too, that FMD "carriers" do not infect other animals... "pen-side" tests .. allow a vet to carry out on-the-spot checks to determine whether a herd of cattle or a flock of sheep have been infected, rather than having to send samples back to a laboratory. Rapid diagnosis of this kind means that biosecurity measures can be imposed immediately rather having to wait for the results of tests.
... vaccination can begin within that area as soon as it is available ...
.... I cannot, hand on heart, say that the battle for the vaccine has been won. There are still those in Defra and elsewhere, who will argue for slaughter as the only effective response to this disease. But the case for a humane, civilised and scientifically sound policy has strengthened over the past few years to the point where it is beginning to look unassailable..." Read in full (or on Times website)

August 6 2007 ~ "Good that the Chair took soundings from different sectors. Less good was their reluctance to elucidate clearly the position re vaccination and on-site diagnostic testing..."

Comment from a first hand report to warmwell from a key stakeholder who takes part in the telephone conferencing that has been going on behind the scenes. He spoke of a "far greater degree of openness and transparency" and is relieved that a formally constituted Expert Group (as opposed to an informal coincidental meeting of acquaintances) has minuted meetings available for public scrutiny - "all in large part due to the campaigning efforts of people who are likely to be reading this, whether in the UK, Brussels or further afield.." He adds that questions do remain unanswered, for example
1. "Where it started (ok probably Merial) or when.
2. How far it has spread by wind, water, fomites, wildlife etc
3. Whether it was an accidental escape or other - if other, then where else?
4. Vaccine efficacy presently unknown - as this has come from a vaccine escape, precisely what will best work against it? If a vaccine is used will NSP testing still be possible? If a suitable match can be found, how much of it is there?"
He commented that we are heading towards the autumn at the end of a generally very wet summer - a bad time for the disease to strike. We may be in for a long haul; encouraging noises should be regarded with some scepticism - in 2001 everything was rosy until it wasn't... However, he felt that DEFRA was to be congratulated on their speedy and appropriate responses to date. "However, these may be early days...."

August 6 2007 ~ What is the difference between surveillance and protection zones

Emails from the public now include a question from a concerned and supportive dairy farmer in the US about the difference between surveillance and protection zones. We reply that DEFRA's definition is that a "Protection Zone extends for at least 3km around the infected premises and a Surveillance Zone extends for at least 10 km around the infected premises. Within the Protection Zone all premises containing livestock will be inspected by veterinary inspectors and will be subject to restrictions. This reduces the chance of potentially infected material leaving the premises until the disease status can be determined. Within the Surveillance Zone all premises containing livestock will be subject to movement restrictions."

August 6 2007 ~ 39 animals only found positive so far. Contiguous culling instead of buffer zone vaccination is taking place

At least 80 uninfected animals have been killed. The questions being asked everywhere - about vaccination and about why contiguous culling is already going on - do not seem to be getting clear answers. Why no buffer zone vaccination? The strain is known. Appropriate vaccine has - we assume - been produced at Merial since only the Pirbright site can be the source of the strain having escaped. Creating a buffer zone - as advised by David Holden and the Soil Association, for example (see also Peter Melchett in today's Guardian - seems the obvious and urgent thing to have done as soon as the strain was known. We are not hearing in the media any valid reasons for not doing so. Again and again we hear that emergency vaccination is being "considered". Brian Follett, interviewed on Saturday morning, said that the most important thing is "to do everything we can to stop it turning into a epidemic" and that knowing the strain was very important for a vaccination to live policy Many will be wondering why "everything we can" has not yet included vaccination since we now know only too well what the strain is.
In the Farming Today interview with Debby Reynolds this morning we heard the good news that there are no new cases reported at present. The main thrust of the programme was to report the denials by both Merial and IAH Pirbright that the virus could have escaped because of any breach of security. Hardly the most burning question for farmers, one would have thought. Choosing not to vaccinate is a gamble. The public ought to be being told the economic and trade reasons why - even this time - pre-emptive contiguous culling is happening. Test results - that have to travel to the lab instead of being done on-site - are looked at only after the cattle are dead. Vaccination followed by differential tests would avoid this. We would again appreciate informed comment.

August 6 2007 ~"It doesn't take a conspiracy theorist to note that terrorists of various sorts would be quick to try to take advantage of any faults or lapses in standards "

From a Leading Article in today's Independent "..... The investigations that Hilary Benn, the Secretary of State for Rural Affairs, has ordered into conditions at Pirbright and Merial will, we hope, establish whether the virus escaped from one or the other laboratory and if so, how. Possibly they will conclude that it was a freakish accident. But if they uncover lapses, the Government must act quickly to ensure that levels of biosecurity in these establishments are upgraded, and that uniform high standards are seen to prevail throughout the public and private sector. It doesn't take a conspiracy theorist to note that terrorists of various sorts would be quick to try to take advantage of any faults or lapses in standards in this field.
Updating these facilities may take extra investment from the Government as well as from the commercial sector. So be it.."

August 5 2007 ~ This strain shows clinical signs quickly

Latest information - not from DEFRA but from the NPA site again, following a conference call to "key stakeholders" by Hilary Benn . Extract: "01 BFS67-like virus is virulent. It has an incubation period of two to 14 days. So if any more animals are infected the clinical signs should show very soon after infection" and "Scotland has introduced a derogation allowing livestock keepers to bury fallen stock during the current crisis. NPA has urged Defra today to introduce a derogation where necessary in England......Ian Campbell told Hilary Benn today that fallen stock collection poses an unacceptable risk, but in this hot weather fallen stock will have to be disposed of quickly."

August 5 2007 ~ "Who is actually deciding what happens?"

An email from a worried reader who evidently remembers the 1967 outbreak asks the pertinent question; "Who is actually deciding what happens?" and is confused by what seem to be conflicting media reports about vaccination and who decides. Our tentative answer can be seen here- but we welcome further informed comment.

August 5 2007 ~ New on DEFRA

There is now an amended Declaration and new amoeba-shaped map with its second nucleus to take in Pirbright - "making a new Protection Zone and extending the Surveillance Zone. The previous declaration (made at 22.00 last night) also remains in force." A news release tells us that at Woolfords farm the killing was completed yesterday. 38 of the unfortunate cattle are described as infected, and of the cattle killed on the 2 additional sites of Woolfords Farm, one gave a positive result. The release gives news of the other animals we reported yesterday as having been killed as 'dangerous contacts'
The language of the Declaration seems unfortunate - something we have mentioned before. Instead of offering clarity and support, the tone is officious: "Failure to comply with this Declaration may be an offence under section 72 or 73 of the Animal Health Act 1981". As many of us are all too aware, sections 72 and 73 of the revised Animal Health Act threaten " imprisonment for any term not exceeding 2 months" for failure to cooperate with any one deemed by DEFRA to be an "official". Rather grim. We shall be shortly posting up what you are now compelled to do if the worst happens on your farm.

August 5 2007 ~ "Competence means more than ministerial dashes and urgent meetings..lessons also include being ready to vaccinate"

A leading article in the Sunday Times: "The inquiry that followed the 2001 outbreak, chaired by Dr Iain Anderson, catalogued the government's lack of preparedness and eventual panic. Those lessons include some of the measures that have already been taken: an immediate restriction on animal movements and the closure of events where the disease could be passed on. They also include being ready to vaccinate to prevent the spread of the disease, whatever the residual objections from the farm lobby.
Farming is a tiny part of Britain's economy, just 1%. We should nurture our farmers ..."

August 5 2007 ~ Confusion about the virus strain

A strain called "O1/BFS 1860/UK/67" - which appears to be an amalgam of the two names we have heard from The DEFRA site and the IAH site that links to it - appears on this 2005 Molecular Epidemiology Report Form from Pirbright. Is this then the strain of the virus that caused the 1967 outbreak in the UK? Or is it that the 67 virus is used for comparison? Can anyone enlighten us?
UPDATE: The FMD virus which caused the 1967-8 outbreak in the UK was designated FMDV-O1 BFS 1860/UK/67; its detailed sequencing data and references are available in the table "Foot-and-Mouth Disease Virus O" at IAH's website www.iah.bbsrc.ac.uk

August 5 2007 ~ "What is the function of a World Reference Laboratory... if not to advance the detection of virus infection and management of FMD epidemics?"

. The closeness - in all senses of the word - between Merial and Pirbright has suddenly been thrust into the light of day. In her Submission to the Royal Society of Edinburgh FMD EnquiryDr Ruth Watkins said, " Though funding may have delimited the equipment at Pirbright, the failure to modernise is likely to arise from the outlook in the laboratory- Pirbright has an unchallenged monopoly on FMD work in both research and diagnosis in Britain.....The normal role of a reference laboratory is to provide control materials and facilitate the setting up of routine screening and diagnostic tests in other laboratories..another important role is the validation of diagnostic tests including commercial tests and publishing the results with the collaboration of the commercial companies.
Pirbright has confined itself to in-house tests, producing the materials and developing its own protocols. It has refused to undertake validation of commercial FMD tests ..... There is no other laboratory in Britain that is allowed or could undertake to validate FMD tests.."
If Pirbright - once a public service laboratory - has been forced by its financial strait-jacket into throwing in its commercial lot with Merial this raises questions about unfair competition and the suppression of other technologies and products that could be of enormous value in UK disease control. We should welcome comments.

August 5 2007 ~ Pirbright: "... limited use of the strain at the Institute in recent weeks."

At a press conference IAH director Martin Shirley said that "...there had also been limited use of the strain at the institute in recent weeks." (BBC)
A correspondent notes that IAH conducted an experiment in 2003 where the O1 BFS 1860 strain was inoculated into 4 Standard Compton steers. This strain, he points out, is that identified by the IAH as the exact strain responsible for the Surrey outbreak.
After giving the reference for the experiment he asks, "Could this kind of experimentation be classified as "limited use"? He adds, "Unfortunately this kind of question hasn't been asked yet.."

August 5 2007 ~ Accidents Happen - Security Breaches at Biocontainment Facilities

There have been documented instances of escaping dangerous pathogens in the past few years. One remembers too the May 2001 prosecution of Imperial College (home of Prof. Roy Anderson) for its lapses in safety precautions while dealing with a modified Hepatitis C virus. Even the most "secure" biocontainment may not be as secure as all that. It is easy for complacency to creep in - and when funding is cut by those who do not understand the risks, people of lesser calibre have to be promoted to responsible positions. Low morale and sloppy procedures can easily be the result. How ironic then that, when in 2001 Dr Colin Fink offered his molecular diagnostic systems to help relieve pressure on government labs, DEFRA and the VLA refused to supply his team with the non-infectious FMD material needed to calibrate his assay. The excuse was that FMD was a Category 4 organism and therefore only to handled in absolutely bio-secure facilities. . In fact, as Dr Fink points out in a recent letter to warmwell, he did not need any infectious virus. "...this was nonsense. Once the RNA is extracted the organism has no infectious risk....The confusion was because of out-moded thinking aligning a risk in growing up organisms within the laboratory with that wrongly perceived to be similar in molecular diagnostics..."
It was a lost opportunity for rapid diagnosis during the outbreak - and the irony of yesterday's news will not have escaped those whose who felt such frustration at the time.

August 5 2007 ~ Humane slaughter?

In 2001 there were scenes of slaughter that made the farmer's grief - already terrible in many cases - far worse. Incidences of chaos and stress during the gathering, penning, and slaughter of animals are disturbing. There was 'barbaric conduct [which] was a disgrace to humanity', as one of the EU inquiries has been told (Carnage by Computer: The Blackboard Economics of the 2001 foot and mouth epidemic by Professors David Campbell and Robert Lee)
That was then; this is now - but the Hendersons in Brecon are not the only people to have wondered about the slaughter of the 64 cattle at Woolford Farm. "....as far as I can work it out, that they could have been killed is to be shot at by people standing outside the pen....surely that does not constitute humane slaughter?"
The public is right to be concerned and want to be reassured that the Terrestrial Animal Health Code - 2006 guidelines (Appendix 3.7.6. Guidelines for the killing of animals for disease control purposes) really are are being followed to the letter.

August 5 2007 ~ Lawrence Wright notices an anomaly

A West country sheepfarmer makes a startling point - and one that we had noticed only subconsciously. See emails sent to warmwell.

August 5 2007 ~ Deer do not obey movement bans - and roe deer move between Pirbright and local farms.

"Roe deer occur widely on Surrey's commons, and were even recorded on quite small sites in relatively built-up areas": (DEFRA funded wildlife project pdf) . The A31, inside the 3km exclusion zone, had to be disinfected yesterday because a deer was hit by a car. Woolford farm is separated from Pirbright by an arable farm, a wood and a golf course. It does not take much imagination to predict that any escape of the O1 BFS 1860 virus from IAH Pirbright or the Merial laboratory could now be infecting these deer.
In their paper "Foot-and-Mouth Disease in Deer: implications for the policy of control and eradication of the disease" Paul Sutmoller and Paul Gibbs suggest that if deer are infected then
" all livestock in the area should be vaccinated or re-vaccinated, preferably within three months to obtain an optimum population immunity. Re-population of the area with vaccinated livestock does not need to wait for the infection to peter out in deer. d) The official opinion that FMD infected roe deer constitute a low risk, because sick animals hide and probably die, is not valid. Like cattle or sheep, susceptible deer are very infectious prior to the development of lesions while they still actively move and graze. Also deer with sub-clinical or minor lesions will still roam around."
In considering their next move it is to be hoped that the relevant authorites are aware of such expert advice. This paper too, written for warmwell during the last outbreak by a scientist who soon afterwards rose to a high position in the FAO, should be essential reading for those who want to know the real facts about vaccination and transmission of virus.

August 4 2007 10.26 p.m. ~ It is a vaccine strain 01 BFS 67 (Correction:it is in fact O1 BFS 1860) - one that was being used at Pirbright in July

Professor Hugh Pennington interviewed on BBC News 24 gives as his opinion that the source virus is identical to that in vaccine work being done at Pirbright and very possibly excaped from there. The latest statement by DEFRA :
"The FMD strain found in Surrey is not one currently known to be recently found in animals. It is most similar to strains used in international diagnostic laboratories and in vaccine production, including at the Pirbright site shared by the Institute of Animal Health (IAH) and Merial Animal Health Ltd, a pharmaceutical company. The present indications are that this strain is a 01 BFS67 - like virus, isolated in the 1967 Foot and Mouth Disease outbreak in Great Britain.
This strain is present at the IAH and was used in a batch manufactured in July 2007 by the Merial facility. On a precautionary basis Merial has agreed to voluntarily halt vaccine production.
In response to this new information Debby Reynolds, Chief Veterinary Officer has instructed that a new single Protection Zone be created encompassing both the infected farm premises and the Pirbright site, with a single 10km radius Surveillance Zone. ..." DEFRA site
This does rather appear to want to point the finger at Merial (see below) rather than the Government Laboratory at Pirbright as the source of the leak. ( We can only hope that this extraordinary news may allow farmers further afield to breathe a little more easily - but this is little comfort for those directly affected by what looks like an embarrassing lapse of security.)

August 4 2007 9.45 p.m. ~ "no plans for contiguous culling at present but any dangerous contacts will be dealt with robustly". Pigs, sheep and goats on an adjacent smallholding have been slaughtered as "dangerous contacts"

There is still no more news on the DEFRA site. However, NPA's Digby Scott on the news page of the NPA website: ".....NPA, BPEX and Defra will be helping me communicate all the available news that might be of use to the pig sector.
"....The infection in the beef herd at the centre of the alert is almost certainly recent. The last movement onto the farm was in early July and the last movement off was on July 10 when two animals went for slaughter....Pigs may be implicated. Next to the farm - divided only by a barbed wire fence - is a smallholding with sheep, goats and pigs. These animals have been killed as dangerous contacts...Defra is keen to free up movement when it is sensible. If no further infection is found it is possible some movements under licence will be allowed from Tuesday or Wednesday...
..There are no plans for contiguous culling at present but any dangerous contacts will be dealt with robustly."
(While we are grateful for this to the NPA, who are evidently privy to DEFRA's latest news, we do feel concern for the smallholders and others who appear to have no official source of information at this nerve-racking time. We now know that there was no FMD found on these "dangerous contact" animals on the smallholding and they were killed purely as a "precaution". Whether this was necessary or not is perhaps a matter of opinion.)

August 4 2007 9.20 p.m. ~ Intervet UK: " If requested, we will provide the government with any necessary assistance to bring the outbreak under control."

A link provided by FMD News - a service provided by the FMD Surveillance and Modeling Laboratory, University of California at Davis is this from United Business Media.
Jim Hungerford, General Manager at Intervet UK, comments on the foot and mouth outbreak in Surrey: "We support the government's rapid response and hope that this prompt action will quickly quell the current outbreak. Defra has acted swiftly in identifying the disease and establishing the required restrictions, which will help to prevent any further spread of the virus. If requested, we will provide the government with any necessary assistance to bring the outbreak under control... we believe vaccination should be used if the outbreak develops further."
(It may be remembered that Jim Henderson very kindly answered warmwell's questions about bird flu vaccines a short while ago.)

August 4 2007 (5.50 pm) ~ " I must say, interviewing the chief vet I had a distinct sense of deja vu.." - Snowmail

" In 2001, they all started off telling us it was too soon to vaccinate. Then after a few days they told us it was too late. They claim the same won't happen again..." Krishnan Guru-Murthy Channel 4
The DEFRA foot and mouth page is disappointingly short of news today when so many people across the country are anxious for information about possible vaccination and answers to questions such as those below. We understand that rumours are rife that the infected cows may have come from Cumbria - and that disinfectant supplies have been sold out in Penrith - and it is precisely for such reasons that hard news should be being shared as soon as it is available.

August 4 2007 (4.50 pm) ~ Debby Reynolds has confirmed that the biosecurity arrangements at the Pirbright Laboratory are being investigated as a possible source of the foot-and-mouth disease outbreak.

A relief that it was no less a person than the CVO who mentioned this possibility.
The Farmers Guardian: "...At a Defra briefing at 3.15pm today (Saturday), Mrs Reynolds said it was too early to favour any hypothesis of where the disease might have come from over another. But she said: "Pirbright has been asked to review its biosecurity arrangements."
(Not mentioned by the FG is the fact that Merial, the pharmaceutical company whose research work into FMD etc also requires biocontainment facilities, is very close.)

August 4 2007 ~ " We are really hoping that supermarkets make sure that their buyers and supplier processors act more responsibly this time...

This is truly not a time for exploitation." An email from a sheep farmer - far from optimistic. Comments welcome.

August 4 2007 ~ The UK's refusal to use vaccination for FMD has been on economic rather than on scientific or veterinary grounds.

That vaccination and rapid on-site diagnosis works so effectively was proved in Uruguay in 2001 where an outbreak as extensive as in the UK was - without massive stamping-out - quickly brought under control. But the OIE's International Animal Health Code, adopted by the WTO as the basis for protectionism under the guise of disease control, gives countries without FMD and choosing not to vaccinate - i.e.European and North American farmers - a huge trading advantage over poorer countries. A historic reluctance in the UK to vaccinate animals against FMD was thus solidified.( page 15 of "The Foot and Mouth Outbreak 2001:Lessons Not Learned pdf by - Professor David Campbell and Professor Bob Lee explains this clearly.) The decision in 2001 to hold fast to this led to the immense costs of the mass killing policy and the knock-on effects that it entailed - all in order to protect meat exports. It is interesting then that Bernard Vallat, Director General of the OIE, has now come out so strongly in favour of vaccination.

August 4 2007 ~ EU Directive "It may be decided to introduce emergency vaccination where at least one of the following conditions applies"

The latest EU Directive specifies that vaccination is to be used as front-line tool against the disease. The language of the Directive, in the manner of these things, is hardly comprehensible. However, it is worth looking again at Annex X of the "EU COUNCIL DIRECTIVE 2003/85/EC of 29 September 2003 on Community measures for the control of foot-and-mouth disease (repealing Directive 85/511/EEC and Decisions 89/531/EEC and 91/665/EEC and amending Directive 92/46/EEC )" where, for once, the table set out is simple and clear enough for anyone in DEFRA to understand.
Where "Public reaction to total stamping out policy" is "strong", the Directive advises vaccination.

August 4 2007 3.40 pm ~ More quotes "We would not stand in any way to object to vaccination.."

Peter Kendall, president of NFU : "Certainly as an industry we would not stand in any way to object to vaccination if the scientists deem it the right way of moving forward." (Today Programme)
Chris Huhne( Liberal Democrat environment spokesman): "The Government deserves congratulation for learning the lessons of its shambolic response to the devastating 2001 crisis by stopping all animal movements and preparing for vaccination of surrounding herds as soon as the virus is identified. A clear lesson of the last outbreak was the need for speedy vaccination, so the isolation of the virus and a potential matching with banks of vaccine will be key."
Philip Lymbery, Compassion In World Farming's Chief Executive, " The Government must consider emergency vaccination of animals in affected areas to help control the disease and prevent healthy animals being slaughtered needlessly" (CIWF)
Jackie Ballard : "Everything must be done to make sure we do not see a return to the appalling mass slaughter of farm animals that occurred during the last outbreak. There was widespread public revulsion at the funeral pyres and mass killing, and animal welfare seemed to be the lowest priority for the authorities. That must not be allowed to happen again." (See The Argus)
Bernard Vallat, Director General of the OIE :"....profitability should not be a priority when vaccination policies are established. Vaccination, when available, is undoubtedly the most cost-effective means of preventing and controlling, and even eradicating, infectious diseases. .... Unfortunately, there are several barriers to the development of new vaccines: economic barriers such as ... regulatory hurdles due the stringent and non-harmonised regulations in place for vaccine registration .." (below)

August 4 2007 4.00 pm ~ EU member countries have imposed a ban on animals and animal products imported from the UK.

There is an automatically imposed ban on exports within the European Union following the discovery of FMD. In a statement, the European Commission said it would adopt an emergency decision on Monday "concerning restrictions on the movement of animals and the dispatch of products from the U.K." EU veterinary experts will meet next Wednesday to evaluate the UK foot and mouth outbreak.
The Farmers Guardian reports that Eblex head of marketing Andrew Garvey said that shipments on this side of the Channel had been recalled, but the situation was less clear for those already in transit across the water.
"It depends on the recipient country. Some may return the shipment, others may accept it," said Mr Garvey, who added there had also been live animal shipments in the past few weeks of calves and sheep and that these were now being traced to their destination country. "The action to be taken on these is not clear at the current time." The ban on exports will last for a minimum of three months from the time the UK is declared free of the disease, although Mr Garvey said it was possible that, if the outbreak at Wanborough, Surrey, proved to be an isolated incident, that the ban may be treated regionally, as had happened with the classical swine fever outbreak in 2000."

August 4 (2.20 p.m.) ~ The FMD infected carcases will be travelling to Somerset - even though there are incineration plants nearer to Guildford.

The Farmers Guardian was told on this morning that culled animals were due to be shipped to Wessex Incinerators in Frome, despite the fact there were incineration plants nearer to the Guildford Farm.
"Somerset NFU Council delegate Derek Mead said he had also heard the rumour and that it was an 'absolute disgrace' if the diseased carcases were going to be travelling across the country.' "Is Defra trying to spread the disease?," he asked. Wessex incinerators refused to confirm or deny the claim."

August 4 2007 (2.15 pm) ~ 3,000 sheep are stranded at Thame Auction Mart - precisely where the rapid on-site diagnostic kit would be so invaluable.

There are, inevitably, animals stranded at shows. All the same, executive secretary of the Livestock Auctioneers Association, Chris Dodds, has praised DEFRA's rapid response compared to last time. The Farmers Guardian: "3,000 sheep are stranded at Thame Auction Mart ... ... vets were starting to inspect the sheep this morning, ready for them to be moved off the site...." But, as we remember from last time, clinical examination is useless in most cases with sheep.
This is, as we have been trying to point out for six years now, precisely where the rapid on-site diagnostic kit would be so invaluable.
A number of shows around the country have also been caught up in the movement ban, with showing animals which arrived last night now being held for inspection. Perth Show has some Charolais cattle on site
Garstang Show, Lancashire also has beef animals being held for inspection.
Dumfries and Turriff shows are both going ahead but without ruminants or pigs.
Cockermouth and District Show, due to have been held today, has been cancelled.
Brecon Show had some sheep and cattle on site, but these have now been cleared and removed from the site.
Tockwith Show, which had moved to the Great Yorkshire Showground at Harrogate, was due to have sheep and goats present.
For stock being held for inspection, a movement licence must be issued before the stock can be removed, and the animals must then be returned to their holding and placed in quarantine." See Farmers Guardian

August 4 2007 (1.15pm) ~ "The 1.7 million tonnes of waste food that before 2001 was being recycled by swill feeders was diverted to landfill..."

Robert Persey wonders, "....Has this disease outbreak come from a landfill site or from one of the meat composting sites that the State Veterinary Service is supposed to be monitoring? The Government is diverting large amounts of category three meat into composting sites even though the risk assessment it commissioned identified that there was a risk of disease escaping from these sites. ..."

August 4 2007 (1.15pm) ~ "Once the strain has been identified, experts will check to see whether relevant vaccines are available in the British or European vaccine banks."Guardian

Some quotations today:
".....Peter Ainsworth, the shadow Secretary of State for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs: "It is essential the Gov-ernment acts quickly to contain this and considers all possible options, including vaccination." ..." Belfast Telegraph
Sir Menzies Campbell: "Alternatives, like vaccination, to the terrible pyres of smoke which stained the countryside last time must be actively explored, but in the end the government will have to follow the best scientific advice." BBC
Neil Parish MEP: "....Defra needs to be sure that the farmers in the area do know what's happening ..." BBC
Debby Reynolds CVO: "our response to this disease is in animal health terms, it's in farming terms..." BBC
Peter Kindersley: "Obviously we believe very strongly in vaccination. Individual farms should have the right to decide what measures to take after assessing the situation on the ground. The Government took control of the situation last time and created an absolute disaster. ...Foot-and-mouth isn't necessarily the disaster it's made out ot be - most animals recover. The Government wants to 'stamp it out' because once the last animal is slaughtered, international trade can resume. With vaccination, there's a six month delay....It's mainly spread by people who trade animals up and down the country." Newbury Today

August 4 2007 (12 .15 am) ~ Slightly revised email from CA Coordination Action

Our bare summary of the MAIN POINTS: - (but see email)
• Shouldn't Defra have a targetted alert system in place?
• Identification of the origin and of the index case, and investigation of spread urgent and vital - all the possibilities must be considered and drive the surveillance strategy.
• Can we have more details of who saw the first symptoms, when and why - routine inspection or suspicion? How old were the blisters on the sick cows?
• Farmers are being asked to inspect their animals for signs of infection. To what extent, if any, are animals being tested for virus? Can we have more details of how, when and where such testing will be taking place?
• Why are we still waiting for implementation of rapid diagnostic capability?
• Vaccination: Preparation must begin as soon as the strain has been identified. This preparation must be done even if evidence later emerges that it will not be necessary.
Read in full

August 4 2007 (10.30 am) ~ "Farmers are being asked to inspect their animals for signs of infection. To what extent, if any, are animals being tested for virus?"

CSF/FMD Coordination Action email just sent to warmwell. While remaining largely positive about DEFRA's initial actions, the email does raise important points and should be read in full
".....These issues have been discussed since 2001. Why are we still waiting for implementation of rapid diagnostic capability? See "Diagnostic testing options", paragraphs 12, 13 and 14 in the report of the 6th Meeting of the UK FMD Expert Group, 2 November 2006 at http://www.defra.gov.uk/animalh/diseases/fmd/pdf/fmd-expertgrp021106.pdf..".....
(While the CA website is down comments about anything posted on our holding page for them are invited - either here at warmwell or with a request that they be forwarded to the CA site.)

August 4 2007 (10.00 am) ~ Ring Vaccination and on-site diagnosis.

Given the present policy, DEFRA's actions have been efficient.
The movement history of this beef-fattening unit in the past weeks (it sends its finished stock direct to the abattoir) is not known and finding out from the records of auctions and dealers will be a priority. If it turns out that this is not, (as has occurred to many), a highly localised case of virus escape and if the virus is on the move, even the swiftly imposed animal movement bans cannot be wholly effective.
On-site rapid diagnostic testing - even with Pirbright's laboratory just up the road - would have been faster than yesterday's long wait and over optimistic assumptions. Old fashioned methods of testing are laborious and keep waiting in an agony of suspense people whose farms are around the index case - but these farms are being tested and not summarily slaughtered out. Movement bans have been swiftly imposed (as long as farmers were listening to the news) - but they do not, unfortunately, stop the movement of those roaming animals not specified - including humans. Immediate ring vaccination would be effective now, right from the start. The exact strain needs to be known of course but one hopes that preparations for ring vaccination are well under way. It would be heartbreaking to see any repetition of the mistakes of the past: ignorance of the veterinary science and available technology, lack of efficient communication with people on the ground, bureaucratic bullying by impertinent officialdom. However, we are assured that lessons have been learned, and we hope to be able to report on a swift ending to this crisis..

August 3/4 2007 ~ "Number 10 insisted contingency plans being put into place were based on lessons learnt from the 2001 outbreak..."

The Telegraph report on the present outbreak recalls the horrors of 2001, mentioning the 10 million animals killed and saying, "The aftermath of the 2001 outbreak led to huge recriminations over how the outbreak was handled, with some experts arguing for vaccination of stock to prevent the disease's spread as opposed to large-scale culling." but that in 2001 " the Government attempted to tackle it with a contiguous cull, which led to the deaths of millions of healthy animals."
We are pleased of course to hear that Number 10 insists that lessons were learnt from 2001. It would be both helpful and reassuring if DEFRA could spell out to people who fear a repeat of the nightmarish scenes of 2001 what exactly they are doing differently from 2001. For example
• How is the presence of the virus in Surrey being investigated? ( Pirbright is less than 20 kilometres from Elstead and comes under the 10 km surveillance zone)
• Does the UK now have more effective border security - an intrinsically governmental responsibility that farmers and those impacted by FMD cannot do themselves?
• Is DEFRA better positioned in terms of disease surveillance, reporting and response than it was in 2001?
• Does DEFRA have bovine and porcine vaccines for this subtype of FMD virus in its stockpile sufficient for 1 million animals?
• How well is the emergency response working compared to 2001? Are infected animals being killed and disposed of quickly and humanely?
• Have DEFRA communications improved? Will people with the requisite knowledge be available to communicate clearly and simply to those who need to know - for example - details of the emergency regulations?
• Will the independent FMD Expert Group be effective ?
( We note that a General Licence [PDF] (20 KB) has been issued to allow the movement of cows along a public highway for milking purposes - "this licence allows movements of cows along a public highway from one part of a premises to another part of the same premises, for the purposes of milking only.")

August 3 2007 ~ FMD confirmed in Surrey

In spite of David Paton's hopeful words below, it now emerges that FMD has indeed been found in the cows in Elstead. This news is grim. DEFRA says
"......In accordance with the legislation and contingency planning arrangements all the cattle on the premises will be culled. A Protection Zone of three kilometres radius and a Surveillance Zone of 10 kilometres has been placed around the premises, and a GB wide national movement ban of all ruminants and pigs has been imposed.
Nationally no animal movements are allowed except under licence, controls are in place on movement of animal carcasses, animal gatherings, shearing and dipping are restricted, and all farms must increase levels of biosecurity. In both the Protection and Surveillance Zones, there will be requirements for increased levels of biosecurity on farms, movement controls, controls on transportation of dung/manure and treatment of animal products to ensure destruction of the FMD virus.
The farm itself has been under restrictions since late on Thursday evening when symptoms were reported to the local Animal Health office. A 1km temporary restriction zone was placed around the premises earlier today whilst investigations and testing were completed, in line with domestic and EU legislation.
The European Commission has been informed."
The BBC now reports "Gordon Brown has taken part by telephone in a Cobra meeting, involving top staff at the Cabinet Office. He is returning to London on Saturday from his holiday in Dorset and Environment Secretary Hilary Benn is to break off from his vacation in Italy...."

August 3 2007 ~ Undiagnosed bovine vesicular disease in Surrey. Update "The lesions are in their mouth and this could just be something they have eaten"

According to the Surrey Advertiser (many thanks to Pat Gardner for this link) the farm in Surrey being checked for FMD and other diseases is in Elstead. David Paton of Pirbright is quoted as saying that the three cows from the unknown farm are showing symptoms that, although "somewhat suggestive" of FMD, are not likely to be foot and mouth. " ..... but they would not be the most suggestive. At this stage it's hopefully about ruling it [foot and mouth] out," he said. "The lesions are in their mouth and this could just be something they have eaten." Pirbright gets about six false alarms for FMD a year - but we await further news. (During foot and mouth in 2001, it will be remembered some unfortunate animals were diagnosed with FMD when they had merely eaten thistles and never got the benefit of a Pirbright test - so, in this case, we hope for the best.)

August 3 2007 ~ Undiagnosed bovine vesicular disease in Surrey. "No timescale for results" Could this be bluetongue?

(We can only hope it is not foot and mouth.) A 1km movement standstill zone of all ruminants has been imposed following a suspect case of vesicular disease in cattle in n only hope it is not foot and mouth.) A 1km movement standstill zone of all ruminants has been imposed following a suspect case of vesicular disease in cattle in Surrey. The DEFRA site says little more than that "samples have been submitted to the laboratory for testing " and "At the present time there is no timescale for results."
As a moderator points out in today's ProMed posting about this, "the differential diagnosis of a vesicular disease in cattle in the UK should include, in addition to foot and mouth disease (FMD), several other viral diseases such as bluetongue, vesicular stomatitis, bovine papular stomatitis, bovine virus diarrhoea/mucosal disease, malignant catarrhal fever and rinderpest. If -- hopefully -- FMD is excluded, bluetongue virus serotype 8 becomes a main suspect"

August 3 2007 ~ FMD vaccine "could be commercially viable and remove some of the hurdles in advance of any outbreak"

It is encouraging to see such news from America and to think that the US may at last be contemplating pre-emptive vaccination instead of pre-emptive slaughter. In February, the US the Department of Homeland Security signed a three-year, potential 15 million dollar contract with the pharmaceutical company GenVec to support the development and manufacture of an improved foot and mouth vaccine. Details of this can be found at Gazette.net (for which link many thanks to FMD News - a service provided by the FMD Surveillance and Modeling Laboratory, University of California at Davis ) However, it is still distressing to see in articles such as this the often repeated nonsense that the UK outbreak in 2001 "necessitated the slaughter of about 4 million animals".
As we know, the outbreak necessitated no such thing - but at least 10 million animals were slaughtered as a result of the UK's mass culling policies, policies that were based on political and economic rather than veterinary or science-based reasons. ( At this very time, Uruguay was successfully eradicating FMD with vaccines administered by its own farmers, in an outbreak of very similar proportions.)
The UK Government has never acknowledged its tragic errors. It has been left to experts such as Dr Mike Thrusfield to point out, in relation to Dumfries and Galloway, "No evidence of infection was found on any pre-emptively contiguously culled premises" Indeed, in the entire country, fewer than 1500 of 2030 so-called infected premises (IPs) were confirmed as being infected on laboratory results - as this letter in the Vet Record last August by Adrian Wingfield, Hugh Miller, and Nick Honhold explained with such authority. (Their own papers are referred to in the pdf version of the letter) Luckily, some journalists are better informed than others - the Scotsman's Fordyce Maxwell, for example. Last October he wrote,
"....much research into data accumulated in 2001 has been published, including the work of Dr Michael Thrusfield at Edinburgh University and Dr Paul Kitching at the National Centre for Foreign Animal Diseases in Canada. Their work confirms that the 2001 epidemic was handled in an impractical, unscientific and inhumane way. In the words of the late Professor Fred Brown, it was "a disgrace to humanity".
Until this is properly acknowledged there seems a very real danger that it could happen again. Slaughter as a political quick fix for animal disease is still very much in evidence - and unfortunately retrospective legitimacy given by the Animal Health Act of 2002 to the wider culling policies of 2001 have given even more power to central government.
One can only hope that if the US does go for vaccination as a preventative measure the UK will at last opt for protecting animals instead of protectionism.

August 1 2007 ~ £11.5M of new research. More money. More scientific research. More progress?

A year ago, the The Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) sought proposals for "innovative multidisciplinary research that would exploit recent scientific developments" to investigate animal disease. Details of all the projects funded by the new initiative, Combating Endemic Diseases of Farmed Animals for Sustainability (CEDFAS) are available in this pdf file.
".....The initiative will improve the sustainability of UK farming by ultimately reducing the cost of treating diseases and the loss of affected livestock." pdf file
Diseases to be researched include bovine TB - which is
"estimated to cost the UK economy £31M.
The reasons for the inexorable rise in bTB are complex. One possibility is that new forms of Mycobacterium bovis (M. bovis), the bacterium that causes bTB, have evolved in the UK that are able to thwart current control measures.
Researchers at the Veterinary Laboratories Agency (VLA) and the Institute for Animal Health (IAH) will be investigating M. bovis using genomic technologies to determine whether these new strains are able to manipulate the bovine immune response to their advantage and hence be more successful bovine pathogens.
Scientists at the Roslin Institute and Queen's University Belfast will be using novel approaches to identify cattle with increased bTB resistance. DNA will be collected from 1000 bTB cases and controls, and genotyped for 50,000 gene variants"

July 28-31 2007 ~ Flood losses for farmers and landowners in affected areas could be worse than in the foot and mouth epidemic

Telegraph ".. because there is no automatic right to compensation. Some farmers will have lost every crop they have.
Livestock farmers will not have been able to make forage for the winter, not just because they can't get on the field, but also because hay must dry and even silage must be allowed to wilt or it will spoil. Silage without dry matter is no good for stock.
Some farmers' winter feed will have been flooded or contaminated by filthy water. A few will have nowhere for their cows or sheep to graze and will have to rent land or, at worst, sell their animals immediately for slaughter...."
One of the more sensible reader comments below Charles Clover's article ; "The security of both our agriculture and home grown food as well as imported supplies seem very low indeed on the political agenda of the three major parties. Is it not time for a serious risk assessment to be commissioned as to the security of food supplies to our town and cities?"

July 28- 31 2007 ~ Germany opts to request derogation from the EU's BSE slaughter regulations

The EU rule by which the UK tried to kill the pet cow Harriet - even after it had been pointed out that flexibility was allowed - is the subject of this paragraph from the EU's Summary Record of the Standing Committee on the Food Chain and Animal Health, held in Brussels on June 19. (See pdf file) All the Member States were present, except Malta. We read:
7. Exchange of views of the Committee on a draft Commission Decision regarding a derogation of BSE eradication measures following confirmation of the presence of a TSE in certain Member States (Legal basis: Regulation (EC) No 999/2001) (SANCO/1703/2007). Based on a favourable risk assessment taking particularly into account the control measures in Germany, this proposal provides Germany with a derogation allowing the use of at risk bovine animals until the end of their productive lives, and therefore, by way of derogation from general provisions, to defer their immediate killing and complete destruction. The Commission would like to be informed whether other Member States would also request such derogation. If the inter-services consultation can be concluded, this proposal will be presented for a vote at the SCFCAH meeting on 18 July 2007.
Will ".. other Member States also request such derogation"? It will be remembered that Harriet's post mortem showed no sign of BSE. Indeed, the whole sorry business served no useful purpose at all and cost the country a great deal in wasted money and man power. It will be interesting to see whether the UK follows Germany's example.

July 28- 31 2007 ~ Not a single one of the 1543 nasal mucosal samples .... including those from the 32 reactors found to have lung lesions - proved positive for m.bovis - but this is not mentioned in the ISG report.

See bovinetb blogspot latest about DEFRA's 2000 'Pathman project' into 'Pathogenisis and diagnosis of tuberculosis in cattle - complementary field studies' - i.e. to see whether bTB is passed from cattle to cattle via the respiratory tract. The editor comments: ".....Considering the amount of emphasis placed on cattle to cattle transmission by the ISG, it is interesting to note that in the Pathman project, not a single one of the 1543 nasal mucosal samples of which 1006 proved clear of contamination - including those from the 32 reactors found to have lung lesions - proved positive for m.bovis, a point missed by the ISG when describing the project in their final report. How could John Bourne have missed that, one might ask? It was mentioned at least four times (4.6) (3.6)the executive summary and the conclusion.
"M.bovis was not detected by bacterial culture in any of the nasal mucus samples." and
"The results suggest that large concentrations of M.bovis are not present in the nasal passages, and the shedding of M.bovis, if it occurs, is rare in naturally infected GB cattle."
The editor further tells us that R.M.Q.Sainsbury and Dr. John Gallagher point out in this week's Veterinary Record that the final report of the ISG "used data somewhat inconsistent with those in the recently published 'Pathogenisis and diagnosis of tuberculosis in cattle - complementary field studies' "
"In total over 1500 nasal mucus samples were taken in order to ascertain whether tuberculosis (bTB) was passed from cattle to cattle via the respiratory tract. Micobacterium bovis was not isolated from any of these samples despite lesions being found in the lungs of 32 of the cattle . ..."...."
The bovineTB posting concludes " after £2.8 million, Professor Bourne missed the histology conclusion on those mucus samples completely. They were all negative. Every one. ....surely the negative-for-onward-transmission results of every mucosal sample taken, deserves a higher profile?"
We agree that it certainly does. Again, we should be grateful for informed comment.

July 26 2007 ~ ARC Addington Fund are trying to get water to livestock farmers

ARC Addington are putting pressure on Severn Trent Water to get water to livestock farmers devastated by the flooding and who are without water. Contact details below. Anyone knowing a farmer without water should give them these details - (ARC Addington also have small personal hardship funds for arable farmers whose crops have been lost) Contact Ian Bell, Fund Director
ARC-Addington Fund
The Red Stable Block
Stoneleigh Park
Warwickshire
CV8 2LZ
Tel: 02476 690587 or Mobile: 07909 538426
Since no compensation from the Government seems likely, the help offered by ARC Addington is vitally important - and very much appreciated.

July26 2007 ~ No compensation for farmers devastated by floods

David Fursdon, president of the Country Land and Business Association, who accused the Environment Agency of failing to prioritise flood protection and accused it of not being strong enough to ask for adequate funding from Government for flood defence ( see Telegraph) has appeared on BBC News 24 this morning to explain that farmers are not to be compensated for the widespread losses they are suffering.

July 20 2007 ~ "scientists at the labs are also working on a new test for viruses, such as rabies, bird flu and foot and mouth disease, which could cut the time taken to confirm an outbreak from up to ten days to only a few hours..."

So says this news release from the York Press Once again we are left wondering why the wheel has to be reinvented in this country when the Rapid or the SmartCycler, for example, are already being used in other parts of the world. As we saw last year in this letter from Roger Breeze to Dr James Irvine and to warmwell:
"....A RAPID PCR machine (www.idahotech.com) costs about £40,000 and the tests for exotic diseases like foot and mouth, classical swine fever, avian influenza, and Newcastle disease cost about £3 each. Of course, with other test reagents, this same machine can detect all the common animal diseases too (with the exception of BSE and scrapie)..... There are hundreds of scientists and technicians... who know how to do PCR tests (a standard lab tool) and who could learn the works of the RAPID in an afternoon. There are also plenty of labs with the necessary but minimal infrastructure to handle the analyses safely (when the sample goes into the test reagent tube any virus is inactivated so it can't cause disease)..... a lab system can be expected to give a result in less than 6 hours. .."
Detecting pathogens by such on-site rapid means would ensure that action could be taken immediately - but, as Dr Breeze pointed out a year ago, in the UK a sample would be still on its way to Weybridge or Pirbright (or waiting at the airport, or going nowhere) for confirmation by conventional, and much, much slower, means. In January 2006 an avian influenza conference in Kiev was followed by hands-on avian influenza H5N1 detection training on the RAPID for veterinary lab staff from six countries.
Ever since the foot and mouth disaster of 2001 we have felt it to be incomprehensible that the UK is not making use of available, effective systems. Strange too, when dangerous diseases can strike at any moment, that scientists at York's Central Science Laboratory, an executive agency of DEFRA, are being paid to work on a UK model for use 'sometime in the future'. Are there any comments from readers about this?

July 19 2007 ~ Forget vaccination. Soft music sells this "animal friendly, total culling concept"

An advertisement from a Netherlands gassing and electrocution equipment provider called the TCC Group (Total Culling Concept) encourages governments to pay for quietly managed mass killing. With gently tinkling music playing in the background of the website, the killing process is described as "environmental (sic) friendly, animal friendly and safe for the people doing the job". They offer 'stable gassing for a fixed price' A Final Solution offered to governments to cure the problem of bird flu.
As one correspondent to warmwell comments dryly, if the so-called competent authorities ..
".. had to go through the whole dirty process of "disease eradication" we might end up with vaccination...."
Vaccinating Birds against H5N1 - warmwell's recent postings include news from the US yesterday that their national veterinary stockpile has a total supply of 140 million doses of vaccine and also they have a contract in place that will quickly give access to another 500 million doses of live pox recombinant H5N1 vaccine to protect younger birds. While the US feels it is impractical to attempt to vaccinate all poultry, vaccines, says the White House briefing, "can be used to protect healthy birds outside the perimeter of the outbreak...
...Here domestically, the USDA and Department of Interior have launched a phenomenal surveillance program. You've seen the outputs of that. We found lots of low-path avian influenza. And it's good news that it's low-path. It's also good news that it, I think, validates, to some degree, our wild bird and domestic bird surveillance activities.."
(See also the paper from Hong Kong by Ellis et al (Avian Pathology (August 2004) 33(4), 405 /412): "after 18 days post-vaccination no more deaths from H5N1 avian influenza occurred and intensive monitoring by virus culture on these farms showed no evidence of asymptomatic shedding of the virus. This provides evidence that H5 vaccine can interrupt virus transmission in a field setting.")

July 18 2007 ~ A case of bluetongue in Belgium

According to Expatica.com the bluetongue virus "seems to have turned up at a sheep breeder in Oelegen, a submunicipality of Ranst. The results of the most recent tests will give a definite answer this afternoon, but the Federal Food Agency says that all indications are pointing to the virus at the moment...."
Last month, the Farmers' Guardian reported that "John Gloster of the Met Office, seconded to the IAH, said the risk of infected midges being carried to the UK was currently minimal, but the risk would increase if outbreaks of the virus were to be reported near the west coast of mainland Europe..." (Bluetongue page)

July 15 - 21 2007 ~ ".. the option Skanda Vale have chosen is the difficult, long and expensive path."

It is unfortunate but probably inevitable that we are now hearing indignant voices proclaiming that the Shambo ruling is, for example, "keeping this terrible pool of infection alive" and that it is "driving a coach and horses through the policy of dealing with bovine TB". It really does need to be pointed out that the policy of dealing with bovine TB is quite hopeless and also that no "pool of infection" resides in Shambo's stall. Skanda Vale is not a farm. No animal on the monastery is ever in contact with other farm animals again. No animal products are given or sold to the public. In any case, as the virologist Dr Ruth Watkins tells us, the risk of being infected from bovine TB being shed on the breath of an bovine, who is infected and shedding, is very small. Indeed, the government's only medical advice is to recommend that drinking unpasteurised milk ceases. If they are under 30 months old, cattle culled because of a positive test actually enter the human food chain . So much for the assertion that Shambo's continuing presence is a risk for both animals and humans.
Instead, many calmer commentators will see the Shambo ruling as a challenge pointing the way towards a better, more pragmatic approach to livestock policies. However, that is the future. In the present case, Dr Watkins can see the likely future for Shambo - and it is expensive. The option Skanda Vale have chosen is the "difficult, long and expensive path".
"This is in contrast to culling and taking the money..."
She says that further testing must be done in the USA - and paid for.
"Treatment is going to cost the monks at least £5000 (treating an elephant was $40000 in 2005) and will require the supervision of experienced vets. Such treatment will probably have to continue for 9 months and involve at least three different antibiotics. Shambo must then be carefully monitored.
He will be kept in isolation, even more remote than his current temple, and he'll require the attention of the monks every day for drug dosing, and general care..."
Provided that the testing proves harmless for Shambo, she understands that the Skanda Vale monks want such testing to benefit others and to benefit science. After his death she believes they will allow a detailed post mortem to determine the success of treatment.
But Shambo's reprieve does not give a licence for treating commercial farm animals. As a trading farmer herself, and one who does receive the single farm payment (Skanda Vale receives nothing from the State) Dr Watkins points out regretfully,
" I must abide by the current rules even if I think the policy could and should be improved."
Many farmers will be feeling the same, and as Judge Hickinbottom pointed out in Monday's ruling, the proportionality of the government response in its animal health policies is what needs to be examined very closely now.
Skanda Vale ( see website) now asks the Government to "enter into constructive dialogue with us" rather than waste taxpayers' money on an appeal.

July 15 - 21 2007 ~"....profitability should not be a priority when vaccination policies are established." Bernard Vallat

Two special issues of the OIE Scientific and Technical Review aim at providing useful information about animal vaccination. Bernard Vallat, Director General of the OIE, says in his Preface says that recent progress in animal genomics and in veterinary immunology will help to develop more effective and safer vaccines.
"Vaccination, when available, is undoubtedly the most cost-effective means of preventing and controlling, and even eradicating, infectious diseases. ....
Unfortunately, there are several barriers to the development of new vaccines: economic barriers such as the lack of investment incentives, especially for vaccines against diseases that only occur in developing countries; scientific obstacles, for instance, the antigenic variability of some pathogens and the ability of parasites to circumvent immune response; regulatory hurdles due the stringent and non-harmonised regulations in place for vaccine registration; deliberate withholding by some countries of strains of pathogenic agents; and, finally, public perception of the consumption of food products derived from vaccinated animals and of technologies such as genetic engineering.
... profitability should not be a priority when vaccination policies are established. The OIE Terrestrial Animal Health Code (Terrestrial Code) and the Manual of Diagnostic Tests and Vaccines for Terrestrial Animals (Terrestrial Manual) respectively provide recommendations on how to administer and how to manufacture veterinary vaccines. Veterinary Services should be encouraged to regularly consult these publications in order to improve animal health throughout the world.
Links to the various papers in Part 1: "development, production and use of vaccines "- can be seen here. The paper by P.L. Roeder & W.P. Taylor, for example, Mass vaccination and herd immunity: cattle and buffalos suggests ways to "optimise the efficiency of mass vaccination programmes."
Part 2: "scientific, economic, regulatory and socio-ethical aspects" will be available in August 2007

July 9 - 14 2007 ~ The ELA conference in October - the beginning of the first serious pan-European contribution to animal health policy development.

Later this year the EU Commission will publish its Animal Health Strategy 2007-2013 (CAHPS). In order to present the EU Parliament with a cohesive response to the EU plans before they are formalised and implemented, the European Livestock Association, formerly known as European Livestock Alliance, will hold a conference: 'Towards a Durable Global Animal Health Policy' on October 17th 2007.
The European Parliament is eager to join in the discussion; the conference will take place at the European Parliament in Brussels. ELA was founded in 2001 by a number of committed breeders and scientists concerned by the mass-slaughter policy to control the Foot and Mouth Disease outbreak in both the UK and Netherlands. It now has members in UK, Germany, Norway, Sweden, Finland and the Netherlands.
ELA believes that animal health policies will have a greater chance of success if they are developed with the wide support of stakeholders - including keepers of rare breeds or endangered species, and those farmers who keep animals extensively (organic, bio-dynamic, free-range). Thijs Berman and Jan Mulder, Dutch MEPs, and Elisabeth Jeggle, German MEP, are giving their support in hosting the conference.
All interested organisations are invited to attend the conference where they will have the opportunity to share their views, thoughts, ideas and needs with a number of MEPs. Read more and/or print out an Invitation to the conference. (It is important that these are returned quickly. Help with funding may be possible.)

July 9 - 14 2007 ~ Reply to E-petition to scrap the fallen stock disposal scheme and reinstate on-farm burial as a green initiative

The government reply does not provide any acceptable reason for the monstrously wasteful law to continue. It mentions, without being specific, both "a number of scientific opinions" and "the lack of scientific information available on how persistent the prions that cause diseases such as BSE and scrapie are in soil". Once again, as below, one can't help wondering what is really being protected here. And the update on the Newburn cows, condemned by DEFRA in spite of their posing no risk whatsoever, makes us wonder even more.

July 9 - 14 2007 ~ Repeating the mistakes of the past - "no dramatic fall in cattle reactors to show for the cattle carnage ..."

In the early 1970's, the draconian Tait regime on bTb incidence in SW Cornwall - which involved not only the killing of TB reactors but also their cohorts and even whole herds - failed to reduce the numbers of reactors or affect the disease. It was interesting to see last Sunday's posting on the bovine TB blog about this failed regime. And at centre stage in any discussion of bovine TB this week stands Shambo, doomed by the new "rural development" minister for Wales, Jane Davidson. She has been telling AMs that she had "considered requests from the religious community to spare it" but that destroying Shambo " in accordance with the law" was the only way to protect 'people and other animals'.
Many would suspect that the killing of Shambo is to protect something quite different; to protect officialdom from any public acknowledgement that the present policy hasn't a hope of succeeding.
The bovine disease is accelerating. Countless farmers are hedged about with restrictions and have lost their cattle, just as in the early 70s in Cornwall, and it is doing no good now just as it did no good then. As now, it was a cattle-only policy. Available technology not available then, is still being ignored. We have the ability to target infected setts. Vaccine trials took place a whole year ago. Leaving the pools of disease in wildlife untreated, when modern technology could do so much to help the situation, has led to a vicious circle of killing, misery and anger.
What is missing, yet again, is the political will to use what the ingeniousness of modern technology has provided. And when the politicians are told by their all too ignorant advisers to trot out the old excuse of lack of validation it is time someone thundered back that the policy of using an unvalidated and erroneous mathematical model to justify the mass killing of the contiguous cull during foot and mouth was a despicable mistake unbacked by any real experts. Lack of validation can be a political excuse for inaction - or ignored when it suits. Skanda Vale's only recourse is now the law. We can only hope for the sanity and common sense shown by such as Judge Onions, allied to proper independent scientific expertise and advice, such as saved Rosemary Upton's equally prized animals in 2001. Killing Shambo will not protect people or animals.

July 9 - 14 2007 ~ "If that degree of financial mismanagement had occurred in a public limited company, the board would have been out - never mind the chief executive."

Michael Jack evidently shares the widespread frustration at the lack of accountability over the RPA fiasco. He says (Hansard)
"Our report on the single farm payment and what went wrong raises not only a series of practical observations on the execution of Government policy but some fundamental points of principle.....there has been a debacle concerning a core responsibility of the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. That is why our report goes beyond the mechanics of what went wrong and explores fundamental issues to do with accountability in government..... When the wheel fell off, DEFRA had not heeded the warnings, and we now know what happened to the rural economy.....As for who was responsible and who should have accepted responsibility, the head that rolled was Mr. Johnston McNeill's - it was the agency's former chief executive who was fired. Sir Brian Bender, the former permanent secretary at the Department, whose name was on the documents about the Rural Payments Agency, the DEFRA change programme and the agreement on the path forward, and Mr. Andy Lebrecht, one of the most senior civil servants in the Department - he sat on the management boards of the Rural Payments Agency and, indeed, on DEFRA's own boards and should have been the link - were the people who effectively signed off what happened. Rachel Lomax, who was supposed to be an expert, was brought into the Department to provide advice. Despite all that, there was still failure, but only one person has paid for it with their job...."
Johnston McNeill's sacking has cost the country more than £250,000 - and he could seek further compensation. However, Margaret Beckett spoke to him only twice, the second time the day before he was dismissed. Her departure from the Cabinet can hardly be regarded as a result of 'accountability' for her mismanagement and will be of little comfort to those farmers who are still waiting for payments from 2005. Many have gone out of business as a result.
It will, according to MPs, take until 2012 and another £55m to sort out the chaos. More on RPA page. After the RPA fiasco unravelled publicly, we saw the cynical buck-passing of those who failed. The same thing happened over FMD - and involved many of the same people. If Roy Anderson were to become David King's successor we should indeed be close to despair. Accountability matters. It matters in the case of the RPA and it matters in the case of the mishandling of animal health.

June 25 2007 ~ ".... scientific experts must be accountable, not only to government ministers but also to other experts. To date, this has not occurred in the context of the 2001 epidemic. ..."

So said Kitching, Thrusfield and Taylor in their important paper "Use and abuse of mathematical models: an illustration from the 2001 foot and mouth disease epidemic in the United Kingdom".
We hear that Prof Sir Roy Anderson, after having been appointed Chief Scientific Advisor to the Ministry of Defence in 2004 and then, last year, knighted, ( according to Imperial College news release "... for epidemiological research, studying the spread of infectious diseases such as AIDS, BSE, foot and mouth and SARS, and providing the government with advice on how to tackle them..."), has now been named the next Rector of Imperial College, London, and will take over next summer.
Comment

June 25 2007 ~ Thursday was the sixth anniversary of MAFF v Upton, the Grunty the Pig case

In a court case brought by MAFF during the Summer of Foot and Mouth, Mr Justice Harrison ruled that Grunty and 11 prized sheep at Rosemary Upton's farm had shown no sign of disease and that it was sufficient for them to be monitored. Grunty was nine days into the incubation period with no sign of infection. The ruling can be said to have taken away the Ministry's appetite to pursue owners of healthy animals condemned by the then illegal mass cull policy into the courts. It undoubtedly contributed to the notorious amending of the 1981 Animal Health Act to ensure that killing animals on the grounds of "animal health" would from then on be declared "lawful". The Bishop of Hereford, who described the new legislation as "harsh, unjust and untimely" was just one of many eminent voices raised against it; vets and farmers too were aghast - but, in spite of all attempts to tone it down, including its temporary defeat in the House of Lords, the Act was nodded through Parliament by MPs who arrived at the almost empty House just in time to vote and who had very little understanding of what they were doing.

June 25 2007 ~ " I am forced to take action myself....I have launched a claim against Devon and Cornwall Police and DEFRA officials in the Courts"

The inflexibility and ignorance of senior DEFRA figures has been deplored by many veterinary experts in animal disease, and yet their disproportionate power over farming continues. In 2001, many anguished people who tried to stand up against intimidation and unlawful killing of animals were often treated with discourtesy and even violence. (See here). The land agent involved in the Grunty case, Tom Griffith-Jones, was also involved in one of the most unpleasant instances of unnecessary and unlawful slaughter; this time of healthy alpacas belonging to his elderly clients. Evidence shows that camelids are not even susceptible to FMD - but they were summarily condemned. The extraordinary behaviour of both police and officialdom has never been properly examined. As Tom Griffith-Jones says of the 2001 FMD policy
"... In the absence of a proper closure of this horror .. there is the inevitability that it will all occur all over again when the next outbreak of a foreign disease arrives. That may or may not be Foot and Mouth...Defra officials clearly wanted to pre-empt the role of the Courts to decide this issue. As I was an inconvenient obstruction to their unlawful intent, they enlisted the help of the police to remove me unlawfully, so that they could bully and intimidate my elderly and frail Clients..... the events at Helewood Farm were part of a much wider and more systematic pattern of behaviour."
Impertinent and callous officialdom and the illegality of the 2001 cull are features of FMD control that the Government has attempted to airbrush away. We entirely sympathise with Mr Griffith Jones' continuing frustration with DEFRA and with his wish to protect others from what happened to him and to his clients. Press release

June 22 2007 ~ "This information could only be obtained at disproportionate cost..."

Yesterday, Peter Ainsworth asked (Hansard) what proportion of DEFRA's administration costs was spent on running public consultations in 2006-07 , how many civil servants in his Department worked on public consultations in the 2006-07 financial year; and how many public consultations his Department has undertaken since its institution. Barry Gardiner's answer was that there were one hundred and eight last year and that DEFRA had undertaken 581 public consultations since its inception in 2001.
With no apparent awareness of irony he added. ".... information is not held centrally about the number of civil servants in the Department who worked on public consultations in the last financial year. This information could only be obtained at disproportionate cost."

June 22 2007 ~ "...breeding for scrapie resistance has little or no impact on a number of commercial traits."

As we reported below in February, even Mr Bradshaw now reluctantly admits that the ram genotyping scheme - as many were warning from the start - is of no use and deserves no further funding. Today, the Farmers Guardian, in a very carefully worded article, does in its later paragraphs quote Kay Boulton of the Meat and Livestock Commission : "Preliminary results from extensive research suggests breeding for scrapie resistance has little or no impact on a number of commercial traits, most importantly muscle depth, growth from birth to slaughter and reasons for death or disposal from a flock."
See "Don't miss chance to have your say on scrapie plan" " ....breeders should take ownership of any future scheme and maximise the benefits of blood testing."
It is interesting that the NSA chief executive, Peter Morris, is so circumspect in what he says about the NSP - but it is surely unlikely that sheep farmers will fail to read between the lines.
See also scrapie pages

June 22 2007 ~ Fears expressed for the future of farming in the South West of England and other hotspot areas

Alistair Driver in the Farmers' Guardian today on the TB report by the Independent Scientific Group. He quotes ISG chairman John Bourne "The ISG conclude that rigidly applied control measures targeted at cattle can reverse the rising incidence of disease, and halt its geographical spread" - but adds that John Bourne admitted that there was no cost-benefit analysis to back up the recommendations made in the report. Paul Griffith, Devon NFU county chairman, has warned of 'massive' illegal badger culling if the Government accepted the recommendations." More on bovine TB page, including the research done at Warwick on the rapid diagnostic testing to target setts that really are infected in order to avoid mass killing.

June 20 2007 ~ "a further sad fact about science in the UK and in some other countries that the scientists' career is largely dependent upon him or her not antagonising the wishes of the main source of his funding -

- government agencies or rich lobby groups. It would be easy to get a peer review of an article that was in favour of badgers, rather than cattle. Anyway, what scientist is going to stick his neck out to criticise a government appointed committee that has been deliberating for 10 years? He would have to live on Mars."
James Irvine, in his Land Care website, points the finger of common sense straight at what is going wrong in the relationship between science and politics. He does not refer only to the present controversy about control of TB in cattle when he describes "a very sad situation for both UK science and for UK animal health."
".....A clear example of this was seen in the mismanagement of the UK Foot and Mouth epidemic in 2001. The logical advice from those working with livestock was ignored in preference to that of scientists with no practical experience with livestock. The result was that the strategy that was established was based on flawed data. Epidemiological models with their persuasive but flawed graphs, so convincingly displayed by Professor Roy Anderson and his colleagues ruled the day (5). Millions of livestock were unnecessarily slaughtered. Available science was ignored. ..."
The article should be read in full at land-care.org.uk.

June 19 2007 ~DEFRA had "taken a sledgehammer to crack the wrong nut" says Judge, but only DEFRA's one-sided version is picked up by journalists

In a dramatic summing up that should have been splashed across front pages last week, a Senior Crown Court Judge called for an inquiry against DEFRA . On June 13th, at the end of a case brought by DEFRA against an independent importer of chemicals, the judge said that DEFRA, through its agent the Pesticides Safety Directorate, had "unwittingly or wittingly collaborated with chemical companies to maintain a cartel". (See news release from Hill Dickinson.)
His Honour Judge Onions also recommended that a report should be sent to the Competition Commission.
John Rawlings had been accused of bringing pesticides into the UK from Italy and the Netherlands in breach of Defra controls. Elsewhere in the EU such chemicals are permitted and the products produced with their help are legally imported into the UK.
However, what is particularly alarming about this case is the less than frank version given by DEFRA on the Government News Network. Nowhere does it mention that, found technically guilty on only three of the 14 counts, the defendant had been ordered to pay only 20% of DEFRA's costs. Nor does it mention that the judge had castigated the Department after an eight day case costing the taxpayer £10,000 a day, nor that he, in exasperation, had even threatened to "witness summons the Minister" for 10.00 a.m. the following morning if DEFRA continued to prevaricate.
DEFRA's wholly one-sided version, also posted on the Pesticides Safety Directorate website, blackens the name of John Rawlings while adopting a sanctimonious tone that threatens farmers, if they obtain products not "approved for use in the UK as part of their good agricultural practice", with losing part of their Single Farm Payment (whereupon it disappears, presumably into the PSD itself since Objective 4 of their 16 page 'business plan' is "To ... recover the full cost of our operations from the industry " and to " contribute to the government's efficiency agenda." ) Other news agencies, including www.farminguk.com and one (media.netpr.pl) even as far away as Poland, faithfully reproduce, word for word, the DEFRA version. Yet Judge Onions had said he would be writing to Kerr Wilson, the Chief Executive of the Pesticides Safety Directorate, asking why the prosecution had been brought and what lessons PSD and Defra had learned from the case. And he said he expected an answer within 21 days.

Update June 20th. It is pleasing to see that the real story is now on Farmers Weekly online. (Incredibly, Defra is reported as saying that Judge Onions' comments were "irrelevant" to the PSD and Defra.)

Update July 9 - 14 2007 ~

Private Eye takes up the story. (As Muckspreader rightly says, "don't worry if you have a bias against pesticides, that's not the point of the story.")
".... True to form, when Defra and the PSD came to report the case on their websites, they left out everything remotely detrimental to their case, including the fact that the taxpayers were being left to foot most of Defra's £42,500 bill. They presented it as if they had won a glorious victory and reminded farmers that it was a criminal offence to use pesticides not approved by the PSD, for which they could lose their EU subsidies. The chances of Defra doing anything to end the illegal cartel seem remote. After all, it is not long since Defra helped to cover up the disaster inflicted on thousands of sheep farmers by their use of OP sheep dips, which of course were manufactured by its pharmaceutical friends." Read in full
The version of the story reported in Farmers Weekly, shortly after our own, quoted a Defra spokesman as saying that Judge Onions' comments were "irrelevant" to the PSD and Defra. Such a comment is either a worryingly impertinent snub to Judge Onions or yet another example of DEFRA's apparent difficulty with understanding and writing the English language . Judge Onions' demanded an inquiry into why the prosecution had been brought and what lessons PSD and Defra had learned from the case. One wonders whether, since the 21 days allowed are now nearly up, the judge has received an answer.

June 18 2007 ~ "Agflation" - a warning

The article in today's Independent by Andreas Whittam Smith warns : "Already food costs are rising at 6 per cent per annum, twice as fast as the cost of living. ... there is worse to come." Not even dairy farmers will be able to take comfort from this. The big exception for producers remains fresh milk
"........ It is impossible to find any wholesale milk prices even though dairy farming is Britain's most important agricultural activity.......... The thing you notice is the sharp contrast between what a food giant like Nestlé is saying - "the global cost of milk is rising so fast that it is impossible to raise shelf prices fast enough to match " - and what British farmers find; persistent low prices. ..."
Using food crops as a source of energy in place of oil, gas and coal to supply the so-called biofuel industry may turn out to be a grim mistake. David Strahan sums up the case against biofuels in his new book The Last Oil Shock when he writes that they offer the prospect of "starving to death in a traffic jam". Food prices are rising fast. DEFRA's actions point to its assumption that the UK is now in a "post agricultural era" and it may soon be too late to wake up from this political fantasy.
As Professor James Lovelock says in The Revenge of Gaia: "... Unfortunately our nation is now so urbanised as to be like a large city and we have only a small acreage of agriculture and forestry. We are dependent on the trading world for sustenance; climate change will deny us regular supplies of food and fuel from overseas.. we can not rely on supplies from abroad..."
The UK now imports 40% of our food (it was 15% in 1983). Dwindling available energy supplies (see peak oil) - and the increasing demands of China and India for the high protein diet their forefathers never had are leading us into the very situation Lovelock describes - and even climate change is almost irrelevant here. When food becomes prohibitively expensive localized growing will be the only option we have. ( When Malthus first warned of the overpopulation of the Earth in 1800, there were only one billion people. Today, it stands at 6.3 billion. By 2025, it is forecast to be 8 billion, and by 2050, 9.8 billion.)

June 17 2007 ~ Scientists rule out return to badger culls

Observer ".... Environment Secretary David Miliband is expected to accept the recommendations, and make it clear that culling will not be reintroduced into Britain......" More on Bovine TB page

June 16 2007 ~ " It would be an absolute crime to put that animal down...."

A prominent member of the International Zoo Veterinary Group, David Taylor, who has examined Shambo and his quarantine arrangements at the Skanda Vale temple, is quoted in icwales: "The risk to the public or to the Welsh cattle farming community is less than zero."
Spokesmen for the opposition parties in the Welsh Assembly have called on new Welsh rural development minister, Jane Davidson, to give the order for Shambo to be culled. Something of a relief then, to see an expert comment on the case and remind people of the true nature of the "risk". See Shambo latest

June 15 2007 ~ The UK Government is still resisting the sensible amendments of the EU on BSE cohorts

Regulation (EC) No.1923/2006 allows Member States to permit the use of BSE cohorts until the end of their productive lives following such a request from a Member State. Permission is dependent upon a favourable risk assessment taking into account the control measures in that Member State. The TSE Roadmap http://ec.europa.eu/food/food/biosafety/bse/roadmap_en.pdf
Point 2.6 :
".... The derogation to defer the culling would be the Member States' decision. This relaxation would not endanger the current level of consumer protection. A relaxation would not only reduce the economical impact but also the social consequences following the complete destruction of the cohorts being often one of the main reasons to object to the culling policy.
The answer (Hansard) given yesterday by Ben Bradshaw does not answer the question from David Drew about the "scientific rationale" behind the culling of cohorts.
Mr. Drew: To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs what the scientific rationale is for continuing to cull bovine spongiform encephalopathy cohort cattle.
Mr. Bradshaw: A Veterinary Risk Assessment (VRA), published on 21 May 2007, concluded that culling cohorts of cattle affected with bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) as soon as possible:
• supports the Government's challenging target of eradicating BSE in Great Britain by 2010;
• promotes consumer confidence in UK beef; and
• avoids the need for expensive additional control measures to monitor cohorts."
How much scientific rationale (as opposed to financial and political consideration) underpins the Veterinary Risk assessment (pdf new window) may be seen by reading the relevant pages. Indeed, the conclusions of the "risk assessment" seem to be driven more by considerations of "additional expense" and trying to prop up confidence in the government's policy (or "consumer confidence in UK beef") than on scientific veterinary risk assessment. One wonders if Ben Bradshaw has actually read any of the relevant documents in full or questioned the answers DEFRA gives him on such important issues.

15 June 2007 ~ ... the murky world of international trafficking, animal cruelty, black magic and even cannibalism..."

Aura Sabadus' article can be read in full on the illegal meat pages Extract:
..... Sophie Leney, assistant head of the county's Trading Standards Agency tried to allay fears, claiming the trade was not a "big issue" in Norfolk. She insisted the body was involved in carrying out traceability checks on meat products whose origins may not be clearly stated on labels. A spokesman for the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs explained: "We continue to recognise that we can only tackle the illegal imports with a combined effort across all relevant government departments and enforcement agencies and by raising public awareness and understanding the risks."
But speaking from London, Dr Teinaz is not convinced. "Unless there are more environmental health officers to enforce the law and to produce a co-ordinated approach to tackling food crime, Britain will remain exposed to all sorts of diseases and the Government could be accused of indirectly allowing this to happen," he concluded.
Professor Hugh Pennington is quoted in the article
".... Consumers are exposed to some health risks that they are not used to. The trade involves some products that are not subject to any proper checks and there is the important issue of detecting the products as well as finding the right evidence to stand the cases up in court."

15 June 2007 ~ The Tenant Farmers Association has rejected Defra's latest plans on animal health and welfare policy

According to the Farmers' Guardian the chairman of the Tenant Farmers Association, Reg Haydon,
" believes the consultation document start with completely the wrong assumption that costs are not already shared between the Government and industry. Speaking at the Royal Cornwall Show, he said:
"The costs of complying with regulations, regular testing, under-compensation for animals taken for disease control purposes and consequential loss are all borne by the industry but do not appear to be recognised by Defra. Any policy must start from the reality that there is already significant cost sharing between Government and industry and that applying further costs on the industry is not justified."
Dr Roger Breeze's paper on the same subject of cost sharing is well worth reading: ".... Industry cannot negotiate meaningfully if its "negotiation" comments are only responses to proposals and goals of the government...." and he proposes that the government should meet agreed "Performance Benchmarks" if farmers share costs for a responsibility retained by the government.

13 June 2007 ~ "We are committed to learning any lessons," says Ben Bradshaw

Yesterday, Mr Bradshaw gave a written Ministerial statement on "events since the recent case of low pathogenic avian influenza near Corwen in North Wales". He said, "..... The WAG (Welsh Assembly Government) intend to lift the restricted zone around the infected premises in Corwen on 15 June which is the required period of 21 days following the completion of preliminary cleansing and disinfection. Once we have completed our tracings and testing, we intend to publish an epidemiological report into the origins of this disease in the next month. We are also conducting a lessons learned exercise which we hope to publish in September. We are committed to learning any lessons...." Hansard.

13 June 2007 ~ "I think we had to wait too long for the results."

The suspected case of bird flu or Newcastle Disease in Chard has been given the all-clear. We reported below that the results were due on May 31st. The wait has seemed interminable to those directly concerned. The local paper quotes the mother of the owner of the suspected premises. The page on rapid diagnosis quotes John Crowther of the Joint FAO/IAEA Programme's Animal Production and Health section on the subject of rapid diagnosis:
"The genius here is that such mobile testers can be used by anyone, with the most basic training. Even farmers could do a test and the result could immediately be processed back to a central point, like a mobile phone message. Within two years, such tests could revolutionize disease diagnosis. Ultimately the tests would be done locally by people in their own countries, making schemes much more efficient in everything including speed, costs and local knowledge."
It remains to be seen when such technology, available for at least six years and used extensively by the military, will be part of our own routine armoury against animal disease.

12/ 13 June 2007 ~Rapid diagnosis via automated multiplexing platform: "we have always known that the platform's flexibility confers benefit in other markets, such as veterinary diagnostics and the monitoring of bioterror threats such as foot and mouth"

A news release from Nanogen, Inc reports on new funding and "collaborative agreement" with Canadian agencies which include the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA)
".... The purpose of the funding and collaborative agreement is to develop diagnostic tools for the detection of natural or potential bioterror threats to livestock, such as foot and mouth disease and avian flu, employing the company's NanoChip® platform ... The NanoChip® 400 is the company's second generation automated multiplexing platform....the system provides a simple, fast and cost effective means for performing molecular testing.."
( Thanks for news of this link to FMD News - a service provided by the FMD Surveillance and Modeling Laboratory, University of California at Davis )

12 June 2007 ~ More coverage of EFSA's positive conclusions about bird flu vaccines

On June 6th warmwell reported on the European Food Safety Authority's opinion on currently available avian accines that
"the AI vaccines meet quality standards and are safe and effective in vaccination against AI in domestic flocks in Europe......The Panel recommended the implementation of good AI vaccination practices using safe and effective EU authorized vaccines when required by the epidemiological situation but also added that their use should be defined in advance of any potential direct AI threat..."
We are grateful to Pat Gardiner for the link to an article at cordis.europa.eu published today, which comments: "as new scientific developments and vaccination data become available, vaccination is moving more and more to the forefront as a complementary tool to control and prevent the propagation of the disease."
No mention in the article of the "nonsense" we have heard recently. One reader's MP, Steve Webb, had a letter in May from Ben Bradshaw which was still saying vaccination of birds increases the risk of spreading infection. It is a relief that EFSA is putting the record straight at last.

12 June 2007 ~ A "protecting virus" used to protect from new flu strains

See Farmers' Weekly on the work of Professor Nigel Dimmock at the University of Warwick "....Prof Dimmock's new approach developed over the last 20 years overcomes this by using an entirely new method, that uses a 'protecting virus'. This virus contains genetic material that has been altered, rendering the virus harmless and unable to spread like a normal flu virus. If it is joined in the cell by another influenza virus, it starts to reproduce at a much faster rate than the new influenza virus. This fast reproduction rate - spurred by the new flu infection - means that the new invading influenza is effectively crowded out by the 'protecting virus'. Prof Dimmock explains that this slows the progress of the new infection, prevents flu symptoms and gives the body time to develop an immune response to the harmful new invader. ..."

12 June 2007 ~ "diagnostic equipment that can be used in the field and sensitive enough to detect virus in pre-clinical cases"

Over two years ago, concern was expressed by the Royal Society's Infectious Disease in Livestock Inquiry Follow-Up Review about progress after the 2001 foot and mouth disaster. Issues that were considered " fundamental work" included :
• ... The surveillance arrangements.
• The arrangements for active Parliamentary scrutiny of the contingency plans, possibly by the Environment, Food and Rural Affair Select Committee.
• The arrangements for a wider interim review of arrangements for handling infectious diseases in livestock.
• The capture and handling of data during an outbreak.
• The completion of the various projects analysing the data from the 2001 outbreak and other research to inform the decision making process on whether pre-emptive action beyond the culling of infected premises and dangerous contacts is required to control the outbreak.
• The structure of technical input into the handling of an outbreak of an infectious disease.
• Further action to ensure that emergency vaccination is a viable option for pre-emptive action, including the validation of Non Structural Protein (NSP) tests and a better understanding of the implications of vaccination by all stakeholders.
• The development of portable RT-PCR diagnostic equipment that can be used in the field and sensitive enough to detect virus in pre-clinical cases.
• The need to ensure that animal health research is given the support it requires and is co-ordinated with support provided by research councils.
• Training, especially of farm workers and an increase in the overall number of large animal veterinarians.
The review, published in December 2004, said that the crucial challenge for Defra was to ensure that it has "brought together the many strands of its work on infectious diseases in livestock into a coherent structure".

12 June 2007 ~ "The lack of a centralised, riskbased sampling and monitoring plan has compromised the import control system..."

Whether or not the disaster of foot and mouth in 2001 was caused by imports, concerns about the effectiveness of import controls have been voiced ever since. The outbreak of H5N1 at the Bernard Matthews plant in Holton also "posed questions about import controls" to many, including Richard MacDonald, of the National Farmers' Union (BBC). The report published in March this year, by the EU's Food and Veterinary Office inspectors ( pdf report), found that in the UK, "the level of official supervision and control in the application of the veterinary legislation covering intra-Community trade" in live farm animals and animal products was inadequate, " leaving the increased potential for entry into free circulation of consignments which do not comply with EU requirements."
This month, an article in the current Veterinary Record (June 9, 2007) describes the FVO report's conclusion that there were
"shortcomings in the performance of veterinary checks and the veterinary decision on the consignment to lack of clear guidance and training of Border Inspection Post staff..." These shortcomings were "potentially serious".
Read article in full
The FVO recommended that the UK should " review the transposition of Art. 4 of Directive 91/496/EEC regarding the requirement to check all live animals entering from third countries at a BIP. To also review the implementing measures for Art. 3 of Regulation (EC) No 282/2004 regarding the authorisation to issue CVEDs, and the implementing measures for Art. 5 of Decision 97/794/EC regarding the physical checks on live animals." When the risk of animal disease and zoonoses is now so great, and when the government is so voluble on the subject of other people's "biosecurity", its own progress in some of the areas above might be thought worryingly slow.

12 June 2007 ~ "Cattle are killed anyway"

Trevor Lawson of the Badger Trust on BBC Radio 4 Farming Today on June 9th. It is all too reminiscent of the excuses during 2001 for the mass killing of animals - forgetting that the majority of these animals were healthy and very many were irreplaceable breeding stock or even pets. As an emailer writes today,"We hear depressing echoes of the deafening silence from the animal rights 'agencies' during Defra's FMD carnage, excused by the self righteous air brushing of cattle as sentinel beings, because 'they will ultimately be slaughtered'. What sort of animal lovers are these people for goodness sake?" It may perhaps be remembered that the 650000 Iraqi men, women and children estimated last July by the Lancet to have been killed by the chaos in Iraq "would have died anyway" too. Not much comfort.

12 June 2007 ~ Bluetongue has re-emerged in Germany, according to the UK's Institute for Animal Health

BBC DEFRA's "Update on European situation - stakeholder note" can be read on their website "....The 1st new case of this year [2007] has been reported in the North Rhine-Westphalia region of Germany (within existing restricted area). A cattle sentinel herd was tested throughout April and May 2007, and serological tests indicate that one of the animals became infected in this season. This may suggest that virus is once again circulating in that region. Defra continues to monitor the situation...."

11 June 2007 ~ Talk of vaccine supplies when the disease arrives is of little help - Fogging of poultry houses costs around 15p/bird annually and yet it is deadly to the H5N1 virus

Last July, we reported on Nvirox^ and other bioflavonoid based products whose "....active ingredient has been tested independently by DEFRA and found to be effective against viruses such as those causing Avian Influenza and Newcastle disease..."
A Powerpoint presentation on Nvirox can be viewed here According to the (English) manufacturers, Nvirox ingredients, mainly extracted from bitter oranges during flavour manufacture, are compliant with regulations EU 2092/91. It has no harmful allergic effects and can be bought in 250ml, 1litre, 5litre and 20litre quantities. It should be used at a 2-3% dilution with water at least weekly and preferably 3 times weekly It is "safe for personnel and stock to be present without protection" - and yet it is deadly to the H5N1 virus
Fogging poultry houses costs around 15p/bird annually

June 8 2007 ~ Farmers kept in the dark over new case of Bluetongue

We hear from a trusted source that there has been confirmation of the first "new" case of Bluetongue in Germany. The farmer writes, "Although this has not been published yet I have learned Brussels and the MS have been briefed already. Why don't they tell our farmers who should in the first place have a right to know? ...."
Bluetongue page

June 8 2007 ~ The TRACES (TRAde Control and Expert System) database was " not currently functional" on June 6th

See Hansard. Information Technology in Government is not impressive. When the TRACES electronic database indicated that there were no imports of poultry or poultry products from Hungary to the UK in the early months of 2007, DEFRA relied on this erroneous information to assert that the possibility of the introduction of H5N1 from Hungary to the UK via legal trade before and after this outbreak was "negligible" As we say below, we understand that TRACES is regarded as "hopeless" in Holland and that the Dutch government does not work with it. Neither David Miliband nor Lord Rooker referred to the Hungarian imports at the start of the Bernard Matthews scare. (See letter from Peter Ainsworth to David Miliband.) Did these DEFRA Ministers not know about the imports? Were they not told or did the Department really not know? Was the omission deliberate? With such uncertainty about the level of knowledge and expertise it is hardly surprising that faith in the competence of those who formulate policies is low.

June 8 2007 ~ Not all over. More H7N2 bird flu confirmed after Chelford market.

DEFRA says that a small non-commercial smallholding in St Helen's (Merseyside) has tested positive during the extensive tracings activity for the low pathegenic strain of avian flu after the Corwen Farm, Conwy outbreak. Although it is a low risk disease and is not thought to be a threat to human health, all the birds there will be killed whether or not they have become infected. See DEFRA website
" The 1km zone restricts the movement of poultry and eggs, additional biosecurity measures must be taken and gatherings can only take place under licence from Animal Health. No national ban on bird gatherings will be put in place. Poultry keepers within the zone will not be asked to house their birds. However, good biosecurity measures are encouraged." " Birds at the holding were purchased from the same market held in Chelford on Monday 7th May associated with the recent outbreak of H7N2 low pathogenic avian influenza in Conwy, North Wales."

June 8 2007 ~ Opposition parties in the Welsh Assembly seem to want Jane Davidson, the new Welsh rural development minister, to give the order for Shambo to be killed

However, according to the BBC a Welsh Assembly statement says: "It is important to emphasise that the legal context for this case is complex and many issues have to be taken into account. In assessing this case the Welsh Assembly Government is required to consider and comply with the European Convention of Human Rights, which protects the right to freedom of religion. ..... There is currently no timetable for the slaughter of the bullock, though the slaughter notice remains in force." The BBC report concludes, "According to temple spokesman Brother Michael, a vet has visited Shambo and declared him to be in excellent health."

June 7 2007 ~ Indonesia's fear about possible mutation of the H5N1 virus has been countered by WHO's statement that they have 'seen no evidence' of this. Not surprising....

We read in CIDRAP "Wayan Teguh Wibawan, a microbiologist from Indonesia's avian flu commission, told Reuters that the suspicions are based on preliminary results of genetic tests at laboratories in Indonesia. The amino acid structure of poultry H5N1 samples is becoming increasingly similar to that seen in human H5N1 samples." (See also Reuters report)
The World Health Organisation, however, told Reuters that the WHO has not seen any evidence that the virus has become more transmissible to humans. But, as we report below, it will be remembered that Indonesia's decision between December and mid May was to withhold human bird flu virus samples from the World Health Organization. There have now been 79 human deaths from H5N1 in Indonesia and they wanted a promise from WHO that any new specimens sent would not be used (without the country's consent) in the production of commercial vaccines - likely to be too expensive for Indonesia to buy. The Lancet defended Indonesia's approach and said the World Health Organization must find a way to help poorer countries benefit more from medical research done by rich companies.
The WHO's new resolution (See article at CIDRAP for May 23) would appear to give no such undertaking. It expects that vaccine makers "should have full access to viruses from the WHO during a public health emergency". Indonesia has sent three samples since the middle of May. (Update June 8th on www.news.com.au

June 7 2007 ~"..the origin of the H7N2 avian influenza virus that initiated the outbreak in poultry in north Wales has not yet been traced further back than the market."

Health officials say that the outbreak of H7N2 has ended. The Shropshire Star reports
"The announcement was made yesterday nearly two weeks after the disease was discovered at a farm near Corwen....Dr Marion Lyons "The risk to the health of the general public was low."
But, as the ProMed moderator points out, "...The outbreak of human disease may have ended, but the origin of the H7N2 avian influenza virus that initiated the outbreak in poultry in north Wales has not yet been traced further back than the market, where the diseased birds were purchased."
Dr Ruth Watkins says in her recent email , "I hope the investigation of the small flock at the infected holding was thorough as they might be able to answer the question of whether the virus was already present there or not. It is possible that influenza viruses from wild birds infect small free range flocks, the infected birds do not become noticeably ill and the infection dies out coming to a dead end in the small flock..." - reminding us that healthy free range flocks can be less susceptible to disease with low pathogenicity influenza virus. It will be remembered that we are no nearer knowing the source of the 2001 FMD outbreak, and the source of the H5N1 outbreak at Holton has not yet been traced either. At least theEFSA press release mentioned below suggests that "the implementation of good AI vaccination practices" is at last being seriously talked about.

June 6 2007 ~ Avian Influenza " AI vaccines meet quality standards and are safe and effective in vaccination against AI in domestic flocks in Europe." EFSA.

EFSA (European Food Safety Authority) has produced an opinion on currently available avian influenza (AI) vaccines for poultry, such as chickens and ducks. According to the Panel's experts,
"the AI vaccines meet quality standards and are safe and effective in vaccination against AI in domestic flocks in Europe......The Panel recommended the implementation of good AI vaccination practices using safe and effective EU authorized vaccines when required by the epidemiological situation but also added that their use should be defined in advance of any potential direct AI threat. In terms of any potential human health impact of the animal vaccines, the Panel noted that the use of authorized EU vaccines is safe and has no negative effect on poultry products for consumers..... According to the Panel, in order to be able to differentiate between vaccinated birds and those that are infected by a field virus, the DIVA[5] strategy, combined with the use of sentinel birds in order to detect possible AI transmission after vaccination, must be employed to allow the detection of a possibly circulating field strain. However, more research and (field) validation are required to optimise the DIVA strategy."
See EFSA press release today.

June 5 2007 ~ "There are many Ministers who will not envy what will, no doubt, be one of Mrs Davidson's first jobs, and that is dealing with the issue of the TB-infected Skanda Vale bullock..."

It is odd that someone of the stature of Gareth Vaughan, president of the Farmers' Union of Wales, should - in such a peremptory tone in the Western Mail today - both assume and assert that Shambo is definitely "infected" and add to the voices calling for his death. All visual evidence suggests that the bullock is very healthy indeed. The test which DEFRA used to condemn him is erratic in its accuracy. The FUW might more helpfully be calling for better testing under the supervision of experts - but Mr Vaughan writes," I have made the position of the FUW clear. We expect the animal concerned to be treated as any other would under domestic and EC law, in order to minimise all risk of bovine TB transmission. If the law is not upheld in this case, it will undermine the credibility of the entire TB control regime."
Many would argue that the credibility of the "entire TB control regime" is already in tatters. Trying to force the issue at Skanda Vale seems an illogical way to proceed. Killing a bullock, kept in isolation, is hardly going to " minimise all risk of bovine TB transmission." Mr Vaughan simply wants him to be killed so that other human victims of the policy feel better.

June 5 2007 ~ Bovine TB - the whole system needs an overhaul from people on the ground (not the centre of London) who know what they are doing - but it seems that farmers are on their own

Few would argue that, with the UK now sustaining one of the highest incidences of TB in the EU (EU data), there needs one of the highest incidences of TB in the EU (EU data), there needs to be a radical rethink - with the re-thinking done preferably by those with some knowledge of the subject and of the technology now available to help. The bovinetb.blogspot comments that "Realistic 'supervision' can only come from the experienced Wildlife team operatives, operating out of Aston Down in Glos., and Polwhele in Cornwall and under direction from local AHO offices" but that last spring Defra,
"...sacked most of the Wildlife teams capable of operating or even overseeing such a policy. Hence the veiled comment in the Times report, (aka John Bourne?) that any such policy would "involve significant cost to the farming industry". We read this that 'farmers' are on their own. And if they succeed then government will say it was preMT (Pre movement testing) wot did it. But if they fail ... well it'll be all our fault. Either way 'government' look to be on the point of handing over to individual farmers via a licensing system, control of a serious, notifiable zoonotic disease - the first country in the western world to do so.
And we call that a shameful abdication of responsibility."
Mrs Jane Davidson, the new Welsh Minister for Sustainability and Rural Development, will have to be an expert in "multi-tasking". Her brief includes climate change, sustainable development, environment, energy and planning in addition to everything to do with agriculture. Rather a plateful for a former Education and Lifelong Learning Minster.

June 5 2007 ~ WHO report on H7N2 in Wales

"Following the confirmation on 25 May 2007 by Health Authorities of the United Kingdom, of influenza A/H7N2 virus infection in four individuals (two in Wales and two in north-west England) exposed to infected poultry at smallholding, Corwen Farm, Conwy, Wales, the National Public Health Service (NPHS) for Wales is continuing with the investigation of the incident and with the implementation of public health measures. For more information .."

June 4 2007 ~ "hundreds of independent farm stores are springing up, seeking to provide an alternative and cash in on shoppers' desire to be closer to the land.."

Reuters "..."The prices of locally sourced products tend to be slightly higher than imported products, but being able to tell the provenance of food is important to consumers today," said Andrew Richards, senior policy advisor at the National Farmers' Union. "And when you twin that with the need to combat climate change, then you have a case for a local food store that cuts food miles and supports local farmers."

June 4 2007 ~ H7N2 " ... I think the authorities have behaved well over this H7N2 outbreak, the measures taken were proportionate."

An email from Dr Ruth Watkins (farmer and virologist) defends DEFRA's handling of the H7N2 outbreak. She has some interesting points to make:
".. the period between purchase and slaughter was 7 to 24 of May so that is 17 days. It reflects badly on farming that the man selling the birds has not come forward, but perhaps he was not a farmer.
I have seen people buying chickens out of cardboard boxes for instance at the Royal Welsh when a known poultry breeder is exhibiting and brings extra stock to sell. Of course, who they were would be known.
I think the authorities have behaved well over this H7N2 outbreak; the measures taken were proportionate. It always takes a little longer to get a negative result as on the second holding that had a connection with the market, as culture would be done as well as RT-PCR.
I hope the investigation of the small flock at the infected holding was thorough - as they might be able to answer the question of whether the virus was already present there or not.
It is possible that influenza viruses from wild birds infect small free range flocks, (but) the infected birds do not become noticeably ill and the infection dies out coming to a dead end in the small flock.
One would never know of its presence unless susceptible birds that developed disease were brought in- the Rhode Island Reds could have been in fairly poor condition and have been more susceptible to disease with the low pathogenicity influenza virus (rather reminiscent of Norfolk when it was the intensively reared birds that became ill - not the free range flock) As far as I can gather it is the brought in birds that were unwell and not the resident birds on the small holding."
More

June 4 2007 ~ " It is hoped that as these vaccines are rolled out around the world, that at last this damaging disease can be brought under control."

PMWS is now endemic in UK pigs. We hear from Mike Meredith http://www.pighealth.com of a significant breakthrough in control of the PMWS (Post-weaning Multisystemic Wasting Syndrome (aka PCVAD - "Porcine Circovirus Associated Disease"). The recent 2007 American Association of Swine Practitioners (AASP) meeting revealed that new porcine circovirus type 2 (PCV2) vaccines have an outstanding protective effect on reducing mortality associated with the disease.
Full review papers of these new developments, illustrated with photographs & graphs, are available now on the Octagon Services website: http://www.octagon-services.co.uk/articles/PCV2control.htm (opens in new window) and http://www.octagon-services.co.uk/articles/PCVAD.htm (new window)
"The reduction of viraemia, both in percentage of pigs affected and in viraemic levels, following vaccination were highlighted in the papers given at the AASV conference....When an animal/man is infected by that organism and the disease is caused, the proof is termed fulfilling 'Koch's postulates'. Now, the N. Americans have demonstrated a 'converse postulate', by using a vaccine against an organism and preventing the disease developing. It is hoped that as these vaccines are rolled out around the world, that at last this damaging disease can be brought under control."

June 4 2007 ~ Mass cull of badgers - healthy or not - could now be on the cards

The Telegraph reports that "Ministers are considering lifting the ban following a report by the Independent Scientific Group on Cattle TB, to be published on June 15, which will conclude that a mass cull over a large area could help." David Miliband is said to be in favour even though he recognises that "the public may be outraged". We see once again, as in the Shambo case, the polarised positions taken by those who are sick and tired of doing their best to protect their cows while the disease rages unchecked in wildlife - and those who understandably hate the prospect of the mass killing of a mammal who has always seemed so attractive to non-farmers.
However, there is a vaccine that has been shown to work. See below. and we are left once again wondering why - if the trials are successful and the vaccine found to be safe and effective - it has to "take at least 5 years before the vaccine could be administered to the general badger population outside the lab through microcapsules mixed with peanuts."
There are also rapid on-site diagnostic tests to determine whether badger setts are infected or not. See press release from Warwick university "without technology such as this its is very difficult to differentiate "clean" setts containing uninfected badgers from "problem setts" containing infected badgers."
Until it can be adequately explained why neither of these options is being used in the UK we will remain baffled. The irreconcilable positions of the pro- and anti- cull camps look set to continue - as does the spread of bovine TB.

June 3 2007 ~ "The new product is the first FMD vaccine produced in the U.S....it could allow the federal government to plan a strategic stockpile in case of an outbreak".

Like the UK, the US has been reluctant to make vaccination part of any prevention policy for foot and mouth. Now we read at www.heartlandcoop.com that a new vaccine, developed in the US by "Agricultural Research Service scientists, the Department of Homeland Security, and a U.S. biopharmaceutical company", is "proving effective in tests" on cattle and pigs, apparently showing effectiveness within seven days. Immunity is retained for at least 21 days and scientists expect that "more studies will shows at least the six months of immunity provided by current vaccines in cattle and swine."
ARS Administrator Edward B. Knipling is quoted: ""This signals tremendous promise. Although this is still an experimental vaccine, it has made significant developmental progress, and we are optimistic about its prospects."
See fuller report this morning (Sunday) at www.fmd-and-csf-action.org (new window)

June 3 2007 ~ "The results were due yesterday, (Thursday, May 31) but are now expected on Monday."

The suspected outbreak of bird flu or Newcastle disease in Chard is reported in Chard Minster News DEFRA is reported to have said that the long delay in diagnosis is " because laboratory officials are still stretched by a confirmed outbreak of bird flu in North Wales."
The owner concerned said "I've got about 20 hens in isolation in a barn. They are showing respiratory distress - coughing and sneezing - but they are not sick enough to be put down."
In an emergency, a wait of more than five days to diagnose disease could well be catastrophic. DEFRA policy is that until test results are available no restrictions are placed on the movement of people or animals to and from suspected premises. A DEFRA spokesman is reported as saying, "We carry out about 20 tests for suspected avian flu in the Somerset area every year. At this stage, there is nothing to raise concerns."
Those who cannot understand why rapid diagnostic equipment is not being used in the UK might not agree that there is nothing here to "raise concerns". (See also below)

June 3 2007 ~ "the basic flaw of not calculating the effects of wind on GM pollen..."

June 2 2007 ~ Bovine TB: "while we do everything to minimise the risk on our farm from cattle-to-cattle contamination, nothing is being done to eradicate the spread from wildlife to cattle.."

Yesterday's Stackyard article is sobering. So is an email from yet another closed herd farm yesterday: "....We've just gone down with TB which we are disputing after 2 inconclusives followed by a positive blood test. ... If we do turn out to have TB then this will be yet another case of a closed herd coming into contact with badgers." The Stackyard article emphasises the suffering incurred by the whole herd - and by the badgers themselves.
(Harrowing pictures below also show the real misery of TB in badgers.)
On the subject of recent badger vaccine trials, we are left once again wondering why - if the trials are successful and the vaccine found to be safe and effective - it has to "take at least 5 years before the vaccine could be administered to the general badger population outside the lab through microcapsules mixed with peanuts." Why so long when the situation is so desperate? (More today on bovine TB page)
A leaked email publicised by the Daily Mail on May 29th does make one wonder whether there could be some truth in Sean Poulter's article "The secret plans to turn us all vegetarian". Meanwhile, the voices raised from justifiably angry farmers for the death of the bullock Shambo might be more usefully raised in demands for a humane UK animal health policy - one that stops dragging its feet over available vaccination and, in the case of TB, the accurate testing of badger setts, so that a solution need not involve the random killing of healthy animals.

May 30 2007 ~ US: Rapid diagnosis mobile laboratory to offer a rapid diagnosis for animal diseases like avian influenza, foot and mouth disease

To respond more quickly to potentially dangerous animal health emergencies, the Department of Agriculture has begun using a new mobile laboratory. As part of the Pennsylvania Animal Diagnostic Laboratory System, the mobile laboratory has a bio-safety Level-3 (BSL-3) containment space, meaning its air handling system prevents the escape of any pathogens that could endanger humans or animals. In addition, it is equipped with a showering facility, bio-safety cabinets, refrigerators and freezers, and decontamination equipment. The laboratory is being fitted with other testing instruments to offer a rapid diagnosis for other animal diseases like avian influenza, foot and mouth disease or mad cow disease, among others.
( Thanks for this link to FMD News - a service provided by the FMD Surveillance and Modeling Laboratory, University of California at Davis ) FULL TEXT: http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/show/news_press_release,113793.shtml

May 30 2007 ~ H7N2 outbreak. No virus at the farm on the Llyn penisular - test result took three days to appear..

CIDRAP News (Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy) reported the negative test result yesterday May 29th three days after the tests were carried out. Three days for a result to be publicised seems somewhat long - especially when, as Dr Roger Breeze noted over a year ago
"The means to detect on the farm has got even better since 2001 - it did not disappear just because responsible officials had their heads in the sand hoping it would go away..."
".....the imminent availability (2006) of a test cassette format (the machine has been on the market for some time) that will allow a sample from a single animal to be tested by real time PCR for up to 12 disease pathogens simultaneously in about 20 minutes (this is known as multiplex testing). This machine is about the size of a small loaf of bread and operates when slung over the shoulder or in a moving vehicle. It is ideally suited for investigative use on farm or at the site of the dead swan. The PCR tests, cassette format and device are state of the art for the U.S. military on land, sea or air, or underwater ...." Read in full
The latest news today from Reuters gives an example of the big devices now being tested for use in hospitals. "We detected and correctly identified 92 mammalian and avian influenza isolates, representing 30 different H and N types, including 29 avian H5N1 isolates," Reuters But there are several portable "plug and play" machines, such as those described below by Dr Breeze, to be found and viewed on the internet. This Applied Biosystems page is an interesting example. In over 30 countries, the TaqMan® Influenza A/H5 Detection Kit Version 1.0 is being used to detect the Influenza A virus and identify the H5 subtype from a variety of sample types.
When an outbreak could have such grave consequences it seems more and more irresponsible of the UK not to be telling us whether or not it is using the best possible means of testing, diagnosis and surveillance.

May 30 2007 ~ Dr. Marion Lyons : "Investigations also show that, when it spreads from person to person, the illness experienced becomes milder."

CIDRAP News quotes Dr Lyons who is the Lead Consultant in Communicable Disease Control for the National Public Health Service for Wales.
Today, a ProMed moderator said (CP) :" There is no unequivocal evidence to suggest that the H7N2 virus exhibits an enhanced ability to spread from person to person..
CIDRAP news quotes other experts, who say the focus on the H5N1 subtype's pandemic potential is justified. "We know that H7 can cause outbreaks in chickens and that it can occasionally jump the species barrier, but it has not done it nearly to the extent of the H5N1 virus," said Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.
David Halvorson, DVM, a veterinarian in avian health at the University of Minnesota in St Paul, told CIDRAP News that H5 and H7 subtypes both have the ability to generate a highly pathogenic virus of the same subtype, but there's no way to project when and if such evolution will occur."

May 30 2007 ~ E-petition to scrap the fallen stock disposal scheme and reinstate on farm burial as a green initiative.

Deadline to sign up by: 17 June 2007 Signature total stood at 221 on Tuesday evening. The ban on the burial of fallen stock on farms has resulted in the expensive and compulsory to-ing and fro-ing of lorries carrying dead livestock. This is far more of a danger than the immediate burial on the farm by the farmer of animals that die there. See warmwell's fallen stock scheme pages The rationale for the ban was the fear that scrapie might mask BSE which in turn might be linked to vCJD. As we note below, the government's own spongiform encephalopathy advisory committee (SEAC) conceded that the chances of BSE being present in the sheep flock are as close to zero as it is possible to measure and this quiet admission was reported in Hansard in January. The NSP has cost taxpayers at least £100 million and the reason for the ban on on-farm burial no longer exists, and yet - ludicrously - the ban continues.

May 29 2007 ~ "a reminder that the next flu pandemic could be sparked by a virus other than the feared H5N1 strain..."

In spite of the downplaying of the H7N2 outbreak, it is good to see an Associated Press article implying that we should be using the current problem as a dry run for what could be a very serious emergency. The AP quotes World Health Organization bird flu expert Dr. Michael Perdue who says
"There may be a bit of complacency when it comes to recognizing the pandemic potential of H7 viruses. Here, we're talking about a small number of birds and yet we still have four cases. Unless there's something unusual about the contact with birds, that suggests the virus is finding new ways of getting into humans"
The UK's patchy surveillance and apparent lack of random sampling, the reluctance to use protective vaccination ( or encourage research, development and validation. see for example the potential of the findings at journals.cambridge.org ) and above all, the apparent refusal to use available rapid diagnotic technology must surely all now be urgently looked at and reviewed.
We continue to find it utterly bewildering that the very technology that can protect animal and human health is so ignored for what appears to be economic or political pressures.
As Dr Purdue says, "If you have an H7 virus causing mild symptoms, that might give the virus the chance to reassort into a more dangerous virus before anybody notices." In the very real likelihood of a pandemic - since humans simply do not have antibodies to cope with a reassorted virus strain - we should be inspiring trust and cooperation by proving that we can get on top of an outbreak such as the present one with all the tools available and with everybody concerned kept properly informed with accurate information. We have still not, for example, seen any report of the results of testing at the holding on the Llyn Peninsula, Gwynedd. Can anyone enlighten us as to the results? By Tuesday evening (Channel 4) health officials were saying that 221 people may have been in contact with the virus.

May 29 2007 ~ "It's not right these animals should be killed. They are breeding cows. They aren't to be sent for the human food chain."

The continuing sorry story of Gary Newburn's cows, doomed by DEFRA because they were sedated, apparently under Trading Standard's supervision on behalf of DEFRA, with drugs that must not enter the human food chain. DEFRA is now deaf, as it was with Harriet, to the argument that killing a healthy animal not destined for human consumption, makes no sense when the rationale for killing is that it must not enter the food chain.See today's Halifax Courier and, for the earlier report, see below.

UPDATE July 14th 2007 The row continues. The unfortunate cows remain alive. It is still contended that the drugs used were " used every day and perfectly legal" - but DEFRA continues to insist - in spite of the fact that Mr Newburn has told Defra he is prepared to have the cattle tested or mark their passports to ensure they do not enter the food chain - that the cows should be killed. The Halifax Courier has the story.

May 28 2007 ~ While officialdom is full of reassurance, the latest H7N2 bird flu outbreak does not reassure us.

ITV news quotes Dr Marion Lyons: "We believe the risk to the health of the general public is low." The human symptoms may well be mild but H7 passes more easily to humans than H5, and low pathogenicity A-type avian influenza strains of the H5 and H7 type are noted for their ability to transform into highly pathogenic counterparts. A pandemic can start when a novel A-type virus, to which almost no one has natural immunity, emerges and begins spreading. 36 people so far have been identified as being possible contacts and eleven of them have symptoms of a flu-like illness or conjunctivitis. It is looking as though infected patients may have contracted the virus from another person rather than poultry although, according to the Public Health Service for Wales, there is not yet laboratory confirmation of such human-to-human transmission.
Finding the source of potentially serious disease outbreaks is vitally important - and virtually impossible where surveillance is patchy even where it is happening and where there is no rapid on-site diagnostic testing going on. If sources and contacts can't be quickly tracked down and a vaccination policy is not in place either, transmission will flourish and the disease will spread. What's more, when testing relies on the responsibility of the owner of a dead bird to pay for a vet to arrange a test, disease is going inevitably to be missed. As Dr Ruth Watkins wrote in February, testing for avian influenza should be part of a standard protocol - but an effective active surveillance programme, with targeted sampling of poultry, should be going on anyway.
DEFRA is still perceived, by many of the very people whose willing cooperation matters most, as being weak in management skill and competence yet highly jealous of its power to control and command, hostile to criticism and capable of intimidation. It's hardly surprising that a registration system offering no incentives for cooperation is feared more than trusted ("We know where you and your animals live") but in the interests of effective surveillance this needs urgent revision ( as described below) so that the testing of both birds and humans can be quickly carried out in an emergency.

May 27 2007 ~ A 2nd possible case on the Llyn Peninsula, Gwynedd,

about 35 miles away from the Conwy smallholding, was under scrutiny on Saturday, with birds being tested because of links to the market. See ProMed posting and its moderator comment ".....The market which is regarded as their common infection origin is in Cheshire, demonstrating the potential of wide-scale spread of diseases through animal markets. And, it is reminiscent of the foot and mouth disease (FMD) virus spread through sheep traded in UK markets in February 2001." And he repeats the comment made below about private sales without identification or inspection "Seems deserving a thought" he adds.

May 26 2007 ~ misleading claim that the "source" of the H7N2 outbreak has been "destroyed" appears on Sky News

Sky News quotes Dr Marion Lyons, Consultant in Communicable Disease Control at the NPHS for Wales. She makes the extraordinary statement:
"The source of the outbreak of illness is clearly identified as the chickens on the smallholding. These have all been culled so the original source has been destroyed."
How can such an assertion pass without protest? Can Dr Lyons seriously be suggesting that the hens on the smallholding in Corwen, brought in from Chelford Market, Cheshire on 7 May, became infected in isolation; that the virus appeared in them and nowhere else and that killing these hens therefore kills the source of the infection? It is quite extraordinary that such a claim should have been made.
At least Wales's chief vet, Dr Christianne Glossop, is quoted by the BBC as saying it was a "top priority" to find the source of the disease.
Once again, as with the FMD outbreak and the H5N1 Holton outbreak, this is easier said than done. We now discover that there is no traceable paperwork about the infected birds. They were apparently bought from a private dealer at Chelford Market. One can only agree in despair with the comment that accompanies this information: " I find it quite incredible that after everything that has happened with regard to avian notifiable diseases in the past few years, auctioneers allow private sales out of the back of a van to go on at their premises on a sale day without any formal identification or inspection."
Once again, and contrary to Ben Bradshaw's complacent words below, we are witnessing a lack of leadership, failure of communication and lack of preparedness that could prove catastrophic when our luck runs out.

May 26 2007 ~ A mutually beneficial system of livestock registration is urgently needed - Four human cases of mild bird flu confirmed.

Nine people having connections with the Welsh farm where H7N2 bird flu was confirmed have been tested and four have tested positive for the H7N2 strain of the virus. The Welsh health authorities say that one of the cases may have been transmitted from person to person. Although we read (www.wtopnews.com) that "Officials are now following up all close contacts of the people who were ill as a precaution..." it is not going to be easy for other close human contacts to be traced.
The government wants a centrally controlled database, saying that it would be too costly to insist on the registration of those having fewer than 50 birds.
In the paper for the OIE Making better use of technological advances to meet stakeholder needs by Mary Marshall, Paul Roger and John Bashiruddin, (available online at: www.oie.int/eng/publicat/RT/2501/PDF/20-marshall233-251.pdf ) we read
"Currently, there is a perception amongst many livestock keepers that registration with the government will be a fast track to slaughter in the event of a disease outbreak......The authors therefore suggest a mutually beneficial system of livestock registration, in which owners could choose to register with the government or a private veterinary scheme. Those who register their livestock with the government would:
• have access to rapid diagnostic testing as soon as suspicious clinical signs are reported. If their animals test negative for the presence of antibodies against the disease, they would have the option of vaccination or quarantine, subject to further testing;
• be able to have their livestock vaccinated if vaccination is authorised (eliminating complicated schemes of rare breeds requiring a specific number of breeding males and females to be eligible for vaccination);
• be able to have their livestock slaughtered at a pre-agreed rate of compensation.
  Those who register with a private veterinary practice or group would have the option of quarantine and testing in an outbreak, but at their own expense, possibly through an annual insurance agreement," Read this section in full
The suggestions in the paper surely deserve close consideration. Easily accessed regionally kept registers of poultry would also make sense. It is not going to be easy for first response officials to take action in a real emergency if the only information is in a vast and incomplete database controlled by DEFRA. Information Technology has had a poor record at Whitehall. In 2001 for example, there was data for up to 500 foot and mouth disease infected premises still missing from the disease control system database until 18th December. (see warmwell summary)

May 25 2007 ~ "It's farcical. It makes it impossible for us farmers to even question what they are doing. They are bloodthirsty vigilantes who want rid of the cattle."

SVS ( aka Animal Health ) condemns 7 cows not intended for the human food chain. In what the farmer concerned calls "bullying tactics on the part of Defra" 7 healthy cows are now doomed to an untimely slaughter because the SVS state claim "an illegal substance" was used to sedate them. Immobilon was used on 3 cows and Rompun on the other four cows intended solely for breeding. They were sedated after four months of fending for themselves after escaping their farm. It was an operation actually overseen by Trading Standards on DEFRA's behalf . If the farmer does not slaughter the seven cows by midnight tonight (Friday) they will be killed by officials. The farmer is reported by the Halifax Courier "It's farcical. It makes it impossible for us farmers to even question what they are doing. They are bloodthirsty vigilantes who want rid of the cattle." The farmer , who says he is prepared to have the cattle tested and have their animal passports and tags marked to ensure they are never killed for meat, was told the news at 3pm on Tuesday. This gave him only four days in which to appeal - if he could afford to - to the High Court. It seems very likely that the SVS is unaware of legislation that exempts cows not destined for human consumption from this unnecessary slaughter. The new name given to the SVS vets looks as inappropriate as ever.

May 24 2007 ~ The strain identified is H7N2 low pathogenic avian influenza. Free range birds are not being moved indoors.

The 30 remaining birds on the farm are being slaughtered today. DEFRA says that "GB and Wales contingency plans have been activated .....the farm has been placed under restriction and a 1km restriction zone has been placed around the infected premises. Within this zone, birds and bird products cannot be moved, bird gatherings can only take place under licence from Animal Health..."
See latest Guardian report ".... chickens had been dying at the North Wales smallholding over the past two weeks. Fifteen 22-week-old Rhode Island chickens were bought by the smallholding two weeks ago, bringing their total number of birds to 45 chickens and two geese. But one of the birds died the day after they were taken to the site, and by May 17, 10 birds were dead, all from the new group of chickens." The Guardian quotes Dr Christine Glossop: "We are not yet asking bird keepers within the zone to bring their birds indoors."
The smallholding is north of the town of Corwen in Denbighshire but is actually in the county of Conwy.
The 15 Rhode Island Red chickens were brought onto the holding on May 8th. Samples were first sent for testing on 17 May after the tenth bird from the new hens had died.

May 24 2007 ~ Tests are being carried out on dead birds in north Wales over fears of a possible bird flu outbreak.

Latest news ( Reuters around noon) is that the Welsh assembly is saying merely
"We are investigating a notifiable disease in birds at a location in North Wales. Reports are not confirmed and tests are ongoing,"
A spokesman said the suspected outbreak was at a farm but gave no further details and declined to describe the symptoms of the sick birds or say whether they resembled bird flu.
We should be grateful to know if rapid on-site equipment is being used as a preliminary and vital first step - or whether, as before. samples are, as a first measure, being sent to the laboratory which will inevitably involve a wait of at least 24 hours. As for plans for vaccination, should a high pathogenic strain of virus be confirmed, a correspondent tells us, "the final vaccination special working party meeting is on June 21. They have been so slow ..."
We find all this incredible given Mr Bradshaw's complacent words below.
The Chief Vet (Wales) is to make a statement to the Welsh Assembly this afternoon.

May 23 2007 ~ Canada is stockpiling avian flu vaccines for poultry "vaccine would be something that might be used to be more effective and dampen down the opportunity for the disease to spread"

CTV.ca " The Canadian Food Inspection Agency has purchased five million doses apiece of poultry vaccines against H5 and H7 avian influenza viruses as a hedge against a possible outbreak of H5N1 or another highly pathogenic strain in domestic flocks. ... Dr. Jim Clark, the national manager of the agency's avian influenza working group: "If there was an inability to control the disease using traditional stamping out methods, vaccine would be something that might be used to be more effective and dampen down the opportunity for the disease to spread so that we had an opportunity to get ahead of it." Clark said..."

May 22 2007 ~ UK's unilateral decision to kill BSE cohorts - "This time they can't blame it on Brussels."

We question the scientific basis for the " veterinary"risk assessment which has chosen to endorse the continued killing BSE cohorts in spite of the fact that European regulations were amended to allow Member States to apply for derogation status. (This would permit keepers the use of cohorts until the end of their productive lives). The risk assessment appears to take more notice of convenience and economic factors than any veterinary or scientific ones - and of course allows DEFRA to continue to assert that its policy, so deplored by so many, is not flawed.
Yet Harriet's post mortem, it will be remembered, tested negative for BSE - but if DEFRA had had its way she would have been forcibly slaughtered when 22 officials descended on her field on October 9th - only to be met by the protesting mob - comprising an elderly couple, 4 middle-aged women and 2 middle-aged men - whose courage was endorsed by the Reverend Pat Pinkerton, the MP Mark Harper and many others. Even Conservative MP Anne Widdecombe signed a petition to help save Harriet and said, "If she will never enter the food chain, then it seems to me reasonable to keep her alive."
The killing of BSE cohorts would not be an issue if it had ever been proved that a) BSE really does have a link with vCJD and b) that those cattle who grew up with a cow subsequently developing BSE really were likely to be similarly infected. No such proof has ever been found.
Farmers Weekly today claims that "BSE monitoring has indicated that cohorts have a significantly higher level of BSE infection than normal healthy slaughtered cattle." Does this refer to the European Union's BSE monitoring programme between 2003 and 2005? If so the EU evidently does not share this view now.(See also the sympathetic email from Brussels received on November 22 2006 from a policy adviser at the European Parliament.) The "monitoring" has never, to our knowledge, been used as an argument to support such killing in answer to PQs. As the reader who directed us to the Farmers Weekly link remarks, "This time they can't blame it on Brussels."

May 22 2007 ~ " robust and tested disease control plans"?

In a technological age and in a country with high levels of resources, expertise and infrastructure, not to be using the benefits of technology in the fight against animal disease is simply extraordinary. We have Ben Bradshaw talking about "robust and tested disease control plans and instructions in place to address an outbreak of avian influenza" (Hansard 18th May) but what is "robust" about a plan in which the virus cannot be contained by vaccination? Its use as a preventative measure is still prohibited by the UK government. Emergency vaccination procedures are still vague - and vaccination itself still made difficult for farmers because of continuing OIE trade rules. The rapid on-site diagnostic equipment that would ensure that culling is carried out only where necessary is still not even mentioned.
"Tested" the plan may have been but it was luck rather than judgement that kept the virus contained. There are still many outstanding questions about the Bernard Matthews outbreak.
The source is still unknown and a lack of tact towards Hungary strained relations just at the time when full cooperation was needed. Questions continue to hang over the responsibility for the outbreak, many are unhappy about the £589,356.89 (sic) compensation and wondering about the reasons - possibly pressure - for the lack of any prosecution or enquiry. The difficulties endured by free-range poutry owners around Holton must not be conveniently forgotten.
EU rules continue to stipulate that the 3 kilometre quarantine zone around any infected area must be backed up by a further 10 km surveillance zone in which healthy animals including free-range poultry must be kept indoors and not be moved anywhere except to a slaughterhouse. The "absurdly unscientific misinformation about why we cannot use vaccination..." (Booker) continues to be used by Ben Bradshaw to justify the UK stance but emails from UK virologists shows this stance to be wholly unjustified.

May 21 2007 ~ "perfect efficacy result" in trials of H5N1 flu vaccine

See The Age (Australia) "Pharmaceutical company Imugene Ltd has achieved a perfect efficacy result in recent trials of its bird flu vaccine. The Australian company has on Monday announced that 100 per cent of broiler chickens included in a trial of the avian influenza drug survived exposure to the deadly H5N1 virus. The first dose of the drug was injected into the eggs of the trial group, and an oral booster was then given when the chickens were seven days old. The birds were then exposed to a highly pathogenic Asian strain of the H5N1 avian influenza virus, with all showing no signs of the disease. Seven out of eight unvaccinated chickens died when exposed to the virus as part of the trial, which took place in the United States....
".....we have proven that Imugene's vaccine works when administered orally as well as when injected into chicken eggs and that we can protect birds from a young age. ..... Dr Lamb refused to speculate as to when the drug would appear on the market, but said Imugene was looking to licence the technology to one of the major animal health companies. Imugene is developing two vaccines, one for broiler or meat producing birds, and the other for breeding and egg layer birds.... "
See more detail at www.imugene.com/products_avian_flu.asp (new window) and warmwell's bird flu vaccination pages

May 19 2007 ~ FMD continues to threaten the FMD disease-free areas of Europe.

For those who have not seen it, here is the link for the Foot & mouth disease - Worldwide: update on ProMed. Extract:
"In particular, in the past 3 months [Feb - Apr 2007] there have been separate outbreaks of 2 FMD serotypes (O and A) in Turkey close to the borders of Greece and Bulgaria. The 1st of these outbreaks (serotype A: Iran 05 lineage)...
For Europe and Asia, the issue of greatest concern is the emergence of a highly transmissible lineage of the PanAsia strain of serotype O which has spread from India to the east, north and west causing recent epidemics in a number of countries in the Middle East. This picture somewhat mirrors that seen prior to 2000-2002 when another O PanAsia strain spread into several normally FMD-free countries including Taiwan, Japan, South Africa, UK, France, Netherlands and South Korea. ..."

May 19 2007 ~In 2000 the then CVO, Jim Scudamore, wrote a warning memo about "lack of progress on contingency planning exercises", lack of staff training and his worries about the "capability of the government's agents to deal with outbreaks of disease, in particular their ability to investigate the origin and spread".

In spite of hindsight and some progress, his concerns still seem relevant today. In 2001 the contiguous cull policy was instigated after the disease was already in decline. Had Mr Scudamore's letter been taken seriously and adequate preparations made, it is unlikely that there would have been the panicky reliance on mathematic models in 2001 resulting in so much unnecessary killing, waste and heartache.
As Dr Alex Donaldson's submission to the Lessons Learned Inquiry said,
" An average infection to confirmation period of 8 days had been used by the modellers but this had been a gross over-simplification since several cycles of infection with incubation periods ranging from 2 to 14 days had been possible.The epidemic had been in decline by the time of the introduction of the contiguous cull policy on 29 March. (In a publication by Keeling and co-authors, it was stated that the epidemic peaked on 26 March with 54 outbreaks per day.).."

May 17 2007 ~ Does the Dutch research really advocate culling pigs in any FMD outbreak rather than vaccinating?

This week, Dutch research by Karin Orsel has been reported as suggesting that
"the culling of pigs at production sites is more efficient to prevent an outbreak from spreading than vaccinating when the pressure of infection is very high"
There seems to be no English translation of the CIDC-Lelystad news release but a quick skim of the Dutch suggests that the research is more concerned about dosage than with dismissing vaccination. By quoting only the first part of the statement above, the website www.pigprogress.net gives the impression that culling instead of vaccination is "better" in any outbreak. The article does at least quote Aldo Dekker, from the Dutch Central Insititute for Animal Disease Control in Lelystad, who says that the result in pigs is related to a high pressure of infection, and that "When there is a lower dosage of virus, the vaccine can protect pigs as well".
Dr Ruth Watkins makes clear in a brief email that it is in the high density intensive systems that the virus aerosol produced by pigs (greater certainly than other species) can cause such problems but when the mother sow is fully vaccinated the piglets will be protected by the mother's antibodies. They too should then be vaccinated as early as possible.
"I don't think there is anything new or any reason to be perturbed by the pig article. It is unfortunate that vaccination in intensive rearing conditions does not work so well especially in piglets...it is a bonus that a highly potent vaccine has been developed for FMD effective after one dose." Read email
In the EU, even after the catastrophe of FMD 2001, the preference for slaughter instead of vaccination seems to be hard to shift. Its rarely mentioned cause is the economic value of the "FMD-free without vaccination" status.
The justification for this trade restriction rests upon a mistaken and discredited idea: that meat from vaccinated animals is somehow different. Even the FSA and the Consumer Council agree that there is no cause for FMD vaccinated products to be labelled. Even with the present EU Directive a derogation exists to allow untreated vaccinated meat on to the domestic market if zones remain in place for more than 30 days. Protectionism is at the heart of the continuing suspicion of vaccination. There is no medical or veterinary reason why animals should not be vaccinated against FMD just as naturally as they are vaccinated against other diseases - and if they were vaccinated as a precaution there would be not even be any perceived problem, after emergency vaccination, about the time taken for immunity to kick in . Treating animal disease as if it were a mere matter of economics continues. Zoonoses are a matter of global health. Using legislation for the forced culling of animals that are merely suspected of having come into possible contact with disease will one day be seen as abhorrent - and it will scarcely be believed that the best available technology for rapid on-site diagnosis, prevention and cure were there but their use constantly shunned.

May 16th 2007 ~ "even today I meet people who comment about the livestock bereft countryside and fail utterly to make the connection...."

An unexpected article on http://technocrat.net from someone who worked for six months in 1997 as furnaceman burning cattle carcasses - most of which were killed merely for being 30 months old. He concludes, "It sounds trite, but this job with its pervading sense of wrongness is PRECISELY the reason I'd rather be unemployed during the next year or three... " and what he says deserves to be read in full as a sobering reminder (as he intends) of how easy it is to have inhumane policies carried out.
" ... As anyone who works with cattle knows, a cow is a smart as a dog, and has just as much individuality, personality and character as a dog, yet thanks to the BSE scare at 30 months it was Arbeit Macht Fry time for Buttercup..... The bureaucratic state of play was as expected; every UK cow has tags, one on the ears and so on, BSE suspected had extra tags on the anus ...
...a shift rota of MAFF bods on duty were supposed to oversee and check every animal and every operation. In the six months I was there none of them did anything except sleep in the caravan outside, after all, they had day jobs, this night shift was free extra money for them.... I can TOTALLY understand how the Nazi ovens came about, how people operated them, how people played the tallyman, how people living 2 miles away were in blissful ignorance... .."
Alan Bennett, writing about the foot and mouth slaughter (Untold Stories p293) says: "In fifty years' time I am sure that we will not handle animals the way we do now - and to succeeding generations our behaviour will seem as barbarous as bear baiting...."
As we have seen in recent years and months and days, no one has to take responsibility; not slaughtermen, not Trading Standards, not the SVS, not the enforcers, not the mathematical modellers - and Ministers least of all. All can sound regretful but justified. All are behaving "sensitively". And even when a crazy policy is quietly reversed or discredited no one of course says "Sorry. We got it disastrously wrong." ( the OTM scheme cost more than £3 billion.)

May 15th ~ Bluetongue: " It was eventually revealed that the results of the sentinel surveillance were compromised by the inclusion of old, serologically positive animals."

The latest ProMed post reports the doubts being voiced concerning the German surveillance in sentinel animals and the impression given of the possible overwintering/recurrence of the bluetongue virus. Sabine Zentis, having clarified the details with the local authorities, comments,
"...the 31 positive animals tested during routine screening and are not indicative of recent virus activity. From the sentinel animals earmarked as result of the sampling campaign so far to my knowledge no animal has tested positive for BTV. The 2 "positive" sentinel animals are the result of a mix up of eartag numbers on the holdings. As sentinel animals have been sourced on holdings with known disease history, sampling a wrong animal is likely to yield a positive result.
I refrain from commenting on the quality of the data made available ..."
For a reminder of the consequences of the extraordinary errors of a government department ( this time in Germany ) see Bluetongue page.

May 15 2007 ~ The RPA needs to pay out about another £280m over the remaining seven weeks to meet its deadline this year

Well over a year ago the Earl of Arran called the RPA situation (Hansard March 30 2006) "probably the most incompetent piece of government administration ever known in a government department. It certainly rivals that of foot-and-mouth disease. It is utterly deplorable." See RPA page.

May 14 2007 ~ Parallels between the site inspections at Heddon on the Wall just before FMD and those at the Matthews plant just before the discovery of H5N1 are inescapable.

Hungary's deputy Chief Veterinary Officer feels no hesitation in blaming Bernard Matthews for the UK avian flu outbreak (see below) because of flaws in hygiene. The word "biosecurity" is constantly on the lips of officials - but when it is evident that premises were far from being kept to the highest standards, the transparency of what was inspected, when and how, should be made quite clear. Instead, all seems obscure. Were inspections done properly, taken seriously and were breaches immediately put right - or not?
In 2001, the outbreak at Waughs foreshadowed the loss of more than ten million animals. Parallels between the site inspections at Heddon on the Wall by the unfortunate Jim Dring before FMD and those at the Matthews plant before the discovery of H5N1 are inescapable.
As Lynda Davies writes, in response to an email from Robert Persey,
"As I see it, if DEFRA enforce that section of the above order (2005 Animal By-Products Order, section 11, para 4) at the Bernard Matthews farm, or at any other farms in the future, then they would be admitting that they were responsible for the FMD outbreak for NOT enforcing that same regulation at Bobby Waugh's farm in 2001...."
Ben Bradshaw said of the Holton outbreak: ".. this episode reflects the need for constant vigilance, high levels of biosecurity and robust and well developed contingency planning in dealing with animal disease outbreaks." But questions about how far 'constant vigilance and high levels of security' are taking place when they are most needed must be asked and answers publicised if we are to learn anything at all from what happened.

May 14th 2007 ~ "In the past two decades, veterinarians have helped to slaughter more than a billion so-called diseased animals to support factory farming and the edicts of global trade. .."

Coming home to roost is an article in Canada's Globe and Mail by Andrew Nikiforuk. He is reviewing The Chickens Fight Back - Pandemic Panics and Deadly Diseases That Jump From Animals to Humans by David Waltner-Toews
"..The majority of these animals showed no evidence of infection and were simply murdered out of convenience, because nobody could cope with crowds of confined livestock during an epidemic. Some critics have called this wanton and careless slaughter "a crisis of veterinary medicine."
I would have liked a voice as moral and important as that of Waltner-Toews to address this crisis if only to support one of his most important admonitions: "We must, above all, care." You just don't hear professionals of any stripe use words like that any more."
Andrew Nikiforuk maintains that it is a real and present danger to the health of all that "small-witted men in white coats have laboured to turn animal health and human health into separate kingdoms that never visit each other " and "this gross separation of animal and human health largely explains why the chickens are valiantly fighting back with avian flu and why outbreaks and epidemics of animal diseases are running amok."
Warmwell and its readers have watched in dismay while politicians, officials and research-grant-greedy scientists have fretted impotently over BSE, Foot and Mouth, bovine TB, avian influenza, Bluetongue and all the rest - yet for all their regulations and restrictions, and for all the draconian powers of the ludicrously named "Animal Health Act" of 2002 have failed to get to the heart of the problem - the treating of animal disease as if it were separate and of only economic importance.
It was the virologist Dr Ruth Watkins who, in an article written for warmwell, in 2003 wrote, "The control of disease by killing farm animals is promoted unashamedly and no apology made for failing to apply methods in human medicine to the care of farm animals.... the advice of the Royal Society and EU inquiries have fallen on deaf ears blocked by the cotton wool of defensive self-justification."

May 13 2007 ~ Bird Flu in Suffolk - The Hungarian Connection

The Sunday Telegraph's headline is that "Hungary admits link with UK bird flu outbreak" although the actual report makes clear that Bognar Lajos, Hungary's deputy chief veterinary officer,
"... insisted that ultimately the blame for the British outbreak must lie with Bernard Matthews, which was criticised for shortfalls in its biosecurity in the wake of the scare. Mr Lajos said: "It is possible that the virus was still in an incubation period in a flock and no symptoms would have been seen. Such a flock could have been sent to slaughter and the meat transported to the UK. The problem was not with Hungary though. The problem was Bernard Matthews and its biosecurity."
See also the relevant warmwell page on the Suffolk outbreak and the UK Government's response.

May 13 2007 ~ Evidence suggests that China's farmers routinely misuse pesticides

Reuters "All agree that China needs to implement a comprehensive system to clean-up the sector...part of the problem lies in the web of agencies who share responsibility for food safety." See below for Contaminated wheat gluten - still few answers

May 11 - 13 2007 ~ Shambo - attitudes unfortunately polarised

The BCVA has chosen to support the policy that has caused its own members widespread grief. According to the BBC, the BCVA president, Graham Brooks, said: "To achieve effective control those animals testing positive [for TB] must be removed from the cattle population." Shambo has indeed been removed from the cattle population. He is being kept isolated in a shrine where, in view of the unlikely positive result, he ought at least to be retested, as should others when the results seem suspect. ( As were those of Worcestershire farmer Richard Bown last Thursday - see below)
The Telegraph quotes a Welsh farmer who is understandably bitter that public concern has centered on this one non-commercial animal when thousands die as a result of being suspected of incubating TB: "We are more used to the frustrating situation where badgers are effectively treated as sacred..." - but again, it is illogical that this attitude should also cause farmers to unite in condemning an animal considered sacred by those who consider all animal life worthy of protection.
The Hindu Forum of Britain has called for all Hindus to form a human chain around the temple, preventing the authorities from getting at Shambo - and thus some degree of confrontation looks inevitable since farmers who have had to go along with slaughter would feel justifiably outraged if the matter is dropped. Attitudes will polarise disastrously and it may well be forgotten that the inflexibility of so much UK animal health policy is really at the root of all this. It is the disease that needs to be properly tackled - and given the advances in technology and the areas of diagnosis and vaccination this sould be done without recourse to inflexible "one size fit all" regulations. It seems a great waste that the case is not being cited by all sides as another reason to push for greater independent scientific input into reviewing current policies. As for the test given to Shambo, the Guardian says that the bull " has undergone three tests for TB: two were inconclusive but the third was a reactor " This seems to many to cast doubt on the accuracy of the test. See also email from Dr Colin Fink.

May 11-13 2007 ~"another beacon lighting the Byzantium attitutudes from the government veterinary service and DEFRA "

Also in the email from Dr Colin Fink is a reminder that a human TB test now available and " which demonstrates active disease is not yet licenced for animal use and there is the usual resistance to anything new from the usual 'authorities' .."
He mentions also how long overdue is a second skin test; an interferon test and the system sold by Immunotec . Immunotec has just won Best Healthcare Innovation Award for its one-step blood test against TB.
Dr Fink says, " ... Any other improvement in diagnosis is long overdue. This hapless but apparently perfectly well animal, and attendants are another beacon lighting the Byzantium attitutudes from the government veterinary service and DEFRA." (Read email)

May 11 2007 ~ Contaminated wheat gluten - still few answers

More on the toxic imports to the US. (see below) The Los Angeles Times now reports that Xuzhou Anying, one of the two Chinese factories from which contaminated protein was exported to the US, was razed to the ground by its owner, Mao Lijun, who has now been arrested, before it could be investigated. Complaints that residues from the factory had killed crops were ignored by the Chinese Environment Protection Bureau (the equivalent, in perhaps more ways than one, of our FSA and the American FDA). Researchers now believe that cyanuric acid, which can block kidney function, was in the feed as well as the cheap melamine scrap. An estimated 4000 pets are dead and the product was fed to 6000 pigs and 3.1 million chickens. Feed for farmed fish in Canada is also affected - and has been exported into the US. (See reports on ProMed.) All this raises many questions about safety - but the transcript of yesterday's FDA-USDA Update on Adulterated Animal Feed reveals just how few questions from reporters got clear or confident answers.
We will never forget the case of the late Phil Brown in this country, whose pigfeed was contaminated bringing even more horrific consequences. Even after years of struggle there has been no redress in that case. At least the scale of the US toxic feed problem finally brought questions out into the open. Should not more be asked of ChemNutra the importer who are presenting themselves as victims? They apparently maintain offices only forty miles from the Xuzhou Anying factory. Their website speaks of "ultra-competitive pricing on high-quality chemicals and ingredients from quality-assured manufacturers in China" Among those in the US and Canada worried by all this will be at least 4000 grieving pet owners wondering just how "quality was assured" .

May 10 2007 ~ Credibility of TB tests is called into question

Farmers Guardian (Alastair Driver) ".....his experience has raised questions about the credibility of the TB testing and valuation regimes .......Roxy came within 48 hours of being culled in February after she was deemed to have reacted to a pre-movement test performed by a private vet. Two days later, Defra informed Mr Bown that the four-year-old cow was to be TB tagged the next day and slaughtered the day after that. But adamant a mistake had been made, he refused state vets permission to enter his farm.
At his own request, his whole herd was then tested by local state vets and shown to be in the clear.
He then persuaded the Department to grant a re-test of Roxy and 11 other animals tested at the same time on the grounds that the vet had not followed the correct procedures laid out by Defra in performing the tests. This took place last week and all 12 animals were negative. .."

May 10 2007 ~ Killing the bull "in the usual way..... to protect animal health" is to be done "as sensitively as possible," , say officials

The BBC reports on the death threat to the Hindu sacred bull, Shambo (see also below)
Reuters is also reporting on the case. quoting the Welsh National Assembly's spokeman ".... these measures are in place to protect public health and animal health and prevent the further spread of the disease" The spokeman , evidently unaware of the irony of the use of the adjective holistic, went on to say, "regrettably a holistic approach to the eradication of this disease is essential if we are to stop the spread of TB"
More time, resources and expertise put into DEFRA's M.Bovis TB Vaccine Steering Group might make such expressions of regret sound less hollow. The Steering Group appears to meet only every six months and, with its own Chairman's negative comments about vaccination, seems curiously hamstrung.
Britain's large Hindu community, holding as it does that killing the bull " will violate our faith, tradition and desecrate our temple. It goes against all accepted norms of our faith" is appalled. Hindus are converging on Camarthen from all over the UK - and the monk interviewed on the BBC PM programme yesterday said that even if Shambo had foot and mouth they would not allow him to be culled. None of the animals at the Skanda Vale multi-denominational monastic centre where Shanbo has been isolated is ever killed.
That DEFRA continues to be deaf to the veterinary success of vaccination was further underlined today by a warmwell reader whose MP told her that Ben Bradshaw is still saying vaccination of birds increases the risk of spreading infection. While this sort of nonsense continues to be circulated by the Minister we can feel no confidence in any claims to "a holistic approach to the eradication of disease."

May 8 2007 ~ "She feels, he says, simultaneously hungry, tired, full up and sick."

The tagged calves mentioned below remind us that pressure on milk prices in the UK has turned more than half a million healthy male calves into what a Guardian article today calls " the disposable scraps of dairy farming". They are shot as useless. As for the majority of dairy cows now, Felicity Lawrence quotes John Webster, emeritus professor of animal husbandry at the University of Bristol. He has described the modern high-yielding modern cow "as the archetypal exhausted mother".
"Her mammary glands have been bred to make more milk than her body can cope with. She feels, he says, simultaneously hungry, tired, full up and sick. Breeding for maximum milk yield has left these cows unfit for much else. As many as half of all dairy cows may go painfully lame in any one year after being made to stand on concrete, their udders too heavy for their hind legs. ..... A few decades ago, the average lifespan of a cow was 10 lactations. Today it is three. ..."
One can only hope that the voices of dismay at this situation, echoing the indefatigable CIWF - such as Molly Dineen's "lyrical and brutal documentary film about rural life, The Lie of the Land" shown on Channel 4 last week - are starting to be heard so that our remaining dairy farmers, paid properly, can get back to the sort of farming they love - and this does not include the killing of healthy young animals. As Ghandi so wisely said, "The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated."

May 8 2007 ~ Traceability "just a sick joke"

As for identification after slaughter, and further to the NAIS story from the US below, one farmer writes: "Tagging calves is a nightmare but on the other hand, I am attaching clips to the tags for fly/midge protection ( which are promised to last for up to 5 months) so maybe they are at least of some use. Poor little things look terrible with the plastic attached to their ears and I'd rather prefer microchips. At farm level you have to do everything strictly by law but once the hide is off traceability is just a sick joke."

May 8 2007 ~ Rapid diagnosis of FMD "Several real-time PCR instruments are available with various capabilities, such as portability and high sample volume analysis."

The paper in 1: Journal of Veterinary Diagnostic Investigation Vol. 19 Issue 1, 9-20 (See abstract)
".... real-time polymerase chain reaction has facilitated rapid detection of FMDV. .... Assay performance was compared on the LightCycler 1.2 (Roche), the SmartCycler II (Cepheid), and the SDS 7900HT (ABI). These assays successfully identified the FMDV genome and beta actin mRNA from several sources of infected nasal and oral swabs, as well as probang samples."
Yet the UK Contingency plans still won't say that such rapid diagnosis is to be deployed. And if it is not, then in an emergency we could be back with the 2001 guesswork and panicky culling of healthy animals. Roger Breeze's comment here was made over a year ago. Yet, even after the very close call at Holton, there seems no cause for optimism that things are changing.
"What's alarming about failure to deploy rapid PCR tests even to regional diagnostic labs since 2001 is that technology has moved on significantly while nothing was being done. The means to detect on the farm has got even better since 2001 - it did not disappear just because responsible officials had their heads in the sand hoping it would go away. We cannot afford to find ourselves in 2012 still waiting for officialdom to formally approve the technology..."
(Read in full)

May 7 2007 ~ "For any voluntary animal identification system to work, it must be constructed on simplicity, efficiency, compatibility, flexibility and trust...."

We have noticed that the NAIS system in the US, originally designed as a clear labelling system, soon began to raise suspicions among stockholders there. FMD News, the service provided by the FMD Surveillance and Modeling Laboratory, University of California at Davism sends us this link to concerns now expressed by the newly-formed U.S. Cattlemen's Association
"... originally NAIS was proposed with the single goal of providing an effective animal-health trace back system. Along the way, USDA drifted far from this goal. Privatizing the animal records data base, source verification and other value-based programs were never part of the original plan, and neither was international competitiveness.
Under the current proposed plan, it's cattle producers who will be saddled with the costs and regulatory burdens. Currently, only about 25 percent of livestock premises nationwide have registered for premises numbers and most of these folks do not support a mandatory national animal identification system. The fact that producers are rejecting the proposed system should come as no surprise. ..... For any voluntary animal identification system to work, it must be constructed on simplicity, efficiency, compatibility, flexibility and trust...."
Read in full at cattlenetwork.com. Their web site is under construction and is expected to be fully operational in mid-May.

May 6 2007 ~ "...a disaster made incomparably worse by the callous incompetence of a Government which has treated our farmers like dirt."

Booker's Notebook today
".....Channel 4 broadcast another documentary, The Lie of the Land, on the disaster which has overtaken British farming in recent years. Molly Dineen reported her shock, as an outsider, at discovering just how grim life has become for many of Britain's 350,000 farmers, who see themselves being driven to extinction, not least thanks to the ever-rising tide of bureaucracy from Brussels and our own officials in the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs.
I have chronicled the unfolding of this catastrophe for 15 years in this column. Its lowest point was the nightmare of the foot-and-mouth crisis of 2001, a disaster made incomparably worse by the callous incompetence of a Government which has treated our farmers like dirt.
In that year alone, the suicide rate of British farmers rose to more than 28 per 100,000: a rate four times that of their Indian counterparts. If what is happening in India is "a disaster of epic proportions", how should we describe what is happening nearer home?.."
See too the Times review of The Lie of the Land "We now spend just 8% of our income on food yet 30 years ago that figure was far higher. This is regarded as a triumph by the government, which worships the supermarkets who have brought the price of food down but, in doing so, have destroyed British farms. .." Worth reading in full.

May 3-6 2007 ~" If vaccination is seen as an option in contingency plans, the availability of vaccines needs to be addressed."

Paul van Aarle, writing about emergency preparedness from the point of view of those who make the vaccines, says ( pdf new window - link mended)
"..... Emergency vaccination is included in most contingency plans and the availability of a licensed vaccine would greatly facilitate the political decision to use vaccination. It is recommended that special and simplified legislation be developed for vaccines that are only used in case of emergency. Alternatively, governments should support the industry financially to fully license emergency vaccines. There is no regulatory framework in the veterinary field for a speedy update of influenza vaccine strains.
For every vaccine strain and for every update of the vaccine strain, a new registration is required. It is recommended that legislation is developed that allows, as is the case for human influenza vaccines, a speedy update of vaccine strains, should the need arise. " "Making Avian Influenza Vaccines available, an Industry Point of View"
Mr van Aarle makes an obvious but easily overlooked point: Vaccines for the appropriate strain are simply not going to be available quickly enough at time of need if no contract has been arranged when they are not needed.

May 2 2007 ~ Testing was not complete until 14 days after the Bernard Matthews plant was re-opened.

Yesterday's Parliamentary Question, its answer and the relevant part of the final epidemiological report can be read here.
Mr Bradshaw's answer reveals that the testing of live poultry within the protection and surveillance zones had not in fact been completed until 26 February whereas the Bernard Matthews slaughterhouse plant in Holton was re-opened on 12 February.
( He says that the slaughterhouse was under restrictions only while the culling was taking place while the meat processing plant had never been placed under restrictions.)
DEFRA does not seem to have realised that poultry meat was still coming in from Hungary.
Although DEFRA's Preliminary Outbreak Assessment (pdf) on January 24th, about the outbreak in southern Hungary, said:
"The TRACES electronic database indicates that there have been no imports of poultry or poultry products from Hungary to the UK for the past three months."
- as we show below, this was entirely wrong. The public health minister, Caroline Flint, revealed in early March that 93 tons of turkey meat from Hungary passed through the Bernard Matthews plant and went into the food chain between February 2 - when the outbreak was confirmed - and February 12. EU rules (Article 22) say that the "competent authority shall ensure that the transport of poultry meat from slaughterhouses, cutting plants and cold stores is prohibited unless it has been produced....at least 21 days before the estimated date of earliest infection on a holding in the protection zone and which since production has been stored and transported separately from such meat produced after that date."
All this suggests that DEFRA was not able properly to assess the risk before re-opening the plant. Meanwhile, other poultry owners were kept under restrictions until March 1st. See below)

May 2 2007 ~ "I am genuinely concerned that short term financial expediency brought about by the recent debacle within the Rural Payments Agency is what has brought this upon us."

A recent letter in the Vet Record repeats the general concern in the veterinary profession that routine brucellosis testing has ceased without consultation. The knock-on effects both for adequate disease surveillance and for young vets who had hoped to be involved in farm animal work are liekly to be far-reaching. "... this present decision adds to one's apprehension that there are going to be insufficient experienced people left to carry on this essential work." Read in full

May 2 2007 ~ The EU is sending 12.6 million euros to Zimbabwe, Mozambique and Malawi to fight foot and mouth disease

These southern african countries will receive 12.6 million euros (about 8.6 million pounds) and the project, which started on April 1 this year, will run for the next three years. The Principal Director in the Department of Veterinary Services in Zimbabwe, Stuart Hargreaves, said the lack of vaccines, equipment and other drugs had been the major factors hampering the effective control of foot and mouth there. See more

April 30 2007~ Questions must continue about the Bernard Matthews H5N1 outbreak

As we say below, a large quantity of breast meat was thrown out because it had been dropped on the floor on 15th January. 60 kilograms of it. DEFRA's interim report (pdf new window ) said
"Pest control reports from the whole premises on January 10 and 24 2007 specifically comment that there had been an ongoing problem of gulls on uncovered waste bins and of them roosting on the finishing units (turkey sheds). Similar comments had been made...in 2006."
H5N1 virus was in shed 10 and we do not yet know how. In addition to concerns that Bernard Matthews was importing meat from the Gall Foods abattoir (two or three lorries a week were travelling to the UK direct from Kecskemet) farmers in the Csongrad area of Hungary alleged that SaGa Foods had received poultry from a farm 19 miles west of the infected Hungarian goose farms. (See Telegraph Feb 11) The origin of this unique turkey/goose strain of virus is still unknown. We are not even certain of the direction of travel of the infection. The to-ing and fro-ing of an enormous quantity of meat and animal carcasses had been taking place between Bernard Matthews and Hungary. There is even a possibility that some poultry imported from Hungary was goose, subsequently packaged as turkey breast. There have been cases of meat substitution in the past. The 60 kilos of breast meat dumped into insecure bins should not be forgotten.

April 30 2007~ The mystery that still surrounds the Bernard Matthews avian flu case must continue to worry us - for several reasons

First, there seems to be a willingness to drop further exploration into the source. It is beginning to look as though Robert Persey's point about a letter sent to MPs from the Bernard Matthews factory farm plant is important and worrying. The decision not to prosecute the company could have been because of fears that details of incompetence would emerge in court.
Secondly, although the Hungarians stoutly deny the connection, the VLA at Weybridge found that the UK virus was 99.96% similar to the strain that infected birds in the outbreak in Southern Hungary. Following the analyses of the RNA genomes, the chief avian virologist at the Veterinary Laboratory Agency, Ian Brown, said that the comparison between the UK and Hungarian viruses "reveals a high level of genetic match which cannot be said of other European virus strains." The Gall Foods abattoir, at Kecskemet 30 miles from the infected farms at Szentes, slaughtered 13,000 geese from those infected farms in January and ALSO slaughtered turkeys from the Matthews farm up to 12 January 2007. To believe that there can be no connection calls for a most energetic leap of faith - and although the DEFRA's epidemiological report of April 5 makes no firm conclusions it still says that H5N1 might have got into shed 10 " by contaminated feed or other material that then entered the shed (through normal procedures or carried in by vermin)"
We have seen no answers to questions about what was put into in feed but we do know that on 15 January approximately 60kg of breast meat was discarded into waste bins, we know that there were breaches of good practice that made waste material available to wild scavengers and we also know that shed 10 was old and not very secure.
The Hungarians are annoyed with Britain. Perhaps approaches were less than tactful and it certainly seems an extraordinary lack of courtesy on the part of our own authorities that the Hungarians were not sent the epidemiological report before it appeared on the internet for all to see.
In this sort of case there can be no blame when everyone is behaving in good faith and virus is accidentally spread. What remains deeply worrying is that investigations may have closed down because of pressure being exerted - an approach that defiles both science and integrity.

April 29 2007~ The Netherlands is angry at the bluetongue mix-up and its sequel

It seems that Germany has finally confirmed that the Osnabrück sentinel cow had no Bluetongue infection. From the level of frustration apparent among farmers it looks as though farming issues are being handled in the same way all over Europe. Incompetence is at heart-breaking levels and veterinary experts are appearing to do little more than watch impotently while politicians make such a hash of animal health policies.
The consequences of this supposed BTV case - a case that was contested right from the start - have cost farmers and traders very dearly. Measures were taken (see below) within the EU as a result and were not relaxed as soon as the truth came to light. (See Agrarisch Dagblad for Dutch report)
As for the UK's ability to cope with serious diseases of which bluetongue is only one, we see that in spite of DEFRA's denials that funding for animal health and welfare research is being reduced, the Farmers Guardian quotes BVA president, David Catlow as saying
"Funding for anything to do with animal health is becoming foggy. We do not know what figures to believe as it is becoming an accountancy exercise."
When there is no understanding of the serious implications of animal disease, cost cutting can became a dangerously false economy.

April 28 2007~ ".... further evidence that DEFRA in London is not fit for purpose...." .

On April 19 http://uuptoday.org quoted MEP (N.Ireland) Jim Nicholson, speaking from Brussels on the subject of the £36 million EU fine for for late 2003 and 2004 IACS payments,
"It is disgraceful that taxpayer's money will have to be spent on paying a fine to the European Commission that could have been avoided if the UK Government wasn't so disorganized and inefficient. It is further evidence that DEFRA in London is not fit for purpose when it comes to administering farmers' payments.
The fine rubs farmers face in the dirt even more when you consider the unwillingness and reticence of the UK Government to provide match funding for a number of agri - environment and other related schemes."
This fine is only for 2003 and 2004, of course. It will still be some time before the fine on the UK for late SFP payments is known. It is likely to be substantially bigger than this latest fine and could be as much as £305 million.
Meanwhile, we read in the FT that DEFRA is at the centre of a new storm because it has been advising the buying of carbon credits that are environmentally worthless. The FT investigation found widespread instances of people and organisations buying worthless credits that do not yield any reductions in carbon emissions, and being charged over the odds for the private purchase of European Union carbon permits that have plummeted in value. Industrial companies have been profiting from gaining carbon credits on the basis of efficiency gains from which they have already benefited.
The Economist comments that those at the helm ".....have so far escaped punishment. Margaret Beckett, in charge of DEFRA at the time, is now the foreign secretary; Sir Brian Bender, DEFRA's most senior civil servant, has moved over to the Department for Trade and Industry..." DEFRA's incompetence, ignorance, wastefulness, arrogance and mangling of the English language might be forgiven were it not for the fact that no one ever apologises, that so little changes, and that we have seen no evidence of accountability - quite the reverse.

April 27 2007~ "biosecurity considerations are always at the forefront of animal health and welfare policies," says Lord Rooker - but there is to be no proper risk analysis done to assess the hazards of the Fallen Stock Scheme - whose rationale is an out-of-date nonsense.

The so-called Fallen Stock scheme was designed by officialdom worried about vCJD. It was thought that leaking carcases of sheep that had died of scrapie might have been infected with BSE and - in light of the prevailing unproven theory- present a danger of vCJD. But scrapie does not mask BSE and the whole rationale of the scheme has been shown to have been misguided. Dan Buglass, in the Scotsmanlast month reminded us that the government's own spongiform encephalopathy advisory committee (SEAC)
"ever so quietly admitted that the chances of BSE being present in the sheep flock were as close to zero as one could possibly wish"
See also below
The Bansback Review (pdf) carried out last year noted that costs to farmers were higher than had been envisaged and recommended that there was a need for "articulating more strongly the need for the legislation" Most importantly, the Bansback Review recommended
"Proactively reviewing and seeking changes in the Animal By-Product Regulations. There is growing evidence that parts of this regulation are inflexible and disproportionate. Close liaison between Government and industry should result in sensible adjustments which should enable more practical and lower-cost solutions."
Last Tuesday, Lord Vinson,(Hansard) asked for just such sensible adjustments. He had already in February asked about the possibility that
" the collection of diseased sheep from farms may spread disease, bearing in mind the transmission of disease by vehicles and people during the foot-and-mouth disease outbreak in 2001" ( Lord Rooker's reply (WA 211)
and his question on Tuesday was "whether they will conduct a hazard analysis critical control points (HACCP) analysis survey to assess the environmental and biosecurity impact of the collection of fallen stock; and whether, if necessary, they will amend existing legislation in the light of this analysis to reduce the cost to the farmer. [HL3270]"
Lord Rooker said "No" and that the EU Animal By-products Regulation 1774/2002/EC "already lays down rules for the safe collection, transport, storage, handling, processing and use or disposal of animal by-products, including fallen stock."
That the Fallen Stock Scheme is a counter-productive and unfairly expensive shambles has always been the opinion of many (see warmwell page), and they are unlikely to be impressed by Lord Rooker's recent answers. Dan Buglass article is a "blast at those who imposed the National Scrapie Plan (NSP) on the sheep industry and then followed up that nonsense with the fallen stock scheme." But the juggernaut of the Fallen Stock Scheme continues on its mad, ponderous way because the sane course of stopping it would entail the sort of admissions we are never likely to hear from its creators.

April 26 2007 ~ Bluetongue sentinel at Osnabrück - the wrong animal was sampled....

On 30 Mar 2007, the German veterinary authorities reported that BTV (bluetongue virus) was detected in a sentinel bovine animal in Landkreis Osnabrück in Lower Saxony. The finding suggested that the virus had managed to 'overwinter'. This new assumption of infection in the Osnabrück cow brought to an end the agreements between the Netherlands, Belgium, Germany, France, and Luxembourg, and the regular bluetongue export and movement restrictions were again enforced. The Friedrich Löffler Institut (OIE Reference Laboratory) was expected to announce that the Osnabrück outbreak was, in fact, not an outbreak.
This is a rough and very free translation by ourselves of the small paragraph that appeared in yesterday's Dutch press (www.zibb.nl )
The Bluetongue "discovery" in Osnabrück was definitively a false alarm according to the Agriculture Ministry of the federal state of Nedersaksen. The wrong animal was sampled. It tested positive, but this was because of a build-up of antibodies from the previous year. In spite of this mistake, it has been decided not to overturn the measures put in place (see below) when it was thought to have been a new case and proof that the virus had overwintered (As DEFRA proclaimed in its Defra Preliminary Outbreak Assessment of April 4th.) . The Agriculture Ministry in The Hague want to consult with concerned member countries before making any decision. The Hague has not yet received any message from Hannover.
(A more accurate, full translation would be gratefully received.) UPDATE - See bluetongue page. A correct translation now appears on ProMed

April 26 2007 ~ Contaminated pet food highlights issues for human food - and the competence of official agencies

While our own FSA gets proactive about the dangers of honey and cheese (see below) , there is a genuinely frightening situation in the US raising questions about checks on imports and the willingness and speed of the US Food and Drug Administration to respond to problems. The first reports of animal deaths from contaminated pet food came to light over a month ago. Melamine, found in at least 2 imported Chinese vegetable proteins used to make pet foods, may have been used to falsify analyses of the protein content of the ingredients. The Smallholders Newsletter 194 (See Smallholders Online) contained a piece from an articulate American dog owner
Extract: ".... After repeated phone calls to Purina over a period of three days, during which I provided the date and plant codes, I noticed that Purina began recalling part of its Alpo line.... he is lying at my feet, dying, because I poisoned him. I poisoned him with Alpo Prime Cuts in Gravy that was adulterated ......The FDA stonewalled, refusing to release the name of the US distributer, ChemNutra, until a blogger found it by digging through the FDA records. Not only that, but the FDA and the manufacturers were reactive, waiting for the body count to rise before "voluntarily" recalling their product.....the US distributer refuses to release his customer list to the public...."
Yesterday, after news that some pigs and poultry, intended for human consumption, have been fed the salvaged pet food, a ProMed moderator commented:"The situation with the pet food and the swine foods highlights issues for human food as well. Cyanuric acid.... is not a product for use in food..."
The FDA has now expanded its testing to other glutens in other food sources - but one cannot but be worried by the dog owner's words written on April 8th: " It has taken the FDA two days to update its website to include the Alpo recall. It has taken the FDA over three weeks to begin to get this situation under control....... We've spent trillions upon trillions of dollars blasting terrorists in countries you and I will never set foot in. Meanwhile, we can't provide adequate hurricane relief or ensure that our dog food is safe.."
UPDATE April 26 Washington Post

April 25 2007 ~ "At least the FSA hasn't so far claimed that honey must be banned because it has discovered that bees can catch BSE. But we only need give them time."

Private Eye's Muckspreader on the continuing follies of the Food Standards Agency. Ofcom, at the FSA's behest, has included honey along with Marmite, cheese and olive oil, as 'junk foods' which can no longer be advertised to children...
"... To anyone but the officials of the FSA, this is so self-evidently absurd - honey has for millennia been regarded as one of the healthiest foods on the planet - that a campaign has been launched by the Grocer magazine, backed by the British Beekeepers Association and an array of nutritionists, to shower Ed Richards, Ofcom's chief executive, with letters of protest, asking him to withdraw this ridiculous diktat. Mr Richards should perhaps be reminded of some of the choicer examples of the FSA's previous record in grasping the realities of which foodstuffs are actually dangerous or not...." Read in full
Muckspreader mentions, as an example, the banning of traditional sausage skins when it was maintained that sheep intestines would spread BSE. We hardly need reminding. We have been following the miserable scrapie saga since 2001. There has been a deafening lack of interest at recent conclusions at EU level that scrapie does not mask BSE at all and compulsory testing is unnecessary. Even Mr Bradshaw now reluctantly admits that the ram genotyping scheme is too worthless - as many were warning from the start - to deserve further funding. It has been yet another mammoth folly involving DEFRA, the FSA and some of our most lauded and deferred-to scientific talking heads (professors Roy Anderson and Neil Ferguson et al).
Who will dare to point out that the costs, in terms of money and heartbreak, of the refusal to listen to specialist on-the-ground experts have been incalculable ? No reproaches have been reported. The recent report from the Select Committee into Science and Technology is as relevant as ever: "we have noted with concern the sidelining of scientific expertise in the civil service and highlighted the need to move towards a situation where specialist skills are once again valued in their own right."
The Grocer has launched a campaign calling for an urgent review of the so-called 'Nutrient Profiling Model'.

April 25 2007 ~ Hungary denies any connection with UK bird flu outbreak

Robert Hodgson of the Budapest Times reported on Monday that according to Hungary's Agriculture Minister, Zoltán Gögös there is "no evidence of a link" and that Hungary has not even yet received the DEFRA report of the epidemiological findings by the National Emergency Epidemiology Group from the UK into the bird flu outbreak at Bernard Matthews. He said that even if the two virus strains showed similarity, this proved nothing, as bird flu strains are often similar to each other.
".... As UK reporters flew en masse to Hungary, muddled reports began appearing in the UK press about, for example, connections between Bernard Matthews "farm" (it is a turkey meat processing plant) in "Sarkov" and the bird flu outbreaks, which were, in fact, on goose farms on the other side of the country. Suspicions deepened as reports of regular movements of unprocessed turkey meat between Hungary and the UK gradually came to light, and there was increased pressure from UK journalists eager to establish a direct link between the outbreaks in the two countries and pin the blame of Bernard Matthews Ltd. The official Hungarian position was that migrating ducks must have carried the virus into both the UK and Hungary, probably from Russia. The UK position was that the most probable route was into Hungary by duck then on to the UK in turkey meat, by truck........at a press conference held by the Hungarian Ministry of Agriculture, chief veterinarian, Miklós Süth, asked foreign, especially British, journalists to "leave our experts alone," and let them get on with their jobs. He also criticised the UK press for printing misinformation, although he did not single out any one newspaper. Eventually, as no evidence of a truckload of infected meat being illegally driven to the UK could be found, interest in the story faded. Now the slanging match between the two farming ministries is set to start again."
Could it be that the British authorities have acted in a high handed manner rather than working tactfully with their Hungarian counterparts? A "slanging match", when it is so important to establish the facts, is surely the last thing that should be happening.

April 23 2007 ~"administrators are there to serve the country, not the other way round.... why should errors of policy, that have nothing to do with animal welfare, impinge upon the profession and its work in farm animal disease control and welfare?"

We have many times deplored that purely financial considerations can lead to ill-informed animal health policies counter productive to animal health. A letter from D. N. Logue, Vice-President of the Scottish Branch of the BVA in the Veterinary Record this week is very relevant, explaining that the value of ensuring regular visits to extensive beef (and sheep) farms that may have relatively little contact with their veterinarian can put a different cost-benefit aspect to the decision to end routine brucellosis testing (see also below)
".. The fact that there was no consultation on the withdrawal of brucellosis testing ...raises many questions... For example, what is the relevance of milk testing dairy cattle to beef herds? Is it not time that we used this sort of routine surveillance exercise to test a selected population of these animals for say bluetongue or even bovine tuberculosis (TB)? What is the value of ensuring regular visits to extensive beef (and sheep) farms that may have relatively little contact with their veterinarian? These last two could put a different cost-benefit aspect to the matter. I am genuinely concerned that short term financial expediency brought about by the recent debacle within the Rural Payments Agency is what has brought this upon us. If this is so, why should errors of policy that have nothing to do with animal welfare impinge upon the profession and its work in farm animal disease control and welfare?...We admit that a properly integrated approach between practice and the others as described above has a higher cost than some in the Treasury might like, but administrators are there to serve the country, not the other way round, and costbenefit and effectiveness should be more important rules of thumb than cost alone. Surely the recent animal disease history of this country has taught us that? "
Read in full

April 23 2007 ~ "Come on, open up in the name of the cow inspector"

Heather Brooke, in today's Times, echoes Booker's Notebook yesterday. Both write about the alarming growth of the State's right to enter people's property. Both cite the bizarre action of DEFRA in sending 22 "officials" to try to kill Harriet (see Harriet page) (Sadly, the writer in the Times did not know of Harriet's untimely death.) The Times today:
".......This hit squad had erected a road block to seal off the area and used bolt-cutters to force their way into the enclosure. They had not asked permission to enter, nor did they need to..... Harriet, you see, had the misfortune to be on land where there had once been a BSE-infected cow and the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) had decided that she must be destroyed as a risk to the public. Harriet's owners, David Price and Liz Davis, had argued that the nine-year-old Jersey cow was a pet, bought as a present for their son. They had documentation showing she did not have BSE nor was she ever going to be slaughtered for meat. .."
The study published yesterday by the Centre for Policy Studies, Crossing the Threshold: 266 ways the State can enter your home in which the barrister, Harry Snook, catalogues the explosive growth in the State's powers to enter private property forcefully and without permission, seems to have shocked many. Warmwell readers will not be shocked by it. Most of us merely continue to wonder why - in the years since the behaviour of "officials" in 2001 - so few voices have been raised in opposition or in Opposition to the insidious growth of the infant police state here. It is no longer an exaggeration to use such an expression - as the Times today makes clear.
" It is utterly unacceptable that the State's most invasive and arbitrary power is not even documented. ... Clearly, it's time we modernised to at least the point America reached in the 1700s. We need one law to harmonise entry powers and protect the citizen by making accountability and transparency paramount."

April 23 2007 ~ " The Blight of Beckett persists. .."

writes Dan Buglass in the Scotsman in an article that has words of praise for "more diligent women" such as Mariann Fischer Boel, Mary Coughlan, Michelle Gildernew, Fiona Dalrymple and Margaret Stewart (of Quality Meat Scotland) Dan Bugloss deplores the enduring rural legacy of Mrs Beckett - such as last week's announcement by DEFRA that it was cutting, and in some cases cancelling, funding for a wide range of research programmes into animal health, welfare and behaviour. But
" there was more to come: no longer will the government provide open-ended funding for compensation in the event of a major animal disease outbreak such as foot-and-mouth or bovine tuberculosis. Instead, Whitehall is keen to enter into some vague form of "partnership" with the industry. That, quite simply, is a coded message to the effect that a levy will be imposed on farmers to meet future costs. I accept that there were some mighty cheques paid out to farmers in the wake of the 2001 foot-and-mouth crisis, but it was not the fault of the stewards of the countryside that the awful plague arrived here. Biosecurity is supposed to have been tightened at points of entry into the UK, but there are few obvious indications of that..."
More on RPA page

April 22 - 23 2007 ~ "The virus cannot be transmitted between susceptible animals without the presence of the insect carriers...."

The Queensland Government's page on Bluetongue: "There is no justification for stamping out but some animals may need to be destroyed for welfare reasons. It is not possible to eradicate the bluetongue vectors."
The NFU's apparent wish for "aggressive" culling (Farmers' Guardian) to be a UK response to bluetongue when it arrives is very odd. They naturally fear movement restrictions if the virus strikes but all who understand bluetongue are agreed that culling is not going to help in controlling the disease. While one sympathises greatly with the NFU's "fears about Defra's commitment to partnership" (Farmers' Guardian April 20) one wonders who is advising them on Bluetongue.

April 22 - 23 2007 ~ Osnabrück sentinal cow - admission of mix-up expected on Monday - after the damage has been done. "Please tell the world. I am still so angry"

It is yet another example of a string of inflexible consequences following an assumption subsequently shown to have been wrong. On 30 Mar 2007, the German veterinary authorities reported that BTV (bluetongue virus) was detected in a sentinel bovine animal in Landkreis Osnabrück in Lower Saxony. The finding suggested that the virus had managed to 'overwinter'. This new assumption of infection in the Osnabrück cow brought to an end the agreements between the Netherlands, Belgium, Germany, France, and Luxembourg, and the regular bluetongue export and movement restrictions were again enforced. We now find that the Friedrich Löffler Institut (OIE Reference Laboratory) is very likely to announce on Monday afternoon that the Osnabrück outbreak was, in fact, not an outbreak. Our German correspondent writes,
"..this was not a "false" positive but probably a mixing up of blood samples at some level. Maybe the wrong cow was sampled or the sample has somehow been mixed with others at a lab and has been allocated a wrong number....plenty of possibilities. There is now a genetic test underway to check whether the positive sample belongs to the cow in question. It is likely it doesn't. We still have PCR positive animals around but this doesn't mean they are still infective as the PCR shows traces of virus for up to 200 days. ..... this shows yet again the incompetence of our "competent authorities". Even the vets from the local government have no information about the animals in question. In addition there is, at this moment, no legislation in place in Germany how to deal with the next wave of infections. When asking the government vet she told me to stick to last year's regulation. When asking which (there have been about 11 different versions that have been changed and amended every other week) she told me : 'take your pick'..
Please tell the world. I am still so angry, why can't there be sensible measures to deal with disease ? It is either kill everything or do damage by doing nothing. ..."
As James Irvine says on LandCare,. "What is required is rapid on-farm tests that can be done within a few hours, not a few days.... blood samples taken from anywhere throughout the UK have to go to Pirbright, Surrey in the south of England for testing. While this may be fine for establishing the serotype of the first case, it is far from satisfactory when it comes to checking whether a beast on a farm is suffering from BTV or from some other condition..... There must surely have been abundant opportunity to "validate" such tests if there was a will to do so."

April 22 - 23 2007 ~ Prince Charles defends "family farmers who have been on the land for generations and have priceless experience and wisdom of the sort which cannot be taught in a classroom, but which is absorbed and inherited."

The Sunday Telegraph reports that Prince Charles, in a letter to the Arthur Rank Centre farming charity, makes a "veiled attack" on DEFRA and its handling of agricultural policies. He said that farmers were enduring "some of the toughest times in living memory" because of the fiasco over missing subsidy payments that has left many facing ruin. "There are farmers who feel they cannot cope with this new and frightening world," he said.
Many will feel immense gratitude that Prince Charles, who has been criticised for daring to engage with and challenge the government, continues to make his sympathetic voice heard.

April 22 - 23 2007 ~ Gordon Brown is to order owners of farm land and buildings to pay both council tax and business rates, ending a 78-year exemption.

"The rural tax raid would hit everyone who turns a profit on a plot of land or outbuildings and could plunge farmers into bankruptcy" says the Sunday Telegraph
"Farmers and smallholders are unlikely to be able to avoid paying by reclassifying their land as domestic. Their homes will be hit, in any case, by another aspect of the council tax review which says houses with large gardens and even country views must pay extra.
Peter Ainsworth MP, the shadow secretary of state for environment, food and rural affairs, said: "Hard-pressed farmers will be horrified by the prospect of a massive increase in taxation at a time when they can ill afford it. This will further undermine the rural economy and force farmers to sell off their land to unscrupulous developers."
The article quotes Simon Hart: "The Government desperately needs to rethink their contempt for the sector."

April 20-22 2007 ~ "as with foot and mouth, the Government have failed to establish the cause of the outbreak of bird flu in Suffolk.."

On Thursday, Peter Ainsworth, asking whether it is not time to look again at the regulations concerning the importation of poultry meat, reminded the House of Commons (Hansard) that "there must have been a serious breach of bio-security at the Bernard Matthews plant", but that nobody will be held responsible and the company will receive £589,356.89 in compensation. Barry Gardener sidestepped any engagement with the serious question of what the Countess of Mar referred to in February as " DEFRA's "lack of assiduity in tracing where the virus has come from" (See below)
The Government's insistence that the cost of future animal disease outbreaks should be shared with farmers looks wholly unreasonable when, with all its resources, it cannot or will not get to the bottom of how a disease has come in and thus be better placed to protect the country.
What Barry Gardener did say was that the Government had "received many plaudits for the way in which the whole matter of avian flu has been handled". One is reminded that in April 2004 it was the Labour member, Mr. Huw Edwards, who said of Ben Bradshaw's self congratulation:
"I was rather surprised when the Minister opened his speech by applauding the fact that the foot and mouth outbreak was contained within seven months. That seemed like a bit of positive spin that was perhaps written by a special adviser. There was more than a year of absolute hell in my constituency..."
It is unfortunate that the government seems unwilling to do anything but preen itself over its handling of disease. It is yet another reminder of the disastrous policies in 2001 - from which so few real lessons for the present and for the future seem yet to have been learned.

April 20 2007 ~ Bluetongue. Moves to attack the midges would be more effective than transport restrictions

"the precautionary measures taken by the EU to contain the Bluetongue virus (BTV) in Northern Europe have had little or no effect on the spread of the disease, according to the European Food Standards Authority.....Certainly moves to attack the midges which carry the virus would be more effective than transport restrictions for animals, it seems.
It is now up to DG SANCO to decide how this EFSA advice might be reflected in policy."
For further information see www.efsa.europa.eu

April 19/20 2007 ~".. we are left with the possibility that meat products from pre-clinically infected turkeys, infected from a common source with the Hungarian outbreaks in January 2007, might have been slaughtered and exported to the Holton site"

The DEFRA report of the epidemiological findings by the National Emergency Epidemiology Group: "Our conclusion is that infection was most likely introduced to GB via the importation of turkey meat from Hungary."
Guesses about a possible common cause of "wild bird infection" are, of course, just that - mere guesses.
The Guardian quotes Jack Straw,
"All of us are uncomfortable about the reports of high levels of compensation to Mr Matthews' firm."
Peter Ainsworth said the government had "once again" failed to establish the cause of the outbreak of a serious animal disease.
"....The fact that the government cannot ascertain precisely how bird flu got to Suffolk must surely be a case for looking again at the adequacy of existing regulations dealing with imports of poultry meat. Bearing in mind that there must have been a serious failure of bio security at the Bernard Matthews plant, many people will be absolutely astonished that no one will be held responsible for the outbreak. Instead the company will receive £589,356.89 in compensation funded by the taxpayer."
We should very much like someone to be made to answer the question, "What exactly were the infected turkey poults being fed on at the time of the outbreak?"
We should also very much like to know whether an alleged document from Bernard Matthews criticising DEFRA's handling of the outbreak, claimed by Robert Persey to have been sent to MPs, ever existed and if so, whether it was the cause of DEFRA's reluctance to allow any prosecution of Bernard Matthews to take place for fear that such criticisms should come to light.

April 19 2007 ~ Ben Bradshaw: "The key to effective disease control is good surveillance, early detection and rapid response"

Lindsay Hoyle (Chorley, Labour) asked Ben Bradshaw (Hansard April 16) " what strategies his Department has in place to combat (a) avian influenza and (b) foot and mouth disease in the North West."
A short definition of strategy is "the art of distributing and applying means to fulfil the ends of policy." The Minister's given reply, along with the inevitable reference to bio-security (see below for comment), was that the key to effective disease control is good surveillance, early detection and rapid response - yet no "strategies" were outlined. Still less did the Minister mention that the surveillance needed, already inadequate, has been much decreased; for example, by the scrapping this month of routine testing for brucellosis (where vets, until April 9th 2007, were paid by the State for this service, and could have a quiet look round for signs of other disease problems). Strategies for "early detection" and "rapid response" are not helped by the UK's inexplicable reluctance to use such effective and available technologies as on-site rapid diagnostic tests and vaccination.

April 19 2007 ~ "Planning was tested by the avian influenza case in Suffolk earlier this year and it coped well..."

said Mr Bradshaw in answer to the question above. It has been suggested that Bernard Matthews has circulated a report to MP's highlighting the fact that far from 'coping well', DEFRA's work in dealing with the Avian flu outbreak was deficient, and one of the reasons that there is not to be a prosecution is that the Department was not prepared to risk these details being made public in Court. In spite of DEFRA's assumption at the beginning of the outbreak that wild birds were the cause, and even as free range birds were being unnecessarily forced indoors, there seems to have been no live sampling either of wild birds nor commercial poultry until the media highlighted this. The Bernard Matthews factory imported the virus itself as a result of the to-ing and fro-ing of carcases and meat products between the UK and Hungary - or so it would certainly seem. Dangerous practices were ignored, and the factory - in spite of all this - is not only not to be prosecuted - but compensated by taxpayers to the tune of something like £600,000.
Perhaps Mr Hoyle's question was asked in order for the draft North West Exotic Animal Disease Plan (pdf) to get a mention.
Emergency plans need plain English, and must surely be written in a way that all can immediately understand - but here is an extract:
"LDCC - SVS lead, interfaces with the Local Resilience Forum which is the recognised mechanism under CCA for multi-agency coordination at the local level. Depending upon the nature of the outbreak the LRF will convene or set up a Strategic Co-ordination Group
The LRF will decide upon the scope of consequence management and the need for a Recovery Working Group. .....
LDCC / LRF / RWG will work in tandem. A liaison officer will be appointed...."
Are we alone in being baffled? A straightforward simple working manual for use during an outbreak, drawn up after close and democratic collaboration between those involved in disease control is what is needed. Hoped for outcomes are not the same as clearly defined strategies.

April 18/19 2007 ~ "It is not enough to have the odd pop-hole in the side of a shed, even if this ticks a box on a certification scheme."

A Guardian article today, "The Price of Eggs" compares the majority of still very suspect poultry raising sytems in the UK with the situation in Switzerland where battery cages and beak tipping were both banned in 1991. Swiss flocks range without aggression. Dr Michael Appleby, a chicken expert and welfare policy adviser to the World Society for the Protection of Animals (WSPA) is quoted:
"Let's remember that these are animals and manage our farms as biological systems, not technological systems. Birds don't have hands, so how do they manipulate and investigate? With their beaks. The tip is very sensitive." Read article
Battery egg production in this country will at last be made illegal by 2012 - although the poultry "industry" is lobbying hard to get the ban postponed, justifying this by saying that cheap imports from beyond the EU will take the place of battery eggs. Such an attitude ignores the increasing awareness of consumers here who feel queasy at the unnatural lives imposed on birds even in some purportedly free-range systems. Compassion in World Farming actively works towards getting changes made. Their get involved section suggests practical ways to help.

April 18 2007 ~ Competition Commission findings into supermarket practices were expected to be made public in June, but now postponed until January 2008

Farmers are effectively subsidising consumers and supermarket giants according to Roger Williams, the Liberal Democrat spokesman for food and rural affairs . Scotsman
Speaking yesterday after the announcement that Tesco had posted record profits of £2.55 billion, Williams warned that the power of the supermarkets was destroying British farming....."Supermarkets are raking it in by keeping prices static and passing costs on to farmers. For every £1 consumers spend on food in supermarkets, just 8p goes back to the farmer." Ten years ago the average ex-farm price of milk was just short of 25p per litre. Current values are no better than 19p per litre. Supermarket practices and margins are under scrutiny by the Competition Commission. The findings were expected to be made public in June, but that date is slipping, according to Williams. He said: "The outcome has now been postponed until January 2008 because of the huge amount of information that remains to be processed."

April 17 2007 ~ End of brucellosis tests - another example of false economy?

Routine periodic blood testing for Brucellosis in beef herds ended on April 9th. The biennial brucellosis blood test was an opportunity for vets to spend time on the farm when they could carry out discreet disease surveillance. Without it, vital surveillance will be reduced - as will the number of rural veterinary practices.
Writing in the Journal the vet Iain Carrington voices several concerns about this, not least that "due to the unseemly haste with which this policy has been introduced the information which we have finally been sent is unclear."
"......a false sense of security relating to the other systems now in place to identify and stop the possible spread of disease. Also this will mean any other surveillance carried out on these blood samples (Enzootic Bovine Leucosis and Warble fly) will cease. Concerns have also been expressed that this change in policy will reduce the number of farm animal vets available in practice, thereby compromising the ability to react to any disease outbreaks that may threaten us in the future...."
Writing to warmwell, another vet, Hugh Coryn, says, "It appears from what I read from your German contact that cattle in Blue Tongue act as a reserve of infection - or at least can do so. This makes the decision to stop routine Blood Tests for Brucellosis in Beef herds even more regrettable, since the same samples could have been used for screening for the presence of undetected Blue Tongue. It only requires modification of Laboratory facilities - another example of false economy. I fear also that (concern about) climate change and the midge is again leading us to ignore traffic in animals as a serious component of the spread of disease."

April 16 2007 ~ "Mrs Beckett was arrogant beyond belief. When she became Foreign Secretary, I thought, "God help this country". ..."

Today's article in the Telegraph on "What has a decade of Tony Blair meant for you? " features a balanced and calm assessment by a farmer in Cornwall for whom farming is still "a wonderful life" . But he pulls no punches in voicing opinions about the Foot and Mouth crisis, the RPA fiasco, the fact that the UK is now far less self-sufficient in food production, the now excessive and unnecessary paperwork and the arrogant incompetence of many in politics. It reminds us that in spite of the recent misfortune of diseases, the real threats to farming can be laid at the door of those pursuing power and profits and who show so little competent understanding of the realities of UK farming.
"the amount of paperwork has exploded. My son Steve spends more time at the desk than he does farming. There are so many regulations to comply with. I am not against them, or all the inspections, but a lot of the paperwork is unnecessary. The foot and mouth epidemic was a disaster. Government departments didn't seem to pull together. ....In the last 10 years we have become accustomed to spin and deviousness. Politicians and government departments have been unreasonable and have lacked flexibility. .... Our industry is still trying to be as efficient as possible. We are an enthusiastic industry. But when you are as efficient as possible and the return is low, that is the reason so many are getting out of it...."
Telegraph article

April 14/15 2007 ~ Bluetongue. "What is required is rapid on-farm tests that can be done within a few hours, not a few days".

Those likely to be affected by Bluetongue are recommended to read the article on LandCare by James Irvine
Extract: "...According to the latest version of the UK BT Contingency Plan, blood samples taken from anywhere throughout the UK have to go to Pirbright, Surrey in the south of England for testing. While this may be fine for establishing the serotype of the first case, it is far from satisfactory when it comes to checking whether a beast on a farm is suffering from BTV or from some other condition. What is required is rapid on-farm tests that can be done within a few hours, not a few days. RT-PCR technology is available for that internationally, but for some reason the UK authorities do not wish to use it. There must surely have been abundant opportunity to "validate" such tests if there was a will to do so."
A vet reader of warmwell writes, "I am afraid I am not an expert on Blue Tongue, nor I suspect are most practitioners, hence if it does arrive it could well get missed.." The Land Care article has a section on the symptoms and signs of Bluetongue - and also quotes the email sent to warmwell by the German farmer below. See also iah.bbsrc.ac.uk for clinical symptoms.

April 13 2007 ~"Mathematical modelling must be carried out as a multi-disciplinary process involving modellers, field epidemiologists, virologists etc .."

From the EUFMD 2006 Paphos FMD - DRAFT conference report we read some important caveats about mathematical modelling.
"..... Models in general therefore require accurate data and assumption on mechanisms of spread in order to produce reliable outputs.
• Mathematical modelling must be carried out as a multi-disciplinary process involving modellers, field epidemiologists, virologists etc
• Mathematical models should not be used to produce policy directly but as a part of the process of policy formulation and decision support
• Mathematical modelling is most appropriately developed and validated in between outbreaks rather than in an emergency situation. .."
Read Draft report in full (pdf) Here (in HTML ) is the part on Contingency planning and simulation exercises

April 12 2007 ~ "Animal welfare is an issue of great importance for Europeans..."

says last month's EU Factsheet on Animal Welfare Ensuring the humane and responsible treatment of farmed animals (pdf)
"The farming of animals is no longer seen as merely a means of food production, but also as an ethical concern. Increasingly, there is a public sense of responsibility for animals which are under human care. Moreover, in consumers' minds, the well-being of farmed animals is strongly associated with the quality, and even safety, of food..."
It was Peter Melchett in the Guardian in February who reminded us that
" ...Agri-business knows that if they told the truth about the food they flog us, still less let us see the inside of one of those turkey factories, the chances are no one would ever buy the stuff again. ..."
Perhaps the message that it really does matter to people how animals are kept and looked after is starting to get through even to the most cynical. The Bernard Matthews brand, as we read in MarketingWeek, now plans organic, free-range meats in order (may they be forgiven) to be "relevant to today's consumers". One can only hope (for without irrational optimism one might despair) that this is more than a smoke screen behind which to hide the continuation of such practices as came to light in February. The fact that Bernard Matthews escaped prosecution (and Robert Persey's email is instructive here) has not put a stop to a slow awakening of public revulsion.
Peter Melchett here describes the difference in stance between Sir David King, most of the NFU and urban politicians with that of those who advocate organic farming. "....The hi-tech brigade assume world-wide trade in farm products and food is the norm..." (More)

April 12 2007 ~"We have a problem across the EU with vaccine policy. If governments do not provide a certain economic incentive [to produce the vaccines], industry won't develop them."

International Relations and Security Network (ISN) reported yesterday on a recent "closed-door gathering" in Brussels of bio-policy officials from government and industry. "Around 35 participants split equally between government and industry attended the stakeholder debate, most of which was off-record."
John Oxford was quoted as saying that Europe needed
"more policy cohesion regarding early detection of outbreaks and more investment in the sector.. ...It's better to stock a lot of low-effective vaccines that (missing) than a smaller number of high-effective ones. Some member states have grasped this; others not."
There is no " intra-EU solidarity mechanism" in place regarding vaccine stockpiles, says the article, which continues: ".... US government-funded research efforts are developing biological tools to fight foot-and-mouth disease and new technologies to secure the US food chain, from field to factory. European governments can only watch such unitary budget decision with envy..." Read in full

April 11 2007 ~ Bluetongue: " there will be multiple opportunities for it to come over"

Dr Ruth Watkins writes about bluetongue policy
" .... it could be imported midges rather than ones borne on the wind too. There are a number of midge transporting wind events that can occur from Ostend to Norfolk Kent etc. and if Bluetongue is active again this summer in that area of Europe as is expected, there will be multiple opportunities for it to come over. Should one prohibit all ruminants and cull all deer within 150 km of the English coast? I think that is just about as stupid a suggestion as culling animals in whom the disease is recognised.
We cannot spray and kill all midges either; anyway, midges may be important ecologically and the environment would be contaminated.
Things we might do is to think of strategies to decrease the amplification in midges by treating the ruminants ...vaccinating susceptible domestic ruminants, cattle sheep and goats to prevent or lower viraemia, and treating all ruminants on the farm..." Read in full
The European Food Standards Authority Report on Epidemiological analysis of the 2006 bluetongue virus serotype 8 epidemic in north-western Europe: provisional findings through 31 January 2007, updated yesterday, concludes "... changes in climatic conditions coupled with frequent travel might increase the risk in the appearance and the establishment of diseases in parts of Europe that were thus far exotic for those regions." In other words, it is most certainly on its way. Another warmwell reader suggests that there may be some mileage, in the longer term, in looking to see if we can affect the breeding of the local vectors ( Midges, mosquitos) . A vaccine will certainly ameliorate the effects of the virus infection , will lower the circulating virus in an animal and make the sheep less infectious when the next midge bites. And a West Country farmer writes, " ...We cannot control midges, so sooner or later we have to embrace a prevention policy."

April 10th 2007 ~ slaughter of the host is pointless. It is nothing to do with being "robust".

DEFRA and its chosen stakeholders group will try to "agree a national control plan" for Bluetongue by the end of April. Culling is quite clearly inappropriate for this midge-borne disease. Unfortunately DEFRA is maintaining that its reason for not culling is an economic rather than a veterinary one:. " it does not want to be landed with a large compensation bill in the event of an outbreak, and appears keen to use bluetongue as the first major test of its cost-sharing and responsibility agenda. .." (Farmer's Guardian) One can only quote Dr Roger Breeze in the paper "Industry Cost Sharing" " Industry cannot negotiate meaningfully if its "negotiation" comments are only responses to proposals and goals of the government." It is patently unjust, if the government is doing little to check on the health of the piper, not only to call all the tunes but also expect farmers to pay for them - but it would be helpful if livestock leaders were more clued up on the science when they argue with DEFRA. Thomas Binns is quoted as wanting a "robust" policy. He means killing the animals and getting compensation but he also maintains (and is listened to, alas) that it would " stop the virus getting into the midge population and spreading to other farms" One can only assume, as one reader remarks drily, that he clings to the miasma theory of disease 'much subscribed to until Pasteur and other troublesome types came up with a germ theory'. Once bluetongue is detected in an animal over here, after all the delays that recognition and diagnosis will take, it will already be in the midges. One expert correspondent :
".. in such situations slaughter of the host is pointless. It is nothing to do with being robust. See Defra Preliminary Outbreak Assessment of April 4th to understand the likelihood of infected midges crossing the channel and note that the virus appears to have overwintered in Germany -possibly in both host and vector. If it has overwintered in Germany it is highly likely it has also overwintered in other previously affected parts of Europe. "

April 10 ~ "Gluing fly swats to cattle tails didn't do the trick..."

Also on the subject of Bluetongue, we have the thoughts of a farmer actually in the thick of the disease. Sabine Zentis from Germany, who breeds purebred Longhorns:
" Finding a clinical case of BT usually is the tip of the iceberg (lots of subclinical cases shown by blood sampling during winter) so talking about infected animals or infected farms doesn't make sense. The region around the holding is "infected" and neither biosecurity nor legislation can prevent the virus from spreading once it is introduced.
As midges can't be eradicated the only sensible option to stop trom spreading is the use of a serotype specific, inactivated vaccine..."Read in full
Ironically, DEFRA justifies its non-culling stance by saying bluetongue is an 'economic disease' that affects the livestock industry, but has 'no human health implications'. (Farmer's Guardian) The 2001 policy for foot and mouth, also considered an "economic disease" and one that does not affect human health, gained acceptance from many precisely because the vast numbers of killed animals were compulsorily (and generously ) purchased - an expense to the country now precluded by the draconian powers of slaughter in the amended Animal Health Act. This actually makes illegal the refusal to agree to slaughter shown by owners in 2001 who valued their healthy stock as more than mere commodities. The Act further ensures that there can be no further possible defeat of DEFRA in the courts over this - such as we saw in the Upton Case, for example.
Sabine Zentis writes,
" I don't agree with the term "economic disease". Although the clinical signs and mortality in sheep infected with BTV 8 are not as aggressive as seen with other serotypes of BTV, cattle infected and showing clinical signs are really ill. If treated properly they will survive, but besides the short term lesions of the mouth, tongue or teats they suffer from laminitis for quite a time. The long term effects on calves born to dams infected during pregnancy have not been investigated yet nor a suspected reduction of fertility or milk yield after infection.
Concerns for animal welfare should prevent the use of the term "economic disease ......From my experience (spread of disease in our region despite movement restrictions, housing of animals and extensive use of insecticides) the only way to stop the virus from moving further is to vaccinate in and around the infected areas. There is no other way to break the cycle of infection (gluing fly swats to cattle tails didn't do the trick) "

April 6th - 8th 2007 ~ "very simplistic modelling, and very easy to understand - but bears little relation to the heterogeneity present in the real world and to practical disease control measures"

We are very grateful that the commentary below has today been added to by a second veterinary expert (comments combined). This commentary seems to us to be of major importance, should be read in full, and passed on to others where possible, particularly to those for whom disease control has been allowed to become a matter of politics.(It opens in a new page for ease of printing.)
A population grown panicky about human health "... will turn their backs to anything - and, sadly, most people still believe whatever a 'boffin' - any 'boffin' - tells them" as the writer points out - and a reliance on a mathematical model like this latest one from Imperial College could spell disaster, as did the last in 2001. Notes on vaccination and transmission on this website are also very important.

Friday April 6th ~ The truth is in the field, not in the computer

We have received several emails on the subject of the Imperial College work by Dr Tini Garske and team on HPAI bird flu. Mathematical modellers, as we found to our great cost in 2001, are not specialists in veterinary medicine nor in virology. But models, because of the apparent elegance and simplicity of the virtual world overview they project, can seem to offer certainty. It is illusory but is of immediate appeal to non-scientist politicians. The language of the Imperial College release is clean, remote and theoretical, far removed from the noise, terror and warm blooded reality of what it is suggesting:
"....we found that pre-emptive culling and de-population of nearby at-risk areas succeeded in containing the outbreak, where other less drastic measures had failed."
Any non specialist reading the LSE.co.uk article (below) might well assume that killing to cure really is "the best scientific advice"for all bird flu strains - a neat final solution that must be right since the scientists say so. But the advice of the vets and the virologists is quite otherwise. They point out that the study was only of H7 types not H5. "The problem with these modellers is that they seem unable to differentiate different virus strains" The real specialists in diseases see the danger that theoretical modelling could become embedded to the exclusion of real evidence-based medicine (time-consuming but accurate) They want to see some hard assessment of the modellers' approach. (Click here for informed - and outspoken -comment on the lse.co.uk article.)
It was the eminent ProMed moderator, Martin Hugh-Jones, who warned his students: "The truth is in the field, not in the computer" He told them that only when models are "checked and rechecked against reality" can they be "fine-tuned and may eventually become useful." As for the Imperial College modelling into Bird Flu spread among farms (looking only at H7 not H5 strains) his comment yesterday was,
" How do the Imperial College people propose that their model be validated, in the event it were implemented?"
As the commentator says of the modeller,
"..... she should talk to some real experts, carry out some field work in different parts of the world, examine different husbandry systems and carry out a systematic review of avian influenza before she thinks of 'communicating' anything further. This is dangerous and ill-informed nonsense."

Friday April 6th ~ wild birds and access to waste meat...should the law be changed?

Robert Persey writes to ask for reader comments abut the apparent absurdity in the law regarding access of wild birds to waste meat.
".......your report that Bernard Matthews is not going to be prosecuted - even though it has been identified that wild birds etc had access to waste meat at the processing plant. .... I have just been reading the Animal By Products Order 2005 and section 11 para 4 identifies that it is an offence to allow wild birds to have access to a carcase or part of a carcase 'that has not been slaughtered for human consumption'. The law is therefore saying that it is lawful for wild birds to have access to a carcase or part of a carcase that has been killed for human consumption. Please could you ask your readers to comment. Should the law be changed?"
Read email and relevant paragraph of the Statutory Instrument in full. The email also refers to a possible reason for DEFRA's reluctance to take Bernard Matthews to court.

Thursday April 5th ~ Phil Brown and his fight for justice

The obituary for Phil Brown and the story of his fight for justice can be read here. (opens in new window)

April 4 2007 ~ Harriet post mortem results BSE NEGATIVE

The rev. Patricia Pinkerton writes, ".....called Newcastle VET Lab(government) this morning, and wheedled out of the technician that Harriet's test results came back BSE NEGATIVE... another triumph against evil. It has been a long haul, but the fight has been worth while. I must say that having the news to break to the family, was the delight of the day. They had proved DEFRA not only can be wrong, they can be VERY wrong. The results have been confirmed now by a letter ....we are sorry that Harriet isn't here for the good news..." The Harriet story

April 4 2007 ~ "Validation" - only when it suits...

For the six years since the foot and mouth control policy devastated the UK countryside and caused such misery we have had to listen to objections about the available technology in terms of lack of "validation" . However, it needs to be pointed out and repeated that the mathematical modelling that drove that discredited policy was not validated and no validation was ever attempted. As Dr Martin Hugh-Jones comments today (See www.fmd-and-csf-action.org) in connection with the Imperial College research story below
"Any model is only as good as its ability to be validated. How do the Imperial College people propose that their model be validated, in the event it were implemented? One of the criticisms of the Anderson FMD model was that it could not be validated. Nor, for that matter, was validation ever attempted with the very expensive result that we all witnessed."
It would be much appreciated if those who have an opinion about this could add their comments on the FMD and CSF Coordination Action website. Alternatively, write to warmwell Referring to the Imperial College research, Dr Colin Fink writes, "Just looking at this quickly, the first obvious comment is that this is a study looking at H7 types not H5. The evidence would suggest that H5 is only carried ( so far) with human carriage and movement of birds. The problem with these modellers is that they seem unable to differentiate different virus strains and these have different infectivity and means of carriage. So they are not comparing like with like."
(Click here for informed comment on the lse.co.uk article.)

April 4 2007 ~" ...what they are saying is inhuman, stupid and Neanderthal.."

Christine Bijl, an influential stakeholder featured on the FMD and CSF Coordination Action website, reacts with deep consternation at the report from Imperial College (again) of the mathematical model (another one) into H5N1 that asserts (yet again) that killing healthy stock is the "only" method of disease control
"...standard measures to stop spreading - enhanced bio-security, movement restrictions and culling of infected birds - did not succeed in making the number drop below that threshold. Instead, "pre-emptive" culling of healthy birds on nearby farms was the only method that brought the level below one and completely eradicated the spread." lse.co.uk
It is as if the now discredited mass culling in 2001 had never happened. But mathematical modellers, whose data is not sentient, receive generous grants to model disease, and Dr Martin Hugh Jones' apt advice too often goes unheeded:
"Why should I believe you when you have a computer pallor and no mud on your shoes?" he asks. "The truth is in the field, not in the computer. When models are checked and rechecked against reality they can be fine-tuned and may eventually become useful..."
Where are the questions asking why vaccine cannot be used "pre-emptively" and why has the nonsense about silent spread, silencing opposition among the anxious but ignorant, not been contradicted? As Christine wrote a year ago in the Netherlands, people ".. have a fundamental right to protect their animals as well as themselves." /hobbydierhouder.nl

April 4 2007 ~ The Milk Development Council shows that 17 dairy farmers a week have left farming in the past year

Today's MDC survey pdf file says this means a loss of 900 million litres of home produced milk in two years as a result of
"... low morale being caused by falling profits from poorer milk prices and, particularly, higher input cost...In 2005 the Farmers Intentions Survey predicted that 11% - equivalent to 2,378 - of dairy farmers would leave the industry in the following two years. According to Defra census figures, the actual number of leavers was 2,605 - or 12% - slightly more than originally predicted."
Retailers are under investigation from a Competition Commission inquiry into allegations that supermarkets have been using their enormous buying power to keep prices down. The Telegraph: "Tesco said yesterday that it would the raise the price it pays for milk by 4p a litre ...Tesco is also launching "local choice" milk, sourced from 150 family-owned farms. This will be sold only in the county where it is produced and retail at £1.23 for a four-pint bottle ...The move follows similar initiatives by Marks and Spencer and Waitrose..."
Allowing farming in Britain to decline has unfortunately seemed to have been a 'policy by default' of the present government. Again we quote James Lovelock as he contemplates what he calls the revenge of Gaia, ( Independent), "What we need to do is sustain our civilised way of life on these islands and for this we need a safe and secure supply of electricity, and to make sure that we have enough land that can be farmed to feed us all. The important thing is to make sure that we have a secure supply of food when supplies from abroad grow scarce."

April 3 2007 ~ In order to reach the coveted "disease free without vaccination" Taiwan - free of the disease since 2001 - is halting the vaccination programme that made it disease free.

- "...The outbreak 10 years ago led to the culling of millions of hogs, and all pig farmers have since been required to have their animals vaccinated regularly. Thanks to the concerted efforts of the public and private sectors, no further cases have been reported since February 2001.." Taipei Times
Who can blame Taiwan when, because of protectionist trade rules when FMD struck, Taiwan's annual pig production value fell by nearly a half - but the concept of "FMD-free zone without vaccination" is hard to justify. The difficulty in distinguishing animals that have been infected but then recovered from those that have simply been vaccinated has been solved, for example by Intervet's ready to use Chekit-FMD-3ABC Bommeli-Intervet NSP ELISA test. As Dr Roger Breeze wrote in his 2004 article Agroterrorism: Betting Far More than the Farm (pdf)
"... The trade rules for FMD do not reflect the contemporary science and technology of disease control; they are the lowest common denominator of what is possible internationally. Specifically, the rules penalize vaccination, encourage mass slaughter,and impose antiquated standards to demonstrate freedom from disease..."

April 2 2007 ~ The FSA are not going to prosecute the Bernard Matthews factory - "insufficient evidence to provide a realistic prospect of conviction "

Independent
"Defra said the FSA had been investigating Bernard Matthews on its behalf. There are no outstanding inquiries into the turkey firm which could lead to a prosecution, a Defra spokeswoman said. The FSA's investigation focused on possible breaches of Animal By-Products Regulations 2005, Animal By-Products (Identification) Regulations 1995 and Food Hygiene Regulations 2006. Defra expects its own scientific investigation into the bird flu outbreak to conclude after Easter. But that probe will not lead to any legal action, spokeswoman added."
Compare this to the treatment meted out to the little firm Bowland - forced to close because of very questionable"evidence" indeed. One question that might occur to the more cynical is to ask, "Is the FSA a watchdog or a poodle?"
Insufficient evidence seems an odd conclusion to reach in the Bernard Matthews H5N1 outbreak when we look at the string of flaws revealed: holes in the turkey sheds where birds, rats and mice could get in and out, leaking roofs and uncovered bins where seagulls were seen carrying off meat waste. And no one yet seems to have asked the key question about what the turkey poults were being fed on.

April 2 2007 ~ "the BTV8 vaccine will require a temporary authorisation for exceptional circumstances. ."

Merial has launched development work on an inactivated purified vaccine designed to protect cattle and sheep against the bluetongue virus (BTV8) It is hoped to have the inactivated vaccine available for use by mid-2008. More

April 1 2007 ~ New word in GovSpeak -"exemplification". It apparently means being sacked as an example to others - (unless of course you're at the top of the greasy pole)

Whitehall officials say the Treasury is punishing DEFRA with job losses for what the Mail headline now calls "Beckett farm payment fiasco".
".......Whitehall officials claim Mr Brown is punishing staff for the blunder and say he has coined a new term for redundancies 'exemplification'...."
Because of the RPA shambles the job cuts that had been intended were forgotten as DEFRA tried to get a grip on the fiasco. Now, even bigger cuts in spending are being frantically sought for. Apart from those unfortunate enough to have a career at DEFRA, the losers are, of course, ourselves, because those agencies that were intended to work on behalf of the countryside and the environment (see below) are being diluted beyond recognition or disbanded altogether. In order to find money to replace the forfeited £500 million ( fines to the EU, "fixing" the RPA failures and interest payments to farmers last year) it seems that up to one in two staff will lose their jobs. Hardly surprising then that there are dark mutterings among the foot soldiers about the unfairness of all this when Margaret Beckett, Sir Brian Bender and Andy Lebrecht are riding high, wide and handsome. In spite of Mrs Beckett's icy assertion below, there seems enough time for those at the top to expend a great deal of spinning energy in avoiding any contact with the buck.

March 31 2007 ~ Margaret Beckett is apparently "too busy with the Iran situation" to address the concerns of the EFRA Committee. She shifts responsibility back to the civil service.

The Yorkshire Post "...There was a similar reaction from the top Whitehall mandarin who was also savaged over the botched handling of the Single Payments Scheme - suggesting that no one else would lose their jobs in the furore..." And so it goes on. The Cumberland News quotes Copeland MP Jamie Reed, whose family contains a number of local farmers,
"As a former member of the select committee I was present when the Rural Payments Agency chief executive gave evidence about his organisation's ability to pay farmers on time. He was confident in the ability of the RPA to deliver. We all know that the reality was in stark contrast to this."
Reality on the ground often turns out to be in stark contrast to many of DEFRA's 'confident' assumptions - indeed it is their very "confidence" that is so frightening to so many. If Mrs Beckett's solution to the Iran hostage crisis is on a par with her confidence about the Single Payment Scheme back in 2005 we shudder for the consequences.
(EFRA report posting)

March 30 2007 ~ Bluetongue vaccine - " Killing 'infected' holdings is utter nonsense"

Merial is working on a vaccine for BTV serotype 8 and we are hoping to get information on this as soon as possible. They have already successfully produced an inactivated vaccine for BTV 4 Information from Merial. and the Bluetongue vaccination programme in Spain has as its objective
"vaccination of all the ruminant population (sheep and cattle) within the restricted zone so that
• the viral circulation diminishes (serotype 4)
• neither clinical signs nor deaths in ovine
• allowing movements to free zone
• achieving the eradication of the disease (More in pdf or here as html )
As for the UK "solution" of slaughter, our German correspondent writes, "Killing "infected" holdings is utter nonsense as by the time the clinical signs are obvious the midges have had their field day already."
From ec.europa.eu/ Q and A section Can vaccination be carried out against Bluetongue?
"Yes - it is possible to vaccinate against Bluetongue, and EU legislation on Bluetongue contains the option of carrying out a vaccination policy using live attenuated or inactivated vaccines. The establishment of a vaccine bank by July 2000 facilitated rapid and successful intervention against Bluetongue in the Balearic Islands. The EU later supported the vaccination option whenever national authorities wished to adopt this policy. In addition, the EU modified the rules regarding financial contributions from the Community to cover not only emergency situations but also the long-term surveillance of Bluetongue and control actions (vaccination)".

March 30 2007 ~ Bluetongue - Is vaccination to kill yet again the only plan for the UK?

As long ago as September 9th 2003, a BBC report on Bluetongue said, "Veterinary experts told the British Association annual science festival that efforts were underway to develop new, more effective vaccines to protect the national flock should disease reach these shores....."
Three years later, in 2006, Bluetongue had infected animals in Belgium, France, the Netherlands, Luxembourg and especially, Germany. There is no recognised treatment. As the Scotsman says today, "...there is nothing in terms of biosecurity that can be put in place to stop the vector midge being blown across the Channel and the balance of opinion appears to be not a case of if, but when BTV hits the UK." Both the midge species and the strain concerned are different from that affecting the Mediterranean (the midge is native to the UK) , but we understand that Britain has not applied for marketing authorisation for vaccines against Bluetongue. The most recent DEFRA Contingency Plan we can find online says that
"Vaccination could therefore only be used on a vaccinate to kill basis" (See pdf file section 10)
There are millions of doses of vaccine at the EU Bluetongue Vaccine Bank, the EU Directive permits the use of vaccination as a control measure in certain circumstances - can it really be possible that it is, yet again, to be slaughter rather than the rapid diagnosis and vaccination vital to a modern animal disease policy that is to "cure" any outbreak?
The CVO, Debby Reynolds, in the Farmers Guardian on Friday wrote rather enigmatically, "Scientific evidence and veterinary service capabilities are essential and must be flexible to ensure the surveillance and prevention measures are suitable and flexible." Is "flexibility" to include making use of available technologies, listening to all sections of those affected by plans and making sure that scientific advice is clear and independent?

March 30 2007 ~ "DEFRA and the RPA must now publish a comprehensive reply to this report, demonstrating that they have learned from their many mistakes"

It is indeed ironic that while farmers are hauled over the coals for the smallest infringements, the big players have been promoted to dizzy heights or moved to similar positions - yet it is their own catastrophic failures that are costing the country up to £500 million in fines, "fixing" the failures and interest payments. A familiar story. To offset losses, as the CLA complains, "Defra has cut funding for valuable environmental projects as diverse as the new higher level stewardship schemes, maintenance of waterways, water quality improvement, flood defences and bat conservation...It talks green and cuts Natural England funding."
Dorothy Fairburn, regional director of the Country Land and Business Association (CLA) in Yorkshire is quoted byYorkshire Dales News. She points out that
"... many of the farmers who also had to grapple with a new system and relied on RPA advice were penalised heavily for even the smallest of errors during the application process. The RPA originally said they would 'take a light touch' to minor infractions, but instead we have seen a consistently heavy-handed approach. Failure to make payments on time, poor communication, disproportionate penalties and an appeal system that remains fundamentally flawed have shattered confidence in both DEFRA and the RPA who must now publish a comprehensive reply to this report, demonstrating that they have learned from their many mistakes."

March 29 2007 ~ "Her apology is rather like a burglar who has entered the premises and run off with the swag before expressing anger that the accomplice smashed the window on the way."

The Western Morning News is emphatic about the new EFRA report and its recommendations Geoffrey Cox, Conservative MP for Torridge and West Devon is quoted: "It is an utter denial of all responsibility of Orwellian proportions. ...." Similarly, Peter Kendall, president of the NFU: " our comments fell on deaf ears. ....this saga has cost farmers about £20 million of their money and untold stress."
The article gives the inevitable DefraSpeak response, mentioning only the RPA rather than itself
".... "A new management team is in place at the RPA. We are confident that the senior management team can deliver."
(One might have thought that "confidence" could now be exchanged for humility. And since when has "deliver" been an intransitive verb? Can anyone enlighten us as to its meaning on the planet DEFRA?)

March 29 2007 ~ Hardly surprising that Devon is particularly outspoken. That county, like other rural areas, has been so badly hurt by DEFRA.

And the damage done by that inept Ministry just goes on and on. Two years on from the foot and mouth disaster, a very angry piece in the WMN thundered:
" ......Some of the casualties of MAFF ineptitude were obvious - the farming families who were subjected to bullying, brutality, bureaucracy and force majeure and saw their lives' work rotting outside their windows, then going up in smoke. Millions of others were unseen, unsung and uncompensated - the farmers isolated and starved of accurate information, unable to trade or to move stock for month after month; the animals thus stranded in mires without fodder; the children subjected to ineradicable trauma; the many, many small, struggling, agriculture-related industries. And when it was all over? It wasn't all over. It continues to this day. Hobbled businesses stagger into bankruptcy...."
How little even that writer knew of the tragical mismanagement that was to continue. Almost exactly a year ago, when the RPA edifice crumbled, Simon Jenkins wrote in his Desperate dispatches from the banana republic of Great Britain that in former times, ".... The integrity of the civil service was taken for granted and the accountability of ministers was the rock on which the constitution was built. The traditional partnership between ministers and civil servants has collapsed, destroyed by Blair's sofa government and his miasma of agencies, consultancies and private firms. These lack continuity, leadership and accountability...."
The unwonted bluntness of today's EFRA report, its lack of tactful evasion, gives us hope that patience is running out. We are tired of so much talk of "improved delivery" . Reform after reform has failed. Government Departments are not businesses, DefraSpeak notwithstanding. Their job should be simply to administrate smoothly and fairly. Difficulties, unlike Gordian Knots, cannot just be cut through from the comfort of a sofa. Mrs Beckett told the National Farmers' Union conference in February 2006 she was "bloody livid" by the RPA's failures but taking responsibility should be the price of power.

March 29 2007 ~ "The Committee very much regrets the former Secretary of State's attempts verbally to distance herself from the consequences of policies which she herself must have approved "

The EFRA report on the Rural Payments Agency, published today (pdf) and expressed in the clearest and most unequivocal English, says that Margaret Beckett, Sir Brian Bender and Andy Lebrecht have not been held "personally accountable" for delays. The EFRA chairman, Michael Jack, said: "The reason that we are calling for people to consider their positions is because of Defra's failure to carry out one of its principal core functions. Those involved should examine their consciences about the role they played in this failed venture, which could well cost Defra and farmers up to half a billion pounds." The report calls the handling of the SPS a "catastrophe" and a "serious and embarrassing failure for Defra and the RPA"
It also recommends that the Cabinet secretary reappraises the work of the past and present members of Defra's senior management team to determine whether they should remain in post.
"decisions should not be made in isolation from practical realities," says the Committee. More on RPA page and see Reuters, www.politics.co.uk and Chris Huhne's comments( in which he points out that the last "honourable resignation" took place at the time of the Falklands war), and the BBC
The RPA disaster is likely to cost the country £500 million. (RPA)

March 28 2007 ~ "A clearly articulated business model; An innovative approach to citizen engagement. .."

We are not alone in our view that the sort of language emanating from Government departments, posing as "news", is a symptom of a deeper illness. Here are some examples of DefraSpeak that would have made George Orwell sigh gloomily at his own prescience:www.defra.gov.uk/news.
• "Renew Defra - will create a department which is more responsive and innovative; where outcomes will be developed in true partnership, and policy making will be effective and consistent."
• "our refreshed strategy"
• "a clearer sense of direction"
• "a new mission of 'one planet living' "
• "delivered through high impact policies"
• "overarching strategic performance management framework" (sic)
• "a Defra Customer Intelligence Unit... a focus point for how we engage with our customers"
• "Developing closer relationships with Defra's delivery bodies through enhanced performance reporting and representation on the Departmental Management Board"
The writers of such garbage, who are neither civil nor serving, seem perversely unaware that people who give a damn about any of this want clear information. Self-congratulatory abstract nouns and high sounding adjectives are without meaning on their own - and it is contemptuous wishful-thinking to imagine that anyone who has knowledge of DEFRA is still taken in by such language. Perhaps DEFRA should learn from the failure of the £7 million campaign that might have been called "Renew Bernard Matthews". It has changed nothing because nothing there could be shown to have been changed. Marketing is no substitute for product quality.

March 28 2007 ~ The combined acronyms would form the phrase "It's civil shrewd mess"- but the new agency is, in fact, to be called "Animal Health" .

In the name of efficiency and as per the Hampton Review, a new single agency will, beginning on April 1, amalgamate the State Veterinary Service (SVS) the Dairy Hygiene Inspectorate (DHI), the Wildlife Licensing and Registration Service (WLRS) - including (Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES), and the Egg Marketing Inspectorate (EMI). An anagram of the acronyms would form the phrase "It's civil shrewd mess"- but the new agency is, in fact, to be called "Animal Health" .
In DefraSpeak, a contortion of the English Language that, on a bad day, deprives one of the will to live, we are told that
" the bodies have formed a consensus group to take the mergers forward as a coherent programme."
Stackyard.com quotes Glenys Stacey, new Chief Executive of "Animal Health" who, using yet another dialect of English unrecognised by homo sapiens, proclaims her plan to
"become one organisation in every sense", "We all welcome this merger", it will " deliver more comprehensively and with the customer in mind."
Although reminiscent of British Rail customer services at its most traindead, this is the authentic new voice of government; Politics become salesmanship.
Which "customers" does Glenys Stacey have "in mind", one wonders. Perhaps the animals of Britain, whose health is to be enshrined, if nowhere else, at least in the title or "single banner" of the brave new amalgam. One emailer with harrowing recollections of SVS "expertise" in the past, doubts it.
"This grisly euphemism recalls the disgraceful "Animal Health Bill", referred to in smallholding circles as the Animal Death Bill. So let's just call the new agency "Animal Death" and be done with it. Oh, and who exactly are "the industry" and "the customer"? Do smallholders feature in either category?"
Animal Health takes its first steps on April Fool's Day. We hope our cynicism turns out to be unfair and unfounded. We hope too for the return, one day, of grace, grammar and gravitas in government language.

March 27 2007 ~ "Given that a key part of the remit of the FAO is to develop international agricultural trade, reticence to accept that this trade is the main agent of global dispersal of HPAI H5N1 is perhaps unsurprising."

The full text of the paper mentioned below, "Recent expansion of highly pathogenic avian influenza H5N1: a critical review" is available at www.blackwell-synergy.com
"When bird densities are low, a very virulent subtype leading to high host mortality may disappear because of the impossibility of transmitting quickly to healthy birds before the death of sick ones. In Asia, densities of domestic birds are especially high. These ecological conditions favour the preservation and the fast transmission of very virulent strains.....The only wild birds in Asia found sick were victims of the virus circulating in domestic birds (FAO 2005). .......it is intriguing that the number of wild birds contaminated by the virus seems so small, and that the virus apparently passes from domestic birds to wild birds only with difficulty. ....If migrating birds mainly dispersed the virus, the virus should also spread by large jumps of thousands of kilometres, throughout the migratory stopping places of Asia and Africa....
By May 2006, an international conference in Rome had recognized that the virus was mainly spread through the poultry trade, both legal and illegal, but OIE and FAO media releases (FAO 2006b, OIE 2006b) continued to focus on the possible contribution of spread by wild birds. Given that a key part of the remit of the FAO is to develop international agricultural trade, reticence to accept that this trade is the main agent of global dispersal of HPAI H5N1 is perhaps unsurprising."
And unsurprising also is the whole attitude of EU, OIE and FAO at the Verona conference. In spite of all the evidence and in the face of common sense, the official line is still " no vaccination, unless the situation gets out of control". Mass killing and so-called "bio-security" is still the mind-set - just as it was at the time of the FMD tragedy. .
Apart from the profit motive of globalised agricultural trade, it also seems that both politicians and pundits cling to ignorance about vaccination because it has a comfortable familiarity while challenging it can even define one as an "activist" - but the consequences of this may well be fatal.

March 26 2007 ~ "Within the area around the infected premises, there were enhanced levels of surveillance of wild birds."

In view of the findings of the paper (new window) below, confining surveillance to wild birds sites around Holton alone, as Ben Bradshaw's Parliamentary Answer (March 23) admits, is likely to have been of limited usefulness.
" While the investigation in the outbreak was under way, 25 wild bird locations comprising 73 sites in the area were regularly patrolled. Laboratory tests were completed on dead wild birds found in the area as well as on live wild bird droppings from the infected premises. All results were negative.
We are currently developing our investigation into what might have caused the outbreak of avian influenza at Holton. The conclusion of the interim report is that importation from Hungary is the most plausible route. However, investigations are still ongoing and nothing can be ruled out at this time. The final epidemiological report will be published in due course."
"In due course" we shall perhaps see if the right questions, about feed at the Bernard Matthews site, for example, were asked and answered..

March 26 2007 ~ As for the reality of "surveillance"

this article from FWi called "The True Cost of Scrapie" is revealing both about the competence of parts of the SVS and about the viability of all the legislation rushed into place about scrapie.
"...once the sheep had been genotyped the SVS sent through the genotypes with incomplete identification numbers. The EID boluses used have 16-digit identification numbers, but the paperwork we received only had 15-digit numbers on. The missing digit was the last one, which meant we were unable to match up the EID numbers with our own tag numbers, making it impossible to identify ewes of different genotypes."
With only one scrapie-affected ewe out of more than 1700 sheep on the farm the farmers in the article wonder what on earth it is all for - and even whether the initial test was right. In view of the most recent research and the fact that even the government now admits that scrapie does NOT mask BSE and the ram genotyping scheme is worthless, the answer seems to be "Nothing"

March 26 2007 ~ "Paradoxically, the H5N1 virus coupled with a fear of transmission by wild birds could lead to a reversion to battery farming which increases risk of outbreaks."

Recent expansion of highly pathogenic avian influenza H5N1: a critical review by Gauthier-Clerc, M., Lebarbenchon, C. & Thomas, F. is to be published in April in the British Ornithologists' Union's journal, Ibis ( Ibis 2007. DOI 10.1111/j.1474-919x.2007.00699.x) Blackwell Publishing comments:
"....No evidence for long distance transmission during seasonal migration has yet been found. The evidence overwhelmingly supports the hypothesis that human movements of domestic poultry have been the main agent of global dispersal of the virus to date. The occurrence of an outbreak at a commercial turkey farm in Suffolk, England, in February 2007 fits this wider pattern." ".... .... Paradoxically, the H5N1 virus coupled with a fear of transmission by wild birds could lead to a reversion to battery farming which increases risk of outbreaks. This would stall the current trend to better animal welfare resulting from free-range agriculture. Maintaining these trends, whilst controlling disease through strong veterinary scrutiny and control of trade, is more likely to be a successful strategy."
What we find so alarming is that while rigorous research is concluding that it is the unnatural conditions of intensive production and global movement that are causing flu strains to mutate into dangerous pathogens, the political reaction of the West is still to put the trade and profits from such production first, dismiss at the technological advance that could protect both animals and people, repeat discredited nonsense about silent spread from vaccinates - and sit back and watch while poorer nations outlaw the very back yard practices that not only provide people with a livelihood but which are the hapless victims not the cause of H5N1.

March 25 2007 ~ "The conference recommended that poultry should be vaccinated against avian influenza.."

".. particularly in endemic countries and when other control measures such as stamping out, movement controls of poultry and biosecurity cannot stop the spread of the virus," says the OIE report of last week's Verona conference.
"...A successful vaccination campaign depends mainly on the use of high quality vaccines complying with OIE standards, appropriate infrastructure to ensure the rapid and safe delivery of vaccines (cold chain), monitoring of vaccinated flocks, movement control of poultry, and adequate financial resources. Efficient veterinary services complying with OIE standards on quality and evaluation is also very important for the suspension of the use of vaccination. Any vaccination policy should include an exit strategy so that countries do not rely on costly long-term vaccination campaigns. The tools differentiating infected from vaccinated animals such as DIVA strategy (i.e. by diagnostic test designed to detect antibodies against the field virus) or the use of sentinel birds ( i.e.non-vaccinated) are recommended in the field when possible.
There are no elements indicating human health implications related to the vaccination of poultry and to the consumption of poultry products from vaccinated animals.
....Participants of the Verona conference also proposed to develop communication strategies to improve the vaccination coverage, to avoid possible market shocks and to apply basic biosecurity measures."
Other recommendations

March 25 2007 ~ "Well, Harriet had the last word."

The Reverend Patricia Pinkerton writes, "The family had her euthanased by the vet this afternoon following 4 days of discomfort. Her diagnosis from the vet was kidney failure. Within a few weeks , if not before, we should have the BSE results. We will put it on the website. I am sure everyone who knows Harriet thanks all who stood by.
RIP Harriet"
Harriet's body after euthanasia was taken to an abbatoir in Devon where her brain stem was removed and taken to an independent laboratory where DEFRA has no authority. Harriet was "cremated" at 8:30 a.m. on Saturday She is still a part of a judicial enquiry. Those involved are committed to carry on the fight on Harriet's behalf and on behalf of all other healthy animals threatened by bureaucracy rather than sound risk assessment. (More on Harriet) If anyone feels able to give a donation- however small - to help Harriet's owners who are still faced with the considerable legal expenses incurred during the fight to save her from DEFRA , details of how to do so can be found on Harriet's web site at: http:www.harriet-thecow.co.uk (new window)

March 22/23 2007 ~ Richard Sanders at Verona: "Well, I think we are winning the argument..."

Richard Sanders from the Organic Research Centre, Elm Farm, is at the Verona conference and talked on the telephone to Farming Today "....There's nothing that is going to engage the minds of politicians in the developed world more than seeing that there's a linkage between vaccination in poultry and human health and human safety. "
As for the trade implications of vaccination, Mr Sanders was emphatic:
"It does seem quite ridiculous that we have seen papers where (there is ) absolutely no risk (when) vaccinated birds or vaccinated poultry products are being traded ..absolutely no human health risk - you can't find any virus dangers or any vaccine dangers as a result of vaccination.
The danger is that vaccination of poultry for avian influenza is being used as a non-tariff barrier. It is yet another excuse to interfere with trade and people to pursue political gains. .
... we're all keen, sitting in Europe and North America, to lessen the threat of emerging diseases or spreading diseases such as avian influenza coming from the likes of Vietnam. "Vaccination is good for those people," we say but then we won't use it un our own developed economies because of issues of trade or "consumer acceptance" .... ."
Warmwell transcriptand see also FAO news report on the conference. "There are no elements indicating human health implications related to the vaccination of poultry and to the consumption of poultry products from vaccinated animals."

March 22/23 2007 ~ Verona Conference - Vaccination: a tool for the control of Avian Influenza

Today's press conference, to be held at 1 pm (Italian time) will be of great interest. The OIE press report , "There are no elements indicating human health implications related to the vaccination of poultry and to the consumption of poultry products from vaccinated animals. The conference called upon the commercial poultry industry to reinforce its engagement in the control of avian influenza under the supervision of national veterinary authorities. A call to international donors for the funding of vaccination in endemic countries, with particular focus on backyard poultry, was also made."
See also (Conference website)

March 21 2007 ~ "the main device under discussion at the meeting is a $1,000 mobile test system and reader the size of a small portable television"

Animal health experts from 15 nations, including the UK, are meeting today to discuss rapid diagnosis technology. The conference, The Early and Rapid Diagnosis of Transboundary Animal Diseases: Phase I- Avian Influenza is taking place in Vienna and is part of a $500,000 coordinated research project run jointly by the FAO and the International Atomic Energy Agency ( www-naweb.iaea.org/nafa). The project aims later to field-test devices, identify areas where the kits can be used first and explore sources of funding.
John Crowther of the Joint FAO/IAEA Programme's Animal Production and Health section points out:
"The genius here is that such mobile testers can be used by anyone, with the most basic training. Even farmers could do a test and the result could immediately be processed back to a central point, like a mobile phone message. Within two years, such tests could revolutionize disease diagnosis. Ultimately the tests would be done locally by people in their own countries, making schemes much more efficient in everything including speed, costs and local knowledge."
See more at www.un.org/apps/news/story
( It was in 2001 that Professor Fred Brown first argued for the UK to field trial such a device. As it was, with neither vaccination nor on-site diagnosis, carnage by computer, ruthlessly enforced, was the result of the UK's inability to pinpoint where the disease really was.)

March 21 2007 ~ "new life to the theory that mad cow disease started out in cattle, rather than crossing over from sheep."

The new research mentioned this week in the New Scientist carried out by the Italian scientist Fabrizio Tagliavini and his colleagues at the Carlo Besta Neurological Institute in Milan, suggests that the recently discovered disease called bovine amyloidotic spongiform encephalopathy, or BASE, is a natural prion disease of older cattle, which turned into BSE - and that all the speculation about scrapie "masking" BSE or having caused BSE may now be wholly discredited .
As we say below, all attempts to duplicate BSE by deliberately giving scrapie to cows have failed - and ministers have finally accepted that a fully-funded ram-genotyping scheme (costing a great deal in money and misery) is no longer "appropriate". SEAC defended the RGS as "an appropriate disease control policy based on the available scientific evidence..." (Defra ) - but the advice of Dr Alan Dickenson - independent expert scientific advice, given in January 2001 - was certainly available. A major recommendation of the Select Committee on Science and Technology Seventh Report was that the so-called precautionary principle should "never be considered a substitute for thorough risk analysis which is always required when the science is uncertain and the risks are serious. It should not be used, in itself, to explain a decision or course of action."
(The assumption that BSE came from cows eating scrapie-infected sheep, discredited above, is very similar to the unproven conjecture that vCJD is caused by humans eating BSE-infected beef. Massive layers of legislation and bureaucracy based on that continue on their juggernaut path. See also Harriet - where the government's clinging to the precautionary principle is an evident absurdity) More comment on the New Scientist story at AllaboutFeed.net

March 2007 ~ The only innocent parties in the Dobbin story seem to have been the 583 slaughtered cattle

As more details emerge of the facts in the David Dobbin case described below, it seems that - although we continue to deplore the parking of the dairy herd on a farm which had no milking facilities, and then claiming 'welfare' to shoot them - things are more complicated than at first appeared.

March 20 2007 ~ Sainsbury's responds to consumer concern about factory farming.

Or, at any rate, it has announced that it will phase out eggs from caged birds by at least 2012. See Sky News Sainsbury's says " ...all its free range eggs were labelled with a code which can be traced back to the farm of origin." The company also says today ( good timing for the company, given the news below about egg fraud from abroad) "regular audits and checks to ensure free range standards are kept up".
At least this sort of news alerts more people to the fact that the cheapness of battery eggs carries a high price in terms of animal welfare and health and - given the ease with which factory farms like the Bernard Matthews plant can introduce and harbour pathogens - that it is no longer acceptable for such practices to be condoned.

March 19 2007 ~ "As public concern about cruelty to farm animals grows, there has been a huge surge in demand for such eggs, which can cost as much as 80p a dozen more than battery hen products." Daelnet.uk

The free-range egg swindle, said to have covered about two percent of free range egg sales in Britain, is reported on today by, among others, the Daily Telegraph, Farmer's Weekly Interactive, Reuters and the Guardian. The scandal raises even more questions about accurate labelling - and proper checks. But the fraud emphasises UK consumers' increasing reluctance to buy food from factory farms. As Daelnet.uk says, "Such has been the demand that British farmers have been unable to match the increase in production so millions of eggs are being imported from two as yet un-named European countries. ....by selling them as free range, the British egg packers and distributors will have racked up millions in fraudulent profits. There have been similar cases in the past - including prosecutions in Yorkshire several years ago - but nothing on the scale of the current investigation."
Meanwhile, it is determined individuals - such as those in the Hackney Environmental Health Services team - who are doing the real work in trying to stamp out the lucrative illegal meat trade. Such first hand work is dangerous and unpleasant - as are the criminals against whom they are fighting. (The descriptions and photos involved are not for the faint hearted.)

March 19 2007 ~ A variety of GM corn, legally imported into European Union countries since 2006, has produced signs of liver and kidney toxicity in rats

"....with the present data it cannot be concluded that GM corn MON863 is a safe product" concludes the paper Analysis of a Rat Feeding Study with MON863 Reveals Signs of Hepatorenal Toxicity MON 863 has been allowed to be legally imported into European Union countries since 2006 as a food and feed product. As its name suggests, MON 863 is a GM maize developed by Monsanto. They maintain that genetically modified feed is harmless. Professor Gilles-Eric Seralini of the University of Caen says he found that it produced around one kilogram of poisonous substances per hectare - more than farmers would use in pesticides. According to studies by his group, CRIIGEN, the maize caused symptoms of poisoning and liver and kidney damage in rats that had been fed the product during 90 day experiments.

March 18/19 2007 ~ Electronic tagging: "The appropriate technology is simply not yet reliable"

The sanguine words of Kelvin Pate, the chairman of the NFUS livestock committee, about the approaching end of the UK derogation on EU double tagging rules for sheep, are quoted in the Scotsman
"I think it is clear that double tagging just can't work in the Scottish situation. Aside from the massive financial bill that it would entail, it would be impossible to operate on the ground, given the structure of the industry. I think common sense will prevail "
but the Scotsman says in connection to the compulsory introduction of electronic identification for all sheep, proposed for 1 January, 2008 : "The appropriate technology is simply not yet reliable" It adds that, "as ever, politics are likely to come into play" If an unreliable and unworkable system is imposed on the UK we may soon be seeing far more of the sort of disgraceful and distressing incidents described by Christopher Booker (see Sunday Telegraph story) - and that the one thing highly unlikely to prevail is common sense. On March 19, the ever-ready Ben Bradshaw said, "... We have yet to decide on what numbering system we will adopt should EID be introduced. Discussions with the devolved Governments and interested organisations in England are ongoing."

March 18/19 2007 ~ If rules could really be shown to be based on common sense there would be no argument.

But, as the Scotsman says, "as ever, politics are likely to come into play". There might be less argument about the difficulties and expense if it could be clearly shown that stapling plastic to both ears of unfortunate farm animals was helping to prevent disease, quickly pinpoint and cure disease outbreaks, or stop in its tracks the global movement of pathogens. But officials are, as is ever the way of officialdom, more concerned with the policing of the rules than with evaluating the rationale behind them and using common sense and judgement.
Of no apparent interest to officialdom is the rapid diagnosis technology to identify disease on-site. Slaughter, with no appeal allowed, is still the first response for FMD and Avian Influenza. Vaccination, which really would help, is still an issue of protectionism and not permitted in the UK. But the reams of identification rules have not been able to identify the source of the Suffolk H5N1 outbreak at Bernard Matthews factory-cum-slaughterhouse, paper trails have been shown to be more theoretical than real - while the TRACES database is a mess.
Juan Lubroth, head of the Infectious Disease group at the UN FAO, even said on Farming Today on Feb 19th
"I don't have a good idea of what percentage the informal or illegal trade represents to the world trade. I do have access to a lot of statistics through FAO on what a country exports but I don't know where they export to. I have a lot of information on which countries are importing but I don't know who they're importing from..."
As for the draconian rules on BSE that seem to have been the root cause of David Dobbin's miserable encounter with DEFRA , the Countess of Mar in a recent TSE debate pointed out: ".. all regulation in this field is based on a hypothesis - not even a theory - that none of the "establishment" scientific community can prove, despite millions of pounds of taxpayers' money being thrown at the subject.... . "

March 18 2007 ~ "His only alleged offence was "non-compliance" with complex bureaucratic procedures, to an extent which Defra still cannot specify".

The Muckspreader story that so sickened us below, about the entire dairy herd killed by DEFRA, gets fuller treatment today in the Sunday Telegraph ".... Last November, on Defra's instructions, the officials seized all Mr Dobbin's passports, making it illegal for him to move animals off his farm and all but wiping out his income. Last month, serving him with a "notice to identify", they removed his herd to another farm, stating that, under EC regulation 494/98, it was their intention to destroy all 567 animals. .... Defra has never claimed that the paperwork for most of Mr Dobbin's cows was not in order, only that the officials had found "what they believed to be an unacceptable level of non-compliance with the regulations", and that this "could have serious implications for the protection of the human food chain". ..... it had no resources to look after the cattle properly, causing severe "animal welfare" problems. The judge felt he had little option but to give the go-ahead, and on March 8 and 9 the cows were destroyed.
All Mr Dobbin can now hope for is that the judicial review may confirm that Defra acted outside the law." Judging by emails read (example), this story has distressed and worried warmwell readers more than any other since the disgraceful scenes witnessed in 2001.

March 16 2007 ~ "We have been as frivolous about food as we have been about the environment and the planet..."

The magazine Country Living has launched a campaign with Waitrose and The Farmers Guardian to raise awareness of the need for fair trade for British farmers. (More about the campaign.) It is called Fair Trade for British Farmers and will also be supporting Farms Crisis Network. There is an excellent and well-illustrated article by Lisa Sykes in the March edition of Country Living (pp.37-42), describing the problems facing British farmers, using four telling slogans: No Farms no Fields, No Cows No Countryside, No Beef No Birds and No Flocks No Flowers. The article is one of the best explanations of the interdependence of farming and the countryside. In hearing about the seminar that launched the campaign, we were particularly struck by John Gummer's view that we have failed to recognise our responsibility as a species for the stewardship of the earth's natural resources - and that we have not treated these resources with the respect they deserve. "We are all in this together and we all have to get it right together......We have been as frivolous about food as we have been about the environment and the planet."

March 16 2007 ~ Free vaccination for 95 percent of cattle in Venezuela

4 million vaccinations were administered free of charge. Venezuela plans to set up dozens of animal health laboratories in the nation. See FMD news, a service provided by the FMD Surveillance and Modeling Laboratory, University of California at Davis.
Five years ago the Royal Society said, "Important advances have been made within the last year, both technical and in the attitudes of the authorities and consumers, that should allow emergency vaccination to develop porton into a prime control strategy rather than one of last resort. Emergency vaccination should therefore be considered as part of the control strategy from the start of any outbreak of FMD."
As for Diagnostic methods: "Modern diagnostic methods, including penside tests, need to be developed that can shift the burden of diagnosis to veterinarians on the farm. Rapid diagnosis, particularly before clinical signs appear, would limit the size of any epidemic and improve the strategic deployment of resources."
Yet, even after so many years and so much patient argument, the UK continues to trail behind Latin America for reasons that remain unfathomable to this website - unless those reasons merely concern potential profits for Enigma Diagnostics Ltd (Porton Down).

March 15 2007 ~ " I hate academia. Most of the scientists who work there are not free men any more and they can't speak out. That's no way to do science. "

James Lovelock is quoted at length in today's Guardian ( link now working). We consider him to be wholly admirable, extraordinarily knowledgeable - and he answers to no one. What he says is deeply alarming - but the mildness and humour with which he says it we find both refreshing and cheering. In these days of wolves high on the narcotic of power leading sheep to slaughter it is nice to see that there is a wise and benign shepherd, towering above them, telling it like it is.

March 15 2007 ~ a "key question"

Last November, the EIG ( the oddly named England Implementation Group) gave, in its report (pdf), a prescient warning: "... old habits are hard to break, and Defra will need to guard against an instinct to return to its default position of "command and control" .... Whether Government is really ready to fundamentally change its ways of working is a key question. We have been encouraged by a very different approach from that which was heavily criticized during foot and mouth.... Key players have felt much more involved and in touch with developments and the rationale for decisions. .."
Mere wishful thinking. DEFRA's old habits - here described by Muckspreader in this week's Private Eye - continue, and in their arrogant, senseless callousness, destroy lives and livelihoods - and make strong men weep.

March 15 2007 ~ Notes on the Defra FMD & CSF stakeholders' meeting on 28 February 2007

Posted up on the "Disease control: Ideas for cost sharing between industry and government - Forum and discussion" page of the the FMD/CSF website are notes by Mary Marshall. Reading between the lines of the tactfully measured language, the February 28 stakeholders meeting seems to have been a classic example of command and control, telling and not listening. Cost cutting appears, for DEFRA, to have been the one important item on the agenda. At the same time, adding yet more layers of bureaucracy and dividing participants into sub groups is a time-honoured divide and rule tactic. This is not funny. At a time of ever-accelerating global movement of dangerous pathogens, DEFRA's attitude in a meeting about disease detection and control is both frivolous and dangerous. From the notes, it is evident that:
• Really crucial points about diagnostics and testing were interrupted by the Chair. A question about treatment of vaccinated meat was deferred to a private conversation at a later date. Urgent inquiries about the accessibility of on-site diagnostics were not answered.
• Communication issues, which have so often been referred to before by these stakeholders, are still not being addressed. It particularly rankles that when DEFRA communicates with media, they are not bothering to give these most concerned stakeholders the same information.
• In spite of the time for this meeting being drastically reduced at the last minute, a great deal of it was taken up by a reading aloud of material that participants could have read for themselves - and probably already had.
• Discussion of points raised was not allowed - while DEFRA's answers to urgent and relevant questioning betrayed either a woeful lack of knowledge or else an unwillingness to engage with the subject at all.
• The role of the Expert Group and the Science Advisory Council remains unclear in spite of constant requests for clarification.
• It seems that DEFRA is only now working on a contingency plan for BlueTongue - a disease that is playing havoc in Northern Europe and will, it is feared, arrive in the UK any day now .
No business could support such serious inadequacies of management. But this centrally imposed incompetence and ignorance is putting the country, its animals and population in danger.

March 14/ 15 2007 ~ "Why are politicians so clueless when it comes to rural matters?" Magnus Linklater in the Times

Times " Why do they impose regulations that don't work, using a bureaucracy that can't implement them?"
His article highlights the most recent depths of absurdity; that subsidy entitlements can be traded and anyone can buy them. "Even if you have never ventured from behind a city desk, all you need is to be classified as a farmer, which you can do through the simple expedient of taking out a lease on less than two acres of land, and holding it for ten months. ... It is becoming big business"
We are pleased to read that he too, like us, gives a Cassandra cry for sanity - and with about as much hope, one suspects, of its being heeded.
"As oil production peaks, and reducing carbon emissions becomes a key target in the battle against global warming, the demand will be for more local production rather than the long-distance trade in cheap food from abroad that keeps our superstores supplied at present. Neither Gordon Brown nor David Cameron mentioned it when they unveiled their separate green policies this week, but encouraging "localisation" - smaller units, less trucking of long-distance food, more self-sufficiency in farm production - is vital to a successful rural economy and essential if carbon emission targets are to be met."

March 14 2007 ~ Centralisation and "top-down" policies - the decline of local responsibility, good sense, economies, post officies, local services, the spread of Ghost Town Britain and the disappearance of democracy.

There is an arresting passage in Golding's "Lord of the Flies" where the bully, whose stone throwing has never done any real damage, comes to realise that there is no one to complain, no one to prevent his grabbing power, no one to stop him aiming in deadly earnest. In the past years, we have seen political "consultation" and "Stakeholder" meetings to be little more than a contemptuous charade. Where there is no genuine organised opposition to insane policies, people power is all that is left. Local Works org has this One Page Brief of the Sustainable Communities Bill
Consider also visitingTescopoly and Asda Watch (Asda in the UK is owned by Wal-Mart) - well organised campaigns for taking back local responsibility and protesting against unethical practices.
Consider checking whether your MP has yet signed Andrew George's EDM
"That this House recognises the vital and unique role that independent locally run shops play in communities and is concerned at the continuing decline in their number; supports a sustainable UK farming sector and food supply chain whilst seeking to ensure that overseas suppliers are treated fairly; believes that the major supermarkets are now abusing the power that they have in the food supply chain ..." More
( Rebecca Solnit's article today in the Guardian on the subject of how horribly easy it is to do nothing beyond hand wringing is salutary.)

March 14 2007 ~ the five freedoms - "aspirations" rather than guarantees, it seems

So much for the RSPCA's "ethical" labelling - at least as far as the secretly filmed footage shown on 'Tonight with Trevor McDonald - The Truth about Ethical Food' is concerned. The ever more powerful RSPCA administers the Scheme - but with only 10 full-time officials to police it, farms can go up to 15 months without an inspection. The programme showed in distressing detail that life for farm animals - at any rate in the 'monitored' Freedom Food farms filmed on the programme - is as nasty, brutish and short as that for so many others in industrialised farms. Workers are so distanced from the reality of suffering that they were shown punching and kicking the animals in their charge. It was sickening. Both the ethics of industrialised food production and the newly politicised power of the RSPCA must surely now be scrutinised. It would appear that the whole thing is a scam. "Ethically produced" food can cost at least twice as much as its equivalent but people who believe that they are paying for a better life for the animals may simply be being conned. DEFRA has scornfully asserted that Britain is in a 'post agricultural' era . Such thinking ignores dangers of animal disease and zoonoses. Since labels have by recent events been shown to be worse than useless, knowing the provenance of decently produced local food and buying from local farmers and producers is more than ever necessary. We should keep our side of the bargain with the animals we use for food - if only to safeguard the health of the nation - by giving them a stress-free life and humane death.

March 14 2007 ~ UK farmers needed for window dressing

It will be interesting to see if the much respected CIWF reacts to last night's programme on their website. No one seemed to be at the end of their phone this morning.)Among reactions to last night's exposé of the ethical food scam programme above we have heard from one decent English farmer who has got out of mainstream production, who agrees with our reservations about the RSPCA's politicisation, who had (as did many others) to turn off the Tonight programme, and who has just written to say of the English countryside and farming, "we are still needed to provide a seductive window dressing for the grim reality of industrial food production."
Yes indeed. Bootiful. There is now a petition on the petitions.pm.gov.uk website (new window): " We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to hold a Public Enquiry into the polices and running of the RSPCA". There are well over a thousand signatures.

March 13/14 2007 ~ Rumours of warmwell.com's demise exaggerated...

Apologies - and many thanks for the concerned emails that have been arriving since Saturday. Warmwell's temporary absence has been due - not to a technical glitch, oversight, foul play nor Act of God - but to the sort of incompetence more often seen in a government department. However, there, the incompetence is generally followed by denials, bluster and promotion for those responsible. In the case of UK2.net, the mistake has been acknowledged. We have received an apology, token compensation - and matters have been rectified.

March 10 2007 ~ "Prevention and control of avian influenza: the need for a paradigm shift

in pandemic influenza preparedness" The current edition of the Veterinary Record carries a VIEWPOINT article by A. Martinot, J. Thomas, A. Thiermann, and N. Dasgupta. The "paradign shift" referred to refers to the need for a change in attitude towards both vaccination and diagnostics. Instead of merely preparing for an inevitable pandemic, they argue, we should instead be aiming to prevent the disease at source.
".......Controlling avian influenza, using vaccination when appropriate, is not only a mechanism to contain a potential global health crisis: it is a means to prevent income loss for both families and countries, to promote development and to protect the welfare of animals...
...The strengthening of veterinary infrastructures worldwide will not only minimise the risks of avian influenza, but will also provide the early detection and rapid response capabilities for future emerging diseases. However, this will require a shift in thinking from preparation for an inevitable pandemic to pre-emption of the pandemic through prevention among animals."
The Abstract. is free to view.
(More on Vaccinating Birds against H5N1 on this warmwell page - updated as soon and often as possible.)

March 10 2007 ~ Agriculture ministers from six South American nations have agreed on a joint policy for improved cooperation in eliminating foot-and-mouth disease in the region

China Peoples' Daily reports "In a Friday meeting in the southern Bolivian city Santa Cruz, ministers from Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Paraguay and Uruguay, agreed that under a framework of cooperation, the six nations will work to enhance common standards to strengthen the prevention of foot-and-mouth disease. The six nations will take control measures under the recommendations of the World Animal Health Organization. The policy will also mobilize the technical support of the Panaftosa laboratory, the Inter-American Agricultural Cooperation Agency, and the United Nations's Food and Agriculture Organization. .."

March 9 2007 ~"Together with the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) we're working hard to learn all we can from this episode." Bernard Matthews

Bernard Matthews' full page advertisements in several national newspapers today carry his personal claim that "my turkey is completely safe to eat". He thanks the public for their "support" . He insists that " I've never stopped instilling my core values of quality, value and customer care into every Bernard Matthews product." The adverts say that the products have undergone "the most rigorous independent scientific tests available"
The move is as predictable as the language is breathtaking. As an example of the spinmeister's art it is extraordinary - and was probably very expensive. (We now know it cost £7 million.) Now that a spotlight has been shone on his factory methods, little wonder that Bernard Matthews is anxious to persuade people that "Our standards of hygiene and bio-security are some of the most stringent in the world" - but the claim that it was the plant's "hygiene and biosecurity" that was instrumental in "detecting the virus, containing it and eradicating it in 72 hours" is without substance and the flaws in both have been well documented Free-range poultry keepers were inconvenienced and worried for weeks as a result. On it goes... "... we will not be complacent because bird flu did strike us. Together with the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) we're working hard to learn all we can from this episode " Unfortunately, in the area of animal disease, the UK's record on learning lessons is pitiful. In this outbreak, there are many unanswered questions and it is looking more and more as though as though answers are not ever going to be easy to extract. Perhaps there are those who would rather they remained unanswered. British taxes are going to be spent on paying the company its £600,000 compensation. Free range poultry owners are not going to be allowed to protect their birds because of a much repeated piece of nonsense. Intensive factory farms seem set to go on transforming the miserably short, unnatural lives of farmed poultry into vacuum packed meat products for the supermarkets. That the cost of all this is much too high must surely now be self evident.

March 9 2007 ~"I wouldn't be surprised if the last thing David Miliband wanted to do was debate the performance of his department"

The Western Morning News reporting on the fact that a full agriculture debate has not been held in the House of Commons for more than four years: "...Critics accused ministers of running scared from a catalogue of criticism on the handling of the foot and mouth crisis, tackling bovine TB and the botched new farm payments scheme.....the farming community has struggled with the aftermath of foot and mouth, faced the threat of bird flu and been hit with long delays in receiving EU grants in an administrative bungle. ......Shadow environment secretary Peter Ainsworth said: "I wouldn't be surprised if the last thing David Miliband wanted to do was debate the performance of his department. We will look for an opportunity to have a debate on exactly this soon."

March 8 2007 ~ It would be useful know for certain that the Holton chicks were not infected via feed.

The government and the FSA are at pains to say that none of 93 tons of turkey meat from Hungary had gone "near the sheds where infected birds were found and it was processed on other areas of the site" - but intensive farming tends to make use of everything in its desire for cheapness. Waste meat is put in a shredder, mixed with other "nutrients", and fed to turkeys. Both turkeys and chickens will eat meat. Even waste products from poultry are used as feed in the factory farming system. It would be useful to know both the provenance and precise contents of the feed given to the infected poults. A very obvious question is whether chicks could have been given feed that could have contained the virus. Presumably, if asked, that is a question that cannot be fobbed off with "we may never know".

March 8 2007 ~ 93 tons of turkey meat from Hungary (unrecognised apparently by the TRACES database) were being processed in Holton at the height of the outbreak

BBC and ITV report that 93 tons of turkey meat from Hungary, were being processed at Holton at the very time the H5N1 scare was at its height. Labour MP Roger Godsiff received this information from Caroline Flint the Public Health Minister - but it is absolutely at odds with DEFRA's Preliminary Outbreak Assessment (pdf) on January 24th about the outbreak in commercial geese at Csongrad in southern Hungary. The Preliminary Outbreak Assessment said:
"The TRACES electronic database indicates that there have been no imports of poultry or poultry products from Hungary to the UK for the past three months."
How could the TRAde Control and Expert System - a "system which provides automatic notification to the veterinary authority of a receiving Member State when an official veterinary health certificate is signed in a consigning Member State" have been so entirely wrong - and why was DEFRA relying on this in its assumption that the likelihood of the introduction of this disease from Hungary to the UK via legal trade before and after this outbreak is considered negligible ? We understand that TRACES is regarded as "hopeless" in Holland and that the Dutch government does not work with it. Neither David Miliband nor Lord Rooker referred to these Hungarian imports at the start of the scare. (See letter from Peter Ainsworth to David Miliband.) Did these DEFRA Ministers not know? Were they not told or did DEFRA really not know at that time? Was the omission deliberate? Trust in the veracity of government statements is not helped by this sort of uncertainty.

March 8 2007 ~ ".. vaccination. It has been decried for years, but perhaps its time has come."

As reported by FMD News, the service provided by the FMD Surveillance and Modeling Laboratory, University of California at Davis and summarising the article at www.cambridge-news.co.uk.
"Speaking to the Cambridge Society for the Application of Research, Dr. Mike Thrusfield said: "The millions of animals slaughtered last time were a tragic loss. Government scientists still claim that the episode was a success. To me it was a cull by computer....In the 1967 outbreak we slaughtered animals from infected farms - 440,000 in all. In 2001 the Government used computer models instead of vets as their source of advice. As a result they killed six-and-a half million farm animals, nearly 15 times as many, yet the epidemic subsided at the same rate. Next time there's an outbreak, we may well see the use of vaccination. It has been decried for years, but perhaps its time has come."
Dr Thrusfield's talk last Monday was called: The Eternal Triangle: Science, Propaganda and Disease Control; the facts behind the 2001 Foot and Mouth Epidemic

March 8 2007 ~ " Is it not time to abandon this Buzzword, "BIOSECURITY", so beloved by Defra and government".

An emailer writes,"It is obvious to any one with clinical experience that no agricultural premise either intensive or extensive can ever be "secure" - with the frailty of humans and the occurrence of vermin, insects and birds, not to mention human activities of every description.
One glance at ITV pictures from the Hungarian incident must make this obvious.
Please can we use a simple term like " disease control measures",which describe the situation and are not designed to give a false impression to the public of the actual situation and the risks involved. "Biosecurity" is not an accurate description of this or any other outbreak situation."

March 7 2007 ~ " it is considered acceptable for us to risk contracting bird flu from our poultry"

A British poultry farmer has written to warmwell deploring the UK vaccination policy "surely vaccination of poultry should be allowed if only to protect those working with the birds?" he writes. "....It was a letter from NHS offering free (human) flu vaccination for me and my helpers which set me thinking. NHS wanted us to be vaccinated to reduce the chances of us suffering normal flu at the same time as we meet the HP bird flu virus. .... The NHS letter stressed the vaccine offered would NOT protect us against bird flu. In other words it is considered acceptable for us to risk contracting bird flu from our poultry, but we cannot be allowed to have normal flu at the same time because that would mean everyone else would be at risk...." Read in full

March 7 2007 ~ "Certainly the Chinese can investigate what is going on in Guangdong and if their (poultry) plants there contribute to those strains, they could so something to intervene"

A genetic analysis of the virus published on Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences by a team at the University of California Irvine claims that China's southern Guangdong Province is a source of H5N1. The researchers' maps show China's north-west Qinghai Province to be another source of bird flu's spread. The Hong Kong Standard is just one paper to report on the study but the China Daily carries a denial from the Guangdong Province that its factory farms are to blame.
Local poultry farming in Hong Kong relies on day-old chicks supplied from China and, according to this USDA report, all live poultry supplies from China to Hong Kong come from Guangdong.

March 6 2007 ~ "Figures for imports into the United Kingdom of live day-old turkey chicks from outside the EU are not currently available. All consignments of live birds are liable to documentary and identity checks." Lord Rooker ( Hansard )

The government was not able, on February 8th, to answer questions about where turkey poults from outside the EU may have come from, how many and when - and yet implied that controls were adequate.
A question that must have occurred to many is the actual provenance of the chicks that succumbed to H5N1 at the end of January in a shed containing 7000 of them at Holton. Has any reader seen an answer to that question? If cheap poults were coming in quietly from countries such as Thailand, has that information been recorded?
Angela Browning - who, as a former Agriculture Minister, was certainly in a position to know all about control inadequacies - said in 2002, "It is all very well to try to source the cheapest of the cheap, but most people are looking for the reassurances on quality and safety that come with British standards. There does not seem to be a thorough enough checking system on imports to guarantee those standards....."

March 6 2007 ~ Hansard slip...

From the PQs below
"staff were required to shower on entry to the site and change footwear on entry to any particular House of Commons."
As one emailer writes, "is this a typo, a serious description or a joke? Very wise whatever. Certainly we are having a flu A outbreak at present . Just in the last two weeks...."
(Good at any rate to know that Parliament is taking biosecurity so seriously.)

March 6 2007 ~"... what the remit is of the inquiry by his Department into the recent events at Bernard Matthews at Holton in Suffolk; and how the (a) proceedings and (b) conclusions of the inquiry will be communicated to the public"

The Parliamentary Questions from friday are at least as interesting for their content as are the officially worded answers. The fact that they are continuing is a hopeful sign. There has never been an official explanation of how the foot and mouth virus got into the UK . The widespread assumption that the Waugh farm was the index case is widely questioned and challenged. This time, the phrase "we may never know how it happened", may not so easily be allowed to stand. (Warmwell would very much welcome comments on the answers given to these PQs. They would not be published.)

March 6 2007 ~ Neil Ferguson of Imperial College London "made his name by advising government on tackling the spread of BSE and foot-and-mouth."

"He is now one of world's most influential experts on infectious diseases including pandemic flu" enthuses this BBC report on the setting up of the "Medical Research Council's new Centre for Outbreak Analysis" which will "work with international health bodies to identify dangerous new diseases and stamp them out as quickly as possible."
The reaction by many warmwell readers may well echo the final paragraphs of Private Eye's Muckspreader a year ago.

March 5 ~ "... the development of highly pathogenic strains of bird flu lies at the door of factory farming."

If the experts cited by CIWF in its report last month are right and " the development of highly pathogenic strains of bird flu lies at the door of factory farming" then much of the frantic killing of domestic birds has unfairly targeted them and attention should be focused instead on the factory farms. Perfect biosecurity is a myth as was shown at the Bernard Matthews plant at Holton with its open bins of meat waste. But production and trade were given the nod to resume almost immediately. Most experts agree that it is only a matter of time before the virus mutates into something approaching the 1918 killer and this should put the bland assurances of the influential factory farmers into perspective. They like to defend both the inhumane and unnatural conditions and the to-ing and fro-ing of product parts by saying that these places produce cheap meat for those on low incomes. The irony of this is heartbreaking. The virus' human victims are the poorest. The winners are those in the huge food industries watching the demise of independent farming. If nothing is done to analyse more fully the part played in the spread of H5N1 by the massive and ever-expanding intensive poultry industry the safety of millions could - in all seriousness - be in the balance. Recommended reading for those who have time is the Agroecology website 'Agroecology' - the discipline that "provides the basic ecological principles for how to study, design, and manage sustainable agroecosystems that are both productive and natural resource conserving, and that are also culturally-sensitive, socially-just and economically viable" .

March 5 2007 ~ Avian influenza targets those without a voice - An enquiry should be conducted into the role of the global, intensive poultry industry in the spread of H5N1

One consequence beyond Britain of the assumption that domestic and wild birds are the primary cause of H5N1 is that Jakarta has banned household poultry there. There were about 1.3 million backyard birds in Jakarta. Thousands of families were given until Feb. 1 to consume, sell or kill their birds. After that, in scenes that many of us will remember with a shudder from 2001, "inspectors" went from door to door to destroy any remaining birds. The Indonesian government pledged to pay about $1.50 for each infected bird but most birds were perfectly healthy. No one knows how Jakarta's poor will replace the income they once received from chickens and other birds - the only source of income for many women and children. But Indonesia has not got the funds to compensate properly.
The NewYork Times recently published an article by a group of 24 government officials, public health experts and scientists from 11 countries who recently met in Bellagio, Italy, to call attention to how pandemic planning affects the world's disadvantaged . The article points out that industrial-scale poultry producers - and it cites Bernard Matthews - usually have the resources to absorb the losses whereas when the birds of small-scale poultry farmers are culled, "entrepreneurs who were just beginning to move up the development ladder can be plunged right back into poverty..." While many in Britain are still reeling from the news that the Bernard Matthews plant, with its known breaches of bio-security, is in line for massive compensation, the poor countries, without proper resources, really are floundering.

March 5 2007 ~ Indonesia's actions "understandable" - poorer countries need affordable vaccines

Indonesia's decision to withhold human bird flu virus samples from the World Health Organization has caused international consternation, but The Lancet has called Indonesia's actions "understandable." There have been 63 human deaths from H5N1 in Indonesia. (Globally, at least 167 of the 277 people known to be infected with bird flu since 2003 have died.) The Health Minister, Siti Fadilah Supari, says she is waiting for a promise from the U.N. agency that any new specimens sent will not be used for commercial vaccines ( likely to be too expensive for Indonesia to buy) adding that she has no problem sending viruses to be studied if they will not be used commercially. The WHO has given no such undertaking.
Last January the US and donor nations pledged more than $2 billion for Bird Flu. We don't know how much has actually been spent but last June just $286 million had been used in the fight against the disease. Both Dr. David Nabarro, senior UN system co-ordinator for avian and human influenza and Dr. Joseph Domenech, head of the FAO's animal health service deplored the shortfall of funds saying agencies were being "run ragged".
The Lancet says " To protect the global population, 6.2 billion doses of pandemic vaccine will be needed, but under current manufacturing capacity the world can only produce 500 million doses... in a pandemic, it is industrialized countries that will have access to available vaccines, whereas developing countries -- where a pandemic is likely to emerge -- will be left wanting The fairest way forward would be for WHO to seek an international agreement that would ensure that developing countries have equal access to a pandemic vaccine, at an affordable price."

March 3/4 2007 ~"The massive international movement of livestock and their products - the only possible beneficiaries of such unnecessary movements are a few powerful individuals ..The rest of us pay the price ."

Alan Beat at smallholdersonline.blogspot.com makes some worrying remarks about the export trade so often used to justify the unjustifiable. He checked the official UK statistics for the last twelve months at http://statistics.defra.gov.uk/esg/datasets/poultrade.xls
"The Bernard Matthews fiasco has once again exposed to public gaze this massive international movement of livestock and their products. In reality the so-called "export trade" is broadly counterbalanced by matching imports, at huge cost to the environment. The only possible beneficiaries of such unnecessary movements are a few powerful individuals and corporations who exploit the financial imbalances of international markets. The rest of us pay the price in environmental degradation..."
The next update to the DEFRA statistics in the movement to and fro of chicks, turkey poults, live fowl and carcasses is due on March 29th. It will be interesting to see whether the Bernard Matthews H5N1 outbreak will have made even a small dent in these figures.

March 3/4 2007 ~ UC Davis research study aimed to protect the US from foot-and-mouth disease

The tide may at last be turning with this reference to vaccination in the news release from the Center for Animal Disease Modeling and Surveillance (CADMS) in the School of Veterinary Medicine at UC Davis. They have now launched a nationwide research study, asking american livestock producers to participate in an online survey. They will, they insist, keep confidential the vital information collected about the distribution of livestock nationwide, animal movements and husbandry practices in the US. An effective response strategy needs up to date information and, learning from the tragic inaccuracies of the UK 2001 modelling, the UC Davis team know that asking for cooperation (rather than demanding it) while at the same time assuring confidentiality and transparency is essential if modelling data is to be of any use in evaluating "alternative strategies for disease mitigation".

March 2 2007 ~ "If one cannot get to the bottom of how a disease has come in, it is not fair to expect the industry to carry the costs. "

Lord Rooker came under some pressure in the House of Lords on Tuesday Feb 22nd when repeating the DEFRA mantra that the origin of the outbreak "may never be found". The Countess of Mar spoke of DEFRA's "lack of assiduity in tracing where the virus has come from" while Baroness Byford insisted, "My Lords, will Defra be able to finalise where this disease has come from? At the moment, the Government's move within the industry is to share the costs of future animal disease outbreaks. If one cannot get to the bottom of how a disease has come in, it is not fair to expect the industry to carry the costs. ..."
Lord Dykes wanted to know of Lord Rooker; "... will the noble Lord confirm that the origin of this contamination now appears to be clear and that it was definitely not wild birds? Will he also reassure the House that the Government are coping with the worrying stories that keep coming along of very poor live-poultry care in the East Anglian turkey-processing factories, sloppy hygiene procedures and misleading origin advertising?" Read in full

March 2 2007 ~ Verona Conference. Ben Bradshaw says DEFRA "officials" will attend.

Hansard. Peter Ainsworth asked Mr Bradshaw yesterday " whom he expects to represent his Department at the Vaccination: a tool for the control of avian influenza conference in Verona on 20 to 22 March 2007" (See details below) Mr. Bradshaw's answer did not name anyone nor say how many 'officials' are going to attend this important conference on vaccination. He did however reveal that, "Officials from DEFRA's Exotic Disease Prevention and Control Division and Veterinary Exotic Diseases, Research and Official Controls Division will be attending."

March 2 2007 ~ Local Suffolk free-range poultry owners astonished by "snippet" of news announcing the end of some restrictions

Local people around Holton feel outraged by the announcement from the County Council in their Suffolk Snippet and by its tone of voice. The "snippet" wholly ignores the serious animal welfare concerns, the inconvenience and the cost to owners of having been forced to house their birds in unnatural conditions around the outbreak at the Bernard Matthews factory farm. Some restrictions were lifted yesterday. However, rather than being lectured on the need for vigilance or bio-security, many people would rather know that the origin of the outbreak is being properly pursued. As the virologist Ruth Watkins says below, " It is imperative that the highly pathogenic H5N1 is stopped from circulating round the world. It is dangerous to expose humans and wild birds to infected domestic poultry."

March 1 2007 ~ Parliamentary Question about recent imports from Hungary ignores assertion from DEFRA on January 24 2007

From Hansard we read that Bill Wiggin asked Ben Bradshaw on Tuesday " how much meat from (a) geese and (b) turkeys was imported into the UK from (i) Hungary, (ii) Europe and (iii) the rest of the world in each of the last six months" The answer gave a table showing imports from July to December 2006. Mr Bradshaw said that December 2006 figures are "currently the latest" which are available.
However, when H5N1 was discovered in domestic geese in Hungary in late January 2007, the DEFRA Preliminary Outbreak Assessment (pdf) dated January 24th, said: "The TRACES electronic database indicates that there have been no imports of poultry or poultry products from Hungary to the UK for the past three months." (TRACES means "TRAde Control and Expert System - a system which provides automatic notification to the veterinary authority of a receiving Member State when an official veterinary health certificate is signed in a consigning Member State")
Just a couple of weeks before the virus appeared in the intensive factory at Holton, DEFRA's stated view was that
" the likelihood of the introduction of this disease from Hungary to the UK via legal trade before and after this outbreak is considered negligible."

March 1 2007 ~ Why did DEFRA think that there had been no legal imports from Hungary at the time of the Hungary infection?

Why did they insist that the likelihood of the disease passing into the UK was considered "negligible"? For DEFRA at least, the assumption seems to have been that the risk was purely from wild birds - an assumption that has, at last, been challenged by David Nabarro, the UN co-ordinator for avian and human flu, who said intensive poultry production was behind the spread of the virus this year. In spite of DEFRA's assumption at the beginning of the outbreak that wild birds were the cause, and even as free range birds were being forced indoors, there was no live bird sampling or surveillance going on in Suffolk. (See also letter from Dr Lucas MEP)
It does seem a little disingenuous of Mr Bradshaw to have told Mr Wiggin that there was no current information about January imports when DEFRA seems to have been so reliant on the TRACES database. In fact, as we now all know and as DEFRA was later to admit, lorries had been passing to and fro between the Bernard Matthews plants in Suffolk and Hungary all the time. It seems highly likely that the abattoir, the Gall Food abattoir in Kecskemet, that killed his turkeys had also processed infected geese. Is it conceivable that DEFRA really did not know about the UK and Hungary operations carried out by Bernard Matthews at the time of their Preliminary Outbreak Assessment - and does this not raise serious questions both about the paper trail, current controls and the extent of DEFRA's knowledge - particularly in view of the government's haste in allowing the factory to resume operations? And if, as Mr Bradshaw also said on Tuesday,"Scientists at the VLA together with DEFRA scientists, representatives of the Science Advisory Council and scientists in the Devolved Administrations provide regular advice through the Exotic Diseases of Poultry Experts Group" are owners and farmers satisfied that they are getting up to date and valid information from these experts?

March 1 2007 ~ Yesterday "severe biosecurity shortfalls" and " poor hygiene practices" - today news of £600,000 compensation

Fred Landeg has today talked about DEFRA's lack of complacency and the necessity for poultry keepers to practice good bio-security. Bernard Matthews claimed that his factory farm "meets and in many cases exceeds Defra's bio-security measures" - but the government reports revealed what the Guardian called a "string of flaws" and the company could still face prosecution. The latest news today (Sky) is that Bernard Matthews company is to receive £600,000 compensation for its slaughtered turkeys. Meanwhile, the free-range poultry owners around the plant who want simply to be allowed to protect their birds with vaccination and are not allowed to do so, are still being forced to keep them in unnatural conditions. Not surprisingly, Chris Huhne says, "I would prefer it if Defra were talking about fines and throwing the book at Bernard Matthews for sloppy practices and risk-taking."

February 28 2007 ~ "....we can't do anything to imperil that £370 million a year export trade, can we?"

Private Eye looks at the sequence of events following the Suffolk H5N1 outbreak and seems somewhat less than impressed with the UK government's response. Read in full

February 28 2007 ~ Vaccinated animals do not go visiting unvaccinated ones

We find it quite extraordinary that the FMD page of the EU Commission's website even now, still carries the sentence, so often quoted by those who, for various non-veterinary reasons, play down the proven efficacy of vaccination: "Vaccination with the use of conventional vaccines protects from disease, but does not prevent infection and consequently a carrier state" This assertion suggests that a vaccinated animal can pass on virus to an unvaccinated one. It ignores the fact that animals are vaccinated in herds and stay on farms. Unlike people, who constantly interact over wide distances, herds stay together.
As was pointed out in 2001 by an expert now holding a very senior international post indeed, (and then evidently exasperated by those who said that vaccination only prevents disease occurring and does not interfere with transmission), vaccinates "are not mixing and milling about the countryside".
" .... vaccinated animals produce little or any virus by routes that are expected to be involved in spread by people or objects" "... Experiments by Terpstra and colleagues in Holland were conducted to determine whether a well vaccinated animal might spread infection to a NON-vaccinate stabled in the same shed -and drinking from the same bowl. They used doses of virus which are huge compared to an expected level that might occur by a vaccinated animal meeting infection "over the fence". The results show that transmission can occur, but at low rates and were only shown to occur with NON-vaccinates. In reality, if virus infection is a risk in the area, ALL animals on a farm would be advised to be vaccinated. Only ridiculous disease control strategists would advise vaccinating only a few animals on the farm (as occur in the experiments such as Terpstra's), or mixing vaccinates and non-vaccinates when there is infection in the immediate area. ..."

February 27/28 2007 ~ EU to set up emergency rapid reaction veterinary teams ready to move within 24 to 36 hours

The International Herald Tribune quotes EU Health Commissioner Markos Kyprianou who says that recent and past outbreaks of bird flu, swine fever or foot-and-mouth disease in the EU "highlighted the importance of having well-prepared, well-trained personnel available to provide their expertise in dealing with the problem." The Commission is setting up a veterinary expert team that can be deployed at short notice to respond to outbreaks of animal disease. "An EU panel of national veterinary experts approved the plan, allowing the commission to go ahead and draft a list of team members from across the EU. Experts will be drawn from the fields of laboratory testing, veterinary, virology, wildlife, risk management and other areas to be ready to move within 24 to 36 hours to affected areas ..." The European Business Guide adds that
".....The team will also collaborate closely with experts from international organisations, such as the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) and International Office of Epizootics (OIE). Member States will submit lists of experts they propose for the emergency team, along with detailed profiles of these candidates, to the Commission. From these submissions, the Commission will the team members and inform Member States of its choice through the Standing Committee on the Food Chain and Animal Health. The list of experts will be updated on an annual basis, and the list will be available on the Commission's website."
It will be interesting to see, on the Commission's website, which experts from the UK are selected. In the past, those advising government have too often been chosen from the ranks of ambitious researchers seeking funds or those unable to rise above narrow vested interest groups. Because of a lack of true independence, such 'experts' are unable to withstand political pressures - and politics has dominated animal health control for far too long.

February 27/28 2007 ~ Supermarket low prices spell doom for traditional dairy, beef and sheep farms

Farmers supplying the supermarkets receive around 18p per litre for milk. It is sold for 49p a litre, making milk cheaper than some bottled mineral water. The Independent : quotes NFU President Peter Kendall:
"It is encouraging that supermarkets are now falling over each other to paint themselves as the "greenest", the "most sustainable" or even the "most responsible". It is now a matter of urgency that this rhetoric becomes a reality ..."
Justin King's reported response: "We cannot and will not prop up inefficient businesses" - seems an easy quip, ignoring the unfairness of the huge mark-up. It suggests, moreover , that his supermarket at least thinks that big profits made from cheap imports are of greater importance than safeguarding British farming.
Such a views ignores the prophetic words of Professor James Lovelock in The Revenge of Gaia: "... Unfortunately our nation is now so urbanised as to be like a large city and we have only a small acreage of agriculture and forestry. We are dependent on the trading world for sustenance; climate change will deny us regular supplies of food and fuel from overseas. .. ... .. ......we need secure indigenous supplies of food and energy.... we cannot rely on supplies from abroad..."
The Independent reports (28th Feb)Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, " the television chef and champion of small producers, is fronting a new offensive against the supermarkets which he portrays as a "bullying" force destroying British food. He will denounce the supermarkets at a public meeting in Westminster tonight (Wednesday) and demand new powers to limit their growth. (More).

February 26 2007 ~ "it is timely to convene the best renowned experts to address the issue of global guidelines for vaccination"

The Verona conference, taking place in March, reflects the feeling in both the OIE and the FAO that the strategic use of vaccination is now of great importance.
".... using the DIVA approach or the frequent monitoring of sentinel birds, vaccination has successfully controlled or prevented the disease on many occasions. Nevertheless, ensuring vaccine quality control and the appropriate use of vaccines is a significant issue in many countries, and should form part of the national intervention strategies of at risk or infected countries. ... The OIE and FAO consider that it is timely to convene the best renowned experts to address the issue of global guidelines for vaccination with regard to international standards, regulations and the implementation of vaccination programmes..."
There is no reference at all, by Dr Bernard Vallat, Dr Joseph Domenech or Dr Stefano Marangon, to the often quoted DEFRA contention that " Vaccination can mask disease and therefore could spread the disease further". (See below) It may be assumed that the Director General of the OIE, the Chief Veterinary Officer of the FAO and the Director of Science IZSVe are better informed than Ben Bradshaw and the Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton. It is to be hoped that our policy makers will receive up to date information and advice straight from the conference itself.

February 25 2007 ~ Rapid Diagnosis for flu in birds: Multiplex test

From the latest report of the USDA/ARS Research Project: Development and Validation of Rapid Diagnostic Tests for Avian Influenza and Newcastle Disease
".....We have also developed an internal control to be run as a multiplex test with both the AIV and NDV tests to assure that the RRT-PCR reaction was performed correctly. The internal control should help to eliminate false-negatives. We have also developed hemagglutinin subtyping tests for most of the 16 described subtypes of AI. We remain active in the evaluation of primer sets to assure they work well with outbreak viruses from around the world. Finally, the development of dried down reagents to aid in the stability of the reagents, increased quality control, and ease of use of the test has already developed interest from a number of different diagnostic laboratories. The Southeast Poultry Research Laboratory (SEPRL) has been on the leading edge of use of real time PCR testing as a diagnostic test for viral pathogens of poultry with its work on avian influenza virus and Newcastle disease virus. Through collaborations with APHIS, the rapid diagnostic test for avian influenza and Newcastle Disease was validated and adopted by APHIS ...."

February 23 2007 ~ "Stakeholders are currently talking to DEFRA about vaccination delivery. A third meeting should eventually be held..."

Dr Chris Ashton, who represents the British Waterfowl Association on the DEFRA poultry stakeholders group, has asked warmwell to publish a document about vaccination against avian influenza and on the efficacy of vaccines. Elm Farm Research Centre produced a paper on this subject which they launched at a Parliamentary Reception in July while Dr Ashton herself gave a short presentation at a DEFRA meeting in June about the desirability of having a policy in place before the disease actually arrived. What needs to be made a lot clearer is the circumstances in which DEFRA would allow the vaccine to be used. For keepers of small numbers of birds, 'backyard birds', the question is urgent - although luckily these naturally reared birds are the ones least likely to get ill. Most of the cases - certainly in Laos and Holland - have been in industrial poultry, and it does seem to be becoming an inescapable conclusion that it is the global poultry industry and the unnatural rearing conditions which are the problem. As owners say, "Quite why our pets and pure breeds have to take the risk, we really don't know."

February 21/22 2007 ~ "There is little question that adequate vaccination will reduce shedding levels and thus the virus load.."

Dr Bernard Vallat, Dr Joseph Domenech and Dr Stefano Marangon have written the Introduction: to the Verona Conference taking place next month (20-22 March) Its title is Vaccination: a tool for the control of avian influenza. This is a scientific conference on vaccination, co-organised by the OIE, FAO and the Istituto Zooprofilattico Sperimentale delle Venezie, and supported by the European Commission to review the current methods and recent experiences in the use of vaccination against avian influenza.
".....a control strategy that is based only on the application of sanitary measures to increase biosecurity and the culling of animals that are infected or suspected of being infected, has proven not to be sufficient to avoid the spread of infection. The OIE and FAO consider that it is timely to convene the best renowned experts to address the issue of global guidelines for vaccination...There is little question that adequate vaccination will reduce shedding levels and thus the virus load ....."

February 21/22 2007 ~ Vaccination of birds. Russia moves immediately. UK still dithers

Warmwell has recently posted several emails from leading virologists on the subject of vaccination. They are highly qualified, have no vested interests. Although the issue is complicated, the bottom line is simple.
• Vaccines protect a population against a ' wildtype' infection when sufficient number are vaccinated - a figure usually in excess of 80%.
• Vaccinees will take a given time (with current H5N1 vaccines the time is, according to Intervet, 1-2 weeks after the first injection in a course of two shots of killed vaccine) to raise a T-cell and antibody response whereupon the vaccinee will be protected. An annual booster may be required.
• The vaccine must be a close enough match in its surface proteins to the wildtype to evoke a protective response, create neutralising antibodies.
Unfortunately, what has been described as "the obsessional focus by DEFRA" is that a few individuals who have partially responded but then, before protection is complete, meet ' wildtype' virus early after vaccine may have mild clinical disease and may possibly excrete some virus in to the surroundings. This does not matter because
• the vaccinated flock puts a stop to the chain of infection. The whole exercise is to reduce spread and these hypothetical few cases, with much reduced virus shedding, would not, even if they existed, allow the virus to gain a foothold.
The earlier vaccination happens the safer for the flocks and the environment because they will have responded fully to the vaccine before their encounter with wildtype virus.
Without vaccination, one is left with the UK solution of racing after the virus, killing en masse, imposing draconian restrictions on healthy stock and trying to stop virus contamination in any local environment with disinfectant.

February 21 2007 ~ It is imperative that the highly pathogenic H5N1 is stopped from circulating round the world. It is dangerous to expose humans and wild birds to infected domestic poultry.

Although what we have seen in Suffolk seems the most economic option for the government when one poultry farm is infected, the real cost is borne by the farmers. They have been forced to take free range birds indoors, make temporary netted enclosures, buy disinfectant, and have had their production interrupted by restrictions. Their livelihood is also jeopardised by the inevitable public lack of confidence. Eventually the cost of this disease spread worldwide by trade in chicks, poultry dead or alive and its products, feathers and faeces will be borne by the world - and far more dearly than the gain of any trade in poultry. Supermarkets must accept some responsibility here and promote vaccinated poultry products without allowing a negative aura to be created or marking them down.

February 21 2007 ~ 1.1 million tonnes of foreign pork, beef and lamb was imported into the UK in 2006

The Yorkshire Postreports that foreign meat imports were 675,000 tonnes in 1995. In addition, 560,000 tonnes of poultry was imported last year. Foreign meat can be labelled British even if it was only processed in the UK - and processing could be merely smoking bacon or curing ham. Shoppers keen to buy British produce are misled by labels. The Government's refusal to introduce country of origin food labelling is not hard to understand in view of the profits involved - but when people hear (as they did in Farming Today This Week) of then extraordinary shuttling of the same turkeys, alive and dead, between England and Hungary and the present lack of adequate controls for welfare and safety, labelling is more and more urgently needed.

February 21 2007 ~ cavalier use of data in the Manchester Business School study on the environmental impact of organic farming

Letters in the Independent are forthright: " bad study, bad maths and bad conclusions.... Instead of computing meaningless comparisons between farming systems, let's engage some serious economic brains on how to feed a hungry world when we've "eaten" all the oil and all the gas" wrote Richard Sanders of Elm Farm, while Nigel Tuersley remarked dryly ".....MBS have removed at a stroke the dilemmas of policymakers as they grapple needlessly with the resolution of irreconcilable objectives. Unburdened by irrelevant externalities, agribusiness can, once again, reclaim its rightful crown as the only rational alternative. ...... Can we look forward to further groundbreaking studies from MBS demonstrating that rainforest depletion is "on balance" beneficial ....?" Read in full

February 20 2007 ~ New Meat Byproducts: Avian Flu and Global Climate Change

The Worldwatch Institute's report Vital Signs 2007 - 2008 says that sixty percent of global livestock production takes place in intensive "confined animal feedlot operations" (CAFOs) in the developing world. At least 15 nations have restricted or banned free-range and backyard production of birds in an attempt to deal with avian flu on the ground, a move that may ultimately do more harm than good, according to Danielle Nierenberg, a Worldwatch research associate:
"Locating large chicken farms near cities might make economic sense, but the close concentration of the birds to densely populated areas can help foster and spread disease. In Laos, 42 of the 45 outbreaks of avian flu in the spring of 2004 occurred on factory farms, and 38 were in the capital, Vientiane. In Nigeria, the first cases of avian flu were found in an industrial broiler operation ...then quickly to neighbouring backyard flocks.....
...where animals are concentrated by the thousands, diseases erupt and spread quickly. Trade in poultry from these operations is a culprit in spreading the disease to smallholder farmers. Experts suggest that rather than culling smaller, backyard flocks, the FAO, WHO, and other international agencies should focus the bulk of their avian flu prevention efforts on large poultry producers and on stopping disease outbreaks before they occur.
"While H5N1...may have been a product of the world's factory farms, it's small producers who have the most to lose." says Nierenberg. ( See these two articles on the upcoming report.)

February 20 2007 ~ Russia to vaccinate all birds near Moscow

Science Daily "Russian officials are set to prevent a possible outbreak of the avian flu by vaccinating at least 1 million domestic birds in an around Moscow. While all Russian poultry is typically inoculated twice a year, Russian veterinary experts informed the press agency RIA Novosti that all birds near Moscow will soon be given free vaccinations to prevent an outbreak of the virus. The move comes as five cases of the avian flu were reported near Moscow, including one Monday in which the presence of the H5N1 virus was confirmed...."

February 19/20 2007 ~ "Where has the idea that there is long term circulation of H5N1 in a fully vaccinated flock in the absence of disease in the flock come from?"

Another email from the virologist Dr Ruth Watkins, commenting on paragraph 21 from the EU Directive, should be read in full by those who do not necessarily accept the received wisdom of the government on the subject of vaccination. ".....Where has the idea that there is long term circulation of H5N1 in a fully vaccinated flock in the absence of disease in the flock come from? What is the documentary evidence for it? I would have thought that if the virus were to continue to circulate in a fully vaccinated flock there would be the evidence of diseased birds as the immune cross reactivity of the vaccine virus would be so poor as to have failed to evoke the protective antibody, neutralising antibody to H5. .." Read in full

February 19 2007 ~ David Miliband now says that poultry in the protection zone have been "sampled"

Channel 4 ".....Tests had also been completed on poultry samples from 21 premises in the protection zone and in all cases there was no evidence of infection. ...MPs have been told that the earliest time at which bird flu restriction zones in Suffolk could be lifted was the second week of March - provided there were no further outbreaks or suspect cases in the area. ..."

February 19/20 2007 ~ MEP: "PREMATURE RE-OPENING OF SUFFOK FARM BREACHES EU LAW"

We have heard this afternoon from the office of the South-East England's Green MEP Caroline Lucas. Dr Lucas has demanded that the European Commission investigate the re-opening of the Bernard Matthews plant.
".....If the government doesn't follow EU rules it is British farmers who will pay the price, as this failure means the disease is more likely to strike again - and the EU will be able to blame the UK Government and deny any compensation claims. I have today demanded the European Commission investigate the Government's decision to allow the plant to re-open so soon."
See Dr Lucas'Letter to Commissioner Kyprianou (pdf)

February 19 2007 ~ "It was a complete mess with dead birds still lying around the site - and tatty, torn, blown out buildings and made Bobby Waugh's look like the Hilton."

An emailer tells us that on Friday (16 Feb) ITV 6.30 and 10.30 news programmes both ran an extensive report "..showing the dire state of the farm in Hungary that had had bird flu in geese - it raises all sorts of questions about what the level of bio-security is in Hungary - and if birds slaughtered at the same abbatoir is the same one that dealt with this farm then it is very easy to see how the disease could be transferred. I just wonder if Defra saw the footage and is now acting upon it."
Bird flu seems quietly to be dropping out of the news. Intensive factory methods and the extraordinary to-ing and fro-ing across borders of chicks, slaughtered birds and carcasses continue. But Farming Today This Week (new window) was entirely given over to the subject of the bird flu crisis and raised some very important points about such issues as bio-security in the big plants, global movements, labelling issues and the likelihood of change. Interesting to notice the number of times Mr Fred Landeg emphasised the "humane" nature of the killing of the turkeys at Bernard Matthews, and the fact that Mr Alick Simmons said he was "perfectly happy" about the present situation.) There was even a hint that the political condoning of the always expanding multi-national poultry industry may well be at the very root of the crisis.

February 19 2007 ~ enshrined, as if in amber, is the back-covering rider that vaccinated poultry may become infected

While anxie