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Latest 'Generic' Contingency Plan for FMD   EU Directive Sept 2003 (pdf new page) ~  Foot and Mouth News - from Yahoo and PigHealth.com
The complete FMD 2001 archive may be visited at STONELEIGH PARK see pdf and note from Rev Pinkerton    "The stakeholders contribution to decision making.."

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Warmwell front pages - the earliest pagess in 2001 - March 2002

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August 26 2005 ~ NFU Wales warns against vaccination in its response to the FMD consultation.

According to icwales, the Welsh NFU, in its response to FMD consultation, says that vaccinating animals in another foot-and-mouth outbreak could "financially cripple Welsh livestock farmers."
"NFU Cymru, in its response to consultations on the directive, says vaccination would not only add costs to livestock production, it would leave mountains of unsold meat......"
Emotive language. One wonders if the NFU Wales leadership has understood the hard won derogations, the fact that vaccinated meat does not need to be labelled and what would actually happen in an epidemic if vaccination was once again to be ignored.
We have now been informed that the icwales article follows the report in Farmers Weekly yesterday:
".... Its first concern was that meat from vaccinated animals would not be able to go into the food chain unless it was heat treated, deboned and matured.
NFU Cymru said it had grave doubts as to whether there would be sufficient capacity in Wales to do this..... the market price of vaccinated meat was likely to be heavily discounted.
Another concern raised was that new directive also bans the collection and transportation of milk for sampling for milk hygiene purposes in laboratories not authorised to test for F&M. ....practical problems for those companies located in Wales where there are currently no such laboratories."
Gary in the US fears that a , "... most "natural" reaction on the part of the American Public is: "Well, if it's there on the web like this, it means we can't vaccinate for FMD." To tell you this is sad in itself. We've all worked so hard to attempt to overcome the insanity of these old carry-over FMD policies from days-gone-by."

August 25 2005 ~ A reminder of the way effective technologies to fight FMD have been blocked

The paper U.S. Agricultural and Food Security: Who Will Provide the Leadership? mentions new technologies started fifteen years ago. (our own emphasis)
• " From the mid-1990s, diagnostics were moved from performance in a high-containment laboratory to portable, on-site devices that did not require biological containment." Comment
• A test to discriminate animals that have been vaccinated against FMD from those that have recovered from infection .... APHIS did not pursue the regulatory procedures necessary for validation
• An antiviral drug that would block FMD virus infection.... stopped after early success for lack of funds.
• vaccines that can be manufactured in the U.S... for diseases that are both natural and biological weapons threats. ..... begun in the early 1990s but stopped after early success for lack of funds.
The authors said, "vigorous efforts were made to replace the BSL 3 facilities at Plum Island NY, Athens GA, and Ames, IA, and to provide the first BSL 4 facilities for livestock at Plum Island. We came very close  but suffice it to say that after 6 years of effort there are no modern BSL 3 facilities for agriculture and the nation still has no BSL 4 facility in which to prepare for such dangerous livestock infections as Hendra and Nipah viruses and their cousins yet unknown."
However, see below..

August 25 2005 ~Homeland Security wants to turn Plum Island into "a new, massive center for biological and agricultural defense" with the highest laboratory security level, BSL 4 .

The US GovExec.com's "Daily Briefing" yesterday says that the Homeland Security department announced in a press release on Monday that the US is considering upgrading Plum Island to Biosafety containment level 4 (BSL4) that the new facility would "replace" the "important but aging" more than 50-year-old centre.
Plum Island is still at present a Biosafety Level 3 facility and is still the only facility in the United States where official testing for FMD is allowed. According to the briefing, attempts in the past to upgrade Plum Island have "faced local protests and opposition ..." Read the "Daily Briefing" in full
Plum Island has had security lapses in the recent past, and it has been upgrading its security .
( Warmwell can only report on what it finds. Being itself unvalidated, it is never officially informed of anything. Nevertheless, appalled by the incompetent and bloody fiasco of 2001, warmwell has battled on regardless and unfunded for four years. Perhaps there is now some room for hope if threats of natural incursions of disease or bio-terrorism are now being taken so very much more seriously in the US. Modern technological breakthroughs, still astonishingly unvalidated may at last be going to be used officially. And if the US leads the way, is it then possible that our own contingency plans will start to acknowledge what has in fact been possible for the past decade in the way of vaccine, discriminatory tests, and rapid on-site diagnosis? )

August 25 2005 ~ ProMed reports on FMD in Russia "2 FMD serotypes are, reportedly, evolving now in eastern Asia/the far east:

type Asia 1 in Russia's Amur region (Khabarovsk province); type A in eastern Mongolia's Dornod province. They are more than 1000 miles apart; both share borders with the People's Republic of China". ProMed's report includes news from a Russian source that in the Khabarovsk region "....all measures have been taken to isolate the herd infected with FMD. Mass vaccination of livestock in the Bikinsk district has been underway since 23 Aug 2005. 30 000 additional doses of vaccine are to be delivered over the next few days, and 120 000 doses will eventually be necessary. The decision on stamping out the infected herd has not yet been made."

August 23 2005 ~ Western Morning News on the change of wording from discretion to duty

The WMN's headline is "MINISTERS WILL HAVE A 'DUTY' TO CULL ANIMALS", written by David Wilcock, doesn't really echo what our own concern about the proposed change of wording has been. A DEFRA spokesman quoted in the article has given more clarification than we have seen anywhere else - and we wonder why they could not have made this clear in the first place:
"This does not apply to premises where disease has not been confirmed, where we would retain full discretion to cull or vaccinate as is justified by the scientific and veterinary risk of disease spread. There are also a number of special exemptions to compulsory slaughter on infected premises, where we would retain the discretion to slaughter."
(Read WMN article. In it, John Daw, chairman of the South West regional dairy board, is outspoken about Defra consultations. )

August 23 2005 ~ UK law has always allowed for the slaughter of actually infected animals and no one really argues against this.

However, what is worrying about the WMN article today is that farmers' leaders quoted do not, in their enthusiasm for the cull, acknowledge that healthy animals and pets were compulsorily and illegally slaughtered in 2001 and that for those affected, terrible memories are not easily erased.
If changing the wording from discretion to duty were legally to allow for slaughter on uninfected farms or to absolve the Minister from accountability for exceeding what is allowed in the EU Directive, then our worry about this minor technical amendment continues.
The infamous illegal "contiguous cull" of 2001 was a practice condoned by the leading farmers' unions at the time. A few determined farmers such as Guy Thomas Everard successfully fought Government attempts to cull his herd of 980 pedigree cattle, and Rosemary Upton successfully fought the illegal cull in the courts - much to Maff/Defra's fury- but most farmers were pressured or convinced into giving up their uninfected animals. Such documents as Chris Chapman's new book , the devastating evidence from Knowstone given to the EU Inquiry, the voices of ordinary people as in Fields of Fire, the report of the Devon Inquiry, the Cardiff university paper, Carnage by Computer, and the latest research done on the contiguous cull- and much more - all show that this disgraceful episode must never be allowed to happen again. The law was subsequently changed to give retrospective legality to the contiguous cull.

To find from the WMN article that there are farmers' leaders who seem still to believe that widespread slaughter was justified - and that the only thing that matters to farmers is compensation - is disheartening in the extreme. Many of the arguments, easily discredited, made by the NFU at the time, still seem to carry weight.
If farmers leaders themselves are ignorant about vaccination, rapid diagnosis and the acceptability of vaccinated food products, what hope is there, by September 1, for putting pressure on DEFRA to ensure that national adjustments to the EU Directive are sensible, ethical and scientifically sound? (Read WMN article)

August 20 2005 ~ Defra proposes changes to the FMD Directive

The excellent CA website on foot and mouth and CSF has highlighted concerns about lack of information to stakeholders who, by September 1 2005, are expected to be able to send comments to Defra on the transposition of the FMD Directive - changes that will affect all aspects of FMD disease control. One of the concerns mentioned is that highlighted by warmwell in the middle of June. Our most recent comments about this are now on the CA foot and mouth forum.
Extract: As for the semantic change from 'discretion' to 'duty', I think it is significant. It's also worrying that the phrase "including on infected premises" has been stressed. As you say, to what extent will this duty to slaughter be applied to non-infected premises?.....
"Dangerous contact" has still not been properly defined. Is a "duty" to slaughter to be applied to any animal to fall within this woolly category?.....
legal back-covering. ... If the phrase is "discretion" then the Minister must justify his decision - something this government does not much like being made to do. But "duty" implies that he or she has no choice and can't be held accountable.
This point has, of course, been termed a "minor amendment" but one wonders how a minor change of wording provides the "necessary powers" needed by the Secretary of State if an obligation to slaughter - within clearly defined limits - is already laid down in the EU Directive.
(The CA forum pages (new window), will be monitored by the OIE and FAO. In the interests of openness and transparency, it would be useful if comments sent to DEFRA about the transposition could be copied to the CA website for us all to see.)

August 20 2005 ~ "more than sombre stories of horrendous killing and heartbreak..."

"Silence at Ramscliffe" (see below) has been reviewed by Independent Farm Business News (IFBN). Extract:
"The horror of foot and mouth disease in the Spring of 2001 has scarcely faded in the minds of any of the farmers and workers whom it affected  but how long does it take for 'government', politicians and 'the public' to forget what happens if vigilance of disease observation and control is allowed to become negligent?....
The book contains more than sombre stories of horrendous killing and heartbreak. Towards the end, various kinds of analysis are included, factual, objective and subjective conclusions are reached, references quoted and historical connections made. It's one of those books that brings the whole thing back to life  and should be kept in every college and public library......it should be drawn to the attention of politicians and accountants..."
The book costs #25, and its ISBN is 0-9548683-3-1. It includes a DVD of the same name, courtesy of ITV West. See also full press release

August 18 2005 ~" a warning, nationally and even globally, of how mans chilling disassociation from the species that feed him is, frighteningly, almost complete "

"Silence at Ramscliffe: Foot and Mouth in Devon" will be launched at the Chagford Show, Devon, today, Thursday 18th August from 10 am.
James Crowden, poet and co-author :
Nothing prepared me for foot and mouth. Image and reality became inextricably linked. There is no tradition of rural poetry to encompass what we saw, he said. The only conscious links were to the First World War and the poetry of Wilfred Owen.

Zac Goldsmith, editor of the Ecologist said:
This book provides not only a permanent reminder of the pain inflicted on Britains rural communities, but a valuable lesson too  that the nightmare need never be repeated.

Food writer, TV chef and countryman Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall described the book as a suitably provocative collection of words and pictures.
Silence at Ramscliffe reminds us just how the Governments appalling and callous handling of the Foot and Mouth crisis undermined all the fundamentals of good farming and good husbandry, he said. It serves as a brilliant warning, nationally and even globally, of how mans chilling disassociation from the species that feed him is, frighteningly, almost complete.
See full press release

August 18 2005 ~ BSE vertical transmission in sheep? "....extremely unscientific conclusion"

See reports. Both James Meikle's Guardian report and the New Scientist report said, in what we consider to be misleading and mischievous language, "BSE has been transmitted naturally between sheep for the first time"
There is nothing natural about force feeding infected brain material to ewes, nor is it entirely clear how the lambs succumbed. As Mark Purdey commented in an email this morning: "...everyone knows that you can transmit BSE and other TSEs into as many animals as you want with almost 100% success - but only in the experimental context, where high doses of BSE brain homogenate have been used as the inoculum (the rogue metal microcrystals are the transmissible agents ).
It is extremely unscientific to jump to the conclusion that this is happening in the natural environment, particularly when no sheep have been diagnosed with clinical BSE to date, despite the rigorous post mortem TSE surveillance that has been in place in the UK." Read Mark Purdey's email in full

August 17 2005 ~ lambs at a government experimental station appear to have caught BSE from their mothers.

They were "experimentally fed with 5mg of BSE-infected material" and had lambs that died of BSE after showing signs of infection in their tonsils, 546 days after birth. James Meikle's Guardian report says
"Their mothers had shown no outward signs of the disease at lambing, one showing them 73 days after lambing, and the other 198 days after.... it is still not certain that the lambs were infected while in the uterus, or shortly before or after lambing. The disease may have spread through the birthing fluids or in some other way. The evidence so far suggests this is far more likely than the lambs catching the disease from other apparently unaffected sheep."
So - much uncertainty. But this experiment will no doubt be seized upon as part of the evidence that has been sought now for several years, and it brings the possible end of sheep farming in the UK a little closer.

August 15 - 22 2005 ~ "..significant benefits by fostering information exchange and shared use of resources...by both animal and human health scientists"

New Zealand's National Centre of Biosecurity and Infectious Disease at Wallaceville will open within 18 months. It will be shared by both animal and human health scientists.
Scoop NZ quotes a parliamentary speech given at the launch. Extracts:
".....We think New Zealand will benefit from a closer working relationship between scientists, researchers, epidemiologists, and laboratory staff in animal and human health fields. .....
It will cluster multi-disciplinary skills including microbiology, virology, epidemiology, incident response, disease modelling, and forecasting. Overseas research indicates that such clustering can produce significant benefits by fostering information exchange and shared use of resources... ..."
This echoes what has been said by the virologist, Dr Ruth Watkins " I find the strategies for health of humans in our society, modern Britain, have been neglected or disregarded by the veterinary establishment for farm animals - BSE was the start of the consequences of so doing.."
As for the dangers of illegal imports, the New Zealand Government appears to be taking both biosecurity and protecting its own agriculture very much more seriously than we do;
".. Government has done all it can to ensure that our environment and farming businesses are protected from pests and diseases. However, we're not complacent about our border control measures. We continually review our systems..."
"Not complacent" - but already in New Zealand instant fines for biosecurity breaches have been introduced, there is 100 per cent screening of all air crew and passengers, soft-tissue x-rays and detector dogs operate at all international airports, and a sea container screening programme has been put in place.

August 15 - 22 2005 ~"....Vaccination ..... its implications are now seen as practical ones..."

Defra's new page: "Stakeholder Engagement on FMD Control Strategies" has links to more detail and an Action Plan for meat treatments and processing. That "there should be no price differentials at the point of sale for products from vaccinated and non-vaccinated animals as the differences will not be identified..." is at last clearly and unequivocally acknowledged. Yet more modelling work on "a range of disease scenarios" has been commissioned from Risk Solutions, based on the FMD Cost Benefit Analysis. Read in full What seems so sad about all this is that what is being done now was just as possible before 2001. The arguments against vaccination that convinced many in the meat and retail industry were misguided or worse. But at least proper and practical preparations for this aspect of planning are now underway, as is an attempt to communicate the options more clearly. There are some at DEFRA who really are to be congratulated for this. So are some stakeholders, whose grasp of the realities and whose determined, gradual moving of mountains have begun to make a difference. It is a small but not insignificant step.

August 15 - 22 2005 ~ ".... changing requirements for detection and identification, and input of cutting-edge science .."

The BBC reported again on Saturday the study to be led by Dr Abigail Woods into the history of infectious diseases. (see below) Professor Michael Worboys is quoted: "Our study will review the evolving risk of diseases, changing requirements for detection and identification, and input of cutting-edge science." ( see also University of Manchester press release.)
The input of the cutting edge of science into national policy for animal disease control seems balked by constant and depressing repetitions of "not until it is validated."
Validation? Lack of "validation" doesn't alter the existing usefulness of technologies already widely deployed elsewhere where urgency is acknowledged. It is the willingness to validate that has been lacking and the issue used as an excuse for DEFRA to sit on its hands. It is incomprehensible.

August 15 - 22 2005 ~ Consultation on what should constitute national discretion in the Foot and Mouth Directive ends in only a fortnight

- i.e. by September 1 2005 - but there are questions yet to be answered - questions about the new technologies, the actual make-up of the Expert Group, why and how a "minor amendment" changing the phrase discretion to slaughter into duty to slaughter is necessary to give "necessary powers" to the Secretary of State. Other practical matters remain unresolved.
There are 25 (sic twenty five) DEFRA consultations currently taking place. The presumption that all the stakeholders affected by legislation are first going to assimilate and then respond to consultation documents is unrealistic. Yet the practice of "consultation" is used to justify top-down decisions.
If only the Ministry were trusted to know its facts, seen to be being advised by disinterested experts and known to be communicating fairly and clearly with stakeholders. There would then be no need for such window-dressing. Public servants would be assumed to be just that. As it is, accountability, transparency and a willingness to share the information that is driving policy all seem as far away as ever and, except in the special interest groups, there is an apathy about responding to consultations that seems to us to be wholly understandable.

August 8 - 14 2005 ~ Rapid PCR "... same old leopard, same old spots.."

The FMD forum pages of the Coordination Action website are very interesting. On Friday, in response to Roger Breeze's paper Disease control: Ideas for cost sharing between industry and government "Matthew" disagrees sadly with the optimism I had tentatively expressed. He writes mainly about bovine TB and the government's whole attitude to agriculture, but on the subject of innovative technologies, he says:
"The use of PCR in disease surveillance or diagnosis is well advanced in other countries, and UK medicine is now putting its collective toe into the water in hospitals, but mention its use to Defra - and the reply is luddite and negative. VLA still seem to prefer to 'research' the theory rather than test the reality...."
His post concludes "....I too had thought I detected a 'sea change' in attitude from Defra, but is a leopard spotty? After last week, it's the same old leopard, same old spots. "
It would be so refreshing if DEFRA could prove him - and the major part of warmwell - wrong and show that it has indeed changed its spots. Or at least one or two of them. (One does not need to register in order to read the posts on the CA forum.)

August 8 - 14 2005 ~ Australian farmers fear that their freedom from PWMS and FMD is being put at risk by trade concerns

ABC News reports (Thursday)
"....The Federal Court was scathing of the agency's risk analysis, finding it was not scientifically sound and posed a quarantine risk. But the Federal Agriculture Department has further angered farmers by planning to appeal against that judgment ....".
Quarantine expert, Dr Elizabeth Thurbon says farmers are justified in their concerns. She says Biosecurity Australia is allowing other agendas to intrude on their decision making. " We've had three Senate inquiries plus one Federal Court judge ruling, showing us quite conclusively that the science of quarantine in Australia is being undermined predominately by trade concerns..."

August 8 - 14 2005 ~ A sea change? The CVO thanked all Stakeholders present for having taken the time and trouble "..to attend and participate in this process - defined for the future as a partnership..."

Warmwell's reaction to a stakeholder's report of the recent meeting at DEFRA with the CVO, Debby Reynolds, is that real change could be in the air. There seems to be a shift
• in terms of communication and management skills
  "....Confirmation that this was more than a window-dressing exercise was apparent before the meeting-room door had fully swung open  large and readable name cards demonstrated where DEFRA personnel and the Chair were to sit (precluding the need for a guessing-game and last minute rush to change seats in order to hear).."
• In the genuine gesture towards openness and transparency..
  "...The Agenda and papers will go on DEFRAs website, where others unable to attend can view and contribute..."
• and in some of the points raised..
  (example) ".... Prior to the meeting Chris (Sheep Veterinary Society lead vet, practicing sheep keeper from the Shropshire / Cheshire border, independent consultant, former SVS employee and a key man at the ministry in 2001), mentioned that at a meeting two days previously DEFRA had agreed never again to initiate what he was referring to as the  Welshpool shambles. In other words, Contiguous and DC culling would never be initiated until the supposed IP was proven to be infected."
The report of this meeting was written by Chris Stockdale. (new window). Read in conjunction with Roger Breeze's article on the Coordination Action website, one feels that there may, at last, be reason for some optimism.

August 8 - 14 2005 ~ "With all Performance Benchmarks met, by government and industry, the goal is to snuff out an outbreak in two weeks after diagnosis by active commitment of all sections of the industry and related industries. .."

The discussion paper by Roger Breeze on Industry Cost Sharing is short and easy to read, illustrating clearly how contributing towards " the costs of an effective program for earliest detection and most rapid effective response to disease" can bring about significant change. From a top-down, one way, series of decisions, cost sharing can make the government an accountable partner. Industry, suggests the paper, can expect "Performance Benchmarks" to be set for such components as an inducement scheme for early reporting, rapid verification, and rapid communications. " ... the government should ....be prepared to demonstrate that it is meeting its Performance promises..."
The paper shows a grasp of what modern technology exists both in combatting illegal imports and in early disease detection and control. Particularly interesting is that the paper also advocates rewarding vigilance instead of threatening negligence:
"The first owner to report a suspicious case that proves to be an infection of concern shall be compensated at four times the value of the stock; those subsequently reporting suspicious cases that prove positive within the first two weeks after a definitive diagnosis shall be compensated at twice the value of the stock.."
Vaccination is assumed as the control method of choice since it would deter agroterrorists' hope of the"drama and visual theater of mass slaughter"
It is to be hoped that as many people as possible read the discussion paper - and give feed-back that will be seen by decision makers. (Register on the same page if it is your first visit.) The article below from Australia shows what happens when farmers feel they have no input into decision making and no control over the risks inherent in imports.

August 8 - 14 2005 ~ China: "... a simple and cost-effective technique to test live and dead animals for the disease,"

Biotech East reports
"The YaSheng Group, a Chinese industrial giant from Lanzhou, Gansu Province, announced today that it had mastered a gene cloning process that allows the creation of fortified cells that combat foot and mouth disease.
Scientists at the company had also developed a simple and cost-effective technique to test live and dead animals for the disease, according to the announcement.
The company reportedly plans to use the technology to develop a vaccine for Foot and Mouth Disease (FMD). ..."
In a global situation where the eradication of animal infectious diseases is more urgently needed than ever, a non-political consideration of effective new technologies and studies across international boundaries is surely vital. As the report of the EU Temporary Committee on Foot and Mouth Disease (paragraph 79 ) said:"Lasting success can be achieved in efforts to control FMD worldwide only if it proves possible, through close international cooperation.. ..."
Similarly, the current Israeli policy to prevent and control FMD (its clear setting out of humane and effective policy should serve as an example to others ) concludes: "... Common, co-ordinated epidemiological studies leading to a common control policy should be sought and supported by the international community."

August 7 2005 ~ Farmers will be even more anxious about importing FMD after an Australian documentary

A news report from Farmonline.com.au. SBS documentary blasts Brazilian beef import fiasco reports that an SBS 'Dateline' documentary has questioned the credibility of Brazil's internal quarantine measures. The programme suggested that "the so-called 'FMD-free zones' within Brazil are highly porous" and that at the time of one import into Australia of Brazilian beef, a new FMD outbreak had been reported in one of the supposed "FMD-free zones".
The program revealed that Biosecurity Australia, at the time, did not inspect conditions in Brazil, before relaxing import restrictions, and subsequently issuing the import licence. (Read in full. The article also expresses concern about PMWS.)

August 5 2005 ~ "Cost sharing offers industry a chance to sit at the table as a partner to make sure that when it pays what is asked, it gets what is promised...."

Roger Breeze's Discussion Paper: Industry Cost Sharing appears today on the Coordination Action website. It is readable, informed and full of clear, good sense. Those who have an interest, who care about the human and animal cost of official disease control, ( many of us not even designated "stakeholders"), and who want to make our voices heard, now have the chance to respond to such articles on the Coordination Action website. It is a chance that should be seized.
Warmwell's comments below, for example, now appear on the FMD forum pages of the CA website which provide a platform for online debate - visible to policy makers and to the OIE and EUFMD/FAO who will undoubtedly take note of interesting comments.
Registering is a simple process requiring no private data except for your real name and email address. Warmwell has no hesitation in recommending that we participate, and hopes that farmers and stockholders will get to hear about the website without delay. The online discussions will be summarised and the summaries will be available.
Today's article by Roger Breeze can be read in full here.

August 5 2005 ~ What good is an Expert Group if Defra doesn't act on their recommendations?

An emailer asked yesterday, "What good is it to have an Expert Group or a SAC who make good recommendations if Defra don't act on them? That is surely not the intention of the EU FMD Directive, but is there anything in it that obliges the government to follow the advice?"
Warmwell has looked at the responses of DEFRA to the 20 recommendations made by the SAC sub-committee. Read in full Briefly, :
• There is no sense of urgency at DEFRA but rather a sense of complacency - as if everything is under control (an unlucky phrase). DEFRA appears not to see that there could be different scenarios requiring different approaches.
• Where is the "permanently operational" expert group as required by the Directive? DEFRA seems to think that the Modelling Consortium (of which few have heard) and Defra itself should direct policy with no outside advice.
• SAC tactfully draws attention to the continuing lack of effective IT systems and the need for the new technologies to be reviewed as a matter of great importance: DEFRA seems to want to wait until the UK develops its own commercial pen-side tests before acknowledging this vital, time-saving technology.
• DEFRA seems unaware of the dangers inherent in its inability to communicate. SAC asks for clarity. DEFRA's impenetrable communications and documents and its reluctance to engage with people at regional and local levels all needs to be addressed. SAC recommends carrots rather than sticks to gain cooperation. DEFRA's responses miss the point, failing to grasp that ordinary people and ordinary farmers are the first line of defence in protecting the country. Such a widespread distrust of DEFRA is worrying. Many farmers are tired of and bored by the constant bureaucratic nagging and no longer interested in reading the glossy DEFRA publications that arrive so frequently.
Full recommendations, responses and warmwell's comments appear on new page here.

August 3 2005 ~scientists in Beijing have developed a test for streptococcus suis which takes just 4 hours to provide results.

ProMed reports "... the Chinese Academy of Inspection and Quarantine announced yesterday, 1 Aug 2005, it has developed a testing method to identify _Streptococcus suis_ in pigs in 4 hours. The technique, known as the "multiple PCR (polymerase chain reaction) testing method," can be used to screen pigs in an "accurate and convenient" fashion, said a statement by an expert panel that assessed and approved the method ...." In yesterday's post, ProMed reports ".. Vaccines to combat a deadly pig-borne disease were flown to south-western China on Sunday [31 Aug 2005], where the spread of the rare illness has already killed 36 people and infected 198. The unusually high numbers of people infected by the swine disease has led scientists to speculate that it may be being spread from human-to-human or that another disease entirely is to blame. ........the size and virulence of this current outbreak, in the province of Sichuan, has taken the World Health Organization by surprise."

August 2 2005 ~ "....the government belatedly realized that the critical monetary yardstick was not the animal product export sector..."

"...but the rural economy as a whole and that protecting animal agricultural interests by not vaccinating was causing huge financial losses in tourism and other sectors that had never been factored into the calculations of outbreak costs." From Roger Breeze's paper Agroterrorism: Betting Far More than the Farm - now available freely on the internet as a pdf file at www.liebertonline.com Extract:
Regulatory officials have not realized that onsite detection is a transforming technology. Onsite detectors should transform disease surveillance and control..... vigorous informed control measures backed by positive diagnosis can be implemented nationally within 6 hours.
.... neighboring herds would be monitored daily for FMD infection (the test will find virus before there are signs of illness), and only infected herds would be killed. Slaughter would not be based on proximity. " Read in full

August 1 2005 ~ Rapid on-site RT-PCR Diagnosis - a curious reluctance on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean

Following Operation Hornbeam, the Science Advisory Council sub group, (which included Professor Roy Anderson and Mark Woolhouse) identified, "major science issues" from the "exercise in its entirety, that require attention in the shorter term." They made some excellent recommendations
Recommendation 13: Accurate pen-side tests should be developed for the diagnosis of FMD in cattle and pigs. The Department should develop the capability to identify further research needs, including a review of current technology and the identification of novel future technologies.
Similarly GAO, the US Government Accountability Office, reported that
"According to experts, on-site use of these tools is critical to speeding diagnosis, containing the disease, and minimizing the number of animals that need to be slaughtered"
The USDA officials responded that " it is important to evaluate the costs and benefits of developing and validating these tools for use outside of a laboratory setting..."
Many are deeply puzzled at the reluctance shown both by UK and US officials to accept the use of the newest technologies that would, without doubt, transform disease control. Lip service is being paid - but neither UK nor US government department appears to acknowledge that on-farm rapid diagnostic tests are already highly developed and already being used in the field. The curious issue of "validation" which has, since the beginning of 2001, been used to justify their not being used is still being bandied about - almost as if it were an essential to making them work. Can anyone throw any light on this matter?

July 30 2005 ~ US still envisaging the slaughter of millions of cattle - Who will Provide the Leadership still not clear

Articles on Agroterrorism for the month of August on CSO online website warn that the number of agencies involved in agriculture and food oversight, the lack of coordination, the lack of clarity about what would happen in an outbreak, all add up to a "toothless tiger "
"... the huge feedlots, large processing facilities and a rapid distribution network .... through the infection of a single animal could lead to widespread infection that would necessitate the slaughter of millions of cattle ...." and "......"We're terribly inefficient in how we approach food safety," says Jerry Gillespie, director of the Western Institute for Food Safety and Security at the University of California, Davis. "Different agencies have different legislative authority. It's also unclear who would be in charge ..."
CSO online.com

July 30 2005 ~ Read again US Agricultural and Food Security: Who Will Provide the Leadership? by Roger Breeze and Floyd Horn.

As long ago as 1999, six years before writing their paper, the authors warned U.S. agricultural and food groups that the US
" was not prepared....unlikely to detect, identify and report; emergency responses were inadequate; working relationships were deficient....state and federal infrastructure would be overwhelmed....The Nation lacks a comprehensive national strategy .... Such a strategy is urgently needed: it will take years to implement and the threats will grow in the meantime. "
When the paper was published in the Proceedings of the 107th Annual Meeting of the U.S. Animal Health Association, San Diego, October 9-16, 2003, pages 79-91, alterations were made, without the knowledge of the authors, that significantly changed the message intended. In particular, their ideas of how rapid, on-site test devices should be deployed were completely changed to create the false impression that validation was the next critical step. As we have said here on warmwell many times, the UK have similar areas of unaccountable blindness - indeed one expert member of last Monday's meeting (see below) said that he was unaware of the issues of rapid diagnostic on-site testing.
In 2001 the outbreak, with its multi-foci hotspots due to lack of immediate understanding and action, could nevertheless have been efficiently dealt with had the issues of vaccination and rapid on-site testing been properly grasped. To say this is being wise after the event is nonsense. Experts advocating their use were trying very hard to be heard - but were sidelined with unpleasant contempt - one even being termed a Neanderthal. Yet arguments against both vaccination and on-site diagnosis have been shown to be specious. It looks as if the same reluctance to include them properly in Contingency Planning is happening today, perhaps because of ignorance and inefficiency. That it should be deliberate policy seems beyond belief.

July 28 2005 ~ "costs will influence the acceptability of a vaccination-to-live policy to certain sectors or individuals".

(Defra's Regulatory Impact Assessment June 2005)
In spite of the recommendations of the Royal Societies of both London and Edinburgh and the follow-up report of the Royal Society (see here) - a vaccination-to-live policy is, unfortunately, still far from being a foregone conclusion.. The questions asked on Monday to the sub-group of stakeholders concerned with processing and retail, are still raising problems about cost and practicalities. Several of these have been asked before, in 2003, in a consultation exercise. Yet Defra still seem both unclear in answering the meat processors and retailers and keen to shrug off responsibility for any costs that might be shouldered elsewhere.. Unbelievably, "consumers' fears about differentiation" even made an appearance. It is extraordinary that the answer to this after four long years- is not understood by all parties since it was a major (but unnecessary) stumbling block to vaccination in 2001.
DEFRA is now asking, "What proportion of the industry would want to see the derogation sought which enables the ending of the requirement to treat meat from Protection Zones and Surveillance Zones after at least 30 days and for Vaccination Zones at phase 3 of the vaccination programme" Such a derogation already exists, once herds and flocks have been tested, which would permit untreated meat from vaccinated cattle and sheep to be sold freely on the domestic market and "therefore approach more normal market conditions for livestock producers". A derogation also allows for untreated meat from vaccinated pigs to be placed on the domestic market and may, if requested by another Member State, be exported to them with a special mark. This extract from the April 2004 "Vaccination Protocol" makes the current situation clearer - but what remains very unclear is how effectively this information has been understood - even at DEFRA itself.

July 27 2005 ~ Defra's systems of management, information and communication were demonstrated on Monday morning at Page Street.

Questions - Processing and Retailing were not sent out until Friday evening for consideration at the meeting on Monday morning at Page Street. Nearly two years after the EU Directive of September 2003, questions are being posed by DEFRA about practical details concerning its demands. Queries raised by the stakeholders at the meeting about slaughterhouse use and disruption in supplies in the event of an outbreak were met with the view that "it is not part of HMG's remit to resolve supply chain problems" So it was pointed out that if purchasers promptly switched to overseas supplies the resulting cost of getting rid of perfectly usable UK meat would fall on the taxpayer.
At the meeting, it was said that any future outbreak won't be like 2001, that Defra/HMG considers itself to be better prepared, and any future outbreak "would be smaller". It is alarming to discover that there is still a lack of awareness and appreciation of the latest technologies, particularly of rapid on-site diagnosis.
The apparent assumption that the dense and legalistic language of the EU Directive, and in particular of its Annexes about required treatments can be readily followed and understood by anyone concerned reminds one of the story of the Emperor's New Clothes.
The fact is that the Directive is not easy to follow at all.
It had to be pointed out that "heat treated" means "cooked" and that treatments demanded by the Directive applied as much to Protection Zones, Surveillance Zones as to Vaccination Zones.
Defra has now been asked for clarification. "Processing and Retailing" stakeholders want to know what health stamps are, what they look like in reality. They want to rehearse in simulations just what would happen in various phases of an emergency. They want clear graphs and explanations of what will happen in the various zones and to the various species. They want what any member of the smallest organisation would expect from meetings: agendas and notes distributed well in advance, minutes taken, action points decided upon. In short, they want what does not yet exist - good systems of management, information and communication. (See also Inbox)

July 27 2005 ~ "Systems of management, systems of information, systems of communication"

The Lessons Learned Inquiry had, as one ProMed moderator pointed out, " to manoeuvre within a politically challenged landscape ". However, its Chairman, Iain Anderson, made his own recommendations to the EFRA Committee ( he was not expecting to be given the chance) loud and clear:
"....needs to be emphasised again and again is that in order to get this right for the future .... needs to be captured in processes which engages people from different agencies outside of the centre..
... The central importance is that adequate systems are in place ahead of time.... Systems of management, systems of information, systems of communication and all systems robust enough to cope with aggressive and severe challenge...
Speed of response, speed of decision making, speed of action.. through rehearsal and planning and discussion and rehearsal as a routine.."

July 25 ~ Thousands of Cambodian cattle and oxen have been hit by foot-and-mouth disease

Xinhua.net reports that thousands of Cambodian cattle and oxen have been hit by foot-and-mouth disease Yim Voeunthan, Agriculture Ministry secretary of state is quoted as saying that "...vaccines have been given to 1.5 million oxen nationwide to control the spread of the disease."
" In developed countries, mass slaughter of infected cows is the recommended procedure, but Cambodians are too poor for this policy," The Cambodia Daily said.
Meanwhile, in China, virus type Asia 1 is affecting 7 provinces, spread over distances of about 4000 km.

July 20 ~"..removing the source of infection rather than genetic selection is the route of choice for disease control"

One livestock farmer's response to the Hill report. "..... love the part when Hill states that the only way to minimize the risk of BSE is the exclusion of infective materials from the feedchain:
Genetic variation in susceptibility (17-21)
c) Even if genetic differences in susceptibility to infection were revealed, removing the source of infection rather than genetic selection is the route of choice for disease control ........
Who cares about susceptibility if there is no agent that can start a disease ?..."

July 20 2005 ~ The Hill Report on BARBs

Professor William Hill, Emeritus Professor at the Institute of Evolutionary Biology in Edinburgh, has carried out an assessment of the possible causes of BSE cases born after the reinforced feed ban of August 1996 (BARBs) at the request of DEFRA.
Among the many interesting points in the report we read:
"Unless there is new evidence on BSE in cattle that lends support to alternative hypotheses underlying the cause of BARB cases there continues to be little justification for Defra to pursue research on them. Monitoring hypotheses and the free exchange of ideas is, however, encouraged."
Paragraph 29 notes:
" A major EU funded study, FATEPriDE, is underway to examine environmental risk factors that affect the development of prion diseases such as BSE and scrapie (FATEPriDE Web site). The study is focussing on manganese and copper in soils, since replacement of Cu by Mn affects prion protein structure (Brown, D.R. et al., 2000), and on organophosphate pesticides that may influence Cu absorption. The group has brought it to my attention that they are unable to associate these environmental variables with BSE (including BARBs) incidence as they have not obtained the necessary data on location of cases from Defra. It has been suggested (Purdey, 2000) that susceptibility to spontaneous TSEs is affected by mineral imbalance in the ecosystem, but a source of infection remains necessary for BSE to occur, assuming it has a single source."
The report can be seen here as a pdf file. (opens slowly in new window. Click once only)

July 19/20 2005 ~ EU outlines plans to relax BSE restrictions

Dated July 15th 2005, the EU's TSE Roadmap considers the relaxation of many restrictions. This, it implies, is because of " a clear improvement of the situation over the past years due to the risk reducing measures in place" There is talk of ensuring and maintaining the current level of consumer protection - but the Commission proposes, nevertheless, to relax restrictions .
Relaxation of the measures should be ".. risk based and reflect advances in technology as well as evolving scientific knowledge," it opines.
It is the "evolving scientific knowledge" presumably that has finally reached the understanding of the legislators and led to one of the "strategic goals" being to"stop the immediate culling of the cohort." - one of the most outrageous of all the many and manifold rules in place.
The Food Navigator website has more details of what is proposed.
One wonders where "evolving scientific knowledge" leaves such things as the National Scrapie Plan, based as it was on as yet non-existent evidence that BSE can be masked by scrapie. Can a case still be made for the justification of the Transmissible Spongiform Encephalopathy (England) Regulations 2002 SI 843 ? It was quietly introduced on the day after the Animal Health Bill had been thrown out by the House of Lords and is a measure that allows clear infringement of animal welfare and personal liberties.
Will any voice be raised loudly enough to question the basis on which more than 3 million cattle and #4.6 billion had already been lost by 1999 and caused so many farmers to go bankrupt, losing their business, their livelihood and their homes even before the calamitous policies to combat FMD? In December 2003, Magnus Linklater raised such a voice and there have been others - but dissent in this area tends to get ridiculed, silenced and its funding removed.

July 19 2005 ~Animal Health at the Crossroads

A new report released yesterday by the US National Research Council:
"..... New tools for detection, diagnosis, and risk analysis need to be developed now, and the capacity of the existing animal health laboratory network should be expanded.....
Integrative animal health research programs, in which veterinary and medical scientists can work as collaborators, should be established. ...
The United States must address the importation and health of exotic and wild-caught animals and commit itself to shared leadership roles with other countries and international organizations that address animal disease agents....
. ... a collective effort should be made to raise the level of public awareness about the importance of animal health ..."
One Californian newspaper, Mercury News.com quotes Professor Mark Thurmond as saying that foot and mouth disease "doesn't directly impact human health, but it impacts every pocketbook" Yet the same newspaper, in spite of its article about the report, is still talking about the possible "rapid slaughter and disposal of " California's 300,000 cows.
The executive summary of the report can be seen here. The pdf file of the full report is also free to look at and can be viewed here. (Click once only. Slow pdf files appear after some delay in new window).

July 18 2005 ~ Dr Abigail Woods is to lead a university review of the history of infectious diseases

The review has been commissioned by the Government and will be carried out at the University of Manchester. It is expected to last 3 months and will concentrate particularly on HIV/Aids, TB and foot and mouth disease. Dr Abigail Woods MA MSc VetMB MRCVS, the science historian and vet, wrote A Manufactured Plague and she wrote to warmwell in August last year to tell us that it had been published . Indeed, it was Dr Woods whose work was one of the first reasons for this website to be written at all. Her article in the Guardian in February 2001 just at the beginning of the outbreak, made clear from the outset that the policy being pursued was not correct. In March 2001 Geoffrey Lean, referring to Dr Woods' work, wrote in the Independent:
".... it was Britain, too, that pioneered the zero tolerance policy to foot and mouth, originally to protect a few wealthy stockbreeders, and was the first country to ban imports from countries with the disease. Now, hoist with its own petard, MAFF has no alternative but to continue the slaughter to stop British meat being excluded from export markets that have followed our lead.
Science Daily reports today on the new project. "The report aims to produce a long-term perspective on the detection and identification of infectious diseases and inform policy at a national and international level. The study by the University's Centre for the History of Science, Technology and Medicine (CHSTM) will reflect on the experience of dealing with human and animal disease problems to inform future research and management policies."

July 15   2005 ~ Breaking News
"...a reliable source of information at several integrated levels to decision makers, scientists and the broad stakeholder community"

Received today (Friday) has been this welcome announcement about the opening of the website for the Coordination Action project for foot and mouth and Classical Swine Fever, funded by the EU.
"The project will focus upon the coordination of research, global disease surveillance, risk analysis, vaccine reserves, diagnostics, laboratory preparedness, and control policies including vaccination, and will initiate new collaborations..... To make this a broad and responsive platform, we seek your participation, especially to contribute to the online discussion fora on topics of interest, to suggest new topics for discussion, and to send us relevant news items.."
".... From a stakeholder perspective, important benefits from this project will be that it will aim:
A. to improve stakeholder involvement in the scientific and technical developments, and
B. to facilitate policy development by providing a reliable source of information at several integrated levels to decision makers, scientists and the broad stakeholder community, and the opportunity to share and discuss concerns and priorities from different perspectives. .."
Read announcement in full. View the website here
(Inbox comment)

July 11 - 16 2005 ~ GeneXpert launch expected soon

Cepheid.com (pdf) " The system purifies, concentrates, detects, and identifies targeted nucleic acid sequences, delivering answers from unprocessed samples in as little as 30 minutes.....
... The GeneXpert. System fully integrates and automates the three processes required for real-time PCR-based genetic testing: sample prep, amplification, and detection. Once a biological sample is loaded in a GeneXpert cartridge, the system does the rest...
... Its accuracy and ease-of-use has been extensively validated by a U.S. government interagency working group and by third-party university and private research labs..
.... truly portable, giving the capability to obtain bioanalytical results when and where they are needed...
... integrates the entire genetic identification process, requiring little operator handling or specialized knowledge. Users simply insert the biological sample for testing into a self-contained cartridge, and the GeneXpert System does the rest.
No laboratory facilities or laboratory training for operators is required. When testing is complete, the system will display a positive or negative answer for the presence of the targeted nucleic acid sequences. ."

July 9 - 12 2005 ~ Unfit bushmeat and illegally slaughtered meat still coming into the country and ending up in food outlets

The risk of animal - and human - disease being caused by importation of illegally slaughtered bushmeat is a grave and increasing one. There is still a lack of a coordinated response to the problem from government, local authorities, police forces and the Food Standards Agency. Dr Yunes Teinaz, the Senior Environmental Health Officer for Hackney, writes today about a programme coming up on the BBC which he has supported in the hope that resources will at last be poured into protecting the UK from the disease implications of the Bush Meat trade:
Another dirty meat scandal ! This programme highlights the issue of unfit meat supply to takeaways and restaurants . An undercover reporter managed to sell fit meat as unfit to a kebab take away. Tons of illegally slaughtered meat and unfit food ends up in restaurants and takeaways without any public health controls checks or legal action against the perpetrators - who are making millions, tax free, at the expense of the health of the nation.
See also warmwell's Dirty Meat pages

July 8 - 10 2005 ~ The "no double tagging" derogation temporarily approved

The European Union's standing committee on the food chain and animal health has given at least temporary approval for the UK application for the derogation. Sheep farmers will - at least for the time being - be able to continue with the current system of movement (S) and replacement (R) tags instead of having to apply unwieldy, insecure and uncomfortable double tags. (Double tags will still be needed in the case of animals born after 9 July that are intended for intra-community trade.) See DEFRA page last updated in October, and Thursday's Scotsman
However, as with on-site rapid diagnosis technology, electronic identification systems, able to be linked with GIS to locate all domestic animals within Europe, don't seem to be being pursued. A secure, humane and up-to-date system for animal disease monitoring is possible - and yet, in spite of effective use of these technologies in the field, lack of "validation" is quoted as a reason for not adopting them.

1 - 7 July 2005 ~ FMD suspected in Vietnam

http://en.chinabroadcast.cn "Nearly 270 pigs in Vietnam's southern Ca Mau province are suspected of having died from foot-and-mouth disease. A local newspaper reported on Tuesday that testing on 19 samples from about 270 pigs which died last month indicated they could have been infected with foot-and-mouth disease. .Around two thousand pigs in the province have been infected with common diseases and suspected foot-and-mouth disease in the last few months. Local veterinary forces are boosting vaccination among pigs and tightening control over slaughterhouses. .."

1 - 7 July 2005 ~ "Without on-site diagnosis to help monitor neighboring herds, animals would likely be slaughtered based on proximity rather than confirmed infection, unnecessarily magnifying the impact of an attack..."

See warmwell's extracts from the pdf file at http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d05214.pdf from the US Government Accountability Office. GAOs stated aim is simply "commitment to good government is reflected in its core values of accountability, integrity, and reliability."
until USDA evaluates the costs and benefits of using rapid diagnostic tools at the site of an outbreak, the agency may be missing an opportunity to reduce the impact of agroterrorism. .... USDA does not use rapid diagnostic tools to test animals at the site of an outbreak. They employ this technology only within selected laboratories. According to experts, on-site use of these tools is critical to speeding diagnosis, containing the disease, and minimizing the number of animals that need to be slaughtered. DOD uses rapid diagnostic tools to identify disease agents on the battlefield, but USDA officials consider this technology to be still under development. Nevertheless, USDA officials told us that they agree it is important to evaluate the costs and benefits of developing and validating these tools for use outside of a laboratory setting.
Read extracts in full This is a very important report which has has much of relevance to the UK position on animal disease control.

June 18 - 30 2005 ~ Real Time PCR is "the most sensitive test is RT-PCR for the detection of viral RNA"

For avian influenza, use of the RT-PCR diagnosis tool is now considered essential ("The most sensitive test is RT-PCR for the detection of viral RNA": UK Health Protection Agency -pdf - new window)
We can find no mention of RT-PCR in the new Generic Contingency Plan (new window) - and it will be remembered that in 2001, the Chief Scientific Advisor, David King, chose to ignore it after Professor Fred Brown had, face to face, explained its use. A stakeholders' meeting about foot and mouth will take place on Wednesday 29th June. (See below comments on the Contingency Plan and its consultation.)

June 18 - 30 2005 ~".... the unique, indispensable FAO World Reference Laboratory for FMD at Pirbright"

Of the report on ProMed about the "new and worrying development" of possibly widespread outbreaks of foot and mouth on the Chinese mainland, the moderator writes,
"This 7-page review, most kindly forwarded by FAO Animal Health Service, is an exemplary outcome of their cooperative efforts with EMPRES, EUFMD, and the unique, indispensable FAO World Reference Laboratory for FMD at Pirbright...."
See relevant page of ProMed Read also the warmwell pages about government cuts at Pirbright

June 18 - 30 2005 ~ The FMD stakeholders meeting will take place 15 days after the closing date for consultation on the Contingency Plan

The next DEFRA Stakeholders' meeting, intended to discuss foot and mouth issues, will take place on Wednesday 29 June 2005. The closing date for consultation on the latest Contingency Plan is June 15

June 18 - 30 2005 ~ " the Directive obliges Member States to ensure slaughter of all susceptible animals on premises where FMD is confirmed"

paragraph 2.6 of the REGULATORY IMPACT ASSESSMENT ( pointing out that "the transposition will be carried out by three separate statutory instruments") concerns the change from "discretion to slaughter" to "duty to slaughter" mentioned below
".....The 1981 Act currently gives the Secretary of State a discretion to slaughter in certain situations (including on infected premises) but this is not sufficiently binding to fully implement the Directive. Our policy is to fully implement the Directive and that requires a limited duty be placed on the Secretary of State to slaughter, but only where the Directive absolutely requires it. It is therefore also intended to amend the 1981 Act in respect of FMD to provide the necessary powers to implement the Directive."
It is true that the Directive (page 8) says: "Community measures for the control of foot-and-mouth disease should be based first of all on depopulation of the infected herd.." but one fails to see why the wording of the Animal Health Act is considered not sufficiently binding to fully implement the Directive. The slaughter of infected animals on premises that have been proved to be infected is, for the purposes of pragmatic disease control in countries that are 'disease free without vaccination', deemed necessary and one that hardly needs the say so of a Secretary of State. The changing of the word discretion to duty seems curious. One wonders how a minor change of wording provides the "necessary powers".

June 18 - 30 2005 ~ The EU Directive's definitions of "suspected" animals are clear

While there remains disquiet that the government's Contingency Plan leaves the door open for the killing of healthy animals as a quick-fix method of creating a "firebreak", it is worth reading the Directive for its definition of those animals that may be swiftly and humanely killed as part of the disease control policy.
(i) "animal suspected of being infected" means any animal of a susceptible species exhibiting clinical symptoms or showing post-mortem lesions or reactions to laboratory tests which are such that the presence of foot-and-mouth disease may reasonably be suspected;
(j) "animal suspected of being contaminated" means any animal of a susceptible species which, according to the epidemiological information collected, may have been directly or indirectly exposed to the foot-and-mouth disease virus;
(These definitions would have excluded literally millions of those healthy animals and their young slaughtered during 2001)

June 12 - 30 2005~ Consultation letter is highly misleading on the subject of required meat treatments

Defra's Foot and Mouth Disease (Control of Vaccination) Draft (96 KB) was updated on Wednesday June 14th 2005. The consultation letter is dated June 9th. The part of the summary letter relating to the treatment required for meat in the affected "zones" and for vaccinates leaves out the important hard-won derogations.
Why?
The letter suggests that "new" requirements of the FMD Directive require that "Fresh meat and meat products from animals originating or produced in protection and surveillance zones cannot go into the food chain unless they undergo various specified treatments, including heat treatment...." but it does NOT mention that this has a 30 day time limit. It is as if Mr Hewitt has not understood Defra's own 2004 "Emergency Vaccination Protocol" part 3 of which makes clear that:
"... meat and meat products produced in these Zones are also subject to treatment similar to that from vaccinated animals for at least 30 days after these zones have been applied. After 30 days derogation may be granted by SCOFCAH for untreated products to be allowed from the PZ and SZ"
The summary (which is perhaps all that many of the 130 odd busy consultees may ever read) does not clarify the other time limits nor the granted derogations. It is vitally important that consultees are reaasured that:
"....derogation exists which would permit untreated meat from vaccinated cattle and sheep to be marketed freely on the domestic market (i.e. within the Member State), and therefore approach more normal market conditions for livestock producers ."
The accidental or deliberate omission of these points is unlikely to remove the continuing fears of many consultees.

June 12 - 30 2005 ~ a "minor technical amendment" to the Animal Health Act 1981 is to change the Secretary of States current discretion to slaughter to a duty to slaughter

A legally imposed "duty to slaughter" is more likely to be motivated by political and trade reasons than veterinary ones, and would seem to absolve the Minister from blame and accountability in any future widescale slaughter.
The EU Directive, says the consultation letter from Defra's Simon Hewitt, leaves some "scope to influence the way we implement the Directive" although they are "necessarily limited". One area of "national discretion" - but one in which no views are sought - involves the personal discretion of the Secretary of State.The change of the word discretion to that of duty would appear to be a semantic change removing the Secretary of State's final say about whether slaughter is appropriate in certain circumstances;
".... the proposal is to change the Secretary of States current discretion to slaughter in certain situations (including on infected premises) to a duty to slaughter.."
This is a considered a "minor technical amendment" by Mr Hewitt, requiring the "clearance of Parliamentary Counsel which we are currently seeking" Glossed over as minor and technical, the change is nevertheless considered important enough to require the clearance of Parliamentary Counsel. Its implications are not explained.

June 12 - 30 2005 ~ The June 9th consultation summary letter

Consultation on the transposition of Council Directive 2003/85 on Foot and Mouth Disease .
" ....this letter attempts to set out those areas where we do have some national discretion and the particular questions on which we want to know your views." (Read pdf file as html)
Other "areas where we do have some national discretion" - ie not laid down precisely in the EU Directive - may be seen at this point in the letter. Defra asks for views about such things as the "control" of dogs and poultry at " zones established around an infected premises."
Will there be legislation to impose a "duty to slaughter" here too?
Read letter in full (See also the Defra website for the consultation index.)

June 12 - June 17 ~ A national surveillance agency is needed. Britain monitors wildlife disease on an ad hoc basis, with different bodies sharing responsibility.

A Zoological Society of London report is calling urgently for a proper, unified national surveillance agency, using up to date methods.The Times:
"....In spite of the economic damage caused by the foot-and-mouth outbreak in 2001 and the emerging threat of H5N1 avian flu in the Far East, Britain is less prepared than other countries such as the US, France and Canada.
Three quarters of all new human diseases, such as HIV/Aids and West Nile virus, come from animals and other pathogens have devastated wildlife populations and severely affected farms. .............
Andrew Cunningham, head of wildlife epidemiology at the Zoological Society of London, said: The situation must improve if we are to avoid repeats of the tremendous socio-economic damage caused by foot-and-mouth, Sars [severe acute respiratory syndrome], bird flu, badger tuberculosis and others. It is essential that the UK has increased protection from the danger of emerging infectious diseases as they can devastate our already threatened native wildlife and pose a real hazard to human health. At present, Britain monitors wildlife disease on an ad hoc basis, with different bodies sharing responsibility. The report calls for a unified national agency that would track animal disease continuously through clinical, post-mortem and population studies.... It could also employ newer methods of disease tracking such as satellite monitoring..."
Read in full.

May 28 - June 4 2005 ~ Contingency Plan. Last chance to comment

While few regular readers of warmwell are likely to be under many illusions about the nature of and motives for "consultations", there may be those who could still usefully - and more tactfully than warmwell - register to DEFRA their concerns about the latest Contingency Plan for FMD, now lumped together with the plans for avian influenza, Newcastle Disease and Classical Swine Fever. Among points that may be worthy of comment:
• Although the EU Directive authorises preventive culling of susceptible animals "should the epidemiological evidence support the hypothesis of virus contamination or incubating infection" it certainly does NOT authorise the killing of healthy animals in a firebreak cull - yet this persists in the Plan
• similarly, the concept - so vaguely defined - of "Dangerous Contacts" - can allow the indiscriminate slaughter of healthy stock
• The "problems" connected with vaccination are not veterinary ones. This is not made clear
• the present nature of the so-called "Expert Group" (4.58) - which is supposed to be independent and able to comment on and challenge policies from different standpoints of genuine expertise - is not in fact independent of DEFRA and not in the spirit of the Directive
• A failure adequately to include the available technological advances for rapid on-farm diagnosis and testing suggests either ignorance or incompetence
• A document for consultation of 308 pages of dense language is not helpful. There is a lack of clarity in the writing of the document and it is much too long for a general reader to get an accurate overview. If this is intentional and designed to reduce comment to a minimum, then it is disgraceful. If not, it is a measure of DEFRA's continuing inability to communicate with people most closely concerned.

May 28 - June 4 2005 ~ The last day for comment on the latest FMD Contingency Plan is 15 June 2005

The closing date for the consultation on the latest FMD Contingency Plan (308 pages) is 15 June 2005.
While there are improvements in some parts of the Plan, we deeply regret the language employed. Clear, common sense English would inspire trust in ordinary, busy stakeholders far more than the quasi military language of much of the document. A phrase such as "battle rhythm" means little to an anxious livestock owner. There are Command Structures, Communications Hubs (and Spokes) and Regional Cells, strategic, tactical and operational levels, strike teams, enforcement powers, a "transportable Mess room"... While it is sensible for different levels of risk to be made clear, "Red and Orange Alerts" seem too reminiscent of US false alarms.
We read "Action Plan in event of a crisis with Defra in the lead." If only this inspired confidence.
In 2001 Page Street appeared remote and impervious. Owners and vets alike were ordered about without any tact or management skill. Local expertise was ignored . "Communication" in the most recent document appears to mean again the widespread issuing of instructions from above to "officials" below - with a "Media Team" and lots of lawyers in readiness. Yet cooperation and a feeling of being part of a team effort in the event of a national emergency is essential if it is to be dealt with humanely and efficiently. In spite of references to stakeholders and their participation in something called "birdtable" meetings ("Timely involvement of stakeholders as an integral part of the communications picture. This must be pro-actively pursued at national and local level",) can this be more than vague good intentions when there have been no stakeholders meetings since January 2005? One stakeholder was recently heard remarking wryly;
"we have put in hours and hours attending meetings and responding to various consultations - all at our own expense - while Risk Solutions get paid a mighty fee..."
A link to the most recent Contingency Plan (pdf file) can be found here. All 308 pages of it.

28 May - June 4 2005 ~ "The study does not identify a single scenario in which a contiguous cull would produce the best results."

The WMN reports on Risk Solutions' Cost Benefit Analysis (see below)
"....even a "much more limited, less intensive" version of the contiguous cull that was used in 2001 would "increase the number of animals killed overall and, when you feed that into the economics, often produce more cost".
Anthony Gibson, South West director of the National Farmers' Union, welcomed the new report's findings.
"This is a good piece of work, which provides some clear advice. If you have a small outbreak you should snuff it out as quickly as possible using conventional slaughter of infected animals and direct contacts. If it is a bigger outbreak then you should also vaccinate," he said. "The contiguous cull comes out of it as the option that involves the greatest number of animals slaughtered and the greatest expense without being particularly effective. The study does not identify a single scenario in which a contiguous cull would produce the best results"
It is interesting that some "Senior Defra officials" are still clinging to the notion that the contiguous cull has not been wholly discredited. Read in full

22 - 28 May 2005 ~ FMD Cost Benefit Analysis finally appears

and the results are available from our technical page (pdf).(pdf files take some minutes to load if you have a slow connection. Do not click twice.)
Anyone hoping for crispness and clarity may be disappointed. There are 120 pages of dense writing and many recommendations for "further work".The report does not propose any single strategy for dealing with a future outbreak.
Risk Solutions Consultancy were awarded the contract for the project which was continually to be monitored and evaluated by a Project Board. (a glance at which will reveal some familiar names) It was to take into account the possibilities of outbreaks of different size and with different predominating livestock, various different levels of virulence, and examine a variety of different disease control options, available resources and so on. Here is one extract where key parameters for the economic attarctiveness (sic) of a cattle vaccination strategy are placed in a table.
(In January 2004, James Irvine at Land Care org.uk also had some trenchant remarks to make about the CBA, wondering why DEFRA had not already done one, and including the comment, "The cost of this contract, awarded we are assured after the process of competitive tendering, was not declared in the DEFRA press release. Is it really an appropriate use of public money?" It may be remembered that Private Eye's Muckspreader had rather a cheaper suggestion, involving the back of an envelope. )

22 - 28 May 2005 ~ Desert Island delusions

In the most recent edition of Desert Island Discs, Sue Lawley asked Sir David King, the UK's Chief Scientific Advisor, how he could be knowledgeable about so many disparate areas of science - and cited as an example Foot and Mouth disease, so far removed from his own area of expertise.
Sir David opined that it does not matter if the subject is not one with which he is familiar since his "scientific training makes it easy for him to grasp the principles." As regarded FMD, "I could call in experts - virologists, epidemiologists and vets........." The team arrived at the slaughter of infected animals and neighbouring farms "as the correct option" he added with some pride, " with the least number of animals culled at the end of the day".
We can only imagine the incredulous gasps from listeners who were involved in what Anthony Gibson calls the "flesh, blood, tears, sweat and heartbreak" of the policies of King and his associates. In December 2001, David King demonstrated his failure to grasp the issues when he was asked on the Today Programme about the available rapid diagnostic on-site test (about which Professor Fred Brown had talked to him face to face in an effort to get him to understand), muddling it up with the test to distinguish vaccinated from infected animals. The CSA model resulted in the contiguous cull policies and the deaths of 10 million farm animals and their young - a very large proportion of whom were uninfected. Many were breeding stock whose loss is incalculable. The stress and misery of this time on the owners of the animals has been documented on this website.
It is not surprising that the perpetrators of the lasting trauma of the 2001 FMD policies attempt to cast away their disastrous mistakes but few will now be impressed by the phrase "the correct option".

22 - 28 May 2005 ~ "... unease that Professor David King, during the foot and mouth outbreak, had " had enormous influence on policy without having formal responsibility for the consequences of its advice"

We remember that Professor King was referred to approvingly by Alastair Campbell at Lessons Learned as "a good media performer" and he added that the "Prime Minister had had a lot of faith in the CSA's broad approach."
The Prime Minister's faith is a fallible commodity. We now know that retrospective analysis of data shows that the ratio of new cases arising from each disease outbreak (which needs to be less than one for the epidemic to decline) had dropped below one before the new "contiguous cull" policy was even applied, just as the genuine experts had argued that it would.
• The chief scientist at the Ministry of Agriculture and Defra during the BSE and foot and mouth crises Dr David Shannon told the Lessons Learned inquiry that there had been limited knowledge of agricultural systems and serology, and it contained no FMD experts from outside the UK. As the virologist Dr Ruth Watkins wrote to Lessons learned "None of the vets whom I spoke to, particularly the senior vets, understood the implications of control by vaccination..."
• David Shannon also expressed great unease that Professor David King, during the foot and mouth outbreak, had "had enormous influence on policy without having formal responsibility for the consequences of its advice" He had expressed his concerns to Professor King about the way in which the group had been operating, and had subsequently also written to the MAFF Permanent Secretary (Brian Bender) on 27 April. Dr Shannon cited some other lessons for the future regarding the science advisory committee: .
• To the general disbelief, Sir David suggested in January this year that vaccination was still not a practical option for combating FMD - in spite of the fact that all the inquiries into foot and mouth have said that in future, vaccination should be the control method of choice. The Royal Society summary (page 3), for example, says "... Given recent advances in vaccine science and improved trading relations emergency vaccination should now be considered as part of the control strategy from the start. By this we mean vaccination-to-live...."
Professor King may be clinging to the notion that his policies embodied "the correct option" - but he must be about the only person on the planet who continues to make such an assertion.

15 - 22 May 2005 ~ "One can hope that the ICA authorities will disclose what they know so that their lessons can be shared in these dangerous times..."

Foot and Mouth virus from a laboratory appears to have ended up infecting animals at a university farm in Bogata, Columbia. See OIE Disease Information: 20 May 2005; Vol. 18 - No. 20 "....As a result of laboratory testing and the epidemiological investigations carried out around the outbreak and in in-contact farms, the likelihood of a field origin has been ruled out."
ProMed moderator comment: "information on how this virus got from the laboratory to this university farm in Bogota has not been revealed, though obviously -- from the wording of the ICA report to Paris -- it is probably known. Fortunately it travelled but a short distance. One can hope that the ICA authorities will disclose what they know so that their lessons can be shared in these dangerous times."

15 - 22 May 2005 ~ " I dont think that kind of 'scorched earth' approach would work here, and I dont think it is as acceptable there, now."

Encouraging article from Waldo County, which quotes the state veterinarian for Animal Health at the Maine Department of Agriculture, Don Hoenig. Dr Hoenig was in the UK during the foot and mouth crisis.".....It was absolutely heart-breaking, Hoenig said. I learned a lot about how an outbreak is handled and what we could do differently.... I dont think that kind of 'scorched earth' approach would work here, and I dont think it is as acceptable there, now. Maine, said, Hoenig should be different. We are much more prepared than we were four years ago, Hoenig said. .."

8 - 15 May 2005 ~ Police in New Zealand are growing increasingly confident that the threat was a hoax.

http://www.nzherald.co.nz - It is to be hoped so - but even more importantly - that the mistakes made in the UK will at last be fully understood here and elsewhere in the world. It is still not clear is whether the available but "unvalidated" rapid diagnostic tests have been used at Waiheke island, nor what policies would be followed if FMD were found. We are now four years on from the UK disaster. Public ignorance is widespread. Few are aware that every one of the eight scientific expert witnesses to the EU inquiry in June 2002 said that vaccination must be used in any future outbreak ( as Robert Uhlig in the Telegraph reported) Extraordinarily, only three months ago the government's Chief Scientist, Sir David King, was still arguing that vaccination was not a practical option for controlling the disease, in spite of the fact that
• tests to distinguish between vaccinated and infected animals have been used in Turkey in Bulgaria, and in Macedonia and Albania since 1996 and cost very little.
• Vaccines against foot and mouth were fully effective in 2001 and sufficient supplies of the correct strain were available at the time of the outbreak.
• There is no risk of any kind involved in the eating of products from vaccinated animals.
The assertions that what was happening in 2001 had a sound scientific basis have been shown to be false - but no public inquiry has ever properly corrected the misinformation put about at the time nor correctly examined the origins of the outbreak. There is consequently little trust that lessons have been learned. The realities of vaccination, testing and diagnostic advances have failed to reach those who need to know. Foot and Mouth still remains a political instead of a veterinary issue. "Moving on" will require public exposure of the ignorant, wasteful and barbaric policies and what inspired them.

8 - 15 May 2005 ~ New Zealand's Waiheke Island FMD threat " It's like a bomb alert at an airport, you can't afford not to take it seriously."

On Tuesday a letter was sent to the Prime Minister, Helen Clark, claiming a vial of the foot and mouth virus had been spread to animals on the island. New Zealand Agriculture Ministry officials believe the letter was a hoax. The letter demanded money and a change in the country's tax policies, and threatened another release of the disease elsewhere this week. The animals on the island will be tested every 48 hours until disease can be ruled out, which may be 2 weeks. See ProMed - which comments
"NZ officials are taking the letter seriously and taking appropriate precautionary measures. The updating of the website, the press releases and their situational reports, clearly indicate that are doing everything right. We appreciate receiving the official reports and the situation reports.."
"..The incubation time for FMD is short (12-48 hours). The presence or absence of clinical signs in animals will soon show whether the threat was a hoax or a real attack. We would see clinical signs in 3 to 5 days (some estimates are 4-7 days) after yesterday's postulated release and exposure. I have even seen clinical signs of FMD occur after exposure in less than the period of time that has now elapsed in this incident. The New Zealand animal health authorities are to be congratulated for communicating the nature of the events and forestalling any speculation. - Mod.PC"
It would be interesting to know whether or not rapid diagnosis on-site equipment is being made use of - rather than waiting to see if clinical signs develop. Foot and mouth virus can be detected 24 to 48 hours before the onset of clinical signs of disease.

1 - 8 May 2005 ~ Feral pigs in Australia are being anaesthetised to test whether a mock vaccine against Foot and Mouth Disease placed in a bait will be successfully absorbed.

ABC.net.au "... The entry of Foot and Mouth Disease into Australia would be a nightmare for the livestock industry, because if it got into the feral pig population, it would be very difficult to eradicate. A vaccine bait would be a vital tool in case of an outbreak..."

1 - 8 May 2005 ~ Telegraph Letter deplores the forgotten carnage, misery, waste and loss

Telegraph Foot and mouth issue
Sir - Like many people involved in the agricultural industry, I am very surprised and annoyed at the way the foot and mouth outbreak has been forgotten during the election campaign.
There has been total silence about the slaughter of some 10 million animals, the loss of livelihood and, even today, numerous lost export markets.
In particular, there has been no mention of the fact that the EU disqualified the British Government from claiming #850 million towards the cost of the disastrous outbreak.
The Commission's decision was based on the Government's failure to act swiftly to control animal movements, the concerns about the destruction of millions of healthy animals, the high cost of compensation paid for culled animals and the overall high cost of the eradication programme.
Dr Rex Walters, Peasemore, Berks "
email

1 - 8 May 2005 ~ "..USDA would not be able to deploy animal vaccines within 24 hours... these vaccines need to be sent to the United Kingdom (U.K.) to be activated for use. ".

According to a 'GAO report number GAO-05-214 entitled "Homeland Security: Much Is Being Done to Protect Agriculture from a Terrorist Attack, but Important Challenges Remain" released on March 9, 2005:
"...USDA officials told us that it has recently established a steering committee that will address vaccine stockpiling issues, but it is not clear that the committee will address the costs and benefits of developing ready-to-use vaccines that can be quickly deployed against animal diseases of primary concern. . .." Read in full
The delays and prevarication make no sense. Widespread mass slaughter is what carries the huge social and financial cost appealing to terrorism - and such mass slaughter is - as experts clearly show - unnecessary. The US must surely understand that the UK turned an emergency into a catastrophe in 2001 because of its ignorance of what was available and its lack of an up-to-date plan. Its refusal to employ the vaccination strategies that ended Uruguay's similar outbreak in the same year and its unwillingness - for highly dubious reasons - to make use of the offered existing rapid diagnostic on-site tests "deployed nationally and internationally for years" led to a disaster. In U.S. Agricultural and Food Security: Who Will Provide the Leadership? by Floyd Horn and Roger Breeze, the authors say:
"None of the tests deployed by the Department of Defense or the Department of Health and Human Services have yet been validated .." in spite of the fact that " they have been deployed nationally and internationally for years".
:...the Nation lacks a comprehensive national strategy to prevent and deter the use of unconventional weapons directed against agriculture and the food supply system, or to control, respond to and recover from an attack. Such a strategy is urgently needed: it will take years to implement and the threats will grow in the meantime.." Read in full
Perhaps the three-day conference, to be hosted in Kansas City, ( (see www.meatprocess.com) or the Buenos Aires meeting (below) and its "strategic vision document" may help bring about some action after all the words. But to think that the foot and mouth fiasco in the UK is now FOUR years ago and still so little has changed gives little cause for optimism."

1 - 8 May 2005 ~ Foot and Mouth 2001 - an opportunity missed and few lessons learned.

The decision not to vaccinate, not to make public trials of the Rapid Diagnosis kit offered, not to conduct proper virological experiments and epidemiological studies at the time of the ongoing disease and the inability of the authorities to keep proper records or coordinate what was going on - were all part of the sad fiasco of FMD 2001. For various reasons, including the "it couldn't happen here" mindset, a disastrously delayed Contingency Plan, and the refusal to heed warnings (eg Drummond Report pdf) or genuine expert advice, the UK was caught on the hop
Two years ago, the World Health Organisation called upon 11 laboratories in 9 countries to join a collaborative multi-center research project on SARS diagnosis. Is this not a good model for other diseases?
"This network takes advantage of modern communication technologies (e-mail; secure web site) to share outcomes of investigation of clinical samples from SARS cases in real time. Daily assessment of research results supports immediate refinement of investigative strategies and permits instant validation of laboratory findings. Network members share on the secure WHO web site electron microscopic pictures of viruses, sequences of genetic material for virus identification and characterization, virus isolates, various samples from patients and post-mortem tissues"
We hope that the forthcoming EU collaboration on FMD and Classical Swine Fever will be of enormous value. We hope too that it will keep the public informed, as far as is possible, about the best ways - veterinary not political - to treat animal disease. It is interesting that today's BBC article on the disability caused by a tropical parasitic worm infection, Schistosomiasis, quotes Lorenzo Savioli of WHO. He has urged countries to tackle communicable diseases together, in a coordinated way. If this does not happen we will continue to see, as we saw in 2001, disease control in the hands of politicians. The way political decisions are reached - be they about foot and mouth or war in Iraq - are all too evidently flawed and we must not allow them to happen this way in the future.

23 - 30 April 2005 ~ "Knock-on Effects" indeed.

The Cumberland News report of the DEFRA workers investigated and sacked "for fraudulent expense claims during the foot and mouth crisis which cost Cumbria millions.." also says that in Cumbria
"..a total of 848 premises were affected by the disease with the knock-on effects being felt by 3,000 farms."
The newspaper is presumably making reference to the premises confirmed as "infected premises" (currently considered 886) and the 3126 other farms where animals were slaughtered.
(Only 676 tests out of the only 755 conducted on Cumbrian premises were positive and yet IP numbers remain at 886).
The "knock -on effects" referred to by the Cumberland News were felt by ALL the farms, farmers and people of Cumbria. And all rural people everywhere. Many animals were slaughtered as part of the grotesquely named "welfare cull" and thousands of farms, placed under bureaucratic restrictions, were not compensated and many never recovered.
As for how necessary all this was, it is salutary to remember that in Britain as a whole, according to the latest DEFRA figures, (Source Defra Disease Control System database on 16/03/2005):
• on 10,420 premises in Britain animals were slaughtered.
• Of these, 2413 premises only were given tests and
• of these only 1329 showed positive evidence of current disease or of animals recovered from disease.
Dr David Shannon, former chief scientist at DEFRA, said in February 2002 that the slaughter policy was based on flawed, biased and poorly thought through scientific advice.

23 - 30 April 2005 ~ Neither a proportionate nor rational response - but the Contingency Plan still includes pre-emptive killing

The statistics for Cumbria are actually (Source Defra Disease Control System database on 16/03/2005) as follows:

County		Infected Premises	Slaughter on Suspicion	Dangerous Contacts	of which Contiguous
CUMBRIA	Cattle	797	21	540	361
	Sheep	618	40	2861	552
	Pigs	14	0	103	34
	Goats	29	3	105	36
	Deer	2	0	3	2
	Others	2	0	2	2
	Total Premises	886	44	3082	707

These figures refer only to premises. The accurate number of actual animal deaths, together with the young or unborn that died with them, is not available. The Meat and Livestock Commission estimated the total at a minimum of 10 million. The figures we have obtained for the Great Orton burial site provide evidence that the measures so relentlessly pursued in 2001 were neither a proportionate nor rational response to control the disease. (Of the animals killed at Great Orton burial pit only 1 farm was definitely confirmed to have ever had antibody positive sheep. There was no current disease found. However, half a million animals, many in the last stages of pregnancy or with their lambs at heel, were slaughtered.)
The current Contingency Plan (pdf new window) (p165) continues to include provision for Pre-emptive or preventative slaughter firebreak killing of healthy animals.
Why?
Rapid diagnosis on-site for FMD can now take place in less than an hour; vaccination is an effective tool against the disease, vaccinated meat has no implications for human health and the EU granted a vitally important derogation to enable producers to accept vaccination.

17 - 23 April 2005 ~ The 'burn-piles', lighting up the night time sky should never be allowed to happen again, nor the indiscriminate removal of contiguous animals.

An English farmer's heartfelt letter, forwarded to us by the photographer Chris Chapman, deserves to be read slowly and carefully by all involved in animal disease control policies - especially by those whose feet rarely make contact with the earth
".....Re-generation under normal circumstances is time honoured; a calf spending nine months in its mother's womb and a lamb five months.
All this indicates to me fragility and something that can't be speeded up..."
Colin Pearse is one of those family farmers he himself describes. These extraordinary men have every right to be heard. If their voices are drowned yet again by spin, contempt and cynicism, the country will cease to exist in the way we have taken for granted for so long:
"...habitual, generative farming folk engaged in a mosaic farming scene of field, hedge, ditch and moor, and living with their animals, defending the age old practice of natural birth, giving dignity to their animals and offering countless care and sacrifice to achieve a meagre living." read in full

17 - 23 April 2005 ~ ".... seize and destroy infected animals without a warrant...any vehicle or person can be stopped and searched

North Carolina Winston-Salam Journal
"The state House voted unanimously Wednesday to extend a law that gives sweeping powers to the state veterinarian to cope with a potential outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease. It allows the state vet or his representatives to enter a farm and seize and destroy infected animals without a warrant. Quarantines also can be established and any vehicle or person can be stopped and searched. ...."
Ever since the frightening and deeply worrying events of 2001, many have been wondering how a usually non-fatal animal disease that cannot affect humans and from which animals can be successfully vaccinated, should still inspire such a witch hunt. This law was, significantly enough, passed in Salem last Wednesday - but the ever tightening centralisation of animal disease control has been quietly happening in this country. As we know, in spite of wise protest, ( "it was left to the House of Lords to draw attention to its less savoury aspects") - our own Animal Health Act was amended in 2002 to give the same powers to DEFRA and the government.
The new FMD Contingency Plan is now "out for consultation" - a response to which involves a great deal of thought and yet more paperwork. On the whole, only the big agricultural organisations are alerted to this. For most of them, an easy relationship with DEFRA is a political necessity. We can only hope that the plan will be scrutinised by those with veterinary and scientific understanding and who have also a real awareness of the suffering involved when policies are applied with the blind rigour of central bureaucracy.

17 - 23 April 2005 ~ Parliamentary Question 220084 reveals some staggering answers

On March 23 2005, Peter Ainsworth asked Ben Bradshaw a parliamentary question about final Foot and Mouth statistics including
• how many samples were taken from premises and
• how many samples returned positive results.
He was told that "The information requested has been put in the Library of the House". Read in full
The "Notes" accompanying the data attempt to explain the high number of negative results - but what the results clearly show, as well as the number of negative results, is that a very considerable number of premises that were culled were not in fact tested.
What was told to the EU and claimed in Mr James Scudamore's "Origin of the UK Foot and Mouth Disease epidemic in 2001 " was that "Each of the 2026 FMD cases was subjected to a detailed clinical and epidemiological investigation... "
This is evidently not the case.
Pirbright received samples from only a small fraction of slaughtered farms - probably less than 20% of all contiguous culls and even many IP's taken out on clinical grounds.
(Source: DEFRA Disease Control System database on 16/03/2005)

Number of Premises	Infected Premises	Slaughter on Suspicion	Dangerous Contacts	..of which Contiguous
Current	2011	253	8156	3313
Sampled	1724	249	440	240
Positive Results	1324	2	3	0

17 - 23 April 2005 ~ "a constructive, non-confrontational and honest national public debate about the causes and impact and costs (social, economic and environmental) of the 2001 FMD outbreak in Britain."

Warmwell is very pleased to hear about the Cultural Documents of FMD International Exhibition and Conference planned for 7 - 11 March 2006. It will be held at Museum of Science and Industry and at the Town Hall in Manchester. Related FMD documentary exhibitions will be located at other venues in and around the city.
The conference and the FMD arts documentation exhibition project is supported by the Arts Council England, the Rural Cultural Forum, Lancaster University, Manchester University, Manchester Metropolitan University, Nottingham University, and the Museum of Science and Industry Manchester, and is being organised by the LITTORAL Trust and the Rural Cultural Forum for England.
The conference aims to widen public debate around related issues about animal epidemiology, veterinary research and animal welfare. It will include presentations from a wide range of rural community and grassroots experiences of FMD; including farming families, rural vets, artists, photographers, writers, teachers, the Army, Police, the rural business sector (tourism, rural and hotels), rural children and young people, farm auction managers, slaughterers, farm hauliers, rural doctors and health care workers. It will also take the form of a communal 'bearing witness' and learning experience, and will aim to try find out what actually happened, why it happened, and what can be learned.

April 8 -15 2005 ~"...comprehensive information on the index case"

Foot and Mouth PQ April 5 ~
Hansard "Mrs. Browning: To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs what discussions took place between her Department and Northumberland county council to ensure that all material relating to the index case of foot and mouth disease at Burnside farm, Heddon on the Wall was submitted to the Anderson Inquiry. [214256]
Mr. Bradshaw [holding answer 4 February 2005]: There was contact between my Department and Northumberland county council on the prosecution of Mr. Waugh, but there is no record of any such discussions concerning the submission of evidence to the Anderson Inquiry. The Origins of FMD paper (see here), prepared by the then Chief Veterinary Officer, which was submitted to the Anderson Inquiry, contained comprehensive information on the index case."
Mr Bradshaw may be sincere in believing that the official explanations of the "origins" of FMD 2001 contain "comprehensive information". However, as the continuing questions show, there are many others for whom the official explanations simply will not do. The waste, the misinformation, the cruelty and bungling, and attempt to cover up the entire mess - none of this is being forgotten. (More on Heddon on the Wall )
Mr Bradshaw's words "Burnside Farm was the first outbreak and no sheep were found on Burnside Farm" may yet come back to haunt him.

April 8 -15 2005 ~ Rapid Diagnosis

"...A collaboration between the Veterinary Laboratories Agency and the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory at Porton Down is evaluating a prototype portable machine for diseases ... (Bovine Diarrhoea Virus and Foot and Mouth Disease). There are plans to evaluate it for use in detecting M. bovis in the field in the future. ..."Hansard

21 March - 28 March 2005 ~ "It does seem to me that if we are going to learn lessons then actually identifying where and why it broke out is a vital step."

WMN reports (Friday) that Angela Browning has
" stepped up calls for a fresh inquiry into the foot and mouth disaster after ... she was alarmed by comments made by Sir Brian Bender, which suggest Government inspectors had ignored breaches of animal health laws at Bobby Waugh's Northumberland pig farm. ... Speaking in the Commons yesterday Mrs Browning...said: ".... we still have not had a definitive answer from the Government about the cause and the lessons to be learned. We've had many inquiries, but none of them seem to have been joined up."
Sir Brian's comments came in a letter to the Association of Swill Users. See also warmwell pages on Burnside Farm etc.

21 March - 28 March 2005 ~ The "Expert group" in the new Contingency Plan

"This group comprises of (sic) five teams with expertise drawn from Defra Animal Health and Welfare Directorate General, SVS , Veterinary Laboratories Agency, Institute of Animal Health and the Meteorological Office as appropriate." See pdf file of new Contingency Plan
So, in addition to Defra's Animal Health and Welfare Directorate General, the "Expert" group comprises: the SVS who will be an agency of DEFRA from April 2005; the Veterinary Laboratories Agency, Executive Agency of DEFRA; the Institute of Animal Health which is funded by DEFRA - and the Meteorological Office.

21 March - 28 March 2005 ~ "Defra has commenced an annual review of its Foot and Mouth Disease Contingency Plan

and its AI and ND Contingency Plan which will conclude with the laying of revised plans before Parliament at the end of July 2005.
Your comments are invited on this revised version of the plans.
The deadline for responses is 15 June 2005." DEFRA website.
Among the changes in the two page Annexe A (pdf file) we see "Improvements to the battle rhythm for the strategic elements of the plan." and once again wonder at DEFRA's choice of language.
Read Annexe A "Main Changes from previous plans outlined in Draft Document, Exotic Animal Disease Contingency Plan for England, 2005" as a html webpageand the pdf file of the new "Contingency Plan Version 1.0 (replacing the FMD Contingency Plan version 4.0 & avian influenza / Newcastle disease Contingency Plan version 1.0)
There are no changes to the policies that would be followed.

21 March - 28 March 2005 ~ "Foot and mouth still a threat"

Wednesday's Times on the NAO's conclusion (see press notice and link to report) that "Illegal meat imports are threatening a repeat of the 2001 foot-and-mouth outbreak"
" 12,000 tonnes of meat and meat products are thought still to enter illegally each year. Tighter controls, including on-the-spot fines, are needed and more people should face prosecution, the audit office said. Britain should learn from Australia and New Zealand, where much more is spent on keeping potentially contaminated meat out.
Sir John Bourn, the Auditor- General, said: Since taking over responsibility for controls over imports of animal products from outside the EU, Customs has improved protection. My recommendations should help to tighten controls further.

21 March - 28 March 2005 ~ FMDV 3C protease would block the replication of the virus

Scientists at Imperial College have announced the development of a FMDv 3C protease inhibitor for FMD. Research was in progress before the 2001 FMD outbreak. See News Medical.net
"... A drug that binds and inhibits FMDV 3C protease would stop its spread by blocking its replication and thus its ability to infect a herd.
"In an outbreak we would 'dose up' the animals and in theory they would be protected immediately," said Dr Stephen Curry of Imperial College London ..." Read in full
Curiously enough, Imperial College was also the College of Professor Roy Anderson, who with Professor David King, Sir John Krebs, Mark Woolhouse and others, convinced the government to opt for the infamous contiguous cull. Neither vaccination nor available on-site rapid diagnosis tests were permitted during the outbreak. Instead the "pre-emptive strike" of killing literally millions of animals and their young was ruthlessly carried out. Recent research shows that there is no evidence to support the effectiveness of the policy. Now that vaccination is at last becoming acknowledged as a part of UK policy it is ironic to remember that four years ago, Professor Fred Brown FRS OBE of Plum Island spoke on the Today Programme about the efficacy of vaccination and about the lamentable delay in "validation" for discriminatory tests.

14 March - 21 March 2005 ~ The "Equinox" foot and mouth cross-border simulation.

Next Monday and Tuesday, Canada and the U.S. will test
• the effectiveness of the North American FMD Vaccine Bank
• the capabilities of geospacial mapping to chart the spread of an outbreak
• the logistics of vaccine transportation
• the use of a wind dispersion model to predict movement of a virus.
  Read about this at www.news.gc.ca

14 March - 21 March 2005 ~ Another foot and mouth scare.

In an article from Pendle Today we read that livestock were turned away from a Pendle abattoir on Wednesday. Blisters were seen on the legs of a pig and on some other animals. A spokesman for Morrisons said: "There is nothing to worry about. There are precautionary procedures in place for such incidents. We had vets from Defra on site, and they were able to give the animals the all clear."
We should be very interested to know how quickly and by what methods the "all clear" was given.

14 March - 21 March 2005 ~ Foot and Mouth - Terrorists be advised

An upcoming US Homeland Security Department report outlining about a dozen nightmare scenarios of attacks, including the deliberate infecting of cattle with FMD, has been leaked. "The department did not intend to release the document publicly, but a draft of it was inadvertently posted on a Hawaii state government Web site. ....The agency's objective is not to scare the public, officials said, and they have no credible intelligence that such attacks are planned." (NYT) Suggesting to putative terrorists that infecting cattle with FMD would indeed be one of the nightmare scenarios ( Blogcritics.org's Bin Laden Thanks Administration Officials For Planning Assistance is worth a look..) still falls short of the lunacy of not being able to deal promptly, in spite of the technology available, with an FMD epidemic.
Formerly of USDA, Roger BreezeBVMS, PhD, MRCVS does not appear sanguine about the way - in spite of the urgency of the advice and the efficacy of current technology - his government would react. "Naturally, when there's never been a Noah-like flood, people don't want to prepare for it," he said last year.
FMD infection would only be a tempting agroterrorist weapon because of UK and US continuing reluctance to loosen central control and to allow the use of rapid on-site diagnosis and vaccine technologies. It is mass slaughter with all its attendant economic and emotional costs that would give such an attack its appeal. Read in full about the efficacy of current technologies - which, four years