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June 24 ~ "Gordon Adam MEP is NOT representative of the thinking, reaction or attitude of the EU Temporary Committee"

"PLEASE point out to anyone who is concerned, having heard about or witnessed the outbursts of this man during the EU's Temporary Committee's visit to Wales and the South-West that he is NOT representative of the thinking, reaction or attitude of the EU Temporary Committee .
Other members of the Committee particularly asked me to get this message to anyone and everyone, as Mr Adam's behaviour on this trip to Wales and the South-West has been thoroughly reprehensible. In Wales, even Senora Redondo had to intervene and reprimand him for his heckling with one of the speakers, Ann Morgan. Hecklers normally come from the floor - one doesn't expect that from the high table!!
The downside is that such a man as he, who clearly has no idea of either diplomacy or manners, is in the position of MEP at all - one wonders what sort of people chose such a person to represent them. HOWEVER there is always an upside and this time it is that he, in his outbursts, has shown this Labour Government's true colours. .."
Message received from Alicia Eykyn
FMD Forum

June 23/4 ~ " it is quite clear that crimes were committed and people need to be brought to account for those crimes, and until they have been, we have no security that if such an outbreak happens again, we will not have the same incompetent bungling"

(Caroline Lucas MEP) "We have heard stories of the enormous arrogance and incompetence of the National Authorities and we have heard stories of the enormous harassment and illegal actions that have taken place.
We have heard stories of the abuse of animal rights but also the abuse of people's legal and human rights
And we have heard stories of devastatingly wrong science, and perhaps no where more so than when it comes to the issue of the contiguous cull......very clear evidence that the contiguous cull policy was unnecessary and unjustified. It was based on a computer model which was itself dependent on utterly inadequate data and completely false assumptions.
It ... is very clear from the data that you cannot claim that it was the contiguous cull that began to bring down the numbers of outbreaks that we saw, that by the time that the contiguous cull policy would have really had an impact, the peak was already coming down.
I think finally it is very clear that we need a proper full Public Enquiry in this country. Our EU enquiry cannot be a substitute for that, but it can bring out very important recommendations on issues around vaccination, import controls, around the importance of a properly understood and properly rehearsed contingency plan.
I repeat that we do of course, need a Public Enquiry in this country because it is quite clear that crimes were committed and people need to be brought to account for those crimes, and until they have been, we have no security that if such an outbreak happens again, we will not have the same incompetent bungling."(From Jon Dobson's verbatim transcripts of speeches made yesterday at the Forest of Dean meeting for the European Inquiry team)

June 23/4 ~ "I was shocked that Mr Adam's knowledge seemed so lacking.."

Jon Dobson has written a very angry letter to Signora Redondo about the Labour MEP Gordon Adam. Extract: "If FMD does ever return to the United Kingdom, and the same control measures are applied as before, I shall make it my personal responsibility to ensure Mr Gordon Adam visits the farmgate along with me to witness at first hand the repeat of the intimidation, harassment and downright cruelty that was meted out by DEFRA ........."

June 23 ~ Krebs protests that BSE in sheep would have "appalling health implications"

In the Telegraph today Sir John Krebs reacts angrily to Christopher Booker's debunking of the FSA's casual decision-making process in his June 16th Notebook Krebs is claiming "it is difficult to understand why those in the industry claim to have no knowledge of the issue" - but it is not so difficult to understand why people who are not told something have no knowledge of it. The FSA seem determined to spread fear and consternation in the public about the possiblity of BSE in lamb meat - but since no link has ever been proved between eating BSE infected meat and vCJD - and since there is no evidence - in spite of thousands and thousands of poundsworth of research in trying to obtain such evidence -that BSE can occur in sheep - we do rather wonder what the FSA is up to and why Sir John feels entitled to exhibit such righteous indignation. (See Kreb's letter)
According to the Sunday Herald article by Lachlan McKinnon and Stephen Naysmith under the headline "Blunkett's Big Brother is already watching you"...
'There are people in the Food Standards Agency now who apply for, in what they think are appropriate circumstances, data about people's communications and they get it. They have no guidance,' ..".the Government has set aside £20m over three years to help internet and telephone service providers meet the cost of maintaining an 'interception capability'. "
Does anyone share our extreme disquiet about this?

June 23 ~ Flawed farm strategy exposed

Booker's Notebook today: "The revelation that in 1999 a Government vet warned ministers that there were no proper contingency plans in place to prevent a multiple outbreak of foot and mouth turning into an uncontrollable epidemic has been hailed as the smoking gun of the foot and mouth investigation.
This made front-page news last Friday, after the publication of a savagely critical report on foot and mouth by the National Audit Office. But the NAO has missed the more damaging evidence, revealed in this column on May 5, which came to light among documents supplied to the inquiry into foot and mouth by the European Parliament.
This showed that in 1999 Britain's agriculture ministry was formally instructed by the European Commission that, to avoid precisely such a disaster, it should have in place all the necessary arrangements for a fullscale vaccination programme.
This document listed 10 criteria requiring such a vaccination programme. Within a week of the virus first being identified in February 2001 it was clear that at least seven of these had been met.
But because Britain had failed to follow the instructions given two years earlier, it was impossible to launch a programme which could have saved the country billions of pounds, along with the lives of millions of animals.
Because the Commission was also caught out in its failure to follow up this and previous instructions given to Britain, its official line today is that it found "no major flaws" in the strategy Britain adopted.
However, the real "smoking gun" is there in its own files. It will be interesting to see whether the MEPs recognise its significance when they produce their report."

June 23 ~"The mass slaughter was such a barbaric transgression of animal welfare that we are all diminished by it."

said Alan Beat in his this Summary of evidence to the EU Inquiry on 21st June in Devon, UK After a look at the damning figures and lack of scientific understanding that nevertheless drove the culling, Alan spoke of the costs in terms of the animal and human suffering.
Extract: "Words are inadequate to describe the trauma of the ordeal that was inflicted upon so many. It was compounded by a near-total lack of communication between those in authority and those whose lives were directly affected. It was nigh-on impossible to obtain meaningful information from, or to conduct constructive dialogue with, those who ordered the destruction of your livestock. People were often treated, not with the courtesy and compassion that they deserved, but instead with arrogance and intimidation.
I will supply videotape to the Inquiry of interviews recorded with some Devon livestock owners who were mistreated in various ways. Among these, Matthew Knight resisted the contiguous cull, only to eventually discover that his neighbouring IP had tested negative at the laboratory; yet even knowing this, MAFF continued to press for the slaughter of his healthy organic cattle. Peter and Betty Howarth at first resisted the contiguous cull, but yielded to pressure from MAFF for the slaughter of their two retired pet house cows in exchange for a promise that disposal would be prompt. In fact the bodies lay beside the house for fifteen days, oozing pools of noxious liquid to the back door amid indescribable stench. No-one should be treated like this.
This crisis saw the abuse of human rights on a massive scale. It must never be repeated. We will not stand for it, ever again."

June 22 ~ Something rotten at the heart of government - spinning out of control

The Scotsman today has a thoughtful article by Jason Beattie about the White House-style press conference in Number 10 yesterday, the "the 73-minute kiss-and-make-up operation". Well worth reading in full, this article says, "Those who left the press conference may have been impressed temporarily by his effortless performance, but ....behind the jolly banter between a PM and the Westminster press corps, with most of whom Mr Blair is on first name terms, lies a widening gulf which a one-off question-and-non-answer session may not be sufficient to bridge....The charm offensive was essentially a defensive strategy designed primarily to prevent negative publicity....Journalists, angered at being duped by the Labour spin machine, began to draw parallels between the use of spin and Labour's conduct in office, whether it was burying bad news on 11 September or the Mittall cash-for-favours row.
"Although not all the stories hit the target....elements of the press decided there was something rotten at the heart of the government.....For those wishing empirical evidence, proof was conveniently provided by the Black Rod affair.....When he dropped the action, the Prime Minister, perhaps inadvertently, widened the dispute from a minor skirmish with Associated into a major conflict with the British media. Even those papers that could be relied upon to be sympathetic to the government began to take a more aggressive stance."

June 22 ~ A fearful establishment that cries "Wolf"

A sow in Leicestershire - one sow alone? - suspected very noisily of having the dreaded "farm-virus"? - a sow moreover whose exact provenance no one apparently seemed to be able to trace? - did it have no tags or distinguishing marks? - and all this just at a time when the government feels itself more and more under the large magnifying glass of a sceptical European Inquiry? Just at a time when it is very anxious to frighten away dissent from its meddling and unnecessary restrictions and red tape?
We are seeing more and more fabricated - or at least strangely slanted - stories that put farmers in the worst possible light, appearing on the BBC, in the Times (New Labour's favourite newspaper) and Guardian. Attack has long been this government's one idea of defence. And never before has it been in such desperate need of self-justification.
At the same time we have extraordinary suggestions - appealing to xenophobia in the tried and tested ways of government propagandists - that the "source of the virus for the 2001 epidemic was most probably infected or contaminated meat or meat products" just after the Food Standards Agency makes loud and damaging statements about African meat. How very anxious they are to convince us that infected foreign pig catering waste was the origin. Never mind the harm done to the Chinese community or to the African countries. There is absolutely no evidence that the virus entered via illegal imports - but the government and the unions parrot this idea so often it is taking on a weird credibility in the public consciousness merely by repetition.
How sad it is that one can no longer trust a single word to come out of the mouths of those in power or indirectly by those media outlets through which such nonsense is disseminated.

June 21/22 ~"What has happened to our democracy and what has happened to our freedoms?"

asked Ann Morgan at Builth Wells yesterday in furious answer to the Labour MEP Gordon Adams as he blustered, trying to defend the indefensible and saying that her evidence "contradicted" the way the contiguous cull had been presented as a success. Signora Redondo rounded on him too, later leaving the stage to embrace Ann Morgan and telling her, "You are very brave". Members of the Inquiry, including English MEPs were visibly in tears as Ann spoke. The Inquiry members had made it clear, by staying more than an extra hour listening to the real people at Welshpool that they preferred to do that than receive the processed accounts of the establishment and unions. Union members were not to be found at Welshpool anyway, preferring it appears to wait in the luxury of the Metropole hotel for a big dinner at the taxpayers' expense. A copy of Fields of Fire was given to both Signora Redondo and Wolfgang Kreissl-Dörfler, who showed great appreciation of the labour of love that produced it. Talking to Albert Maat (Holland), Roy Miller said that there were three important things to be done: to correct the injustices and make those responsible accountable, to learn enough to ensure that such terrible things can never happen again and, with regard to the human trauma that isn't going away, to have the healing opportunity to talk about their pain to people who are really listening. "I know that the EU Inquiry is listening but we're not sure that anyone else is," said Roy. He later described the Welsh meetings as a "huge victory" and is confident that the EU Temporary Committee are becoming more and more aware of the truth of the UK FMD crisis rather than the disgraceful "mutual self-preservation club" version.

June 21 ~ "..the huge waste that took place"

An insider who has given information to the Western Morning News says "After the election, the Treasury started cutting the purse strings and more closely scrutinising the situation. It wasn't worried about the spread of the disease, but the money being spent. It held everything up."
Following an investigation by the Western Morning News, in a series of written Parliamentary answers earlier this month Agriculture Minister Elliott Morley provided details on the disposal of ash and fuel from foot and mouth pyres. But a source who was close to the Government's campaign to deal with the crisis said that the answers did not provide the full picture of the huge waste that took place.
He said: "It is only the tip of the iceberg in consideration of all of the rest of the things that money was spent on."
... Mr Morley said that 11,500 tonnes of unused coal had been recovered from foot and mouth operations by the Government's Disposal Services Agency and resold. A further 51,500 railway sleepers and 2,650 tonnes of wood were also resold, but 616 tonnes of sleepers and wood was landfilled.
The WMN source said that the Government purchased many other pieces of equipment, including vehicles, computers, office equipment and high-velocity guns, the whereabouts of which there has been no explanation. ...
. The Government claimed that it landfilled because it was a lower risk option than incinerating. "There is limited capacity for incineration, yes, but my question to them would be, well there's limited capacity for the incineration of meat and bonemeal, but why did they still choose to store that rather than landfill that?"
"It's nothing to do with risk - it's all to do with money. "

June 21 ~ "It is extraordinarily embarrassing for the Government and I think people will be asking a lot of questions about why nothing was done".

Liberal Democrat rural affairs spokesman Colin Breed last night said many people affected by the crisis would be astonished that the Government had failed to heed the advice of its own experts. Mr Breed, MP for South East Cornwall, said: "They were in trouble from day one because of the inadequacy of their planning, although they have never admitted it. The most worrying thing is that there is still no indication that the new department is treating the problem with any more urgency. Merely having a new department does not change anything."
The NAO report concludes that:
*The Government's contingency plans were "inadequate" to deal with a major outbreak of foot and mouth.
*Ministers were too slow to bring in the Army to help with disposal.
*Poor cost control meant that the bill to the taxpayer was higher than it need have been.
*No account was taken of the potential impact of an outbreak of the disease on the wider rural economy, particularly tourism.
*The Government did not have enough vets to deal with the crisis.
*An earlier ban on animal movements would have significantly reduced the scale of the outbreak.
NAO director Richard Eales said: "The department could and should have been better prepared for this outbreak."
See report in Western Morning News

June 21 ~ "You would not think it possible that those drawing up contingency plans for dealing with such a national emergency would fail to consult other Government departments and agencies,

but that is exactly what happened. And key issues from a previous internal report were not taken on board. ...Overall the Government's planning was characterised by complacency and lack of foresight. An impact on the tourist industry hadn't occurred to them at all, let alone one of several billion pounds." (Mr Edward Leigh, chairman of the powerful Public Accounts Committee, which will hold hearings into the report's findings. He added that contingency plans had shown "a complete failure of imagination".

June 21 ~ Are we veterinary surgeons or are we filled with this MAFF blood lust?

On April 23rd last year, under the title: Foot and Mouth out of Control; what a Shambles the highly respected vet, Ken Tyrrell, (B.A., BSc (Vet), M.R.C.V.S. retd Qualified 1951 Joined MAFF July 1953 retired 1987 ) wrote in the Veterinary Times "The insidious hand of Brussels is also behind this draconian cull of 3kms; are we veterinary surgeons or are we filled with this MAFF blood lust? We should stop it and deal at once with infection on farms and dangerous contacts if indeed they are dangerous and not just contiguous.
How has the veterinary profession performed during this outbreak? Well of course, as is always the case the frontline troops have behaved magnificently but what about the leaders?"
It all puts Margaret Beckett's complacent words today at her reading of the NAO report into some kind of perspective. The "Department's success in limiting further spread to new areas once controls were in place" (her words) amounted to a frenzy of killing on over 10,000 premises, unsupported by science and condemned by anyone who understood the nature of FMD transmission. We now know that only 1324 of those premises have a laboratory test result to support a diagnosis of FMD.
Mrs Beckett talked last night of "the unprecedented nature of the outbreak" It is the scale of the culling which was unprecendented, not the scale of the epidemic.

June 21 ~ Under the headline IGNORANCE AND ARROGANCE

The Western Morning News says that the "NAO report notes that Defra still believes it was "correct" to make the Drummond Report a relatively low priority because experts at the time believed the biggest threat of foot and mouth entering the European Union was through Eastern Europe. It states: "The department considers that existing controls were in place and that its prioritisation of work based on all available information at the time was correct". ...

June 21 ~ "Initial results from tests on a pig at a Leicestershire slaughterhouse appear to show it was not suffering from foot-and-mouth disease" BBC News

The Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) said on Friday the first results had been negative - but a definitive answer cannot be given until Tuesday morning. Defra has banned the movement of livestock in a five mile radius around the slaughterhouse as a precaution. The restricted zone covers Twycross Zoo. The alarm was raised after the pig was seen to have blisters on its body at the Dawkins International Ltd abattoir in Congerstone, a slaughterhouse for both pigs and cattle which also packs offal.
A spokesman for Defra said officials were currently investigating each of the 34 farms in Yorkshire where the pig may have come from. ....says the BBC

June 21 ~ "Report into origin of foot and mouth epidemic published"

Well....this is a piece of non-news, merely repeating the old obfuscations about "origin". The (pdf) report begins with the laughable sentence "A full inquiry has been carried out into the origin of the 2001 Foot and Mouth Disease (FMD) epidemic in the UK." In its final sentence the Number 10 site says, "It unlikely that the origin of this material and the route by which it entered the UK will ever be identified".
This is wishful thinking on the part of Number 10.
As for the rest, it is along the lines of "The results of government investigations into the how the 2001 foot and mouth disease outbreak started and spread have been announced. The origin is believed to have been a pig finishing unit in the North-East of England....."
Pat writes:" This is the source of all the newspaper articles and this of Scudamore's report. I'll work on an analysis later today. My immediate reaction is amazement. It is a quite extraordinary and disgraceful document. HMC&E and the Foreign Office must be beside themselves with rage. .."

June 21 ~ DEFRA RESPONDS TO NATIONAL AUDIT OFFICE REPORT

In response to today's Report by the Comptroller and Auditor General on the 2001 Outbreak of Foot and Mouth Disease, DEFRA Secretary of State Margaret Beckett said: "I thank the NAO for this very thorough report. The government agrees with its analysis that, while many things were done right, there are also lessons to be learned. "The report describes accurately the unprecedented nature of the outbreak, the very wide spread of the disease before its presence was detected, and the Department's success in limiting further spread to new areas once controls were in place."

Sorry Mrs Beckett. Nearly everything was done wrongly. If the new FMD contingency plans for England and Scotland are anything to go by, no lessons have been learned. The outbreak was not unprecedented - it was the unnecessary scale of the killing that was. The Department can claim only to have lost the trust of the farmers and the appalled horror of those abroad, particularly delegates at Lyon who are under no illusions about what happened. We feel certain that the truth will eventually be told - but in the meantime we note with disgust the continuing anti-farmer propaganda in the Guardian, the Times, Ananova and elsewhere. We can hardly believe that such a disgraceful and well-orchestrated kick in the teeth has been delivered to people who have suffered so much. There were farmers who used the crisis to make money but who is there to speak - not for those few fat cats - but for the majority of farmers? Only a future knight in somewhat tarnished armour who has done far too much of that already -and who can anyway only claim to speak for about 37% of them.

June 21 ~ The Government "simply ran out of vets"..... " the Government had "showed a complete lack of imagination" in its planning, which was "characterised by complacency and lack of foresight."

Robert Ulig's article about the National Audit Office report in the Telegraph looks closely at the poor state of the SVS and the lack of resources at its disposal. "Mr Scudamore had "expressed his concern" in 2000 that several "key issues" identified in the Drummond report had "not been resolved some two years after they had been identified"......
"Jim Scudamore, Chief Veterinary Officer, was told in February 1999 by a group of state vets that, with "the speed at which foot and mouth disease might spread, the State Veterinary Service's resources could quickly become overwhelmed". He was given the recommendation of "enhancing arrangements to gear up resources" but, said Richard Eales, director of the National Audit Office, the Government "did not heed that warning" and millions were squandered as officials "struggled to keep costs under control" during the epidemic. "Existing contingency plans in many areas had not been updated because of other priorities and limited resources.
"In addition, a high turnover of administrative staff, and the resignation or retirement of experienced veterinary and technical staff had impaired the services's ability to react.
"The Department had not had time to address fully the slaughter and disposal of carcasses, training of staff in preparedness for an outbreak, updating of contingency plans and epidemiological capacity to deal with investigations about spread of the disease if there were an outbreak."
Edward Leigh, chairman of the Public Accounts Committee, which will be questioning DEFRA on the report next month.

June 21 ~ National Audit Office condemns the Government's planning for its "complacency and lack of foresight" 57 farms already infected by Feb 20th

Amid rumours that the latest FMD scare in Leicestershire has been cynically timed to deflect attention from the National Audit Office investigation, we see that the Independent article says that "Sir John Bourn, the comptroller and auditor general, said there were "lessons to be learned for the whole of government from the foot-and-mouth crisis".
"key issues had not been resolved".
The NAO said: "The department had not had time to address fully the slaughter and disposal of carcasses, training of staff in preparedness for an outbreak, the updating of existing contingency plans and epidemiological capacity to deal with investigations about the spread of the disease if there were an outbreak. .......The Government's contingency plans envisaged no more than 10 cases....
"A crucial turning point in the crisis was the decision..... to cull infected animals within 24 hours of diagnosis and remove neighbouring herds within 48 hours.
"Before 27 March, when the target was imposed, only 14 per cent of premises were cleared within the deadline. After 27 March that figure leapt to 51 per cent. "
However, the NAO does not apparently understand the significance of these delays which, together with insufficient data led to the disastrous contiguous cull policy advocated by the Imperial College modellers - who did not understand FMD transmission any better than the Government Science Team under Professor King. The NAO reports also that an estimated "70 per cent of those killed in the contiguous cull were disease-free " and yet, astonishingly, calculates this to have been no more than 800,000 animals...
We notice with a certain sour lack of surprise that Valerie Elliott in the Times has chosen rather a different spin on this story of government incompetence with the headlines Farm rip-offs hit taxpayers for millions and Rich pickings for contractors as Britain burnt See Spin Alert

June 21 ~ "These nameless faces behind closed doors decided whether our animals lived or died."

At the Royal Welsh showground EU Inquiry meeting in Mid Wales, Ann Morgan told the MEPS that the killing on her farm had been "shambolic and barbaric". "The stench of death was dreadful," she said. According to the account in the Western Mail, "Local accountant Ian Mitchell told the MEPs that the crisis placed an unbearable toll on the rural economy. It had "taken away our dreams", he said. The Conservative leader in the European Parliament, Jonathan Evans, renewed his demands for the UK Government to launch a full public inquiry into the disease in addition to the "valuable contributions" to the Euro investigation..."

June 20/21 ~ "I know that people want a perfect test that unequivocally decides that an animal is absolutely free from any contact with FMD"

writes John Crowther, from the Animal Production and Health Division of the Vienna-based IAEA, "The very nature of the agent means that this is impossible. However, we can, using the assays for NS move towards ensuring that the risk of spreading disease is greatly reduced, which in turn may lead to a re interpretation of acceptable risks for the "release" of serologically free animals which hitherto would be slaughtered..." read more
Mr Crowther was described by one participant at the Lyons symposium as "very dynamic, relaxed, knowledgeable and, quite frankly, powerful.....Certainly he came across as Mister Big - the man with the Direct line to anyone and everyone in the G8/WTO/New World /EU... the man who could arrest or redirect funding, from trickle to torrent, at a moment's notice if need be. Given that, which seemed to be implicitly recognized by pretty much all present, he came across as surprisingly affable and unaffected. More to the point, he challenged the sense of pursuing 'zero-risk' policy with regard to "carriers."

June 20/21 ~ Possible FMD in a Leicestershire abattoir.

Suspect sow. Movement restrictions in place. The pig, discovered at a slaughterhouse in Congerstone, in Leicestershire, was slaughtered on today (Thursday) after showing signs of possible foot and mouth infection.
"Samples are being taken for urgent testing at the Institute for Animal Health laboratory at Pirbright in Surrey. Scientists hope to have the initial results on Friday, although the complete tests will take 90 hours. " says the BBC. "The Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs has banned the movement of livestock in a five mile radius around the slaughterhouse as a precaution. The pig could be from one of 34 farms, mostly in the north Yorkshire area, and may have passed through Selby market. Officials said that all of the farms are being placed under restrictions. The last confirmed case of foot-and-mouth was in September 2001 but there have been numerous false alarms since then. " According to information from Channel 4 (press release from DEFRA) the abattoir is Dawkins International Limited in Congerstone, approx six miles from Nuneaton and 10 miles from the centre of Leicester.

June 20 ~ "control measures were crude, unscientific, excessive and unnecessary"

was the verdict of an Anglesey farmer who lost his pedigree livestock during the so-called "pre-emptive" cull in south west Anglesey. Like many others talking to the EU Inquiry team last night at Welshpool market, he accused union leaders of colluding with the government. Phil Owens, a Farmers Union of Wales county chairman during the crisis and well known to this website, accused his union's hierarchy of "panicking about the disease" and colluding with "a scientifically nonsensical" anti-vaccination policy. "An apparent determination to kill as many animals as possible left many farmers wondering if there was a hidden agenda to de-stock farms," he said. This was denied strongly by Wolfgang Dreissl-Dörfler, the MEP from Bavaria who insisted that there was no EU plan to cut UK livestock numbers... (We remember, however, the accounts of several who claim to have seen cheques inscribed with the phrase: "EU Livestock Reduction Fund")
Netherlands MEP Jan Mulder said that farmers in the Netherlands too were unhappy about the way culling had been carried out. He said that a new European Union policy was needed. Unfortunately he also trotted out the old chestnut about "supermarkets and dairies" insisting they would not use products from injected animals. We are tired of this nonsense. Meat and milk from vaccinates is consumed all the time. What is so different about the FMD vaccine? And for how long have we been blithely eating South American meat vaccinated with FMD vaccine?

June 20 ~ There were no Longtown sheep at Welshpool market on Feb 19 2001

The European Temporary Committee heard from farmers, auctioneers, vets and the clergy at Welshpool Livestock Market yesterday. The auctioneer John Jones told them that although the government had said sheep from Longtown Market had been in Welshpool Market on February 19...."This was found to be incorrect, but it has never officially retracted its statement, much to our annoyance." Phil Owens, chairman of the Farmers Union of Wales in Montgomeryshire at the time accused both farming the NFU and the FUW of "misguided loyalty" towards the government and the Assembly. He said farmers had committed suicide as a result of the pressure caused by the catastrophe.
We are expecting more first hand detail from this meeting soon.

June 20 ~"Here we go again - another unprecedented attack on farmers, the easy targets."

An exasperated and eloquent letter from the dairy farmer David Goddard expresses how many farmers are feeling at headlines that have appeared in the Western Daily Press, the Evening Standard and elsewhere. We too note the strange spin put on a small part of the Environment Agency's report on Agriculture and Natural Resources (the full text is unlikely to have been read by the journalists) concerning the cost of one small part of pollution in Britain and ignoring all the other polluters and indeed ignoring what even the Environment Agency itself says about the cost benefits of farming. It is just another step in what seems a very well orchestrated attack on farmers the lazier and more malleable journalists, among others, have been encouraged to make.

June 19/20 ~ "You KNEW they presented no risk!

Right from the beginning of the crisis in Britain farmers, stockholders, vets, politicians who were concerned and people who were appalled by the frenzy of killing were told that vaccination "wouldn't work". The main plank in this argument was the vexed question of the erroneously termed carrier animals. Many experts said that the risk was negligable, but for various political and economic reasons, this expert scientific advice was ignored and even rubbished. There was to be a 'zero-risk' policy with regard to "carriers". Indeed, one of the British delegates at the Lyons conference insisted:
'What would you do, if you were the C.V.O. and you had to decide between authorising imports from Australia which is F.M.D. free and Holland if the vaccinated stock had not been killed? Any mistake and it's the C.V.O.'s neck on the line!"
(Does that mean, asks Chris Stockdale, that to save one C.V.O. from a little professional ignominy we sacrificed eleven million animals at a cost of billions, and the loss of 20-60 suicides and the as yet unknowable health consequences of both the burn, the burial and the the land-fill sites?)
Dr. Paul Sutmoller then stunned the audience by saying directly to the speaker, "If you are so concerned about the carrier status, why did you, at Pirbright, release animals that you had infected with SAT strain (F.M.D.), vaccinated and allowed to recover? (He even stated which fields they were in.) Why did you then release these animals into the British market? They were not even sent direct to the abbatoir, but dispersed throughout the U.K. livestock population! Why? Because you knew that they presented no risk!" (Apologies: The words in italics were published in good faith on June 19 2002 3 - but it appears that Dr Sutmoller later said that the incident referred to had happened years before.)

June 19 ~"barbaric conduct" and "a disgrace to humanity"

At long last the contiguous cull has been described in appropriate words by witnesses at the European Inquiry. As Robert Ulig in the Telegraph describes, "every one of eight scientific expert witnesses told a European Union inquiry that vaccination must be used in any future outbreak." He goes on to say that the Inquiry..., "was also told that vaccines were fully effective and that sufficient supplies of the correct strain were available last year. Alex Donaldson, a member of the Cabinet Office committee of government advisers that proposed the culling policy, yesterday distanced himself from the contiguous cull policy, which resulted in the deaths of more than 10 million animals, and said that an alternative involving testing would have greatly reduced the number of animals slaughtered."
Professor Fred Brown -who had tried so hard to get the UK government to see sense last year said, ""The barbaric conduct in Britain last year was a disgrace to humanity."
We at warmwell are moved and heartened that the Telegraph has published this article. Readers in Britain may now begin to see what we have been trying to express since this website began. All eight witnesses who have spoken out are experts in the field of foot and mouth. Why were they not listened to before the contiguous cull - still paraded as "a success" by its instigators - wrought its deadly work?

June 19 ~"Encouragingly, many countries expressed revulsion at the cull... "

The a beef and sheep farmer farmer Chris Stockdale, sends us this report from the recent Lyons conference. Extract: ."The pressure is very much on to validate (three) potential tests to determine whether anti-bodies are derived from vaccine or virus; U.K. objections that this still leaves unresolved the question of the 'carrier' in pursuit of absolute zero risk were countered from the floor by considerations of the risk from unvaccinated carriers, in addition to the fact, as was generally agreed, that carriers have never, even under experimental laboratory conditions when researchers tried to induce such, been shown to infect naive stock. Additional evidence was cited of Pirbright's (actual, practical) confidence in the non-infectivity of vaccinated stock, in contradiction to their stated reservations. .....
, I would say that all present understood that we stand at a cross-roads:- either regulate FMD in a sane way, or accept that pressure will grow for it to be disregarded as no more than a phyto-sanitary barrier to free trade, raising questions as to whether the W.T.O. can endorse such. Realistically, so much time and effort has been expended on F.M.D. to date that the latter proposal would receive a very rough ride indeed..."

June 19 ~ Common Sense from Lord Vinson ~"Is the Food Standards Agency (FSA) over the top?"

In a letter to the Telegraph this morning he writes, "After waiting years for BSE to emerge in sheep, it now has sausage skins made from lamb casings (report, May 23) in its sights.
The FSA may have been given a warm welcome because of "the disinterested nature of its findings compared to the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food and its new policy of total openness" but, because it carries no responsibility for the wider consequences of its pronouncements other than its immediate remit of food safety, it is bound to adopt excessive precautions to protect its reputation.
There may be a theoretical risk of BSE crossing from cattle to sheep, but no sheep can have been fed with contaminated foodstuffs since 1988, when they were withdrawn from all ruminants.
There can be few, if any, sheep alive that might have been directly infected by contaminated feeds and most sheep meat is eaten under 18 months.
The possibility of maternal transmission - from ewe to lamb - remains, but this is now regarded as unlikely in cattle and is presumably unlikely in sheep. The risk must be minute.
Meanwhile, the image of sheep meat is being harmed by scare stories emanating from the FSA, giving the French every opportunity to continue to retard the export of sheep meat to what was once our principal market.
The FSA's present posture may be understandable - but is it too much to expect a more balanced judgment?
From: Lord Vinson, London SW7"

June 18/19 ~ On the occasion of Mike German's taking over from Carwyn Jones

as Welsh minister of rural affairs, Mr Bob Parry acknowledged the work of Mr Jones during the foot and mouth crisis, saying he had "earned the respect of everyone in the countryside."
We beg to differ.
The Western Mail also tells us that, "Former Minister of Rural Affairs Carwyn Jones has been appointed Minister for Open Government and he will continue as business manager" Ah.

June 18/19 ~ "...I doubt Mr Gill will risk the cosy relationship he and the government seem to enjoy with the supermarkets simply to improve the relationship he does not enjoy with the paid up members..."

Farmers Weekly interactive says, "... south-west farmers accuse the NFU leadership team of not doing enough to tackle falling incomes, plummeting farmgate prices and job losses in the industry. The campaign will get underway on Tuesday (18 June) at a forum organised by Weston-super-Mare dairy farmer Derek Mead, Somerset NFU council representative. Speakers at the forum include veteran farmer protester Richard Haddock, Terry Bayliss, director of the Farmers First, Somerset MEP Neil Paris (sic) and Mr Mead.
Mr Mead has challenged Mr Gill to take on the supermarkets, which he says flood the market with cheap imports while UK producers cannot sell their own goods.
"However, I doubt Mr Gill will risk the cosy relationship he and the government seem to enjoy with the supermarkets simply to improve the relationship he does not enjoy with the paid up members of the union he leads," said Mr Mead.
Two years ago, Mr Mead featured prominently in a campaign calling for one-member one-vote in the NFU."
As far as FMD is concerned - what a tragic mistake it has been for livestock farmers to have such a thoroughly undemocratic union heirarchy strutting about, telling the government what to do as if it were speaking for them.

June 18/19 ~ "Raging at the leader, we miss the elephant, on which he is but a passing gnat"

In an article The snooper's law proves government can't be trusted Hugo Young in the Guardian concludes, "".... A natural ambition of the machine is to have access to all information about every citizen, which electronic storage makes possible if the right legislative framework is provided. The extended Ripa helps make that framework. This prospect seems rather more central - more revolutionary, bold and sinister - to the life of Britain than the question of whether we see Alastair Campbell as a bigger liar than the editor of the Daily Mail. Yet the same level of indignation somehow eludes it. Raging at the leader, we miss the elephant, on which he is but a passing gnat."

June 18/19 ~ the corporate lobby groups, .... are becoming wildly rich at public expense

George Monbiot, writing in the Guardian, has made "nine serious and specific charges of public fraud and false accounting, commissioned and directed by the Treasury. So, as there is no other means of holding the government to account on this issue, let it take the form of a challenge. If these charges are false, I would appeal to the chancellor to repudiate them, preferably on these pages. If he fails to do so, readers should conclude that he has no defence to offer. " Watch this space www.monbiot.com

June 18 ~ "Despite the climbdown on these changes, a committee of MPs is debating separate prosposals for the interception of live telephone and internet communications,

which is also contained in the RIPA act...
Service providers have agreed to work with the security services to provide access to electronic communications. ." says this BBC report
As with the SI 843 that sneaked in the day after the Animal Health Bill had been thrown out by the House of Lords, a "postponement" can always be got round quickly and quietly while deluded campaigners rejoice at an apparent victory for common sense. We are not reassured.

June 18 ~ Another way for the government to justify taking land away from farmers

According to a Times report today (see Spin Alert) , "The Environment Agency says that far more farmers should be fined for causing pollution and is calling for on-the-spot penalties and special taxes to encourage them to use fewer pesticides. In its report, entitled Agriculture and Natural Resources, it suggests that bad farmers should be named in trade newspapers and calls on the Government to consider buying land from farmers for the benefit of the public and the environment."

June 18 ~ Ecuador is to vaccinate in new foot-and-mouth outbreak

From Alert.net News "QUITO, Ecuador, June 17 (Reuters) - Ecuador on Monday declared a sanitary emergency in five towns west of Quito over an outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease and quarantined the area to prevent its spread.
The move prohibits cattle farmers from removing herds from areas affected by the disease, and calls for an immediate vaccination program for the five towns....."

June 18 ~ Yet another "lost" document as No 10 says, 'We haven't got the Black Rod memo'

Another "lost document" seems to be saving the government's blushes. We are still pondering the odd case of the letter dated April 4th faxed from DEFRA on June 13th in answer to Devon County Council's two requests, sent in early March, for a meeting about Ash Moor pit (Elliot Morley in a parliamentary answer of 10th June three days before the reply, dated April 4th was faxed, said "We have no record of receipt of these letters") It is strange that DEFRA told Mr Morley there was no record of them and stranger still that three days later a reply dated April 4th to those very requests should have been faxed to Devon Council - who had said they'd never seen it before
Then there is the letter and questions from Professor Thomas of the Cumbria Inquiry, sent to DEFRA on May 8th, which has still received no reply. Then the Welsh Assembly announces that it asked the Temporary Committee if they would like a meeting but no reply has been received (see below)
Now - unbelievably - Downing Street says it does not have a copy of the controversial memo from Black Rod The Guardian reports the No 10 spokesman, "In an effort to draw a line under the row which dominated political debate last week", as saying that "putting the memo into the public domain was 'entirely a matter for Black Rod'."
"He added: 'I think if we were to indicate any opinion it would be interpreted as us telling Black Rod what to do.'
The document, according to leaks at the weekend, is said to contradict Downing Street's claim that it did not put pressure on Black Rod to enhance the prime minister's role at the Queen Mother's funeral. ....... "We do not have the memo. I'm not aware of anyone having seen it." Referring to the row generally, the spokesman added: 'There are clearly different interpretations and that's very regrettable.'........"

June 18 ~ Breathing space over the Snooping Bill

The Telegraph, whose reporting on this matter has been excellent, says, "Ministers were in full retreat last night over plans to give more public bodies powers to "snoop" on private communications, including emails and mobile telephone calls.
David Blunkett, the Home Secretary, pulled the plug on a debate after being warned that his proposals faced defeat in the Lords and a rebellion by Labour MPs who fear the new legislation poses a threat to civil liberties.
A draft order extending the reach of the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (Ripa) to include local councils and government quangos was withdrawn at the last minute and will be considered on the Commons floor next Monday." So there will now at least be a proper debate on the flooor of the House of Commons. The Home Office has blamed "parliamentary procedures" for the postponement - but Labour is aware that another defeat in the House of Lords on the issue of personal freedom will be damaging and even Labour MPs seem aware that this legislation, allowing bodies such as the Food Standards Agency the right to use surveillance, is one Orwellian step too far. Lord Strathclyde has urged that Tony Blair at his open press conference on Thursday should promise that the proposals will be withdrawn.
Poor old Bob Ainsworth, the Home Office minister, is left saying implausably: "It is in no way a snoopers' charter for exactly the reasons we are bringing this in - to provide safeguard and guidance as to when people can get information and when they cannot."

June 18 ~ Not invited? Or does Carwyn Jones really think Welshpool market an "inappropriate setting" for him?

Mr Jones is not to give evidence to the Temporary Committee during its visit to Wales this week. According to the Western Mail, Eurig Wyn MEP said, "It would have been a perfect platform for him to defend his handling of the crisis in Wales last year."
A National Assembly spokeswoman said Mr Jones would not be attending because he had not been invited to do so. He would instead be giving evidence to the committee in Strasbourg next month. Also, the setting of the visit - including Welshpool livestock market and Sennybridge Disposal Site - would "not be an appropriate setting to give formal Government evidence". (see news pages)
So Carwyn Jones will be giving evidence in Strasburg on July 2nd but not in Wales. Many people in Wales would be interested in hearing him explain why animals on 810 farms were culled whilst only 61 had positive blood tests. Mr JOnes has said that Welsh Assembly officials wrote to the foot-and-mouth inquiry team asking if they would like a meeting but no reply has been received.
There seems to have been a spate of missing letters and replies lately.

June 18 ~ Flooding the Fens

This email has been received and its contents noted with humility. To its writer we would only ask that our cynicism, born of a dawning sadness at the political agenda we seem to detect in so many of our formerly loved institutions, be forgiven. After the horror of FMD we no longer take anything at face value: Extract from the email:
"Please don't knock the RSPB scheme to recreate an area of natural fen in Cambs! This is in no way comparable to taking sheep off the Fells. While sheep have long been part of a diverse and dynamic eco-system on the hills, farming in the Fens (mostly arable monoculture) is at the expense of almost everything that moves (or flowers) and we desperately need a bit more bio-diversity here! ......For once, someone has had a good idea."(more)

June 18 ~ Ben Gill facing a serious challenge at last?

The egregious leader of the NFU would appear to be facing a revolt. Valerie Elliot in the Times says: "Mr Gill is now facing the wrath of livestock and dairy farmers....." We wait with interest for more news about this from someone who understands farmers and the nature of the NFU.

June 17 ~ DEFRA has still not replied to the questions put to them by the Cumbria FMD Inquiry.

Nick Green writes, " I note, with ever increasing agitation, that Mrs Beckett, ...... has failed to acknowledge the questions posed in a letter by the Cumbrian FMD Inquiry Team. The team chaired by Prof. Phil Thomas sent the questions and a covering letter on 8th May 2002. Rumours abound; not least the one that suggests that DEFRA have not received them...."
".....Does Mr Morley assume we...will continue to swallow this garbage without comment? As journalist Mr Simon Heffer recorded recently in reference to previous government lies, "This is not so much a culture of lies as one of insanity." (see Nick Green's letter)

June 17 ~ It seems to be up to the House of Lords to protect us yet again

A letter from Lord Strathclyde in today's Telegraph : ".....What may exceptionally be justified for the security services and police in the war against terrorism is not justifiable for the Food Standards Agency or your local council."
"Boris Johnson (Opinion, June 13) has called on the Commons to block these powers on Tuesday. I hope they do. But, if they do not, the House of Lords, which greatly restricted the Government's original ambitions on this Act, must be ready once again to protect the rights of individuals and to stand for a sense of proportion and natural justice."

June 17 ~ The RSPB, a society once held in esteem for its work in protecting birds,

says it wants to flood the fens, cover the hills of the Lake District with trees and reintroduce the beaver and wolf. See Spinalert today for the article in The Times which tells us what a good thing this will be and how those who argue that the well loved uplands need grazing sheep are "swimming against the tide of history and public opinion" (The public opinion it cites would appear to be that - of ten people in the Fens (handy birdwatchers?) chosen to ask "almost" nine out of ten said they approved the RSPB scheme. A similar article, again in the Times tells us that "only a few farmers", oppose it. )
We are finding it increasingly odd and sinister that all the once benign British societies we can think of preceded by the word "Royal" now seem to be driven by covert politicial ambition. (Elliot Morley's links with the RSPB may, of course, be purely incidental)
That so many sheep have been and are being removed from the landscape because of "disease control" is already, (leaving aside the economic and emotional consequences for the farmers and their stock), resulting in swathes of gorse and bracken.
Is this the ground considered suitable for the brave new deciduous forests?
Following the scheme of the RSPB would allow Britain to fulfil its Kyoto promises - and the propaganda war to get the population to accept this willingly is now on. It would appear to be "for the birds" in only one very limited sense.

June 16 ~ The strange case of the missing DEFRA letter

DEFRA has faxed a copy of a letter from Elliot Morley to the Devon Council - dated April 4 - in which he allegedly responded to council requests for a meeting about the future of the Ash Moor Pit. This giant £5.6 million site, near Petrockstow in Devon, was built in spite of fierce local opposition at the height of the foot and mouth crisis. It was designed to take up to 400,000 carcasses. It has - so far - not been used, and is being retained for "unknown purposes".
Mr Morley said in the letter (dated April 4th and not apparently received by Devon Council) "I would be happy to meet with a small delegation of representatives from Devon County Council and local residents to discuss issues relating to the Ash Moor site."
The council has no record of the letter being received.
The sending of this fax is reported inWestern Morning News However, in Hansard for 10th June 2002, we read:
"Mr. Swire: To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs when she will reply to the letters sent to her on 12 and 21 March written on behalf of Devon County Council regarding the reinstatement of the Ash Moor mass burial site, the Ascott Farm pyre and holding site and the intended holding site at Westlake Farm. [58326]
Mr. Morley: We have no record of receipt of these letters and have therefore been unable to trace them. If copies of the letters could be sent to the Department, we will of course respond to the hon. Member as soon as possible. "
Odd. How could there be a letter of April 4th responding to a request which DEFRA "was unable to trace"?

June 16 ~ Krebs, the Food Standards Agency and the end of the sheep industry

If John Krebs and his colleagues had set out to ruin sheepfarming in Britain they could hardly have behaved in a way more likely to achieve this goal. It was Krebs(appointed to his post at the Food Standards Agency with the help of David Byrne) who was instrumental in manouvering Roy Anderson into a position where the contiguous cull advocated by his model could be accepted and which was to wipe out literally millions of sheep. It was SEAC that raised the thin but powerful spectre of BSE in sheep and now the FSA presses for a European Union-wide ban on making sausage skins from lamb's intestines, a practice that is 2,000 years old.
Christopher Booker, writing in today's Sunday Telegraph, says "....This move is the latest twist in the FSA's bizarre campaign to find a link between sheep and BSE, for which, despite 10 years of research, there is still no shred of evidence. What makes this yet more bizarre is that the recommendation rubber-stamped by the meeting of the FSA board in Armagh last Thursday came from a "stakeholders' committee", headed by Sir John himself and including four other members of his staff, that did not even let the industry affected know what it was up to until the last minute. ..."

June 16 ~ Paris plans to ban imports of lambs over six months old unless the spinal cord is removed "to protect public health".

David Harrison, writing in today's Sunday Telegraph says, "France has provoked outrage among British farmers and government ministers by effectively halting imports of lamb from this country.
The French government, which still bans British beef in defiance of European law, is to order new measures against British lamb from July 1, citing concerns over BSE-type brain disease in sheep.
British farmers' leaders say that the new curbs will have a devastating effect on sheep farms, forcing many out of business, just as they start to recover from the horrors of last year's foot and mouth epidemic.
The European Commission says that there is no scientific basis for the action and has threatened to take France to the European Court if it goes ahead. .......
Almost all the British lambs sold to France are between six and 12 months old. Before last year's foot and mouth outbreak, the French bought about £120 million of British lamb a year - constituting 70 per cent of the total of this country's lamb exports."
The French are quick to protect their own...their own what remains to be seen. Is this really concern that their population will all fall victim to vCJD ( NO LINK with the eating of meat has ever been established, nor has BSE in sheep ever been found in natural conditions - as was shown in a recent french television documentary) Concern for their own livestock industry seems more likely.

June 16 ~ The leading regional farming newspaper "South West Farmer" carries a report on the National Scrapie Plan in its June edition that makes it sound like a good idea without any drawbacks. So the tireless (thank heaven) Alan Beat writes another letter

Extract: "Your report on the National Scrapie Plan in the June issue (page 5) informs us that "the process is very simple", and that "fears that other valuable, even essential traits will be lost . . .appear to be groundless".  However, scientific evidence does not support these claims.
Here are some relevant extracts from a report issued recently by Rare Breeds International:
#  selection for the ARR "scrapie-resistant' allele in sheep could lead to the extinction of some native breeds of special genetic importance
#  Rare Breeds International recognises 31 native breeds of sheep of special genetic importance in UK, and at least 9 of these would be at serious risk because of their low frequency of the ARR allele.
#  Breeds particularly at risk include the genetically-distinct Northern Short-Tailed group of breeds, the high-performance Marsh breeds, and the environmentally-important Mountain breeds.
#  In several breeds the commercial superiority of non-ARR genotypes has been noted.
It is significant that the government has just adopted sweeping new powers, without parliamentary debate, using Satutory Instrument 843 to drive forward the compulsory acceleration of the National Scrapie Plan..... ..there is some laboratory evidence that animals with a scrapie-susceptible genotype may actually be more resistant to BSE infection.
The inescapable conclusion is that, at present, there is insufficient scientific knowledge to safely proceed with any move to eliminate scrapie-resistant genotypes from the national flock." (See full letter)

June 15 ~ Don't incinerate - vaccinate.

From Hansard Mr. Breed: To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs how much meat and bonemeal was generated as a result of the foot and mouth disposal process; how much of this is stored; and at what (a) locations and (b) cost. [58068]
Mr. Morley: 42,289 tonnes of meat and bonemeal was produced from animals killed and rendered under the FMD and associated Welfare Disposal Scheme culls. This material is currently stored at two sites (one in Lincolnshire the other in Devon) pending incineration capacity becoming available later this year. Storage costs are approximately £17,500 per week (excluding VAT). ......
Mr. Breed: To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs how much coal and timber was recovered unused from foot and mouth operations and how much (a) was resold, (b) was landfilled and (c) is still stored. [58065]
Mr. Morley: 11,500 tonnes of coal have been recovered unused from foot and mouth operations by the Government's Disposal Services Agency. This has been resold. Approximately 51,500 railway sleepers and 2,650 tonnes of wood have been resold. 616 tonnes of sleepers and wood have been sent to landfill.......
In response to this latest example of waste Mr Alan Beat has written a letter
Extract: "It requires the most prejudiced mindset to deny the convincing success of the Uruguay control policy. This so-called "third-world" country extinguished a widely-dispersed epidemic, similar in all main respects to the UK pattern, within four months from first to last case, and began re-exporting a further two months later. Both slaughter and costs were minimal, and insignificant by comparison to the UK. Note especially that the close proximity of a fully-susceptible sheep population to the cattle did not influence the course of the epidemic, and that even infected premises were not slaughtered out after the first week! Quarantine, vaccination and movement restriction were sufficient measures to eliminate the disease.
Mass slaughter simply cannot be justified against these facts.

June 15 ~ Blaze destroys meat factory

reports the BBC "The single-storey building was engulfed by fire A meat processing factory in Carmarthenshire had to be evacuated when the site caught fire late on Wednesday night. ...Ranges include Welsh branded beef, lamb and organic meat...."
And this is how an email from a respected correspondent described the same incident...
"The Cross Hands plant in Carmarthen burnt to the ground last night. (12 June) Arson is suspected. You will recall that this plant was 'staked out' by Farmers for Action some time ago. Larry Goodman denied that Irish pig meat was being processed throught the plant, FFA caught the lorries unloading during the night. All the meat was stamped British - as usual. 169 men out of a job and now Larry only has 89 plants left ...."
And further comment from another emailer: ".....one of the problems - things that are legal but not very nice are getting confused with things that are illegal. The first can only be attacked politically, the second by the police or HMC&E. The FFA get very confused, as do the NFU on occasion ..."

June 15 ~ Tesco decides not to apologise.

The AGM of Tesco Plc was held in London on Friday June 14th. ...
A shareholder questioned the Chairman about the selling of Tesco's finest premium own label chicken with false labels. ... these chicken had been falsely labelled as being of the RSPCA Freedom Food Standard, when in fact they were not of that standard. The shareholder quoted from Tesco's Corporate Social Responsibility Review , which states-: "We will continue to communicate honestly and clearly to our customers about the animal welfare standards under which our food is produced"
The Chairman was invited to apologise to all the customers who had been deceived when buying these chicken, he was also invited to apologise to the RSPCA and its members, whose name and standard had been abused for six months and he was also invited to apologise to those farmers who produce food to the RSPCA Freedom Food Standard and whose work has been undermined by Tesco's actions.
The Chairman declined to apologise, stating that it was not Tesco's fault, but the fault of the supplier, Moy Park, from whom it still buys chicken. .
The Chairman was reminded that Tesco claims to have full traceabiliy on all of its meat and it was suggested that this claim was exposed as being untrue. He was again invited to apologise, but again he declined." (email received from someone attending the meeting.)
We feel that TESCO were very wrong not to accept responsibility for this. We shall not, in future, be shopping in Tesco - whereas if TESCO had accepted responsibility and had apologised we would have felt very reassured. Similarly, had the government, particularly Mr Blair, accepted responsibility for the unholy mess that was made in the FMD crisis we would, in spite of everything, feel a modicum of respect for them. As it is, we agree with Robin Cook in his scathing attack on government spin, that the honesty shown by Mr John Smith has no echo in today's Labour party.

June 14 ~David Lidington Member of Parliament for Aylesbury, who succeeds Peter Ainsworth as Shadow Defra spokesman

described the T-shirt incident below as a "breach of basic human right of expression". We are rather cheered by Mr Lidington's appointment. He has been described, by Andrew Roth in The Guardian, as a "highly intelligent, civilised and articulate young politician". What remains to be seen is whether or not he can be sufficiently au fait with the complicated briefs he will be receiving to make an adequate successor to Mr Ainsworth - and whether he can get to grips with the tough reality of the European Union question and not confuse the rightness of wishing to cooperate with European partners with the wrongness of colluding blindly with the destructive centralising policies of an unelected and undemocratic European Commission. (At present he has been described both as a "mild eurosceptic" and a "soft europhile".) We wish him well.

June 14 ~ You can't wear that T-shirt here

A news story by Robert Uhlig, Farming Correspondent of the Telegraph seems horribly to sum up with way things are going in farming and in Britain generally. Since when has it been an offence, worthy of police intervention, to wear a t-shirt carrying a slogan?
"The Government was accused last night of gagging peaceful protest after two farmers at an agricultural show were forced to remove T-shirts carrying slogans.
Mark and Gary Prescott, both fourth generation pig farmers, were wearing shirts carrying benign protest slogans against the Government ban of pig swill at the Pig and Poultry Fair last month but were ordered to remove them by police after the intervention of Government officials....."

June 13 ~ The EU MEP Visit. Press Release

"During the four-day fact-finding visit, the delegation will hold talks with farmers, vets, rural business owners and local politicians. A number of public meetings are also planned (see this page on warmwell for draft programme)
The European Parliament's committee has already paid visits to the North of England and the Scottish Borders, and to the Netherlands as part of its year-long investigation. It is expected that the Committee's findings, which will be put together by German MEP Wolfgang Kreissl-Dörfler, will be presented to the European Parliament in November 2002.
MEPs taking part in the visit include: British MEPs Gordon Adam (North East), Nick Clegg (East Midlands), Jonathan Evans (Wales), Caroline Lucas (South East), Michael Holmes (South West), Neil Parish (South West), Robert Sturdy (Eastern), Eurig Wyn (Wales); Dutch MEPs Albert Jan Maat and Jan Mulder; and German MEP Wolfgang Kreissl-Dörfler." See press release

June 13 ~ Peter Ainsworth has resigned as Shadow DEFRA spokesman

We read with regret in today's Telegraph that "Peter Ainsworth resigned yesterday as Tory spokesman on environment, food and rural affairs .....
Mr Ainsworth, 45, the MP for East Surrey and a father-of-three, said he had to put his family first as his wife, Claire, began chemotherapy treatment."
Mr Ainsworth has been tireless, in our opinion, in trying to put right some of the wrongs of the MAFF/DEFRA department and government incompetence in the handling of the foot and mouth crisis. He has called for a public inquiry many times, not for mere party political reasons but because he genuinely seems to share our concern that a great and tragic error was committed that must not be allowed to occur again. We are very grateful to Mr Ainsworth and feel very sorry that we are losing from the front bench a politician rare in integrity, humour and intelligence. It is a loss.
....."I have asked Mr Duncan Smith to let me stand down from the shadow cabinet with immediate effect," he said. "Although this has not been an easy decision to reach, the reason is straightforward..." continues the Telegraph report. "Mr Ainsworth married Claire in 1981 and they have one son and two daughters. He entered the Commons in 1992 and was a Conservative whip during John Major's administration."

June 13 ~ 500 conventional farms have been closed as fear of tainted wheat spreads

German officials have shut down a quarter of the farms in the northeastern state of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania after they discovered that a conventional farm also received a supply of wheat from a warehouse where a banned herbicide was once stored. A cereals supplier in the eastern town of Malchin who was in the process of converting his operations to organic from conventional methods had delivered 72 tonnes of tainted wheat to an animal feed works. Officials found 7 million times the acceptable level of the herbicide nitrofen in the warehouse. There, the contaminated wheat was mixed into about 50,000 tonnes of conventional feed. See news pages

June 13 ~ "Every industry has to reinvest to survive and prosper. British farmers are not able to do this at present."

"Sir, Mr Nick Elsley (letter, June 8) complains from North London that British farmers have not been able to produce what people want at competitive prices. This is far too sweeping a statement. .......The supermarkets have commandeered market share and snatched most of the profit margin.
Local produce sold locally through market stalls, corner shops and farmers' markets are a better bet for Elsley. If he went out into the countryside he could buy fresh produce from farm shops and village stores; enjoy the beautiful landscape and well-kept farms, and forget, for once, the seductive and over-hyped supermarkets. He could also forget that British farming does benefit from some subsidies, just like all other EU countries, Japan, Switzerland and, of course, our great ally and trading partner, the United States of America, where Congress has just voted over £12 billion per year in subsidies to its farmers.
Yours sincerely,
KEITH McDOUGALL (Vice-President, National Sheep Association)
Sir, Agriculture is not like any other industry; it is unique in producing the one commodity that we cannot live without. It is unlikely that we will ever face another U-boat threat, but for strategic economic and defence reasons we (and indeed every country) should seek as far as possible to be self-sufficient in staple foodstuffs. Failure to do so offers too many political and economic hostages to fortune; nor can Mother Nature be relied upon to meet global demand in any given year.
In this context, domestic agriculture could not be competitive in the conventional sense; but sensibly designed subsidies could ensure farming which is efficient and gives value for money.
Yours sincerely, D. BARTON,
Sir, I saw in a supermarket in Argyll, at the height of the British asparagus season, packs of asparagus tips from Thailand.
Yours faithfully, ANTHONY MAYNARD,
Letters in today's Times

.

June 12 ~ From "Yesterday in Parliament": Foot and Mouth

From the Guardian's Yesterday in Parliament. "More than 40,000 tonnes of meat from animals slaughtered during the foot and mouth outbreak is being stored by the government at a cost of £17,500 a week, animal health minister Elliot Morley disclosed. He said 42,289 tonnes of meat and bonemeal was produced from animals killed and rendered under culls forced by last year's crisis.
Costs of a burial site for livestock slaughtered during the foot-and-mouth outbreak are estimated at about £22.6m, Mr Morley said. Lastest figures showed £15.3m had been spent buying the site in Throckmorton, Worcestershire and establishing the burial facility. A further £3.3m was budgeted to pay for leachate removal, site remediation, landscaping and other essential works, with on-going management and monitoring set to cost £4m over the next 10 to 15 years. "

June 12 ~ We learned no lessons from the 1967 crisis, it seems

This letter from Captain Wayt shows how very different things were at MAFF back in the 60s. "Look at what MAFF's attitude was back in 1967 !
Take a guess at the outcome of having two cows that were on the same farm as the FMD diseased pigs that started the affair; consider also that these two cattle were moved to market before the farm was officially declared an Infected Place. Also be aware the two cattle were present with 1,963 other cattle in that market (who were free from disease) and that the two cattle were later moved back to the now officially declared FMD hit farm.
One would never guess MAFF officials would allow those 1,963 cattle to survive........... not even be placed under a "contiguous cull" order/warrant/classification...........or that they were "Dangerous Contacts"...........or Slaughter on Suspicion cases...........would you ?
Well back in 1967 the MAFF and the Vets on scene, and fully aware of what those two cattle went through did not kill those other animals in that market, even though they knew the FULL circumstances. Was that the correct decision ? The Northumberland Inquiry tells us, "None of the animals that had been in the market developed foot-and-mouth disease as a result of contact with animals from Bryn Farm."

June 12 ~ Throckmorton misery is costing 22 million pounds

According to the BBC report Throckmorton's burial pit cost could reach £22m "Monitoring at the burial site is to continue for 20 years.... Campaigners against the site, at Throckmorton in Worcestershire, claim the high costs indicate a continued blight on the area. A total of 133,000 animal carcasses were buried at nine pits dug at the old airfield site during last year's foot-and-mouth outbreak. Experts have already predicted that the burial ground will need to be monitored for up to 20 years to check for leakage. The government revealed the costs after being asked by the Conservative MP for Mid Worcestershire Peter Luff. The government announced last month that the former airbase would be used as a centre for asylum seekers. Mr Luff said: "There are dangers of environmental pollution, which are more real than perhaps we were led to believe. "It does put into account the demands of residents who can't sell their houses because of the existence of the burial site and the proposed asylum accommodation centre."
The Minister for Animal Health, Elliot Morley, revealed that £15.3m had been spent buying the site and establishing the burial facility. A further £3.3m was budgeted to pay for work on the site. Management and monitoring over the next 10 to 15 years will cost £4m, the minister said. "

June 11/12 ~"The UK Government blindly defended its contiguous cull policy throughout the crisis, and still does, stating it to be the approach that left most animals alive...."

"But when you consider that out of 810 farms taken out in Wales, only 61 had positive blood tests, this policy has to be questioned. .." says an excellent article in The Western Mail today.
We would state it even more dramatically. By multiplying the average number of animals killed per IP: (650) by the number of laboratory confirmed IPs: (1324) one arrives at the total 860,600 . Only these animals - or rather only some of them since their whole flock or herd companions were killed too - can be proved by lab tests really to have had foot and mouth. 860,600 out of how many million? DEFRA may still be hoping that 4 million will be believed to be the total killed " as a result of foot and mouth" but it would appear that the EU committee are accepting that even eleven million is only a conservative estimate.
That so many million healthy animals were killed - taken out as part of the contiguous cull around premises subsequently shown to have been wrongly diagnosed - demands an answer to the question - "in that case, why is the contiguous cull still being applauded as a great success by those who ignored the experts and forced its adoption?" For how much longer must we listen to the Kings, the Whittys and the Andersons congratulating themselves?

June 11/12 ~ If the non-veterinary scientists could only grapple with the significance of the FAILED slaughter targets, transmission of this strain of FMD and the significance of incubation times, we might get somewhere towards getting them to see that the contiguous cull was a tragic nonsense.

In the first 4 weeks of the crisis 10% only of IPs were culled within the target time of 24 hours (PQ5479)
Commentators don't seem to understand that a) the graph that appeared to be rising steeply and which justified "draconian measures" was very probably showing not new outbreaks from farm to farm spread, but newly discovered "old" cases that had been slowly incubating in sheep and rippling through the flock undetected. "New" outbreaks were not popping up unaccountably or spreading farm to farm out of control; they were incubating already and appearing as a result of their pre ban links with source infection.
b) As a result of the great delays in slaughter that Nick Brown admitted were a real problem, some may well have been being infected where infected cattle were not yet culled and were thus producing vast amounts of virus - a problem that would have been solved by using manpower properly and slaughtering within 24 hours rather than ignoring the problem and trying to kill more and more with fewer and fewer personel - with even greater delays .
c) When delays allow cattle to develop full blown FMD the lesions produce 100,000 to 500,000 times more virus. Delay is of crucial importance - yet it became worse and worse because they were wasting their time following a contiguous cull policy killing healthy animals. The modellers seemed to think that FMD was spreading out of control like some kind of forest fire and that this therefore necessitated "firebreaks" in the form of contiguous culls. FMD does not spread like that.

June 11/12 No Lessons can be Learned until the source of infection is identified for each IP (and 88% are still not identified)

When commentators such as Mark Woolhouse claim that "50% of new cases turned up in the immediate neighbourhood of previous cases." - and uses that statement to justify the frenzy of killing - those who accept this forget that, when considering the delay in slaughter times, the actual behaviour of the virus (Dr Donaldson's papers were ignored) and the fact that disease was incubating from contacts made before the movement ban came into operation (and no one is sure when the first cases were in Britain), even as many as 50% of the supposed "new" cases around IPs does not prove that the IPs were the "source". We can learn nothing of value about the whole sorry affair until the data is made public so that we see where the disease really was.

June 11 ~The BBC film In the Shadow"(BBC2 Scotland) not shown nationwide

in spite of the effforts of many to try to persuade the BBC that it was in the public interest that it should be, can now apparently be purchased. This is not what we had hoped for - but the film is nevertheless worth watching. See email just received.

June 11 ~"H M Government refused a Public Inquiry into FMD, which would have exposed the truth, including the origins of FMD,

but it blames the recent outbreak of FMD on waste food from imported meat arriving from countries where FMD is present. If imported infected meat was the culprit, why does it still allow such imports and why does it allow infected meat to lie exposed in landfill sites such as at John Acres Lane, Kingsteignton, Devon?
H M Government closed , WITHOUT COMPENSATION, the highly regulated food recycling plants which were cooking waste food and feeding it to pigs. As a result of this action, much of this food is ending up in landfill sites. This food is adding to the loading of these sites and is contrary to H M Government's International commitments to reduce volumes going to landfill. .." writes Robert Persey in this press release.

June 11 ~ "...the public want to know the facts, people want to know what the scientific advice is in full,

and they need to know that the public interest has always come first. They want to know if there was a relaxation of regulations which resulted in public safety being compromised...the whole sorry saga of how this matter has been handled has resulted in loss of public trust in government...The only way to begin to restore people's trust is therefore to be completely open about what the risks are."
Tony Blair, talking about the Conservative Government's handling of BSE, at the 1996 Campaign for Freedom of Information annual awards, 25th March.

June 11 ~ The Food Standards Agency (among others) to have powers to demand the communications records of every British telephone and internet user. Privacy rights swept aside.

Stuart Millar, technology correspondent of The Guardian writes today," Ministers were last night accused of conducting a systematic campaign to undermine the right to privacy as it emerged that a host of government departments, local councils and quangos are to be given the power to demand the communications records of every British telephone and internet user.
A draft order to be debated by MPs next Tuesday reveals that ministers want the list of organisations empowered to demand communications data to be expanded to include seven Whitehall departments, every local authority in the country, NHS bodies in Scotland and Northern Ireland, and 11 other public bodies ranging from the postal services commission to the food standards agency. Until now, the list included only police forces, the intelligence services, customs and excise and the inland revenue...."
This is arrogant centralisation run completely mad. Why should government departments, who are themselves permeated with a culture of secrecy and paranoia, be permitted to pry into all aspects of personal life while answering to no one? We do indeed live in strange times.

June 10/11 ~ EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT TEMPORARY COMMITTEE ON FOOT AND MOUTH DISEASE

Preliminary Draft Programme For the visit of a delegation of the temporary committee to Wales, Devon and Gloucestershire From Wednesday 19 June to Saturday 22 June 2002

June 10 ~ "If anyone wonders why the public gets paranoid about what commercial organisations are prepared to do to make a profit and has little faith in our governments' ability and willingness to protect us, they need only consider the implications of this snippet."

"GM is such an emotive area, the scientific realities so hard for most of us to understand, that if they wanted to write a play illustrating the potential dangers they should not have muddied the waters by turning it into a thriller at all " The Times' review by Paul Hoggart of the weekend's BBC thriller "Fields of Gold" (not to be confused with the wholly admirable Fields of Fire above) review seemed to us fair. Paul Hoggart begins by reminding us of Channel Four's Beef Encounter, a digest of the Phillips Report on the BSE crisis, shown in 2000 "..... one passing detail, I recall, briefly stopped the narrative in its tracks. A key government committee had been informed that a large proportion of abattoirs were simply ignoring the safety procedures that should have protected us from eating infected beef. The committee decided, it was reported, not to discuss this matter. No explanation. No justification. No further investigation.
If anyone wonders why the public gets paranoid about what commercial organisations are prepared to do to make a profit and has little faith in our governments' ability and willingness to protect us, they need only consider the implications of this snippet. " and then went on to say, " ... The writers mounted vigorous defences of their work, claiming that the reaction was a knee-jerk response prompted by a pro-GM industry lobby. Denials and counter-denials have been flying past like tennis balls (though it is likely that even this negative pre-publicity will have helped the ratings). I have now watched the drama twice. Having got past the annoyance of knowing that much of the science was inaccurate, if not downright ludicrous, I actually enjoyed it more the second time around."
On the other hand, we found the review by Matt Ridley in the Telegraph somewhat shrill. It called the programme "propaganda". More reasonable targets for the charge of propaganda would surely be the Bivings Group or the Science Media Centre , funded by the big bio-tech and GM companies, and which was launched in December to help "sceptical and impatient journalists" get their stories right.

June 10 ~ Support of Local Abattoirs

" This meeting urges HM Government to support existing small abattoirs and to promote the reestablishment of local abattoirs, in order to minimise stress to animals, reduce the risk and spread of disease, and encourage the availability of locally produced meat" was one of two resolutions passed overwhelmingly at the National Federation of Women's Institutes (NFWI) at their Intermediate General Meeting in Brighton on 6 June 2002. ( notes about the meeting) See also an article by Caroline Cranbrook about the importance for the British Countryside of a revitalised livestock industry. It concludes, "Government can facilitate recovery by implementing the recommendations of the Curry Report in full, by supporting the essential infrastructure of local abattoirs, by stopping unnecessary regulation and by ensuring major purchasers, such as the Armed Forces, hospitals, schools, local authorities and other institutions adopt procurement policies to buy British meat. The retailers can return to local sourcing."

June 9 ~ "I have been greatly concerned by the way in which some members of the profession conducted themselves during the 2001 outbreak of foot and mouth disease"

and that I have been trying to persuade the College that it must offer its members protection against the power of the State when it acts unfairly, unethically or illegally.
Our members must be able to turn to their employers and say "if I do that, then I could be brought before the RCVS"
Sadly the College has chosen not to defend our members, but to side with those people who carried out the illegal culling policy last year.
The College in the form of the PIC has accepted the defence that: "Vets were observing DEFRA/MAFF policy current at the time and so there is no evidence that such conduct amounts to serious professional misconduct".
Some people might say that such a defence was rejected by a court in Germany more that 50 years ago. "
Roger Windsor. MBE. MA (Cantab), BSc (Edin) BVM&S, MRCVS. has resigned from the RCVS Disciplinary Committee. Full details from Farmtalking.org

June 9 ~"I thought the duty of the Chief Scientist's Group was to ensure that public funds get channelled into impartial research projects

which furthered the best interests of agriculture, animal health, food safety, human health, etc - NOT to protect the commercial interests of multinational corporations. It makes me wonder whose payroll these officials are really on...." Some startling correspondence, obtained via Data Protection by Mark Purdey, reveals some underhand dealing in the attempts made to stifle his research into BSE/CJD.

June 9 ~ "Missing words in the law let farm virus run rife"

From Booker's Notebook, Sunday Telegraph "A remarkable document supplied to the European Parliament's foot and mouth inquiry reveals highly embarrassing evidence as to why last year the British Government could not accept the advice of a battery of international experts to use vaccination to halt the epidemic within weeks.
Hidden away in documents given the inquiry by the agriculture minister, Lord Whitty, is an admission that, when ministry officials came to consider vaccination last year, they discovered that the Government did not have the power to order a vaccination programme, thanks to a blunder by civil servants 20 years earlier.
In 1981, when Parliament passed the Animal Health Act giving the Government powers to tackle animal diseases, civil servants copied out the relevant passage from the 1970 Agriculture Act, but forgot to include the crucial words providing powers of entry necessary to carry out a vaccination programme. This meant that, in 2001, compulsory vaccination had to be ruled out, because there would not have been time to rush through the necessary new Act.
This admission proved so embarrassing that Lord Whitty omitted the relevant page in documents made available to MPs and peers, although he included it in the 60 pages of answers to questions from the EU Parliament inquiry.
The discovery of this oversight also helps explain the Government's anxiety to force through its new Animal Health Bill, halted by the Lords in March. This of course included the powers which, if available in February 2001, might have saved the country £12 billion.

June 9 ~ Gorse and bracken spreading rapidly in the ungrazed Brecon Beacons

"grazed landscape is seriously under threat" it says on your site tonight, " writes Margaret. "Should we be surprised at this, bearing in mind that most of the millions of animals slaughtered last year were grazing animals? By the time DEFRA have followed through the scrapie plan, the whole countryside should be well on the way back to the dark ages.
A friend of mine who is an environmental botanist has been studying the effects of the lack of sheep on the Brecon Beacons and she told me that the gorse and bracken are spreading rapidly."

June 8/9 ~ ".. he jousted with farmers and the media through the foot and mouth crisis. "He was great to work for,"

We are still rubbing our eyes at this article in today's Guardian about Ruth Kelly, now financial secretary to the Treasury. One would be forgiven for mistaking it for page 3 of the Sun both for its tone and its vocabulary..." At just 34, Kelly is startlingly young to be a minister of state, and she admits she was "very surprised" to be called to Number 10, as Tony Blair seized the opportunity of Stephen Byers' ignominious resignation to bring forward a number of fresh-faced young ministers. Mostly though, she says she was just "thrilled". Although she won't take over Paul Boateng's portfolio as she steps into his shoes, she will be able to appoint her own parliamentary private secretary, and draw a minister of state's salary of almost £90,000. ......
Kelly's parliamentary career began as Labour finally broke into government after 18 long years of opposition - and she recalls her role in their landslide victory with obvious pride. "It was an absolutely wonderful experience," she smiles. ....
And although she doesn't fit the stereotype of a "Blair babe", arriving in parliament with a record number of women made it easier to settle in. "I had expected to be entering this male bastion, but 50% of the new backbench intake were women, and I made lots of friends."
In that first term, Kelly did a stint on the treasury select committee, scrutinising the activities of the department she now helps to run. She was then chosen by agriculture minister Nick Brown to be his PPS - a job which meant supporting him while he jousted with farmers and the media through the foot and mouth crisis. "He was great to work for," she recalls, and remembers admiring Nick Brown's willingness to walk right into groups of protesting farmers to discuss the issues with them face to face. "
We were not surprised to receive this sourly sceptical email from Pat Gardiner on the subject of Mr Nick Brown's "willingness" to meet farmers.

June 8/9 ~ The GM debate is highly relevant to the Foot and Mouth debate

because both are being denied proper debate or democratic scrutiny. Scientists should be socially, ethically and ecologically accountable. The big biotech and pharmaceutical companies are very powerful and are becoiming adept at discrediting those who question their ethics. If British scientists can only further their careers by protecting the vested interests of big business we are in trouble. As Alan Rushberger says in the article quoted below, "We have in this country a prime minister who dismisses sceptics about the new technologies as Luddites and a science minister with an extensive personal and financial interest (held in trust) in biotechnology." We have also a government that seems oddly desperate to see GM agriculture adopted in Britain and one that has stonewalled all attempts at getting a proper public inquiry into the foot and mouth crisis. Both issues underline the need - more urgent than ever before - to protect scientific independence, and to fund the kind of science that genuinely benefits society as a whole. "Horizontal gene transfer" doesn't quite trip off the tongue as easily as "feeding the world" in the debate on GM crops.. The BBC drama, Fields of Gold, being broadcast this weekend, portrays the health risks of GM crops. "It was subjected to astonishing attacks and vilification orchestrated from within the heart of the scientific establishment. Why? Because the drama suggests that antibiotic resistant genes could jump species from crops to animals and humans, leading to an outbreak of a "superbug". This is horizontal gene transfer, genes going across species barriers, a taboo subject among proponents of GM crops. But it does happen..." (See this article by Dr Mae-Wan Ho)

June 8/9 ~ "The latest advances in biotechnology are way beyond our comprehension"

"If Fields of Gold is making some people nervous it will be because it has taken the bare bones of the scientific predicament and projected it dramatically in a way which will - if it succeeds - engage a mass audience and make them question the issues behind it.
That is an alarming prospect for those who would rather have restricted this debate to a small elite. It explains why Monsanto was offered early copies of the drama and why people at the highest levels of government are known to be anxious about the fall-out.
And it explains why the Science Media Centre, extensively backed by the biotech and pharmaceutical industries, mimicked some of the clumsiest spin techniques of New Labour in trying to discredit it in advance. Viewers will make up their own minds after seeing both programmes. As a journalist straying for the first time from the printed word, it has been a fascinating illustration of the power of drama, even in prospect." (From the Guardian article by Fields of Gold co-author and Guardian editor Alan Rusbridger)

June 8 ~ DEFRA, in the person of Mr David Mouat, hoped to convince the international FMD conference in Lyon that "most infected premises were culled within 24 hours and their associated contiguous and dangerous contact cases were then culled within 48 hours." (See below)

This was true of the 1967 outbreak but woefully untrue for 2001 - and it is inconceivable that Mr Mouat should not have known that. In 1967 for the epidemic as a whole 72% of IPs and dangerous contacts were slaughtered within 24 hrs and 97 % within 48 hrs. (What's more, in 1967 the classification of dangerous contacts was much tighter, and the number of premises culled far less.) In 2001 on the other hand, the answer toParliamentary Question 5479 shows just how far short of the target slaughter times fell. Figures were supplied for only 1444 of the IPs. Data is missing for 582 - when will it be forthcoming?. Very urgent and serious questions need to be asked now about the significance of the delays in slaughter, given the lack of Foot and Mouth experience of the modellers and Science Group and their subsequent actions in instigating the contiguous cull - a policy which seems now to have been as illegal, heartbreaking and horrifying as it was unnecessary.

June 8 ~ South.Korea's foot-and-mouth outbreak - vaccination to be "stepped -up"

The first case of a cow suffering from foot-and-mouth disease has been discovered and 135 cattle will be destroyed to try to contain the epidemic. As Reuters reports,"Previously, only pigs had been confirmed as having the highly contagious livestock disease.... The ministry has found 13 cases of foot-and-mouth in pigs and has killed around 117,000 cattle and pigs to try to contain the disease ...... 'We have received a report that a cow showed a similar symptom to foot-and-mouth disease yesterday and the tests showed the cow was positive,' a ministry official, Han Jong-hyun, said by telephone Sixty-nine cattle suspected of being infected were destroyed on Friday night and the rest of the 135 would be culled on Saturday, Han said. Affected farms, in the province of Ansung near the capital, Seoul, have all been within a 3 km radius of the first infected pig farm, ministry officials said.
During the World Cup, hundreds of thousands of tourists are criss-crossing the country to 10 venue cities.
Authorities will step up a vaccination programme and discuss further slaughters to contain the disease, officials said."

June 7 ~ An email from a British farmer observer of the Lyon conference on FMD last weekend

Extract: "... though it pains me to have to say it, the Britsh position was seen to be fatuous in the extreme (not least as DEFRA were seen to be incapable of presenting accurate Data to the World's policy makers, despite commitments to transparency and open information sharing -- which fact alone brought home the real costs of the policy --- abandonment of democratic decency, honesty and the rule of law - and for what?) I think it's safe to say that the pressure is really on for validation."

June 7 ~ "Slaughter of animals cannot remain the only answer to these serious diseases, particularly when, as in the case of scrapie, they have no effect on human health."

The Honest Food Report of the core stakeholder group on BSE and sheep ".....We are disturbed by the proposed campaign of warnings and messages that will be based on vague scientific knowledge and, as the report says several times, no evidence of disease, but which can start a certain panic in consumers. This could be particularly true of parents of babies and young children, who are necessarily more anxious. It is true the vCJD has more often struck down young people and is, therefore, a particularly tragic disease. It is also true that vCJD is "100% unacceptable to the family concerned " (does this mean that other diseases that strike down children and young people or accidents that kill them are in some way acceptable to families?). However, it is also true that a theoretical risk does not kill. What will be achieved by vaguely worded warnings that will, nevertheless, disturb people without having any basis in scientific evidence?
We are also disturbed by the proposed removal of sheep intestine from the food chain. As it is clear from the report, there is no need for this - this is action for the sake of action. However, as mentioned above, action on the basis of theoretical risk can result in practical hardship, in this case to specialist producers, whose businesses depend on availability of sheep intestine. "

June 6/7 ~ The change in the rules for the regaining of FMD free status, so quietly brought in last week by the OIE, is cause for at least two cheers.

It is a fairly major step. We now have a 3 month wait for Disease Free Status after "stamping out" - so the difference between vaccination and stamping out has been reduced from a 9 months to a 3 months difference.
This really demonstrates that there is no reason for there to be any difference at all.
Is not killing animals when there is a vaccine available grotesque? Who can argue that it is not?
What is needed now is that the UK and EU get on and validate and authorise the use of the specific vaccines and NSP tests so that vaccination can be adopted. And for some reason this just hasn't been done.
Why is the political will and the necessary funding and resources not forthcoming? Once again we are left wondering about motives. Warmwell would gladly publish any valid scientific or veterinary reason for the delay in validation. Indeed, we challenge anyone to produce a valid reason. Please do tell us what it can possibly be.

June 6 ~ Can our Members of Parliament really be so ill-informed?

Here is part of an email sent by a blandly reassuring MP and received by a constituent who is now more worried than ever to see how little her MP understands....
"The TSE (England) Regulations 2002 were introduced on 19th April, 2002 to bring us in line with current EU requirements which came into force last year for the protection of human and animal health and specifically to eliminate BSE. The Regulations were debated in the House of Lords on 15th May, 2002. There were amendments agreed resulting in the TSE (England) (Amendment) Regulations 2002 which came into force on 27th May, 2002. These include an undertaking by the Government that representations can be made against a notice of intended slaughter of animals....."
How many more of our elected public servants are unaware that the Statutary Instrument does NOT "bring us in line with current EU requirements"? It goes much further than the EU regulation, which only speaks of the need to monitor animals suspected of having TSE or suspected of having been in contact with TSE The UK statutory instrument, on the other hand, refers repeatedly to "TSE susceptible" animals. There is no known test for TSE on living animals; all those deemed to be susceptible (i.e. virtually all animals) would have to be slaughtered. The inspectors thus acquire very extensive powers and there is virtually no appeal for the farmer or animal owner. Powers of entry given to inspectors were exactly the ones in the Animal Health Bill that so alarmed us and so alarmed the House of Lords that they caused the Bill to be thrown out. (See Dr Helen Szamuely's paper on the Statutory Instrument.) Our Members of Parliament appear to have been as badly hoodwinked as the media and the animal owners themselves. The seriousness of this however should not be underestimated - and the failure of so many MPs to read the small print gives cause for grave concern.

June 6 ~ "Agriculture is an essential core industry to Britain, which this Government is hell-bent on punishing

or destroying to appease those organisations whose interests are directly opposed to its technical and business development to feed the nation.
The public are confused about the fiction being spread but they should be informed of the facts.
Farmers should put aside their differences and campaign for a British agriculture policy for Britain. The Government should be put out to grass, starting with Margaret Beckett." Letter in today's Times

June 5 ~ Received from OIE

"The attached revised Animal Health Code chapter on FMD was adopted at the General Session last week. " Recovery of free status ....... " c) 6 months after the last case or the last vaccination (according to the event that occurs the latest), where a stamping-out policy, emergency vaccination not followed by the slaughtering of all vaccinated animals, and serological surveillance are applied, provided that a serological survey based on the detection of antibodies to nonstructural proteins of FMDV demonstrates the absence of infection in the remaining vaccinated population."
It is one small step - but hardly a giant leap - towards common sense and humanity.

June 5 ~ Interesting to read that the taxpayer is funding TSE research to the tune of £22 million between 1999 and 2004

"..... TSE research across the spectrum from basic biological studies, through to applied clinical research, epidemiology and risk assessment. Overall, more than 50 expert scientists are currently working on 26 projects in locations throughout the UK to gain a better understanding of TSE disease, to assess the danger it poses, and to work out how it might be tackled.
Molecular genetic studies, animal models, and molecular and cellular functional analysis are among the tools being used to investigate: The relationship beween vCJD and BSE, and human prion disease susceptibility. Inter-mammalian species barriers to prion transmission The mechanism of TSE transmission, abnormal prion replication, and disease progression. The molecular structure of normal and disease-causing prions and the biological function of normal prions. Approaches to earlier diagnosis and to therapy...." and on it goes. How many taxpayers would be happy to know exactly what goes on in some of these laboratories remains to be seen. It is a lucrative business - as can be seen from this .pdf file on the MRC site....but none of the 22 million can be spared to enable Mark Purdey to carry out his researches. That his quest for truth, like ours at warmwell, has to be self-financed from very limited resources would appear to be the way of the world.

June 5 ~ David Maclean MP, former junior agriculture minister has spoken on the final day of the Carlisle Inquiry

"Mr Maclean, MP for Penrith and the Borders produced a pile, almost two inches thick, of letters, press releases and faxes he had fired off to the media, ministers, officials and prime minister Tony Blair as his desperation mounted at the government's slow response to the crisis.
He said that, during the 1967 foot-and-mouth outbreak, the Ministry of Agriculture was a dictatorship but, after the BSE crisis, Maff was permeated with the need to consult others and seek advice.
He said: "There was a complete inability to move from peace-time to war-time.
"Only the Army could do it - that was their speciality. A sword had hung over Maff - now known as Defra - for years and the ministry wanted to prove it could handle the crisis in-house." see report

June 4/5 ~ Highly Misleading Information given by DEFRA to the International Conference in Lyon 2nd - 5th June 2002

We read in a communication from Jon Dobson of the FMD Forum that "David Mouat, from the Exotic Diseases Division of DEFRA stood in for the absent Jim Scudamore and stated that the farmer for the first case officially identified in the UK in Heddon on the Wall, had been found guilty of failing to report Foot and Mouth and was to be prosecuted later in the month. He also stated that most infected premises were culled within 24 hours and their associated contiguous and dangerous contact cases were then culled within 48 hours.
David Mouat also stated that the official figures for culling were just above 4 million. However, there was some dispute over the accuracy of these figures; some members of the audience stating that the Meat and Livestock Commission had a figure of 10,791,000 animals which had been confirmed before by DEFRA. "
We are astonished if David Mouat's assertion about "most" slaughter times was that stated above. It is just not true that slaughter times were 24/48."The Secretary of State recently confirmed that the average time between a report of foot and mouth disease and the disposal of livestock over the course of the outbreak was 105 hours, a figure which rose to 130 hours at the height of the outbreak, between February and May." (Efra Committee report) It is difficult to believe that Mr Mouat should not know that and we feel that either his assertion has been wrongly reported or he is simply lying.

June 4/5 ~ DEFRA's official yearbook called "Agriculture in the United Kingdom 2001" says:"the total number of animals slaughtered for disease control purposes was 4,082,000" and that too is a lie.

It says that the total number of animals slaughtered for welfare reasons (sic - "welfare reason" had nothing to do with the animal's welfare and everything to do with irresponsible disease control policy) for the year 2001 was 2,046,000. A further 526,000 were slaughtered under the Light Lambs Scheme.
Nonsense.
The Meat and Livestock Commission's conservative figure of 10,791,000 was accepted in January by a DEFRA spokesman and reported in the Telegraph on January 23rd 2002

June4/5 ~ Re: Fight the vitamin directive. Drug companies have too tight a hold - and we CAN do something about it.

The Medicine Controls Agency (MCA) is pushing the proposed traditional herbal medicinal products directive (THMPD) through at breakneck speed, and with as little consultation as they can get away with.
The THMPD is deeply flawed and fails to meet the minister's stated objectives. The Directive will, for purely political reasons, adversely affect consumers, retailers and many manufacturers. We are going to lose a huge number of safe and popular products that have been on sale in Britain for years.
Warmwell would encourage all consumers to write letters to their MP and to their MEPs To find out who your UK Member of Parliament (MP) is click here
To find out who your Members of the European Parliament (MEP) are click here
There is nothing like snail mail to convince them that you were prepared to go to some time and trouble to write to them. You can write to your MP at:
The House of Commons
London SW1A 0AA

You can write to your MEP at:  The European Parliament
Rue Wiertz
0147 Brussels
Many MPs and MEPs also have email addresses which are available through the links above.

June 4 ~ " The foot-and-mouth crisis was like a waking nightmare, with one horror story after another. We all have terrible tales to tell of suffering and misery caused to both farmers and their livestock."

FUW's Bob Parry was paying tribute to the resilience of farmers and the hard work of the union's staff during the crisis. He said crisis was an over-used word but "an understatement to describe the hell that we, and everyone in the countryside, have endured because of the foot-and-mouth disease". According to the Western Mail, Mr Parry said he believed the only way to ensure a disaster on that scale never happened again was to prepare fully and learn the lessons from the experience. A full public inquiry into the outbreak, he said, was the only way and accused the Tony Blair of running scared. "He is frightened that a public inquiry will expose incompetence and inefficiency at the heart of Westminster. "He would rather cloud the issue by having a series of inquiries held behind doors so that government mistakes during the crisis can be buried alongside the six million rotting carcasses of sheep, cattle and pigs - with only a glossy, pro-government spin put on the final report that is made public." ........
Some of us who remember Mr Parry's and the FUW's apparent enthusiasm for the contiguous cull over vaccination are a little puzzled by some of this. Is Mr Parry now hunting with the hounds?

June 4 ~ Mark Purdey writes, "whenever I have managed to get the odd experiment conducted by a lateral thinking scientist, it produces yet more positive results which supports the theory.

Despite getting these works published in good peer reviewed journals, the Establishment and their media spin doctors just ignore it. It just betrays the fact that the authorities are hooked onto a mindset agenda. I have several issues outstanding with DEFRA...... In this respect, media exposure is my only way of getting daylight shed over some of their outrageous techniques, and unfortunately the media seem strangely reluctant to publish anything which threatens government credibility these days - even if you have 100 % concrete evidence of their insidious activities.
Via the personal data protection act, I am actually in possession of correspondence between the chemical industry and MAFF officials (from the chief scientist's grant department ) which openly discuss how best to discredit my work. They jointly plan an experiment ( deliberately designed so it could never prove my work positive ) to be funded by public money to discredit me.
I also have correspondence between Michael Meacher's own officials who are openly discussing how best to put Michael Meacher off his repeated requests for a personal meeting with me. These communications are humorous in that they really have to search for credible reasons to put Michael Meacher off - eg, they say I am inarticulate, too heavy going, not trained in public speaking, and how my work is sub judice..........
To my amazement, I could not get anyone in the media to run a story on this. Ten years ago it would have been front paged. Journalists failed to identify the outrageous implications of their content." Mark Purdey's email to warmwell.

June 4 ~ Wrong Question

Robert Ulig's article in the Telegraph today reports that 94% of those questioned want GM products clearly labelled. "Nineteen out of every 20 shoppers want foods containing genetically modified ingredients to be labelled as such, according to a survey by the Consumers' Association. The finding comes after the Government's clearest indication yet that it is having second thoughts about the benefits of GM food production....."
It will not have escaped many that the question was being asked. The right question is: how many shoppers want GM food when there are still so many unanswered questions?

June 2 ~ Science is far too important to be left to the politicians or to a science establishment in bed with big business

The Science Media Centre, funded by the big bio-tech and GM companies was launched in December to help "sceptical and impatient journalists" get their stories right. It identified "animal research, cloning and genetically modified food" as particular concerns. Today's story in the Observer reveals that it was the Science Media Centre who have tried to undermine the BBC play Fields of Gold's credentials. 'In orchestrating their unpleasant campaign to denigrate the programme-makers, they are confirming the suspicions of those who have legitimate concerns about how and why the new technologies have been developed,' the play's writer, Ronan Bennett told The Observer.
Similarly, George Monbiot has identified the Bivings Group, a PR company contracted to Monsanto, who... invented fake citizens to post messages on internet listservers. These phantoms had launched a campaign to force Nature magazine to retract a paper it had published, alleging that native corn in Mexico had been contaminated with GM pollen. But this, it now seems, is just one of hundreds of critical interventions with which PR companies hired by big business have secretly guided the biotech debate over the past few years.
We read now that, under pressure form Friends of the Earth, Mrs Beckett has announced two separate investigations into the viability of GM crops and whether the technology would affect Britain's booming organic sector by examining the separation distances between GM and conventional crops. The new inquiries will be carried out by Professor David King, the government's chief scientific advisor, and chief scientific advisor to the Department of Environment, Professor Howard Dalton. ..... Perhaps Prof King will remember that he thought the FMD virus - that does not, unlike pollen, have airborne spread of more than a few yards - had to be ruthlessly eliminated from all contiguous premises. Will he feel that GM pollen, that can travel miles, should be freely allowed to grow within close distances of conventional crops?

June 2 ~ Animal Disease Control is only part of a much murkier picture

We read in a report by Mae-Wan Ho and Jonathan Mathews "The BSE report..... places much of the blame on persistent government denials based on the 'best scientific advice'. The 'best scientific advice' has, of course, all too often been badly mistaken. Dr. Arpad Pusztai's revelation that the GM potatoes tested in his laboratory might not be safe resulted in Pusztai losing his job and was he was "gagged". Pro-biotech scientists and Fellows of the UK Royal Society vented their collective ire and condemnation. Sir Robert May, the then UK Government's Chief Scientific Officer, said Pusztai had violated every canon of scientific rectitude. Pusztai's grave misconduct was to 'spill the beans' before the scientific findings went through the proper peer-review process, causing undue public alarm and damaging the biotech industry. His integrity as a scientist was called into question. The Royal Society has never condemned the suppression of scientific evidence by the industry. For example, Monsanto withheld data from studies on rats which showed that feeding rBGH elicited antibodies to the hormone and the males developed cysts on the thymus and abnormalities in the prostate gland. Despite all that, rBGH milk is still being sold unlabelled in the US today." Is warmwell.com alone in seeing a correlation here with the suppression of the truth about FMD vaccination and the quashing of the trials at the beginning of the FMD crisis of the USDA/Tetrachore rapid diagnosis test? Instead, the UK authorities chose to kill first and ask ques