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Warmwell.com

an unfunded, politically independent website for the benefit of everyone advocating common sense and humanity in animal disease control.
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ARCHIVE JULY 2002

Aug 10 ~ Reform of the House of Lords has slipped into the clutches of spin doctors.

(Telegraph Opinion) In a recent newspaper interview, Lord Williams, the Leader of the House, spoke of weeding out the elderly by setting a retirement age and offering a pension.
Next, it seems, those who sit in the House of Lords are to forfeit their titles. There has been political chatter about dropping the prefix "Lord" and substituting the most modest suffix of ML (Member of the Lords). On the Lords website, this chatter is turned into reality. The prefix has been dropped, the suffix is in use. All this without serious discussion or debate.
....Once a Member of the Upper House becomes Bill Snooks ML, the way has been paved for the Prime Minister to appoint as many Snookses as he likes to the Upper House without the encumbrance of a title, and to call a whole load of other petitioners "Lord X" without giving them space on the red benches. The door to cronyism will be open wide. (See Democracy Watch)

Aug 10 ~ " New Labour has shown itself to be horribly old Labour in its often visceral distaste for the countryside"

Max Hastings writing in the Spectator "... I do not think the Blair government the worst in living memory(but)........its left-wingers ... are being thrown the bone of harrying and tormenting the old rural classes.
.....You and I know that the countryside is not about toffs, but a lot of New Labour still thinks it is. Its grandees even stay away from the Chelsea Flower Show, because they scent a whiff of toffery about the occasion. .... the agricultural issue is the least susceptible to ready government solution. .... The most useful supportive measure government could take is to enforce the same regulatory regime on all food imports that British farmers are obliged to implement. .... Such figures as Mrs Margaret Beckett and Mr Elliot Morley simply do not know enough about the countryside to work sympathetically with it. ....
... Yet all of us, new Britain and old, will suffer the consequences if green England -- and, above all, green southern England -- is allowed to disappear, and if its traditional way of life is stamped out. I am one of those who still wants Tony Blair's government to succeed. If he fails, there is no credible opposition to replace him. But some of us will find it impossible to forgive Mr Blair if his most enduring legacy is the destruction of rural England." (Read the full article on the "Best of the Press" page)

Aug 10 ~ day of protest on hold

The organisers of the day of protest planned for Monday (12 August) are calling for farmers to stay at home following exemptions to the 20-day standstill rule for breeding sheep and cattle. ( Defra says sheep and cattle used for breeding this season, which go into a strict on-farm isolation facility for 20 days on arrival, will not lock up the rest of the farm.) Jonathan Barber, spokesman for the anonymous group behind the threatened protest, said that if anomalies were not ironed out or if the new rules were not in place, as promised, during the first week of September a protest might be back on. "We should hold back on Monday, but hold back subject to what is released and what anomalies are removed," he said. Of particular concern is that while breeding rams and bulls will qualify for the exemption if they are returned unsold from a market, the same does not apply for breeding females. Female sheep and cattle will only be allowed to be kept in isolation facilities without locking up the rest of the farm if they come from another farm or market. Mr Barber said that was totally illogical and was something that needed to be resolved. "If these illogicalities aren't removed then farmers won't take this on board at all." (See FWi report)

Aug 9 ~"..there are many people like me who have watched DEFRA manipulate data and refuse to answer reasonable questions over the last 12 months.."

See Nicola Morris' correspondence with the National Audit Office - who apparently swallowed some of the manipulated data and wave away any urgently expressed concern about the misleading nature of some of their statements.

Aug 9 ~ "..the announcement was widely regarded as a cynical 11th-hour attempt to stave off a national day of action by farmers on Monday.

(Western Morning News and North Devon Journal) "And it was not known last night whether the protest, which threatened to blockade motorways and main roads and disrupt the businesses of major supermarkets, would go ahead.
"For Westcountry farmers and businessmen still trying to recover from last year's crisis, the partial lifting of the 20-day movement rule did not go far enough.
Anthony Gibson, regional director of the South West National Farmers' Union, said: "..... "This is certainly not the end of the story. The new regime will still discriminate against the auction markets and it remains to be seen how costly and complicated it may be to obtain approval for isolation facilities."

Aug 9 ~ "The Drummond Report will make you mad when you read it. It is so relevant.... Feb 1999..."

writes an emailer today. The Drummond report can be read here. He went on, "if that had been printed - instead of Lessons Learnt and The Royal Society reports - we would have saved a few quid and had just as good a report out of it. Hundreds of pages and thousands of pounds less....."

Aug 9 ~ A proper investigation into CSF would be bound to throw light on the origins of FMD ...

...and of MAFF's reactions to both."
An email today gives detailed information about "The cover-up by MAFF ..... They suppressed links between the infected farms and mainland China. They suppressed links between BSE and many of the individuals and companies involved. The owners of the pigs at the first dozen or so farms infected also owned agricultural companies in mainland China (and elsewhere abroad) .... included pig farms..... MAFF and some non-MAFF members of the RCVS. ....... have been guilty of a number of criminal offences to protect their clients (and their own backs) . Some of these offences would have brought gaol sentences in the US."

Aug 9 ~ "...will remain in place until permanent rules are brought into force early next year. "

See Spin Alert for the wearyingly predictable mix of spin, threats and misinformation in the DEFRA press release about the 20 day rule. Like an incompetent and angry schoolmaster, Elliott Morley tells farmers they are being treated with " trust" and then threatens them with fines and imprisonment - and ludicrously and inaccurately uses both Inquiry reports and "long-running working discussions with industry stakeholders" to try to justify the unjustifiable.

Aug 9 ~ Which vets and scientists say so?

"Animal welfare minister Elliott Morley said there was clear scientific and veterinary advice that the rule was the best way of detecting and slowing down a future outbreak." See article in the Farmers' Weekly Interactive But this is to imply that the advice is to stick to 20 days. There are many non-Defra vets and scientists - even those who favour some sort of standstill - who would say that 20 days is far too long and is unworkable. This country must be governed by consent. Rules only work if the majority of people accept them as sensible. Rules that are widely perceived to be flawed, or irrelevant to the individual, are destined to be widely ignored - with the result that they become unenforceable.

Aug 9 ~ 20 day standstill is tinkered with - just enough to confuse

As one emailer put it, "Carlton were already running an item on a sheep farmer packing in after FMD and all the other regulations and saying that the 21 day standstill was absolutely untenable - and he described DEFRA as the worst parasite affecting agriculture - he also said that the aftermath of FMD and years of bureaucracy had destroyed any faith in the Ministry. They suddenly cut in from the studio to say that in the last half hour the 21 day standstill had been dropped."
The emailer spoke too soon. In fact, it seems that the Ministry is saying that the standstill remains, but there will be more exemptions, including allowing for quarantine. Farming Today this morning had a similar report. It is not known where Carlton got the idea that the 21 day standstill had been dropped.
We are sorry to have added to the confusion for those who saw our earlier report. See Defra's statement - which purports to be written in English. Plain, it is not.

Aug 9 ~ Where is the honest broker who can draw all the strands together?

From all sides we are hearing deep concern about the way the Royal Society's recommendations and its deep criticisms of the contiguous cull - although clear to those who understand - are not stated with enough clarity. Was this out of a tactful consideration or was political pressure brought to bear? As for the Lessons Learned Report, there are still far too many unanswered questions, and criticism that the report was a whitewash cannot be discounted. There really ought to be a way forward that includes the chairmen and panel members of the inquiries, DEFRA vets and civil servants, scientists and informed stakeholders in open and public debate.

Aug 9 ~" I am sorry if I sound irritated by your reply to my letter: there are many people like me who have watched DEFRA manipulate data and refuse to answer reasonable questions over the last 12 months;

we had high hopes that NAO would not be fooled by many of DEFRA's explanations. On the face of it, it appears that you have been fooled." Nicola Morris had written to the NAO to show how the assertion in their report that '78% of infected premises confirmed on clinical grounds tested positive on laboratory test was simply not true.
Her statistical evidence came from JCC at Defra itself - and she reminded the NAO that, while clinical diagnosis of FMD is notoriously difficult, laboratory testing is straightforward and accurate. In support of this, she quoted Alex Donaldson's words in front of the EFRA committee in April 2001. On receipt over a month later, of a reply explaining away her serious concerns she immediately wrote again to Stewart Lingard at the NAO.
"The fact is that, from the published data that I have, we can say that the scale of unnecessary slaughter in this epidemic was unprecedented:
• 10509 farms were slaughtered, but on less than 13% of these farms was laboratory evidence of foot and mouth disease found. Laboratory testing is accepted to be at least 90% accurate (IAH Pirbright). in this epidemic of the truly infected farms visible signs of disease were found 4-7 days after exposure to the virus (Jim Scudamore EFRA select committee 21/03/01).
• 8226 premises thought to have been exposed to virus were culled as a precautionary measure. Many of these farms were not laboratory tested, but delays in slaughter (due to lack of resources) were such that up to 95% of these farms were slaughtered 7 or more days after possible exposure to FMD virus.
We can therefore say with some certainty that by the time slaughter occurred on nearly 8000 farms if animals on these farms had been exposed to foot and mouth virus visible signs of disease would have been apparent.
We can conclude that in this epidemic up to 5 million adult animals were slaughtered unnecessarily."

Aug 9 ~ "The government are in no doubt that much of the contiguous cull was illegal,"

we were told on the telephone by a politician last night. We agree - and feel more sure than ever that this simple fact explains why the Animal Health bill, making its unwelcome reappearance on 7/8 October in the House of Lords, will similarly attempt to airbrush away the criminal waste that characterised the 2001 FMD policy. The bill, attempting to harness the fear most politicians have come to feel about the political fallout from animal disease, will insist that the Ministry from now on may legally adopt any animal disease control measures it likes on the grounds of "susceptibility" alone. It is a loathsome piece of legislation whose hidden agenda - beneath all the spin, hypocrisy and spurious scientific and veterinary justification - is to save the government's face by conferring a retrospective legality on the excesses of last year.

Aug 8 ~ "...DEFRA are already considering the LLI Report and the RS Report on FMD and selectively choosing which policies it wishes to take forward."

NFMG have written urgently to David Lidington. "We have grave misgivings regarding the LLI report regarding future control measures. The report has left the way open to use the extensive slaughter and contiguous cull measures again.
.....we are extremely concerned at the way the Inquiry dealt with consideration of the slaughter/cull polices. The Inquiry did not call any expert witnesses to provide counter balance to the Government's defence of these policies, nor did the Inquiry have regard to the empirical and factual data submitted by this and other organisations, which questioned the effectiveness of this approach.
................. Given that the Animal Health Bill is now through to Committee stage we foresee the LLI report being taken at face value and prayed in aid of the extensive and far reaching powers of slaughter within the Bill. We would appreciate your guidance as soon as possible. " (letter)
Warmwell would only add: The purpose of the LLI was to report on the past. The purpose of the RSI was to address future policies. Therefore, it is the Royal Society Inquiry report which should be given more weight in determining future control measures.

Aug 8 ~ Not "hindsight", Mrs Beckett. Not "entirely consistent with the information and advice then available." The Drummond report (new page) was in government hands in February 1999, but "not implemented because of lack of resources .." and "it is enough to make one gasp. ..."

The consistently excellent Western Morning News : "When Margaret Beckett responded to the Lessons Learned inquiry, she grudgingly accepted that, with hindsight, mistakes were made. But"..as Jason Groves reported, " hindsight seemed to be the easiest word for Rural Affairs Secretary Margaret Beckett when she gave the Government's response to the "Lessons Learned" inquiry into last year's foot and mouth crisis. In a statement notable for its lack of the word sorry, she trotted out the word hindsight five times to excuse the Government's handling of the disaster. ..... "The action taken," Mrs Beckett said, "was entirely consistent with the information and advice then available."
That charge was rejected the next day by inquiry chairman Dr Iain Anderson, who insisted he had taken "meticulous" care to avoid making criticisms with the benefit of hindsight. Dr Anderson had good reason to be annoyed, because from the evidence submitted to him during the six-month inquiry process it is quite clear that what was needed to avoid the disaster was not hindsight, but the simple removal of the department's bureaucratic blinkers.
It is not just that people could have predicted the crisis that would ensue if a serious outbreak of foot and mouth occurred; they actually did"

Aug 8 ~ "The Drummond Report (1999) ...predicts virtually every disaster that befell the Government

in the early weeks of last year's crisis, from the untested nature of contingency plans and the lack of vets, to the problems of disposal and vaccination. To read the report, which is in the public domain for the first time, and realise that it was not implemented because of lack of resources and other priorities, is enough to make one gasp. ..." ( read article in the Western Morning News)
In February 1999 the Drummond Report said that, with "the speed at which foot and mouth disease might spread, the State Veterinary Service's resources could quickly become overwhelmed".
Jim Scudamore was given the recommendation of "enhancing arrangements to gear up resources" Richard Eales, director of the National Audit Office which discovered the existence of the report, said that the Government "did not heed that warning" and millions were squandered as officials "struggled to keep costs under control" during the epidemic.
"We do not talk about negligence. We talk about what the Department could have and should have done. And here was a report making clear warnings and the Department did not take notice of them. "

Aug 8 ~ The legality of the killing: Byrne, Brown and Campbell

EU Commissioner David Byrne, questioned during EU inquiry on foot and mouth, on 25 March 2002 claimed that the contiguous cull had been "effective" in ending the epidemic. He gave no scientific reasons for this claim, but said this was on "the basis of what he had been told" ( DEFRA vets still cling to this opinion - also without scientific or veterinary basis).
Byrne seemed quite happy to accept what he has been told at face value. The next day, Nick Brown, in a performance described as "turning evasion and ambiguity into a new art form", said that he "believed it to be legal", which is a careful way of not asserting that it WAS legal.
Would Alistair Campbell have called this a "good performance"? Yet Campbell himself, quoted in the Telegraph 27 March 2001 Firebreak slaughter in disarray." (an article that seems to have disappeared) " admitted that there were "practical difficulties" over the establishment of firebreaks around infected farms. He said: "We have to do that with the consent of farmers. The only situation where we can have the powers is where the CVO advises that the entirety of the stock there is liable to be infected." There were no plans to introduce emergency legislation to take compulsory slaughter powers, as the government hoped to "persuade" farmers to co-operate in the cull."
However, since March 2001 the Animal Health Bill - coming back in through the chimney when the Lords politely shut the door on it - will establish once and for all the government's legal right to deal with any animal disease in any way it chooses. The welfare of farmers, let alone their animals, is not to be considered.

Aug 7 ~ Meacher dropped on the orders of Alistair Campbell?

"Friends of the Earth said it would foot the bill to fly Michael Meacher to Johannesburg next month following reports that he has been dumped from the British delegation on the orders of Alastair Campbell......."as today's Telegraph puts it. "How on earth can the Government expect to be taken seriously on green issues when they are leaving the environment minister at home and sending the bungling Deputy Prime Minister?" (David Davis)
Andrew George, the Lib Dem environment spokesman, said: "The plug has been pulled on the wrong person. Michael Meacher is the one minister whose knowledge of, and commitment to, the environment is highly regarded."
The Telegraph says, "Unconfirmed reports claimed that Mr Campbell, the Prime Minister's director of communications and strategy, had intervened to reduce the size of the delegation to four ministers - including Mr Blair - and 70 civil servants." Can the Prime Minister really not see the harm being done to his own credibility and to Britain by someone who so transparently puts spin before substance as Alistair Campbell to direct policy?

Aug 7 ~"a good media performer

Alistair Campbell's answers to Lessons Learned are, although vague to the point of incoherence, very revealing. For Number 10, foot and mouth disease was about presentation.
When Campbell talks about "the reality of the situation" he means the need for the "centre" to take media control. What had to be protected was government image, what the population needed was government "messages", what had to be managed carefully was the "process", what had to be analysed were target audiences
...... Professor King was "a good media performer" remarks Campbell approvingly, adding that the "Prime Minister had had a lot of faith in the CSA's broad approach." Broad approach? What broad approach? King's narrowness and insistence upon the rightness of his clique (continuing even now) led to a catastrophe. Blair and Campbell backed the wrong horse and cannot admit it. "Bearing down on the disease" meant nothing more than blundering on with a callous and counter-productive policy.
For all the talk of transparence, openness and honesty Campbell becomes suddenly opaque: "Asked about the detail of the timing surrounding the media coverage of the case of Phoenix the calf, Mr Campbell said he did not recall the precise timing of the release of particular information and its relation to the finalising of policy decisions... ."

Aug 7 ~ Downing Street Dirty Tricks

The film 'SIXTY DAYS' is to be shown on television on 17 August 2002 (no time has yet been advised). It follows the 60 days after the Fuel Protest was called off, and chronicles first the government's indifference to rural issues and secondly how 10 Downing Street deliberately planted stories smearing not only the aims
of protestors but also their personal lives. The film's central characters are once again, as in Channel Four's film "Milk Wars", mainly Farmers For Action members.

Aug 6 ~ No 20 day movement ban in Korea.

"The global livestock disease organization Office International Epizooties (OIE) rules that a 21 day period is required from the last known incident of the disease, allowing for 14 day period of dormancy and an additional seven-day monitoring period.
MAF has lifted the ban on the movement of livestock in some former outbreak regions such as Pyongtaek, Ansong and Yongin in Kyonggi Province, and is currently conducting inspections of animals in the other known outbreak regions to allow for farming there to return to normal as well." (see newspaper page)
It seems that while many Asian and African countries are now forming their policies according to international expert advice, the UK is becoming increasingly more like tinpot dictatorships in their draconian control measures. The question is, why? The answer to this question would appear to have little to do with concern about animal disease and more to do with fear of another kind.

Aug 6 ~ Will no one rid me of these turbulent peers?

Number 10 seems anxious to make the Upper Chamber "..a shadow of the Commons, as eager as Blair's Babes to do the Government's bidding." Today's Telegraph comments, "An important part of the point of the Upper House is that it contains many men and women who have made their mark in fields outside politics - in the Services, business, science, the arts, agriculture, medicine, academia, the Civil Service and the law.
.... it is not because they are "past it" that Mr Blair is against elderly peers. He wants them out because they tend to be independent-minded - more interested in the practical effects of laws than in how they will affect the governing party's chances of re-election. "
Lord Moran's account of his successful amendment against the Animal Health bill was a joy to read - modest, funny and triumphant. The past eighteen months have witnessed callous, ignorant, centralising government short cuts that by-pass the wisdom of English traditions. Lord Moran's action, backed by so many wise and eloquent speeches from his colleagues last March, provided one small moment of sanity and relief. No wonder Number 10 wants to be rid of them.

Aug 5 ~ "How can there be ANY excuse for ignorance?"

Joyce writes today, "Last March 2001, before I even knew how to send an e-mail or use the internet I found Dr Keith Sumption's vaccination strategy in The Guardian and sent that and a short note to the effect of "Here is a strategy, for God's sake use it" to Nick Brown, Jim Scudamore, Ross Finnie, our MP and MSP and whoever was the Tourist Minister whose name escapes me.....I don't imagine we were the only ones to do this....so how can there be ANY excuse for ignorance of a way out of an epidemic that had hardly begun back then?"
We can only say that the government were offered informed help from many internationally esteemed experts. They chose instead to listen to a group of non-veterinary colleagues, all inter-connected by a kind of scientific freemasonry, whose rise to prominence we questioned last June - and have never been reassured on any of the points we raised.

Aug 5 ~"Emergency Vaccination: "The Government should prepare the regulatory framework and practical arrangements

The Royal Society report summary (page 3) says that "in many cases this (rapid culling of IPs and dangerous contacts) will not be sufficient to guarantee that the outbreak does not develop into an epidemic. Given recent advances in vaccine science and improved trading relations emergency vaccination should now be considered as part of the control strategy from the start."
Do not DEFRA and Professor King interpret this to mean that the contiguous cull should not be adopted as policy without further research and endorsement by FMD experts? Yet we are told that Professor King sees "no reason yet to switch from the established slaughter policy"
Of any culling beyond that of IPs and DCs, the Royal Society says: " it is important to ensure that any such arrangements do not themselves increase the risk of further spread because of lax biosecurity...." ( not farmers' biosecurity; they spell out that they mean..)" either on the part of those undertaking the culling or through the personnel or transport involved with the disposal of carcasses. Unless biosecurity can be guaranteed, the strategy will at best be less effective and at worse counterproductive....(9.38) and we believe that this should be studied further in the light of the data from the 2001 epidemic to determine under what circumstances this would be appropriate."( 9.39) "a vital research area which should begin forthwith"( 9.36)

Aug 5 ~ "We have been unable to establish the precise rationale for the target of 48 hours, nor ascertain the source of that timescale" wrote Dr Iain Anderson (page 93)

What actually happened on Wednesday 21 March 2001 was this:
Neil Ferguson forecast 400 outbreaks a day if nothing changed. Roy Anderson said that, in addition to the tried and tested 24 hour slaughter on infected farms, animals on 'contiguous' farms should be slaughtered, in 48 hours.
Jim Scudamore, according to Anderson, said he "feared that a national 3 km pre-emptive cull was neither practical nor legal"(Anderson p93) and considered that such a widespread slaughter was beyond MAFF's resources. He was right.
But also at the meeting was Prof. David King, appointed as the prime minister's chief scientific advisor the previous October. Although a chemist by qualification, he decided that 'I should engage myself immediately', and 'impose myself on the situation' Prof Roy Anderson, meanwhile, presented the government with a fait accompli by going on BBC's Newsnight to announce that the epidemic was 'not under control' and that it would run into May. His answer was the '24/48 hrs solution'. Anderson and his team, championed by King, took over scientific aspects of the eradication policy, forming the 'Chief Scientific Advisor's Science Group' to dictate and execute policy.
That this was a disastrous mistake - and one that the Prime Minister tamely allowed to happen - is now beyond question.

Aug 5 ~ Professor King still says he "sees no reason yet to switch from the established slaughter policy"

MAFF, Professor King and the NFU defeated Blair - but how was it that they were - and remain - so powerful?
The Science Group were allowed to take over on at the end of March. Ignorance of virology, professional arrogance, and the refusal to listen to experts must bear the blame for this. Voices were raised against vaccination without knowing or bothering to find out what modern progress had been made. Nick Brown ruled out vaccination as 'not a viable option'. It "caused animals to become carriers and therefore helped to spread the disease". Professor Chris Bostock (Institute of Animal Welfare) said, "..even if an animal is vaccinated, that doesn't guarantee that it won't become infected. It can still act as a source of infection for susceptible animals that are unprotected through vaccination." (Close-up BBC) This massive ignorance about so-called carriers gave the anti-vaccinators their strongest argument. It was false. Jim Scudamore claimed on the 8 March that " a 'vaccine ring' was impossible because the outbreaks were so widespread."
Anti-vaccination arguments are refuted in the two Royal Society Reports, while Dr. Keith Sumption, a modest man but an internationally acclaimed source of knowledge and sanity throughout the crisis (now promoted to the EUFMD Commission, FAO, Rome, on control of FMD Europe-wide, from September), points out that
"where uncertainty exists, larger ("blankets"- rather than "rings") may be required"
but makes it clear that this is perfectly feasible. Dr Sumption adds that "vaccinates emit a low dose that rarely infects in-contacts" and citing field evidence from emergency vaccination in Albania in 1996 "...there is no evidence of spread under vaccination after cases cease.."

Aug 5 ~ The Science Committee, the modellers and Page Street disregarded Dr Donaldson's work.

Perhaps they didn't understand it.
The eminent virologist, Ruth Watkins wrote, to the Royal Society, "... the modellers never published a 'normal vaccination' model at all - one where 100% of receptive domestic animals were vaccinated in a 2 or 3 Km ring about each infected premise without being killed afterwards. Such a model could be called a 'biological model', not an economic or other non-scientifically constrained model.......None of the vets whom I spoke to, particularly the senior vets, understood the implications of control by vaccination

Aug 5 ~ Why did the Science Group enlist the support of the NFU against vaccination?

Ben Gill had nailed his colours to the anti-vaccination mast - many NFU led farmers felt they would be better off if they had their animals slaughtered and, convinced that supermarkets and food processors would be reluctant to take their products, they feared that they would end up paying for the vaccination decision. MAFF answers to the NFU's 52 questions suggest that there were no mechanisms for providing support or compensation 'beyond the existing market support provisions under certain CAP market organisations'. But MAFF must surely have been aware of Council Decision 90/434/EEC which allowed for the compensation of farmers 'as a result of restrictions imposed on the marketing of livestock as a result of the reintroduction of emergency vaccination'. Maff's failure to provide this information to farmers effectively sabotaged any attempt to get consent from those NFU livestock owners who were following Gill. But why was the Science group so intent on persuading Ben Gill that vaccination "wouldn't work"?

Aug 4 ~ The Science Group had enjoyed enormous power without any formal responsibility (Dr David Shannon)

In his Lessons Learned meeting, Dr Shannon spoke with all the smooth tact of Sir Humphrey - but the glaring criticisms are easy to pick out. "The composition of the CSA's (Chief Scientific Advisor) Science Group had changed over time. The initial composition had not been as Dr Shannon would have expected, but had resembled a modelling sub-committee. Initially, there had been limited knowledge of agricultural systems and serology, and it contained no FMD experts from outside
.....The CSA, in Dr Shannon's view, had been too closely involved in the deliberations of the group to take an independent view. Challenging the output of the group had been difficult......computer models had included assumptions, the details of which had not been understood except by the modellers. One factor (the number of infected farms that arose from one IP) in the Imperial College model had been halved during the course of the outbreak. However to his knowledge this had not then been used to reproduce the original curves A, B and C used in publicity, or to apply them retrospectively
....modellers had announced that the outbreak had been "out of control" (in the scientific context) and had therefore favoured what Dr Shannon described as a mathematical approach of "slaughter by numbers". Generic models had supported the contiguous cull but Dr Shannon had suggested that the data be scrutinised by independent modellers.
...Pirbright had apparently not been convinced of the need for the contiguous cull .." ( see report of Dr Shannon's meeting)

Aug 4 ~" the truth has a habit of biting people when they least expect it"

(From Talking Point in Friday's Farmers Weekly) "....I attended the Anderson Inquiry press conference and Dr Iain Anderson confirmed to me that he was satisfied that his Inquiry was to the standard of a Public Inquiry, but, as a famous female acquaintance of a senior politician once said, 'He would say that, wouldn't he?' Many people have commented that Dr Anderson, whilst doing his regional visits, appeared visibly moved by the many witnesses who gave evidence of their appalling experiences, but was his Inquiry any more than a damage limitation exercise with a view to quietly putting the whole issue to bed? What was the true remit that he received from the Prime Minister? ............. Did Dr. Anderson look for skeletons, did he have a desire to find skeletons and if he was hit by a skeleton would he have been allowed to tell us? Perhaps we could ask the same question of a Public Inquiry? Is it in the 'Public Interest' that the truth is always told? Many issues have not been addressed by Dr. Anderson but is that part of the compromise to try and rebuild life in the Countryside?
Those of us who wanted a Public Inquiry into Foot and Mouth Disease have to accept what the High Court Judge said: 'It was a political decision not to hold a Public Inquiry'.
Unfortunately the Countryside is a political minority and minorities do not control ballot boxes. I am sure the Prime Minister feels pleased with his decision not to hold a Public Inquiry, but he should remember that the truth has a habit of biting people when they least expect it. "

Aug 3 ~ FARMERS : WE WILL PARALYSE BRITAIN!

is the headline in this outspoken article on the "This is Gloucestershire" website. "Furious farmers were last night finalising the blueprints of a plan to paralyse Britain.
Support was growing for a national day of protest and 24-hour farms strike that would see roads jammed and supermarkets blockaded.
Farmers have accused the Government of killing the industry by refusing to lift the livestock movement restrictions imposed in the wake of the foot-and-mouth crisis.
The ruling has left them powerless in the face of unscrupulous livestock dealers and powerful supermarket chains....."(See newspaper page)

Aug 3 ~ "To be fair to Ian Anderson"

writes Jeff Swift (see his article here, or on the news page) "he had not been able to find out who ordered what to be done, when and why, because the records were either skimpy or non existent - either by accident or on purpose - and, as far as I could make out, he got differing answers to the same questions from Tony Blair downwards.
Where I part company with Dr Anderson is when he says that "the continguous cull may have been illegal but we could not discover who was responsible for extending the cull and working out a timetable." Surely he must have had some top class legal advice, so the cull was either legal or it wasn't.
I for one could bear to know. "

Aug 3 ~ Brussels FMD DECISION DELAYED

From the Dairy Industry Newsletter website
The "imminent" European Commission proposals for future EU strategy to deal with foot-and-mouth disease has been delayed until the autumn, but Brussels insiders say it is still "almost certain" that the commission will propose some form of vaccination to deal with any future outbreak. The position of the UK government is still unclear. Briefing papers circulating in Brussels indicate that the UK will also move to some form of vaccination, but government chief scientist Prof. David King confided recently that the UK government "sees no reason yet to switch from the established slaughter policy".

Aug 2 ~ red tape will wreck livelihoods.

Today's Times (see newspaper page) reports that John Thorley, chief executive of the National Sheep Association, has attacked the decision to proceed with a 20-day animal movement ban.
"....Farmers want to prepare for the busy autumn sales but fear the red tape will wreck their livelihoods.
In a letter to Lord Whitty, a Farming Minister (sic), he claims that "a substantial part of the industry" shares his view. Mr Thorley also questions why the minister should accept the chief vet's advice on the 20-day rule when Mr Scudamore had failed to take action on the potential threat of a foot-and-mouth outbreak seven months before the first case.
He says: "The fact that this was not done is a serious indictment of his competence . . . In the light of subsequent experience it causes me to question his overall capability as the CVO (Chief Veterinary Officer)." The letter adds: "From a political viewpoint the issue becomes even more difficult, for you, as minister, are placed in the uncomfortable position of having to take the advice of a civil servant who has lost the confidence of a substantial part of the industry."

August 2 ~ Excuses and evasions are unacceptable

Prof Bob Michell, BVetMed BSc PhD DSc MRCVS Former President of the RCVS wrote in the Veterinary Times on 9th July 2001
"Too many people, too many animals, have suffered both directly and indirectly; and the lessons have to be drawn with total objectivity
..the Prime Minister came to power to eliminate sleaze and secrecy and to replace it with integrity and openness. But there is more to openness than a relaxed shirt and a choirboy smile, and while there has been no more consistent advocate of openness, transparency and accountability, the refusal of such an inquiry (is) ..a dereliction of all three.
Above all, since the Prime Minister took personal charge of the crisis, he would be using his powers to prevent scrutiny of his actions. That would to to repeat the Nixon gambit, which became a prelude to ignominious checkmate.
The Northumberland Report ... fewer pages than the first James Herriot book... provides both the precedent and the model.
The issues to be addressed in 2001 will fall under the headings of scientific knowledge, implementation and resource costs, animal and human welfare, politics. ...."
But Professor Michell and the rest of us were cheated of such an Inquiry. We had no "powerful independent inquiry, unfettered by a restrictive remit, free to follow wherever the evidence may lead". We needed it - as he said " in the interests of openness and accountability, in the interests of our rural communities and our taxpayers....above all, in the interests of animal welfare and of truth." (See Professor Michell's still very relevant letter) What we got instead was......

August 2 ~ "..200 pages of bland waffle, complete with those pretty pictures, the Anderson report performs the miracle of airbrushing

Private Eye's Muckspreader is not impressed with the Anderson Lessons Learned report "For its skill in washing whiter it should really have been called the 'Persil report'. And what is particularly clever is how it actually refers to some of the nastier stains, as if to show how fearless it is being, then just tiptoes away again, as if nothing too serious had happened.
A glaring example is the way Anderson deals with the awkward fact that what it calls the 'pre-emptive cull", under which millions of healthy animals were destroyed, was illegal. The most revealing admission in the report is tucked away on p.93 where Anderson quotes the government's chief vet Jim Scudamore as having argued at the time that the government 'probably' had no legal powers to carry out this cull. In other words, the government knew it was illegal. But instead of looking into the horrific implications of this, Anderson simply floats on...."

August 1 ~ The fallacies - 1 Contiguous culling without testing was legal under EU law. (It wasn't)

Lord Whitty (June 25 ) "The Commission was well aware of the UK's culling policy and approved of that approach." His proof? " The recitals to Commission Decision 2001/257/EC, which permitted a programme of vaccination in the UK, specifically acknowledged the existence of the contiguous cull policy in the UK. It stated:
"In addition to the measures within the framework of Directive 85/511/EEC"--
that has already been referred to--
"the UK apply the pre-emptive killing of susceptible animals in holdings in close proximity to infected or suspect holdings".
"It therefore explicitly recognised that that was allowable within EU law.." However, even though Lord Whitty clings to that single sentence above, he has taken it out of context. The document, written on March 31 2001 went on to add,"For the purpose of this Decision the following definitions shall apply: 1.'Pre-emptive killing' shall mean the killing of susceptible animals on holdings within a certain radius around holdings placed under the restrictions laid down in Articles 4 or 5 of Directive 85/511/EEC.
Articles 4 and 5 of Directive 85/511/EEC show that - all 8226 pre-emptively culled premises should have been tested to see if contact or exposure had occurred. EU law - whatever Lord Whitty may believe - requires the testing of animals "clinical infected, suspected of being infected or exposed to disease." Whatever the UK officials may have wanted to believe about testing, under EU law a negative test rules out the presence of disease; a positive test confirms disease (Articles 4 (1) and 5(1))
The only exemption to testing is for clinical infected animals found on a holding, where that holding can be epidemiologically linked to another holding where disease has already been confirmed at laboratory test (Article 5(3)).

August 1 ~ The fallacies - 2. Contiguous culling was necessary even if animals appeared healthy. (It wasn't)

June 25th Lord Whitty said, "... the more effective the contiguous cull policy, the less likely animals are to prove positive on testing. If the disease has just been discovered and the cull of contiguous premises is carried out immediately, there will be no testable sign of the disease among those animals." This may well be true - but the fact is that the cull of contiguous premises was not immediate. There were delays in identifying ( 4-5 days) and slaughtering (3-5 days) all pre-emptively slaughtered farms. 95% of pre-emptively culled farms were slaughtered on or after the day clinical signs would have been apparent if exposure had occurred. This is why farmers who knew their animals were so upset. We know of no farmer who resisted the killing of infected animals or animals known to have been in contact with the virus.
Lord Whitty went on, " It is also true that a large proportion of those killed during the epidemic were never tested because the pressure on resources meant that efforts concentrated on detecting the disease in new outbreaks." Leaving aside the justification or otherwise of this excuse, the delays involved in up to 95%of cases mean that blood tests were not needed; clinical signs would have been evident. Up to 95% of those animals killed in the contiguous culls were healthy and therefore killed illegally. We are tired of the government's misleading statements suggesting that the killing of healthy animals was both necessary and legal. It was neither. We also find shocking and disgraceful the fact that the NFU and RCVS chose to ignore any members who criticised culling policy and refused to raise these concerns with any of the policy makers

Aug 1 ~ The fallacies - 3. Eighty per cent (80%) of cases were transmitted by local infection. (We don't know. Defra won't release the information)

"Both the contiguous cull and the three-kilometre cull were based on strong advice received from vets on the ground and from epidemiological modellers...." (Lord Whitty) "We were advised that the best way to contain the disease was automatically to presume that the contiguous premises, or the premises three kilometres away, could have been exposed to it....... it became clear that infectivity was primarily local. The overall indications are that during the course of the disease 80 per cent of cases were transmitted by local infection."
Lord Whitty is careful enough not to assert categorically that 80% of cases were caused by local spread. Dr Anderson was apparently convinced.
Airborne spread of disease was discounted for this strain of FMD. (From the outset, Pirbright advisers and FMD experts had tried to get this understood by those non-experts who were driving the policies.) Therefore, if spread was "local" it could only have been caused by the movement of animals, vehicles and people. Traditional methods of control: rapid slaughter of infected premises; accurate tracing and rapid slaughter of dangerous contacts; movement restrictions and strict biosecurity; properly implemented would have brought the epidemic under control
Automatically to presume (as Lord Whitty admits above) that surrounding farms, irrespective of geographical position, were exposed to disease without monitoring and bloodtesting was not a reasonable or proportionate response. And at the end of the crisis, making the assumption that the premises culled were indeed infected, without first investigating disease transmission for the epidemic as a whole and publishing the evidence, is irresponsible. But far worse for the reputation of the UK government, much of the killing was not legal according to EU law (see above) nor, in the majority of cases was it legal under the 1981 Animal Health Act.

Aug 1 ~ Precise details of how 88% of IPs became infected have not been published by DEFRA

nor indeed which ones actually were infected.
If disease transmission was fully investigated not only would it reveal how well the epidemic was handled it would ensure that contingency plans for future epidemics are based on facts rather than assumptions.
Present contingency plans still include the 24/48 hour pre-emptive slaughter policy as stakeholders were informed on friday but there is still no evidence in the public domain to suggest that the pre-emptive cull policy as implemented in the 2001 UK FMD epidemic was effective.
12.6% only of farms "killed out" can be shown to have had animals with active foot and mouth disease or which had had foot and mouth disease sometime in the previous weeks (on 171 farms the only evidence of disease was antibodies to FMD).

August 1 ~ "The Government should be able to justify its statements.... using the actual epidemic data for this outbreak"

says Nicola Morris in a letter to Margaret Beckett.
"If you cannot find - or - will not provide the data to justify the...statements we can conclude that: the scale of 2001 UK epidemic was not unprecedented; the pre-emptive culling policy resulted in the unnecessary slaughter of millions of healthy uninfected animals and the Government used its existing powers of slaughter very irresponsibly.
In such circumstances it is inconceivable that any additional powers of slaughter are justified.
I sincerely hope you will respond to my letter with some urgency, in view of the fact that the Animal Health Bill will again be debated in the Lords after the recess. It is vital that those who oppose this draconian piece of legislation are given access to the truth." (See letter)

August 1 ~ Lessons Learned misreports FMD proved premises by an extra 33%

This has been done by the simple means of excluding the untested cases when working out the percentage of IPs that tested positive.
The so-called "KEY FACTS" in the final section of the Report are selected and presented in a way that does not encourage scrutiny. Nicola Morris, however, is interested and has done some calculations. She finds that the total number of infected premises "found to be positive for foot and mouth virus" has been increased by 33% See explanation

August 1 ~ It wasn't the scale of this epidemic that was unprecedented, it was the scale of the unnecessary slaughter.

10509 farms were slaughtered, but on less than 13% of these farms was laboratory evidence of foot and mouth disease found. Laboratory testing is accepted to be at least 90% accurate (IAH Pirbright).
Of the truly infected farms visible signs of disease were found 4-7 days after exposure to the virus (Jim Scudamore EFRA select committee 21/03/01).
Given that the pre-emptive slaughter policy was a novel method of control and went against the advice of the scientists at Pirbright, it is surprising that so very few of the farms slaughtered pre-emptively were blood tested at slaughter. But we don't need blood tests to know that up to 95% of pre-emptively culled farms were slaughtered on or after the day clinical signs would have been apparent if exposure had occurred. Animals would have been showing clinical signs if really infected. We have seen no convincing evidence in any of the reports that justifies the killing of so many healthy adult animals and their young.

August 1 ~ The contiguous cull did nothing to bring the disease under control

Ro, the so-called case reproduction number, calculates the average number of new cases generated by one current case. For the epidemic to be "out of control" this number must be more than 1.
In the week that began on 26th March 2001, Ro could not have been any higher than 1 even if all the IPs really had genuinely had FMD. When test results are taken into account the actual Ro was 0.8. See more By the time the pre-emptive culling was implemented the peak of the epidemic had passed.
This is a crucial point. But you will not find it in the Lessons Learned Report. Instead you will find the following statement justifying the pre-emptive killing:
(page 96 of LL Report) "From some perspectives, the rigorous application of a contiguous cull policy was a desperate measure. But the situation was desperate. ..resources were stretched... The epidemic was expanding out of control....there was no time to explore alternatives or carry out experiments"
Those responsible for the Foot and Mouth nightmare all seem to be in a curious state of denial.

August 1 ~ "the British consumer must be made aware of how fragile food production is in the UK. It is on a knife-edge at the moment."

Says Farmers for Action. We have received this email which combines an urgent message from David Handley with the reporting of the proposed strike in Farmers Weekly.
"Farmers For Action are calling for a national strike by UK food producers on Friday 23 August.
This strike will commence at 12 midnight, Thursday 22nd August and run through until midnight of the 23rd August. It to highlight the disastrous situation that is now surrounding British food production. We are calling on all farmers in the UK and Ireland to abide by this 24-hour token strike. No one at present appears to be listening to what is happening to British food production. If we do not bring awareness to the general public, government and all other bodies that represent farming, our industry will be extinct by 2010. Food For Africa. There is a parallel to be drawn from these two situations and the British consumer must be made aware of how fragile food production is in the UK. It is on a knife-edge at the moment."

Aug 1 ~" the FMD experience shows that the grossest actions of the government can be glossed over with spin..."

Lawrence writes: "David's linking of famine in the third world with the enthusiasm of our government to import all our food strikes a chord with me.
As I milk the sheep for hours on end, I remember the remarks of Mrs Beckett, Lord Haskins and Lord Donoghue - to the effect that the nation no longer needs the food that British farmers produce because we can import all the food we need. I too wonder how this notion can be reconciled with the famine and poverty in the countries these "socialists" want to take their food from.
Is it, perhaps that they [and their sponsors], have, like President Mugabe, realised the importance of controlling the food supply? Without home grown food, our food supply can more easily be controlled... - and if you think that interfering with the food supply would rebound on the perpetrators, remember how the FMD experience shows that the grossest actions of the government can be glossed over with spin."
( Lawrence is one of the calmest, most unexcitable people in farming - which is saying something. He has chosen his words here with the greatest care. Who is listening?)

July 31/Aug 1 ~ "If Dr Anderson has been misled then any of his conclusions regarding the scale of the epidemic and the culling policies adopted are not valid"

"Dr Anderson did not address the scale of unnecessary slaughter mainly because the data he used was at best inaccurate and incomplete - at worst it had been manipulated so that Dr Anderson could only conclude that the scale of the epidemic was unprecedented and the pre-emptive cull was justified."
"It is possible that the Inquiry team did not understand the significance of some of the data held on the database. Alternatively they chose to examine and include only data which supported the required conclusions: that is, that the epidemic was unprecedented and the pre-emptive cull was justified"
" ..... If the data in the LLI report is correct then I have been misled, the EFRA select committee have been misled and Parliament has been misled.... Alternatively, Dr Anderson has been misled. If Dr Anderson has been misled then any of his conclusions regarding the scale of the epidemic and the culling policies adopted are not valid..." Nicola Morris' letter

July 31/Aug 1 ~ The most likely explanation is that the UK epidemic actually started at least a week earlier: that is around 1 February 2001

It is not possible for both the Dutch and UK explanations to be correct. When was FMD first in the UK? The work by Nicola Morris casts doubt on the official version. The contrasting explanations. (The official version still seems to rely heavily on the possibility, disproved for this strain of FMDv, of extensive airborne spread.)

July 31 ~" ..an affront that your veterinary and scientific advisers can meddle with people's lives ...."

. "It is high time you started to put in place regimes that give practical benefits, rather than those that are merely visual for the benefit of the Press and the public at large."Alan Venner, chairman of Exeter Market Auctioneers, told Defra (See Western Morning News today)
"There appears to be an official but hidden agenda relating to the destruction of the rural economy and the farming industry in particular," he said.
"I put it to you that if in February last year your department had had in place an effective contingency plan, stopped all animal movements immediately and then acted quickly and effectively to slaughter infected stock, instead of blundering along out of control, there would have probably been less than even 60 cases.
"The farming industry is now being made the scapegoat for your lack of a contingency plan and sound veterinary advice prior to February 2001. Your veterinary advice at that time did little to assist in an unnecessary spread of the disease."
The farming industry was totally confused by the unbelievable amount of rules and regulations now foisted on it, he added, stressing that many vets considered the present regime an unnecessary expense, affording no benefit. "The disease is either still here, or long gone, and as it has been almost 12 months since the last outbreak, please allow us to proceed to rebuild our business and for the industry to begin to recover." Mr Venner added.
"I consider it an affront that your veterinary and scientific advisers can meddle with people's lives and incomes in such an off-hand manner..... I suggest you start rebuilding bridges with a very demoralised farming community."

July 30 ~"It's much easier just to go on looking at our own toecaps, while not noticing the elephant in the room"

"There is a tendency for people's eyes to glaze over whenever 'Europe' is dragged in but THIS IS THE SYSTEM BY WHICH WE ARE NOW GOVERNED. These are our laws, not the ones made in Westminster. This is what dictates what British ministers do or can't do. Everything else about the great FMD debate follows from the framework laid down by this system," an emailer writes today
"People can blether on about whether or not we should have vaccinated, or whether or not we should have had a pre-emptive cull, but what the Booker/North article you published on Sunday showed was why we SHOULD by law have been carrying out an emergency vaccination but couldn't and didn't because the system totally failed.
That is why people like Fred Brown and Simon Barteling were knocking at a locked and bolted door,because
• the UK government had not done what it should have done years earlier and because
• Brussels hadn't bothered to follow up the laws and guideliness
  which, it should be remembered, Simon Barteling had played a key part in putting into place in 1990.
What is needed is a complete shake-up in the framework of people's thinking about all this, because at the moment pretty well all of them are still going on as if the UK government is free to make up its own policies on these matters. It isn't, and if only people could see this wider framework they might understand what has happened and what is happening a great deal more clearly than they do."

July 30 ~ The line-up of those invited to private meetings with Dr Anderson -with the very obvious exception of warmwell and NFMG - looks like Tony Blair's Christmas card list

As NFMG writes: "... there is no excuse the Inquiry can use to justify the selectiveness of its witnesses - and the limited evidence it took from those opposed to Government policy.
It is like having a court case and only hearing the case for the defence - and refusing to call any professionally qualified Expert Witnesses for the case for the prosecution.
...the Inquiry findings are fundamentally flawed - and should be recognised as such by the media and the Government and the opposition.
Furthermore, for the report to be used to justify the Animal Health Bill amendments would be totally wrong. The Inquiry has provided no means or ability to assess or critically determine whether the adopted control measures were proportionate, rational or reasonable. Those of us who have undertaken such analysis from the full breadth of evidence that is available, but which the LLI chose to exclude, have found the reverse to be the case." (letter)

July 29/30 ~The hurrying through of this bill to give retrospective legality to a massacre that was both callous and unnecessary, shows how much the government realised the illegality of the measures.

"I believe that it was a deeply irresponsible decision by the House of Lords to prevent the Animal Health Bill from proceeding into committee and effectively blocking the passage of this Bill." says Elliot Morley piously, in a letter of July 18th in response to one of 22nd November 2001 (See Spin Alert)

" The measures contained in the Bill are a proportionate response to the very real threat of a future outbreak of serious animal disease. They are not simply measures on culling , but also measures to assist with applying options like vaccination and blood testing.
The powers would have enabled us to contain disease outbreaks more effectively and eradicate them more quickly, thereby benefiting both farmers and the wider community. At present we are left potentially exposed to the disease with fewer powers than are necessary until we can get the legislation in the Animal Health Bill through Parliament.
signed Elliot Morley.
In this Mr Morley differs from the High Court Judge, Mr Justice Harrison. Once he realised the dubious scientific basis for killing he awarded costs AGAINST Maff and said, "that there is much to be said for the alternative of monitoring and blood testing which Mrs Upton offered in the first place... .."that is the proportionate response to the situation in which we now find ourselves" said Mr Justice Harrison. Whether or not the case could be taken as a precedent MAFF didn't dare put it to the test. After this judgement MAFF/DEFRA no longer dared take cull protestors to Court - as Lord Whitty could not deny.
Now, via the Animal Health Bill, the government gives itself the legal right to kill any "susceptible animals". It is the equivalent of saying all humans are susceptible to cancer; therefore, in the interests of human health, we reserve the right to slaughter any human.

July 29 ~ "The tongueless man gets his land took" (old saying)

When the stakes are as high as land ownership itself then the powerful and unscrupulous through the ages have ridden roughshod over the rights of men. When landowners and tenant farmers are treated with contempt - as Lord Greaves so rightly points out- the rest of the population is being treated contemptuously too. This year we are witnessing in Britain the demise, not just of human-scale agriculture, but also of democracy itself. We are living in dangerous times.
The figures Dr Anderson was given were wrong. The persuasive words of the spin merchants protecting those most responsible for the horror of the FMD crisis were wrong. The data had been manipulated - not merely misreported. The only reason to manipulate data is deliberately to give the wrong impression.
David Curry announced in January 2002: "We intend to examine the reports of the inquiries when they are published to ensure that ... key issues have been addressed, and to maintain a strong interest in the conduct and progress of the inquiries."
The real figures from certain honourable people at DEFRA and elsewhere have been ferreted out and compared with the pages of unread and unreadable statistics of the Lessons Learned Report. We have something concrete and quantifiable to say about this manipulation of data. We are here to stand up for the tongueless men since we have maintained from the beginning that the nation is best served, Dr Anderson, if their legitimate grief, anger and frustration is at last given a voice, and that those responsible are made to listen.

July 29 ~ Margaret Beckett's Office continues to duck and weave

Captain Bryn Wayt, who has spent many hours researching the facts about vaccination and imported vaccinated meat products, was not amused to hear from the grand-sounding "FMD Science and General Policy Team Animal Movements and Exotic Disease Division". It was a letter about why Britain did not vaccinate. It is a letter that makes much of the word "stakeholders", implying - but carefully not quite saying - that consumers were consulted about whether they wanted vaccination. It implies - but doesn't quite say - that "stakeholders" were the reason why vaccination was rejected because of concerns wholly to do with trade. It says - without saying how this is being done - that "we are pressing" for "international rules discouraging vaccination" to be changed, without mentioning that OIE rules have already changed.
Bryn's reply to this letter is robust, lengthy and furious..."...The Dutch managed to "shorten the outbreak" using vaccination. The Uruguay government managed to "shorten the outbreak" in 2001 by using vaccination and now we are eating their vaccinated meat.
....you must know there are no instructions, law, or condition in the Animal Health Act 1981 or any related EU Directives for the control of FMD which states, or even mentions, there has to be, "support for a vaccination strategy been in place" before a member state can use emergency vaccination.. You write: Countrywide vaccination would have seriously damaged these industries and the rural economy, with ongoing negative effects on tourism and freedom of movement of people and goods.
• Countryside vaccination is not the focus; it was emergency local ring vaccination, and well you know it.
• Tourists don't give a hoot nor could recognise vaccinated cattle if they tried; there's no negative effect, and well you know it.
• Freedom of movement of people would NOT have been affected by ring vaccination, and well you know it.
• Freedom of movement of goods has not stopped South America exporting vaccinated meat to the EU, and well you know it.
It is the height of hypocrisy to imply vaccination would have seriously damaged "these industries" more than the ludicrous, unscientific and heinous slaughter policy."

July 28 ~ MAGNUS LINKLATER: So that's it then - no one to blame for F&M disaster

"There was incompetence from civil servants, a failure of leadership by ministers, narrow self-interest from the farmers' unions and the food industry; a disastrous lack of communications from top to bottom of the system. A nation that once prided itself on the sound state of its veterinary science emerges as ill-prepared for a major epidemic and bereft of clear-cut decision-making.
For all that, however, we have heard not a whisper of apology from those responsible. Margaret Beckett, the minister whose department was largely responsible for the mass slaughter and the funeral pyres, while acknowledging to parliament that mistakes had been made, took no personal responsibility for any of them and was not to be drawn on what steps would be taken to correct them.
Tony Blair, who 'took control' of the strategy during that awful spring when millions of healthy animals were slaughtered and our tourist industry was driven on to the ropes, has left for his holiday without saying anything .. (See the article in today's Scotland on Sunday )

July 28 ~ "the NFU should be treated for what it is ... a busted flush" ( Jonathan Dimbleby today)

"Gill and his allies are already busy re-writing history to suggest they weren't really opposed to vaccination; that, for the future, it is simply a matter of ensuring, as Beckett said in her Commons statement, that 'meat and food products from vaccinated animals' should be able 'to enter the food chain normally'.." (They do already, as we all know).
"In all future cases -- at least in relation to FMD -- the NFU should be treated for what it is ... a busted flush. "
"The government not only needs to admit past errors , but it must be open with us. It must put a vaccination strategy at the heart of its contingency planning and explain the reasons for this wise volte-face. If it does, then we will never again be tempted to say 'we told you so'. Far more important, we will never again face such a nightmare. " Read Jonathan Dimbleby in the Sunday Herald today

July 28 ~ Britain should already have been equipped and obliged by law to carry out a full-scale emergency vaccination programme within days of the first outbreak being identified. ....

In the Sunday Telegraph today we read another angle on the (No) Lessons Learned Report: "...The country could have been spared the worst of a disaster that cost the economy at least £3.8 billion; the lives of those millions of illegally killed animals could have been saved; and rural communities would have been spared their most traumatic experience in modern times.
.... this tragedy was made inevitable by a complete breakdown of the system devised by the European Commission in the 1990s for tackling any future outbreaks of foot and mouth. Successive British governments failed to meet even the inadequate Brussels requirements for drawing up proper contingency plans.
..... Britain was wholly unprepared for what happened. Yet because Brussels and Whitehall were both at fault, they agreed to hush up just how seriously their joint system had failed. " (see whole article)

July 28 ~ "with respect to investigation of origin and spread" No one took any notice! A memo dated July 18 2000 SIX MONTHS before the government became aware that the worst had indeed happened, a disregarded warning from Mr J M Scudamore

To: Dr Richard Cawthorne, Mr Martin Atkinson cc: Mr Tony Edwards Mr Leslie Gardner
".......The main problems relate to slaughter and disposal of carcasses, training of staff and the availablity of up-to-date contingency plans. Linked to this is the need to ensure that we have a satisfactory epidemiological capability to deal with outbreaks of disease with respect to investigation of origin and spread...." (see copy of memo of two years ago)

July 28 ~ "Complacency caused them to be unprepared, even though officials knew that the disease was an increasing threat."

writes Geoffrey Lean in the Independent today....."Sorry, Margaret, but that just won't wash. The errors that were to so devastate farming and the countryside were clearly pointed out at the time, ..... And they were understood by ministers and top officials who privately expressed their support for our criticism and urged us to continue: one even confidentially described official policy as "insanity''. (See also Scudamore memo above)

July 28 ~" if animals on these farms had been exposed to foot and mouth virus visible signs of disease would have been apparent "

THis letter appeared in both the Farmers Guardian and the Farmers Weekly on Friday.
FMD Inquiries- A victory for spin
Although, we are heartened to see the Inquiries paving the way for vaccination, it concerns us that the promience given to the vaccination issue enables the Government to neatly side step the fundamental flaws in their handling of 2001 UK FMD epidemic. The scale of unnecessary slaughter in this epidemic was unprecedented:
10509 farms were slaughtered, but on less than 13% of these farms was laboratory evidence of foot and mouth disease found (DEFRA 9/11/01). Laboratory testing is accepted to be atleast 90% accurate.
in this epidemic of the truly infected farms visible signs of disease were found 4-7 days after exposure to the virus (Jim Scudamore EFRA select committee 21/03/01). 8226 premises thought to have been exposed to virus were culled as a precautionary measure; many of these farms were not laboratory tested, but delays in slaughter (due to lack of resources) were such that up to 95% of these farms were slaughtered 7 or more days after possible exposure to FMD virus.
We can therefore say with some certainty that by the time slaughter occurred on nearly 8000 farms if animals on these farms had been exposed to foot and mouth virus visible signs of disease would have been apparent.
We can conclude that in the UK 2001 epidemic up to 5 million adult animals were slaughtered totally unnecessarily.
The 'Emperor' truly has no clothes. But only those without a voice have noticed.
Yours faithfully
Nicola and Andrew Morris
(Contiguous farmers who survived) Eatons Farm, Church Lane, Tibberton, Droitwich, Worcs WR9 7NW

July 27 ~ Et Tu Farmers Guardian?

Such is the power of repetition that the Farmers Guardian editorial yesterday stated - as if it were hard fact - "Arriving on a single piece of imported meat the tiny virus brought the country to a stand still."
The "tiny" virus came into the UK somehow - but no one has yet proved how. The NFU seems extraordinarily keen that all should assume it was via illegal imports of meat...but if the virus can hang around on dead flesh is it not time that the authorities were prosecuted for the length of time - often weeks - that animal corpses were left in piles, to the distress of all in the neighbourhood?

July 27 ~" I simply can not believe that it is impossible to identify the person who instituted the 3k cull"

writes a farmer's wife this morning.
Did Mr. Scudamore, who came up to Cumbria in March 2001 'to convince the NFU to tell the farmers to co- operate' , not know on whose behalf he was bringing the message?
In the light of the failure to identify the culprit does not the responsibility fall on Mr. Blair?
I was saddened but not surprised to hear Margaret Beckett again diverting blame onto the farmers. Even a mention for the lost pig at the slaughterhouse, again. What has happened to the mysterious case of that anonymous pig. Have the police found the owner yet?
I have been trying to sell my Shetland sheep flock and although our local trading standards department were unfailingly kind, polite and helpful, they could not issue the licence as DEFRA did not update its computer for several days and so a new holding number was not on it........
So not many lessons learned there yet.."
This farmer says of the National Scrapie Plan..
"The reason for lack of response is the extreme measures one has to agree to. None of us wants it, we have all been busy working hard on the schemes set up by breed societies. It appears to us that is is just a case of forcing the scheme upon us by putting a gun to our heads [ The plan to put any trust back between the government and the farmers is like the trains - somewhat delayed] The current attitude seems to be that "the floggings will continue until morale improves."

July 27 ~ "Will the Minister explain why we need to speed up this plan?

If BSE is suddenly found in sheep, the Minister can use the TSE Regulations 2002. Should not this matter be taken at a reasonably leisurely place, as proposed by the noble Lord, Lord May? The Minister already has the necessary powers to deal with an emergency. Why does he need these extra powers? " asked the Countess of Mar, who excelled herself in the debate. (AHBJuly 25)
Lord Whitty's frankly feeble reply: "The reason that we need the instruments on the statute book immediately, even if they are not used immediately, is so that the industry and everyone involved can see that the Government and the leaders of the industry are determined that this plan will be carried out. We believe that that will speed up voluntary involvement with the scheme, because people will see that it will definitely be delivered. At the moment there is some doubt that it will be delivered. The earlier we make that clear, the better and faster the scheme will move. That is the degree of urgency. "
"Not very convincing," some might say. You don't make things mandatory if you wish to preserve something voluntary. What is really behind all this?
In answer to probing questions from Lord Greaves, Lord Whitty was both unable to cite any scientific paper in support of his reference to "a substantial range of scientific information" (Column 575) the scrapie part of the bill beyond a reference to SEAC and the FSA, nor to explain anything at all about methods of transmission (Column 587)

July 26/7 ~ Why this haste?

After a marathon afternoon and evening, the Lords who had so gallantly raised amendments and argued for sanity in the Animal Health Bill finally left the chamber some time after midnight. The admirable Countess of Mar proved to be as knowledgeable about sheep and farming as the Minister was ignorant. Queries about scientific evidence, appeal procedures, disease transmission all showed a lamentable lack of understanding or ability to cite evidence. Lord Carter gaped in bewilderment when the Countess of Mar appealed for owners of sheep who did not want them slaughtered to be allowed to keep them as pets. Such a thing was beyond his comprehension - although Lord Whitty, after grappling with the concept, did agree to go away and think about it.
At 11.30 when all were on their very last legs, Lord Greaves suddenly found the energy to launch into an impassioned and wholly relevant defence of civil liberties.
We cannot thank him enough.
And at no point during the day did we ever get an answer to the question - This is an endemic and uncommon disease - so why the urgency?

July 26 ~" I am not alone in having serious doubts about what the Government seek to do in Part 2 of the Bill.

(Lord Moran) The Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons advised me to consult the Sheep Veterinary Society, which is a division of the British Veterinary Association. That I did. It kindly passed on to me comments from members of the society who are experts in this field. The Government should consider carefully what they say. I shall give some examples. First:
• "The TSE part of the Animal Health Bill is . . . very draconian. There is no provision to use an R5 ram on say R1 ewes to protect rare or superior phenotype. It also presupposes that BSE is in the national flock. Far better to use the suggested approach of the Royal Society report and have a proper debate on the issues".
• Secondly: "There are too many scientific uncertainties to justify such draconian measures, particularly the question of whether BSE is, or ever was, in the UK sheep flock".
• Thirdly: "In particular, I think the most important thing to question in the Bill is the use of the term 'TSE susceptible' rather than 'affected' or even 'exposed'. By implication, the Bill would allow slaughter of any animal of a species in which a TSE had ever been detected".

July 26 ~ "There is absolutely no evidence that there is any BSE in sheep, and it's not that people haven't been looking. They have, but they haven't found it." ( Professor Hugh Pennington, eminent Aberdeen University bacteriologist)

Professor Pennington is frequently called upon by the government to handle food scares. Even he says " Recall the attempts of the mathematical modellers to predict foot and mouth last year. Despite knowing more about the behaviour of the virus in the filed than for just about any other microbe, they still got things seriously wrong. The main value of modelling is to show up the things that need to be found out such as how does infection spread. For BSE and sheep, of course, we don't need to do modelling to remind us how few actual facts we have." (See article and photograph)

July 26 ~ Resolved in the negative, and amendment disagreed to accordingly

For those who - like the unfortunate sheep in Lord Plumb's failed amendment - have the stomach for it, the Animal Health Bill debate and first Committee Stage in the Lords yesterday may be read here.

July 26 ~ The Lessons Learned Inquiry failed to act on the recommendation of the Northumberland Report; to listen to dissenting voices.

A letter from the NFMG to the EFRA Select Committee today contains the following questions:
• Why has the Lessons Learned Inquiry not complied with the Recommendation of the EFRA Select Committee on FMD that in the absence of 'full public inquiry ' the Inquiries should "conduct themselves transparently, taking evidence from as many sources as possible in public unless there are very clear reasons not to do so."
• Why was so much evidence taken in private?
• Why were many key witnesses not called to give evidence?
• Why were many leading veterinarians who were involved during the epidemic not called to give evidence?
• Why were virtually all the scientific witnesses called drawn from the Government 's own advisers? In having cognisance of only one side of the argument the Inquiry has failed to act with validity and integrity.
• Why has the empirical data and factual information submitted to the Inquiry been ignored?
• Substantive evidence founded on Parliamentary Answers has not been taken account of. Most importantly the data provided in PQ ' and A 's demonstrating that of the 10,485 premises culled only 1,326 were lab confirmed to have had the disease has been disregarded. The extremely few cases lab confirmed raises fundamental questions as to whether control measures adopted in response to the disease were proportionate, reasonable or rational.
• Why was the empirical data and figures from Pirbright and DEFRA not used to assess the efficacy, impact and consequences of the Contiguous Cull policy?
• Why did the Inquiry fail to consider the validity of those who contested the Contiguous Cull policy and proved that the policy was not necessary to control the disease? ... none of the solicitors or barristers acting on behalf of those who opposed the cull were asked to attend the Inquiry to present evidence to demonstrate the legitimacy of the action taken.
• Why were the various EU FMD Committee Minutes (1999 and 2000) and the EU Strategy for Emergency Vaccination adopted in 1999 not taken account of by the Inquiry in its consideration of Contingency Planning?
See the letter in detail

July 26 ~ "Why did the LL Inquiry ignore the EU Decision relating to compensation for vaccination and vaccinated animals?"

(From the NFMG letter sent today) " See EU Council Decision of 26 June 1990 (90/424/EEC) Articles 3 and 11. This was a key issue during the epidemic but the Inquiry has failed to point out that if the existence of this directive had been made known by the Government it may well have overcome many of the NFU objections to vaccination.
In not allowing evidence to be heard in public and subsequently examined, many of the assumptions and assertions of the Government 's advisers have gone unchallenged and untested. ...Sadly the Inquiry has accepted the false premises on which these policies were founded.
Furthermore, as the Inquiry has not been prepared to take evidence from those who would have provided Expert Witness opinion on FMD science and the various control methods, the Lessons Learned Inquiry has provided no opportunity to question or apply critical analysis to the views expressed by the Government and its advisers.
Without being prepared to hear both sides of the argument neither the Inquiry nor its Report can be accepted as having validity or integrity. "

July 26 ~ If the Bill is passed it will pave the way for the government to use.... pre-emptive slaughter policies such as the contiguous cull during future disease outbreaks.

writes Isabel Davies in the Farmers' Weekly interactive "The government is making a second attempt to push through its Animal Health Bill to remove doubts over the legality of future foot-and-mouth control strategies." "A Defra spokesman confirmed that it was likely that foot-and-mouth related parts of the Bill would be brought back in the autumn 'in some guise'.
Our astonished relief that the peers had succeeded in postponing the bill until after the reports had been published was short lived. The reports have been published - but not debated. The passing of the bill will give the government even greater powers to slaughter healthy animals for whatever political reason they choose.
"any ambiguity over the legal basis for future disease control strategies".
Hardly surprising that the government sponsored report recommended that the Bill should remove "ambiguity". One has only to read Lord Whitty's unsatisfactory answers to the questions about legality put to him a month ago to see how nervous the government have been about their "legal basis".
But the gullible, gullible English will allow the snake of modern undemocratic British government to swallow the pig and all will be smooth and sleek again. The time for holding them to account has slipped past - and our institutions are being neutered. As the Western Morning News put it, " Victims of the disaster will forever feel cheated by the Government's cowardly refusal to be held to account in public."

July 26 ~ "I think we need to move on"

In December Iain Anderson said "I am actually trying to get to the bottom of all of these things .... I have no interest in coming to a half baked solution, none. What a disaster that would be, what a waste of time. I will come back and be held to it. ....."
A questioner in Okehampton on January 23 2002 said to the the Lessons Learned team, "...once you have done half of your interviews, should be able to come back to us ....the key point is communicate with everybody involved all the way through. Do not come down here and then go away and leave the west country, "Oh well we've been there, we don't need to worry about them any more...."
Dr Anderson replied,".. I like the point and I am just in my mind trying to process it in a practical way. " But Alun Evans said "I think we need to move on."
"We need to move on" has been a phrase repeated often in recent weeks.

July 26 ~ the Inquiries should "conduct themselves transparently, taking evidence from as many sources as possible in public unless there are very clear reasons not to do so."

The Lessons Learned team did not, it seems, have time to invite for interview any FMD expert who could put them right about the flawed scientific basis of the contiguous cull, nor the wasted opportunity for rapid diagnosis. The report still upholds the cruel fiction that it " played a critical part in disease control in the 2001 outbreak so the possibility of it being adopted in the future should be retained." They did not interview Dr Paul Kitching - who has told the truth about the contiguous cull to the EU. They did not interview Dr Keith Sumption, also now acclaimed as an international expert. They chose not to talk to Fred Brown. There is no evidence in the report from any epidemiologist who now understands that when the decision to implement the contiguous cull was taken the epidemiologists all thought R was much higher than it actually was - yet surely the LLI team comprised at least one person capable of understanding that if, of 909 confirmed cases up to 1/04/2001 and only 549 (60%) returned positive laboratory test results (PQ 6650 22/06/02). ( the rest were negative or untested) then it is highly unlikely that Ro was initially 1.2?
David Curry's EFRA Committee on FMD said that " in the absence of full public inquiry the Inquiries should "conduct themselves transparently, taking evidence from as many sources as possible in public unless there are very clear reasons not to do so." Principal Recommendation 1 - Para 43(a) What does his Committee now think of the transparency of the report? What "clear reasons" were given not to interview the most eminent dissenters from the policy?

July 25 ~ "A few humble words of regret and apology would have moved mountains"

The Western Morning News concludes its editorial on the Lessons Learned Report: " At the root of the Government's scandalous mishandling of the epidemic was a basic lack of understanding and knowledge of the countryside and country people.
If Blair, Beckett, et al continue to deny that, they will never regain the trust and respect of those people who felt brutalised, betrayed and isolated by their conduct throughout the disaster.
A few humble words of regret and apology would have moved mountains in terms of rural public opinion.
What we got instead was arrogant, complacent, even sometimes hostile, evasion of the accountability which is inherent in their public office..."

July 25 ~ "The last thing Defra ministers can afford to admit is the truth: that the contiguous cull, although never properly tested in the courts, was a straightforward criminal act committed by a British government on a massive scale." Private Eye

Lord Whitty replied to Lord Willoughby de Broke's 5 questions eventually - but the answers his team of researchers gave him were not up to much. An analysis of his answers reveals the same muddled thinking, lack of understanding and wishful thinking that has been apparent all along to anyone not taken in by the irritated bluster. (Analysis)

July 25 ~ Today Lord Whitty will try to convince the House of Lords that they must debate in Committee the scrapie clauses of the Animal Health Bill.

The whole thing is based on a fallacy.
Scrapie has no known adverse effect on human health. No links between scrapie and CJD have been demonstrated. It has been present in the sheep population of UK for more than two hundred years, and no association with human disease has been shown. In Iceland, where sheep heads, eyes and brains are eaten, only two cases of CJD have been recorded in 35 years, and both were in a non-scrapie endemic region (Sigurdarson, 1991).
The reason for slaughtering sheep with scrapie-susceptible genotypes, and the current policy of the National Scrapie Plan, are based on the possible transfer of BSE to sheep. There is no evidence this has occurred. The Horn report, considered at the meeting of SEAC in September 2001, states that no scrapie strain with the characteristics of the BSE strain has been identified.
It also needs to be borne in mind that it has not yet been proved that BSE is the cause of vCJD. (see information document
'New Labour - New Life for Animals ' (Labour Party manifesto, 1997) Fine vote-catching words but the opposite of the truth. To their utter shame, New Labour has comprehensively failed to treat farm livestock - and their owners - with the compassion that should be the norm in a civilised society. The AHB scrapie clauses - likely to be nodded through today by politicians eager for their annual break - give the Minister even more legal powers to slaughter at will and owners will have no powers left to stand up for their healthy animals.

July 25 ~ "I'm not scared of this Government, as I can't think of anything else they could possibly do to make my life any worse than they already have done."

writes a Cornish farmer whose story warmwell has followed with grave disquiet from the beginning. Her life became a nightmare when her much loved animals were killed in a contiguous cull - including a favourite ewe that had just lain down to lamb when the slaughteres arrived and fifteen cows who had lived on the farm as virtual pets all their lives. The cull was not applied consistently; the IP was unproven. Separated from the so-called Infected Premises,West Witheven, by 37 acres of woodland, they discovered that several other farms which were contiguous and separated merely by a fence, were not culled. After their animals had been killed they were told that the "DVM had changed her mind" Their farm has been under restrictions, a "Form 37B", ever since because, having offered to do the C&D themselves rather than see the same crew back who had killed their animals - and been refused - they barricaded the farm. They were told by the DVM, Jan Kelly, "they could stay there til they broke".
She writes "The Government slaughtered all my animals for a disease they didn't have, gave us £16,000 in compensation , and were then prepared to spend over £25,000 in cleansing our farm buildings for a disease that had never been there"
"I have copied below a report on virus spread and the Contiguous Cull, made by Dr Keith Sumption which we would have used in our Judicial Review (refused in October)."
"We paid £1000 for it, so it would be nice to think it could be put to some use".
extract: " ..even if Higher Fonstone had been downwind on the days at risk, the distance separation of animals at Higher Fonstone is sufficiently great to suggest that transmission by the airborne route from West Witheven is not likely to have occurred, since the number of potentially infected animals would have been insufficient to have resulted in airborne infection at a range over 100 metres distance."

July 25 ~ "Anderson does genuflect toward the case for vaccination but he seems to shy away from the impications of his analysis"

In his Evening Standard article last night, Jonathan Dimbleby writes, "The really ghastly self-inflicted 'nightmare' was to reject the case for vaccination except as 'a last resort' - in itself a meaningless concept. As the Soil Association argued at the time, 'ring vaccination' to stop the spread of an outbreak from the hotspots would have been swifter and more effective than the so-called 'contiguous cull' of millions of healthy animals. Long before the crisis had peaked, I argued that vaccination also offered 'the only available prospect of an early reprieve from the mass carnage which has become a nightly horror show with a worldwide audience'. No wonder, despite ministerial bleating to the contrary, that the countryside was - in reality - closed for business.
Anderson does genuflect toward the case for vaccination but he seems to shy away from the impications of his analysis. In her Commons statement yesterday, Mrs Beckett accepted his recommendation that the 'option' of emergency vaccination should 'form part of any future strategy for the control of FMD' but gave no indication what that carefully crafted but singularly imprecise phrase ws supposed to mean. (more)

July 25 ~ "Ministers were interviewed by Dr Anderson..... But we, the public, are not allowed to know what he asked them or what their answers were..."

A robust editorial from the Western Morning News is an indication of how independent it is compared to the rest of the field.
"We cannot judge for ourselves whether it is actually true to say that the conspiracy theory has been banished forever. We simply have to take Margaret Beckett's word for it.
And that's not democracy.
The reference in Dr Anderson's report to that theory says: "We have examined Government papers and questioned ministers and officials but have found no evidence to support such a suggestion."
That's hardly the massive rejection described by Mrs Beckett of the suspicions, especially since we know of Dr Anderson's frustration that there were moments of collective amnesia on crucial points when he spoke to ministers. It might well be that the Prime Minister's conduct and policies were never influenced by the General Election, but the point is that we will never really know, and the fact that a neutered chairman of a toothless inquiry could find no evidence of it means next to nothing. (more)

July 24 ~ Fordyce is suffering from FMD battle fatigue

Battle fatigue sets in over FMD writes Mr Maxwell, with understandable weariness, in today's Scotsman After pointing out that " ...Journalists had 45 minutes to speed-read 186 pages before a press conference followed by the usual deadline rush to describe it, and reaction to it. The report was about foot-and-mouth. Slightly more time to re-read it yesterday left much the same impression - it's about foot-and-mouth, as every one of the dozen or so reports published in the past six months has been."
This weariness expressed in the Scotsman sums up the problem. Both politicians and journalists are swamped with so much information overload that - while "scientists may know more and more about less and less, politicans and journalists know less and less about b*gger all" (as Fred Brown remarked to us last year) So we get the often repeated fallacy that things were done better in Scotland. Try telling that to anyone who came up against the veterinary Angel of Death who featured so loathsomely in the BBC film "In the Shadow" or to any farmer in Dumfries and Galloway who is still traumatised by what happened to their healthy stock.
Mr Maxwell says, " A witch hunt is an unedifying sight at any time, any place and Anderson made the valid point that we are not talking about bad people." We beg to differ. Some of the people involved were very bad indeed - some were downright crooks, some were cheats, and many were liars. Worst of all, many of the MAFF officials were arrogant and violent bullies who could have passed unnoticed in the lower ranks of the SS or Gestapo. We can no longer claim to be a nation of fair play. The contiguous cull was carried out in England, Wales and Scotland in a way that will be of lasting shame to all involved and has diminished us as a nation. We echo Robin Page below. "Is there no accountability any more?"

July 24 ~ "what faith can we put in the prospects of the more equivocal recommendations of Dr Iain Anderson?"

Sir Edward Greenwell, President of the Country Land and Business Association writes in today's Telegraph, Sir - As Charles Clover points out (Comment, July 23), the recommendations of the Northumberland inquiry were specific and clear. However, given that the rigorous prescriptions of the Northumberland report were not in place in February 2001, what faith can we put in the prospects of the more equivocal recommendations of Dr Iain Anderson?
Northumberland recommended that rehearsed contingency plans should provide for the "swift and effective mobilisation of manpower and resources, and for smooth expansion to deal with outbreaks, no matter what dimension they assume". He also recommended seeking help from the Armed Forces at an early stage, and that, in the absence of satisfactory import controls, slaughter should be reinforced by ring vaccination.
Thirty-four years later, we hear identical but more qualified recommendations from Dr Anderson. Our fear is that we will be no better protected for the next outbreak.
We therefore propose that, as a matter of urgency, the chairmen of all the inquiries - the three by the Government and those in the regions and the Edinburgh Royal Society's - pool their experience to guide the production of the much-needed animal health strategy and to act as watchdogs over its implementation
From: Sir Edward Greenwell, President, Country Land and Business Association, London SW1

July 24 ~ "10 million dead animals, a wrecked rural economy and countless ruined lives, those who insisted on the absurd, heartless and bewildering cull should resign."

In a letter in today's Telegraph Robin Page asks, "....Ben Gill , the president of the NFU - an organisation that represents a few agribusinessmen - should be the first to go. He should be followed by the individual who took "personal control" of the outbreak, Tony Blair. Is there no accountability in high office any more?"

July 24 ~ Animal Health Bill to make its unwelcome return tomorrow

On June 25 Lord Willoughby de Broke asked Lord Whitty five questions about the legality of the contiguous cull. We understand that answers were received just three days ago and were unsatisfactory. The fact remains that scientific evidence was not disclosed by the government authorities in the court cases clung to as giving legal validity to contiguous culling.
This evidence was not disclosed, for reasons which may appear obvious, by MAFF in the famous Grunty case either - but the Defence did present it as evidence and it proved decisive.
Mr Justice Harrison, having referred to the scientific evidence, said, "....there is much to be said for the alternative of monitoring and blood testing which Mrs Upton offered in the first place......I bear in mind also what happeneed when, unwittingly, there was a MAFF vet at Hill Farm and it turned out he had been on infected premises some few days before as a result of which the matter was dealt with by monitoring over a period ."..."that is the proportionate response to the situation in which we now find ourselves"
No Court cases were contested after this. The Ministry had had their fingers burned.
No wonder the Animal Health Bill is being rushed back in to give them the legality they lacked in 2001. In spite of the new powers contained in Statutory Instrument 843 they still want the "scrapie" clauses to be debated in Committee before the holiday - presumably to force compliance with such schemes as the National Scrapie Plan. Like the contiguous cull itself - and notwithstanding Anderson's bland comments to the contrary - it too is underpinned by flawed thinking, inaccurate data and no valid scientific evidence.

July 24 ~ p 50 and 52 of The Lessons Learned Inquiry report do not tie in with the Dutch explanation given to the Veterinary Standing Committee 3/04/01

Calves were in a staging post at Mayenne for 12 hours on 23/02/01.
Between the 5 and 19 February 2001 seven shipments of sheep from UK - FMD cases 1 to 11 - were taken to Mayenne staging post. The sheep were seropositive. A contact herd withhin 500m of the staging post became FMD case 01/01 in France on 13 February.
This implies that calves might have been infected on 23 Feb before they entered the Netherlands.
UK FMD case 11 was discovered on February 26 and the animals thought to have become infected on February 18 from a Devon dealer. However, this date could have been a week earlier if his sheep infected the French farm on February 13.
A possible explanation is that UK epidemic started at least a week earlier than recorded. If that is the case then it is possible that:-
• The pigs at Heddon were already infected when the farm was issued with a new licence.
• There is an obvious explanation as to why disease kept appearing where it was difficult to find a source (because it had not been realised that these contacts were pre Longtown market) - which resulted in the panic of contiguous culling.
• The contiguous cull was unnecessary because it was actually un traced animal movements which made it look as though the disease was spreading.
It is shocking that the LLI were not aware of the Dutch information

July 23 ~ The Western Morning News have published this letter from a thoroughly exasperated Nick Green in Cumbria

"Today, as we read the watered down, camouflaged results of the Royal Society, I listened in astonishment to two rather odd pronouncements. The first by our Tony.......earlier today, the future President of Europe announces that,
"In the real world, the buck stops with the PM, and that`s me!"
As if we had forgotten!
So, Tony, that must mean you were responsible for one of the most savage, illegal, barbaric and unscientific policies to be forced on our rural communities. To that end, it is YOU who must be held accountable ..
RESIGN NOW! (read full letter)

July 23 ~ Latest Warmwell updates not available to many users.

Please tell them that pressing f5 generally does the trick if you hear from others that they are not getting the latest updates of warmwell from their ISP. That other irritation - being sent to an annoying "log-on" page on the Times and the Telegraph, can be avoided if one views the articles on warmwell's newspaper page

July 23 ~ "The victims of this epidemic, the farmers, were smeared as the villains. Dodgy farming practices were blamed for the outbreak.."

Pass the humane killer, and let the lesson begin is the title of the article by Michael Gove in today's Times
"Dodgy farmers were blamed for spreading the disease, when the Government's own incompetence in managing the cull was the single greatest factor in its growth. And dodgy farmers were blamed for rigging compensation, when the greatest economic crime, the destruction of the tourist industry through the closure of great tracts of the countryside, was a consequence of the Government's failure to embrace a vaccination strategy which would have kept rural Britain open for business.
The real lessons of the foot-and-mouth disaster are ones which this Government is incapable of learning. Its aversion to inherited wisdom and institutions, its relentless desire to arrogate ever greater control to the centre and its compulsion to manage the media are ineradicable maladies. This is one case where a cull is the only sensible policy. "

July 23 ~ Factual Error in LLI report

Nicola Morris comments on Page 90- the Ro number
"One IP may have appeared to have infected 1.2 other farms initially but that may have been because premises classified as infected were not reclassified as not infected if they returned a negative laboratory test.
In the period up to 1/04 Of 909 confirmed cases up to 1/04/2001, only 549 (60%) returned positive laboratory test results (PQ 6650 22/06/02). ( the rest were negative or untested)
Given this data it is highly unlikely that Ro was initially 1.2
When the decision to implement the contiguous cull was taken the epidemiologists all thought R was much higher than it actually was.
Whether the R value of 1.2 is now a correct value taking into account all the negatives is simply not known but even if it is the contiguous cull was not a good option.
The most striking thing about this report is that, like the RSC report, it is almost devoid of numerical facts. The conclusions would be easier to accept if the epidemic data were accurately presented and analysed -and supported the conclusions."

July 23 ~ Anderson puts down the red carpet for the Animal Health Bill

"The powers available in the Animal Health Act 1981 should be re-examined, possibly in the context of a wider review of animal health legislation, to remove any ambiguity over the legal basis for future disease control strategies."
"Ambiguity" was it?
The illegality of much of the killing was quite clear. The fact that the Government and their supporters are so eager to have this "ambiguity" removed only serves to underline the lawlessness of the killing of animals during 2001 who had not in any way been in contact with the disease. After the Donaldson research finally made its way into a court of law in the famous Grunty case the Government no longer dared to contest in a court of law those farmers who refused the contiguous cull.
Why not? Because they knew the Ministry could not win. Killing animals simply because there was some vague and unproven possibility of their being within 3 kilometres of a virus that is not carried any distance in the air was not lawful. This is why the wording of the notorious AHB and SI843 has changed the wording to "susceptible" - and since all animals are susceptible to some kinds of disease, the passing of the Bill will make killing at the whim of the Ministry perfectly legal.

July 23 ~ Were the people in Number 10 fools or knaves?

asks Charles Clover in the Telegraph this morning. "Did Tony Blair make the epidemic worse by delaying calling in the Army for three weeks because he thought the national emergency this would signify would interfere with election preparations?
"What we can say is that Dr Anderson has not found out.
Certainly it would have been surprising if a friend and appointee of the Prime Minister, given a remit not to apportion individual blame, had nevertheless laid the blame at the door of the Prime Minister.
What we are left with, in Dr Anderson's gentle but detailed account, is nevertheless pretty damning. It is a story of history repeating itself.

July 23 ~ " laughable in its naive acceptance of the prim official version."

Peter Riddell in today's Times
"..the report several times leaves major questions dangling in the air. The discussion of how Phoenix the Calf was "saved" in time for the 10pm bulletins is laughable in its naive acceptance of the prim official version. Mr Blair is treated as completely off-limits throughout.
The section on the links with election timing reads like a Civil Service minute. The report states: "We have examined government papers and questioned ministers and officials, but have found no evidence to support such a suggestion" (that decisions were influenced by electoral considerations). But, although the date may not have been formally mentioned, it was always in politicians' minds.
Similarly, Anderson's explanation for why Mr Blair and the centre did not become more actively involved for 31 days rests on "the culture of Whitehall" and the absence of "trigger points" for intervention. This is as unconvinving as the report's assumption that everything was fine after March 22 when the Cobra emergency apparatus was activated.".....see more

July 22/23 ~ National Foot and Mouth Group: Despair at Lessons Learned Inquiry Report

"So the catalogue of catastrophic decisions which resulted in the worst peace time experience of this Country will forever be without responsibility or accountability.
Neither the Royal Society Inquiry nor the Lessons Learned Inquiry have complied with the recommendation of the EFRA Select Committee that "they conduct themselves transparently, taking evidence from as many sources as possible in public, unless there are clear reasons not to do so." Principal Recommendation 1 - Para 43(a)
Furthermore they have not been open and straightforward in publishing evidence.
The whole process has fallen well short of normal public inquiry procedure - and has been virtually secret.
The Royal Society London somehow 'forgot' or 'overlooked' the publication of the NFMG Vaccination Programme. Today the Lessons Learned Inquiry has not posted the Notes of the Meeting with the Group - although a Web Page link is provided - it goes nowhere - perhaps both made uncomfortable reading..." (more)

July 22 ~ Anderson Inquiry whitewash over contiguous cull

As we feared, the Anderson Inquiry has failed to understand that the draconian policies were unnecessary and that the disease had already peaked by the time the contiguous cull policy was instigated. Instead we get such infuriating statements as " Many farmers did not understand or accept the statistical basis for the policy. Most contiguous premises were not infected and probably would not have become infected. But some would and, if not culled out, would have revealed themselves only when they had contributed to the further spread of disease." This entirely fails to take into consideration what we know about the fact that so called "new outbreaks" were in fact pre-movement ban infected premises showing disease later on and being wrongly assumed to be a result of local spread, the flawed data in the models which took no account of the nature of this strain of the virus nor that it was being spread by sheep, the fact that this strain cannot carry in the air for more than a few metres, about the effect of delays in slaughtering IPs (where, by the time the contiguous culls themselves were got round to - the time of incubation was in most cases well past. Farmers knew their stock was healthy. They were right) or the damning fact that clinical diagnosis was so poor and testing so perfunctory that many of the IPs around which this "pre-emptive" killing was going on were not infected at all.
Explaining to those with no ears to hear that this is pernicious nonsense is hard. However, we shall go on publishing the informed views of those FMD experts (such as Paul Kitching) who are still giving evidence and who tried all along to prevent the catastrophic loss of breeding animals, rare breeds and pets - all caught up in this senseless policy. Truth is the daughter of time and - Anderson notwithstanding - the truth will eventually be told.

July 22 ~ The Anderson Inquiry fails to understand the nature of the lost opportunity of rapid diagnosis

We note with dismay that the Inquiry 10.4.1 Developing rapid on-farm tests has swallowed the King/Pirbright version of the RT-PCR fiasco. Dr Breeze explained to the Royal Society that "by February 2001 we had developed and tested in the laboratory a remarkable assay that detected all 7 serotypes of FMD virus and differentiated FMD virus from other vesicular diseases of livestock and from other RNA viruses.
.....RT-PCR is more sensitive than cell culture. .....ARS RT-PCR for FMD is the new standard for on-site diagnosis of FMD" ..
A letter from Dr Breeze, submitted as evidence to the RS Enquiry, contains his reference to the Veterinary Record on 6 October 2001, "Evaluation of a portable, 'real-time' PCR machine for FMD diagnosis" by Alex Donaldson, et al, which claimed poor results, stating that:"The reagents used in the assay were recommended by the manufacturer of the instrument" whereas in fact Cepheid has no involvement in PCR primer design for Tetracore/ARS and the details of the ARS primers had not been disclosed to Cepheid.
Roger Breeze wrote, "... I do not know the details of the reagents Cepheid provided to Pirbright but I can assure you that these were not the reagents proprietary to ARS/Tetracore that are used in the US test.
The details of the ARS FMD test were published June 1, 2002 in the Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association:
Roger Breeze, more in sorrow than anger writes in a letter submitted to the Inquiries:"I did consider writing to the Veterinary Record at the time to clarify this but decided this was not worthwhile since Donaldson's letter was largely anecdotal and Cepheid clearly had no capability in FMD detection, so it was hard to believe anyone would take his comments seriously"
Alas for our chance of learning any lessons from this ..the Anderson Inquiry took them very seriously indeed.
( See extract from Dr Breeze's letters in the Royal Society Report)

July 22 ~ Anderson slates poor record keeping which made "the task of constructing an audit trail extremely difficult in some vital policy areas, including the contiguous and 3 km culls"

It has become apparent to us that, while some policy decisions were recorded with commendable clarity, some of the most important ones taken during the outbreak were recorded in the most perfunctory way, and sometimes not at all. In the context of our own Inquiry, this has made the task of constructing an audit trail extremely difficult in some vital policy areas, including the contiguous and 3 km culls, and the decision to close footpaths. Good record keeping is essential. Records are not kept purely to inform potential future Inquiries. They should set out what has to be done, when and by whom, to help ensure that results are delivered.."

July 22 ~ Anderson: "At times there were polarised views within the group but no convincing mechanism for handling conflicts of opinion.

34. We recommend that DEFRA's Chief Scientist maintain a properly constituted standing committee ready to advise in an emergency on scientific aspects of disease control. The role of this group should include advising on horizon scanning and emerging risks. Particular attention should be given to the recommendations on the use of scientific advisory committees in The BSE Inquiry report of 2000"

July 22 ~ Anderson: "We have ..formed a view that the option of vaccination should be a part of any future strategy for the control of FMD.

There are hurdles to be overcome: the science is not yet clear enough: many farmers and farming organisations have expressed their opposition; there are concerns about consumer reaction: there are complex EU and international issues. All these must be tackled urgently.....in the event of an outbreak, emergency protective vaccination must be an option available for use whenever judged by the veterinary experts to be appropriate."

July 22 ~ "The RSI report agreed with everything we (NFU) had said!" (Ben Gill, on BBC TV this morning at the Welsh Agric. Show, Builth Wells )

Nick Green comments: " What...you mean like
"Vaccinated Sows abort!"?
"There is no adequate vaccination!"?
"Carriers spread the disease!" ?
And has Mr Gill forgotten that he went on television denouncing vaccination saying that ' his members' wanted the killing speeded up? That vaccinated animals were the ' walking dead' ?

July 22 ~ The sub text of the RS report contains the real criticisms

Some of the implied criticisms made by the Royal Society are suggested here. It will be interesting to see how far the Anderson Report is in agreement, what it adds, and where its emphasis is different. The RS report was commissioned by DEFRA and the Office of Science and Technology. Lessons Learned was appointed by Tony Blair with a secretariat based at Whitehall.

July 22 ~ The Report of the Lessons Learned Inquiry will be published on today at 4 p.m..

There will be a press conference at 4pm at the Institute of Mechanical Engineers, 1 Birdcage Walk, London SW1.
The report will be available on the inquiry's website from 4pm on the same day and also from The Stationery Office.
In a "leak" reported by Mr Blair's "favourite newspaper", The Times , we understand that the report will make uncomfortable reading for Nick Brown and Jim Scudamore....who may well be the scapegoats behind whom those even more guilty will hide. The spin is likely to be along the lines of "Dr Anderson's Inquiry recommends more and faster culling to prevent spreads of the disease in any future outbreak." which will be quoted out of context in direct contradiction to the finding of the other reports. Will the Lessons Learned show that any lessons have been learned at all? Will it, in the words of Alan Beat, show that "the contiguous cull made no impact on the course of the epidemic, but served only to pile up the dead bodies without need."?
The spin against the animal owners, all the talk of fat cat farmers and "millions" of compensation that was so disgracefully used to stifle urban sympathy has left people in despair, their pain unacknowledged. Will any of the 200 page Anderson report explain what the "catalogue of mismangement" actually meant to real people? Will it mention the widespread cruelty and frankly Nazi methods employed to coerce them into compliance? "Farmers have a sense of being on their own. There's little publicity for the plight of the individual farmer." says the Western Mail in its feature today about the continuing pain in farmers' families. Perhaps Mrs Beckett and Lord Whitty should read this letter before making their statements this afternoon.

July 22 ~"There will be resignation calls, but no one will go"

"The true extent of political meddling is unlikely ever to be known, as the evidence given by Mr Blair, other ministers and senior officials will not be quoted verbatim." (Telegraph).....( Documents will be hidden under the 50 year rule)

July 22 ~ "But Dr Anderson's 200-page report has not come to a conclusion on the most pressing question: whether the Prime Minister delayed calling in the Army because he wanted to avoid the impression of a nation in crisis before the general election."

As in the Times report today (see blow), Robert Uhlig in the Telegraph begins his article about the findings of the Anderson Inquiry with a statement about the delay in bringing in the army - but follows it by saying that the Anderson report "reveals a "catalogue of mismanagement" that will bring calls for resignations." In somewhat ironic tones, he continues, "But Dr Anderson's 200-page report has not come to a conclusion on the most pressing question: whether the Prime Minister delayed calling in the Army because he wanted to avoid the impression of a nation in crisis before the general election. Instead, it will condemn the former ministry of agriculture's "incompetence", which led to the loss of more than 10 million animals, £1.3 billion compensation for farmers and overall costs of at least £8 billion."
"Although Dr Anderson was clearly instructed "not to seek scapegoats", Whitehall sources indicated yesterday that his report would be "highly critical" of several ministers, senior officials and others, such as Ben Gill, the president of the National Farmers' Union.

July 22 ~ "Did political motives and concern over the General Election date influence ministerial decisions?" asks David Lidington,

the Tory environment spokesman "Mr Blair has refused to hold a proper public inquiry. It is profoundly unsatisfactory that ministers and officials only gave evidence [to the Anderson inquiry] in secret." Read Mr Lidington's press release

July 21 ~Why did all those in charge behave so irrationally?

It is rather striking that none of the Inquiry Reports will point a finger of blame. One of the most monstrous pieces of misinformation about vaccination - still going unchallenged and promulgated by the ignorant - is that eating vaccinated meat involves chemicals. No one will tell the truth. The truth is that vaccinated meat has not one trace of "vaccine" in it. The immune system, having responded,destroys the natural viral protein by biodegrading it.
As Ruth Watkins puts it, "The FMD vaccination is the injection of a very small amount of viral protein- it can be likened to a wasp sting- the substance injected is biodegradable, indeed it is biodegraded by the very cells that form the immune response. In the case of the viral protein a protective antibody response is formed."
The Supermarkets should be crying out for vaccinated products when there is an epidemic of FMD.
It is ludicrous to be troubled by vaccination when they quite disregard infection. There is no doubt at all that we consumed infected products during the 7 month epidemic since unrecognised acutely infected sheep were passing through abattoirs undetected for some time.

July