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ARCHIVE 2007 ~ August

31 August 2007 ~ Burges Salmon advises caution over FMD compensation claims

Farming UK.com quotes William Neville
".... It is understandable that those affected will look for compensation. However, it is basic English law that compensation for financial loss cannot be obtained unless there has also been damage to property. Unlike in 2001, only two farms have been subjected to slaughter. At this stage, there would appear to be no more than a faint possibility of general claims for financial losses, especially as the factual situation at Pirbright remains unclear and no responsibility, by either Merial or the Institute for Animal Health, has been established."
Although Burges Salmon is advising farmers to keep comprehensive records of any losses and expenditure as a result of restrictions imposed by the Surrey outbreak, William Neville is a lawyer highly experienced in these matters as we saw in 2001 when, as we remember with gratitude, he gave the necessary advice that one must not confuse justice with the law. It is looking rather unlikely that the various reports and investigations (see Farmers Guardian) are going to reach any conclusions about liability - and it is the law, not necessarily justice, that will decide on compensation.

30/31 August 2007 ~ Depending on "vigilance" - Bluetongue

There was no mention of vaccination, sampling or surveillance when Debby Reynolds spoke today about the Bluetongue threat on Farming Today She said of BTV-8 that
"..not only has it overwintered, it has started to spread in quite an alarming way ..the risk is low but it has clearly heightened...whilst we can stop imports or test imported animals what we cannot do is prevent the vector, the midge, blowing across the Channel."
When she was asked about whether her statement about "monitoring the wind carefully" meant that there would be sampling to see if midges were in the air she said,
"No we're not. We are using the Meteorological Office tracking of wind and we are simply reflecting that as a risk in particular areas. We are clearly depending on what has been the very good vigilance of farmers ..."
Culling would be appropriate "on a pretty tiny scale if we think we've caught it early enough" and she was at pains to say that culling would not be one of the control measures - rather there would be large "control areas" one or two of which ".. could encompass large tracts of the country".
Dr Reynolds said that the new plan had been developed in partnership with the "core group of veterinary stakeholders".
However, she was not even asked about possible future vaccination nor why testing is not happening immediately in the areas of the UK nearest to outbreaks across the Channel. Either the resources are simply not there to carry out adequate surveillance and testing or else the "core group of veterinary stakeholders" do not think such surveillance is necessary. The 'wait and hope' approach would appear to be, as for other disease threats, the first step of our current policy for Bluetongue.

30/31 August 2007 ~ Sheep vaccination for FMD

We have been reminded that in Uruguay, almost 11 million cattle were vaccinated whilst the 12 million sheep grazing beside them were not - yet this was enough to eradicate the disease (See bvs.panaftosa.org ) - and this is quite true. It is very common not to vaccinate sheep in countries with more knowledge of FMD than the UK - such as Uruguay - and in those countries whose porous borders make FMD incursions such a depressingly common occurrence. But in the UK the situation is rather different and people still want to know more about the science that DEFRA says "underpins" its approach. Owners of rare sheep and sheep farmers who would very much wish their animals to be protected - especially if the alternative is slaughter - deserve to be told the scientific rationale for excluding sheep from vaccination plans. It is a matter of trust.

30 August 2007 ~ Sheep respond very well to vaccination. So why is DEFRA not including them in any vaccination policy?

Where sheep are involved in an outbreak of FMD it is well known that they may remain undiagnosed until after the disease has spread. This could have devastating consequences - as it most certainly did in the UK in 2001. We read in Emergency vaccination of sheep against foot-and-mouth disease: protection against disease and reduction in contact transmission Cox et al, Vaccine 17 (1999) 1858 -1868 that ".. highly potent emergency vaccines can reduce virus replication in the oropharynx, consequently decreasing virus excretion, and thereby limiting the transmission of the disease to susceptible non-vaccinated sheep." (Although the chance of vaccinated sheep actually meeting unvaccinated ones is remote in real life, something that seems rarely to be pointed out by researchers. See Notes on Transmission "...People who argue that vaccination does not prevent transmission are not considering the farm based nature of European control..").
Similarly, in the 2004 paper,Evidence that high potency foot-and-mouth disease vaccine inhibits local virus replication and prevents the 'carrier' state in sheep Barnett et al, Vaccine 22 (2004) 1221 - 1232 the conclusion is that
"...all of the vaccinated sheep, regardless of antigen payload, were protected against clinical disease and development of viraemia. Virological and serological results confirmed that there had been no local virus replication in the oropharynx of sheep from the high potency vaccine group in contrast to moderate or substantial virus replication in the oropharynx of the low potency vaccinated or unvaccinated sheep respectively....."
If our information is correct, and DEFRA does not intend to include sheep in any vaccination policy, it is to be hoped that there are those prepared to ask, "Why not?"

Thursday 30 August 2007 ~ "No microbiology lab can be made totally secure"

The Financial Times yesterday:
"... Research into dangerous germs is essential if humanity is to defend itself against infectious disease - and that means accepting a small risk that a pathogen will be released accidentally (or even deliberately, by a malicious researcher). No microbiology lab can be made totally secure. And of course the precautions must be ccidentally (or even deliberately, by a malicious researcher). No microbiology lab can be made totally secure. And of course the precautions must be appropriate to the risk - excessive security can stifle research...... The Pirbright biosafety reviews will be judged not only by their technical content but also by their openness. Commercial and scientific interests must not trump transparency..."
Professor Spratt is expected to deliver his report into the biosecurity arrangements both Pirbright sites very soon. It is already a relief to many, in European areas hit by Bluetongue for example, that Merial says it has been given the green-light to resume the manufacture of vaccine from stored, inactivated antigens.

29/30 August 2007 ~ News round-up. No mention of the v-word at the BBC, Canada foresees mass slaughter for FMD, and the Guardian's irritation at farmers "stealing the show" .

The Barrie Examiner quotes a regional director with the Ontario Federation of Agriculture as saying, "If foot and mouth disease were to show up in Canada, half the country's cattle would be destroyed.." Can he really be unaware that FMD can be controlled with rapid diagnosis and by efficient vaccines as in Uruguay in 2001? Foot and Mouth seems to have become demonised like a sort of mystery disease from outer space against which there can be no hope. Fallacies are refuted here - but still, apparently, go widely unchallenged. (We were therefore encouraged by Jonathan Miller's energetic comments on the microbiologybytes.wordpress.com FMD entry)
Peter Hetherington in Wednesday's Guardian , irritated by the fuss over the Surrey FMD outbreak, has much blame to direct at farmers - "a privileged lot" - for diverting money from aid for run-down rural areas. "Farmers like to think they are the saviours of the countryside," he complains, but as Huw Rowlands, a pro-vaccination farmer from Cheshire , wrote during the crisis, a distinction really must be made:
"Agriculture is family farms firmly based in and contributing to the rural economy. Agri-business means intensive production aimed at producing cheap food for sale by rapacious supermarkets whose overwhelming concern is to maximise profits no matter what the cost to anyone or anything else."
The BBC's Pallab Ghosh praised Debby Reynolds because "it was her insistence on sticking to the plan and being led by the science that won the confidence of the farming community." One wonders which branch of science he feels led the policy of wait and hope in Surrey. No mention at all was made of FMD vaccination and why it is rejected by the big unions. It is as if the modern technology to deal with disease did not exist - and that journalists who write with such apparent assurance about foot and mouth visit us from a different century - or planet.

Wednesday 29 August 2007 ~ Vaccination a "catastrophe"? Only if looked at through the wrong end of the economic telescope

The Scottish Farmer this week quotes the technical adviser to the Association of Independent Meat Suppliers, Stephen Lomax:
"With the outbreak apparently controlled, people are consigning all this to the past - but I don't want to do that till we have highlighted the weakness of vaccination policy....Gordon Brown was "within a hair's breadth" of ordering vaccinations ... if he had, it would have meant economic catastrophe..."
It is important to remember that those like Mr Lomax have little interest in the control of the disease itself but only the effect it has on profits. This is normal and understandable. But the weakness and the catastrophe lie not with vaccination itself. The evidence is now so solid that the vaccines are excellent, the differential tests so good and the ability to detect disease on-site so advanced that no one now attempts seriously to argue with the fact that vaccination can protect an area from foot and mouth. Any suggestion that it "masks the disease", betrays ignorance of the effect of vaccines on animals - as explained here by the expert virologist, Colin Fink. The real weakness is the extra three month penalty that the EU/OIE rules still place on vaccination - making it a disastrously second-best choice for exporters.
We notice that DEFRA's latest vaccination page fails to explain that the EU makes provision for Member States to apply for derogations which allow vaccinated meat, milk, and products destined for the home market to be treated no differently from non-vaccinated ones after testing has been completed. It implies that vaccinated product cannot be sold as "fresh meat" at all until FMD free status is regained. This is a misleading final paragraph to their explanation of why emergency vaccination was not used in Surrey.
But it is the out-of-date discrimination against FMD vaccination itself that is the catastrophe that must be challenged - especially when its irrationality is so starkly illustrated by the EU's response to the Bluetongue threat.

Wednesday 29 August 2007 ~ The European commission is willing to fund 50 percent of the costs of a bluetongue vaccination campaign

We read on ProMed last week some very interesting discussion on BTv vaccination indicating that "... vaccination is a key tool to prevent the virus from spreading into hitherto uninfected areas. It seems that the European commission is willing to fund 50 percent of the costs of a vaccination campaign.."
Seven years is a long time when globalised movement means animal disease spreads so far and so fast. This Commission document from the year 2000 says,
"..... The procedure for bluetongue virus vaccine production is similar to that for the production of foot and mouth disease vaccine. European vaccine producers could easily adapt to the production of inactivated bluetongue virus vaccine. The resulting product would be both produced and stored under internationally accredited GLP conditions."
Seven years ago the situation was such that the authors, having warned that a non-vaccination policy could lead to "the risk that BTV causes considerable economical losses in sheep and that the virus becomes endemic in the area for as long as the climate remains favourable", went on to write, "the market for a recombinant or an inactivated BTV vaccine is likely to be small, and may not be an economic proposition for a commercial company..."
Now that inactivated BTV8 vaccine is so desperately needed - though safe and developed on a small scale - it is not yet available. Thus the latest DEFRA policy on Bluetongue: " No BTV vaccine currently has a marketing authority from the Veterinary Medicines Directorate for use in the United Kingdom."
No suggestion of second best here - just dismay. The almost unbearable irony is that excellent FMD vaccines are available - but rejected as "catastrophic" by an ignorance that is as scandalous as it is powerful. And because of such reluctance - research and development of vital new vaccines against such new threats as Bluetongue have not been fast enough - not "an economic proposition". And our German farmer friend - right in the middle of the bluetongue crisis - writes: "21st century and still so much suffering. I can't believe it.". Cases in Germany now stand at 968 and the collection of dead stock cannot keep up.

Wednesday 29 August 2007 ~ An online alternative to supermarkets - ready for producer sign-up.

The International Herald Tribune gives the bad news: rising prices for milk, bread, potatoes and meat, a situation made worse by the FMD outbreak :
".....Financial advisory firm Deloitte said Tuesday that meat prices will have to rise to support the domestic industry, which it suggested was close to "breaking point." "A combination of factors is threatening the survival of the U.K. livestock industry," said Richard Crane, food and agriculture partner at Deloitte. "The rising price of wheat and soft commodities are compounding the negative impact of foot and mouth on the U.K. to a much greater extent."
There is some good news, however. Localfoodshop.com is about to be operational. It is an online farmers' market, owned by the producer members. 93% of the purchase price goes directly to the producers - far more than anyone gets from the supermarkets. The website is inviting producers, (who need no IT skills), to sign up (pdf) and for potential customers to register in order to find local suppliers. These suppliers will team up for deliveries to save on food miles.

Tuesday 28 August 2007 ~ The EU Commission will be required to detail the risk assessment procedures that it has carried out.

Neil Parish was recently quoted in thisiscornwall.co.uk: "The European Union can break a country into regions when an outbreak occurs to avoid a total ban on the entire country; but this regionalisation policy cannot apply to Brazil because we have no idea whether the beef is being smuggled from one region to another, or even across Brazil's long border."
The European Parliament recently heard evidence from the Irish Farmers' Association (IFA) and the Farmers' Journal, which launched a joint investigation into Brazilian beef. The IFA had visited 42 cattle farms in Brazil and claimed that traceability on the farms was usually "conjured up" just a few days before slaughter. Their report concluded that none of the 15 farms on which an in-depth study was carried out had a full traceability system. An EU Food and Veterinary office report in 2006 highlighted concerns that ear tagging and medicines, banned in the EU, are used in Brazil and the situation had not improved since 2003.
Today, an article in Independent says that a complaint has been lodged about "Brazil's raging FMD problem" and the EU ombudsman is to investigate the EU Commission "over its failure to act on several Food and Veterinary Office (FVO) reports on the low to non-existent standards prevalent in the Brazilian beef industry."
The United States, Australia, Japan and South Korea ban Brazilian beef. The President of the Irish Creamery Milk Suppliers Association ( ICMSA), Jackie Cahill, is quoted: " By allowing the continuation of beef imports from Brazil, the European Commission is breaching, or ignoring, EU law with regard to standards. And, by ignoring well-established and internationally acceptable risk assessment regarding animal health, particularly FMD, the Commission is involved in maladministration....The critical point, as far as ICMSA is concerned, is that the Commission will, for the first time, be required to detail the risk assessment procedures that it has carried out. It will not be able to hide behind WTO rules, because the US and Australian bans are totally compatible with those rules.... we see the Commission demanding a standard of safety from the British government regarding its latest outbreak that they seem to have no intention of applying to Brazil."

Monday August 27 2007 ~ "....with luck, they will today at last be on the road"

Yesterday's Booker Column in the Sunday Telegraph tells the story of the plight of an English couple and their pedigree goats marooned behind a padlocked fence outside the Bulgarian border - because of the FMD virus escape that happened after they left the UK.
".... their situation seemed desperate. They were fast running out of special food for the goats and gas for the cooker and fridge in their motorhome. Daily temperatures in the compound where they had been confined by the Bulgarian authorities were over 100 degrees. No one could tell them when, if ever, they might be allowed to proceed.
....On Thursday, just as we were having to contemplate the possibility that the perfectly healthy goats might have to be put down, I heard ...that the Cypriot authorities had the previous day relented. The kids were free to move. Later on Thursday morning Brussels followed suit by lifting its animal movement ban.
There had to be a final twist to the tale..." Read in full
DEFRA said it was powerless to help. The Commission "offered little hope" . Imposed regulations were considered far more important than a frightening ordeal - the situation seems only to have been resolved by something happening behind the scenes. Animal Health policy should not be like this.

Monday August 27 2007 ~ "the connection between EU biofuel targets and killing orang-outans"

An alarming story in Private Eye warns that the EU decision that by 2020 10 percent of all transport fuel in the EU must be sourced from carbon-friendly biofuels, such as wheat, would require the UK to grow 14 million tons of wheat a year, 3 million tons more than we grow now...Even if we derive our biofuel from other crops, this would still take up more farmland than we have currently in production.
"We would thus have to import 10 million tons a year to meet our food needs, at a time when soaring world demand will have pushed prices through the roof. The only alternative will be to import biofuel from abroad, from countries such as Indonesia, already destroying its rainforest on a colossal scale to make palm oil, leading inter alia to a massacre of orang-outans."
Private Eye points out the the BBC concentrates on the ending of set-aside "... the listeners don't realise how much of the real story they are not being told."

Monday August 27 2007 ~ Concern about H5N1 and Bluetongue continues to grow

For those interested, warmwell is now updating the pages on both Bluetongue and Bird Flu as often as possible again (this is time-consuming. Please check back if the update is late). As with FMD, our aim is to keep abreast of the latest developments in vaccines and rapid diagnosis. The wait and kill policies for H5N1 are sickening and we worry that Bluetongue is taking a firm hold in Northern Europe. Both pose a very real threat in the UK and the EU - and we worry that policies to cope with them may be adversly affected by recent events at Pirbright. As Roger Breeze says below,
"...the long and arduous efforts to build defenses cannot be sustained by popular interest and clamor among the very groups they are designed to protect. They must be built and sustained by vision and leadership - and over the generations.
Compounding the problems of showing the daily relevance and importance of Pirbright and Plum Island in a cacophony of other competing governmental budgetary demands is the parochial nature of the mission set for these labs by their political masters. They exist to provide an insurance policy that should a dangerous animal disease strike, the country would have the scientific resources to support diagnosis and control by vaccination or other means...."
Now is NOT the time to further weaken Pirbright and Merial.

Monday August 27 2007 ~ Someone in England is trying to export banned animal feed into Indonesia

The Jakarta Post reports, "Customs and excise officers at Tanjung Priok Port in Indonesia foiled an attempt Friday to smuggle banned animal feeds into Indonesia from England. Officers accused importer PT TMW of fabricating documents to get the 112 containers of animal feeds past customs..." . Apparently, the importation documents said that the containers contained bird food but when the contents were examined in the laboratory they were found to contain meat and bone meal.
It is impressive that Indonesia was able to detect and confiscate this material. We note below that the UK is reported to have just 100 staff and 11 sniffer dogs to detect illegal meat products.

August 2007 ~"Will you join me in asking the Prime Minister .. to chart a bold new course and lead the international effort to get rid of this threat"bird food" once and for all? "

Roger Breeze writes "Will you and your many readers join me in asking the Prime Minister not to live with the threat of foot and mouth disease like all his predecessors, but to chart a bold new course and lead the international effort to get rid of this threat once and for all? " In an article, Foot and Mouth again: Will Gordon Brown rise to the occasion? , pointing out the excellence of Pirbright and making a plea for the future, he says,
".... One might naïvely have expected that since 2001 the many would have pressed for increased government resources so that Pirbright could lead efforts to make sure such a debacle never occurred again. ..... But if you don't expect anything you are never disappointed, so it was with a sense of sadness at the predictability of human behavior and the shortness of modern memory, not disappointment, that I have heard those who should have known much much better question whether either the laboratory or the vaccine plant were needed anymore in today's world......self-interest compels most to go for the threat closest at hand. Sadly, the livestock industry trade groups that have the loudest voices are particularly susceptible to prioritizing such diseases of the month. ...... Compounding the problems of showing the daily relevance and importance of Pirbright and Plum Island in a cacophony of other competing governmental budgetary demands is the parochial nature of the mission set for these labs by their political masters....
.... We can control foot and mouth and the other major transboundary livestock disease threats in our lifetimes. No new technology is needed - just the vision, the will and the resources. .."
Read the article in full (new window)
(For a reminder of the way effective technologies to fight FMD have been ignored see this 2005 warmwell posting .)

Saturday August 25 2007 ~ New Zealand's gesture of good will

Daily Post "New Zealand lamb producers have taken the extraordinary step of suspending UK marketing activities out of sympathy for British farmers. The Kiwis - traditionally fierce rivals - will not undertake any promotional activity until next February to allow the UK lamb sector to recover from the foot-and-mouth outbreak..."

Saturday August 25 2007 ~The UK employs 100 staff and 11 sniffer dogs to detect illegal meat products.

Australia employs 75 detector dog teams, 64 X-ray machines, on-the-spot fines and stiff prison sentences. In Australia there are some 50 prosecutions each year for smuggling animal products. Last year in the UK there was one. The Yorkshire Post quotes Jim Paice: "....We know there is technology available on trial but the Government won't use it. It allows them to X-ray suitcases at the point of departure and sends the images to the UK. By the time people arrive, the images of illegal meat will have been seen. But that technology is not being tried out."

Friday 24 August 2007 ~ Bluetongue - on the march in Northern Europe. The German Government says, " At the moment culling doesn't take place...nevertheless..."

Charles Clover in the Telegraph yesterday wrote, "reports of new outbreaks which are coming in at more than 100 cases a day" This confirms what we have heard from other sources. Somewhat alarming too is the update on the German Government's BT website which translated says,
"At the moment culling of infected animals (except for welfare reasons) doesn't take place, this is agreed upon with the EU and member states as it would not have an impact on the current course of disease. Nevertheless there are, in the long term, considerations about future measures dealing with animals found to be virus positive. .."
In the UK , a "Revised Bluetongue control strategy" is published by DEFRA, explaining to editors that the ".. Industry working group is comprised of (sic) senior individuals from the following organisations:
• British Cattle Veterinary Society
• British Meat Processors Association
• National Beef Association
• National Farmers Union
• National Sheep Association
• Livestock Auctioneers Association
• Sheep Veterinary Society"
The press release speaks of ".. rigorous measures to keep disease out of the UK and contain any outbreaks." It would be reassuring to know that science and veterinary input to the Bluetongue working group is providing information that takes into consideration more than the immediate needs of what Dr Breeze (above) refers to as "the livestock industry trade groups that have the loudest voices". (Belgium has just reported to the OIE 80 dead sheep because of BTV-8)

22 August 2007 ~ The EU should be lobbied to point out that discrimination against vaccination has no justification.

We note that the National Beef Association, the NBA, today quotes its Director, Kim Heyward:
".... government must not sit back and congratulate itself on avoiding a complete disaster and instead address the more difficult task of making sure similar escapes cannot happen again.....Whatever the outcome of a review on developments at the Institute of Animal Health it is abundantly clear that government must either decide, as others in the EU already have done, that it can no longer risk FMD virus manufacture in a livestock producing country that is so dependent on export markets or throw a mountain of money at making sure the premises are escape proof...."
The NBA would like to see the end of vaccine production in the UK - but it would be a national tragedy if Pirbright, with all its experience and expertise, were further hampered by this latest incident. If swiftly vaccinating animals from the perimeter inwards (it could have been done within 24 hours) had been as acceptable as the "wait and kill" policy, then this small localised outbreak would have been dealt with fast and efficiently, without the killing of Mr Emerson's uninfected animals and without the media circus. (See also Private Eye)
Few would now doubt that it is the EU imposed extra three month wait that causes the powerful unions such as the BVA, NFU and NPA to reject vaccination. In spite of overwhelming evidence that vaccination is the humane, rapid and effective way to control outbreaks of foot and mouth, the use of emergency vaccination means an end to FMD-free status for six months - whereas the reinstatement of full FMD-free status is permitted within three months if the killing of animals, infected or not, is used to "stamp out" infection.
It is not the end of vaccine production in the UK that we should be lobbying for. The powerful and the interested should be doing their utmost to point out to the EU Commission that this extra three month wait is threatening the food security of Member States. It has no justification now that the old arguments against vaccination have been so effectively overcome by modern differentiating vaccines and rapid on-site diagnosis.

22 August 2007 ~ ".. Investigations into effluent released onto the site and subsequent contamination of personnel, equipment or vehicles, and other fomite transmission routes off the Pirbright site continue..."

Epidemiological Report for August 17: Extract : Hypotheses for source
"...investigations into the potential breaches of biosecurity at the Pirbright site are in progress;.... Results are pending but might reveal the origin of the outbreak (research laboratory or vaccine manufacturer) and whether IP2 became infected as a result of spread from IP1 or from a common source......The virus may have reached one or both of the IPs either directly from the Pirbright site or by onward transmission of infection from another source, itself infected either directly or indirectly from the Pirbright site.
.... Investigations into the possibility of aerosol transmission from the Pirbright site and spread via the sewer to IP 1 have provided little evidence for these means of transmission. Investigations into effluent released onto the site and subsequent contamination of personnel, equipment or vehicles, and other fomite transmission routes off the Pirbright site continue.... 25.....additional investigations have been carried out to identify all holdings where susceptible stock may have had assess to the water downstream of the IPs and the Pirbright site......"
(Some fear that if, as seems possible, IAH Pirbright is sued for negligence by the NFU, the taxpayer will cover the cost of compensation demanded by the NFU's court case, Pirbright's funding - vital for research - will subsequently be cut even more disastrously, and the small farmers who actually want to protect their animals will be rather worse off than before.)

22 August 2007 ~ "biosecurity issues associated with FMDV strain O1BFS67" - Richard Lissack QC has been chosen by the NFU to fight for a multi-million pound compensation package

The Farmers Guardian reports, "Legal teams mobilised after the Health and Safety Executive inquiry into the outbreak said that there was a 'strong possibility' that the virus originated from the Government licensed Pirbright research laboratories.
Experts say that a good case will be developed if is proved that the virus escaped Pirbright through negligent behaviour..."

August 21/ 22 2007 ~ "...costs of vaccination are far less than the cost of slaughter, compensation and disposal."

We note an excellent, succinct letter in the Telegraph (Monday) from the Co-ordinator of the National Foot and Mouth Group, Janet Bayley. She pointed out a common misconception: "...When faced with an outbreak of foot and mouth disease it is emergency protective vaccination, close to the centres of disease, that is proposed, not year-on-year widespread prophylactic vaccination ." The letter is well worth reading in full.

Tuesday 21 August 2007 ~ "Our aim is to regionalise as soon as the situation allows."

We read ( e.g. Yahoo.com) that the UK is hoping that the Standing Committee on the Food Chain and Animal Health (SCOFCAH) will agree to "regionalise" the EU export ban, as we described here yesterday, so that only the Surrey surveillance and protection zones continue to be regarded as "high risk".
The veterinary expert panel meets in Brussels on Thursday. If such zoning is agreed to then the rest of the UK will regain its low risk status. Such zoning would mean that meat and dairy produce (but not yet livestock) could be exported again. Yahoo quotes Philip Tod, the spokesman for Markos Kyprianou. Of Thursday's meeting, Mr Tod said, "We expect to discuss the scope of high-risk and low-risk zones. Our aim is to regionalise as soon as the situation allows." See UPDATE below

Tuesday 21 August ~ Patrick Holden and CIWF continue to argue for vaccination

The Farmers Weekly article is called "Opinion is divided over vaccination dilemma" - but fails to point out that the two opposing opinions are arguing from completely different standpoints. The "farmers' groups" who, says FWi, "do not support the use of vaccination as the first line of defence", are arguing from a purely financial stance. The Tenant Farmers Association spokemen, David Catlow of the BVA and Holstein UK present only arguments that have as their basis the EU export ban.
It is at least interesting that those who stand to lose money because of the trade rules as they stand, do at least seem no longer to be arguing that there is any scientific or veterinary reason to avoid the use of vaccination.
The Soil Association and Compassion in World Farming are looking at the issue from a veterinary and ethical standpoint. As we have said before, the arguments of both sides of the "dilemma" might more usefully be directed at the protectionism of the EU trade rules. Such rules rely on people; they are not set in stone. It is time to challenge the out-of-date attitude towards vaccination on which they rest. (See also our latest vaccination page)

Monday, August 20 2007 ~ "area can be treated as an epidemiologically separate zone for international trade purposes"

The OIE Code, even as it stands, now provides a country suffering a small localised outbreak such as the UK this month, with a let out so that it can continue trading. The Code sets out clearly the sequence of steps to be taken in establishing a zone/compartment and having it recognised for international trade purposes.
"....there may be benefits to a Member Country in establishing and maintaining a subpopulation with a distinct health status within its territory. ..
...Following a disease outbreak, the use of compartmentalisation may allow a Member Country to take advantage of epidemiological links among subpopulations or common practices relating to biosecurity, despite diverse geographical locations, to facilitate disease control and/or the continuation of trade. ." (See the relevant part of the Code.)
A ProMed moderator today says,
"...The formulation of specific movement conditions for "bovines around the time of calving (and their calves)" to be applied "throughout England, with the exception of the Protection and Surveillance Zones in Surrey," bestows upon these animals, in fact, a status which is somewhat compatible with a "subpopulation." The definition of "subpopulation" in OIE's Terrestrial Animal Health Code is "a distinct part of a population identifiable according to specific common animal health characteristics." It will be interesting to follow this trend in view of the new concept of compartmentalization in the Code."
The sub-text of this seems pretty clear; in view of the continuing difficult restrictions forced on the rest of the country, it would indeed be very interesting to know if those driving UK policy this month are considering zoning.

UPDATE SCoFCAH received unanimous support from all Member States for the Commission's draft decision to limit the restrictions to the surveillance zone in Surrey. DEFRA reported (23 Aug) "Restrictions on exports from Great Britain of meat, meat products and dairy products and certain other animal products (such as genetic material, hides and skins, pharmaceutical products) will be lifted.... Exports of live animals of species that are susceptible to FMD will also be able to resume from Great Britain except from the surveillance zone in Surrey..... The SCoFCAH meeting on 11 September 2007 will review the position."

Monday, August 20 2007 ~ "Farm animals exist for the purpose of trade and if there cannot be trade then they have no value."

It is for the reasons in the paragraph above that one groans to read articles such as this one by Dick Sibley in the Farmers Guardian. The former president of the British Cattle Veterinary Association - a vet - who says he found the 2001 outbreak "exciting", writes without a trace of irony, "Farm animals exist for the purpose of trade and if there cannot be trade then they have no value. Vaccination would have been futile."
Warmwell.com (no financial value either) has existed for the past six years in the unquenchable hope of raising awareness. Modern advances in rapid diagnosis and marker vaccines make vaccination the polar opposite of futile for an industry that cannot exist without healthy stock. In the epidemic of 2001, (seven months of it as the slaughter and waste dragged on), unhealthy, actually infected lamb was being consumed in the UK . For some time, unrecognised, acutely infected sheep were passing through abattoirs undetected. Not surprisingly, consumers were not informed about this. One imagines they might have preferred the idea of healthy meat and questioned the notion that vaccination was "futile".

Monday, August 20 2007 ~ Waste "Recycling" - a source of disease?

For some time now, Robert Persey (see latest email) has been concerned that waste, going to poorly regulated landfill or composting, could pose a far greater danger to health than any theoretical threat from properly prepared pigswill. His email raises questions that should be taken seriously.
As an example of the worry felt by ordinary people, a recent petition (see Minutes of Council local committee) in Surrey last year, signed by 360 residents of a small village, asked why the GBC Environmental Health had not determined that : ".. steam and foul smells from the site prove that the operations fall outside the scope of activities permitted by the exemption registered, but not effectively controlled, by the Environment Agency". The site in question houses both a supplier of pet food and a company which operates a soil recycling business on land at Strawberry Farm, adjoining Glaziers Lane in Normandy. That particular site, ironically enough, happens to be situated very near Pirbright where soil samples are being analysed for virus contamination and right between the two farms where FMD was confirmed.
(UPDATE: We read in the Honorary Remembrancer's Report 2007 Guildford (pdf) that ".. The Environment Agency ordered Pathfinder to end the blending and composting of green waste at Strawberry Farm, Normandy, in May and ordered the removal of existing stockpiles by the middle of July. Pathfinder are subcontractors for Surrey Waste Management, who hired them to carry out green waste management at the site in 2005, but by the end of the year local residents were complaining about the volume of lorry traffic, the size of the waste mountain, dust, noise and smell.....some thousands of tons of green waste and soil mix (were removed) from the site by May 1..")

Monday, August 20 2007 ~ Bluetongue ".. if a strict vaccine regime with at least 80 percent coverage of susceptible populations is achieved, vaccination can lead to the eradication of the virus."

More on warmwell's Bluetongue page about the vaccines for bluetongue. Today on a ProMed posting: "..the vectors respect neither borders nor movement restrictions, vaccination is a key tool to prevent the virus from spreading into hitherto uninfected areas.
It seems that the European commission is willing to fund 50 percent of the costs of a vaccination campaign.
The use of inactivated vaccines will provide additional safeguards, preventing the spread of vaccine virus within the susceptible population."

August 18 - 20 ~ Farmers in England will be able to move calving cows and their calves under tight restrictions from today (Saturday) - tests on Pirbright soil imminent

BBC "...Chief veterinary officer Debby Reynolds issued the movement licence "to help resolve animal welfare issues" that had arisen in the dairy sector. Restrictions will remain in place within the protection and surveillance zones around affected farms in Surrey... The government is awaiting the results of independent tests on soil from the outbreak site near Guildford. The Health and Safety Executive said it had received the results of the tests from the Pirbright laboratory site and would report back to ministers once the data had been analysed. .."

August 18 - 20 ~ Animal diseases rage across Europe but "virtually no action to deal with outbreaks in a sensible way"

Referring to Friday's Farmers Guardian
- extract: (bluetongue) ".. .will become endemic in northern Europe. It is spread by midges, and veterinary experts believe it will only be a matter of time before it crosses the Channel into the south of England. This, and foot-and-mouth disease, happened as Romania faced the consequences of a swine fever outbreak, while Sweden had its first cases of the pig wasting disease, PPRS, also known as blue ear disease. France has reported fresh cases of the H5N1 strain of avian flu. These were in wild ducks in the Moselle region...."
..one correspondent says, "This just a snapshot of the current situation: diseases everywhere and virtually no action to deal with outbreaks in a sensible way. Looks BT will hit 1000 cases over the weekend (BE 489, NL 249, G 250 (?), F 8, LU 1 ) and many more in the pipeline. What's next ??" We feel that while animal disease control is in the hands of politicians who have far too much on their plate to be able to be experts, things can only get worse. Animal disease control should be back in the hands of the veterinary profession, aided by the blessings of modern science both in rapidly diagnosing and in fighting these pathogens.

August 17 ~ "the ethical way" Sheepdrove Organic Farm is urging vaccination

Sheepdrove Organic Farm, now famous for its high standards of animal welfare and sustainability projects, is owned by the former publishers, Peter and Juliet Kindersley. They have responded to the Surrey outbreak by renewing their call for FMD vaccination to be adopted. Sheepdrove's campaign line is "Cure not cull. It's time to start caring for animals and stop killing them - start preventing through vaccination and curing those that have it - as we do for any other illness that we or animals get. This is the ethical way." See their Press Release
Peter Kindersley points out, "Defra's outdated FMD strategies have been a disaster for rural communities."

August 17 ~ Another scare

We were informed earlier by very brief email (much appreciated) that Carlisle abattoir notified DEFRA because of ..... (update 17.50: Apologies for confusion. The abattoir was "West Scottish Lamb" but it was two cows, not lambs as we reported just now, according to www.whitehaven-news) .....with "lesions" that caused the abattoir to be closed while inspections were going on. ( 1600 Friday - Radio Cumbria - DEFRA have given the all clear at a Carlisle abbattoir. Now 2 farms in Scotland are undergoing tests.)
There have been many more false alarms in the past days than have reached the media. For example, slaughterhouse staff in Merthyr Tydfil called in Welsh Assembly vets yesterday morning - but blisters in the suspect lamb's mouth turned out to be uninfected sores.
There are, of course, many things that could have caused lesions apart from FMD. A useful reference - although in Dutch from the Dutch Ministry's website, is this pdf file showing the visual differences between FMD (left side) and Bluetongue(right side)

August 17 ~ "....very disappointed with the response from Defra. It's impossible to get them by telephone."

We see in the Surrey Advertiser today that DEFRA minister, Jonathan Shaw, ".. came under fire for not producing clearer foot and mouth guidance at a public meeting in Elstead last Friday." When Mr Shaw was challenged all he could do, it seems, was say that the NFU "fully supports" culling of "potentially dangerous contacts". Waverley councillor Bryn Morgan, in expressing his disappointment that DEFRA couldn't even be reached by telephone, said there was "a great deal of confusion.." adding that even horses in the protection zone couldn't be moved outside the zone without a licence
"and there are no licences, because Defra has not yet decided what the formula for granting licences should be.."
(see article)
Mr Shaw's own evident confusion is a measure of the apparent inability of DEFRA to grasp the issues and explain them clearly to Ministers or to those directly involved - without recourse to "support from the NFU". It is now nearly three years since the Royal Society (pdf. page 13) advised DEFRA that:
"....The UK contingency plan and the EU FMD Directive contain detailed information about the communication arrangements in the event of an outbreak. A chain of command is established to involve all parties in the process to allow information to feed into the system. Developments in advanced telecommunications and enhanced central and regional information management systems should be investigated as part of the evolution of the plans.
There are many more lessons waiting to be learned from this outbreak to do with what the Royal Society called, "scientific and technological developments" (starting here might help)- but the basic management skill of effective communication also seems high on the list.

August 17 ~ The CVO did say they had some interesting epidemiological information. I haven't heard a squeak as to what this is.

Ruth Watkins, farmer and expert virologist, has been joining in an off-line discussion about the index case and the manner of spread, "... What has struck me from the start is the number of animals ill at the same time. It seems a considerable proportion were infected and a significant proportion of these were ill... Either there was an index case earlier with a heavy exposure of the rest of the herd, 1 animal infecting 30 for instance, or there is the rather remarkable finding of simultaneous exposure of the 10 or so animals.
....I don't know if the results on the two herds point to a possible exposure of one index animal in the first herd to be infected (if indeed both of the herds were not simutaneously exposed) with subsequent cases or whether there is likely to have been a mass exposure event in the first herd. The CVO did say they had some interesting epidemiological information. I haven't heard a squeak as to what this is. As you have pointed out I wonder if there is a missing piece in the jigsaw - a Pirbright (deliberately or accidentally infected) animal. With all the finger-pointing at the labs on the site and the HSE investigation I can only suppose this is not the case. I think that question should be put to the HSE investigators.

August 17 ~"This makes a nonsense of the cost-sharing agreement"

Lord Rooker said on Tuesday that he felt humbled to hear the experiences those affected had endured and was alarmed that those with diversified enterprises were unable to get business insurance for losses incurred due to foot-and-mouth restrictions. The Fwi quotes Lord Rooker's own words:
"This makes a nonsense of the cost-sharing agreement"
The Farmers Guardian now reports that recent events have made "life even more difficult for those Ministers and officials within Defra who are pushing the cost sharing agenda."
It is self-evident that no industry should be expected to pay its share of control and compensation costs stemming from failure on the government's part. We recently reported on one of the smaller DEFRA stakeholders' meetings (not the "core" stakeholders referred to below) of 28 February 2007. Cost cutting, for DEFRA, appears to have been the one important item on the agenda. In spite of the time for this meeting having been drastically reduced at the last minute, a great deal of it was taken up by a reading aloud of material that participants could have read for themselves - and probably already had. Crucial points about diagnostics and testing were, it seems, cut short by the Chair. A question about treatment of vaccinated meat was deferred. Urgent inquiries about the accessibility of on-site diagnostics were not answered. Communication issues, which have so often been referred to before by these stakeholders, were still not being addressed. DEFRA's answers to urgent and relevant questioning betrayed either a woeful lack of knowledge or else an unwillingness to engage with the subject at all. No company could support such serious inadequacies of management. Again, we quote Dr Roger Breeze in the paper "Industry Cost Sharing" " Industry cannot negotiate meaningfully if its "negotiation" comments are only responses to proposals and goals of the government."
And now we read in today's www.financemarkets.co.uk that "insurers are failing farmers by not offering insurance cover for the impact of foot and mouth disease....there is little insurance protection for loss following an incidence of foot and mouth..." ( Thanks for this link to FMD News - a service provided by the FMD Surveillance and Modeling Laboratory, University of California at Davis )

August 17 ~ "....the mistaken belief that isolated incidents of foot-and-mouth disease necessitate the closure of rural England" Commission for Rural Communities

The Financial Times today reports that Gordon Brown has asked that the impact of the foot-and-mouth outbreak on the rural economy be examined by the government's Commission for Rural Communities. As just a couple of examples of the impact on England as a whole, we read in Cumbria's Times and Star that the Government has said that, although Mitchells in Cockermouth can, from next Thursday, set up a collection point for farm animals to be transported to slaughter houses, Auction marts such as Mitchell's must wait until September 10 until they can operate fully. Since some of their biggest auctions take place in August and September, this is a bitter blow. Even Wigton Motor Club's Cumbria Classic Car Show on Sunday 20th August has been scrapped because of fears that the disease might still spread. They are just not prepared to take the risk. Yet the risk of disease spread from the two farms next to Pirbright is now negligible - as can be seen from DEFRA's own latest epidemiological report e.g. "...an unusual precision of both the time of infection of IPs and the period of infectiousness of the IPs provides additional reassurance for the estimate of the risk of further cases of FMD...., it is unlikely that FMD is present elsewhere in Great Britain." - a very different situation from the grave situation in China where pigs are dying in their thousands and there are real fears of a global pandemic among domesticated pigs.Vietnam already seems to be affected. The International Herald Tribune quotes Trevor Drew, head of virology at the VLA "This is the most rapidly evolving virus I've ever studied. The Chinese are saying they have definitive proof (i.e.that it is blue-ear 'PPRS'), but as far as I'm concerned the jury is still out on what this disease is."

August 16 ~ "decision-making on movements should have been devolved to a local level"... Instead, we get an "RSPCA Hotline"

In the notes to Editors at the foot of the DEFRA News Release (261/07) we see:
" 3. Where farmers are facing acute welfare problems as a result of movement restrictions they can contact the RSPCA Farm Welfare Hotline 0870 7538 333"
Farmers should surely expect to be helped by the local DEFRA offices to deal with problems directly caused by the restrictions made by DEFRA. One wonders what the RSPCA can do to help a farmer whose animals need to be moved to fresh grazing or who is running out of capacity for animals that would normally have been sold on. Some might even say that, given the concerns recently voiced about the RSPCA , a farmer could easily find himself in Court rather than being assisted.
Many have deplored the increasing politicisation and the unaccountability of certain elements within the RSPCA. The Political Animal Lobby (Pal) has greatly influenced what was once a decent old-fashioned charity, and financial support to the government appears to have resulted in its being given powers that many would deem inappropriate. To tell farmers to call its Helpline is extraordinary - a complete abrogation of the Department's own responsibilities . We note that the Carlisle vet, David Black, who sat on Prediction, Prevention and Epidemiology sub-group of the Royal Society Inquiry, said this week (Cumberland News) that decision-making on livestock movements should have been devolved to a local level. This, he said, " would have enabled animal movements to be made much sooner and avoided causing suffering to livestock."

August 16 ~ Does even Lord Rooker understand it?

The Fwi today shows Lord Rooker talking to those who lost their animals in Surrey. One farmer, it seems, as well as pointing out the illogicality of importing meat from Brazil vaccinated with vaccines produced in the UK, also appeared to be under the impression that vaccine itself is responsible for foot and mouth outbreaks. He "...questioned the role of vaccine production for commercial gain if it put domestic livestock at risk."
Instead of explaining that vaccine production does not put domestic livestock at risk; that it uses killed virus to combat the disease; that vaccinated animals pose no health problems to humans or other animals; that it does not, Ben Bradshaw's assumptions notwithstanding, 'mask disease' ; and that it was an escape of the pathogen itself that caused the crisis in Surrey, the FWi merely reports that Lord Rooker "defended the right to hold live viruses for research purposes." He then went on to defend the non-vaccination policy too - because "I'm keen to resume exports as soon as possible."
If farmers and the public are getting the impression that it is vaccine and not live-virus that spreads disease then we really are in trouble. Our efforts have been to turn protest away from vaccination - where it is unwarranted - and point it instead towards the unfair and outdated trade policy of the EU which is precisely what causes the problem about resuming exports as quickly as possible. The Royal Society Follow-up report was intended to raise awareness of just this: a lack of understanding in both stakeholders and the general public about vaccination and the UK exit strategies following its use.

August 16 ~ "prevent - not pre-empt"

When R.P. Kitching, M.V. Thrusfield & N.M. Taylor published their Use and abuse of mathematical models: an illustration from the 2001 foot and mouth disease epidemic in the United Kingdom last year (Rev. sci. tech. Off. int. Epiz., 2006) we read,
"The epidemic and its control resulted in the death of approximately ten million animals, public disgust with the magnitude of the slaughter, and political resolve to adopt alternative options, notably including vaccination, to control any future epidemics. The UK experience provides a salutary warning of how models can be abused in the interests of scientific opportunism."
Their conclusion included the aphorism: 'prevent - not pre-empt' . The gamble not to use vaccination to prevent spread in the Surrey outbreak must have astonished many. Much has been said on warmwell's pages about the EU's trade rules concerning FMD (See the Byzantine OIE Health Code, for example) and how, even now, countries who opt for vaccination can be discriminated against. The big players in the livestock industry naturally wish to avoid vaccination on economic grounds - even though no sound scientific, veterinary or health concerns about vaccinated animals remain. (See vaccination page) But, apart from the sound scientific reasons for a better policy, there are other interests to be brought into the equation - those who make their living with the help of livestock, tourism in the country, the tenant farmers, the commercial smallholders and simply people who just keep a few animals for the pleasure it gives them. They are involved too - up to the hilt - and ought to have their views considered.
We note the membership of what DEFRA calls its "core stakeholders"; i.e. the group first to be consulted on such matters.

August 16 ~ Foot and mouth and bovine TB

A response from the Welsh Assembly about Shambo, the Skanda Vale bullock, winged its way into many email boxes yesterday. Dated August 9th, the identically worded letter from the Welsh Assembly made no attempt to engage with any of the individual points made. What the "TB Team's" reply to many concerned emails did not say, in addition to its assertion that
"Post-mortem examination of the animal has revealed visible lesions typical of bovine TB infection, which means that a positive TB breakdown is now confirmed in the herd...."
was that a positive breakdown cannot be "confirmed" in the herd until further results are obtained. The culture that has been set up (taking about 6 weeks) can confirm the lesions really are due to TB - but that has not yet been definitively shown.
Two or three other animals in the Skanda Vale herd have tested positive on the severe interpretation of the skin test applied when officials said that Shambo had lesions visible at post mortem. It would be useful to know if there was any independent witness to the post mortem on Shambo.
One difference between the bTB and FMD at present is that there are proven, effective vaccines ready to be used against foot and mouth.
If only things were as far advanced to combat the scourge of bovine TB.

August 15 2007 ~" rapid diagnostic technology is available..... the capability for NSP testing post-vaccination is fully ready and operational."

The newest technology in rapid on-site diagnosis for FMD and up-to-date marker vaccines has been available for some time, and we echo the questions of an informed email to arrive today:
• To what extent has the government provided the necessary funding and ongoing support?
• Why has the use of field and region-based tests not been included in current contingency plans?
The experience of this highly-charged and anxious fortnight, when all samples still have had to go through Pirbright before any action has been taken, lays bare the inadequacies of the UK Contingency Plan. Mary Marshall's email is fully referenced. A particularly apt quotation comes from the paper Implementation of a one-step real-time RT-PCR protocol for diagnosis of foot-and-mouth disease. ( J Virol Methods. 2007 Mar 28; : 17397937)
"This more rapid and economical one-step protocol will play a key role in contingency planning for any future outbreaks of FMD in the United Kingdom (UK)."
That there is, in fact, still no mention of this protocol in the UK contingency plan should be of great concern to those involved.

August 15 2007 ~ Warmwell Summary

We can piece together from Defra's epidemiological report dated August 9 and our own notes below, a brief summary of some of the important events up to that date.
• Commercial vaccine production using O1BFS1967 began at Merial in the week beginning 16 July. In addition to Merial, live virus at the IAH site had been used to provide reagents for diagnostic tests and disinfectant testing "on a continuous basis".
• It was on July 20th that "drains from the main sewer opened and flooded the field".
• At the first farm, Woolfords Farm in Elstead, foot and mouth lesions were dated (retrospectively) back to 26th July
• first clinical signs were noted 3 days later by the farmer and all animals killed by Aug 4th, seven days after clinical signs and one day after tests apparently showed 39 of the Woolfords cattle positive for active disease. P and S zones were put in place. .
• Although the 75 farms with approximately 750 cattle, 1,500 sheep and 200 pigs in the Protection Zone could, we are told, have all been vaccinated within 24 hours, it was decided that immediate vaccination within the zone to halt the spread of disease was not going to happen. Adequate reasons for this have not, we feel, been given - merely that the decision was, "In line with this decision tree and the emerging conclusions of epidemiology investigations". The science backing the UK policy should be clearly articulated. ( We refer readers to our current vaccination page in the hope that such a missed opportunity won't occur again. Mistaken ideas still abound as if they were fact. However, the real facts are that vaccination does not mask disease; uninfected animals, once vaccinated do not need to be subsequently slaughtered; vaccinated and infected animals can be distinguished on serology testing; authorities are still able to monitor the spread of disease when modern marker vaccines are used.. - in short, the objections to vaccination are economic ones - and it is the outmoded trade rules that should be challenged, not vaccination.).
• Visual surveillance of livestock and the blood testing of sheep within the protection zones began (clinical signs are difficult to spot in sheep).
• From the isolation of the strain, revealed by Pirbright, it emerged that the Pirbright site was itself the source of the virus and zones were adjusted accordingly.
• A routine protection zone surveillance visit (also carried out the day before) noticed first clinical signs on the second farm premises on August 6th, confirmed on the 7th.
• Lesions on the second site (beef suckler calves) were dated back to July 31st and all animals killed by the evening of the 7th August
There have been no other confirmed cases - but the "SOS" farm, Hunts Hill farm, had 362 mixed species free-range animals slaughtered "as a precaution" and the grief of Mr Emerson when he discovered that the suspect pig, and all the other animals, had been free of disease was very painful to witness. If an incubation period of 12 days is assumed and if the date of virus escape has been correctly estimated then any animals infected from the initial escape would develop clinical signs by 20th August. If there has been onward spread one can only hope that continuing surveillance will find it quickly.
(We have still not - by 10.30 am - heard any news of the test results from yesterday nor how those results are to affect the ever-harder to endure movement restrictions. UPDATE "Restrictions on livestock movement will be further eased from midnight on Wednesday to permit farmers to move their animals between different fields on their farm for welfare reasons" )

UPDATE 13.20 World at One tells us that the initial test results are negative - but that more tests needed for a definitive result.

The delay in giving us information on the two suspect sites suggest that the official laboratory has not really got a grip on how to use the newer technology. As soon as the testing requirement goes up and results are needed quickly in order to reassure thousands of people, it does seem that they are finding it difficult to cope. Where does this delayed certainty leave the restrictions? When blanket restrictions are not warranted by any real disease risk in areas away from the focus of disease, local vets at least should be able to intervene to prevent unnecessary animal suffering. Up to date information should be on the DEFRA site as soon as possible and not be treated as sometimes seems the case, as if it were in some way "classified". As Michael Greaves says below, DEFRA seems to be behavng as if we were at war.

UPDATE 13.40 Vaccination Teams to be stood down

DEFRA news release "..... Based on the overall risk assessment, including the findings of the Epidemiology Report, and provided initial negative tests from the TCZs are confirmed and there is no change in the disease situation, the Chief Veterinary Officer will stand down vaccination teams from their current level of alert. Teams could be stood up again in five days, if needed..."
An updated . Summary Epidemiology Report gives the Situation up to 16:00 Monday 13th August. Day 10 of the outbreak.

Finally ..... news came through this evening (Wednesday Aug 15) that the two new Foot and Mouth temporary control zones in Kent and Surrey had been lifted "based on further negative laboratory results for Foot and Mouth Disease"

August 15 ~ The Veterinary Medicines Directorate Report appears to clear Merial

From DEFRA website: "The VMD have conducted a thorough technical report on Merial's production facilities, in support of the HSE investigation at Pirbright, focussing on the following issues:
A number of minor deficiencies in biosecurity were found but there was no evidence that they would lead to a breach of biosecurity arrangements Merial have recently begun using new facilities without giving VMD the opportunity to inspect that it is fit for purpose. However the relevant strain was not used in these facilities. The air handling pressures were found to be within specification and the laboratory is fit for purpose. There were no risks to biosecurity found.
No possible release of virus is envisaged from turning antigen into finished vaccine and therefore there are no potential risks to biosecurity from manufacturing Defra's vaccine for possible use in this outbreak."

August 15 2007 ~ "....the total absence of accurate information (notably from DEFRA who seem to treat this as if we were at war)..."

Another email from Michael Greaves this morning talks of the problem of getting accurate and up-to-date information
"... the national and trade press has been disgracefully sloppy in reporting this crisis: one report had it that the first outbreak was miles to the south of where it actually was." We understand there will shortly be a posting by him on http://thehuntsman2007.blogspot.com/
Professor Brian Spratt's report to Hilary Benn and the CVO, including in their evidence the outcome of the immediate investigation currently being carried out by officials from Defra, the Veterinary Medicines Directorate and the HSE, was due to report by 13 August and any news of the findings would be gratefully received.

August 15 2007 ~ While we wait for test results in the new cases, we read that, ".. every single sheep in the initial quarantine zone has been tested for foot-and-mouth disease and all have been proved negative."

The Scotsman, in its reporting on the two new 2 mile exclusion zones set up around Honeychild Farm in Kent and Chessington World of Adventure, quotes Frank Langrish, "who owns 5,000 ewes on Romney Marsh just outside the new exclusion zone and who serves as chairman of the British Wool Marketing Board" and who told the Scotsman that "every single sheep" had been tested in the originial zone around Pirbright.
On Saturday, an article in the Guardian describes the day to day experience of a woman in the village of Normandy who keeps 10 Kerry Hill sheep in a field behind her bungalow . She recounts the efficient bloodtesting of all her sheep that took place on the Sunday, the visual checks on the Monday -and their bewilderment on Thursday when they had been visited by a DEFRA official
".... I was very nervous. They said that a local person had reported sheep in the area that had not been checked. They meant my sheep. I had to fill in a form and sign a document that they were mine. After all the visits and paperwork, how can they not know about them? It's unbelievable."
The article - from the point of view of one family with just ten rare breed sheep - vividly conveys the anxiety, the sympathy and sense of unreality in the immediate area of Pirbright during the past fortnight.
The government is also awaiting the results of what the BBC is careful to call " independent tests" on soil taken from the site of the Pirbright laboratories.

August 14 2007 (18.00 pm) ~ Yet Another.....Foot and mouth tests conducted on sheep at a unit in Surrey

Tests are being carried out on sheep at a holding in Chessington in Surrey just 20 miles from Pirbright. Farming Weekly has the story but no further details yet.
UPDATE It is Chessington World of Adventure in Surrey. A further 3km temporary control zone has been imposed while a sheep at the wildlife park is being tested.
As for the original escape of virus and how it reached the infected premises near Pirbright, a correspondent in the latest email for publication gives an informed view as well as a refreshing admission that his first theory was wrong.

August 14 2007 (17.20 pm) ~ "Experts in human medicine are not hidebound by rules - usually out of date and made by large groups of civil servants."

Today's vaccination page been updated again this afternoon. It now includes some points made about the knock-on effects of the non-vaccination policy on rural tourism and rural business - as well as some trenchant comment about the differences between veterinary and human medicine, long overdue for revision. In outbreaks of serious human disease, for example
"... knowledge and development of diagnosis and vaccines may be essential ...by a team of medical infection experts - and these are peer reviewed and up to date with their knowledge. They have a clearly explained policy on the international stage.
Experts in human medicine moreover are also not hidebound by rules - usually out of date and made by large groups of civil servants.
...... The imposition of the severe movement restrictions still in place over the whole of England and to some extent is still present in Wales and Scotland...(and) ... is looking disproportionately harsh, with animals suffering and farmers losing money and being pursued for minor infringements. Farming outside the South East and the favoured arable areas is often hard. Farmers are struggling to survive at all. Apart from that given to farmers in the designated zone in Surrey and those whose animals have been culled, there will be no compensation. Rural tourism and business could also be less severely affected if vaccination within a designated zone was carried out. After 10 days there is no reason for footpaths to remain closed..."
Read in full or see the whole page in which the anti-vaccination arguments have today been refuted by informed comments sent to warmwell.
As for the suspected new outbreak in Kent, Kent News update tells us that only 3 calves were tested, out of a herd of 250 dairy cattle.They have blisters on their tongues. Whether samples of milk have been collected remains to be seen. (see comment below on th testing of milk for FMD)

August 14 2007 (updated 16.40 pm) ~ The use of the 3ABC test still enables authorities to monitor the spread of disease.

The marker-test principle is helpfully explained in this pdf file from Intervet about its ready-to-use Chekit-FMD-3ABC marker vaccine. The UK appears to be using Merial and their differentiating marker vaccine would seem to be developed along the same lines. Intervet says the sensitivity is more than 99% . (Page 10 of its 11 page pdf file)
"...Regional vaccination: if FMD is established in a certain area and the rest of the country is still free, it may be decided to vaccinate all susceptible animals in the region. The use of the 3ABC test still enables authorities to monitor the spread of disease. Slaughter and consumption of vaccinated animals (provided they are from 3ABC-negative farms) is still possible without the risk on further spread."

August 14 2007 (updated 15.20 pm) ~ Those who make their living from livestock need to lobby to change the rules, rather than fight against the march of modern animal disease control.

(See Kent News) It now appears that the control zone round the new suspected FMD outbreak, centres on Honeychild Manor farm in St Mary- in- the -Marsh, in the Romney Marsh area of Kent. (A glance at their website might suggest cause for alarm if the tests do prove to be positive.)
Whatever the outcome, questions about the risk taken by the decision not to vaccinate will inevitably be raised. At present in the UK, very few are arguing for the use of prophylactic vaccination - that is, wholescale vaccination throughout the country. (see NFMG letter) Instead it is being pointed out that since emergency vaccination to live is now part of EU and UK policy, the public need to be given some good reasons why emergency vaccination was not used right from the start to stop the virus in its tracks.
No such good scientific or veterinary reasons have, as far as we know, been given.
The page referred to below points out the misconceptions in the arguments against vaccination that are still voiced by those wishing - not unnaturally - to protect their industry and their exports. While one has no wish to undermine their efforts to do what they can for their own industry, it is important for union leaders to acknowledge as is said here that those who make their living from livestock need to lobby to change the rules, rather than fight against the march of modern animal disease control.
Vaccinated meat is perfectly safe. Vaccinated animals - even the rare so-called carriers - have never, after decades of research, been known to spread the disease. The vaccines are very good and getting ever better.
It is the current EU trade rules, based on the assumption above - that "Carriers are a Danger" - that must be challenged and put right.

August 14 2007 (1 pm) ~ A new suspected case of foot and mouth in Kent (Romney Marsh area)

Google updates. The BBC reports that a control zone has been set up around the farm, but did not say exactly where it is. Debby Reynolds has said the case is similar to the false alarm at Laurence Mitchell's Manor Farm near Dorking. Test results are not going to be known for sure until later today or even tomorrow.
One suspects from what is being said that rapid testing may have been done on-site whch quickly suggested the all-clear. As at Manor Farm, test results done at the Institute are always a belt-and-braces reassurance.
However, if this is not the case and the results show virus then the vaccination arguments are all back on the agenda with a vengeance. We note that the NPA gave out a list of statements to quash argument "in the pub" and elsewhere when ordinary people ask, as they do, "Why on earth not vaccinate for FMD when we vaccinate for so much else?" The big business answer cannot show mere concern about protecting protectionism. Their arguments against vaccination are examined here. Looked at dispassionately, the counter, pro-emergency vaccination arguments sent to us by experts in their field, seem indisputable. (link mended)

August 13 2007 ~ FMD Bioportal - an unrestricted, public web site

The FMD Bioportal. Once you have been accepted as user, you will be able to search the databases containing FMD epidemiological data, serotype data, and more - and display these data in tables and graphs, or visualize using GIS visualization programs. Our thanks to FMD News - a service provided by the FMD Surveillance and Modeling Laboratory, University of California at Davis.

August 13 ~ "It would be ludicrous to suggest, on the basis of giving the FMD vaccine suspended in mineral oil as an adjuvant, that the vaccinated animal must then be killed."

Dr Ruth Watkins this week on the subject of vaccination and its misconceptions. Particularly relevant to those who think that vaccination amounts to a sort of nasty chemical cocktail being pumped,willy-nilly into animals - or that vaccinated meat or milk could be refused by consumers on any sensible grounds:
"....All our lives we are exposed to viral bacterial and parasitic infections, bitten by insects that inject their saliva and we swallow goodness knows what so that our digestive system is exposed also to a myriad of proteins and other substances. Even in the Stone Age we would have had viruses (herpes, adenoviruses, respiratory viruses, hepatitis B etc) bacteria, commensal and pathogenic, eg M tuberculosis, and also been loaded with worms in the gut and blood- even lungs too. We would have had lice in our hair and fluke in our liver, and been exposed to animal viruses and bacteria when we killed and butchered freshly killed animals to eat (this is believed to be the source of HIV virus infection in humans, HIV-1 from the chimp). The tiny dose of protein given in modern vaccines and the relative freedom from worms and insect bites mean that modern man has a fraction of the exposure of his Stone Age counterpart.
We do however have exposure to man-made molecules that do not degrade in the environment, and to synthetic hormones such as oestrogens in the water, which is a concern - but they are not in the vaccines used."
Dr Watkins' note.
We now read (Monday evening. See North West Evening Mail) that Cumbria's "regional farming union chiefs" have "come out in support of the government's chief vet" because, says the paper, she has "resisted calls to vaccinate British herds" One wonders what exactly the "strength of the very latest scientific advice and thorough risk assessment" consists of and where we can see it - and from where exactly came the calls that Debby Reynolds had to resist.

August 13 ~ "... highly, highly, highly, highly unlikely"

Prof Hugh Pennington, quoted today at newswales.co.uk gave his opinion that we can assume the outbreak to be over "... by the end of next week if we've seen no more cases, I think we can say it's highly, highly, highly, highly unlikely that there will be any more cases. Not before then."
The article tells us that the Welsh have taken unilateral action over movement restrictions. If you are on the Welsh side of the border, you are allowed "movement to accommodate the needs of newly weaned animals; pregnant sows; pregnant cows; animals for breeding; and animals with feeding difficulties as a result of a severe shortage of grazing." - but only within one kilometre. However, if you are on the English side, you can't. (What happens to the needs of newly weaned animals; pregnant sows; pregnant cows; animals for breeding; and animals with feeding difficulties throughout England we simply do not know - and DEFRA's "latest situation"page was this afternoon giving the public news about nothing except horse movements.) The NPA site says that "one week after the start of the foot and mouth outbreak there are 170,000 more pigs on England's pig farms, and producers are rapidly running out of drinkers, feeders and building materials for temporary housing" and says that they are hoping, at least, that "same-holding movements will be approved by Monday"

August 13 ~ "Failure to clarify both the exit strategies and meat treatment protocols will undermine Defra's sterling work.." Royal Society 2002

After six years of patient work it is disheartening to say the least to read, in papers such as the Telegraph, opinions appearing to be facts and passing unchallenged. We read "....vaccination would more or less ensure that it became permanently endemic. It would be impossible to tell whether the animals were disease-free, so it would become impossible to export meat or milk products.." In fact, as Paul Sutmoller explains below, the particular antibodies that protect vaccinates from developing or passing on disease can indeed show freedom from actual infection. Vaccinated meat and milk products most certainly can be exported again - within far shorter times than in 2001
It would be reassuring if the media, so responsible for guiding public opinion, were known, like ProMed, to act responsibly in checking the science that underpins FMD vaccination and the practicalities of its use.. Nick Blamey of the BVA on Friday's edition of the World at One was equally mis-informed on vaccination - and was not challenged by anyone. Hardly surprising then that the public - in spite of all the efforts of so many - are still as confused as they were in 2001.
In their Follow -up Report back in 2002, the Royal Society had this to say:
"... It is therefore imperative to find approaches whereby emergency vaccination can be employed in situations where pre-emptive action is required. Use of such vaccination procedures must be coupled with arrangements to ensure that the animals subsequently enter the food chain {7.7}. If there are problems associated with a nonslaughter approach then these need to be resolved.
....derogations within the EU Directive {7.7}.. ease the exit strategies after the use of emergency vaccination. More work is required to promulgate to stakeholders and the general public the exit strategies. In addition clear explanations of meat treatments required in a FMD outbreak must be provided. The drafting of Defra's recent publication 'The role of vaccination in a future outbreak of FMD' (Defra2004d) was not sufficiently clear in this respect {7.7}. Failure to clarify both the exit strategies and meat treatment protocols will undermine Defra's sterling work in securing these derogations when the Directive was being drafted..."
The work of the Royal Society Inquiry and its follow-up were intended precisely to avoid the sort of confusion we have been aghast to witness in the past ten days.

August 13 ~ "Sir Brian Follett is wrong when he suggests that vaccinated animals constitute a danger"

The "green light" we spoke of below has now been received after world expert in the field, Dr Paul Sutmoller's refutation of some of the points in Sir Brian Follett's article, "Tough choice of kill or vaccinate"(Aug 5) . Dr Sutmoller's letter appears in the Sunday Times but can be seen here in its full version. Extract:
"....Sir Brian Follett is wrong when he suggests that vaccinated animals constitute a danger, because they may be carrying FMD virus. Unfortunately, in spite of all the evidence to the contrary, the idea that FMD carriers represent a considerable risk of transmission of the disease appears to be persistent and remains up to the present the basis for current rules and regulations for international trade in animals and animal product.....also wrong when he states that vaccinated animals cannot be moved. The EU directive 2003/85/EC allows movement of vaccinated animals within national borders after six months after an outbreak of FMD.
... The hypothetical risk of vaccinated carriers can be further reduced by a serological survey for anti-virus antibodies in animals in the non-vaccinated surveillance zone around the vaccination zone. Those results, together with the results of the a-NSP test, would verify the FMD-free status of the area..." read in full
We would add just two short quotations. The first: "we take the view that food from vaccinated beasts does not need to be labelled" National Consumer Council April 2001 , and the second:
"There are now no insuperable problems with vaccination, whether technical, scientific, trade or cultural" Sir Brian Follett, chair of the Royal Society Inquiry Report (published on 16 July 2002)
This page summarises the main findings and recommendations of the RS report.

August 10/13 ~ Dairy herd on the Pirbright estate

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

August 10 2007 ~ NFU moves towards court case

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

August 9 ~ The Ministry knows best....

More on the subject of getting the science wrong, non-admission of Government mistakes, official ignorance, compensation claims side-stepped...but this is a differe