REPORT
OF THE
COMMITTEE
OF INQUIRY ON
FOOT-and-Mouth
Disease
1968
PART ONE
Presented to Parliament by the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and
Food
By Command of
her Majesty
April
1969
LONDON
HER MAJESTY’S STATIONERY OFFICE
15s od. Net
Cmnd. 3999
COMMITTEE OF INQUIRY
ON
FOOT-AND-MOUTH DISEASE
MINUTE OF
APPOINTMENT
I hereby appoint
The Duke of Northumberland, K.G.,T.D., J.P.
A. Cripps,
Esq., D.S.O., T.D., Q.C.
Professor D. G. Evans, D.Sc.,
Ph.D., F.C. Path., F.R.S.
C.H. Plumb, Esq.
Sir Edward Thompson, M.B.E.,
T.D.
Professor D. Walker, M.A.
Professor Sir William L. Weipers,
B.Sc., F.R.C.V.S., D.V.S.M.,
F.R.S.E.
to be a Committee to review the
policy and arrangements for dealing with
foot-and-mouth disease in
Great Britain and to make recommendations.
I further appoint the Duke of
Northumberland to be Chairman of the
Committee and Mr. J.N. Jotchman to be Secretary, and Mrs. M.D.
White
to be Assistant Secretary of the Committee.
(Sgd.)
FREDERICK PEART
Minister of
Agriculture, Fisheries and Food.
28th February, 1968
In addition to
the above I hereby appoint
E.L. Thomas,
Esq., L.L.B., J.P.
to be an additional member of the
Committee.
(Sgd.) CLEDWYN
HUGHES
Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food.
22nd April, 1968.
2
PART 1 OF THE REPORT OF THE COMMITTEE
OF
INQUIRY ON FOOT-AND-MOUTH
DISEASE
To
the Rt. Hon. CLEDWYN HUGHES, M.P.
Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and
Food.
Sir,
We were appointed on 28th
February, 1968:-
“to
review the policy and arrangements for dealing with foot-and-mouth disease in
Great Britain and to make recommendations”.
We now have the honour to submit Part
I of our Report.
We have
given priority to consideration of the ways by which the risk of the introduction of foot-and-mouth disease
virus into Great Britain, and the risk
of
future epidemics, might be reduced. Our major task has therefore been to
accumulate and evaluate the available scientific evidence and to weigh up the
advantages and disadvantages of various possible policies. We have held
29
meetings
in this country and have visited Denmark, France, the Federal Republic of
Germany, the Netherlands, Argentina, Brazil and Uruguay. The objects of these
visits were to hold general discussions on foot-and-mouth disease and to
familiarize ourselves with control programmes and the disease situation in
these countries. We also visited the Centro Pan-Americano de Febre Aftosa in Rio de
Janeiro and we met officials of the United States De-partment of Agriculture
in Washington and at the Plum Island Animal Disease Laboratory, Long Island,
New York. We received evidence from the Food and Agriculture
Organisation of the United Nations and from the Office International des
Epizooties. Many countries helped us by supplying infor-mation which we had
requested. A large number of organisations and
individuals in this country submitted written evidence, and with some
of these we have discussed their memoranda. A list of those persons and bodies
from whom we have received evidence is in Appendix I.
We wish to thank all our
witnesses in this country for the efforts they made on our behalf. Also we are
greatly indebted to all those who played a part in the
arrangements for our visits to Europe and to North and South America. We
deeply appreciate the kindness and courtesy with which we were received, and
the frank and full assistance given to us in the conduct of our
inquiries.
We
interpret our terms of reference as demanding the fullest possible
infor-mation we can provide about foot-and-mouth disease and its control and
that it is not for us to attempt to express judgments on the social, political
and commercial implications of the policy we recommend.
Part I of
our Report gives general information about foot-and-mouth disease and deals
with measures designed to reduce the incidence of primary outbreaks and the
risks of such outbreaks giving rise to epidemics. There remain matters of
detailed arrangements if outbreaks occur, including compensation and
valuation, which will be the subject of our recommendations in Part II; on
these matters we shall be taking further evidence.
A
summary of our recommendations is given in Chapter VIII. Anthony Cripps, Q.C.
does not wholly agree with all these recommendations. The extent of his disagreement is
covered by a Dissenting Note containing his recommendations.
3
Note: The estimated cost of the Committee’s inquiries to 31st March 1969, including the Cost of producing Part 1 of the Report, is £13,653 19s. Od. of which £1453 19s. Od. represents
the estimated cost of printing and publication.
4
PART 1 OF THE REPORT OF THE COMMITTEE
OF
INQUIRY ON
FOOT-MOUTH-DISEASE
CONTENTS
Chapter
Paragraphs
5
TABLES
Page
6
FIGURES
Page
MAPS
PHOTOGRAPHS
7
APPENDICES