Warmwell.com

Warmwell "Front Page" Archive 2001 - 2004

Jan 23 2004 ~ Zimbabwe faces new FMD devastation - its appeals have led only to "paltry doses of vaccines"

The new article on FMD eradication from Israel pleads that "Common, co-ordinated epidemiological studies leading to a common control policy should be sought and supported by the international community" see below - Zimbabwe, very much in need of international support for its cattle herd, is now looking hopefully towards China. Zimbabwe faces new FMD devastation because, as the Harare Financial Gazette reports, "the government failed to source enough foreign currency to buy the vaccines necessary to eradicate the disease."
"Zimbabwe needs about one million doses of vaccines a month to completely wipe out the disease which threatens to reduce the country's cattle herd. ..... Zimbabwe has partially managed to contain the disease through paltry doses of vaccines sourced through appeals from international donor organisations such as the Food and Agriculture Organisation, European Union and the Southern Africa Development Community. ..... The national herd is said to have dwindled from 5.1 million in 1998 to 250 000 this year due to drought, FMD, an acute shortage of stockfeed and destocking by most farmers because of the chaotic land reforms.
... Zimbabwe had an annual export quota of 9 100 tonnes of beef to the EU which used to earn the country about US$2 billion annually.
The government is said to be trying to seal a deal with China to establish a FMD vaccination production plant facility locally and save the country billions in foreign currency."

Jan 23 ~ Mr Owen Paterson has tabled a series of Commons questions about DEFRA non-payment

Shropshire Star MP hits out on cash owed for disease work ".... Mr Paterson has tabled a series of Commons questions to Environment Secretary Margaret Beckett asking why many payments have been delayed. He has also asked whether compensation payments to farmers who had to slaughter animals during the epidemic also remained outstanding. Ministers have said that delays have occurred while the Government checks the validity of claims and to ensure that there was no unwarranted spending of taxpayers' money.
But Mr Paterson said that the National Audit Office had reported that, out of 1,200 cases investigated, only 18 involved allegations of fraud, and six of these had been dismissed.
The shadow agriculture minister said: "I understand the Government has spent £20 million investigating these claims. "The delays make a mockery of the Government's threat to bring in legislation on late payment of bills." ...."

Jan 20 - 23 ~ "Questions should be asked about research which relies so heavily on data produced by the industry itself"

The Scotsman reports on the DEFRA funded research study into stocking and density levels branded by the RSPCA as "absolute nonsense' The RSPCA says that not only are the study’s conclusions questionable, but many of the 2.7 million broiler chickens used suffered in the research. The study analysed survival rates of birds stocked up to 46kg per square metre when DEFRA's own recommended limit, even for unfortunate battery hens, is 34kg per square metre..
"...Caroline Le Sueur, RSPCA senior scientific officer, criticised Defra .... "Birds crammed in at these high levels are so tightly packed it is almost impossible for them to cool down. In the scorching summer of 2003 we know that millions of broilers died from heat stress - at lower stocking levels the figure could have been much less.
The government must now acknowledge the question marks placed against this study. It has not been scientifically presented for debate in the usual journals, it has serious omissions such as bypassing behavioural issues and is not based on data provided by independent researchers. We see it not only as a useless fudge but also a cruel waste of time and money. Questions should be asked about research which relies so heavily on data produced by the industry itself...."

Jan 20 - 23 ~ Hill farms teetering on the breadline

Guardian "Carol Evans, of the Peak District Rural Deprivation Forum, said: "It is shameful that many of Britain's food producers are living on the breadline, earning far less than the minimum wage. A myth still persists that all farmers are rich and greedy - this report makes clear that nothing could be further from the truth."
See also Independent "....People may have forgotten about foot and mouth but we're still dealing with the consequences. We are also penalised as farmers in the hills. It rains a lot, the weather is worse and the soil is not as deep so we are limited to livestock and our options are limited. I do benefit from the subsidies system but I do not like it at all. I don't like the hand-out effect it is having on the farming. At the moment, it's not a level playing field. We do not have the options to be as flexible as other farms and we are suffering because of that."

Jan 20 - 23 ~ "Common, co-ordinated epidemiological studies leading to a common control policy should be sought and supported by the international community."

A new article (available from the Israeli Embassy in London) Foot and Mouth Disease: The Israeli Approach should be of interest in the UK: "....The Israeli Veterinary Services and Animal Health (VSAH) have the legal powers, the infrastructure and the personnel to carry out the necessary measures in order to prevent, control and eradicate outbreaks of FMD...."
The article concludes with this paragraph about veterinary cooperation and the now, much needed co-ordination of expertise and policy by the whole international community :
"Control measures hopefully leading to eradication of FMD from the Middle East are of the utmost importance for the regional countries and, not to a lesser extent, to the adjacent regions - foremost (unvaccinated) Europe. This goal might have a (remote) chance only if and when regional co-operation is implemented. Common, co-ordinated epidemiological studies leading to a common control policy should be sought and supported by the international community. Some promising steps have been already made." (for details, click here).

Jan 20 - 23 ~ an "unarguable case" for a move away from intensive chemical farming methods.

A crop-sprayer has, at present, a legal right repeatedly to spray mixtures of poisonous chemicals right up to the open window of any occupied premises. Georgina Downs, a singer who has suffered permanent health damage from the crop spraying of fields next to her family's home in Sussex, has produced a video to show the Government the reality of exactly what is happening in the countryside from the continued use of pesticides. The long-term consequences and devastating effects of hazardous chemicals on people living in rural areas will be featured on the ITV programme "That’s Esther" on Sunday January 25th at 12.30pm
Ms. Downs states that the current regulations are totally obstructive and make it almost impossible to prove causation. Currently members of the public are not entitled to access the information on the chemicals they are exposed to and nor can their doctors. Such information obtained by HSE inspectors "can only be disclosed with the consent of the person who provided it"... Read More

Jan 20 - 23 ~ Civil Contingencies Bill will allow sweeping new powers

Scotsman "....The responses to disasters and emergencies such as the King's Cross fire, the foot-and-mouth outbreak, recent rail crashes and the fuel crisis had also proved the need for fresh legislation in that area." Cabinet Minister Douglas Alexander on the second reading of the Civil Contingencies Bill yesterday.
Readers of this website know that the powers the government took during the foot and mouth crisis in 2001 were sweeping and bloody and inflexible. That they were also not covered by existing legislation (and therefore illegal) has never been satisfactorily denied. As Mr Morley admitted to the EFRA Select Committee on 6 November 2001 "At the present time we do not have powers for a fire break cull.."
As the MEP Giles Chichester says below, the government "still has plenty to answer for over foot and mouth disease."
One "lesson learned" by this government seems to be to ensure that they must give themselves the power to override existing safeguards to freedom should any "emergency" (see new definition) arise. See Democracy page

Jan 20 ~ Defra's Horse Passport Pantomime

From equiworld.net Article Defra's Horse Passport Pantomime
"Oh no, you don't need a vet to apply for a horse passport" said DEFRA.
"Oh yes you do" DEFRA now says
The Country Land and Business Association has expressed surprise at DEFRA'S about turn on horse passport applications which has thrown horse owners and the equine industry into a state of confusion. Contrary to advice given to its Passport Issuing Organisations, DEFRA has now announced that owners will no longer be allowed to complete the silhouette section of the horse's passport application by themselves after 31 January unless the horse is microchipped. Instead the silhouette must be completed by either a veterinary surgeon or a person authorised by the passport-issuing organisation (PIO)....the advice being given on the internet by the various passport issuing organisations is conflicting and now out of date. Not only are we having to pay more for the privilege of keeping Europe happy, but organisations like the CLA are yet again having to use their own resources to communicate Government policy to the public."
Read in full

Jan 19 ~ "I am pleased to know that the Commission is keeping up the pressure on the Government, which still has plenty to answer for over foot and mouth disease." Giles Chichester MEP

The Government has been given a final written warning by the European Commission over a failure to carry out an environmental impact assessment (EIA) of the controversial Ash Moor mass burial site
Western Morning News ".....Failure to respond to the warning could result in the Government being brought before the European Court of Justice. ...... the Government has been told that the European Commission is not satisfied that UK legislation on EIAs adequately covers development on land owned by the state, which UK authorities have claimed was exempt from planning regulations. ...
Leading STAMP member Joe Skinner said: "....We started right at the beginning, telling them they were doing it wrong, and they would not listen to a word we said. If chickens are coming home to roost for the Government I am delighted."............
.... South West MEP Giles Chichester said: "The Ash Moor Pit is a monumental lesson in inefficiency and waste. All that money was put into it in the first place and now a huge amount is having to be spent to restore the site. I am pleased to know that the Commission is keeping up the pressure on the Government, which still has plenty to answer for over foot and mouth disease."

Jan 16 - 19 ~ the courts have finally called Defra's bluff on a campaign of intimidation.... Of 1200 cases investigated, the National Audit Office last year found that only 18 involved fraud, non proven and most now abandoned.

Sunday Telegraph Booker's Notebook " ... Terrified that it may lose£1 billion due to Britain from Brussels, Defra has tried to appease the European Commission by finding every excuse not to hand ..."
"... the UK government may well lose the £1 billion it wishes to claim from Brussels anyway.
...... Hundreds of contractors still have claims outstanding ...
....the real disgrace of this affair is that, despite Defra's shameless efforts to convince Brussels that it has been looking after taxpayers' interests, the European Commission has not yet shown any sign of being impressed. It has capped the UK's right to claim repayment at a mere £250 million, leaving £1 billion outstanding - a sum it seems the UK government may now never be in a position to claim. " Read in full

Jan 16 - 19 ~ "Defra's tactics have been comprehensively ruled as illegal."

Private Eye this week. Muckspreader column:
"A landslide defeat for Defra in the high court has blown wide open one of the biggest scandals remaining from the 2001 foot and mouth debacle: the ministry's astonishing refusal to pay hundreds of contractors £100 million still owing ...
... ...Commission officials began to hint that they were not happy with the way Maff had been throwing money around. Farmers had been paid too much in compensation (since much of the 'cull' had been illegal, this was thought necessary to buy off their protests). Too much had been spent in every direction. In 2002 and 2003 it gradually became clear that Defra was finding any excuse not to pay the money it owed to hundreds of contractors....
Invoices for £500,000 and other documents which the firm supplied to Defra were mysteriously 'lost'. Quibbles were raised about the tiniest details of spending. ...
... when one MP raised the Furse case. the minister Alun Michael continued to stonewall....." Read in full
See also warmwell's front page from last November which goes a long way to explain why DEFRA have been so much at pains to try to find any means of lowering the bill.

Nov 11 - 18 2003 - - The European Court of Auditors is believed to be deeply concerned by FMD's spiralling costs and by the controversial contiguous cull policy

".... These are huge sums of money, which the Chancellor was expecting and if they are not paid there will be a shortfall somewhere. ..."

Jan 16- 19 ~ Frustrated NFU dairy farmer will make a dramatic protest on Monday

....a protest that ordinary farmer members do not have the right to choose their own leader.
"...A once proud Union is now in sad decline, losing millions of pounds every year and in danger of becoming bankrupt - financially and morally,"
The NFU Council has been described by one of its members as: "Eighty-nine decrepit, unimaginative, super-annuated, self-important male ex-farmers and one woman sitting round a table playing the game called Buggin's Turn. The rules are simple; all office-holders move slowly up the totem pole and - provided they don't say anything which will upset anyone - they take their turn near the top"
Read more on Monday( temporarily embargoed - cannot be read until Monday)
80% of respondents to a FARMERS WEEKLY Interactive poll believe the NFU should introduce a policy of one member, one vote to elect the president and key officeholders.

Jan 16 - 19 ~ "DEFRA has abandoned its proposals to impose a 150km distance limit on the movement of livestock

through markets in the aftermath of the 2001 foot and mouth ...DEFRA stated that Ministers had concluded the benefits of introducing a distance limit are too small given the wider impact. But they reserved the right to revisit the issue should circumstances change." News Wales

Jan 16 ~ “It's frightening that this is the way they are treating people who did their best to help them beat the outbreak. It's cynical and dishonourable."

News and Star, Cumbria "Cumbria County Council-owned Cumbria Waste Management (CWM), which buried thousands of carcasses in its landfill sites, exclusively revealed to the News & Star that it is still owed £6 million for the work it carried out three years ago.
.... Mike Bareham, CWM's managing director, said: “It's frightening that this is the way they are treating people who did their best to help them beat the outbreak. It's cynical and dishonourable. We are going to fight this claim as hard as we did to rid this county of foot and mouth disease. .....We opened up our offices to Defra and did everything we could to help. We are now disillusioned with the Government.”
It is not known exactly how much money is owed to Cumbrian businesses but the Forum of Private Business (FPB), which is leading the campaign to settle payments for rural firms, has revealed that it runs into many millions...."

Jan 15 ~"The reason we have tended to go in the direction of wind power is the (EU) subsidy..."

Thousands of square miles of countryside would be dominated by wind generators, up to 400 ft high....
"Lord Sainsbury has told peers that the Government's target for a massive expansion of renewable energy will be driven mainly by new windfarms, despite calls for greater investment in tidal power. ...
Lord Hooson also questioned the Government's reliance on wind power, saying that ministers "should give greater priority to harnessing tidal power, rather than wind power". WMN
See also warmwell page on windfarms

Jan 14 2004 ~ "We are being asked to believe that a department which is regarded as being notoriously dysfunctional is now being uncharacteristically prudent."

A letter in today's Telegraph from Andrew George, MP, Liberal Democrat Food and Rural Affairs spokesman
Re: Foot the bill and cough up
Date: 14 January 2004
Sir - Of course the Government should root out fraudulent claims made in respect of the foot and mouth outbreak two years ago, but many desperate debtors believe it is simply playing for time.According to the reckoning of the Department of Food and Rural Affairs, £800 million of the £1.3 billion arising from the claims could be fraudulent. If so, the Government is making a substantial criticism of farmers affected and of the contractors who helped Defra out of a hole.We are being asked to believe that a department which is regarded as being notoriously dysfunctional is now being uncharacteristically prudent.
From:Andrew George, MP, Liberal Democrat Food and Rural Affairs spokesman, London SW1

Jan 13 2004~ "...Seven months after the culling of our healthy animals, Fred Landeg sent us a seven page letter telling us that our farm was still highly infectious"

Warmwell has recently publicised articles from the Western Morning News describing the human cost behind the cases of alleged fraud brought by DEFRA in the course of its £19.81 million investigations (in one case spending hours disputing a bill for just £1.88...). This email received from Mrs D Phillips is hard to read without wondering if such ignorance, bullying and inconsistency could really have happened. It did.
". ...... Our farm was contiguous. We did not have FMD. 15 other farms contiguous to the IP ( which was never confirmed by a blood test), were left un-culled and obviously were not cleansed.
Because I refused to allow the cleansing to be carried out... I withstood twelve months of living under first an illegal Form A, then the far more severe Form 37B.
.... Seven months after the culling of our healthy animals, Fred Landeg sent us a seven page letter telling us that our farm was still highly infectious and that we would have to remain on a Form A for a further five months, despite the fact that the other 15 contiguous farms had never been culled. .... MAFF did however, cleanse a contiguous pig farm, where they culled 2800 pigs - at a cost of approximately £420,000 to the tax payer. Jan Kelly chose to leave 200 sows plus 200 suckler cows un-culled on the same farm. She then authorised ten weeks of cleansing to be carried out on one set of buildings, then moved the sows and cattle from the uncleansed buildings into the clean ones, and proceeded to clean the old buildings, allowing these so-called "highly infectious contiguous cattle and pigs" to transfer disease from the dirty buildings, straight into the newly cleansed ones. ...."
Read in full

Jan 12/13 2004 ~ "There has been no instance of vaccinated carriers of the virus being the cause of the introduction or recurrence of FMD."

(Vaccination alone does not, of course, produce carriers in healthy animals)
Y. Leforban How predictable were the outbreaks of foot and mouth disease in Europe in 2001 and is vaccination the answer?
" ...Effective vaccines that are capable of inducing good immunity and protection within approximately one week are available world-wide.....There is no real proof in the field of the danger of vaccinated carriers and the use of differential serological tests would reduce this hypothetical risk further. In comparison, when the slaughter method is used, there is also a risk of overlooking animals that are affected sub-clinically and which could also become carriers."
This pdf file (new window) is now available on line in the series Foot and mouth disease: facing the new dilemmas edited by Gavin Thomson (OIE)

Jan 12/13 ~ Foot and mouth disease: facing the new dilemmas

with Introduction by Gavin Thomson is now available online (summaries and pdf files)
"...Questioning the traditional approaches to the control/eradication of the disease and especially the justification for 'stamping-out' which had been documented in all its horror by the media in the United Kingdom was the popular topic. This concern was so intense that many drawn into the debate had little knowledge of the nature of FMD or of the behaviour of the disease and there was an understandable search for a readily available and authoritative source of such information. This special edition is primarily an attempt to respond to this need and provide an up-to-date source of information for both animal health specialists and others seeking a compendium of information on the subject....
...sections include both papers intended to provide basic information as well as papers covering 'topical' problems such as vaccination and its effects on international trade, 'carriers' and their role in the epidemiology of the disease and the environmental implications of 'stamping-out'. Some opinions differ from the official position of the OIE as exemplified by the present edition of the International Animal Health Code but this is considered healthy if we are to improve management of this disease internationally. ..."
The Index and overview is available at http://www.oie.int/eng/publicat/rt/A_rt21_3.htm

Jan 12 2004 ~"the paradigm 'free of FMD without vaccination' is not synonymous with 'risk free'"

"Unlike animals which are carriers of foot and mouth disease (FMD), sub-clinically infected animals may be highly contagious....."
Animals in which FMDV persists in the oesophageal-pharyngeal region for more than four weeks after infection are referred to as "carriers"
Unapparent foot and mouth disease infection (sub-clinical infections and carriers): implications for control by P. Sutmoller & R. Casas Olascoaga Rev. sci. tech. Off. int. Epiz., 2002, 21 (3), 519-529
".....A few historical reports and some recent observations in southern Africa indicate the possibility of dissemination of FMD by bovine carriers into herds of susceptible cattle. These reports have greatly influenced FMD trade policies and thus, FMD control and eradication strategies. However, other field evidence does not support this claim and several controlled experiments were unable to show that carriers are able to initiate disease. .. In the opinion of the authors, the introduction of FMD into previously FMD-free zones was caused by the movement of clinically or sub-clinically infected animals and not by bovine carriers...
.... .When millions of cattle were systematically vaccinated with good quality vaccines, FMD disappeared in spite of a large sentinel population in the form of calves and unvaccinated sheep and pigs. A low number of carriers most likely persisted, but they did not hamper the eradication of the disease.
Vaccination policies and trade regulation must be based on risk assessments taking these factors into consideration..."
Sir James Scudamore's concern about detecting "carrier animals" can be read below.

Jan 12 2004 ~ James Scudamore refers to "supposedly effective vaccines"

Veterinary Journal (January) FMD - differentiating vaccinated from infected animals (new window)
".... revealed changes in the public's attitudes to mass slaughter of livestock, particularly those not obviously affected by the disease. The effect has been to question the morality and appropriateness of pursuing a stamping out policy when supposedly effective vaccines are available and where tests to detect antibodies to non-structural proteins (NSP) to the FMD virus can be used to indicate whether a vaccinated animal has been exposed to the virus or may be acting as a carrier. ..
..Modern PCR techniques to detect viral RNA may facilitate rapid screening of large numbers of samples but there is still no entirely reliable method of detecting carrier animals and those techniques that exist are highly labour intensive and expensive.... if NSP tests are to be used as a key component of an exit strategy following an outbreak where a policy of "vaccination to- live" had been employed, more research is needed. Clavijo, Wright and Kitching's review provides a comprehensive summary of the key areas needing to be addressed."
Clavijo, Wright and Kitching (The Veterinary Journal 167 (2004) 9 - 22) (new window) appear reasonably optimistic, however. Extract
"Considerable effort and attention is now being directed toward the development of new methods and techniques for the rapid and accurate detection of anti-NSP antibodies, harmonization and standardization of current diagnostic techniques, as well as the production of defined reagents."

Jan 12 2004 ~ Scrapie "the compulsory EU scheme takes effect in April 2005. Implementing the EU schemes will be a major task..."

See pdf file (new window) The National Scrapie Plan: progress to date and future developments by Michael Dawson
".....There has been understandable concern expressed by members of some breeds that the NSP selection requirements will result in the loss of desirable traits and blood lines, particularly in the hill breeds.
Though some research is underway and further work is proposed, it will be some time before results are available. In this respect, it is encouraging to note that the impending EU programmes allow for review if serious negative effects become evident in individual breeds."
"Encouraging" possibly, but whether any of this is necessary in the first place is still in doubt in the minds of many.

Jan 12 2004 ~ "growing evidence to suggest organic farming has improved animal welfare.."

Animal Health and Welfare in Organic Livestock Production(pdf) by Malla Hovi
Extract"... mainly by banning some of the most intensive livestock production practices (e.g. all types of battery cages, early weaning of piglets, tethering of ruminants etc.)
...A recent UK study of organic pig production found very few health problems.... In the UK, outdoor breeding units have been relatively easy to convert to organic production, where farm size and crop rotations have allowed adequate space.... Tethering, decks and entirely slatted floors are forbidden. The minimum weaning age for piglets is 40 days .... the later weaning age in organic pig production is likely to reduce nutritional challenges in this period, as the piglets' digestive tract is more mature than in early weaning systems. A recent UK study of organic pig production found very few health problems..."

Jan 10 2004~ Munich's Tageszeitung downplays risk of BSE after flaws in testing are reported

Munich's Tageszeitung comments on reports of slipshod testing for BSE See email

"German authorities have said attempts to save money may have been the reason for lapses in mandatory testing of beef for the disease last year. A comparison of the number of slaughtered cattle and of tests for BSE showed meat from more than 500 animals may have reached consumers without first having been tested.
The paper wrote that several conclusions can be drawn from the findings: first, that there is no such thing as 100 percent safety; secondly, the controls are at least effective in that they uncovered the lapses; and third, there is no reason to panic, for in an overwhelming 99.95 percent of cases, tests were carried out properly, meaning that the risk of being run over by a car is in Germany 1,000 times higher than being infected by BSE."
Again, the assumption is made that eating meat from a cow with BSE could "infect" humans, a claim that has never been proved, Prof Collinge's comments notwithstanding. It seems that authorities downplay the BSE risk only when they have been found negligent in respect of their own rules.

Jan 10 ~ emergency vaccination would be considered...part of the control strategy.....where measures additional to culling.... were needed.

Hansard (new window) 6th Jan
Miss McIntosh: To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs if she will introduce vaccination as a means of preventing the spread of foot and mouth disease as part of the Foot and Mouth Contingency Plan. [144177]
Mr. Bradshaw: Prophylactic vaccination remains prohibited under the new EU Directive 2003/85 on the control of foot-and-mouth disease (FMD). However, the Directive does give greater prominence to the potential use of emergency vaccination in the event of an outbreak.
The Government's response to the independent inquiries into the 2001 FMD outbreak acknowledged that emergency vaccination would be considered as part of the control strategy from the start of any future outbreak of FMD, where measures additional to culling of susceptible animals on infected premises and dangerous contacts were needed. The latest version of Defra's FMD Contingency Plan includes details on the arrangements that are in place to allow for emergency vaccination in a future outbreak.
Mr Bradshaw chose not to quote the part of the Directive that says, "(1) ...the Community is also a Community of values, and its policies to combat animal diseases must not be based purely on commercial interests but must also take genuine account of ethical principles
...(24) ....Community rules and the ensuing practices have not taken sufficient account of the possibility offered by the use of emergency vaccination and subsequent tests to detect infected animals in a vaccinated population. Too much importance was attached to the trade-policy aspects, with the result that protective vaccination was not carried out even when it had been authorised." (See Directive pdf.)

Jan 10 2004 ~ DEFRA "does not believe there are any valid unpaid and outstanding invoices, submitted by businesses to the Department, for work undertaken in connection with the foot and mouth outbreak. "

Mr Bradshaw - as reported by Hansard. Read in full
Mr Bradshaw must temporarily have forgotten such firms as Luke Furse Earth Moving Ltd, of Devon. It is now 1,000 days since their invoice was submitted to DEFRA but, almost three years on from the outbreak, Defra is still withholding payment of £1.2 million. According to the Western Morning News "Luke Furse, who founded the respected family firm 25 years ago, said he had been stunned when Defra began to refuse payment. He said the oldest unpaid invoice was now 1,000 days overdue. Mr Furse said that although all payments had been agreed at the time his firm had been subjected to a barrage of questions and repeated audits as Government accountants attempted to chip away at the bill. Now the firm has been told that the Government has "lost" invoices totalling almost £500,000..."

Jan 10 2004 ~ Yet another alleged "fraud" case and its effect on the family concerned.

WMN on yet another supposed "fraud" case
".... Mr Haste was due to appear at Exeter Crown Court next Monday but Defra dramatically dropped the charges. He says he will press for full compensation from Defra. "I will go all the way to the House of Lords if I have to."..."It was a very frightening time for myself and my family. I felt betrayed because Defra had told me to make a claim in the first place. At that time I did not know whether I was going to go to prison, my wife was a nervous wreck and my son, who also runs the farm with me, was cracking up."
Yet another reminder, three years later, of what John Piper, writing in the Yorkshire Post described: "The foot-and-mouth crisis ... a lethal cocktail of folly, self-interest, Government ineptitude and spinelessness, waste and wanton cruelty, both to human beings and animals. In short, a disgrace of huge magnitude. "

Jan 9 2004 ~ "put through hell"

The Western Morning News yesterday:
"....Westcountry farmer Michael Pedrick, who was cleared of trying to cheat MAFF out of nearly £17,000 following the foot and mouth crisis, says his life was made hell by Government officials.
Mr Pedrick's solicitors, Taunton-based Clarke Willmott, are lodging a complaint against a Defra official following a bizarre scene after the court case on Tuesday. Mr Pedrick had just been acquitted of attempting to obtain a valuable security by deception from the then Ministry of Agriculture Fisheries and Food (MAFF). The solicitors allege that a female vet approached the 63-year-old farmer and wagging a finger in his face, told him: "You are a very lucky man to get off."....
.....Defra last night refused to comment on the outstanding money which Mr Pedrick claims is still owed to him or the allegation against a female vet. A spokesman said: "Any complaint is dealt with thoroughly but internally."
Many of us will remember Sir Humphrey Appleby's complacent smirk "An internal inquiry Minister" . Many, many other livestock owners were put through hell in 2001 by the ignorant bullying of officialdom. What happened to their animals was even more hellish. As for the vets, so many of whom appear to have colluded in cruelty, the RCVS may not choose to condemn the widespread breaking of the veterinary oath - but it will not be forgotten.

Jan 7 2004 ~ "This was a heavy handed prosecution by Defra of a farmer struggling to cope with the foot and mouth epidemic."

Western Morning News (new window) reports the dramatic aquittal of the case of alleged fraud. ( DEFRA has justified its delays (see below) by alleging fraudulant claims.)
"....A farmer accused of trying to cheat the Government out of nearly £17,000 during the foot and mouth crisis has been dramatically cleared. After legal submissions by his counsel at Exeter Crown Court yesterday, Michael Pedrick was found not guilty of attempting to obtain a valuable security by deception from the then Ministry of Agriculture Fisheries and Food (MAFF). Following legal arguments by barrister Adam Vaitilingam in which he said there was no case to answer against Mr Pedrick, Judge Ian McIntosh directed the jury to return a not guilty verdict saying that it would be unsafe to take the matter further. After the acquittal, Mr Vaitilingam said: "This was a heavy handed prosecution by Defra of a farmer struggling to cope with the foot and mouth epidemic....
Mr Pedrick's solicitors are now lodging a complaint with Defra over an alleged incident which occurred after the case yesterday involving a woman Defra vet. A statement issued by Clarke Willmott Solicitors said: "We were most surprised by the actions of the Defra vet who was a witness in these proceedings. We understand that she gesticulated at Mr Pedrick and was aggressive towards him, stating to him that 'he was a very lucky man' after the case had finished. We do not consider such action to be appropriate and will be submitting a formal complaint on Mr Pedrick's behalf." .... "
See Mr Pedrick's story

Jan 7 2004 ~ Almost £20 million has been spent investigating suspected fraudulent claims from contractors for work to deal with the foot-and-mouth disease outbreak in 2001 ...

... The Scotsman reports.
Hansard had not published written answers by midday. today. Attack is a form of defence well known to this government department. (See above) In early November (Hansard) Andrew George (St Ives) said
" I am pleased to hear that the Government are taking a robust line on late payers, but what are they doing about one of the worst of all late payers, namely, themselves?.... "
..and he warned that "Many of those companies are perilously close to bankruptcy, so when will the matter be cleared up?..." We heard on November 12th from Paul Gregory, the Campaign Advisor to the Forum of Private Business that the All-Party Small Business Group had already had a meeting in the Commons.
"You will probably know that a frequent response of Defra is to allege fraud (see Nigel Griffiths's answer to the PQ), All the people I have spoken to who have been subjected to this, are innocent. I'm sure that there are likely to be some persons who have gone into liquidation as a result of non-payment by Defra"
See also an article from the Western Morning News on the DEFRA compensation scandal "Defra officials had subjected contractors to "threats and intimidation", he said. They had also gone through invoices with a fine tooth comb, in one case spending hours disputing a bill for just £1.88..."

January 6 2004 ~ DEFRA refuses to allow pet pig out of the house "this can spread the risk of foot and mouth disease" says official

The Western Morning News (new window) reports a DEFRA official's reasons for refusing a licence - which seem somewhat extraordinary, given that foot and mouth is not a disease passed on by "eating burgers" nor by a healthy pig on a lead in a location where there is no disease. Regulation run mad seems to be the inevitable consequence of government departments desperate not to be held to account.
"A family has been banned from taking their miniature pot-bellied pig for walks because of the potential risk of him contracting and spreading disease.....The couple have a harness and a lead but the inspecting vet has also deemed that Mitchell might be able to eat discarded burgers on a nearby towpath that forms part of his potential walking route...
..A spokesman for Defra explained: "Some people have pet pigs which they treat like dogs. They keep them in their garden and take them for walks, but this can spread the risk of foot and mouth disease and put other animals at risk. The regulations allow us to keep a record."
See also Muckspreader (Private Eye) on December 3rd 2003

January 6 2004 ~BSE: "We have made a decision to depopulate those bull calves"

" ....The department would not disclose the name of the slaughter plant because of privacy concerns..." Reuters (new window)
"We have made a decision to depopulate those bull calves," USDA Chief Veterinarian Ron DeHaven told reporters. "In total, there are approximately 450 animals that will be sacrificed as part of this overall effort." The herd targeted for depopulation contains a one-month-old bull that was born from the infected cow before it was slaughtered on Dec. 9. DeHaven said there was a "very remote" chance the infected cow spread the brain-wasting disease to its offspring. USDA also said that since they were unable to pinpoint which animal in the herd is that offspring, all the calves in it were being destroyed. The 450 cattle will be sent to a slaughtering plant that is not currently in operation. USDA officials said the animals will not enter the food supply or be rendered into animal feed.
The department would not disclose the name of the slaughter plant because of privacy concerns. "
See also warmwell entry for June 17 2003 about the BSE outbreak in Cananda . CFIA spokesman Dr. Claude Lavigne said, "Everything that we'll ever get is here. There's no more to be gained here. It's been investigated to death.....the trail has gone cold and we're not going to find a definite source of this infection.'' In Canada, nearly 3000 healthy cattle were "depopulated" but the Pro-Med moderator wrote: ".. there is no scientific justification for slaughtering herds that were in contact with the infected animal or its offspring. BSE cannot be passed by casual contact."

January 4 2004 ~ "...a disease that is not contagious between animals nor is contagious between people. "

BSE: A ProMed moderator makes this important assertion and fears ".. some less-than-humane methods may be employed...." See the ProMed website (of the International Society for Infectious Diseases)
"... Positive public relation moves often have ripples throughout related industries that are not necessarily so positive. If an animal is up and can move, it is considered ambulatory. Therefore, this moderator fears some less-than-humane methods may be employed to get animals to stand and walk in order to pass ante-mortem inspection.
On-farm inspections presently have no incentive for producers. American producers are a proud lot, and intrusion onto their property for on-farm investigation is likely not going to receive a warm welcome. Of course, most things have a price; so if the proper financial incentive is in place, the welcome mat may be forthcoming.
Removal of downer animals from slaughter facilities is likely to create an underground or secret market in which home slaughter and processing of animals that are healthy but unable to get up without the use of inhumane methods will develop, and sampling of these animal will decrease substantially.
All things considered, it again comes down to how much money the American public is willing to spend on a disease that is not contagious between animals nor is contagious between people."
See also transcript of USDA Technical Briefing and Webcast with U.S. Government Officials on BSE Situation - January 2, 2004

Jan 4 2004 ~ the decision to grant permission for the monkey laboratory was a forgone conclusion, predetermining the result of the inquiry

"The National Anti-Vivisection Society (NAVS) and Animal Aid have launched a High Court challenge to the decision by First Secretary of State John Prescott to allow a massive primate research laboratory to be built in the Cambridgeshire green belt. The appeal describes Prescott's decision as perverse, unreasonable and unfair."See PRNewswire

Jan 4 2004 ~ Interruption to Warmwell

Apologies. The website may not updated for a few days. Inbox

January 3 2004 ~ Telegraph asserts that humans can contract a form of the disease by eating infected meat

With now no qualification at all, newspapers even with the high standards of the Telegraph are taking as proven fact the link between BSE and vCJD.
"... the Department of Agriculture has focused its tests for bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) on cattle intended for human food, because humans can contract a form of the disease by eating infected meat."
Telegraph
Meanwhile, in the Times, John Collinge appears worried that the assumed link is not being taken seriously enough. His own scientific reputation as director of the Prion Unit at the Medical Research Council will be taken into account by readers.

January 2 2004 ~" BSE 'panic' "

A letter to the Times (new window) January 02, 2004 BSE 'panic' From Mr Ben Garratt
Sir,
What a relief to find, at last, a journalist (Magnus Linklater, Comment, December 30) expressing the views that farmers have been failing to get across for years, namely that despite the initial panic over BSE, it is, though very nasty, likely to be insignificant when considering human health.
The opposite view, first put to the House of Commons (report, March 21, 1996), ruined many businesses since then and continues to do so. I sent three cows for slaughter last month. All were perfectly healthy, though unable to conceive. Meat from these animals would have been worth £1,800 if sold on our farmers' market stall (chiefly as mince). However, since all were over 30 months old they were destroyed and our compensation from the Government will be about £280 a head. Total loss to the Government, £840.
Total loss to us, nearly £1,000.
The panic continues.
Yours truly,
BEN GARRATT, Burscombe Cliff Farm,Egerton, Ashford, Kent TN27 9BB.
Read Magnus Linklater's article
" Scientists must take some of the responsibility. They tend to play up the risks of an epidemic, lest they be accused of complacency or, worse, a cover-up; their research grants may depend on it. Politicians, for their part, have lost the trust of the public. If they say there is no danger, they are not believed. They are no longer confident enough of the facts to reassure the public, so they hope to look more responsible by emphasising the risks instead. ..."

January 1 2004 ~ New Year Message: The Archbishop of Canterbury

Guardian "....We should not be surprised perhaps if the assumption grows that the powerful cannot be trusted in a world where too many feel they have nothing to lose ... As the new year starts perhaps one of the biggest questions each of us could ask is: 'Am I making the world a place where trust makes sense?'"

December 30 ~"Apocalypse never"

": from BSE to Sars, we are addicted to paranoia and panic" Magnus Linklater in the Times (new window) "....one single case of "mad cow" disease in Washington State threatens the entire US beef industry. ....
.... the evidence of any threat to human beings from "mad cow" disease is so slight that in any rational scientific forum they would be dismissed as non-existent. It rests on the suggestion that variant Creuzfeld-Jakob disease (vCJD) can be transmitted to humans if they eat infected meat.
... Predictions of a vCJD epidemic were dire............ Last year there were just 16 deaths attributed to vCJD in Britain, down yet again on the previous year. What is more, the evidence of any link with BSE has slumped from slight to negligible.
Scientists such as the Australian, Professor Alan Ebringer, and the British farmer turned expert, Mark Purdey, have challenged the theory, first advanced by the Nobel prize-winning American virologist, Stanley Prusiner, who claims that BSE is caused by molecules known as prions which could indeed infect human beings. They argue that the cause lies elsewhere, and say the link with vCJD is unproven.
..... Why then are the voices of sanity ignored....?" (Read the Times article by Magnus Linklater in full)

Dec 30 2003 ~"Lord Melchett will suggest that the forces behind intensive agriculture have refused to accept the environmental, human health or social damage of the system as a serious problem."

Scotsman - Fordyce Maxwell (new window) "...In the abstract he has submitted for the annual Edinburgh Centre for Rural Research lecture in February, Lord Melchett says that the problems of modern agriculture are:
"A combination of massive over-production and dumping on world markets of most commodity crops; continuing rapid losses of jobs in farming, and farmers; public and political concern about taxpayers' subsidies for farmers; dramatic declines in farmland wildlife; belated recognition of the decline in food quality and rapidly increasing concern about diet-related illness, particularly among children."
Similar messages are expected from the Soil Association conference at Heriot- Watt University, Edinburgh on 9 and 10 January with the basic theme being that the urbanisation and industrialisation of agriculture has destroyed public trust in farmers."

December 29 2003 ~ Farming folly

- letter in the Telegraph Opinion page
Sir
The BSE outbreak in America (News, Dec 26) underlines our Government's folly in running down home agriculture and relying on imports to feed the nation. These imports could be closed overnight through disease or terrorism. Meanwhile, 80,000 people have left farming since 1996, while Defra figures show that 17,200 people quit the industry in the year to June 2003.
Land can be improved or reclaimed if it has not been built on, and machinery can be quickly manufactured, but the skills of dedicated farming folk cannot be replaced. Other countries welcome them. Here, Defra imposes onerous restrictions, the latest being a proposed ban on farm tips that have been used safely for generations.
From: Edward Hart, Ludlow, Shropshire

Dec 29 2003 ~ Canada angry as American officials claim BSE-infected cow came from Alberta

Independent(new window) "....Dr Evans cautioned against "a premature conclusion that the definitive animal or definitive birthplace has been located". He continued: "What we're suggesting is that we need to verify, using scientific methods such as DNA, that the animal that left Canada with that ear tag is in fact the animal that the US is pursuing at this point." (see also the USDA transcript of the press conference) (new window)

December 28/29 2003 ~ "...cow blood and fat can still be fed to America's calves; and it often is, especially on dairy farms because it will boost milk yield. .." (Sunday Herald)

One does not need to be a scientist to deplore such forced cannibalism in feed lot cattle - but in the absence of factual knowledge about BSE the media are making statements, especially with regard to the assumed causes of BSE being connected to feed, that have little proven scientific basis. How many newspaper readers notice such qualifying words as "may", "could", "might", "theoretically", "scientists believe"?
Officials also revealed that the Holstein was aged six, older than previously thought. This meant it could, theoretically, have become infected by eating contaminated feed of a kind banned in the US and Canada since 1997, after the outbreak of bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) in Britain. (Sunday Telegraph)
The Sunday Herald says, "Scientists believe that BSE, or bovine spongiform encephalopathy, is spread when cattle eat contaminated feed made of other animal parts." but there are, of course, eminent scientists who do not believe this.
"Some leading scientists now say BSE may occur spontaneously in about one cow in a million" (Sunday Herald) Has anyone any further information about these "leading" scientists and their pronouncements?

December 28/29 2003 ~ Alberta and Saskatchewan are known to be TSE hotspot zones

The fully referenced article about Mark Purdey's research into BSE:
extract: "... it seems likely that the UK's BSE and vCJD epidemics were caused by the simultaneous exposure ... to a toxic combination of factors" (including) " the widely used copper-chelating organo dithiophosphate (OP) insecticides and the fall out of radioactive metals....."
"American scientists have now traced their mad cow's "birth herd" to Canada" according to today's Sunday Telegraph - presumably anxious to suggest that there was no "infection" in the US itself. We read in today's Sunday Herald of "North America's first case of the brain-wasting disease" being the single cow in Alberta that brought about Canada's own multi-billion dollar crisis in May 2003 - as if CWD was unknown in North America. TSEs may well have a common cause. The problem is that the complexity of scientific challenges to the orthodoxy of hyperinfectivity, together with the fact that dissenting scientists have been derided by the Scientific establishment, make journalists very wary of quoting them. Their theories may not be right. But when a single case of BSE can cause such pandemonium, public fear and the desperate covering of official backs, they must surely now be properly and independently examined.

December 28/29 2003 ~ Ironically, three months ago, officials from the U.S. together with others from Canada and Mexico, wrote a letter to the 164-nation OIE

calling for a uniform system to deal with future BSE cases that would encourage full participation in testing and reporting the disease. (See DowJones Newswires)
£8.8 billion is the estimated cost to the US economy of the discovery of this one BSE positive cow. Given current ignorance about BSE, a genuine openness and sharing of expertise is now more urgently needed than ever. BSE paranoia across the globe calls out for international cooperation based, not merely on agro-economic worries about lost trade, but on proper independent scientific and veterinary research; in short, a return to common sense.

Dec 22 - 29 2003 ~" It is all but certain that their entire 4,000-strong herd will have to be slaughtered so that the brains and spinal tissue of the other animals can be tested."Independent

It looks as though healthy animals will be killed in their thousands in the US, just as in Britain five million cattle were slaughtered because of BSE. At least ten million animals - many breeding stock - were slaughtered unnecessarily in the foot and mouth crisis of 2001. This is the response to animal disease in the 21st century. The Independent article (new window) shows that contaminated feed is still being blamed for BSE - despite the fact that more than 40,000 cows, born after the UK's 1988 ban on MBM inclusion in cattle feed, developed BSE. After the 1996 ban on MBM inclusion in feed destined for all types of livestock a further small number of cattle developed BSE. At the former experimental farm at Liscombe on Exmoor when cows were fed experimentally on pure grass and silage with no concentrated feeds at all, four animals still contracted BSE. The so called infectious prion agent is a malformed prion protein that is resistant to all forms of enzyme digestion. How can it therefore be absorbed as food?
According to Susan Haywood BVSc, PhD, MRCVS and David R. Brown M.Sc, Ph.D there is
"a solid and expanding amount of literature showing that metal imbalance and TSEs are linked."
Mark Purdey amassed hard evidence to indicate that vCJD and BSE could both result from separate exposure of bovines and humans to the same set of toxic environmental factors - manganese and oxidizing agents. In spite of both field and laboratory observations, published data has been ignored by the Establishment. (warmwell BSE page)
It is puzzling that the UK authorities continue to dismiss outright any evidence that backs environmental involvement in TSEs. Professor Ebringer's highly interesting theory that vCJD is a microbe-based autoimmune disease like multiple sclerosis has also been ignored. The British government withdrew his research grant, forcing the disbanding of his entire King's College research department. It sometimes seems as if some kind of Witchfinder General is directing all policy involving new animal diseases; that anything challenging Prusiner's molecular "prion" theory must be stamped on and stamped out as heresy. Meanwhile, healthy animals must be sacrificed in order to "calm consumer fears".

Dec 22 - 29 2003 ~ BSE in Washington state: "The news played havoc on financial markets.."

says the Independent (new window),
".... shares in fast-food companies such as McDonald's and Wendy's plummeting and shares in Bio-Rad, a California bio-tech company responsible for a state-of-the-art test for BSE, gaining 20 per cent."
Concerned Americans may be searching the Phillips Report for words of wisdom. The taxes of the British public paid out 25 million pounds to finance the Report - but it is considered by many to have left unrevealed what lay beneath several large stones. The problems with the UK government's approach to BSE were repeated in its approach to foot and mouth - and continue still: a lack of collaboration, a reluctance to get to grips with independent research (especially from abroad) and poor communication with ordinary people who are nonetheless directly concerned.
In this letter to the (EFRA) Committee Chairman from Dr A G Dickinson (new window), there is criticism that "Lord Phillips deliberately excluded from his team anyone with direct involvement in TSE research "
"....at least, the Phillips Report kills off over a decade of MAFF propagation of the unsupported claim that the BSE strain originated on many occasions from scrapie strains being transferred to cattle in Meat and Bone Meal. (Unfortunately, the Report backs an origin for BSE that is implausible in the extreme.)" http://www.parliament.the-stationery-office.co.uk/pa/cm200001/cmselect/cmagric/388/388m11.htm
In the midst of the inevitable new wave of hysteria and schadenfreudearound the world, those vets and family farmers who are still able to put ethical consideration before profit and ambition say that the way to keep animals healthy is to care for them, taking particular care of the environment in which they are kept. Anyone who has read Fast Food Nation (new window) with its exposé of the lawless industry behind fast food may read with relief that this crisis is causing shares to plummet. What should undermine consumer confidence is the murky state of the factory farmed meat industry and the collusion of those who should know better on both side of the Atlantic, not one poor unfortunate dead cow in the state of Washington.

Dec 22 - 29 2003 ~ First 'mad cow' case rattles US

The BBC reports on Washington state's consternation at finding that a "downer" cow, whose meat would appear to have already been processed and distributed, ("the meat was sent for processing and USDA's Food Safety and Inspection Service is working to determine the final disposition of products from the animal..." ) has tested positive for BSE. Ann Veneman insists that US beef is safe. Like John Gummer before her, she is talking about how she will eat US beef for Christmas. The BBC report says - without qualification now - that BSE "Can pass to humans through infected beef products. Human form of disease called vCJD vCJD has killed 137 people, mainly in the UK "
Reuters goes even further in its confident "scientific" pronouncements:
"Mad cow disease, which officials said on Tuesday had been found for the first time in the United States, still mystifies scientists because it is not caused by a virus, bacteria or other microbes, does not alert the immune system and can jump from species to species. ...there is disagreement on just which beef products may carry the infectious prions that cause the disease"
The panic caused by BSE is hardly surprising. Although more people are killed on the road each week than by vCJD in years, the multi billion pound losses to the lucrative beef industry - in the UK, Japan, Canada and now, potentially, the United States itself - are huge. Scientific reputations are also on the line. And if, as seems more and more likely, they are wrong about the "infectious prion" theory? Britain's farming and food industry has been damaged by a tidal wave of unnecessary regulations and the EU Animal By-Products Regulation will drain billions more pounds from the UK economy.
Read again the article BSE - Dying to Know the Truth from the Ecologist. ( See also warmwell's BSE pages)

Dec 22 - 29 2003 ~ M-tuberculosis complex genetic probe has " proven to be 100% accurate in predicting the presence of bovine TB in 449 cases the DNR has tested through 2002."

From the Houghton Lake Reporter ".... The Bovine TB Eradication Project is a multi-agency team of experts from the Michigan Departments of Agriculture, Community Health, and Natural Resources; Michigan State University; and the U.S. Department of Agriculture. It continues to work collaboratively and aggressively to eradicate the disease from Michigan."

Dec 22 - 29 2003 ~ Hemispheric Conference on the eradication of Foot and Mouth Disease - Houston, Texas, USA - 3 and 4 March 2004

is now being advertised on the Pan American Health Organisation's website Objectives of the Conference - "To increase awareness and generate support among the public and private sectors to enable the final stages of FMD eradication from the Western Hemisphere."

Dec 22 - 29 2003 ~ "Some procedural shortcomings" Misty.

The Scottish Ombudsman - although the pet goat was forcibly killed out of fear of infection, the Department explained that "normal preliminary disinfecting precautions were not taken after the cull as the risk of contamination after this was relatively low"
An article in the Scotsman last friday deals with the 92-page report by Scottish Public Services Ombudsman, Professor Alice Brown - just published now after three complaints were made over two years ago. It is with disappointment but not much surprise that we read Professor Brown's judgement that the killing of so many animals was "properly carried out" Had she judged otherwise, declaring along with Elliot Morley's own private admission, that there had been no legal basis for such a cull, it would surely have brought to an explosive political end all these months of contemptuous denial.
Even so, Professor Brown conceded that there were "some procedural shortcomings" - mainly relating to "the serving of notices". In a reference that can only refer to the incident involving Misty the pet goat, (this article on an American website clearly considered it one of the nastiest and most extraordinary examples of faceless bureaucratic cruelty in Scotland in 2001 ) we read that
It was also "unacceptable" that the owner's requests for information on what disinfection precautions she should take after the goat had been killed went unanswered.....I recommend that the Department now apologise to "Mrs Green" for this omission......
The Department of Rural Affairs eventually explained that normal preliminary disinfecting precautions were not taken after the cull as the risk of contamination after this was relatively low - despite having forcibly killed the goat due to infection concerns.
With such understatements are the horrors of 2001 swept gently under the carpet.

Dec 22 - 29 2003 ~ Interruption to Warmwell

Apologies for the silence of the past two weeks. This has been due to illness and hospitalisation - not to inertia. It is hoped that warmwell will be updated again in the near future. Many thanks indeed to those who have expressed concern. They will be contacted individually as soon as possible.

Dec 22 - 29 2003 ~ "The countryside matters. It matters more than Treasury borrowing limits or overspending."

" It matters more than tinkering with the health service and scheming over European voting rights. Such things are made by men and by men can be unmade. The countryside is for ever -- or for never. Fields and valleys, woods and hills once lost to building are gone. .." For anyone who (like us) missed this article by Simon Jenkins on December 12 Britain for sale: apply Gordon Brown and Co "....I have learnt that in this game there is no virtue in pleading Keats or Ruskin, let alone the glories of English nature. These philistines live in London and holiday abroad. We do better to confront them on their own ground, the concrete acres of the mind colonised by dismal science. ..
.. Of course people "want" better houses. But Britons are better housed than any other comparable nation. What they do want is something only government can deliver, the long-term protection of their landscape. ." (read in full)

Nov 30 - Dec 6 2003 ~ DEFRA's Contingency Plan fulfills the requirements of Section 32B of the Animal Health Act - to make "legal" pre-emptive or 'firebreak' culling

Paragraph 2.23 is deeply worrying. The pre-emptive, firebreak cull of 2001 was not legal - as Elliot Morley admitted to the EFRA committee on Tuesday 6 November 2001.
Such a cull of animals not exposed to the disease makes no scientific, veterinary or ethical sense when vaccination can be used instead.. The powers for pre-emptive (or preventive or "firebreak") culling of animals not exposed to FMD infection are, however, included in the Animal Health Act 2002. But the section (32B) demands that the Secretary of State "must prepare a document..." all the terms of which are conveniently provided for by the latest Contingency Plan and in particular Annex C The Contingency plan - with its inadequate planning for vaccination - is in effect, the very document needed for providing "legality" for the widespread culling of healthy animals, should the Secretary of State wish it.
What is the scientific and veterinary basis for this planning? The EU Directive requires that the composition of the Expert Group must be "balanced" It is important to know who is on this "permanently operational expert group" and how it can be said to be balanced in its range of expertise.
An emailer has written to this - a purely amateur website - to say, " Goodness knows we have all tried hard enough to fight this one, but we really need heavyweight individuals en masse (from the vet and legal world) behind this."
The veterinary and legal world may well be as alarmed as we are. But no signals of this have come our way. We can only ask concerned members of the public to fax letters to their MP, to the Royal Society ( 6-9 Carlton House Terrace London, SW1Y 5AG, tel: +44 (0)20 7839 5561 fax: +44 (0)20 7930 2170 ) and to the newspapers. Defra's progress and their press statement should be questioned. How easily the media have swallowed the vaccination line - but the devil is in the detail. See below.

Nov 30 - Dec 6 2003 ~ DEFRA's Contingency Plan. A MINIMUM of 5 days to elapse before vaccination implemented?

The word "immediately" does occur in the document - but sadly only in the sentence: "Emergency Vaccination will immediately be considered as an option..."
"4.3 The vaccination contractor (currently ADAS) is operationally capable of vaccinating on day 5 of an outbreak with 25 vets and sufficient trained vaccinators and support staff for 50 teams. Working under the overall control of the SVS...
4.4 Veterinary advice to Ministers will be based on epidemiological evidence and it is unlikely to be immediately available. It is probable that the time necessary for veterinary assessment of epidemiological data, the use of the Decision Tree and the development of advice on the strategic deployment of vaccination make it unlikely that vaccination would start as soon as five days after the first confirmed case."
How can it be thought that vaccination is being seriously considered if such statements are made? The very wording conjures up a picture of the same, sorry, bureaucratic dithering and lack of co-ordination that led to such misery and frustration last time. This seems to be lip service to vaccination - not the "U-Turn" that some papers are suggesting.

Nov 30 - Dec 6 2003 ~ New Contingency Plan incorporates the Animal Health Act 2002 - slaughter of healthy animals could be easier

Deep concern has been expressed to warmwell that the public spin by Ben Bradshaw does not reflect the small print of the new DEFRA Contingency Plan - which lays out even more clearly that healthy animals will be killed. The revised Animal Health Act - which caused such consternation and widespread criticism last year - is incorporated.
2.23 Additional control strategies include:
• culling of other susceptible livestock exposed to the disease (e.g. premises under virus plumes, premises contiguous to the infected premises);
  and
• pre-emptive or 'firebreak' culling of animals not on infected premises, not dangerous contacts or not necessarily exposed to the disease, in order to prevent the wider spread of the disease outwith an area.
2.24 A Disease Control (Slaughter) Protocol setting out the requirements that must be followed in the event of a pre-emptive cull is at Annex C. (See more of the relevant sections)
Vaccine Top of List in U-Turn The Western Morning News today quotes Janet Bayley, of the National Foot and Mouth Group, who said the emphasis on vaccination was welcome, but warned that the plans could still allow a repeat of the contiguous cull. "... Obviously we welcome the progress on vaccination, but the detail in the contingency plan gives even greater powers for the Government to kill healthy animals. That is not what we envisaged as the outcome of the discussions that have gone on."

Nov 30 - Dec 6 2003 ~ Problems "now" overcome?

We read in the FT , under the headline "Foot-and-mouth vaccines ready" by John Mason ( Last Updated: December 2 2003 4:00)
Vaccination could be used to combat future outbreaks of foot-and-mouth disease five days after the first reported case, Ben Bradshaw, animal health minister, said. Britain now has the stocks of vaccines ready for any outbreak while technical problems distinguishing vaccinated animals from those infected with the disease - which prevented the use of the strategy in the 2001 epidemic - have now been overcome.
The wording of the DEFRA news release , implying that "progress" on the part of DEFRA has "now" made it possible to use vaccination or distinguish between vaccinated and unvaccinated animals, has evidently made it possible for parts of the media in its turn to imply that vaccination was not possible in 2001 and that the ability to distinguish vaccinates from unvaccinated animals was not possible in 2001. Both were, of course, perfectly possible. Only the political will was lacking. Consequently, the contiguous cull was the ineffectual and bloody answer for the politicians - who realised far too late that it was, disastrously, the wrong answer.

Nov 30 - Dec 6 2003 ~ "The latest act of pure genius"....Muckspreader in Private Eye

" to emerge from the corporate mind of the department for the elimination of farming and rural affairs (Defra), with a little help from their friends in Brussels, is the need for pig owners to apply for a licence when they take their 'pig for a walk'.
Thumping onto the doormat of every pig owner in the country on 1 November came a leaflet on 'New Pig Identification Rules', telling them how to comply with the new Pigs (Records, Identication and Movement) Order 2003 Dutifully signed by that great rural affairs expert Ben Bradshaw, the minister who advertises on his website that he once came 112th in a poll of 'heroes to Britain's gay and lesbian community', Defra regarded this as a further measure necessary to comply with EC directive 92/102 .....
.... So excited has one Kent farmer, Ben Garratt, become at the thought of giving useful employment to Defra's team of veterinary officials (alas only at half-strength by the latest count) that he proposes farmers should celebrate by staging a 'National Pig Walking Day', Thousands of pig-owners will simultaneously ring up Defra to ask for the services of an official to approve their proposed route. The countryside will soon be covered in Defra inspectors, earnestly checking every inch of path, field and stile....." Read in full

Nov 30 - Dec 6 2003 ~ Why are "pig pyramids" exempted?

" Pig pyramids almost certainly introduced and definitely spread PMWS and Swine Fever" is the opinion of an East Anglian emailer, who sends us this quotation from the Defra booklet "New Pig Identification rules as of 1 November 2003" on http://www.npa-uk.net/Library/Defra-Pig%20ID%20rules%20Lflt.pdf
"When a pig moves onto your holding, no other pig can move off for 20 days except for slaughter or to a slaughter market. Cattle, sheep and goats must respect a 6 day standstill. Pigs in a Defra authorised "pyramid" as approved in writing by the local Divisional Veterinary Manager are exempt from the 20 day rule."
"So," writes the emailer, "special exemption from the law for the big, usually multi-national, pig pyramids is allowed by permission ...."
Since, as the emailer points out, the leaflet was "developed in consultation with BPEX, the British Pig Association and the National Pig Association." complete with all their logos, it makes one wonder. What does "DEFRA approved" mean? Since the only people prosecuted and heavily fined for the illegal movement of pigs during the Classical Swine Fever epidemic in East Anglia were pig pyramid companies, to exempt them from movement restrictions now - while insisting on restrictions for everyone else - seems odd. The emailer says, "There have been complaints of animal cruelty at their premises, including the famous "missing Court Case" when the RSPCA and Hillside Sanctuary (Redwing) took BQP to court for animal cruelty."

Nov 30 - Dec 6 2003 ~ DEFRA - late payments

The continuing wrangle over the late payment of invoices connected with Foot and Mouth was the top story on the Farming Today programme on Radio 4 (Tuesday Dec 2).
The story is available on the Internet and can be accessed by visiting the link below and clicking on 'listen to the latest Farming Today programme' link. http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/news/farmingtoday/index.shtml

Nov 30 - Dec 6 2003 ~ DEFRA announces progress on Vaccination as an "additional control strategy for FMD"

Dec 1 The DEFRA news release says,
"... Ben Bradshaw, wrote to the Royal Society last week, detailing the progress made on their recommendation" (Reminder of Royal Society recommendations)" that emergency vaccination should be developed so it could be available for use as a prime control strategy in addition to culling of infected animals and dangerous contacts in a future outbreak of Foot and Mouth Disease."
We learn from the news release that "Defra has already carried out a total of over 50 Foot and Mouth Disease exercises and training events, mainly at regional level since the last outbreak." and that "...Defra is planning a series of exercises over the next seven months to check and validate the Foot and Mouth Disease Contingency Plan. The programme will culminate in a live exercise on 29 and 30 June 2004."
The wording of the news release suggests that Ben Bradshaw claims credit for DEFRA on:
1. Negotiation of a new EU Directive on Foot and Mouth Disease control, moving vaccination to the forefront of disease control strategy.
2. Engaging with stakeholders to gain the necessary support from the farming and food industries to make emergency vaccination a workable option in the event of a future outbreak.
3. Procurement of independent supplies of Foot and Mouth Disease vaccine for the UK, which is suitable for use in a "vaccinate-to-live" strategy in the event of a future outbreak.
4. Ongoing work on the development of vaccination scenarios including a Cost Benefit Analysis to help decision making on future disease control strategy.
5. Continuing to fund research into tests that would demonstrate the absence of infection in animals post-vaccination.
6. Putting in place operational arrangements with an external contractor that would enable an emergency vaccination programme to be implemented 5 days after confirmation of the disease, subject to veterinary and epidemiological advice.
The revised version of the Foot and Mouth Disease Contingency Plan www.defra.gov.uk/corporate/consult/fmd-contingency03/index.htm. (link mended) The consultation period for responses closes on Friday 20 February 2004.

Nov 30- Dec 6 2003 ~ "...unnecessarily bureaucratic framework"

Honest Food has responded to, and welcomed, DEFRA's Outline of an Animal Health and Welfare Strategy for Great Britain. Preliminary comments include the following statement:
"Prolix and unnecessary documents do not make the lives of stakeholders, animal keepers or the various professionals who have to deal with the subject any easier as well as creating the impression that an unnecessarily bureaucratic framework is being created." ....
Extracts from comments on the strategies:
• insufficient emphasis on the need to take scientific research and its results from outside the UK and, even the EU. Private enterprise in scientific research ought not to be treated disdainfully. Naturally, the studies we have in mind are those that have been carried out under well-defined conditions and have had their results peer-reviewed (a necessary detail, not mentioned in the Outline).
• It has not been specified that all EU legislation and regulation has to be transposed into British legislation as a matter of legal requirement. This may seem obvious to DEFRA but is not always obvious to all stakeholders...
• We also hope that assurances that EU legislation and regulation will not be gold-plated in the UK will, finally, be put into practice....so far, little has changed.
• (We) look forward to a more detailed break-down of resources devoted to necessary research rather than the continuing "firefighting" and slaughter ...
• We hope that assurances about best practice and scientific research outside the UK being used will apply equally to questions of veterinary and epidemiological surveillance. It is imperative that we should leave what might be termed "the not invented here attitude" be abandoned at all levels.
• If the profitability of high levels of animal health and welfare are questionable and ill-understood concepts, then the need for a general and far-reaching discussion about the future of the livestock industry is very great, indeed.
Read in full

Nov 28 2003 ~"It is time that family farmers learned those names and addresses so that a united resistance can begin in earnest"

Yesterday's "welcome news of a forecasted rise in farm incomes by 35%" (FWi), as any family farmer knows, is misleading. Net farm income is calculated before any allowance is made for the labour and management contributions of farm family members.
"Other than the farmer link, every link of the agri-food chain is dominated by between two and ten multi­billion-dollar transnationals and, perhaps not coincidentally, every one of these links is characterized by large profits"
The CNFU report lists and demolishes 9 myths about competition and efficiency. The report ends
"That agribusiness corporations would rob farmers should be no surprise. But that our democratic governments would so betray us should surprise many Canadians. Not only have our governments told lies that obscure the mechanisms behind the rural crisis; our governments have pushed through laws that have armed the pillagers and weakened farmers and rural communities.
..... To paraphrase the words of folk singer Utah Phillips:
The family farm is not dying - it is being killed.
And the people who are killing it have names and addresses.
It is time that family farmers learned those names and addresses so that a united resistance can begin in earnest."
The report should be required reading for every politician or pundit who ever mentions farming in this or any other country. And anyone, farmer or just sympathiser, who feels that something very rotten is at work against our family farms will find much to think about in the Canadian experience. The CNFU, it seems, are prepared to fight back.

Nov 28 2003 ~"...one is left to wonder why no other explanation other than BSE as the cause of variant CJD is considered"

".....the blatant lie spread, particularly by the media, that beef from BSE-infected cattle carries the infectious agent of BSE. There is no evidence that a piece of meat cut from a BSE-infected cow contains PrPSc. When such a critical piece of evidence is missing from the picture one is left to wonder why no other explanation other than BSE as the cause of variant CJD is considered.....
Perhaps variant CJD was caused by BSE, but if there is another cause and all endeavours to investigate any are discredited as being illogical or ridiculous, then no advance to prevent or treat the variant CJD will be achieved beyond the serendipitous result of trial and error. ...
the pan-European occurrence of BSE suggests that alternative explanations must be considered. Although environmental damage due to industrialization sounds a rather vague cause for BSE it is a sufficiently broad base on which to launch well planned investigations into the cause of these diseases..." D. R. Brown, Department of Biology and Biochemistry, University of Bath, Bath, UK in his paper "BSE did not cause variant CJD: an alternative cause related to post-industrial environmental contamination" pdf external link, new window

Nov 27/28 2003 ~ who is benefiting by short-circuiting our attempts to understand and remedy the crisis gripping our family farms and rural communities

".... the same basic prescription: Competition (facilitated by globalization, free trade, open markets, and deregulation) combined with technological innovation will lead to higher efficiency and fewer but larger farms. However, when we analyze this prescription and look at the underlying premises, we find that this plan for restructuring agriculture based on competition and efficiency is constructed of myths and false assumptions--some would say "lies."
It is worth saving the pdf file of the CNFU report and examining it properly. As the Canadian report says,
"... Why would we destabilize and torment our farm families, ceaselessly pushing them toward ever-larger economies of scale, making them live in insecurity and worry, breaking farms and emptying communities, if, in the end, any efficiency gains will simply be pocketed by powerful transnationals?"

Nov 27 2003 ~ New Zealand seeks response management software for animal disease

Computer World (New Zealand) "a GIS system that fits in with MAF's own GIS infrastructure and a web-based application interface."
"MAF is seeking a critical intelligence software tool to be the framework for controlling animal diseases, including foot and mouth. While there has never been a recorded case of foot-and-mouth in New Zealand, a recent review of MAF's capability to respond to an outbreak "indicated the need for the completion of key foot and mouth preparedness projects", according to tender documents issued by MAF.
The tools sought include response management software, a GIS system that fits in with MAF's own GIS infrastructure and a web-based application interface. Up to 90 reports will be required, using Crystal Reports and interoperability with other related government databases such as AgriBase and LINZ...."

Nov 27 2003 ~" It is important that animal keepers have confidence that their animals will be treated within an ethical, open and pre-agreed framework"

"Outline of an animal health and welfare strategy for Great Britain", a consultation document from DEFRA, invited responses.
Mary Marshall of the European Livestock Alliance has produced a thorough response to the outline While she welcomes DEFRA's document, she also feels that many of the issues need a fundamentally new approach. Among her main points
• It is important that animal keepers have confidence that their animals will be treated within an ethical, open and pre-agreed framework which allows secondary diagnostic tests to confirm initial general tests prior to slaughter.
• Control of animal diseases is for the good of the whole population and therefore the government must share the costs. Prevention of disease is a concern and responsibility of government, as well as the concern and responsibility of animal keepers.
• It is the government's responsibility to prevent initial import of notifiable disease.
• Animal keepers need to be trained to recognise the symptoms of and to report notifiable disease
• It is worrying that "control" is taken to be the equivalent of "Biosecurity", as if there were no other possible control measures.
• there is concern that government will pick and choose which FMD recommendations will be implemented. The final EU FMD Directive requires that the composition of the Expert Group must be "balanced".
• "Stakeholders" must be informed if "consultation" is to mean what it implies. Even with this one, Ms Marshall learned from participants at regional stakeholders meetings that, of those stakeholders that were consulted, very few feel that their views were noted
Perhaps most importantly, Ms Marshall notes that there is no mention of the IAH-Pirbright nor of diagnostic tests, both of which should play a key role in an animal health strategy for Great Britain. The government bears the responsibility of not imposing regulations that put animals at unjustified risk. It bears a responsibility to seek and take best scientific advice. (read in full)

Nov 19 - 26 2003 ~ The MPs seemed shocked and embarrassed that the contractors had not yet been paid.

FWi "Many of them have gone out of business and some are teetering on the edge of bankruptcy. The effects of this have been psychological as well as practical and these people have been struggling for the past two years without money owed to them."
Nobody was available for comment from Defra"

Nov 19 - 26 2003 ~" when family farms are painted as inefficient, then their loss can be swept aside as an unfortunate but necessary effect of progress..."

www.nfu.ca/briefs/Myths_PREP_PDF_TWO.bri.pdf A new report from Canada's National Farmers Union considers agribusiness transnationals and their role in creating the farm crisis.
".....Inefficiency rhetoric is nothing more than a smokescreen: a propaganda tactic deployed against farm families, workers, and rural communities. Only by peeling away the myths and lies can we understand the rural crisis and begin to see who is destroying our farms....."
Robin Maynard from FARM said in this response, "... Time and time again we hear politicians and industry pundits like Lord Haskins and Sean Rickard telling farmers in the UK that they've got to 'get bigger', 'be more efficient', so as to compete with farmers from North America, Australia, Argentina etc etc.
CNFU's analysis shows that to be a false route which ignores the realities of a world market dominated by vast agribusinesses with disproportionate power. ..." (More)

Nov 19 - 26 2003 ~ Experimenting on non-human primates is not only ethically unsupportable, it is scientifically unreliable

John Prescott has announced planning approval for Cambridge University's monkey brain research centre (Monkey lab gets go ahead, November 22).
A letter to the Guardian (Wednesday) says, ".... He continues in the government's misguided tradition of supporting animal experiments at all costs. Experimenting on non-human primates is not only ethically unsupportable, it is scientifically unreliable. Brain-damaging monkeys to use them as "models" of human disease is fraught with difficulties and there are dramatic differences in the way that humans and other primates react to supposedly similar brain conditions. Prescott arrogantly ignored the clear recommendation by the planning inspector to reject the project. A full public hearing was held last year and the inspector concluded that the university had failed to demonstrate that the centre was in the national interest as the government had asserted. Is it any wonder that an increasing number of citizens feel their only option is to abandon the political process and turn to protest instead?
Wendy Higgins
British Union for the Abolition of Vivisection "

Nov 19 - 26 2003 ~ "An alternative explanation is staring them in the face..."

"...Cattle get TB because the trace element deficiencies in their forage render them unable to mount a defence against the challenge...
...reactor numbers are going up because every year the vital nutrients, primarily selenium, zinc, cobalt and also copper and iodine, are becoming more depleted with persistent failure to restore them to the soil. Inevitably, every year cattle defences weaken and they become more susceptible to infection from the silent carriers in their midst........Ben Bradshaw says the Government is keen to forge ahead with other measures. But there is no mention of testing the obvious; a nutritional solution to make our animals resistant to TB and indeed to any other infections that could be avoided."
Extract from a letter by Helen Fullerton of the Farming and Livestock Concern UK to this week's Farmers Guardian

Nov 19 - 26 2003 ~ the increasing take-over of our food-chain globally and nationally by agribusiness

FARM sends this press release. "... The steady take-over of food production by large agribusiness companies is a key force behind the crisis in farming, which currently sees over 300 UK farmers and farm workers leave the land every week. FARM aims to engage consumers in the fight for a viable future for farming. The Internet is a powerful way of spreading messages fast ..."

Nov 19 - 26 2003 ~ Ben Bradshaw says "In 2002 - 03 we spent nearly £74 million on the bovine tuberculosis (TB) Five Point Plan.." - but there is to be no second test for the Morris family

See Hansard ".... We are keen to improve diagnosis of the disease in both cattle and badgers and have commissioned the Veterinary Laboratories Agency to carry out two research projects, at a total estimated cost of over £950,000. ..."
Meanwhile, the Morris family are still in dispute with DEFRA over their two cows. Having had several reactor cows that tested negative after slaughter in the past, the Morris' concern can be understood. During FMD the family battled to save their herd and learned the hard way that officials prefer to follow rigid "regulations" rather than consider the facts of each case. They are not permitted a second test to verify the Ministry's skin test on two cows who reacted on June 30th. They cannot understand why they should not be allowed to pay for a more reliable test themselves, nor why they never get an answer when they ask what legislation gives DEFRA the right to slaughter their cows. Meanwhile, their local DEFRA office has written to say that another warrant has been applied for.

Nov 19 - 26 2003 ~ New Chief Vet

Debby Reynolds, Defra SVS, is the Veterinary Director for the FSA. She was a member of the FMD official Science Group. She has been appointed to take over from Mr Scudamore.

Nov 19 - 26 2003 ~ "...there is a growing belief that detailed investigation is needed into other possible causes, including unexplained transmission from cow to cow or long-term contamination in soil."

Today's Guardian Sudden rise in BSE alarms scientists "The original cause of BSE has never been established ..."

Nov 19 - 26 2003 ~ "DEFRA has announced £1.6m research project

to assess the links between breeding for scrapie resistance and economically important production and health traits. .. The four-year United Kingdom study, which will get underway early next year, will look to provide assurances on the possible impacts the National Scrapie Plan may have on economically important breed traits, and propose breeding strategies to help minimise the loss of genetic variability. The study will be led chiefly by scientists at the Scottish Agricultural College and the Roslin Institute. ."
Mark Purdey's recent comment: ".... The taxes of the British public paid out 25 million pounds to finance the recent Lord Phillip's BSE Inquiry - published October 2000. This Inquiry reached the decisive conclusion that scrapie had nothing to do with the cause of BSE. ( "The cases of BSE identified between 1986 and 1988 were not index cases, nor were they the result of the transmission of scrapie") ... I remain amazed that none of the bodies that are pretending to represent the farmer's interests.. NFU, or sheep groups... are not picking up on this...."

Nov 19 - 26 2003 ~ "There is no need for additional equipment, the test is performed at room temperature and results are available in less than 3.5 hours."

(From the Idexx press release on the new USDA approved test for TSEs) IDEXX Laboratories, Inc. (NASDAQ: IDXX), announced today (Nov 17) that it has received USDA approval for the sale of its IDEXX HerdChek® Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD) Antigen Test Kit. (which) utilizes a novel Seprion ligand capture technology licensed from Microsens Biotechnologies.... a scientific research and licensing company founded in 1998 to develop technologies for the rapid and sensitive detection of transmissible spongiform encephalopathies (TSEs) and other related protein aggregation diseases, such as Alzheimer's disease and Parkinson's disease - collectively known as the "protein conformation disorders." Based at the London Bioscience Innovation Centre, the company operates a dedicated category 3 level containment facility capable of handling bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), Scrapie, Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD) and Creutzfeld-Jacob Disease (CJD) infected materials."

Nov 19 - 26 2003 ~" it is quite possible that BSE and variant CJD have emerged as a result of manganese-rich industrial pollution that has only occurred in the last century."

From the ELA (European Livestock Alliance) website: "One of Ela's goals is to bring scientists, breeders and keepers together to work out a strategy for TSEs, FMD etc. The increase of TSEs in mammals throughout the world is alarming and needs cooperation and research by unbiased scientists.
We can't rule out pollution, effects of minerals, insects, in short - environmental circumstances. There are so many differences of opinion amongst scientists that it is essential to start working together" The website brings together several up to date scientific papers, including those of Dr. David Brown M.Sc, Ph.D. and Susan Haywood BVSc, PhD, MRCVS :" .....it is time for a re-evaluation of the collated information, together with more recent investigations which have an important bearing on the pathogenesis on this unique class of diseases."

Nov 19 - 26 2003 ~" the science went out of the window, as perceived self-interest and political expediency came in"

Tom Griffith-Jones' article on GM suggests that farmers - both arable and livestock farmers - are in a unique position to speak out against GM. "The great advantage of the farming industry is that it is one of the few where the decisions of individuals can make a real difference. We are an amalgam of a myriad of small businesses, making our own decisions. "
"....In Manitoba, one of the prairie provinces, GM maize is now listed as one of the ten main weed species... after only seven years of these crops. ...extra sprays have to be used to remove these Roundup-resistant volunteers. Yields are no higher, and often lower than the non-GM version. It is no longer possible to grow organic oilseed rape in Saskatchewan, because of the contamination of the crop by GM volunteers, and a large industry has been destroyed. Even the seed merchants are finding it impossible to keep their seed clean of GM contamination. As a result of all these difficulties, 95% of Canadian farmers don't want GM wheat, which the biotechnology companies are now trying to get approved. The message from the visiting Canadians was: "learn from our mistakes - don't repeat them".
... leading scientists in the field have stopped their research because they consider the outcomes potentially too dangerous."
See also the Alliance for Bio-Integrity

Nov 19 - 26 2003 ~ The whole of the EU's scrapie eradication programme thus rests on a card-house of unproven hypotheses.

"Phyllida Barstowe is not only an admired novelist and married to the journalist Duff Hart-Davis, but professionally breeds Wiltshire Horn sheep on their Gloucestershire farm. Until recently her flock roamed happily over the meadows round a fine young pure-bred ram. Then, on 1 September, she was visited by the department for the elimination of farming and rural affairs (Defra), to test her sheep under the EU-sponsored 'National Scrapie Plan'. ...." From Private Eye's Muckspreader

Nov 19 - 26 2003 ~ Margaret Beckett "astonished" by Tory claims about "how terrible things are in the countryside"

Western Morning News "....Margaret Beckett claimed the Government was "pouring" money into rural areas like the Westcountry. She was "astonished" by Tory claims about "how terrible things are in the countryside" and said the Government was making "considerable progress" in meeting the commitments made in the Rural White Paper three years ago. .......
Shadow Countryside Minister James Gray ".... certainly things like achieving EU sugar beet standards are perfectly laudable," he said. "But frankly that sort of thing butters few parsnips in the countryside.
.... "If the Rural White Paper and annual updates are to have any value at all they should be demanding an analysis of how the Government is achieving what it set out to achieve. If all they are is spin-doctors' self-congratulatory platitudes there is little point in having them."....
......... merging independent wildlife watchdog English Nature with parts of Defra and the Countryside Agency. Ian Liddell-Grainger, Tory MP for Bridgwater, said there was a real danger that the proposed new agency would create "a muddle of interference and bureaucrats" that would do little for either rural communities or wildlife. Mrs Beckett said a full response to the Haskins report would be published next spring." Read in full

Nov 19 - 26 2003 ~ 17,000 farm workers gave up last year

FWi "Government statistics show 6,000 farmers and 11,000 labourers left their businesses in the 12 months up to the 2003 June census. The 4.6% drop in the workforce means nearly 85,000 have left farming since the Labour government took office in 1997..."
As John Humphrys said in his recent article "... It is almost impossible to make a living from a small dairy farm. A few years ago 50 milking cows would produce a decent income. Now you need at least twice as many just to survive. There is no doubt that the rural economy would benefit from more small organic farms. So would the environment. So, ultimately, would the consumer....... Our farm animals would benefit, too.... it would help if the welfare of animals and the future of organic farming were seen as two elements in a bigger issue. I think it's called joined-up government. ."

Nov 19 - 26 2003 ~ the Government should be putting some effort into Gamma interferon testing

(see below) John Bourn speaking on Farming Today repeated the unreliablility of tuberculin skin testing regime as a means of diagnosis and said that the Government should be putting some effort into Gamma interferon testing and - yes - the development of a vaccine.

Nov 19 - 26 2003 ~ Plans to tag every sheep in Europe got the thumbs down this afternoon.

The Scotsman
"Euro MPs rejected the European Commission proposal, opting instead for a UK-style system of monitoring movements of flocks, and not individual animals.
The Commission scheme would have cost UK farmers an estimated £96 million to put a 14-digit code number in both ears of each of the nation's 37 million sheep....."

Nov 19 - 26 2003 ~ "This is actually far worse than Foot and Mouth"

The stalemate situation is taking its toll on the Morris family. Having seen DEFRA's arguments - which they have found most unimpressive - the Morris family are taking a breathing space, mainly because of the emotional price they are having to pay over the whole issue. James, who is 8, seeing and sharing the family distress, is saying with classic childish logic, that it is "all his fault" . There is likely to be a radio documentary on the subject of the Morris family's fight but at present the emotional impact, on the children particularly, is making the parents wary of inflaming the situation. But Mrs Morris tells us that there are now many champions in the wings waiting to give support. She is bemused by the way the officials have either no idea of the anguish their manner is creating - or simply don't care.

Nov 19 - 26 2003 ~ Owen Paterson has been appointed the new Shadow Minister for Agriculture

working under Shadow Secretary of State for Agriculture, John Whittingdale. We remember with gratitude Mr Paterson's involvement in the FMD crisis and the questions he has raised in Parliament. During the foot and mouth crisis, he was an incisive critic of the Government bungling. He was the first MP to insist that the Government dig out, read and learn from the Northumberland Report (1968 - opens in new window) into the previous outbreak. He has been a consistent supporter of small abattoirs, small food producers, the horse industry and local diversity and has campaigned against new regulations by all agencies of Government.

Nov 11 - 18 2003 ~ "Factory farms are more dangerous for our lifestyle and democracy than Osama bin Laden and global terrorism"

Robert Kennedy JNr quoted in this sobering article on Smithfield in today's Independent on the subject of Smithfield in Poland. "People who live near the factory farms complain of nausea, asthma attacks and blackouts. Children at the school village began vomiting. Activists point to US studies which they claim show that factory farm workers and their neighbours contract lung disease, eye infections, nosebleeds and gastro intestinal illness. ..."
Smithfield's activity in Poland was exposed in the Spectator article last week. See also what Senator Kennedy had to say in April about how conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan have taken attention away from environmental issues in the US, making it easier for large corporations to operate without public scrutiny and enabling them to make scandalous deals.
"Smithfield Foods, the largest pork producer in the world, invented a way of raising pigs in large factory farms which creates huge amounts of pollution, impoverishes farmers, and distorts markets. By educating the public, politicians and press in other countries like Poland, we have been able to stop Smithfield from expanding into those countries. As a result of President Bush's efforts to bring Poland into the coalition against Iraq, there was a 12.5-billion-dollar loan guarantee. Attached to that guarantee were a number of requirements that forced Poland to accept U.S. corporate presence in their country including Smithfield. Part of the loan has to be repaid to Smithfield. ..."

Nov 11 - 18 2003 ~ "The devastating foot and mouth outbreak is only too fresh in our minds...

... for us not to be extremely alarmed by the news that the systems for tracking and identifying livestock in England are below standard"
".... MP Edward Leigh, who chairs the Commons public accounts committee, said he was "extremely alarmed" by the problems identified in the report, which are estimated to cost taxpayers at least £15 million a year. "The information held is often inaccurate and out of date, with five per cent of cattle movements reported over five weeks late. The Cattle Tracing System in particular is seriously technically flawed - it cannot link up properly with vets' computer systems, and is increasingly unreliable. "I can't see how we can be confident that the systems would be effective in helping to track the progress of a fast-moving disease around the country. "The department must get to grips with improving the accuracy of its data." Western Morning News (Tuesday) on the National Audit Office report

Nov 11 - 18 2003 ~ Farmers Guardian: "OPs - have your say"

Alistair Driver writes about the issue in the Farmers Guardian this week and there are many letters. "...The message coming through loud and clear to FG is that many farmers who believe they have been affected by those chemicals feel they have waited long enough - and another four years is just not acceptable." FG has announced this week that it will hold an in-paper seminar to replace that "postponed" by the government....it is not about allocating blame; it is about taking a close - and fair look at the facts. Don't miss your chance to speak up."
"If you would like to make a contribution, please write, with any relevant information and your contact details) to Farmers Guardian, Fulwood Park, Caxton Road, Preston PR2 9NZ or email falkingham@cmpinformation.com"
See also Muckspreader

Nov 11 - 18 2003 ~ 12,000 species face extinction

" A sobering list of species threatened with extinction by damaging human activities has been published by scientists, with a warning that some cannot be saved..
"Places such as the Galapagos, Hawaii and the Seychelles are famed for their beauty, which owes itself to the diversity of plants, animals and ecosystems. "The Red List tells us that human activities are leading to a swathe of extinctions that could make these islands ecologically and aesthetically barren." ...." ." BBC

Nov 11 - 18 2003 ~ total suspension of common sense ...

agvisiontv.com (Canada) In the course of an interview about BSE, dated today, Dr Paul Kitching was asked, "You were critical of the way Britain handled that outbreak arguing that the slaughter.... was a "total suspension of common sense" .......What lessons can we learn from the British experience with foot and mouth?"
Dr. Kitching: Yes it was not so much a criticism of the policy as it was a criticism of the science that went behind the policy.A lot of the policy was being dictated by predictive models and in my opinion, these predictive models just didn't have the adequate information to make them worthwhile.....policy was being dictated by these predictive models and as a consequence, a very large number of healthy animals were slaughtered.
..Inevitably when you have an outbreak of that size...politicians become involved and control the program. I think it's important that when these types of outbreaks occur that the control program is left in the hands of those who have been trained to run the control programs. They understand the disease and they understand the natural history of the disease and the rules by which the virus survives. Knowing that type of information you can bring these diseases under control - as it's been shown in the past many times...."

Nov 11 - 18 2003 ~ Pigs on the trotter

"Farmers have been delighted to receive the latest stroke of genius by the officials of the Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs: a leaflet informing them that, if they wish to take a pig for a walk, they must now obtain from Defra a "pet walking licence".
Furthermore, before they set out, they must notify their local Defra office, so that a veterinary official can visit to "inspect the proposed route" of the walk. Astonishingly, for the moment, pig owners are not expected to pay for this novel service." Booker's Notebook

Nov 11 - 18 2003 ~ Britain's richest farmers are set to keep the lion's share of the country's £2bn-a-year farm subsidies ...

(Links here) John Humphrys' article in the Sunday Times November 9 2003 (see warmwell link) included this forthright statement: "The common agricultural policy has been an unmitigated disaster, riddled with inefficiencies and corruption."
The Financial Times today quotes Graham Ward, a lettuce grower and chairman of the National Farmers' Union's horticultural board: "If Mrs Beckett believes in sustainable development, she will have to explain why she is basing a policy for the future so much on the past. This would go completely against what reform of the common agricultural policy (CAP) is all about. It is like promising you will find a new name for your dog Fido and then calling him Fido 2."

Nov 11 - 18 2003 ~ There is much lip-service in the Animal Health and Welfare Strategy to the word "welfare"

and a constant reiteration of "positive approach to health" ideology. However, when it comes down to the practical detail - the DEFRA proposed "Action Plan" for farm animal health - it appears that "positive" may be rather more focussed on disease prevention than on health promotion..." Following John Humphrys' thought-provoking article in the Sunday Times (see below) , Mike Meredith (of pighealth.com) has written: Can Biosecurity Go Too Far? for the American Association of Swine Veterinarians
"..... the relentless pressure for increased scale and efficiency of farm enterprises, driven by the insatiable consumer appetite for cheap food of consistent and "biosecure" quality. He (i.e. John Humphrys) cogently points out the illusory nature of cheap food - the hidden costs it can hold for taxpayers, human health and the environment. We are only too well aware of that in Britain, where UK taxpayers picked up a 10 billion-dollar tab for the foot-and-mouth epidemic, plus thousands of people lost their livelihoods and environmental consequences of the millions of carcases in mass burial sites will be around for many years to come. ....
Biosecurity barriers cut both ways, restricting the movement of undesirable life-forms, but also restricting potentially beneficial movement and communication...... " . (More)
(DEFRA's outline of the AHAWS strategy )

Nov 11 - 18 2003 ~ The European Court of Auditors is believed to be deeply concerned by FMD's spiralling costs and by the controversial contiguous cull policy

Report by Western Morning News report (Friday) Foot and Mouth Fiasco to cost Taxpayers Dear "European Commission officials are to visit the UK next week to complete an audit that could see Britain lose hundreds of millions of pounds because of the Government's disastrous handling of the 2001 foot and mouth crisis"...."That money must not come off agricultural budgets - British farmers must not be allowed to suffer a second time because of the Government's incompetence." " MEP Neil Parish
".....The team will also examine the huge costs associated with the controversial animal burial pits - particularly the £7 million cost of the Ash Moor pit in North Devon, which was never used, and the £19 million pit at Eppynt, in Wales, where 18,000 carcasses had to be exhumed and burnt because of leakage into watercourses." Read in full

Nov 11 - 18 2003 ~ "The control of disease by killing farm animals is promoted unashamedly and no apology made for failing to apply methods in human medicine to the care of farm animals.."

Ruth Watkins' article for warmwell last December:
"...DEFRA and the veterinary establishment have failed to recognise that humans are animals too. The farm animals must be as remarkably similar on genetic analysis to humans as mice have proven to be. The immune system must be very similar to our own. The control of disease by killing farm animals is promoted unashamedly and no apology made for failing to apply methods in human medicine to the care of farm animals...
Dr Doherty suggested they could be given chocolate containing BCG, "badger chocolates". Cattle can also be immunised, more practically by subcutaneous inoculation as in humans - it will cause an ulcer at the inoculation site in them as it does in us. The immunity is at least partially protective. ..... the gamma interferon test has been licensed by the FDA for use in humans and has been developed for cattle. The tools of modern medicine are there to be used to combat the spread of Mycobacterium bovis and ultimately to eliminate the infection."
(An emailer has also written in to tell readers that a good homeopathic remedy exists for TB in cattle. See Inbox)

Nov 11 - 18 2003 ~ "There has got to be a better test"

(Thursday) DEFRA are leaning heavily in the Morris family to decide by "the end of play" today (Defra's unfortunate phrase) whether they will agree to have their two reactor cows privately killed. Mrs Morris has again "for the umpteenth time" she says patiently, asked under what legislation DEFRA can insist on the compulsory slaughter of these animals. She and her husband - experienced dairy farmers - do not believe them to be infected and their vet agrees that there seem to be no signs at all. All they want is another test to validate the skin test results from June 30. "There simply has to be a better test," she says. "If we can diagnose TB in humans without slaughtering them first why can we not use some of the human health methods for veterinary problems? It doesn't make sense."

Nov 11 - 18 2003 ~ 100,000 cows go missing from records

Telegraph
"The National Audit Office said that the statistical black hole was costing the Government £15 million a year. The additional costs included paying staff to correct the errors, extra postage and European Commission penalties. It was critical of the way the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs operated its systems for identifying and tracking 25 million cattle, sheep and pigs in England. The NAO found that a quarter of postal applications for cattle passports contained errors. It also discovered that movement records were incomplete for one in eight animals, with the result that the whereabouts of two per cent of cattle was "uncertain". ..... A Defra spokesman said it was working towards the further reduction of mistakes."
One emailed comment read this morning: " The cattle movement records are an absolute shambles, cattle are on the record that have been dead for years; our highlanders were classified as Holstein, the list goes on and on .. .... What was it they were saying about poor communication ? Who was it that asked the question, "What sex is your bull?"
See also ( Adventures with the British Cattle Movement Service [BCMS] and the Rural Payments Agency - the bull was female there too.)

Nov 11 - 18 2003 ~ "The common sense in science is being replaced by nonsense,"

Indian journalist, author and critic Devinda Shawa's lecture in New Hampshire is reported in the Times Argus. He said, "... control of the world's staple crops by a handful of multinational corporations already poses significant threats to world stability and the fight against hunger.
....an extreme example of the impact of global food trade on hunger in India was the export of the 65 million tons of grain in 2001 as cattle feed to the United States. At the same time, he said, India had to import cattle fodder to feed millions of starving Indians.
"What a remarkable development program we're in," said Shawa. "We owned food being exported to feed cattle (in America) and converted cattle feed (from America) to feed humans." In Africa, he said attempts by American companies to deal with famine are actually making the problem worse. He said GMO grain does not reproduce, forcing poor farmers to buy new seed each year, with millions facing starvation as a result.
.... Many heirloom species of plants are also being adulterated in gene experiments, risking the diversity and health of the natural environment.... "The common sense in science is being replaced by nonsense," said Shawa. "It's going on at such a pace that even people like me are getting lost."
See also GM page

Nov 11 - 18 2003 ~ "I have never been persuaded that it was right to ban routine vaccination - I believe there was and is a strong case for it."

The Western Morning News reports that, although the Government has not yet set a date for consultation on the EU FMD Directive, Devon County Council yesterday signalled its intention to make strong representations on the new rules.
"...Senior county councillors welcomed the EU's decision to place emergency vaccination at the heart of any response to a foot and mouth outbreak. But some questioned whether the ban on routine vaccination of livestock against the disease introduced in 1992 should be maintained. Coun David Morrish, executive member for environment, called for a report detailing the benefits of routine and emergency vaccination to be put before councillors. He said: "I have never been persuaded that it was right to ban routine vaccination - I believe there was and is a strong case for it."
The Devon Inquiry was the first to report and the most comprehensive and independent. It will be remembered that DEFRA's vague answers for this inquiry were finally sent, a week and a half after the inquiry had finished its hearings, following a phone call, "When do you want those responses by?"

Nov 11 - 18 2003 ~"Kill your cows privately," DEFRA suggests

The story of the Morris reactor cows continues. Following the delisting of DEFRA's application for a warrant because their skelton arguments were not ready, they have now suggested to the Morris family that they have their two reactor cows (no sign of any clinical symptoms for months since the test) privately slaughtered.

Nov 11-18 2003 ~ Mrs Beckett hints that parts of the Haskins report may not be implemented for years - if ever.

Western Morning News
".....In a devastating critique, the Labour peer Chris Haskins said the Government's "confused and over-centralised" system for dealing with rural issues frequently resulted in "unsatisfactory, wasteful outcomes". And he warned that the Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs needed a major overhaul to improve its service to rural communities.
In his long-awaited report on the future delivery of rural policy, Lord Haskins outlined sweeping changes that could affect the work of more than 3,000 staff at Defra and other agencies. And he warned that the problems were too serious to be addressed in a "piecemeal" way.
Rural Affairs Secretary Margaret Beckett welcomed Lord Haskins' report and said she accepted his analysis of the problems facing the department. She added: "The report is compelling in its analysis of the rural delivery landscape as confusing for our customers and too bureaucratic and centralised to meet our future challenges." But Mrs Beckett said the report should not be seen as a criticism of staff. And although some recommendations will be acted on quickly she hinted that other parts of the report may not be implemented for years - if ever...."
Read article See also the article by Jason Groves, also in the WMN ".....Lord Haskins has the ear of Tony Blair and his findings are being viewed with great interest by the Chancellor Gordon Brown. If Defra wants to argue that Haskins has come up with the wrong system, it will have to work sharply to come up with an alternative that could produce similar savings - or risk having it imposed on it by a Chancellor who may well see further opportunities for cost cutting in the countryside during the confusion of a major shake-up."

Nov 11 - 18 2003 ~Lord Haskins criticises Defra's functions as "confused" and "overcentralised"

and recommends that the department concentrates solely on policy and leaves its implementation to those closer to the countryside, such as regional development agencies. See Lord Haskins recommendations
See also Jobs cull urged in shake-up for Defra in the Telegraph

Nov 11 - 18 2003 ~ Following the axing of English Nature, Sir David Attenborough says that anything that diminishes an independent voice for wildlife and conservation is to be deplored

We read in the Independent "....Margaret Beckett, the Environment Secretary, said yesterday that the new body would provide "independent policy advice", but did not confirm whether, as an non-departmental public body, it would be as independentas English Nature has been. The announcement yesterday prompted concern from green pressure groups and conservationists, led by Sir David Attenborough, who said that an independent voice for wildlife and conservation in the English countryside was of paramount importance. "Anything that diminishes that is to be deplored," said Sir David. Mark Avery, director of conservation for the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds. said: "Biodiversity is under tremendous pressure. Any new body built around English Nature must retain a strong independent voice."

Nov 11 - 18 2003 ~ "complacent and cowardly response is unworthy of the minister and his department"

Paul Tyler on the 180-degree U-turn on OPs, the organo-phosphorus pesticides which have seriously damaged the health of thousands of farmers as reported by Muckspreader. "We have just seen, yet again, what has become the most familiar of all rituals with our agriculture ministers: the 180-degree U-turn on OPs, the organo-phosphorus pesticides which have seriously damaged the health of thousands of farmers. The latest minister to go through the ritual dance is Ben Bradshaw . The latest minister to go through the ritual dance is Ben Bradshaw ...
"...gradually an influential lobby emerged, led by the Countess of Mar, herself a victim of OP poisoning, and Lib Dem MP Paul Tyler, to argue the victims' case....one minister after another became persuaded that something nasty was going on...but each time, after being told by officials that to admit the truth would only lead to massive compensation claims, they fell strangely silent.
....One minister who followed the case made against OPs with particular care was Baroness Hayman, who soon afterwards lost her job. Another who seemed sympathetic to the evidence produced by spokesmen for the victims, such as Liz Sigmund of the OP Information Network, was Michael Meacher.
It was he who, supported by Elliott Morley, finally agreed that a high-level seminar should be held.....when Meacher lost his job, the new minister Ben Bradshaw at first seemed happy the conference should go ahead. But last month word went out that "the expense to the taxpayers and officials' time involved in holding a seminar on OPs at this time could not be justified when there is little new to say."Clearly he has been taken hostage by his civil servants" responded an angry Paul Tyler, "The lawyers are again running scared" of compensation claims against "the big chemical manufacturers and previous ministers"."We believe this complacent and cowardly response is unworthy of the minister and his department". .. ."
Read in full

Nov 11 - 18 2003 ~ Haskins recommends clarification of policy so that everyone, including DEFRA personnel, actually understands it

The first of Lord Haskins' recommendations in today's report is that: " Defra should review and clarify its rural policy remit in order to ensure that it is consistently understood by all concerned, including those who deliver its policies." The second, that delivery of Government rural policy should "operate at a regional and local level wherever possible". Haskins report

Nov 11 - 18 2003 ~" While landowners and farmers are planting trees for the 22nd century, the Government only seems to be sowing seeds for the next election"

" While we welcome Lord Haskins' efforts to improve rural policy delivery, his proposals appear to be unnecessarily complicated when they should be simplifying policy delivery and reducing bureaucracy and duplication..." Responses on today's proposal to scrap English Nature and Lord Haskins review of DEFRA the CLA and from the office of the new Conservative DEFRA Shadow, Caroline Spelman

Nov 11 - 18 2003 ~ DEFRA application for warrant withdrawn

The latest news on the situation concerning the two reactor cows in Worcestershire; the Clerk of the Court has informed the Morris family that DEFRA's application for a warrant has been delisted today. An appointment for a court "slot" on Friday 31 October had already been postponed by DEFRA so that they could get together their arguments. Apparently their skeleton argument is still "not ready" yet.
The process of obtaining warrants against farmers was set up to facilitate action considered "urgent".

Nov 11 - 18 2003 ~ Pig factories are invading Poland.

The world's largest pork production company, Smithfield Foods, is threatening the livelihood of two million farmers. Tracy Worcester, writing in the Spectator, on how the American pork industry is invading Poland with the help of EU grants
"Everywhere this company has operated, there has been gross environmental degradation....Why, we asked, should one of the richest American companies receive EU-subsidised loans? ......Marek Kryder of the Animal Welfare Institute explained that although there are laws making it illegal for foreigners to purchase former state farms, Smithfield operates behind Polish-registered front companies so as to bypass them."
Read in full

Nov 11 - 18 2003 ~ David Curry : DEFRA "has too large a brief, is not succeeding and has to be reformed."

The BBC today on Lord Haskins' report into "the way rural policy is run" which " is expected to be critical of overlapping agencies which waste money and fail to deliver" - this review was ordered over a year ago after pressure from David Curry.
Margaret Beckett "will not announce firm plans" today.
David Curry, chairman of the EFRA Select committee and now to be John Prescott's Shadow, has been very critical of the department as the all party report EFRA report in 2002 showed. "....It is apparent from DEFRA's own statements and from the evidence we received that significant change to the culture of the Department is far from complete - indeed it has barely begun "

Nov 3 - 10 2003 ~ It appears that the Animal Health Act was cited to the Morris family as the legal basis for the killing of their cows.

See below As we understand it (and we wait to be corrected- please email) the use of the Animal Health Act to insist on slaughter in this case is not permissable under the terms of the act. Although full blown Mycobacterium bovis TB, i.e. clinical signs and lesions of TB in cattle, is notifiable under the Public Health Control of Disease Act 1984, merely to have an animal that reacts to the skin test is not.
If DEFRA intends to use the AHA (about which there was so much concern shown at the time) to enforce the killing of these two cows- who reacted to the skin test at least three months ago and have still not yet shown any clinical symptoms - then they must surely use parliament to add to its terms. See AHA 2002, Part 1 section 2 (3) No order may be made under this section unless a draft of the order has been laid before Parliament and approved by a resolution of each House." ).
Quite apart from the undesirability of the lack of proper veterinary input in the situation here - the slaughter of reactors, while part of a widespread system of control, is not, as we understand it, legally binding.
The bovine TB skin test is notoriously unreliable. Since DEFRA announced a year ago that a two year voluntary pilot project would be launched in an area that includes Worcestershire "to assess the effectiveness of using the gamma interferon blood test as an adjunct test " in certain herds under restrictions" ..." it would seem reasonable for the Morris' two cows to be allowed to take that test. We continue to await developments.

Nov 3 - 10 2003 ~ "Small farms in this country are disappearing at an alarming rate.. "

John Humphrys in the Sunday Times Happy cows make a big difference to our health
DEFRA ".. is developing what it calls an animal health and welfare strategy. It has set up a consultation process and the deadline for submissions has just ended. What has emerged is a clash of views that goes to the heart of how our farms should be run and how farm animals should be cared for. Defra's chief concern is "bio- security". ..... The problem is that the agricultural regime in which most animals are born, live and die is leading in the opposite direction. It is concerned with efficiency. That means intensive production.....
"Biosecurity" ...does not address the underlying cause of disease. It is the industrialisation of agriculture. ...what is the cost of the abuse of antibiotics and the emergence of superbugs? It is incalculable.
The Curry commission ... recognised that agriculture has become "dysfunctional", mainly because it has become seriously disconnected from its market and consumers. It recommended that there should be more support for organic farming. .... Our farm animals would benefit, too. Compassion In World Farming said recently that animal welfare is at the heart of organic husbandry methods. ..
I don't expect people who are struggling to make ends meet to pay more for their bacon or milk simply to give a pig or a cow a better life. But many of us can afford to. Nor do I expect our politicians to decree that farming practices must change overnight. But it would help if the welfare of animals and the future of organic farming were seen as two elements in a bigger issue. " Read in full

Nov 3 - 10 2003 ~ Ministers are this weekend trying to back away from abolishing England's official independent wildlife watchdog

in the face of a fierce public outcry The Independent on Sunday
But they are up against strong resistance from senior civil servants who are determined to bring English Nature - which has frequently proved to be a thorn in their flesh - under government control.....In manoeuvres that recalled the worst days of the little-lamented Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (Maff), which preceded Defra, civil servants are pressing for a new body to be set up under special legislation. Such a move would paralyse the watchdogs for years by throwing them into a legal limbo. "It shows that Defra is up to Maff's old tricks" said Tom Burke, a former adviser to the Deputy Prime Minister, John Prescott, who is now a member of the council of English Nature. "It shows that nothing has changed."

Nov 3 - 10 2003 ~ Sir Peter O'Sullevan wants to stop the horse export ban from being lifted

Former racing commentator Sir Peter O'Sullevan has taken up a campaign to stop a ban from being lifted on the trafficking overseas of horses from Britain for slaughter. See link O'Sullevan has asked readers of Thoroughbred Times to sign either the International League for the Protection of Horses petition (new window) or e-mail Compassion in World Farming, or contact Margaret Beckett, (ILPH's example letter) secretary of state for the Department of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, to prevent the slaughter from becoming a reality once again.

Nov 3 - 10 2003 ~Export of horses: Lord Whitty "My Lords, the Government share the concerns that many people have about the welfare of horses..We are reviewing the options..."

Lords debate Nov 3rd
Lord Pearson of Rannoch: My Lords, the noble Lord can share all the concerns of my noble friend Lord Higgins as much as he likes and the Government can review all the options available as much as they like, b ut will he confirm that this is an area that has been handed irrevocably to the qualified majority vote in Brussels? There is absolutely nothing we can do about it if we are outvoted. If the corrupt octopus in Brussels wishes to proceed in the way it intends, we have nothing more to say.
Baroness Byford, said horse passports would do nothing to help. She told the Western Morning News that Lord Whitty's response to the concerns about live exports had been "totally inadequate".

Nov 3 - 10 2003 ~ Legal intimidation, use of the Animal "Health" Bill to force slaughter

Nicola Morris' two reactor cows have been in question for several months - and because she and her husband questioned the test (see below) the rest of the herd has been refused testing. Nor has she been permitted a second test - even at her own expense. As she says, she would not oppose the putting down of the cows if she thought they were really infected - but she simply does not believe they are. She and her husband Andy merely want to have the positive result confirmed by another test such as the gamma interferon test (see below). There seemed to be no movement on this issue - until an article about it appeared in a Birmingham newspaper (no link available), when Trading Standards officers were sent the very next day to slaughter the cows - and cited the Animal Health Act for their legal justification.
As in the panicky days of FMD it is the blank faced tone of these officials this is so frightening and so very "unEnglish". No lessons learned there, it appears.
The Morris' local magistrate, having listened to Nicola's concerns, did not grant DEFRA a warrant and it now seems as though another legal wrangle - of which we thought we had seen the last - is set for next Thursday. More news as we receive it. It is difficult to believe that DEFRA can really be aware of the full facts or they would surely allow the two cows to be tested again at the Morris' expense and save the taxpayer the cost of a court hearing.

Nov 3 - 10 2003 ~ BSE: Mr Lidington asks why Prof Ebringer's research grant was stopped

(27th October)
Mr. Lidington: To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs if she will make a statement about the reasons for the Government's decision to discontinue financial support for Professor Alan Ebringer's research into BSE. [132673]
Margaret Beckett: The proposal submitted by Professor Ebringer for Defra funding was assessed according to procedures that follow both departmental and Office of Science and Technology current recommendations for the evaluation and commissioning of research. This assessment, together with opinion from SEAC, advises that the proposed nature and scope of the work are not recommended for funding by Defra. Professor Ebringer has been advised of reviewers comments and has held discussions with Departmental officials. "
Or.."DEFRA and SEAC didn't like his research so we took the money away"?

Nov 3 - 10 2003 ~ We will all have enough to eat if we stick to the good, old-fashioned craft of farming.

We don't need advanced science, still less the big corporations, argues Colin Tudge in this article in the New Statesman It was Colin Tudge who pointed out that the rot truly set in in the early 1970s, when a government report chaired by Lord Rothschild proposed the "customer-contractor" principle. " Increasingly, scientific research is paid for by private enterprise, which in practice means big business. Big business promotes the kind of scientific research that will provide the kind of technologies that can underpin the most profitable modus operandi. The most profitable modus operandi in agriculture is industrialisation.." See more

Nov 3 - 10 2003 ~ Ninth case of BSE in Japan

"Experts are puzzled as to how the infection occurred, since the latest 2 animals were born after Japan banned the use of meat-and-bone meal (MBM) feed in October 2001..." (ProMed)

Nov 3 - 10 2003 ~ Bovine Gamma Interferon Test

(see animation in new window) Elliot Morley agreed in February to implement the gamma interferon TB test if it could be shown to have "clear benefits" in controlling bovine TB. The NFBG warned in this press release that DEFRA's research into the test lacked the clarity needed to prove those benefits.
"...DEFRA has ignored the recommendations of its own Independent Scientific Group (ISG) on how the research should best be conducted..... We believe that DEFRA should heed the advice of the ISG and not ignore best practice. The ISG's gamma interferon trial would cost an extra £1m. It is a disgrace that DEFRA will happily shell out almost £600,000 to look at how often badgers go into farm buildings [5] but it will not spend a small amount more on research that will answer major questions about long term TB control strategy."

Nov 3 - 10 2003 ~ Badgers, cattle and the reality of a control and elimination programme for TB

The Independent article (Wed) Cull of badgers is spreading bovine TB, not stopping it and the abandonment of half of the controversial culling trials (which have cost the country £25 million) shows that something new must be tried. Ben Bradshaw's mantra is yet more "bio-security" and testing of cattle before they are moved - but farmers know that this does not work. ( "Farmers are entitled to feel seriously let down when they realise that not only is Defra's bio-security advice totally flawed, Defra has the research which tells them it is..." testing is ".. worse than FMD. It is relentless, demoralising and expensive. Each test is Russian Roulette for cattle... " See warmwell article by a a UK farmer)
Something new is urgently needed. Is not virologist Ruth Watkins' suggestion a possible and elegant solution?
"... Dr Doherty from the Staatens Institute in Denmark that manufactures BCG and PPD, a purified protein derivative... has worked on human and animal infection with Mycobacterium bovis. Badgers can be immunised orally with BCG, they love chocolate so Dr Doherty suggested they could be given chocolate containing BCG, "badger chocolates". Cattle can also be immunised, more practically by subcutaneous inoculation as in humans - it will cause an ulcer at the inoculation site in them as it does in us. The immunity is at least partially protective..."
Read whole article

Nov 3 - 10 2003 ~ "A blizzard of crazy regulations is threatening the countryside's future"

Magnus Linklater in the Times Farmers are harvesting a bumper crop of red tape "...resentment stems from a belief that alien rules are being imposed by officials who know little about the realities of rural life and who do not, in any case, much care for them. A blizzard of regulations, from Brussels and from Whitehall, has enveloped farmers in the aftermath of BSE and foot-and-mouth. Lord Haskins, who was commissioned by the Government to report on the rural economy in the wake of the 2001 foot-and-mouth outbreak, found that red tape was the No1 source of complaint. Farmers, he wrote, were "seriously impaired by the existence of a plethora of publicly funded agencies and programmes with little effective co-ordination or integration". He is about to issue a follow-up report on ways to simplify the structure of countryside quangos. It is not just the weight of officialdom that enrages farmers, it is the craziness that goes with it....what is looming is the promise, not of less regulation, but more. ..."

Nov 3 - 10 2003 ~ "This International Conference will be based on the valuable experience gained in the control and eradication of foot and mouth disease and other significant animal diseases and zoonoses through the use of vaccination

.... an opportunity for the exchange of the latest scientific information at the global level that will, at the same time, assist in the evaluation and improvement of the current standards and guidelines for better control of infectious animal diseases. ....... It is expected that all Member Countries will benefit from this International Conference, so I look forward to welcoming you in Buenos Aires." Bernard Vallet.
The International Conference on the Control of Infectious Animal Diseases by Vaccination, organised by the OIE, is to be held in Buenos Aires, Argentina, 13-16 April, 2004.
Objectives of the Conference
• Experience gained in the control and eradication of foot and mouth disease and other animal and zoonotic diseases through the use of vaccination when appropriate.
• Current methods of vaccination
• New and future trends in the control of diseases by vaccination
• Impact on international regulations and trade
Session titles include: "Foot and mouth disease control using vaccination", "Making a vaccination to live policy a reality" and "Antigen and vaccine banks as a safety measure for insuring control of disease spread". Read more

Nov 3 - 10 2003 ~ "..let the Government publish Lord Haskins' report now, instead of giving secret and selective briefings

says David Lidington in this press release.
"I am alarmed by reports that Ministers want to abolish English Nature's role as a source of independent scientific advice and a watchdog for wildlife and biodiversity....English Nature spoke out against the present Government's rush to approve GM crops. It gave trenchant evidence to the ODPM Select Committee, criticising John Prescott's housing plans. I fear that Ministers may use a departmental shake-up to neuter an inconvenient critic whose advice sometimes gets in the way of spin. If there is nothing to worry about, let the Government publish Lord Haskins' report now, instead of giving secret and selective briefings."

Nov 3 - 10 2003 ~ Mrs Beckett favours yet more more centralisation

The abolition of Countryside Agency, English Nature and the Forestry Commission could leave the countryside unprotected.
"The idea of fusing them into a single land management agency is the brainchild of the environment secretary, Margaret Beckett..." Guardian "Realising that she is riding into a political storm, she has called the heads of the relevant groups at short notice to a meeting in London today."
It seems that this is Mrs Beckett's alternative to Lord Haskins' wish to devolve DEFRA's power "... Lord Haskins, head of the environment department's rural delivery review, who also wants sweeping changes in how the three agencies are run. But the Guardian has learned that he wants much of the spending power of the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) devolved to the regions"

Nov 3 - 10 2003 ~ Nicola Morris threatened with arrest over TB slaughter resistance

"What appalls me is the vet dealing with the case has not asked to look at the animals once. We got our own vet to do a detailed examination and she said there was nothing that leads her to believe the animals are suffering from TB"
From the This is Worcester website TB Showdown at Eatons Farm
"Nicola and Andy Morris defied a Government culling squad this morning and ordered officials off their land. ... Government officials have ordered two cows from the 60-strong herd to be killed because a test shows they are harbouring the TB virus. But Mr and Mrs Morris claim the cows have shown no sign of disease. ...... Nicola - who famously resisted a Defra slaughter during the foot-and-mouth crisis - would not budge. They were cautioned and told they would be reported to the police for obstruction. The officials are now seeking a warrant for their arrest."
It will be remembered that Mrs Morris presented a careful and reasoned analysis at the time of the FMD inquiry which, although it was never hostile or condemning, may have been very unwelcome to DEFRA and the government.
Extract: "Of the premises culled as a precaution (pre-emptive cull) less than 10 % were tested. DEFRA are of the opinion that a significant number of these farms were incubating the disease at slaughter; this is unlikely. For 3 reasons ...(Read more)

Nov 3 - 10 2003 ~ Scrapie - new compulsory EU measures

DEFRA consultation(pdf) "...There is also the question of what penalties to apply if checks reveal that adult sheep or progeny are not of the genotype expected of that level.. ..."
The current concern about scrapie and its attendant massive expenditure amd bureaucracy rests on two assumptions that have never been scientifically proved: that scrapie can mask BSE in sheep - (Millions of pounds in research projects have failed to discover BSE in sheep except in laboratories when their brains have been injected) and that BSE infected meat is the suspected cause of vCJD in humans. Moreover, UK meat and bone meal was shipped to Saudi Arabia, Libya, India and other third world countries during 70s, 80s, 90s as feed but there has been no single case of BSE in their cattle. This suggests that the assumption that BSE is caused by infected MBM is also highly suspect.
Last September, Rare Breeds International raised some important issues: "...the development of tests to identify the presence of scrapie, and to distinguish between BSE and scrapie, should be developed as rapidly as possible and that substantial Government aid should be given to research in this field. ..
It is important to establish a balance between the original objectives of NSP, and the need to accommodate the security of individual breeds and the importance of biodiversity. Breeds which have a low or nil frequency of ARR have other qualities which are important in the British sheep industry." Read more

Nov 3 - 10 2003 ~ "unnecessarily onerous and unreasonably draconian.... It has nothing to do with food safety or animal welfare. "

"Late BCMS Applications may cost £65 million" from eblex.org
And a letter from a West Country farmer: "BCMS seem to have found another way of persecuting cattle keepers ...
I haven't heard a word of protest from any farmer organisation. Why do we carry on accepting and co-operating with this sort of rubbish? ..."
The email is attached to a letter to the farmer's MP
"...The likely effects of this absurd regime will be that cattle keepers will routinely falsify the birth dates of their calves to suit the date of the application ... This all seems thoroughly unreasonable and unnecessary. It has nothing to do with food safety or animal welfare. Neither will it save administrative time: because apart from the angry appeals and disputes likely to be provoked, the new "passport refused" documents will require additional licences and procedures.
Surely it must be recognised that, just like BCMS itself, cattle keepers can make honest mistakes - and a procedure for rectifying these must be provided. ..."

Nov 3 - 10 2003 ~ Mark Purdey is speaking on his research at Penrith Rugby club on Saturday 15th November at I.30 pm.

A rare opportunity to hear him speak in the North of England. Admission free. A raffle will be held. ( Mark Purdey page on warmwell)

Oct 19 - 27 2003 ~"... This is how the supermarkets can keep the price down - because other EU countries are awash with milk, produced less efficiently by farmers who receive much more financial help from their governments"

Booker's Notebook in the Sunday Telegraph says, "The real reason for the disaster engulfing Britain's dairy farmers is not what Mr Blair called the "armlock" of the supermarkets. It is the fact that the EU system creates that obscene surplus. And the UK Government does nothing to protect our dairy farmers - the most efficient in Europe - from the consequences of that glut, so that more than 2,000 of them every year go out of business." Read in full

Oct 19 - 27 ~ Heading for Showdown on FMD Clean-up Bills "...we got what we were expecting in that Defra didn't answer the questions we posed"

(Rick Hopkins, spokesman for the FPB in the South West) The Western Morning News reports the meeting, described as "tense", between Members of the Forum for Private Business (FPB see below) and "high-ranking Defra officials"
"....the FPB is ramping up the pressure on the department and is set to quiz Mr Bradshaw, Labour MP for Exeter, on the issue at a meeting later this month. Any Westcountry farmers or contractors still owed money by Defra can join the campaign at www.fpb.co.uk"
So far, five companies are taking DEFRA to the High Court over unpaid contracts. A spokeswoman for Defra is reported in the article as saying that the amount outstanding was "nothing like" the £50 million quoted by the FPB. "The ones that haven't been paid are ones we have been disputing," she said.

Oct 19 - 27 ~ The shortcomings of foot and mouth 2001 should not be blamed on the regrettable decline in farm animal vets. Communication is still "poor"

The Scotsman article Ten-year plan to curb diseases reporting that "a new hi-tech approach to animal health disease surveillance linking veterinary surgeons, farmers and the government was unveiled by the government’s chief veterinary officer Jim Scudamore yesterday" also mentions the "hard-hitting report by a Commons committee" adding " ....Scottish Executive has admitted that communication with both the media and farmers about the slaughter this week of almost 300 cattle at Townhead, Dolphinton, to control bovine TB was poor. The real case of disease control and communication came only weeks after a simulated FMD outbreak exercise by the Executive was claimed as a success. ..."
In a Times article on December 27th 2001 Vet shortage 'made slaughter worse' Mr Scudamore ".. accepted that there had been a problem with the presentation of the contiguous cull. " He was reported to have said: “We simply ran out of vets. In Cumbria I would have needed a vet to visit the same farm perhaps up to five times a day.” This is at variance with the view of Peter Jinman's evidence to the EFRA committee (see below): " ..I would stress that one of the problems during the foot and mouth outbreak was not the lack of vets. It was the lack of manpower control. It was management that was lacking. ...." The December 2001 article reported that Mr Scudamore would "work closely with the nation’s vets to ensure that the Government has a panel of experts to call up in any emergency..."

Oct 19 - 27 ~ the "Expert Group" referred to in Section 78 of the Directive: will it include international expertise in foot and mouth disease diagnosis, vaccination and relevant new technologies?

A Parliamentary Question from Lord Plumb "What steps have been taken towards meeting the requirements in the European Union foot and mouth disease Directive to create "a permanently operational expert group to maintain expertise and assist the relevant authority in qualitative disease preparation"; whether the composition will include international expertise in foot and mouth disease diagnosis, vaccination and relevant new technologies; and whether appointments will be undertaken in an open and transparent manner.[HL4398]" received the answer from Lord Whitty:
"The Government already have in place arrangements to call on expertise on disease control in the event of an outbreak... "
but his answer failed to make clear who would be in the Expert group, their level of veterinary expertise or relevant experience with foot and mouth disease. Indeed, Lord Whitty entirely avoided giving an answer to the question of "whether the composition will include international expertise in foot and mouth disease diagnosis, vaccination and relevant new technologies"

Oct 19 - 27 ~ Commons Rural Affairs Committee raises serious concerns about the declining number of vets specialising in the welfare of farmyard animals.

The EFRA report on Vets and Veterinary Services (pdf file in new window) is published Oct 23. During evidence collected at the EFRA Select Committee in May Paddy Tipping had asked Peter Jinman (President RCVS) whether there were "public good issues that need to be paid for in some way by the government"? Mr Jinman replied that " maybe part of ...modulation should be cost compliance and involvement in animal welfare, which is the suggestion within the EU rules. ....I would stress that one of the problems during the foot and mouth outbreak was not the lack of vets. It was the lack of manpower control. It was management that was lacking. ...."
Carl Padgett, Honorary Secretary of the British Cattle Veterinary Association added, ".... It is the management that we really need to get sorted out. There were many vets inappropriately used and that to a degree disenchanted many of the veterinary surgeons in practice.
.... farmers have identified that they find the veterinary surgeon the most valuable source of veterinary advice and also will take certain advice regarding notifiable diseases and disease control from their veterinary surgeon over and above taking it from DEFRA. They can talk around the subject. They trust that person. ." See also the report in today's Western Morning News Ministers must act to save Rural Vets

Oct 19 - 27 ~ Clarification about culling and vaccination is urgently needed

as can be seen from the letter below from the NFU National Livestock Committee Chairman, Richard Haddock. The EU Directive on FMD (October 03):
• Paragraph 23 "It is necessary to prevent any spread of the disease as soon as an outbreak occurs by carefully monitoring movements of animals and the use of products liable to be contaminated, and where appropriate, in particular in densely populated livestock areas, by emergency vaccination."
• Para 24 - ".....international and Community rules and the ensuing practices have not taken sufficient account of the possibility offered by the use of emergency vaccination and subsequent tests to detect infected animals in a vaccinated population. Too much importance was attached to the trade-policy aspects, with the result that protective vaccination was not carried out even when it had been authorised.."
• Para 25 - "...In the event of an epidemic, the choice of strategy to control the disease should likewise take account of which strategy causes the least possible economic damage for non-agricultural sectors of the economy."
• Para 26 - " By means of emergency vaccination without subsequent killing of the vaccinated animals the number of animals to be killed for disease control purposes may be reduced significantly. Appropriate testing should thereafter substantiate the absence of infection."
The UK will find it difficult not to use vaccination any future outbreak. The EU will definitely not underwrite compensation for mass slaughter again (and, as we have seen below, are unlikely to compensate the UK for 2001, leaving the deficit of over a billion to be met by UK taxes.)

Oct 19 - 27 ~ " The issues surrounding culling and vaccination must be cleared up beyond any doubt before, heaven forbid, we are ever hit again by this dreadful disease."

A letter from Richard Haddock to the WMN is interesting. Mr Haddock agreed with the NFU stance on vaccination in 2001. He now appears to recognise that before the NFU will even contemplate vaccination there are answers urgently needed
"... extremely concerned about the application of the policy which failed to take into account the circumstances on the ground such as livestock being physically separated by, in many cases, long distances and "buffer zones" like woods etc. As a result, many animals were indeed slaughtered unnecessarily.
As far as vaccination was concerned, we were never given any answers as to the consequences of going that route by either the Government or the big retailers. .... The issues surrounding culling and vaccination must be cleared up beyond any doubt before, heaven forbid, we are ever hit again by this dreadful disease."
Read in full

Oct 19 - 27 ~ EFRA Select Committee urged by RCVS to question claims that the " mathematically justified contiguous cull" brought FMD under control in 2001

In a letter to the Veterinary Record this week, Dr Alex Donaldson writes,
".....colleagues and I at Pirbright voiced our concern about the 48-hour contiguous cull policy and proposed that the benefits claimed for the strategy would have to be weighed against the burden of disposing of hundreds of thousands of carcases, the likelihood that many of the contiguous premises were not infected and the consequences of diverting scarce veterinary resources and support staff from other disease control activities ...Several correspondents called for an independent investigation. The letter from Bob Michell ( VR, April 12, p 479) records that earlier this year the RCVS Council agreed to draw to the attention of the House of Commons Select Committee on the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs the need to seek expert appraisal of the claim that the mathematically justified contiguous cull was the factor that brought the 2001 epidemic under control. Our profession should encourage the RCVS Council to continue to press the select committee to oversee the task of investigating that claim and the merits - or otherwise - of the contiguous cull policy. ."
Read the letter
Last year, when giving evidence to the European Parliament inquiry into foot and mouth, Dr Donaldson had said that although he had gone along with the controversial policy in areas where there was a need to "catch up" with the disease, it had been continued for far too long. "There was no justification for the 3km or the contiguous cull, which were both novel and untested, once the resources were available to go back to traditional culling and disease control methods." See article in the Western Morning News on 20/6/02

Oct 19 - 27 ~ "If the government actually owned up and said that they can't afford to pay now, at least the banks could then arrange to help with companies' cash flow problems."

" Foot and Mouth crisis still lingers on in the South West
Two years on from the Foot and Mouth crisis and many of the contractors in the south west that helped with the clean-up are still waiting to be paid by the Government........ Many of the businesses with outstanding monies owed by Defra are literally fighting for their survival and the protracted negotiations that are taking place between them and Defra are pushing many perilously close to the edge..."
A press release issued by the Forum of Private Business (FPB) was distributed to the South West media list on October 20th. Within 5 minutes, BBC Radio Cornwall called for a live interview at 0720 tomorrow, 21 October

Oct 19 - 27 ~"Why they are asking all horse and pony owners to apply for horse passports when the required statutory instrument has neither been laid before, nor approved by, Parliament?"

To read the short debate:
Viscount Astor asked Her Majesty's Government on 16th Oct 2003:
Why they are asking all horse and pony owners to apply for horse passports when the required statutory instrument has neither been laid before, nor approved by, Parliament?
Horse and Hound this week gives details of horse passports in other countries. "...... countries which have legislation have no penalties for non-compliance but the UK has written in swinging penalties for an owner without a passport, up to £5000 for 1-10 horses, up to £1000 per horse for more than 10 horses. The latter category would include riding schools - some are still saying they will not buy them."

Oct 19 - 27 ~ U.S. Issues New Rules to Protect National Food Supply: meanwhile, DEFRA's dogs are sniffing - but without conviction

See http://usinfo.state.gov/topical/pol/terror/texts/03100921.htm
".......The first regulation requires food importers to provide the FDA with advance notice of human and animal food shipments imported or offered for import on or after Dec. 12, 2003. .... FDA will have for the first time a complete roster of foreign and domestic food facilities. The requirements will enable the FDA to quickly identify and locate affected food processors and other establishments in the event of deliberate or accidental contamination of food. ....."
Here in the somewhat less vigilant UK, Lord Whitty, in answer to Lord Rotherwick in February, said "The two dogs have been operational most of the time and both have never been out of action at any one time." (in other words, there was always one, even when the other was indisposed)
Lord Rotherwick asked Lord Whitty to acknowledge ".. that the solutions in the DEFRA action pack produced in March 2002 - nearly a year ago - have largely fallen flat on their face? There are no amnesty bins; the wording on the landing cards has yet to be agreed; the service agreement between DEFRA and Customs and Excise has yet to be implemented; and there has been a pitiful number of arrests of people bringing in illegal meat. Have not the Government largely failed in their policy on this matter?"
On October 5th 2003 Lord Rotherwick asked Her Majesty's Government:
How many convictions for the smuggling of illegal meat have been recorded on the central database of HM Customs and Excise since 11 April.[HL4412]
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: None of Customs' seizures of illegal meat since 11 April 2003 have resulted in convictions being recorded on its central database.

Oct 19 - 27 ~"The Commission confirmed that it cannot contribute to the cost of destroying eight million healthy animals under the "pre-emptive cull" scheme, because compensation can only legally be paid for the slaughter of infected animals.. "

Booker's Notebook in the Sunday Telegraph." EC welches on farmers' bribe
Gordon Brown's sums were thrown into further disarray last week when it was reported from Brussels that the European Commission is likely to withhold £700 million claimed by the British Government towards the cost of the 2001 foot and mouth epidemic. The Commission confirmed that it cannot contribute to the cost of destroying eight million healthy animals under the "pre-emptive cull" scheme, because compensation can only legally be paid for the slaughter of infected animals. It also claims the sums paid to farmers were excessive anyway.
What the reports did not point out was that the pre-emptive cull policy was initially "recommended" by officials of the Commission's own Food and Veterinary Office when they visited Britain between March 12 and 16, 2001, even though the culling of healthy, unexposed animals was unlawful.
The chief reason why ministry officials were willing to pay over the odds was that they thought this was the only way to persuade farmers to accept a policy the illegality of which was recently confirmed in a paper by two Cardiff University law professors. In other words, the Commission is now refusing to pay for a policy launched to comply with the instructions of its own officials; and which could only be implemented by bribing farmers with the money it is now threatening to withhold. Thus do the crimes of Mr Blair's ministers come back to haunt them; except that it is we the taxpayers who must foot the bill."

Oct 19 - 27 ~"The conclusion I have drawn from analysis of the 2001 FMD epidemic, is that indeed an effective animal disease strategy is dependent on frequent objective review

and the allocation of appropriate resources to carry out that strategy, as has been similarly recognised by the requirement that Parliament review the Contingency Plans annually.... The challenge now will remain in ensuring that the plethora of other recommendations are carried out, that further needed research (particularly with regard to the "Carrier" state), and seminars (especially on modern vaccines, NSP-tests and Rapid--Diagnostic Technology) take place ..." Christopher Stockdale, farmer and DEFRA stakeholder, has permitted his dissertation on the FMD crisis of 2001 to appear on warmwell. (He would welcome comments or criticism. His email address is at the end of the paper.)

Oct 13 - 19 ~ ~ EU Compromise over sheep ID plan

FWi " Instead of double tagging, farmers will only have to apply a single ear tag bearing a unique identification code. A second means of ID will also be required, though this may take the form of a tattoo, an ear tag or an electronic identifier. The new text also does away with the need to record each individual animal on a movement document, replacing it with a batch system."

Oct 13 - 19 ~"What if they had been questioned on FMD?"

Western Morning News .... the Hutton Inquiry has also shown that those decisions have always left a trail, whether in paper form or by e-mail. Whether it was Tony Blair's spokesman describing the "game of chicken" with the BBC, or his chief of staff gently pointing out that the Iraq dossier did not show Saddam Hussein was a current threat, the Hutton process has shown that almost everything is written down.
Was it really true that none of the key conversations and decisions were written down during the foot and mouth crisis? Or was it that the less open nature of the inquiry made it possible to keep those potentially damaging details secret?
Without a proper inquiry - and we will not get one now - we will never be sure. But the sheer weight of correspondence unearthed by the Hutton Inquiry suggests that Whitehall computers were almost certainly buzzing with e-mails about the election, the culling policy, the ghastly pyres and so on - with Downing Street taking the lead...." Read in full

Oct 13 - 19 ~ Fresh Calls for Foot and Mouth Inquiry

Western Morning News "... Shadow Rural Affairs Secretary David Lidington said he would be challenging the Government over the revelations.
He said: "I shall certainly be putting down questions to Margaret Beckett about this. Ministers should hang their heads in shame because it looks as though their incompetence is going to land British taxpayers with a far bigger bill than expected. That money, which the UK could have expected, will have to be found from other budgets, whether it be health, schools or the police."
Graham Booth, South West Euro-MP for the UK Independence Party, said the concerns in Brussels reinforced calls for a public inquiry...."It is not too late for a public inquiry into why we ignored the sound advice from previous outbreaks of foot and mouth," he said. "Now Europe is coming back to us and saying that because of the way the Government handled things we are going to suffer to the tune of £1 billion."

Oct 13 -19 ~ Contingency Plans should be made public

National Farmers' Union spokesman Ian Johnson said the Government needed to make public its contingency plans for another outbreak. "Foot and mouth has a dreadful habit of coming back. What will the Government do if that happens? It's good that Ash Moor is being restored but what lessons have been learned? ..." WMN article on the continuing worry about Ashmoor Pit in Devon

Oct 13- 19 ~ Telegraph: "Foot and mouth farce could cost £1 billion"

News in Brief "The Government's mishandling of the foot and mouth crisis could cost Britain up to £1.1 billion in lost European compensation payments.
The European Commission is balking at paying its 60 per cent share of the Government's £3 billion foot and mouth costs because it has misgivings over how the Government handled compensation payments and the contiguous cull. Ministers have tabled a claim for compensation that says £1.46 billion was paid to farmers for destroying livestock and £1.5 billion was spent on animal disposal and cleaning up farms.
Sources in Brussels say the Commission is reluctant to pay any more than £250 million towards compensation and no more than £300 million for cleaning up, leaving £1.1 billion unpaid."

Oct 13 - 19 ~ EU Commission is considering capping the UK's total final FMD payment "grave concerns about the controversial contiguous cull policy"..."

at just £250 million - almost £700 million less than is being sought. The Western Morning News (Wednesday 15 Oct) £700 million Fiasco
"...The European Commission is thought to have grave concerns about the controversial contiguous cull policy, which led to the slaughter of millions of healthy animals. Under European rules, compensation is only payable to farmers whose animals are thought to have been exposed to the disease. ...The revelations are likely to reopen the row over the Government's handling of the crisis at a time when ministers were hoping finally to draw a line under the affair. ......."
(But see also warmwell's legality page)
Read the WMN report in full

Oct 13 - 19 ~ ""lasting mistrust" between communities in Cumbria and the government, over the handling of the foot-and-mouth epidemic"

The BBC reports ongoing research led by the former Director of Public Health for North Cumbria, Peter Tiplady. A final report of the researchers findings in Cumbria to be submitted to the government, local authorities and other agencies, will recommend the creation of "citizen panels" in the event of a similar disaster. Dr Tiplady is quoted by the BBC as saying:
"....."There was a very serious lack of understanding as what effect this was having on people. We have discovered in talking to the people who were affected by the outbreak, just how much they could have contributed to the recovery process We found an almost complete breakdown of trust between people in the affected areas and statutory agencies. Our research has been going on for over a year and this mistrust is still there and is still very deep. Without trust in the people who are supposed to be helping you, recovery is that much more difficult."
See also this report from the Cumberland News on 28th June 2002 in which Dr Tiplady spoke about links between FMD pyres & illness. Dr Tiplady made his decision to stop pyres several weeks before the Department of Health released guidance on how and where the pyres should be lit. “This guidance was released far too late, and I believe that was done for political reasons," he said.

Oct 13 - 19 ~"DEFRA and its Scottish equivalent should remember that if they do not get their houses in order regarding FMD then the EU has taken the power to do it for them."

The LandCare.org site carries an important article by its author, James Irvine FRSE DSc FRCPEd FRCPath FInstBiol
"FMD simulation exercise in Scotland: Lessons are still to learned" This extract, towards the end of the article:
" it was alleged that final confirmation of the viral strain involved could take some 14 days - far too long for any vaccination programme to be effective. It could be that this is a misunderstanding and the time interval would in fact be much less. However, the fact that such a time scale was being mentioned at all indicates the great need for much better communication and education about how a new outbreadk of FMD would be handled.
It would appear that the application of long-established science to the rapid diagnosis of FMD and the ability to distinguish between naturally infected animals and vaccinated ones in terms of FMD has still not been applied to any future outbreak within the UK (although it has elsewhere).
A search of the State Veterinary Service (Scotland) website makes no reference to the exercise. Direct inquiry to the Press Office of the Scottish Executive confirmed that no further information other than that contained in the newspaper article referred to above is available, but that a report will be published on future strategy sometime in the future. ..... State Veterinary Service has a long way to go and not a lot of time to get there...."
Read in full (external link to Land-Care.org article)

Oct 13 - 19 ~ "I have never been offered funding by the UK government or anybody from the UK in fact."

Mark Purdey "...... I would like to take this opportunity to correct some disinformation by DEFRA officials whenever the issue of government funding of my research has been raised at public meetings. For instance, it was publicly stated by Mike Dawson of DEFRA on August 28th at Penrith that I had been offered funding but I had turned it down. This is completely untrue. I have never been offered funding by the UK government or anybody from the UK in fact. My applications for funding to the UK government have only ever been rejected and then subsequently plagiarized by the 'quango' peer reviewers who they had appointed."
Read more about Mark Purdey's work".. I have pinpointed a clear cut correlation with the excessive levels of two toxic metals in the soils / vegetation ( and their radioactive emissions) that I collected from the farm where the BSE cow was raised and the CWD affected deer farms, etc, in Alberta / Saskatchewan and the other TSE hotspot zones...It's all so obvious what is causing this BSE problem when you get out there into the real environment and derive some first hand experience of the cluster areas and look for those common toxic denominators- that's why it is driving me crazy having to listen to the world's media going on about this hyperinfectious myth every day of the week."

Oct 6 - 13 ~"exposure to high intensities of both naturally occurring and man made radioactive metals seems to explain the emergence of every cluster of TSE that has reared its ugly head around the world"

Mark Purdey's latest work on the 'free radical' legacy of radioactive metal contamination can be seen on his own website MarkPurdey.com
"During the 60s/ 70s, it seems that the entire operation of the Fort Collins wildlife facility was geared towards a raft of radiation experiments - including the direct injection of strontium 90 and caesium 134 into the deer - in order to monitor the biological effects of these potentially lethal ‘cold war' compounds (25)(26). ....
... later I stumbled upon a study by Dr Randolph Crom on a small cluster of CJD amongst the workforce engaged in the assembly of missiles at the former Hughes Missile Plant at Tucson in Arizona (39).... CWD has erupted in deer grazing across the copper deficient White Sands missile range in the New Mexico desert, the tundra terrain of NATO's Cold Lake air weapons range and the tank shelling range at Camp Wainwright in the Sandhills on the Alberta/Saskatchewan borders ...
...it seems likely that the UK's BSE and vCJD epidemics were caused by the simultaneous exposure of cattle, cats, humans and zoo animals to a toxic combination of factors - the widely used copper-chelating organo dithiophosphate (OP) insecticides (35) and the fall out of radioactive metals from the Chernobyl eruption (20). During the 1980s British cattle herds and humans were exposed to exclusively high doses of these insecticides for warble fly and head lice control respectively (42), whereupon the prion proteins of the OP treated animals were starved of their copper co partners (35). This rendered the prion protein vulnerable to binding up with certain rogue replacement metals, such as the radioactive strontium 90, which were rained down at high concentrations onto the soils of NW Europe after the Chernobyl accident (20) - the precise region that later became the world's most intensive hotspot of BSE."
The fully referenced article (link mended - apologies) concludes with a swipe at corporations and government who lay the blame for "pollutant induced modern day ailments onto an assortment of genetic weaknesses, viruses, naturally occurring toxins, or - as in the case of BSE- the sheep scrapie agent."

Oct 6 - 13 ~ How GM crop trials were rigged ".. the GM trials, whose results will be reported on Thursday, were always more political than scientific"

Ministers knew of the environmental dangers, but the tests were designed not to focus on this. Geoffrey Lean reports in the Independent on Sunday
" ..... .....EU's ban on atrazine, the weedkiller used on conventional maize..... invalidates the tests, because they no longer reflect the real conditions under which crops will be grown. Unless they carry out new trials with an alternative to atrazine, ministers cannot claim that growing GM maize is safe...."
Read in full on GM page
See also in the Independent on Sunday Farmers can set up GM free zones "... Franz Fischler, rejected calls for exclusion zones to be set up. But late last month he told EU farming ministers in Brussels that he now favoured setting up voluntary zones. This would allow farmers, businesses and councils in an area to agree to declare themselves "GM-free", but they could also agree to set up "bio zones", where modified crops would be planted. "

Oct 6 - 13 ~ significant "irregularities" in our Government's handling of the crisis

On 25th November 2001, Christopher Booker wrote:
"In August the European Commission suspended its compensation payments to the British Government, after an investigation by the EU's Food and Veterinary Office.
This found significant "irregularities" in our Government's handling of the crisis, not least in paying farmers up to four times the market value of their stock to buy their acquiescence in allowing destruction of healthy animals under the legally-dubious "contiguous cull" scheme. The Commission not only set up an audit of these payments but launched an investigation by Olaf, its anti-fraud unit."
(Read in full about how DEFRA asked farmers to concoct records of the foot and mouth epidemic of the effects on their herds to give a misleading impression to the European Commission)
It is interesting, therefore, to note that Ben Bradshaw announced on September 15th 2003 that "Further amounts will only be paid following completion of Commission audits of expenditure incurred during the disease outbreaks" (See below)

Oct 6 - 13 ~ only £217 million of a possible £948.6 million compensation for FMD losses paid to UK by EU

"Further amounts will only be paid following completion of Commission audits of expenditure incurred during the disease outbreaks." More than £1.5 billion compensation for FMD has been claimed, of which 60% in theory payable by EU. Interestingly, only £217 million of a possible £948.6 million had been paid to UK by EU by mid September - and the EU audit is still doing its painstaking work. Read in full

Oct 6 - 13 ~ FMD simulation exercise in Scotland. Mistakes were made. Lessons must be learned

The article in the Scotsman, about August's FMD simulation exercise describes some "minor blips". Part of Mary Marshall's comment (which needs to be read in full):
"Blips"?  This is far more serious, and requires explanation and assurances that in the event of a real infection, the virus will be rapidly identified and that the key officials, or their seconds, can be contacted and functioning without delay... "Vaccination would be considered if FMD spread, but that would depend on the virus strain." 
• "if FMD spread" - determination of the spread must be a top priority, and justifies the wide use of portable PCR tests linked to computer databases with geographical and meteorological data.
• Since knowledge of the characteristics of the strain is essential to determine its method of spread, and since identification of the strain requires lab analysis, any delays in transporting the samples rapidly to the lab will have serious consequences. What was the reason for the refusal by the airline? What measures can be taken to ensure this would not occur in a real case of possible infection? Note that if portable rapid PCR tests are used, there would be more certainty about the presence of the virus. How long does it take to identify the virus strain once the samples have arrived in the lab for analysis?
• Would vaccine readiness be put in place immediately upon identification of the strain, or only after a decision was taken based on the spread? Who would make that decision? Would advice be taken from the permanently operational "expert group"? When would the vaccination teams be notified?
Read in full this important comment on the Scottish FMD exercise by Mary Marshall, who is Animal Health Policy Adviser of the European Livestock Alliance

Oct 6 - 13 ~ No-one will insure GM crops

- a press release from FARM. See also GM page with report from the Telegraph

Oct 6 - 13 ~ "...the Community is also a Community of values, and its policies to combat animal diseases must not be based purely on commercial interests but must also take genuine account of ethical principles."

Interesting to see this as the second sentence in the EU Directive on FMD Control now available on the DEFRA website (click here) Among other areas of interest is ANNEX XVII on the Criteria and requirements for contingency plans.. " A permanently operational expert group shall be created, where necessary in collaboration with other Member States, to maintain expertise and assist the relevant authority in qualitative disease preparedness." Article 78 makes clear that this expert group shall "....give advice on screening, sampling, test procedures, control and the other measures to be applied and on the strategy to be implemented, including advice on bio-security measures on holdings or on premises referred to in Article 16, and in relation to emergency vaccination" and "follow up and guide the epidemiological inquiry..."
See also ANNEX XIII "..... The use of tests defined in the OIE Manual as "Alternative Tests", or other tests not included in the OIE Manual, is permitted provided that the performance of the test has been shown to match or exceed the sensitivity and specificity parameters laid down in the OIE Manual or in the annexes to Community legislation, whichever is the more stringent."

Oct 6 - 13 ~ The government can no longer claim its hands are tied on GM by the EU.

Letter to the Guardian by MEP Dr Caroline Lucas. "Your report caused such a stir at the European parliament's environment committee, it may have cleared the way for a UK ban. Aides to consumer protection commissioner David Byrne frantically sought faxed copies of your articles as he was grilled by MEPs. Eventually Mr Byrne said any threat to biodiversity should be considered under the wider question of whether GM and non-GM crops can safely coexist - and as such is a national competency.
The government can no longer claim its hands are tied on GM by the EU. Your coverage has prompted the commission to admit for the first time the possibility of a GM-free UK, in line with the clearly stated wishes of the majority of the country. Well done.
Dr Caroline Lucas MEP
Green, SE England
Other letters, " I am neither anti-science nor anti-molecular biology - just as I am not anti-physics because I oppose nuclear weapons." See GM page
Also, a press statement on a survey carried out by the campaigning group FARM into the insurance available for farmers considering growing GM crops. The results show that none of the 5 main insurance underwriters would consider offering cover, and compared the risks associated with GM crops to those occurring with asbestos or thalidomide.

Oct 6 - 13 ~ And so the wheel keeps grinding..

"Defra's interpretation is that where manure is used on the same farm for improving the land, then it isn't waste. But when there is some left over after reaching 'beneficial limits', then it is.
But what if you transfer the leftover material - the 'waste' - to another farm for use by someone else to improve their land up to beneficial limits? In such a case, the manure might be waste, but there again it might not.
It would hinge on whether you were disposing of waste (bad thing) or the other chap was recovering waste (good thing). The likely outcome is that each case will be judged on its own merits, which signals more paperwork....." from Now doth time waste me from the NPA website.

Oct 6 - 13 ~ Caught Between Science & Society: Researching & Documenting the Impact of FMD

"The Lawlessness of the UK Government's Response to the Foot and Mouth Epidemic of 2001" by Professors David Campbell and Robert Lee (Law School, Cardiff University) will be one of the papers delivered at the FMD conference on October 7th at the East Midlands Conference Centre, Nottingham. Other speakers include Professor Sheila Crispin (Professor and Research Fellow of Comparative Ophthalmology, Division of Companion Animal Studies, University of Bristol), Dr Matt Lobley & Dr Matt Reed (Centre for Rural Research, University of Exeter), Professor Michael Winter (Head of School of Geography, Archaeology & Earth Resources, University of Exeter), Nick Wright (IGBiS, University of Nottingham), Barrie Williams (Editor of the Western Morning News)

Oct 6 - 13 ~ "...the Dutch do not take to idiotic laws all that easily"

"If you look around this part of Holland you will see that a lot of sheep and goats, and sometimes even cows ... are not tagged."
Lina from Holland illustrates how other European countries treat some EU rules, but adds
" I am not so certain that this has anything to do with Dutch government sanity. This has much more to do with Dutch ignoring rules. .... Our town council does not have the farm animals on the farms they partly own tagged, because most of us see no reason to. It is not a very high point on their agenda.
Every one knows you can be fined for this but somehow most do not care so much. And who is going to do the fining or policing? If they start doing that they would look even more ridiculous then they do now. .. .... the Dutch do not take to idiotic laws all that easily - As we would say: wat een onzin, nonsense!"
Is this attitude irresponsible or simply admirable common sense? As has been said of the ear tagging rules this "does not improve in any way the traceability of sheep, but it is expensive, unworkable in practice and time wasting. All that is required is traceability to farm of origin, i.e. the registered flock number, or even the holding number; either is unique."

Oct 6 - 13 ~ Einstein would not be ignored today; he would be ground down, like the rest of us in British academia.

Letter in today's Telegraph from Dr Heinrich Harke "....Following the submission of his annual list of publications, Einstein would be hauled before his departmental research committee and warned that his output was unsatisfactory. His head of department would then tell him that his low research productivity meant that he should take on more than his fair share of the 81 permanent administrative jobs specified for his department of 12 full-time academics. On top of this, he would then be asked to take on half of the admin jobs and personal tutees of a go-ahead colleague, who has just obtained a rare research fellowship to write a book about socially inclusive algebra...."

Sept 30 - Oct 6 ~ according to the FSA's reading of EC hygiene rules, it is perfectly all right for an inexperienced, untrained farmer to kill animals for human consumption, but for a qualified expert to do the job is a criminal offence.

Booker's Notebook "Pig ignorant"
Zac Goldsmith, the editor of The Ecologist and son of the late Sir James Goldsmith, keeps a herd of pigs on his farm in Devon. For some years, whenever he has wanted to convert one into pork chops for his family table, he has called in a professional slaughterman, one of thousands put out of work when John Selwyn Gummer's bizarre interpretation of an EC meat directive made it too expensive for most of Britain's rural abattoirs to stay in business.
Recently, however, the farm was visited by an official of the State Veterinary Service who said that, on the advice of Sir John Krebs's Food Standards Agency, this was no longer permitted. According to the FSA, the slaughterman was supplying meat "for sale", which was against European rules. The only person who could be permitted to kill the pigs was the farmer himself.
Apart from the obvious point that the slaughterman is not supplying the meat, but only his services, it seems that, according to the FSA's reading of EC hygiene rules, it is perfectly all right for an inexperienced, untrained farmer to kill animals for human consumption, but for a qualified expert to do the job is a criminal offence. Mr Goldsmith looks forward to seeing how Sir John Krebs will defend this."

Sept 30 - Oct 6 ~ Government using CAP reform to divide and rule? asks CLA

See press release "The single most important decision for farmers and landowners to secure their future is due by the end of next week. Yet the full legal text of CAP Reform 2003 that is setting landowner against tenant and farmer against farmer was only published this week. Why is Government forcing England to decide its fate by 10 October, when other EU countries haven't even started to consult their farmers yet? Is DEFRA attempting to divide and rule?..."

Sept 30 - Oct 6 ~"Emergency vaccination is moved to the forefront of control measures instead of being the last resort. The new legislation is a true reform." David Byrne

Brussels, 29 September 2003 FMD: Byrne welcomes new EU legislation to control outbreaks New legislation on EU measures to control outbreaks of foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) was adopted by the Council of Agriculture Ministers today.
".....The Directive outlines the measures to be taken in order to prepare for an outbreak. The main new elements are:
• Provisions are made for diagnostic facilities, in particular a Community Reference Laboratory, including a bank for diagnostic reagents, test kits, etc.
• Detailed provisions are laid down for the management of the European antigen bank and for access to this bank by Member States and, where required, third countries. Specific rules are laid down for the confidential treatment of information on the quantities and strains of antigens stored at the bank.
• Emphasis is put on preparation of contingency plans, including the preparation for a "worst case" scenario. Contingency plans have to be regularly updated in the light of the results of alert exercises ..."
(A reminder of the letter on July 7th 2003 to the Veterinary Record by Paul Roger BSc., MSc., BVetMed., DSHP., CertWEL., MRCVS 'coherent and transparent plan still awaited' )

Sept 30 - Oct 6 ~ Dr David Paton says the world needs quicker FMD vaccines

Dr Paton from Pirbright was talking to Anna Hill this morning on Farmiing Today (transcript) . He is one of a group of scientists from Australia, the United Kingdom, the United States and Canada who want to raise $US60 million (£40 million pounds) to develop an improved vaccine for foot and mouth disease. They are calling on United Nations agencies and other international donors for support. Anna Hill remarked that it seemed "an awful lot of money". However, Dr Paton used the figure of the £8 billion cost of the 2001 foot and mouth crisis in the UK to call such the amount of this appeal for funds "a drop in the ocean".
While improvements to the speed and scope of vaccines are always to be welcomed, effective vaccines were available at the time of the UK outbreak and were used the same year in Uruguay. "The successful control and eradication of FMD in South America in 2001" Present vaccines would seem effective when they are allowed to be used and rapid diagnosis tests, available, efficient but not yet "validated" would make control even more effective. Simon Barteling and Paul Sutmoller, in their paper (pdf) "Culling versus vaccination: challenging a dogma in veterinary (FMD) science. wrote "... to our knowledge over the past 15 years there are no examples where after consequent vaccination with a qualified vaccine, disease re-occurred."
Has all the misinformation about vaccination spread in 2001 yet been adequately refuted? Hints received that the UK contingency planning for FMD is not showing improvement are disheartening.

Sept 21 - 27 ~ Mary Marshall writes today (Saturday): " Thank you for drawing attention to the simulation exercises in Wales and Scotland and to my own comments, but I would like the opportunity to clarify my suggestions:

"I believe that it is quite correct, and in fact essential, that the "full details of the exercise [in Wales] will not be fully revealed in order to determine the effectiveness of the systems which would be put in place in relatively authentic circumstances.."However, enough should be reported to enable stakeholders to make informed suggestions to revise the contingency plans.
It is essential that the exercise should include one or more independent emergency management engineers to ensure that there is expertise in management of people and resources under crisis situations. ..... As Martin Hugh-Jones wrote and which you have posted on warmwell (1-7 September): "In this day and age it should be possible to set up a realistic computer based war-game in which the actions taken quantitatively affect, negatively or positively, the outcomes at each stage with suitably built-in time delays. Even with a table top version this should be possible. Unfortunately too often there is a game script that is played out whatever the players do or not do." ". Read letter in full

Sept 21 - 27 ~" full details of the exercise will not be fully revealed in order to determine the effectiveness of the systems which would be put in place in relatively authentic circumstances."

This statement comes in an article on icwales.icnetwork.co.uk, about the FMD exercise in Wales due to take place on September 30. Carwyn Jones is reported as saying, "Effectiveness has to be tested and this exercise will be part of the testing programme."
And will this exercise make use of rapid diagnosis tests and the technology developed since the 2001 outbreak? We are told that the simulation exercise in Scotland in August - astonishingly - was carried out using old technology. As Mary Marshall wrote in August, what is needed is:
" a revised and updated FMD Contingency Plan which takes into account individual electronic animal ID and the use of rapid portable virus diagnostic tests which can and should be linked to an updated GIS database, thus increasing the chances of prompt identification of an index case and allowing for real-time management and enabling useful post-epidemic epidemiological data analysis .....Above all, the creation (which is a requirement in the EU FMD Directive) of "a permanently operational Expert Group ..." Read in full

Sept 21-27 ~The new national scrapie plan scheme announced by Defra has been described as "bad news and bad science"

Farmers Weekly interactive announced yesterday, "The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs announces the go-ahead plans for a National Scrapie Plan Scheme for scrapie-affected flocks http://www.defra.gov.uk/news/2003/030924d.htm "
But there is currently no evidence of naturally occurring BSE in sheep. Scrapie has been present in sheep for many hundreds of years. Selecting for scrapie-resistant genotypes is not necessarily the correct approach to controlling scrapie and certainly cannot be extended to controlling the theoretical risk of BSE in sheep. It would appear that neither DEFRA nor its Government Ministers have learnt anything from the 2001 Foot and Mouth epidemic, in which huge numbers of healthy hefted sheep were slaughtered unnecessarily. Farmers in the North of England say that they were told "You people have got to realize that we do not need your sheep. We can import all the meat we need". This does, if true, explain to some extent the Government's perverse approach
Experts have raised grave objections:
• Dr Alan Dickinson raised the issues of MAFF's insistence on being exclusively in charge during the BSE crisis, feigned "consultation" over MAFF's National Scrapie Plan, and the scientific flaws inherent in such a plan. -in a letter about the ignorance surrounding TSE's
• The Animal Health Bill and the National Scrapie Plan are based on bad and unsafe science - according to this Information document prepared by: Northern Short-Tailed Sheep Group with support from Rare Breeds International Only yesterday, Sabine Zentis of http://www.ela-europe.org/ wrote to this website: " To my great amazement I learn that 8 sheep of "resistant" genotype tested positive for TSE in a survey ..... A few months ago a two year old sheep in Germany was found to be positive for scrapie and it later turned out to be of the "resistant" genotype." (her letter in full)

Sept 21 -27 2003 ~ TB outbreak on Anglesey - no badgers, enclosed herd, farm was given the all-clear 11 months ago - more slaughter of breeding stock

Daily Post "....Vets will slaughter 20 of his cattle in a final check for the bacteria....
Mystery surrounds the outbreak, which occurred on a farm that runs an enclosed herd, is free of badgers, and was tested for bovine TB just 11 months ago.
Tests on 160 cattle have revealed 20 positive "reactors" but the outbreak will not be officially confirmed until the animals have been slaughtered and investigated...."
Scientific tests to establish the cause of bovine TB are not due to start until next year, and tests on cattle have been cut back.

Sept 21 - 27 ~ "The arguments against vaccination, based on the assumption that vaccinated animals can become infected without showing signs of the disease, are spurious..."

Professor Fred Brown's paper "The history of Research in foot and mouth disease" (from Pages 3-7 of Virus Research Volume 91, Issue 1) is now in the public domain. See technical page on warmwell.

Sept 21 -27 ~ The 2001 foot and mouth disease epidemic in the United Kingdom: animal welfare perspectives

(See technical page) Also now available freely on the internet is the OIE paper from S.M. Crispin, P.A. Roger, H. O'Hare & S.H. Binns The 2001 foot and mouth disease epidemic in the United Kingdom: animal welfare perspectives which can be accessed in full.
Extract: "An ethical, socially integrated and acceptable policy for the control of infectious disease in food-producing animals needs to be developed (14, 29, 30). A consensual approach and communication between stakeholders are key factors, so that all sectors of the community understand and accept the rationale behind the measures outlined. The report of the Royal Society on infectious diseases in livestock recommended that 'better contingency planning is vital' (30)
To be effective, contingency plans need to be prepared, widely available, kept up-to-date and practised regularly, so that in the eventuality (or inevitability) of FMD occurring, a well-understood strategy can be implemented rapidly. Most importantly, one of the lessons to be learned from the 2001 FMD epidemic is that animal welfare must be built into new policies and procedures: 'a balance must be struck between disease control and welfare but welfare must not be set aside, even in an emergency' (13).
This conclusion in the paper reminds us of the letter to The Veterinary Record 7th July 2003 by Paul Roger BSc., MSc., BVetMed., DSHP., CertWEL., MRCVS in which he said, "...A coherent and transparent plan for dealing with the next outbreak of FMD to occur in this country is still awaited..."

Sept 21 - 27 ~ Sheep at centre of BSE scare

Sabine Zentis of http://www.ela-europe.org/ writes, " To my great amazement I learn that 8 sheep of "resistant" genotype tested positive for TSE in a survey and that this should have created a scare.
A few months ago a two year old sheep in Germany was found to be positive for scrapie and it later turned out to be of the "resistant" genotype.
This finding was confirmed by the German authorities. So no news at all. I wonder why sheep breeders throughout the EU accept the various schemes of breeding for a phantom resistance permitting the destruction of valuable bloodlines, the loss of diversity and a deterioration of the genetic variations within sheep breeds. From the start the project was based on assumptions, theories and not on sound science...." (Read in full)

Sept 21 - 27 ~ The FMD question is still going on

- for update see Veterinary Practice report on RC Open Day "......Mr Mike Nelson had written regarding clarification of the cases considered by the Preliminary Investigations Committee about FMD expressing his concern about the perceived lack of progress. He was invited to make his point to the meeting. He drew attention to the resignation from both the Council and the College by Mr Roger Windsor over FMD issues and was of the opinion that there were others who held the same views.
The President said that there had been thiry-eight complaints..."
(Professor Robert May) "warned against relying upon mathematical models and computer generated information as opposed to using common sense..."
A reminder of the contribution made by Roger Windsor MBE. MA. BSc. BVM&S. MRCVS to the Royal Society (Edinburgh) Inquiry

Sept 21 - 27 ~ "the banning of Canadian beef might have had a lot more to do with protectionism than health concerns"

writes the journalist Peter Foster of the National Post in Canada "...vCJD. This disease, which hits young people, has been assumed to be linked to eating infected meat; indeed, it is regularly referred to in the media as the "human version of mad cow disease." This is the stated opinion of the British government, which has been most affected by both BSE and the vCJD scare. Concern over BSE led to the slaughter of some five million British cattle and cost the industry billions. However, there have not merely been doubts cast on the BSE/vCJD link, but suggestions the British government doesn't want to hear them because it is so locked into the molecular "prion" theory attributed to Nobel prize winner Stanley Prusiner. However, not merely have vegetarians come down with the disease, but the number of cases of vCJD in the U.K. is not escalating, as "experts" suggested, but declining. A fascinating recent article in the Times of London noted that an Australian scientist named Alan Ebringer had posited an alternative theory that vCJD is in fact a microbe-based autoimmune disease somewhat like multiple sclerosis. However, the British government withdrew his research grant...." See also warmwell's page on BSE

Sept 21-27 ~ The chairman of the GM Debate Steering Board, Professor Malcolm Grant, told the BBC the overwhelming response to GM was one of "concern and scepticism".

BBC " More than half of Britons who took part in a nationwide debate on genetically modified crops said they should never be introduced under any circumstances. An official report (access pdf file here in new window) on the results of 600 meetings held in June and July around the country reflects widespread doubts about the benefits of GM technology. The GM Nation? report says the public mood on GM "ranged from caution and doubt, through suspicion and scepticism, to hostility and rejection". Only 2% said they would be happy to eat GM foods. The government has promised to consider the 40,000 public responses before deciding whether to go ahead with commercial GM crops....The report is likely to create a dilemma for the government and make awkward reading for biotechnology companies seeking to sell their GM seeds to British farmers. Friends of the Earth says a number of key ministers are known to favour GM commercialisation "
GM page
(The government is due to release its report on the FSEs on 16 October)

Sept 21 - 27 ~ Canada, the U.S. and Mexico want an international group overseeing animal health issues.

In their letter to the 164-nation OIE, the North American officials call for a uniform system to deal with future BSE cases that would encourage full participation in testing and reporting the disease.
From DowJones Newswires
"We're asking them to make much more visible to countries the fact that these standards exist, they have been endorsed by the scientific community, and they should be used to formulate trade policy," said Brian Evans, chief veterinary officer for the Canadian Food Inspection Agency. ..... Despite an extensive investigation of Canada's lone case that found no other stricken animals, most of the bans on Canadian beef products and cattle remain in place almost four months later. ..... Evans said the problem is that most countries continue to react to BSE with "the same level of fear and paranoia" as when the disease broke out in Europe and Asia more than a decade ago. "We've come a long way since then," he said, noting that research shows the illness doesn't appear in animals under 30 months old or spread to many muscle cuts of beef. .."
(Alberta's Premier, Ralph Klein,famously told a meeting with U.S. officials this week that any "self-respecting rancher would have shot, shoveled and shut up" when faced with a sick cow. )

Sept 21-27 ~ What input will UK stakeholders have into this important dialogue?

Mary Marshall Animal Health Policy Coordinator European Livestock Alliance asks: "What input will UK stakeholders have into this important dialogue?"
August 28 (extract) "..absence of information.....Only the official delegate, the CVO (or the national equivalent, as in the US it is the Deputy Administrator of Veterinary Services, APHIS) can report to the OIE, .... Consequently, input into the decision making process of OIE depends on each country having a CVO who informs and consults with stakeholders. This is particularly significant when objections to change can easily outweigh the lack of response from those approving change, when such a lack of response may have been the result of failure to consult with stakeholders." (Read her open letter, "FMD legal issues - some comments and suggestions" in full)

Sept 21 - 27 ~ more chemicals are used to grow food in Britain than in any other major industrialised country

said the Environmental Performance Reviews - United Kingdom, Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development 2002. (Guardian report)
A prominent pesticide campaigner, Georgina Downs , is trying to get the government to tighten up the regulation of pesticides. The deadline for the first Consultation on Greater Access to Information about Crop-spraying has been extended to the 30th September and Ms Downs urges people to make their concerns known to DEFRA. The Consultation Documents are also available online at: http://www.pesticides.gov.uk/applicant/aahip/aahl0320.htm The DEFRA News Release and Consultation links are at: www.defra.gov.uk/news/2003/030721a.htm
PAN UK's Action on Pesticide Exposure (PEX) website questionnaire on Your Right to Know includes:
5. Some officials involved in the registration of pesticides and the monitoring of pesticide-related ill-health may have commercial interests in the agrochemical industry (ie. companies that produce pesticides). Do you believe the government should be obliged to disclose these interests?

Sept 21 -27 2003 ~ TB outbreak on Anglesey - no badgers, enclosed herd, farm was given the all-clear 11 months ago - more slaughter of breeding stock

Daily Post "....Vets will slaughter 20 of his cattle in a final check for the bacteria....
Mystery surrounds the outbreak, which occurred on a farm that runs an enclosed herd, is free of badgers, and was tested for bovine TB just 11 months ago.
Tests on 160 cattle have revealed 20 positive "reactors" but the outbreak will not be officially confirmed until the animals have been slaughtered and investigated...."
Scientific tests to establish the cause of bovine TB are not due to start until next year, and tests on cattle have been cut back.

Sept 21 - 27 ~ "The arguments against vaccination, based on the assumption that vaccinated animals can become infected without showing signs of the disease, are spurious..."

Professor Fred Brown's paper "The history of Research in foot and mouth disease" (from Pages 3-7 of Virus Research Volume 91, Issue 1) is now in the public domain. See technical page on warmwell.

Sept 21 -27 ~ The 2001 foot and mouth disease epidemic in the United Kingdom: animal welfare perspectives

(See technical page) Also now available freely on the internet is the OIE paper from S.M. Crispin, P.A. Roger, H. O’Hare & S.H. Binns The 2001 foot and mouth disease epidemic in the United Kingdom: animal welfare perspectives which can be accessed in full.
Extract: "An ethical, socially integrated and acceptable policy for the control of infectious disease in food-producing animals needs to be developed (14, 29, 30). A consensual approach and communication between stakeholders are key factors, so that all sectors of the community understand and accept the rationale behind the measures outlined. The report of the Royal Society on infectious diseases in livestock recommended that ‘better contingency planning is vital’ (30)
To be effective, contingency plans need to be prepared, widely available, kept up-to-date and practised regularly, so that in the eventuality (or inevitability) of FMD occurring, a well-understood strategy can be implemented rapidly. Most importantly, one of the lessons to be learned from the 2001 FMD epidemic is that animal welfare must be built into new policies and procedures: ‘a balance must be struck between disease control and welfare but welfare must not be set aside, even in an emergency’ (13).
This conclusion in the paper reminds us of the letter to The Veterinary Record 7th July 2003 by Paul Roger BSc., MSc., BVetMed., DSHP., CertWEL., MRCVS in which he said, "...A coherent and transparent plan for dealing with the next outbreak of FMD to occur in this country is still awaited..."

Sept 21 - 27 ~ Sheep at centre of BSE scare

Sabine Zentis of http://www.ela-europe.org/ writes, " To my great amazement I learn that 8 sheep of "resistant" genotype tested positive for TSE in a survey and that this should have created a scare.
A few months ago a two year old sheep in Germany was found to be positive for scrapie and it later turned out to be of the "resistant" genotype.
This finding was confirmed by the German authorities. So no news at all. I wonder why sheep breeders throughout the EU accept the various schemes of breeding for a phantom resistance permitting the destruction of valuable bloodlines, the loss of diversity and a deterioration of the genetic variations within sheep breeds. From the start the project was based on assumptions, theories and not on sound science...." (Read in full)

Sept 21 - 27 ~ The FMD question is still going on

- for update see Veterinary Practice report on RC Open Day "......Mr Mike Nelson had written regarding clarification of the cases considered by the Preliminary Investigations Committee about FMD expressing his concern about the perceived lack of progress. He was invited to make his point to the meeting. He drew attention to the resignation from both the Council and the College by Mr Roger Windsor over FMD issues and was of the opinion that there were others who held the same views.
The President said that there had been thiry-eight complaints..."
(Professor Robert May) "warned against relying upon mathematical models and computer generated information as opposed to using common sense..."
A reminder of the contribution made by Roger Windsor MBE. MA. BSc. BVM&S. MRCVS to the Royal Society (Edinburgh) Inquiry

Sept 21 - 27 ~ "the banning of Canadian beef might have had a lot more to do with protectionism than health concerns"

writes the journalist Peter Foster of the National Post in Canada "...vCJD. This disease, which hits young people, has been assumed to be linked to eating infected meat; indeed, it is regularly referred to in the media as the "human version of mad cow disease." This is the stated opinion of the British government, which has been most affected by both BSE and the vCJD scare. Concern over BSE led to the slaughter of some five million British cattle and cost the industry billions. However, there have not merely been doubts cast on the BSE/vCJD link, but suggestions the British government doesn't want to hear them because it is so locked into the molecular "prion" theory attributed to Nobel prize winner Stanley Prusiner. However, not merely have vegetarians come down with the disease, but the number of cases of vCJD in the U.K. is not escalating, as "experts" suggested, but declining. A fascinating recent article in the Times of London noted that an Australian scientist named Alan Ebringer had posited an alternative theory that vCJD is in fact a microbe-based autoimmune disease somewhat like multiple sclerosis. However, the British government withdrew his research grant...." See also warmwell's page on BSE

Sept 21-27 ~ The chairman of the GM Debate Steering Board, Professor Malcolm Grant, told the BBC the overwhelming response to GM was one of "concern and scepticism".

BBC " More than half of Britons who took part in a nationwide debate on genetically modified crops said they should never be introduced under any circumstances. An official report (access pdf file here in new window) on the results of 600 meetings held in June and July around the country reflects widespread doubts about the benefits of GM technology. The GM Nation? report says the public mood on GM "ranged from caution and doubt, through suspicion and scepticism, to hostility and rejection". Only 2% said they would be happy to eat GM foods. The government has promised to consider the 40,000 public responses before deciding whether to go ahead with commercial GM crops....The report is likely to create a dilemma for the government and make awkward reading for biotechnology companies seeking to sell their GM seeds to British farmers. Friends of the Earth says a number of key ministers are known to favour GM commercialisation "
GM page
(The government is due to release its report on the FSEs on 16 October)

Sept 21 - 27 ~ Canada, the U.S. and Mexico want an international group overseeing animal health issues.

In their letter to the 164-nation OIE, the North American officials call for a uniform system to deal with future BSE cases that would encourage full participation in testing and reporting the disease.
From DowJones Newswires
"We're asking them to make much more visible to countries the fact that these standards exist, they have been endorsed by the scientific community, and they should be used to formulate trade policy," said Brian Evans, chief veterinary officer for the Canadian Food Inspection Agency. ..... Despite an extensive investigation of Canada's lone case that found no other stricken animals, most of the bans on Canadian beef products and cattle remain in place almost four months later. ..... Evans said the problem is that most countries continue to react to BSE with "the same level of fear and paranoia" as when the disease broke out in Europe and Asia more than a decade ago. "We've come a long way since then," he said, noting that research shows the illness doesn't appear in animals under 30 months old or spread to many muscle cuts of beef. .."
(Alberta's Premier, Ralph Klein,famously told a meeting with U.S. officials this week that any "self-respecting rancher would have shot, shoveled and shut up" when faced with a sick cow. )

Sept 21-27 ~ What input will UK stakeholders have into this important dialogue?

Mary Marshall Animal Health Policy Coordinator European Livestock Alliance asks: "What input will UK stakeholders have into this important dialogue?"
August 28 (extract) "..absence of information.....Only the official delegate, the CVO (or the national equivalent, as in the US it is the Deputy Administrator of Veterinary Services, APHIS) can report to the OIE, .... Consequently, input into the decision making process of OIE depends on each country having a CVO who informs and consults with stakeholders. This is particularly significant when objections to change can easily outweigh the lack of response from those approving change, when such a lack of response may have been the result of failure to consult with stakeholders." (Read her open letter, "FMD legal issues - some comments and suggestions" in full)

Sept 21 - 27 ~ more chemicals are used to grow food in Britain than in any other major industrialised country

said the Environmental Performance Reviews - United Kingdom, Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development 2002. (Guardian report)
A prominent pesticide campaigner, Georgina Downs , is trying to get the government to tighten up the regulation of pesticides. The deadline for the first Consultation on Greater Access to Information about Crop-spraying has been extended to the 30th September and Ms Downs urges people to make their concerns known to DEFRA. The Consultation Documents are also available online at: http://www.pesticides.gov.uk/applicant/aahip/aahl0320.htm The DEFRA News Release and Consultation links are at: www.defra.gov.uk/news/2003/030721a.htm
PAN UK’s Action on Pesticide Exposure (PEX) website questionnaire on Your Right to Know includes:
5. Some officials involved in the registration of pesticides and the monitoring of pesticide-related ill-health may have commercial interests in the agrochemical industry (ie. companies that produce pesticides). Do you believe the government should be obliged to disclose these interests?

Sept 21- 27 ~" farmers in the six counties of England's eastern region consume more than a quarter of agricultural subsidies in Britain - more than £540m annually."

The revelation that they rake in so much from the £2bn-plus in direct agricultural subsidy each year will further strengthen the resolve of Gordon Brown to press for "root and branch" reform of the EU's lavish common agricultural policy, or CAP. After the collapse of global trade talks in Cancun eight days ago, the chancellor is pressing for a speedy resumption of negotiations and a commitment from western leaders to break down trade barriers which penalise the poorest countries. .." Guardian

Sept 21- 27 ~ The Royal Society's refusal to publish the GM crop trials overview paper likely to "arouse suspicions" about the society's motives.

Also revealed today is the leaked exchange of ministerial letters which demonstrate that ministers will support Brussels moves to ban GM-free zones and allow the "co-existence" of GM with conventional crops. See GM page

Sept 21- 27 ~ "Foot-and-mouth ran wild, GM is used ineptly and we can't trust meat."

"...if humanity really cares about humanity we need to grasp the nettle -- to acknowledge that the present generation of "experts" and leaders have got it all horribly wrong. We (meaning all of us) have got to re-think agriculture from first principles -- ask what it is, and what we really want from it, and how to get the world back on course."
The Sunday Herald publishes an essay adapted from the new book by Colin Tudge So Shall We Reap, published by Penguin on September 25. It reveals "why farming is killing us … and our only hope"
See also warmwell's entry for December 13 2001

Sept 21- 27 ~ Sheep tags - "the regulation merely takes a previous version referring to cattle, changing "bovine" to "ovine" throughout"

Booker's Notebook (Sunday Telegraph) "As any farmer would immediately recognise, this proposal is insane"
"....Defra had costed up Sanco's proposal. Allowing three minutes for each tagging or check on a number, with labour costs of £12 an hour, Defra calculated that the basic cost of the scheme to the average UK sheep farmer would be between £13,000 and £16,000 a year. Sheep farmers' current annual incomes average £11,136. There are 67 million sheep movements a year, so copying the digits would take 3.35 million hours, totalling £40 million. Replacing lost tags would cost another £14 million. Adding further costs, such as on-farm record-keeping (£8 million), and Defra's figures show that scarcely a sheep farmer in Britain could stay in business.
Yet when Mr Parish and his fellow MEPs on the European Parliament's agriculture committee recently quizzed no fewer than eight of Mr Byrne's officials on what they thought they were doing, it was clear the officials knew nothing about sheep (the regulation merely takes a previous version referring to cattle, changing "bovine" to "ovine" throughout). It was equally clear that the officials had no intention of changing a regulation that will make sheep farming virtually impossible...."
read in full

Sept 21 - 27 ~ The Daily Mail hypes fears of sheep slaughter

Several worried emails on Saturday 20 Sept refer to the article in the Daily Mail, "BSE : Could it be in Sheep?" The article cites the tests, carried out two years ago, which found that 52 samples out of nearly 30,000 showed signs of scrapie..and adds the entirely speculative view, based on nothing more than guesswork of a dubious kind, that the follow-up tests that came back positive on 24 of them might suggest the presence of BSE.
We mentioned this story on September 12th and subsequently published the expert opinion of Dr Martin Hugh-Jones. He said, of similar reports in the press, that they were, "so journalistically confused that we decided to just let it ride until harder information was released." Reassuringly, he added
"Until there is hard evidence that BSE is occurring in UK sheep --- i.e. in privately owned flocks, not just at various research institutes --- I think such reports should be watched with interest but not concern."
(Read whole message)
Some journalists seem to delight in hyping up fears of mass slaughter without giving the real picture and without ever questionning the unproved notion that eating BSE infected meat ever caused vCJD. See also the Independent and the warmwell inbox

Sept 14 - 20 ~ "Alternative views on cause and control have been side-lined."

John Turner, dairy farmer & Board Member of the organisation FARM, has written to Secretary of State for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, Margaret Beckett, asking her to initiate an urgent review into how and to what ends publicly-funded science is directed in agriculture. Read letter in full
".... it is our view that there is a need for a new, demonstrably independent, overarching science body to replace the existing Biotechnology & Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC). "
Mr Turner writes, "......... the failure of science to respond proportionately to the needs of agriculture and to map out a course for progress that meets the common objectives of farmers and consumers alike. In the livestock sectors of farming we have witnessed draconian measures taken by the government to control the spread of Foot and Mouth disease. Many would argue that there have been similarly disproportionate and controversial measures in response to the incidence of BSE in cattle and that of Salmonella in Chickens. Alternative views on cause and control have been side-lined. It is likely that the Government will also resort to methods for controlling the spread of TB that are more typical of the 18th century than the 21st....we believe that it is time for a review of the objectives of research, how they are prioritised and of greatest importance, to ensure that they are aligned with the expectations of those footing the bill - the public. "
See also GM page

Sept 14 - 20 ~ "...the biotech industry has turned to a more subtle public relations drive to gain European acceptance of GM."

"....They have begun using "the poverty card," suggesting that Europe's resistance "impedes the global use of a technology that could be of great benefit to farmers and consumers around the world."
From the report by Aaron deGrassi of the Institute of Development Studies, at the University of Sussex, UK, on whether GM crops are addressing the real causes of poverty and hunger in Africa: Genetically Modified Crops and Sustainable Poverty Alleviation in Sub-Saharan Africa. (pdf file - external link) The very readable report deliberately avoids spelling out policy recommendations but does conclude that poor farmers should have influence over technologies and policies and also over how agricultural policies are formulated, interpreted, implemented and enforced - a principle relevant to small farmers everywhere. As deGrassi says elsewhere (http://www.grain.org/seedling/seed-03-07-4-en.cfm), "Farmers need to be returned to centre-stage to re-assume their central role as custodians of the world’s agricultural resources and the directors of research and innovation"
See also GM page

Sept 14 - 20 ~ the theoretical risk of scrapie obscuring hypothetical BSE....

Many readers have been alarmed by reports in the Guardian (below) and The Scotsman about contingency plans that include the killing of the entire UK sheep flock.
Luckily, following our pleas for expert opinion, we have heard from Dr Martin Hugh-Jones (Professor of Epidemiology and Public Health Director, WHO Collaborating Center for Remote Sensing and Geographic Information Systems for Public Health) that things are not quite what these newspapers are suggesting. He writes, "....Until there is hard evidence that BSE is occurring in UK sheep --- i.e. in privately owned flocks, not just at various research institutes --- I think such reports should be watched with interest but not concern...... In this instance 30,000 sheep were screened with a yield of a possible 24 with both tests positive, assuming that the second test is reliable. This is less than 1 in 1000 sheep whether they are seeing scrapie or BSE. If the scrapie prevalence is 0.33% (as reported here) one would expect all or most of these 24 positives to be scrapie. ....." (Read in full)

Sept 14 - 20 ~ live animal test for the detection of TSE

Up to now, the current method involves severing the animal's head from its body and shipping it to state laboratories.
http://www.genethera.net/news/index.html Dr. Antonio Milici, CEO of GeneThera, Inc.: "This is just the tip of the iceberg for us, with this technology, we can now move quickly into testing and therapeutic vaccination for many related diseases such as, Mad Cow Disease, E. coli 0157: H7, Foot and Mouth Disease, and others."
"Our ability to study these animals without slaughtering them is invaluable to helping us learn more about this disease. We are in the process of developing a vaccination for CWD thus eliminating the need for mass slaughters of these animals. Being able to monitor the herds without slaughtering them will progress our study."
GeneThera's scientists utilized the very sensitive and accurate Fluorogenic PCR technology and a very precise mathematical method to analyze the data.

Sept 7 - 13 ~ The government is reviewing contingency plans for a sheep catastrophe, long recognised as a theoretical risk.

A report in the Guardian (Friday) concerns yet again the vexed question of the theoretical risk of "BSE in sheep". In spite of failures to detect BSE occurring naturally in sheep, we read that
"contingency plans ....are believed to include changing the way sheep meat is prepared for food, culling infected animals and other possible contacts, and, in the most drastic resort, destroying virtually the whole national flock of 36m animals."
Apparently the EU is insisting on more tests on sheep in abattoirs:
"material from sheep brains collected from abattoirs has been screened by a rapid test which can be completed overnight. However, this Biorad test has only been formally approved by the EU for tests on cattle, not for sheep."
Positive results have to be rechecked with a laboratory test. It seems that Sir John Krebs is puzzled that
"52 rapid test results which suggests the presence of scrapie or similar disease were double-checked. In 28 of these extra tests there was no sign of any problem at all.." and is now speculating that "it could be a different TSE, possibly even BSE, detected by the Biorad test and not by testing."
We should very much appreciate some expert comment about the scientific grounds justifying a contingency plan that involves the possible killing of the entire UK sheep flock.

Sept 7-13 ~"The agent in question is a genetically modified virus designed to replicate and spread. It is a new, man-made disease"

Part of Designer diseases , an article from the New Scientist that examines both the potential benefits and potential disasters of using transmissible GMOs.
"Once released, they will be as hard to control as any other wildlife disease. Like natural diseases, they could be accidentally or deliberately taken to other countries. They could mutate or recombine with other viruses. They could jump species. The consequences could be disastrous.
. "You can't assume that the modified virus will act like the parental strain," warns Adrian Gibbs, an expert on viral evolution formerly at the Australian National University in Canberra.
So far PAC-CRC has shown only that the mouse GMO does not infect rats, and that three species of native rodents are immune to the unmodified virus. It is gearing up to conduct safety experiments that will test the virus's ability to infect a wide range of species, including some rare mouse species in the US. The ultimate experiment will be releasing the virus. If it turns out that PAC-CRC has got it wrong, there may be little anyone can do about it." New Scientist website is at http://www.newscientist.com

Sept 7 - 13 ~ Bluetongue is heading north across Europe

NB there is a new report, with moderator's comments (Archive Number 20030910.2279 Published Date 10-SEP-2003 Subject Bluetongue, sheep - Europe: alert "This will continue to affect trade agreements; USA-animal exports were banned because of non-pathogenic BT. Clearly there is a need for better coordinated surveillance throughout Europe and especially in those countries presently without BT. J. Anderson at the the Animal Health Institute at Pirbright developed a good diagnostic test based on monoclonal antibodies, reliable for detecting specific antibodies against all serotypes..." )
Reuters report ( also picked up by the BBC.) Dr Philip Mellor, of the Institute for Animal Health, said that once the disease got into a flock up to 70% of the animals could die. He told the British Association annual science festival that the virus exists around the world in a very broad band from about 40 degrees north to about 35 degrees south. "But in the last five years we've had outbreaks in Europe which have been spreading up to 44 degrees north ...."
Midge species that are now able to exist further north are picking up and spreading the virus.

Sept 7 - 13 ~ Zimbabwe mass cull of buffalo "futile and bizarre"

Independent on Monday "...Zimbabwe is culling thousands of buffalo to "contain" foot-and-mouth disease in a move that has sparked protests and been described as "futile and bizarre"...."
Meanwhile, in Argentina, now that FMD has been confirmed in the province of Salta, slaughter of the animals and their contacts will take place. Even though the area has low livestock density and is farmed by subsistence producers and where the meat is destined for local consumption only, this slaughter must take place in order to comply with the regulations issued by the OIE so that the area may recover its status of 'zone free of foot and mouth disease with vaccination' within 180 days
There is no animal movement to other areas of the country, and no properties are registered for slaughter and export to foreign markets.

Sept 7 - 13 ~ "Defra given carte blanche to kill" - Booker's Notebook

The work of the two Cardiff professors (see science/technical page) is the subject of part of Christopher Booker's column in the Sunday Telegraph today
"Two law professors, in a trenchant paper in one of Britain's most respected law journals, confirm what was often reported in this column during the 2001 foot and mouth epidemic: the "pre-emptive cull" under which eight million healthy animals were slaughtered was wholly illegal. Prof David Campbell and Prof Robert Lee, of Cardiff University, show in their paper, "The Power to Panic" (reproduced on www.warmwell. com), in Public Law, why the cull policy constituted perhaps the greatest criminal act ever perpetrated by a British government....
.....When the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) joined the case, Mr Scudamore told the Court of Appeal that 140 sheep on the Beacons showed "clinical disease", indicating "a heavy weight of infection". When, however, Miss Hughes produced test results showing that only "one antibody" had been found, this evidence was ruled inadmissible. After spending her life savings on the case, she was pursued by Defra for £17,000 legal costs, and in January this year bailiffs arrived to seize all her property, including toys belonging to her 12-year-old son. After months of stand-off, Defra has agreed to drop its claim in return for £4,000, which was sent to Miss Hughes by wellwishers from all over the country, including readers of this column. In their meticulously-documented paper, Prof Lee and Prof Campbell confirm that her reading of the law was correct, as implicitly did the Government in bulldozing through the Animal Health Act 2002 giving it the powers it did not have in 2001...."
( Read column in full) The Janet Hughes story on warmwell.

Sept 1 -7 ~ "It is bewildering from a legal point of view that people can have their livelihoods just taken away from them"

More comment about the Cardiff professors' paper, "Carnage by Computer: The Blackboard Economics of the 2001 Foot and Mouth Epidemic" from the Westmorland Gazette. "a policy which worked perfectly in abstract on a computer screen in London but failed when applied on the ground hundreds of miles away."
"The report argues that during the cull the former Ministry of Agriculture Fisheries and Food (Maff) descended into "criminal authoritarianism" and exceeded its own powers to implement a policy "so lacking in merit that it could not have been implemented by rational persuasion." See News page.

Sept 1-7 ~"... their final farcical solution on these poor creatures?"

In Wisconsin, authorities aim to cull the entire deer population. The September 4 article in Nature Chronic wasting disease spreads with ease quotes Mark Woolhouse, ( a close colleague of Roy Anderson), who says " It's an unfortunate argument in favour of stamping out the whole herd." (sic) The assumption that an "infectious" protein spreads the disease is not questioned in the Nature article. "Infection is thought to spread in urine, saliva or faeces, via routes such as shared scratching posts or contaminated grazing land."
A year ago, Mark Purdey wrote,
".... the US government has sadly adopted the same unproven hypothetical mindset on the origins of these diseases; that TSEs stem from exposure to hyper infectious 'prions' that are readily transmitted via body to body contact (saliva, etc), or via 'prion' contaminated feed. ." "..Straightforward copper supplementation of deer in CWD risk areas may be all that is required to prevent manganese replacing the depleted copper at the critical prion protein bonding sites in the deer's brain." .."who is questioning the scientific reasoning of the US authorities for executing their final farcical solution on these poor creatures?" Full article
Mark Purdey, at last gaining the respect of scientists world wide for his meticulous self-funded research, would understand entirely why stamping out the herd could not eradicate the disease. His study into TSEs has led him to ask: Infrasonic shock waves, high manganese, low copper; what's the connection with CWD ?
" ...it was of no surprise when I heard the recent news that CWD had now been identified in deer living around Mt Horeb in Wisconsin ....My field survey and analyses revealed low copper throughout the deer's food chain, in combination with ... local deer consuming large quantities of pine needles -- which analysed out at 2000 + ppm of available manganese... Intriguingly, the CWD endemic region of Colorado is also well noted for its high intensities of natural radiations of low frequency infrasound. ...."
See more on Mark Purdey's research Last month, the Pro-Med moderator said of CWD "...there remain more questions than answers regarding this disease."

Sept 1-7 ~ " toxin levels are assessed via an unpleasant technique known as the Mouse Bioassay Test..."

The Independent (Saturday) on the " strange sequence of events" stemming from "bans imposed by the Food Standards Agency (FSA) on many English and Welsh cockle beds following the alleged detection of dangerous levels of toxins in the shellfish. "
"Our industry has been brought to its knees by the total incompetence of the FSA and the laboratory it employs" ...Samples that were repeatedly declared positive by Cefas produced negative results when sent to laboratories in Holland, Sweden, France and Spain, and to the National Reference Laboratory. ... the cocklemen insist that the test was simply done wrongly by the Cefas laboratory. They claim that inadequate testing procedures produced atypical results. Ratley's company(Kershaw's Quality Foods, which was forced to lay off 50 employees at cockle-processing plants in South Wales and the Thames estuary) has instituted a judicial review of the FSA and other authorities which imposed the ban. "It caused absolute disaster within the industry and the cost will run into millions of pounds," he says. "The whole of the industry will be seeking compensation."

Sept 1 - 7 ~ "There are fears that meat from lambs reared on 300 farms in Wales could be contaminated as some farmers may be illegally dipping their sheep in chemicals normally used on crops. "

The BBC reports today "The government's Veterinary Medicines Directorate (VMD) has begun an investigation"
" The pesticide in question - a form of the chemical Cypermethrin - is up to six times cheaper than approved ones but has never been tested for use on animals and is thought to damage health if people are exposed to excessive amounts. Added to that, the Environment Agency says it is also thought the chemical is being dumped in rivers, killing insects and starving the fish which feed on them.........John Thorley, chief executive of the National Sheep Association said he was very concerned. "We've started to develop a good name as an industry and this sort of thing is extremely inappropriate." ...."
Cypermethrin

ki

Sept 1 -7 ~ Suspected FMD in Argentina. Immediate measures taken - no pre-emptive slaughter.

Report from Pro-Med can be read here. ( Archive Number20030903.2215 Published Date03-SEP-2003 SubjectPRO/AH> Foot & mouth disease - Argentina (Salta): susp (02))

Sept 1 - 7 ~ " senior veterinary staff must be in charge"

After the departure of Jim Scudamore, will the new CVO take heed of the recommendations of Angus M Taylor MRCVS to the Royal Society Inquiry? The past president of the BVA ( British Veterinary Association) and Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons made a lengthy submission to the RS Inquiry.
Summary :
1. Increase veterinary field staff to pre-Le Brecht levels.
2. Train staff in Foot & Mouth Disease diagnosis.
3. Small centres increase efficiency and control but senior veterinary staff must be in charge.
4. There are now at least 90 Assistant Secretaries in DEFRA. When the SVS was enlarged in 1938, there were only 8 in the Ministry of Agriculture.
5. DEFRA has now expanded at Headquarters with three new posts: Director General of Food and Agriculture (Le Brecht), Director General of Operations (Addison) and the Chief Veterinary Officer is now Director General of Animal Health. The increase in staff should be in the field and not in creating more bureaucrats at Headquarters.
6. EU Directives appear to have an inhibiting effect on rapid diagnosis and efficient action when disease outbreaks occur and should be reviewed

Sept 1 - 7 ~ in January 1999 the Drummond report had recommended five areas of improvement for the State Veterinary Field Service to improve its state of readiness in the event of an outbreak of disease such as foot and mouth

Training - Contingency Planning - Infected Premises Work - Use of IT in Outbreak Control - Staffing and Direction
In each case, Richard Drummond suggested the formation of working groups to take matters forward - and nothing happened. The CVO took no action. Stark warnings were made in the Drummond Report. It predicts virtually every disaster that befell the Government in the early weeks of the FMD crisis of 2001.

Sept 1 - 7 ~"rigid and inflexible approach from the centre which caused months of unnecessary anguish."

"Dr Scudamore came under pressure to quit when inquiries into the handling of the disaster revealed that he had failed to implement fully an internal report warning that the State Veterinary Service would quickly become "overwhelmed" in the event of a major disease outbreak. .. "Particularly during the foot and mouth crisis there was a terrible atmosphere of distrust and hostility caused by the intransigence of people in Whitehall, of which he was a senior part, who refused to accept the advice of the people at the sharp end. ....We were getting this very rigid and inflexible approach from the centre which caused months of unnecessary anguish. ......" See news page
See also the Drummond Report
This reference to the LeBrecht report (a report in 1994 which resulted in swingeing cuts to the SVS) shows that the Chief Veterinary Officer at the time (Mr Keith Meldrum, James Scudamore's predecessor) warned the Permanent Secretary that if these SVS staff cuts recommended in the LeBrecht report went ahead, it would be impossible for the UK to handle an extensive outbreak of disease.

Sept 1 - 7 ~ The power to panic: the Animal Health Act 2002

The revised paper by Professor David Campbell and Professor Robert Lee may now be accessed from the Technical/Scientific pages of warmwell. This paper was first published as an analysis piece in the Autumn 2003 issue of Public Law, [2003] P.L. 382
Extract: "Executive contempt for Parliament is such common contemporary currency that one would hardly dare trouble the readers of this journal by seeking to bring another example of it to their attention. However, the Animal Health Act 2002 ("2002 Act") displays "an aura of arrogance" in the way it persists with a discredited policy that will be found striking even by this case-hardened readership. During the foot and mouth disease (FMD) epidemic of 2001, the government engaged in ultra vires action on a huge scale, for it had no power to slaughter perhaps the majority of the 7 million animals it nevertheless did slaughter in the course of the "contiguous cull" which became the core of its disease control policy......"

Sept 1 - 7 ~ "It is patently clear that GIS and handheld wireless computers are the way we all should be moving...too often there is a game script that is played out whatever the players do or not do."

On the question of FMD simulation "war games" currently taking place in Scotland, Martin Hugh-Jones writes:
"Little I can add that hasn't been said before. It is patently clear that GIS and handheld wireless computers are the way we all should be moving, with the data held in omni-available but secure databases.
War games are run at various levels. The ones in Washington have too often been run at the highest levels to confirm that each agency is in communication with every other agency within the beltway. Rather like the ancient gods in the heavens talking to each other and ignoring what is going on way down on the plain among the peasants.
In this day and age it should be possible to set up a realistic computer based war-game in which the actions taken quantitatively affect, negatively or positively, the outcomes at each stage with suitably built-in time delays. Even with a table top version this should be possible. Unfortunately too often there is a game script that is played out whatever the players do or not do.
LP Smith used to construct a very simple downwind search strategy for the FMD wargames played in the early 1970s which utilised historic outbreaks. Fortunately, or unfortunately, those old outbreaks were usually modest and involved only a dozen or so farms. Ten years later Bracknell built a good computer model to forecast downwind spread."

Sept 1-7 ~ Those of us who went through that first half of 2001, even as at arm's length as a reporter hearing farmers cry, never want to hear or see anything like it again.

Scotsman today ".... any outbreak must be dealt with as efficiently as possible. If it threatens to go beyond one or two cases then vaccination of animals must be used. It should be possible "next time" because of lessons learned "last time". ...This week's exercise, involving rural environment and development department headquarters at Pentland House in Edinburgh, the department's area office in Perth, the Scottish Environment Protection Agency, police, NFU, local authority staff, Scottish Natural Heritage, and journalists among others will indicate how well lessons have been learned."

Sept 1-7 ~ "Above all, the creation (which is a requirement in the EU FMD Directive) of "a permanently operational Expert Group ... to maintain expertise and assist the relevant authority in qualitative disease preparedness"

Mary Marshall, Animal Health Policy Coordinator of the European Livestock Alliance, has written a detailed open letter entitled: FMD legal issues - some comments and suggestions
Extracts:"... Open and accessible information .......contrast the absence of information from Defra with the detailed and timely information provided to US stakeholders, and note that the APHIS website even provides stakeholders with helpful comments to facilitate effective submissions: http://www.usaha.org/oie/oie12003.html and http://www.aphis.usda.gov/vs/ncie/oie/ .
..... Access by all to non-confidential comments sent by the public to Defra in response to their consultations. Currently these are open for inspection only at Defra HQ in London. The internet publication of the Hutton Inquiry evidence is a model of truly open access.
A revised and updated FMD Contingency Plan which takes into account individual electronic animal ID and the use of rapid portable virus diagnostic tests which can and should be linked to an updated GIS database, thus increasing the chances of prompt identification of an index case and allowing for real-time management and enabling useful post-epidemic epidemiological data analysis. .....Above all, the creation (which is a requirement in the EU FMD Directive) of "a permanently operational Expert Group ..." Read in full

Aug 25 - 31 ~ A footnote on the Janet Hughes story

Janet Hughes was asked by the BBC in Wales to comment on the report by professors Lee and Campbell Carnage by Computer: The Blackboard Economics of the 2001 Foot and Mouth Epidemic SeeTechnical/Scientific papers page. She writes, "I felt proud to be asked. It was live and I was so glad to be able to get the point across that the Animal Health Act 2002 gives DEFRA the legal powers that they did not have in 2001. " More

Aug 25 - 31 ~ Carwyn Jones says, " We did what we did in the interests of most farmers" and, of the Lee/Campbell report, " I don't think it has any value for any future control of the disease"

Carwyn Jones and NFU Wales president Peredur Hughes pour scorn on Carnage by Computer: The Blackboard Economics of the 2001 Foot and Mouth Epidemic by professors Lee and Campbell. (See today's article in the Western Mail.) Their views are not shared by others.
Conservative AM Glyn Davies welcomed the report, saying,
"At long last we have a minor glimpse into the sheer scale of the 2001 FMD scandal, the worst example of state-sponsored slaughter and waste of money Britain has ever seen."
The article concludes with a comment from Peter Stevenson of Compassion in World Farming who said, "The report by the two Cardiff University professors is the strongest legal condemnation yet of the way the Government handled the foot-and-mouth crisis. I think this should prompt ministers to acknowledge they were wrong and it was illegal to go ahead with their policy of a contiguous cull which brought untold suffering to millions of animals and thousands of people."

Aug 25 - 31 ~" In sum, stamping out was abandoned in all but name. Mass, almost indiscriminate killing took place."

The BBC have reported, under the headline Lawyers damn FMD handling, on the report by professors David Campbell and Bob Lee which concludes that the handling of the crisis "involved lawless action by a government on such a scale as to amount to a negation of the basic precepts of the rule of law". ...." The report, entitled Carnage by Computer: The Blackboard Economics of the 2001 Foot and Mouth Epidemic - about to published in Social and Legal Studies academic magazine ....
In fact, Professors Campbell and Lee describe the mass slaughter over 10 million farm animals as "despicably cruel."
The academic lawyers from Cardiff Law School's Centre for Business Relationships, Accountability, Sustainability and Society (BRASS), ... castigates the former Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (Maff) as having completely lost its grip early on in the crisis.
It says that computer operators, sitting at their desks in London, passed the death sentence on millions of animals due to mistaken procedures and the use of a management information system not used for culls but primarily for calculating subsidies.
As a result, when an outbreak was reported on a farm, they calculated a 3 km killing zone around that farm, sometimes of up to 3km, in which all farm animals were slaughtered.
The report said: "It took no account whatever of the possible variable conditions of spread according to such factors as geography. It made no allowance for natural barriers which might restrict spread."
See http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wales/3184383.stm

Aug 25 - 31 ~ Colombian livestock owners are worried by the appearance last Monday of foot and mouth disease (FMD) outbreaks.

It is close to the frontier with Venezuela, and they fear that the disease will enter the country and that they will lose their international certification for that region.
Invertia.com quoted on the Pro-Med site

Aug 25 - 31 ~"The suppression of scientific dissent is one of the most serious and visible signs of the 'academic-industrial-military complex' at work.."

"..It goes against the very grain and essence of what science ought to be: the open, disinterested enquiry into the causes of natural processes." Extract from Chapter 4 of the new book by Dr Mae Wan Ho: "Living with the Fluid Genome"

Aug 19 - 25 ~ EU document states that scrapie is not considered to be transmissible to humans or to pose a risk to man ....

Pro-Med posting on friday
"The European Commission has issued a series of answers to a selection of questions on Transmissible Spongiform Encephalopathies (TSE), the family of illnesses that includes Creutzfeldt Jakob Disease (CJD) in humans, Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE) in cattle, and scrapie in sheep and goats. The document states that scrapie is not considered to be transmissible to humans or to pose a risk to man on the basis of the available data. European Union (EU) legislation to prevent the spread and transmission of BSE, however, does apply also to sheep and goats as a precautionary measure (for example, removal of specific risk material like brain and spinal cord since 2000, and ban on feeding mammalian meat and bone meal (MBM) to ruminants since 1994).
...... .... to date there is no evidence of the existence of BSE in the sheep and goat population under natural conditions. ..."(read in full)
The legislation referred to, including the National Scrapie Plan, is very extensive, very invasive and destructive - and extremely expensive. Will it be reconsidered in the light of these findings?

Aug 19-25 ~ "despite the universal scare mongering over the 'hyperinfectious' nature of the prion..."

".. an impartial study of the epidemiological history of TSEs clearly demonstrates that this disease does NOT originate from animal to animal contact or through ingestion of feeds contaminated with TSE brain material. So why do the authorities continue to treat these diseases as if they solely stem from hyper-infectious origins? ....
....Despite the repeated failure of wholesale livestock slaughter/fallowing regimes to eradicate long established TSE hotspot regions in Colorado and Iceland since the 1970s, governments are still adopting this same slaughter strategy as a first choice means of control today..."
An update by Mark Purdey on his independently funded research into TSEs can be seen here. It suggests thoughtful answers to some of the persistent questions about transmissible spongiform encephalopathies

Aug 19 - 25 ~ "Although there is a need for states to be proactive in protecting their resources, there remain more questions than answers regarding this disease."

This was the Pro-Med moderator's comment following the posting from New Jersey (Aug 19) about the intention to test imported deer for chronic wasting disease - which of course involves slaughter, since the only current test for TSEs is by examining an animal's brain stem. The authorities want access to 100 deer to see if they have Chronic Wasting Disease. "There is no evidence the deer are infected with the disease, but state officials said they are trying to be proactive in preventing the deadly wildlife disease from gaining a foothold on the East Coast via New Jersey." (Pro Med site) It is encouraging to see the moderator's evident caution and his awareness that there are no certainties yet about the causes and consequences of TSEs.

Aug 19 -25 ~ Vaccine and Diagnostic Kits for FMD ready for use in Tunisia

Outbreaks of foot and mouth disease were reported in Libya on 18 Jun 2003. By July 1 neighbouring Tunisia had set up a control system.
From the Pro-Med website:
• "Ban on the movement of animals and animal products from Libya.
• Compulsory disinfection of all vehicles arriving from Libya.
• Heightened close surveillance of all herds/flocks of susceptible species in the area close to the border.
• Serological surveillance of animals having been in Libya at any time during the past 3 months.
• Acquisition of a stock of vaccine against FMD virus type SAT 2 which, upon arrival, will be used for all susceptible species in the southern and central Governorates bordering Libya, and which, depending on how the FMD situation in Libya develops, could be used throughout the country (the order was placed on 23 Jun 2003 and delivery is due to take place during the first week of July 2003).
• Acquisition of diagnostic kits for FMD virus.
• Information and a proposal to Libya on coordinated and concerted action to control the disease..."
The Pro-Med moderator comments: "The early response of Tunisia to the developments in neighbouring Libya should be praised. ..." The current outbreak of foot and mouth in Libya is the first ever recorded outbreak of this particular serotype (serotype SAT 2) north of the Sahara. The date of the last reported case was 4 July 2003. The control measures remain in force.

Aug 18 - 25 ~"...something is out of balance, that the excessive unnaturalness we force on livestock could be catching up with us"

This quotation is from the new food safety book, "The Pathological Protein: Mad Cow, Chronic Wasting, and Other Deadly Prion Diseases" (links to Amazon.co.uk) by Philip Yam. He explains that scientists investigating BSE, vCJD and other TSE's still have far more questions than answers.
Nevertheless, assumptions are made and we see countries demanding more and more regulation. The one apparently BSE diseased cow had a huge impact on Canada's billion-dollar beef industry. Japan's economy was hit disastrously hard while the EU Animal By-products Regulation 2003 is predicted to drain billions of pounds from the UK economy as well as causing maximum inconvenience and bafflement. If the infectious prion theory is wrong and BSE is caused by unnatural conditions, bacteria, or deficiencies of diet or environment, the mass slaughter of cattle over 30 months of age and other measures costing the taxpayer several billion pounds were unnecessary, while measures still being taken by governments could well be racing in the wrong direction.

Aug 18 - 25 ~ Political pressure to find a quick fix is no substitute for proper veterinary research into the causes and transmission of disease.

Japan and the U.K. have adopted the CDI method of testing for prions (see abstract of latest CDI test from Prusiner and co.) Validation of rapid diagnostic tests is urgently needed for such pathogens as the Foot and Mouth virus but in the case of ' transmissible spongiform encephalopathies' scientists should surely, in addition to testing, be re-examining the original infectious prion theory, (Prusiner's Nobel Prize notwithstanding).
Since Professor Roy Anderson and his Imperial College team published a revised estimate of the total number of victims likely to die of vCJD in the future - which, far from being the massive number originally modelled, is just 40 - it is very much harder to suggest that eating BSE infected meat can cause rogue prions to jump the species gap into humans.
TSE affected brain tissue is injected into unfortunate laboratory animals who subsequently contract TSE. The fact that classes of Alzheimer's and other neurodegenerative diseases can be transmitted in this way is ignored. Indeed, the notorious research experiments conducted by the IAH at Edinburgh could have led to slaughter of the entire sheep flock and goat herd in the UK - if the faulty labelling had not been noticed in time. The Animal Health Act would make such slaughter legal. Independent scientists who seriously question the accepted infectious prion theory discover that funding is no longer available for their research. (See BSE/vCJD page) while the billion pound cost of trying to avoid vCJD continues across the globe. Who benefits?

Aug 15-18 ~ "Similar kits exist, but Saalmüller's version is quicker to use and costs one-fifth the price of its rivals." (Nature Aug 1 2003)

(The Nature article was referring to work at the Institute for Immunology of the Federal Research Centre for Virus Diseases of Animals in Tübingen, by Bettina-Judith Höhlich, Karl-Heinz Wiesmüller, Tobias Schlapp, Bernd Haas, Eberhard Pfaff, and Armin Saalmüller JOURNAL OF VIROLOGY, Aug. 2003, see technical page)
: "....In further experiments, the reactivity of the six peptides with sera from animals infected with different strains of FMDV was tested, and strain-independent infection-specific epitopes were identified. Thus, these results clearly demonstrate the ability of a simple peptide-based assay to discriminate between infected and conventionally FMD-vaccinated animals... .. the new peptide-based detection system for FMDV-specific antibodies would have clear advantages over the competition ELISA, such as the fact that the test itself does not depend on the use of previously inactivated FMDV and could be performed outside of special high-security containment. ..."
On December 18 last year, on the Today programme James Naughtie said to the Chief Scientific Adviser, Professor David King,
"... you still argue that the policy of vaccination..discriminating between diseased and vaccinated animals wasn't good enough....tests weren't available …" Professor King broke in: "Absolutely right. There were no validated tests. As we sit here now there are no validated tests and of course we're all working hard towards that objective. So I, I think that that's the major message, that in future we hope to have these validated tests that would make that distinction and then we can see a different control measure coming in to force ..."
As in 2001, it is not the tests themselves that are lacking - but rather the political will to validate such tests for use in an outbreak that could happen at any time.

Aug 15-18 ~ "novel, untested policies.. unsupported by expert opinion.. may have serious ethical issues, as well as personal consequences...."

Nick Taylor of the Veterinary Epidemiology and Economics Research Unit (VEERU) has written this review for DEFRA: "Review of the use of models in informing disease control policy development and adjustment" (Defra website)
It points out the flawed nature of the modelling; the assumption that infectivity of an infectious farm was constant from the time of onset to end of slaughter is one important example of where things went wrong. The modellers also misunderstood the nature of the transmission of the 2001 strain of the virus. The review's conclusions echo analyses and comments made by Alan Beat, Nicola Morris, Val Lusmore and several others, all quoted on this website in the past two years. .
Extract: pdf file opens in new window: "...Field data were not being adequately collected and analysed early in the epidemic - in other words there was a lack of 'veterinary intelligence'....out of a total of 2,026 IPs, a definite source of infection was only identified for 101 IPs (5%).... and early in the epidemic the number of sources identified would have been lower... In the absence of a definite source, it was common practice to attribute the source of infection to the nearest possible candidate IP. ...
..The first-hand experience of veterinarians on the ground was that infection was not rapidly spreading off IPs to contiguous premises. Many of them disagreed with the CP culling policy..."
"Models can be usefully used to support the requisition of resources needed by well-tried control measures by graphically demonstrating the possible development of an epidemic - perhaps in the relatively short term - but not to drive novel, untested policies that are unsupported by expert opinion, and which may have serious ethical issues, as well as personal consequences."
Alan Beat called the use of the Imperial College model "appallingly bad science, the unquestioning acceptance of which has led to the unjustified slaughter of millions of healthy animals, and has actually hindered disease control by diverting resources away from the more important task of rapid slaughter on infected farms."

Aug 15-18 " ~ ".. failure of the peer-review process has provided a false veneer of authenticity to the models.."

"... and empowered them to deny all challenge in parliamentary and scientific debate. "
Scientific "peers" who review each others' work check that papers are logical and make sense, but to think- as perhaps the government does - that "peer review" implies endorsement and thorough approval of scientific content would be very wide of the mark.
The writer and smallholding expert, Alan Beat, has commented on "Review of the use of models in informing disease control policy development and adjustment", the report for DEFRA by Nick Taylor.
Mr Beat says, "if I, as an informed layman, with no background whatever in epidemiology, was able to grasp and accurately describe the inherent flaws in the computer models during 2001 - why didn't David King and so many others close to the decision-making process? ... This is not an issue of my own ego, it is precisely the opposite; it is the simple fact that any ordinary person who cared to look could recognise the falsity of the modelling case for pre-emptive mass slaughter, while those in authority were not only blind to the obvious, but subsequently refused to recognise that it had been repeatedly brought to their attention. ... It is this arrogance and denial, in the face of plain common sense, that defines the entire FMD crisis .. " Read more

Aug 15-18 " ~ No Judicial Inquiry has ever been able to probe reasons

why members of a strangely interrelated inner circle of non FMD experts, with Government Chief Scientist Professor David King at their centre, were able to control policy, while those professional experts who understood the disease and its successful eradication were sidelined. It also became apparent - as Dr Ruth Watkins, BSc Hons, BFA Oxon, MBBS, MSc, MRCP, MRCPath pointed out in her submission to the RSE Inquiry ".. that the vets and MAFF officials hardly knew any virology or principles of infectious disease control and vaccination and had not sought to inform themselves on FMD virus."
But there has still been no Public Inquiry - in spite of many calls for one. The Hutton Inquiry, with its efficient pace and the quality of its questioning, shows that such an inquiry can, after all, be successfully carried out in this country. There are many who still feel as determined as ever that common sense and humanity rather than ambition should be at the heart of animal health measures. They are not likely to forget that most of the same people who led the policies of 2001 are not only still in their powerful positions but some connected to the group, such as Mark Woolhouse, still defend the 12 hour IP/48 hour 'contiguous' culling policies. Several have received honours. Lessons learned? Best scientific advice? Not yet , and the fear that another outbreak could be met with the same ignorant and draconian measures ( now retrospectively made legal by clauses in the new Animal Health Act) would seem to be well founded. A properly constituted Expert Science Group must be in place to guide future policies.

Aug 15-18 " ~ The tired old argument about consumer resistance to vaccinated meat is referred to by NFU Wales as a "major question"

While such as the NFU and the BVA rejoiced to see the government give way on vaccination, the rest of the country suffered directly or indirectly from the government's disorganisation, its ignorance of the Drummond report and the earlier Northumberland report, its flawed mathematical models, its refusal to listen to experts in the disease and in the use of emergency vaccination, its obduracy over already existing rapid diagnosis tests. The postcode slaughter policies led to misery in the rural community, unhealthy collusion between vets and government, animal welfare considerations being brutally ignored, bully-boy tactics towards livestock owners and objectors to the slaughter, a breakdown of trust - and literally billions of wasted pounds. If there were signs that lessons had really been learned, this website would have closed down long ago - but we continue to read such things as: "National Farmers' Union Cymru spokeswoman Leigh Roberts said, "The major question is whether retailers and consumers would accept meat from vaccinated animals." Are they really still unaware that we as consumers have been enjoying imported vaccinated meat for years and, as we heard in 2001 from Kathryn Williams, Press Officer of the National Consumer Council "..the food from vaccinated beasts does not need to be labelled." See also http://cmlag.fgov.be/eng/Deirdre_Huttons_abstract.pdf
Even the FSA has, on its website, made its view loudly and clearly. It was Elliot Morley himself who said 6 Nov 2002
"..It is ironic that when vaccination was being considered during the epidemic, some of the product that came into this country to make up the shortfall was vaccinated. Consumers are not concerned about vaccination as long as it has been demonstrated to be safe, and as long as bodies such as the Food Standards Agency have looked into it in some detail."

August 15-18 " ~ Janet Hughes sees limited light at the end of a long tunnel

"This Defra business looks as if it is coming to an end at last. .." writes Janet Hughes who, readers will remember, has paid heavily for her attempts in 2001 to save the Brecon Beacons sheep and later her challenges against the legality a new draconian slaughter policy. "In response to a letter from the solicitor informing Defra's legal department that I had secured public funding to return to court to revoke the writ, Defra wrote back with an offer to accept £4,000. They seem extremely angry that I was granted legal aid. The £4,000 must be as a result of their having read that there was £4,000 in the trust fund. ... Payment will be on the assurance that the writ is null and void, and that there will be no further attempts of enforcement of any more costs. Defra will also be informed that the payment is from the fund of donations. They have referred to this fund in their most recent letter.
So Defra's argument of having no option but to take my possessions to recover taxpayers' money will be seen to be completely spurious. .."

Aug 13 ~ Warmwell.com is enjoying a short break

..but will be back in a few days.

Aug 7 ~ "Special Advisers" to MAFF - with all necessary authority and credentials - were compelling decent public servants to act in a wholly reprehensible manner... "

Mark Brook has made available on the internet his Allegations, Disinformation and Rumours: Some comments and questions in which he re-examines events leading to the admission of the presence of Foot and Mouth disease in February 2001, the reasons behind the bed and breakfasting of sheep, the likely source of the FMD virus in this country, the importance of the use of the Official Secrets Act, the advantages to the authorities of large scale livestock slaughter (particularly the neutralisation of what one of MAFF's spokespersons sneeringly referred to as "the rural nutters' cartel "), the finding of a fall-guy, the illogicality of the idea that illegally imported foodstuffs infected the "index" farm, some serious suggestions of deliberate infection alongside the debunking of popular myths of the time, and finally, the distraction of the terrible events of September 11 2001. It is an interesting and serious account that deserves to be read in full.
"....Had the disease been publicly declared during early December and the Northumberland Enquiry recommendations implemented IN FULL, the following year's carnival of blood, mud and fire would have been a very muted, short-lived affair...
..."Special Advisers" to MAFF - with all necessary authority and credentials - were compelling decent public servants to act in a wholly reprehensible manner. Numerous instances occurred where vets, seconded to MAFF, were coerced into committing actions which were in clear breach of their ethical code. Due to Official Secrets Act enforcement, the full story of how the veterinary profession was defiled may never be told.... ..."
Mr Brook appears to feel convinced that there will, in the end, be a fully independent Public Enquiry into the events of 2001. Numerous demands and pleas for such an Enquiry have fallen on defr ears.

Aug 4 ~ The NFU and its anti-vaccination line

From Corporate Watch
".... small farming groups had tried to get past the NFU and MAFF and in to see Blair to argue against mass slaughter. They gave up after 'hitting the proverbial brick wall'. Indeed, many farmers in favour of vaccination felt totally let down by the NFU's position. Dr Sheila Crispin of Bristol University's veterinary department, argues that the NFU 'did not represent those farmers at the heart of the crisis" and how its spokesmen were so "woefully ignorant" on this issue that "they should not have entered the debate". It is very likely that a majority of NFU members supported vaccination but were not listened to.
Over a year later, in April 2002, Ben Gill was unrepentant. Despite the pain and suffering that was caused both to animals and farmers by the mass slaughter, he still claimed 'he won a major victory for farmers by changing the government's mind about vaccination'. .." Read in full
The CorpWatch.org article also quotes from this website. Sean Rickard's views seen from the point of view of one of the farmers about whom he wrote, "There is nothing that can or should be done to save them" (Mr Rickard was a former economic advisor to the NFU and New Labour appear to be much taken with his 'neo-liberal' approach. )

Aug 1-4 ~ "the campaign to eradicate it by hundreds of Defra inspectors is based on hysterical over-reaction...."

From Booker's Notebook in the Sunday Telegraph
"... Britain's plant experts have been keeping quiet for months: that an American plant disease, supposedly deadly to oak trees, has in fact been harmlessly endemic in British shrubs for years, and that the campaign to eradicate it by hundreds of Defra inspectors is based on hysterical over-reaction....
...Mr Williams of Caerhays, a near neighbour to Heligan, decided the moment had come to speak out against the "fatuity" of Defra's officials, who appear to have "discovered a new way to destroy another part of Britain's countryside".
What is particularly chilling, as Mr Williams points out, is that not one of the attempts to infect a British oak trees with the harmful organism has been successful. Meanwhile Defra seems so oblivious to the damage it is inflicting that, although its "impact assessment" estimates the costs of the EU law to British growers at £1-£2 million a year, this relates only to the cost of additional paperwork.
.... Dr Stephen Hunter, head of the Plant Health Division in York,... explained that Defra could not pay compensation for losses resulting from action to prevent diseases, since these were "taken for the benefit of the industry and the environment". (Dr Hunter seemed to have forgotten that Defra had just paid £3 billion to compensate farmers whose animals were destroyed for the same reason during the foot and mouth crisis.) ...."

Aug 1-4 ~ "..these results clearly demonstrate the ability of a simple peptide-based assay to discriminate between infected and conventionally FMD-vaccinated animals."

Article today in Nature about the the Hvhlich, Wiesm|ller, Schlapp, Haas, Pfaff,1 and Saalmüller paper in the Journal of Virology To Differentiate between Infected and Vaccinated Cattle
"... Antibodies recognizing these peptides could be detected only in sera derived from infected cattle. In further experiments, the reactivity of the six peptides with sera from animals infected with different strains of FMDV was tested, and strain-independent infection-specific epitopes were identified. Thus, these results clearly demonstrate the ability of a simple peptide-based assay to discriminate between infected and conventionally FMD-vaccinated animals. "
We note that Professor Woolhouse, who has always maintained that "culling is simply far quicker and vaccines are not designed to interrupt transmission nor to stop an ongoing epidemic in its tracks", comments in the Nature article that the test is not specific or sensitive enough: "It's possible that you'd be using this test on millions of animals," he says." Even if it's 99.9% effective, that means you could misdiagnose a lot of them." But the point is surely that the remaining scientific objection to vaccination - that it could hide an already infected animal and prevent effective monitoring of the spread of the FMD virus - is solved by such a test. Vaccination can be used to reduce virus circulation, whilst authorities are still capable of monitoring spread. The discriminatory test precludes massive preventive culling of healthy animals and reduces the culling to only those farms indeed infected. We suggest a study of http://www.warmwell.com/vacctransmar8.htm and welcome comments. Even if certain "misdiagnosed" animals were to slip through the net as Woolhouse suggests and came into contact with a vaccinate, the worst that can be expected is some virus multiplication in the throat. Such an animal would itself be extremely unlikely to infect another animal, and so the chain dies out within that farm.

Aug 1-4 ~ Pirbright's FMD review

Foot-and-mouth disease: scientific problems and recent progress 1st annual report (2003) prepared for DEFRA, Science Directorate (a 37 page pdf document which loads in a new window) Extract:
" Use of a portable real-time reverse transcriptase-polymerase chain reaction assay for rapid detection of foot-and-mouth disease virus. J Am Vet Med Assoc. 220(11):1636-42. ..... a portable real-time reverse transcriptase-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) assay designed to detect all 7 viral serotypes of foot-and-mouth disease virus (FMDV)...... Samples from animals and tissue cultures were assayed for infectious virus and viral RNA. RESULTS: The assay detected viral RNA representing all 7 FMDV serotypes grown in tissue culture but did not amplify a panel of selected viruses that included those that cause vesicular diseases similar to FMD; thus, the assay had a specificity of 100%, depending on the panel selected. The assay also met or exceeded sensitivity of viral culture on samples from experimentally infected animals. In many instances, the assay detected viral RNA in the mouth and nose 24 to 96 hours before the onset of clinical disease.
CONCLUSIONS AND CLINICAL RELEVANCE: The assay reagents are produced in a vitrified form, which permits storage and transportation at ambient temperatures. The test can be performed in 2 hours or less on a portable instrument, thus providing a rapid, portable, sensitive, and specific method for detection of FMDV...."

Aug 1 ~ The Effect of Government Policies on the Communities and Economy of Rural Britain.

Richard Mawdsley. M.R.A.C. has written a paper that will be much appreciated by most readers of warmwell.com. Extract: " It isn't the function of a Democratic Government to control the minutiae of people's lives, rather to create the conditions where all sections of the community can thrive and prosper. The management of Rural Britain should be assigned to those who best understand it. That way we might preserve our communities, our culture our "environment" and our regional differences; the very things that make us what we are."
His paper deals with the following:
• Historical Introduction. Those who fail to learn from the lessons of history will be condemned to repeat..
• Department of the Environment Food and Rural Affairs. Ministers ill-advised leading to Ridiculous Euro-dictated Policies
• The Common Fisheries Policy. Catastrophe caused by politics.
• The "National Scrapie Plan". Questionable science.
• The double ear tagging of sheep with individual numbers. Ill conceived, expensive and unworkable in practice.
• The on-farm burial of fallen stock. Logically one should also ban the burial of humans.
• NVZ's. Faulty science, since disproved.
• Abattoir closures and distances travelled by livestock. Unnecessary gold-plating of E.U. regulations
• The Common Agricultural Policy. Not a common subsidy policy.
• "Home-grown" policies equally ill advised. Government reactions to external stimuli for short term political gain.
• The "Environment". A word frequently over-used with emotional "spin". Treating the symptoms not the disease. Too many administrators and "one size fits all" rules.
• Regionalisation. Our Deputy Prime Minister claims that this is his brainchild. European "Utopia" by the back door.
• The Countryside and Rights of Way Act. Infringement of Rural Rights of Property.
• The proposed ban on hunting with dogs in England and Wales. Deliberately "class-divisive". Ignores the "Burns Report".
• The Six-day movement orders. (Now permanent.)
• Business Rates. It is not widely known, that business rates are a direct tax by central Government. That continually rising rates are NOT the fault of Local Government.
• Transport. 50 years ago we were closer to an integrated transport system than we are today.

Read in full

Aug 1 ~ Defra is ordering the mass burning of affected plants.

" In a move which has disturbing echoes of the foot and mouth crisis, Defra is ordering the mass burning of affected plants."
The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs fears Phytophthora Ramorum, known as Sudden Oak Death, is spreading throughout the countryside. The disease mainly affects rhododendrons and viburnums, but has now been discovered in yew saplings. Charles Williams, owner of Caerhays Castle, in east Cornwall, and Burncoose Nurseries, near Redruth, and a member of the British Rhododendron Society, accused the Government of overreacting. He said the disease is endemic and not overly harmful. He said: "The whole thing is an absolute scandal. They (Defra) have no scientific evidence that is worth a fig. They are charging in and destroying everything without consulting owners and gardeners. .......we all know what a shambles it was the last time they closed down a part and tried to burn things." ....Philip Macmillan-Browse, horticultural director at Heligan, said that staff have already had to burn three rhododendrons. But he too said he felt Defra's methods were an overreaction. "Everyone was jumping up and down in the early stages but people have now found out that this is more widespread than they thought and has been here for a lot longer," he said. "This has been around in Cornwall and Devon for at least a decade and the whole thing is a bit pointless. It looks as though this strain is rarely lethal and the bits of the plant affected will just die off."
Uncanny and frustrating reminders of FMD overreaction in this story from the Western Morning News.

July 29 ~ scientific membership should be more inclusive and less exclusive.

"I was shocked, but after very brief reflection not surprised, to learn from the "Lessons Learned" Inquiry that Pirbright had not been consulted during the preparation of MAFF's FMD Contingency Plan" wrote Profesor T H Pennington, Professor of Bacteriology, University of Aberdeen in a Memorandum to the same Committee.
"... It is vital that lessons must be learned from these events. Policy makers must learn how to make the best use of scientific information. After all, our Nobel Prize track record shows that for basic science we are second to none. But it will not be enough for scientific advisory committees to follow the Nolan rules, have a few more members representing consumer interests, and to have their formal meetings in public. Their scientific membership should be more inclusive and less exclusive. The BSE Inquiry showed the importance of policy makers getting advice from scientists with detailed knowledge of the problems being addressed - and the bad consequences of not doing this. This is not being done as well as it should or could...."
It is of the most vital importance that the EU Directive's requirement to create an Expert Group results in the inclusion of at least some people who will know about new developments in diagnostics and vaccination.

July 29 ~ a "quick and organised veterinary response" to any future disease outbreak.

Ben Bradshaw spoke yesterday of the proposal that private sector vets would be contracted to do five days paid training each year and would need to make themselves available in an emergency. The government would initially seek to recruit around 100 vets to join this veterinary reserve. Proposals are being put out to consultation along with a wider review of the system of local veterinary inspectors and will run until 25 October. See UKonline article
This proposal is an attempt to follow Royal Society recommendation exactly one year ago that "... DEFRA should take rapid action to investigate and improve: ......the training of temporary and local veterinary inspectors by DEFRA, with the RCVS, the BVA and its species divisions.."

July 29 ~ "government departments do not have sufficient scientific expertise"

the old belief that scientists should not have to justify their work to the public is rapidly losing ground. Whilst basic research may be considered ethically neutral, the potential applications of that research may not be so, and scientists have an obligation to engage in dialogue with the public. Disclosing the source of funding when publishing scientific work should probably be encouraged, and a number of journals are moving towards this policy. But a more important issue is probably the suppression of negative or commercially unsatisfactory results from research funded by industry. " From a Memorandum submitted by the Biosciences Federation to the Lords' Select Committee on Science and Technology

July 29 ~ " we neglect the study of animal sources of infection at our peril "

Fighting infectious disease (link to Veterinary Record) "The Lords' Select Committee on Science and Technology has a long history of highlighting issues where more attention is needed. Its report on infectious disease continues that tradition and its points are well made."
'we neglect the study of animal sources of infection at our peril',....... general practitioners are underused in disease surveillance. This is also true in the veterinary field, and it is to be hoped that this can be rectified as DEFRA's surveillance strategy is finalised. Despite the requirements, and the efforts being made to improve collaboration, the report paints a picture of a system that is under-resourced and, in many respects, fragmented.
.... responsibility for surveillance is spread across a number of agencies, which rely on different databases....... information between laboratories cannot be shared because they do not have common data sets or standards...... highlighting the need for a 'joined-up' approach, the report recommends that the recently formed Health Protection Agency 'be provided with resources to take on specific and primary responsibility for integrating surveillance related to human, animal and foodborne infection at national, regional and local levels, in order to bridge the gaps that currently exist between these areas of speciality.'
Noting that lines of communication and accountability are unclear, it further recommends that the minister for public health should publish, as a matter of urgency, a document outlining the roles and responsibilities of all organisations involved in infectious disease services.... highlights the fact that international collaboration is needed if it is to be tackled effectively. .......

July 29 ~" The cost of moving to better welfare is often assumed to be greater than it is."

From the Select Committee on Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Minutes of Evidence Memorandum submitted by Compassion in World Farming (X10)
16. On the basis of these figures, we could change from battery to free-range eggs for just ¤2.70 per person per year, provided that retailers charged no more extra for free-range eggs than is needed to cover their additional production costs. Similarly, changing from battery to barn eggs would add just ¤1.49 to each person's annual expenditure on eggs, subject to the above proviso about retailers' prices.
17. In short, consumers could take the burden from farmers and absorb the cost of moving from battery cages to free-range at a cost of just 5.2 pence each per week. The equivalent figure for a change from battery to barn eggs is just 2.9 pence per person per week.
18. There is strong evidence that consumers are willing to pay extra for better welfare eggs. A supermarket survey carried out by CIWF Trust in 2001 found that in the case of five supermarkets, 50% or more of their egg sales were non-cage eggs, ie free-range, barn or organic.
However, the supermarket retailers - unless "encouraged" to by governmentand public opinion - will not want to cooperate if it affects their profits in even a marginal way. Farmers are fearful of being blacklisted if they ever complain about supermarkets - whose power is a disgrace. See below

July 29 ~ "very real fear of retaliatory action"

(WMN) "...In evidence to the Commons Rural Affairs (EFRA) committee, Lord Whitty said that in his personal view the code" (The Supermarket Code which the Government is committed to reviewing annually) "is not working, and it is not working partly because people are afraid to put their head above the parapet". He also said that the costs of higher welfare standards were disproportionately borne by farmers who were unable to pass costs on to the supermarkets.....
...Cornish farmer Michael Hart, who runs the Small and Family Farms Alliance, said: "For once in his life, Lord Whitty is right. Farmers are terrified to complain because they know they will be blacklisted by the supermarkets concerned, and once you are blacklisted by one you are blacklisted by all the others.
"I get at least a couple of phone calls a week from farmers who have been treated unfairly by supermarkets, but they are so powerful and terrifying that no one is prepared to challenge them.
"I had one farmer who had an entire pallet of cabbages rejected because a slug was found on the underside of the pallet. And because they change their specifications on packaging overnight, farmers can be left with £20,000 worth of bags that are totally useless and they are told it's their tough luck."
Mr Hart said he backed the introduction of an independent regulator to police the code. And he said the code should be extended down the supply chain so that the many farmers who sell their goods to the supermarkets' main suppliers are also covered...." article in the Western Morning News

July 29 ~ 100% of Canadian Farmers do not want GM wheat to be licensed after their experiences with rape and other GM crops

"On 9th July Sheepdrove arranged a meeting with three Canadian Farmers and Michael Hart of The Small and Family Farmers Alliance. The purpose of this was for the Canadian Farmers to describe their experiences of growing GMOs in North America and allow local farmers to ask questions. .." Please see link to Sheepdrove on warmwell's GM page

July 28 ~ New money found for fallen stock scheme - and DEFRA's 50% take-up demand is dropped

"The fallen stock scheme for farmers, proposed by the Government last spring, is back on track and will start operating from next January. The national scheme for the collection and disposal of fallen stock from farms will be voluntary and jointly financed by subscriptions from farmers and a 310 million Government contribution in the first year.It is Defra's response to the European Union's Animal By-Products regulation, which banned the routine on-farm burial of animal carcasses from May this year.When the scheme was first proposed Defra said it could only work if 50per cent of livestock farmers signed up to join. But by the deadline only 34 per cent had signed up officially - and the ensuing row saw claims by farmers that Defra had not sent application forms to the right people and had also failed to take into account that farmers might each have several holding numbers for parcels of land and would, naturally, only be applying for one.Now more money has been found and the scheme is back - the only difference being that Defra has a new category of large livestock farms, which will be expected to pay more." Western Morning News link

July 24 ~" Margaret Beckett's department is not operating efficiently

and is still failing to recruit and retain staff with the right mix of skills, a committee of MPs said yesterday." Robert Uhlig in the Telegraph
"An all-party Commons committee delivered a withering assessment of the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs' performance, although it conceded that its latest departmental report showed a great improvement over 2002.
It said: "Our principal concern continues to be that Defra lacks the capacity to deliver adequately across its very broad remit and particularly that it lacks the ability to recruit and retrain staff with the right mixture of skills."
The MPs were told by Sir Brian Bender, Defra's permanent secretary, that the skills required of civil servants had changed a great deal in the past 30 years. He said leadership, project management skills and the ability to work in partnership with others had become increasingly important. But the MPs said yesterday: "The report does not adequately reflect this, and does not explain what Defra is doing to ensure these partnerships work effectively...."

July 23 ~ The Labour Party will attempt to relaunch its image in the countryside this autumn by staging a one-day rural summit - in London.

Western Morning News "...The event, which was immediately dubbed a "gimmick" by political opponents last night, is designed to boost Labour's battered image in the countryside as the run-up to the next General Election gets under way. It will feature a series of workshops, speeches and other events on issues ranging from affordable housing to rural transport. Rural Affairs Minister Alun Michael said that with 180 MPs representing rural or semi-rural seats, Labour "is now the leading party of rural, as well as urban and metropolitan, Britain"......
.....Paul Tyler, Lib-Dem MP for North Cornwall, was sceptical about the value of the event. He said: "A one-day summit in the autumn may be good for the spin doctors, but it will not do any good for rural Britain...the alibi of blaming it all on the Tories will not wash - Labour has been in power for more than six years now." ...."

July 23 ~ Spiralling debts and plummeting membership has forced the NFU to close their London HQ and sell off property (including Ben Gill's presidential style flat in Covent Garden.)

" The last straw (for British farming) came during the 2001 foot and mouth disaster. As the obscurantist alliance against vaccination led by Gill and Professor Roy Anderson brought the livestock industry to its knees, the NFU played a central part in creating the most pointlessly destructive crisis Bitish farming has ever faced" Muckspreader's Down on the Farm column, Private Eye.

July 20/21 ~ "Dark actors playing games"

The parallels between the present situation and the 2001 Foot and Mouth tragedy are becoming more and more haunting. No-one, as yet, seems to have asked the question - "Why did Dr Kelly feel the need to speak out?" Presumably because he could no longer accept the Government putting up 'false science' to justify its position.
Dr Kelly's suicide has plunged the nation into a long-overdue consideration of government arrogance and the role of the media in challenging it. In an e-mail message to a reporter for The New York Times shortly before he left on his walk on Thursday, Dr. Kelly discussed his appearance before the committee and referred to "many dark actors playing games."
While Mr Blair may be sincere, the New Statesman article this week suggests that he may also be "a psychopath capable of reinventing himself with remarkable dexterity, like an actor." (See democracy page)
On a lesser scale, this could be said to be true of many others - as we saw in Andrew Mackinlay, apparently under the delusion that the Foreign Affairs Select Committee was a sort of High Court, when he told Dr Kelly he must answer all questions. Dr Kelly stood his ground with dignity - but most people haven't got access to the knowledge that enables them to withstand bluff and bullying.
Not one but 60 farmers and stockholders committed suicide during the hectoring insanity of the foot and mouth crisis. In the rural community the massive loss of confidence in any kind of sound common sense in carpeted, disassociated Whitehall dates from this time or even earlier. In spite of massive calls for an full public independent inquiry there was no such thing. The Royal Society did its best - but even there, vital recommendations have been ignored. Even now, for example, there is no proper vaccination protocol produced. Current thinking in DEFRA ignores huge advances in rapid diagnosis. No practical lessons have been learned by government yet. Will this present hand-wringing result in anything more healthy?

July 19/20 ~ Pressure to break up DEFRA intensifies

Lord Haskins' conclusion that DEFRA is over-centralised (See FWi) echoes an important speech by Charles Kennedy last week to the Social Market Foundation (link to Guardian) Mr Kennedy said that public spending should be slimmed and a number of departments abolished.
"The central command and control approach has failed Britain. It has failed to promote efficiency and failed to foster fairness. "It's time for a fresh approach. It's time that we restructured Britain's government so that it is part of the solution to Britain's problems, not part of the problem itself. It's time to sound the death knell for the old departments set up to defend the interests of producers - departments which have only succeeded in presiding over the decline of the industries which they have tried to serve." ..."Defra could go the same way -- with a new department of environment and transport taking responsibility for rural issues. How much money would this free up?"

July 19/20 ~ "bad practice at a pig farm" led to the foot and mouth crisis says Ben Bradshaw.

Reported in the Western Morning News "Alison Hawes, South West spokeswoman for the Countryside Alliance, praised Mr Bradshaw for stopping to talk to the protesters but condemned his comments about foot and mouth disease. She said: "I think it shows complete ignorance of the job that he is employed to do."

July 18 ~The government's eight-week national dialogue on genetically modified organisms draws to a close today amid widespread criticism of the way it was organised.

But Unilever, the Co-op and the Consumers' Association and Greenpeace are to launch their own public forum; an "independent GM citizens' jury". See Reuters report: " Greenpeace's chief policy advisor Charlie Kronick said the public's views would be more fairly represented by the eight-week-long initiative than at the government's hearings. "The public have been subjected to a barrage of propaganda courtesy of GM advocates as well as sceptics," Kronick said. "This is a chance for the government to hear the real concerns of real people," he added. See GM page

July 17/18 ~ 70 per cent of fallen stock is taken, free, by hunts, but with a ban on hunting looming that option would no longer be available to farmers.

Western Morning News (external link)
".... news that disposing of fallen stock through a central collection service was likely to cost more than originally proposed under the Government's fallen stock collection scheme, which would have cost large farms £200 a year and smallholders £50 a year.
The Department for Environment, Farming and Rural Affairs (Defra) has suggested that due to a lack of response the scheme - brought in because of a European Union ban of on-farm burials - will be unable to go ahead at the original charges it proposed.
"We are consulting industry interests on the possibility of a revised scheme," said Defra in a letter to Trading Standards. "However, this does not alter the fact that there is already sufficient capacity at knackers' yards, hunt kennels, maggot farms, incinerators and rendering plants for the disposal of fallen stock." About 70 per cent of fallen stock is taken, free, by hunts, but with a ban on hunting looming that option would no longer be available to farmers. And suggestions that regional schemes could operate in areas where response was above 50 per cent in favour - including parts of the Westcountry - have been dismissed as unworkable ...."
"...Vets' bills, too, have risen, with many smaller farmers now unhappy about calling in a vet when in the past they would have done so as a matter of course...."
Scotland has delayed implementation of the animal by-product rules which would have banned on-farm burials by August 1. The new rules will now come into force by October 1, the Scottish Executive said today.

July 17/18 ~ The levels of bureaucracy are absolutely ludicrous, and very expensive

Western Morning News (external link) "...Form-filling for various government agencies takes up one whole day a week for Cornish organic farmer James Moon. He reckons he spends at least 400 hours a year with paperwork for no fewer than 21 agencies. Mr Moon, who farms 250 acres just south of Liskeard, is concerned that farmers who sign up for schemes will find themselves at the beck and call of inspectors without warning.
"If you say it's inconvenient, they go away complaining that you have refused them entry when they have a right to see what's going on, and that you'll be in trouble," he explained.
"It's a one-way process to a large extent, as the Rural Payments Agency, for example, is always well behind on payments to the farmers .... They fob you off all the time. For two months I was told the payment I was chasing would be made within a fortnight." He said individual visits to his farm by inspectors did not cost much in man hours, but added up they came to a very sizeable amount - and time cost money. "The levels of bureaucracy are absolutely ludicrous, and very expensive," he added. On the chart he prepared showing how much time was spent on form-filling and visits for schemes, the most hours were taken up by the British Cattle Movement Service with cattle passports and movements, the RPA on the beef special premium, the Organic Farming Scheme and Organic Certification. Each took up about 50 hours. "Obviously if we are expected to pay for epidemics it will just add to our burden of expenses," he said..."

July 17 ~ " Is Lord Whitty aware that "SAT 2 is of concern because as a serotype it has a reputation for being highly contagious and antigenically diverse"

writes Mary Marshall, Animal Health Policy Coordinator of the European Livestock Alliance
"May I," she writes, "suggest for your consideration, some points arising from this debate? It is puzzling that Lord Whitty should begin by saying that "We are satisfied that the existing plans and precautions are sufficient for the relatively low threat from Libya." Yet, on further questioning Lord Whitty admitted that "In terms of the strain of the disease, the virus in Libya is SAT 2 which has never been recorded in North Africa previously."
Is he aware that "SAT 2 is of concern because as a serotype it has a reputation for being highly contagious and antigenically diverse" (personal email from David Paton, IAH-Pirbright, 15 July 2003)?
Since, as Lord Whitty says, this serotype "has never been recorded in North Africa", let alone in Europe, it "may have implications in the epidemiology and clinical picture of the disease" (Paul Roger, letter to the Vet Record 7 July 2003). Does this not increase the potential risk that it may arrive here and spread undetected? Lord Whitty has not adequately answered Lord Plumb's question: "Will extra surveillance be instituted and targeted where risks are highest?"
I suggest that it is now time for an informed debate on what surveillance strategy would be most effective. The risks that widespread testing, e.g. using portable rapid diagnostic tests and testing milk at collection, could close down the UK with false positives must be set against considering that "the cost of 3-7 days national stoppage cannot be more than the cost of that number of days of free movement by viraemic animals." (personal email from Prof Martin Hugh-Jones, 6 March 2003)...
...To say now that vaccine is sufficient suggests that Defra have modelled the distribution of size of outbreaks and populations to be vaccinated. Has this been done?
I suggest that this current threat needs increased attention, and collaboration from and with all sectors. ." (Read in full)

July 17 ~ The harder things get the more our noses are to the grindstone trying to survive.

Farmer Pat Bryant writes, "Most farmers I know do their very best for their livestock and try their absolute best to comply with the regulations - some of which are contradictory.... we are isolated. The family farmer is so darned overworked trying to care for his livestock (often single handed) and keep body and soul together that he does not have time for NFY/TFA/FARM/FFA meetings - he barely has time or energy to read the Farmers Weekly after he has completed all of the Defra/MAFF paperwork
We don't have time or energy to be out there picking up on what is happening - who is saying and doing what. The harder things get the more our noses are to the grindstone trying to survive....."

July 16/17 ~ ".. we have had to live with all these rubbish regulations which have done nothing to improve profits, and all our exports have been driven away because of mis-handling by our Government."

Those interviewed in the Western Morning News article FARMERS' ANGER AT TAX ON DISEASES appear to assume, as wrongly as does the government, that the source of FMD has been established and proved. We regret this. However, the people interviewed show how they feel at the proposals (see below) to levy new charges on the farming community to help cover the cost of future outbreaks of foot and mouth and other diseases
"Ian Johnson, regional spokesman for the National Farmers' Union, said the Government should first do more to prevent diseases like foot and mouth entering the country.......The point remains that many of these diseases come from beyond our shores and are, to a certain degree, allowed in because of a lack of care and concern taken from Government. Mr Johnson added that it was doubtful whether farmers would be able to get insurance to cover the cost of something like the 2001 foot and mouth outbreak, which cost the taxpayer £3 billion.
..... Steve Bucknell who raises Aberdeen Angus cows and sheep at Trevarthian, Kestle Mill, near Newquay, said that by charging farmers for disease costs the Government is implying farmers are guilty of starting the disease..... Where have the Government been in the last five years? We had foot and mouth,.....and we have had to live with all these rubbish regulations which have done nothing to improve profits, and all our exports have been driven away because of mis-handling by our Government."

July 16/17 ~ Ministers will press ahead with plans for a compulsory levy on farmers to help pay for any outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease

said Ben Bradshaw yesterday.
From The Financial Times
" The principle of sharing the costs of any slaughter policy remained widely accepted despite the opposition of the National Farmers' Union, he said.
("widely accepted" by whom?)
"The compensation bill during the 2001 outbreak totalled £1.34bn, prompting the Treasury to insist farmers bear part of the costs of future outbreaks of FMD and other notifiable diseases. The idea of an insurance scheme has been dropped after insurers warned premiums would be prohibitively high"
Under the terms of the amended Animal Health Act, " any animals the Secretary of State thinks should be slaughtered with a view to preventing the spread of foot-and-mouth disease" may be killed. Their owners will have little or no power to protest whether they deem this reasonable or not.
The Secretary of State may exercise the power whether or not animals-
• are affected with foot-and-mouth disease or suspected of being so affected;
• are or have been in contact with animals so affected;
• have been exposed to the infection of foot-and-mouth disease;
• have been treated with vaccine against foot-and-mouth disease."
  Lord Whitty may (see below) consider and then reject a vaccination scheme, on the grounds of low stocks of vaccine or inappropriate conditions. ANNEX XVII of the new EU Directive demands among other measures for each Member State that "Detailed plans shall be available for emergency vaccination." These have yet to appear. "A coherent and transparent plan for dealing with the next outbreak of FMD to occur in this country is still awaited..." wrote Paul Roger in a letter to the Veterinary Times that should be on the desk of every official with responsibility for animal disease.

July 16 ~ Consider this: "We would then, provided the vaccine was appropriate to the strain, consider as a first priority the use of preventive vaccination"

From the House of Lords yesterday, a question from Lord Plumb about the SAT2 strain of FMDV in Libya, asked just before the debate on the Criminal Justice Bill ( for which, see democracy page) :
Baroness Byford: My Lords, perhaps I may press the Minister further -- he did not actually answer my question. If a foot and mouth outbreak occurred again in this country, is it the fact that vaccination would not be the first choice of priority and that slaughter still would be so?
Lord Whitty: My Lords, as the noble Baroness, who has sat through many of these debates, will recognise, the contingency plan, which we have established here and would be broadly followed by other EU countries, would see the slaughter of diseased animals and those immediately exposed. We would then, provided the vaccine was appropriate to the strain, consider as a first priority the use of preventive vaccination. It would not necessarily be appropriate in all circumstances, but that is the order of priority in the current contingency plan. "
On the subject of vaccine to combat the SAT2 strain of the foot and mouth disease virus, Lord Whitty said: "...we have sufficient vaccine to deal with an outbreak of this strain. Clearly, more will be produced, but that is not to say that every strain of foot and mouth disease is covered by vaccine stocks in Britain or Europe. "

July 15/16 ~ Plans for sheep cull under a scrapie plan that has become mandatory

(Farmers Weekly)
"Officials are gearing up for new EU measures on scrapie eradication which will come into force on Oct 1. The measures will be statutory unlike the National Scrapie Plan which is voluntary.... DEFRA confirmed that its Procurement Division was investigating contracts with incineration firms to see if they could take scrapie-susceptible sheep."
Elliot Morley has written to the MP of sheep farmer Lawrence Wright : "We can assure Mr Wright that there are no plans for a large scale cull beyond those in the public domain to deal with potential animal disease outbreaks or, if there were to be evidence of BSE in sheep, as a possible scenario under the BSE in sheep contingency plan."
Our correspondent writes, " He added a disparaging comment about my having "got hold of some sort of modern myth!" and recommending that I need "to treat such sources of information with great caution." He did not, however deny or explain why the enquiry was directed to our local, or other abattoirs."
But see DEFRA news release of July 11 which we reported on July 12
extract: " Changes ... pending the outcomes of further Defra funded research. ... While the NSP \ RBST genotype survey indicates that the application of genotype based breeding strategies may be appropriate for some rare breeds and clearly not for others, the results are nonetheless far from conclusive in the case of a number of these breeds."
If results are "far from conclusive" (and this can hardly be only in the case of rare breeds) then why is this scheme being allowed to continue on its juggernaut way? There are doubts - but the Directive is to be slavishly followed anyway with only the politically correct gesture towards approved "rare breeds". Is Mr Wright not justified in feeling a sense of foreboding for his flock? Did they narrowly escape the FMD holocaust only to be sacrificed to the EU scare about a BSE/ vCJD epidemic that has never materialised - if they are "scrapie-susceptible"? The blame for DEFRA's action will, as usual, be put on the EU. Other more pragmatic EU members seem to manage to follow EU directives to the letter only when it is common sense to do so.

July 16 ~ Sixteen new initiatives have been unveiled today as part of an outline AnimalHealth and Welfare Strategy for Great Britain.

Sixteen. Details can be seen on the DEFRA website in Ben Bradshaw's own words..."Twenty years ago, the UK had a reputation for the highest standards of farm animal health and welfare anywhere in the world. The BSE and FMD episodes have tarnished that reputation. This strategy gives us a chance to restore our name (sic) ; it is the first comprehensive, coherent strategy of its kind, pulling together the work of Government and the leading organisations in the field...."

July 15 ~" ..another grave charge would be personally ordering the sacking of a scientist who was involved in some of the first independent tests on GM..."

Extract from Andrew Rowell's book '"'Don't Worry It Is Safe To Eat - The True Story Of GM Food, BSE, And Foot And Mouth' (see below)
"As the UK government continues to wriggle over weapons of mass destruction, of sexing up dossiers and general spin, Tony Blair argues that there is no greater charge against a prime minister than for him to have personally falsified claims on which to take a country to war.
That may be so, but another grave charge would be personally ordering the sacking of a scientist who was involved in some of the first independent tests on GM, especially if those tests showed evidence of harm, and also especially if the orders came from Monsanto, via the White House...."
Read extract in full

July 15 ~ "Before BSE and during the foot and mouth crisis any scientist who was critical of what was happening was silenced, marginalised and had their professional reputation attacked,"

...."This is happening again with biotechnology."
Are we standing on the edge of a GM abyss? asks the Western Morning News in its review of Don't Worry It's Safe to Eat by the investigative journalist, Andrew Rowell.
"...the way in which eminent scientists, who raised legitimate concerns surrounding the decision not to vaccinate cattle against the disease and the efficacy of the contiguous cull, were ignored demonstrated what drove Government decisions.
"Anyone who was being critical of the way it was being handled weren't being taken seriously," said Mr Rowell, an investigative journalist.
"There were major decisions being taken that were based on brutal economic interests and overriding common sense, consumer interests and those of the farming industry.
"On biotechnology, Michael Meacher has come out and said the Government is downplaying the risks and that it hasn't looked at the critical issues.
"Now even the former environment minister can't raise legitimate concerns about this technology without being attacked by the scientific establishment."
The launch of his book, which took him ten months to write and which required constant updating in response to developments, coincides with the Government's much-criticised public consultation on the GM issue".
Read article in full.

July 14 ~ "Compare the attempts in the SARS epidemic to find and validate a diagnostic test - this was done in a few weeks, simply because there was the political will. With FMD, the powers that be are still prevaricating in validation, even though diagnostic tests were actually available before the FMD 2001 epidemic."

A letter from Anne Lambourn in response to the government's GM Nation feedback (The deadline for the contribution to the GM Nation debate is 18 July - see GM page) is a telling example of how far the ordinary concerned person feels disenchanted. Her reasons are simply stated. Extract: "we were world renowned for our scientific expertise, which was seen to be independent and of the highest calibre. That perception has now radically changed - our science/scientists are seen to be at the mercy of political and commercial interests, with the result that the true "best science" has very often bitten the dust. In the FMD epidemic, our overseas colleagues were looking at us in utter dismay and incredulity, as we proceeded to wipe out much of our livestock industry and inflict a lasting blow on the rural community...."

July 14 ~"A coherent and transparent plan for dealing with the next outbreak of FMD to occur in this country is still awaited".

A letter in the current issue of the Veterinary Record from the distinguished English vet, Paul Roger, raises urgent concern about the reluctance to use electronic identification systems and rapid diagnostic devices. "The continued welfare unfriendly use of double tagging together with the added trauma of losses to individual farmers (currently £4.25 to replace one tag and many torn ears flapping in the wind) could be easily avoided" he writes. "The DEFRA still have not attempted to validate rapid technologies available to identify the presence or absence of FMDV in herds or flocks."
Mr Roger's letter concludes, "A coherent and transparent plan for dealing with the next outbreak of FMD to occur in this country is still awaited. As the comment in the Vet Record of 5th July argued, the Animal Health & Welfare strategy on which so many hopes are pinned should not be allowed to fizzle out." (full letter)

July 14 ~ FMD in Libya"... International cooperation should be a priority, and awareness in the UK and Europe should be increased, with rapid diagnostic testing playing a central role"

Mary Marshall, the Animal Health Policy Coordinator of the European Livestock Alliance writes,
"From ProMED postings, it would appear that there is no certainty that the Libyan index case of FMD has actually been identified, only that 8 foci have been recorded so far. Also, the extent, if any, of its spread, both geographically and with regard to species other than the cattle which were sampled, is also not known. Note that there will be added difficulties in control if infection has spread to nomadic sheep and goats. Regional, and international, cooperation should be a priority. Awareness in the UK and other EU countries should be increased. Rapid diagnostic testing should play a central role - in the infected areas for management and in neigbouring areas and the EU as an early warning. Comparing this with the 2001 UK epidemic, the SAT 2 serotype of the current Libyan outbreak is less apparent in small ruminants, so it may be even more difficult to identify clinically by symptoms. We await further updates from ProMED on what measures, including vaccination, are or will be taken in Libya. It is to be hoped that, if it becomes necessary, sufficient stocks of the SAT2 vaccine would be readily available in the UK and other EU countries with no obstacles to consumption of meat from vaccinated animals.
Mary Marshall
Animal Health Policy Coordinator
European Livestock Alliance"
(See ProMED mail website) ProMED is part of the International Society for Infectious Diseases

July 12 ~ Keepers of recognised rare breeds of sheep participating in the voluntary National Scrapie Plan are now permitted to postpone the required slaughter of their most TSE susceptible breeding rams pending the outcomes of further Defra funded research.

This extension applies only to those rare breeds recognised by the RBST. See DEFRA news release
extract: " Changes ....will enable keepers of recognised rare breeds of sheep participating in the voluntary National Scrapie Plan to put off, should they wish to do so, the required slaughter of their most TSE susceptible breeding rams pending the outcomes of further Defra funded research. ... While the NSP \ RBST genotype survey indicates that the application of genotype based breeding strategies may be appropriate for some rare breeds and clearly not for others, the results are nonetheless far from conclusive in the case of a number of these breeds. The impact of breeding constraints on the small genetic pool within these breeds needs to be carefully evaluated. Furthermore the extension will allow owners and societies to store genetic material from these animals."
"In recognition of this and of the genetic importance of our native rare breeds, we have commissioned a further, more detailed study. Analysis of this data should assist us in the development of appropriate longer term strategies for rare breeds. ."
... the extension will allow owners and societies to store genetic material from these animals." .." (More)
The National Scrapie Plan addresses the theoretical possibility of BSE being present in sheep. Since the whole thing was based on the fear that BSE was responsible for vCJD - (a conclusion that seems more and more in doubt, particularly since the FSA now propose to allow cattle born after August 1996 into the food chain from January 2004, then scrap the OTMS scheme completely by July 2005) we wonder yet again just how necessary or useful the NSP really is.

July 10/11 ~ Dame Rennie Fritchie said Lord Whitty had breached the government's code of practice by appointing an expert to an advisory committee without his having been interviewed for the job.

The BBC report 'Cronies' charges prompt veto demand echoes a story in the Financial Times yesterday :
" Dame Rennie Fritchie..... said Lord Whitty had appointed Dr Vyvyan Howard, a toxicologist from the University of Liverpool, to the committee although he had neither applied for the post nor been interviewed. "This is unprecedented in my experience," she said.
Dame Rennie said the Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs advertised for toxicology and environment experts to take up unpaid advisory posts. Dr Howard applied for a toxicology post, but came in "below the line". However, when ministers decided to expand the environment posts from two to three, he was appointed without further advertisement or interview and ahead of another candidate the panel deemed suitable, Dame Rennie said.
That, she said, broke the principles of appointment on merit, subject to independent scrutiny, equal opportunities and openness.

July 2003 ~ TSE in Animal Populations - Fact and Fiction:

International Conference September 10-11, 2003, Fort Collins, Colorado, USA (and online) Sponsors: OIE, USDA, Agriculture Canada, TAFS for more details:
:http://www.usaha.org/bulletin/tsecsu.pdf and www.cvmbs.colostate.edu/aphi/TSEMain.htm "The public,.... has been provided with information and options that are a mixture of the truth and speculation. There is little exchange of information among all the involved parties. ..... The purpose of this conference is to establish a line of communication between scientists, policy makers, regulators, and the public on topics related to TSEs in animal populations in order to improve future potential preventive measures. Updates on recent research, regulations, and other findings will be part of the conference. The scrapie in sheep (sic) will be used as a base line disease for contrast and comparison. ....scientists, policy makers, veterinary and public health regulators, wild life biologists, the general public, livestock producers, the food industry, and food suppliers should be part of this dialogue and communication...."
(BSE page on warmwell)

July 2003~ DEFRA and the FSA have told UK MEPs not to vote for tougher GM labelling today

At the European Parliament vote in Strasbourg today (Wednesday July 2) UK MEPs have been briefed to vote against tougher legislation. The new legislation would improve traceability of food and animal feed ingredients so that is known whether or not they come from GM crops, and also to deal with the problems of coexistence between GM and non-GM crops.
DEFRA and the apparently independent Food Standards Agency have sent a joint briefing to UK MEPs opposing some of the proposals which would strengthen consumer and environmental protection from GM food and crops. The briefing says that proposals to legislate on coexistence are "unwelcome". "... A 1% threshold reflects the capability of current detection methods, and the ability of the supply chain to deliver."
However, says Friends of the Earth, most supermarkets and food manufacturers already have systems in place that can detect GM material at much lower levels to a 0.1% limit of detection. The Government's own Central Science Laboratory has confirmed that this level of detection is accurate. ". See full press release from Friends of the Earth which explains the new proposals.

July 1/ 2 ~ Full decoupling, the option favoured by DEFRA and the NFU, will benefit large farm businesses but will penalise the traditional family farmer

who, says FARM in this press release, "has made the greatest contribution towards the environment, animal welfare and rural communities - that's why the French want partial decoupling and unlike the UK Government, are prepared to safeguard their family farmers and rural economy. " Read Farm's article CAP is a failed policy - it has failed farmers, failed consumers and failed the environment

July 1/ 2 ~ New Investigation Reveals Huge Scale EU Animal Transport Suffering

A new video investigation reveals that up to 2,000,000 animals a year experience tremendous suffering in the EU animal transport trade. Italy is at the centre of this trade being one of the biggest importers of cattle, horses, pigs and sheep from other Member States and the countries of Central and Eastern Europe.
To coincide with the start of the Italian Presidency, the video, produced by Compassion in World Farming (CIWF), is launched in Brussels today by CIWF, GAIA and the European Coalition for Farm Animals (ECFA) with support from Eurogroup for Animal Welfare. At the same time protests will be taking place at Italian embassies and consulates around Europe...."
Compassion in World Farming continues quietly and effectively to draw attention to shamefully cruel and unnecessary practices, Animals are now, thanks largely to the efforts of the CIWF, at least regarded as "sentient beings" - but the cruelty continues.

July 1 ~ "Science? The public is right to smell a rat"

Zac Goldsmith in the Independent: "Until recently, few scientists were willing to question the safety of genetic engineering. Today, speaking out on GM can still be career suicide, as the former environment minister Michael Meacher learnt to his cost recently, but when he accused the Government of dancing to the tune of big business at the risk of public health, he was not alone....More than 450 scientists recently signed a statement calling for a complete moratorium on the release of GM crops. But the political establishment has chosen to ignore their concerns. ... A Canadian government study found super-weeds at every site it examined. We're also told GM will feed the world's poor. That is nonsense. Last year, the head of Novartis Seeds admitted: "if anyone tells you that GM is going to feed the world, tell them that it is not". He's right. GM cotton farmers in India are reporting record losses. And in the US, the situation is such that even its agriculture department has questioned why farmers are growing GM crops, given their "mixed or even negative" financial impacts. Canada's and the US's mightiest farm organisations are demanding a moratorium on GM wheat. At its height four years ago, the consumer backlash seemed unstoppable. Monsanto's share price plummeted by 40 per cent, supermarkets vowed to remove GM products, and even McDonald's announced that its fries would be GM-free. Yet the industry today is stronger than ever. How this has happened defies belief. (GM page) ...."

July 1 ~ The House of Commons has voted for a TOTAL BAN on Hunting. 362 members against 154

The bill will now go to the House of Lords. Yesterday, David Lidington said, "Most people, whatever their views on hunting, will be amazed that the Government see this issue as a priority. This is an absurd sense of priorities - to put hunting ahead of Health ..."
The BBC in its report (external link) says, "Faced with near-certain defeat in the Commons, he (Mr Blair) ordered his hapless minister Alun Michael to execute one of the most humiliating U-turns of this parliament."
While the killing of animals as a sport is, for many, anathema, it does seem to have escaped the understanding of the most savagely vociferous that things are going to be rather worse for the fox if this legislation is finally passed. Far more likely to involve a slow and painful death are trapping, poisoning , shooting and the other clandestine ways of killing that do not make distinctions between young and old, fit and weak.

July 1 ~ Bill Wiggin appointed Shadow Minister for the Environment

It has been announced that Bill Wiggin, MP for Leominster, has been appointed Conservative Shadow Minister for the Environment. We remember his words to Elliot Morley in December 2001 during a debate on the Animal Health Bill: "When the Minister goes to the conference he may have a chance to research the prophylactic vaccination programme in Uruguay, which has been extremely successful, especially in cattle. I hope that he will meet Dr. Paul Sutmoller, who is an expert on the subject, and compare notes with him."
Had Mr Morley actually done so he would have learnt a great deal and the UK's plans might now be far more advanced than they yet are (See list of points made June 20 - 24) ~ Just some of the questions about "next time" How far have lessons really been learned? .

June 30 ~The current field trials, due to finish this summer, have been too limited in scope, says English Nature in its report to David King - and Lord May agrees .

From the Independent on Sunday's article:GM threatens a superweed catastrophe
"...unless the use of GM weedkillers is very strictly policed - insects and birds that live off weeds, wild flowers and grasses will be killed off because farmers will be using herbicides at the wrong time of year. This would wreck the Government's multi-million- pound programmes to save endangered birds, wildlife and insects. "It may well make some of these policies unworkable," Dr Johnson said.
The "worst case" scenario could be avoided, however, if ministers conducted even more trials, and drafted detailed and binding rules on how and where farmers grow GM crops. The current field trials, due to finish this summer, have been too limited in scope, the agency believes.
English Nature's warnings - in a detailed report to the official GM science review headed by Professor David King, Tony Blair's chief scientific adviser - have been supported by Lord May, the president of the Royal Society..."
Read in full on warmwell's GM page

June 30 ~ "Perhaps Mrs Beckett should explain to Gordon Brown that he will shortly have to find another £3 billion a year to pay for those east European farmers.."

From Booker's Notebook yesterday "The real time-bomb, which somehow escaped mention last week, follows from the fact that when the EU enlarges next year to take in Poland and other eastern European countries, even the limited farm subsidies they are allowed will leave a shortfall on the CAP budget of £3 billion a year. Conveniently, that happens to be just the sum the EU would save if, as indicated at recent meetings of its budget control committee, it abolishes the UK's £3 billion a year budget rebate.
Perhaps Mrs Beckett should explain to Gordon Brown that he will shortly have to find another £3 billion a year to pay for those east European farmers. He will not be best pleased."

June 30 ~ FSA to be challenged

Booker's Notebook in the Sunday Telegraph
"...Richard Younger-Ross, the Liberal Democrat MP for Teignbridge in south Devon, reported how the mussel and oyster industry in his constituency, until recently employing 40 people, has been all but wiped out. For several years the industry has been vainly pleading with Sir John Krebs, and ministers such as Elliot Morley, to adopt more modern testing procedures, with no more response than some sympathetic noises.
The damage inflicted on the mussel industry follows on the even more scandalous own goal I reported last week, whereby Cefas's use of a controversial testing procedure involving the injection of mice has now virtually closed down the cockle industry, putting 3,000 people out of work. Last week the Home Office banned the National Reference Laboratory in Aberdeen from using the Cefas mouse test on animal welfare grounds, after the laboratory had repeatedly come up with wholly contradictory results.
On the Thames estuary, where 200 people have been put out of work, the cockle fishermen intend openly to defy the ban, in the hope of getting the FSA's procedures tested in the courts. The evidence they will produce from an array of scientists is said to be "devastating".

June 28 ~ Throckmorton: "no grounds for compensation claims, .... Defra's "proper and responsible" actions in managing the site..."

Ananova reports
"....The report had previously concluded the site posed "negligible" public health risks, "acceptable" environmental risks and noted no direct link could be established between the site and increased stress levels among those associated with it. Animal Health Minister Ben Bradshaw says he hopes Defra's response demonstrated the department's willingness to work with the community. He added: "I hope that local people and others with an interest will find this written response positive, clear and helpful and that it will mark a new phase of restoration."
Mr Bradshaw will be hoping in vain. The people who have lived on the doorstep of the burial site have long memories. They feel that their views have been ignored - not just over Foot and Mouth disposal by Maff/Defra - but for the past decade. They had to suffer a huge expansion of the landfill site at Hill and Moor, then an intensive chicken farm was thrust on them against their wishes, then an HGV depot, and then in 2001 a mass burial ground for culled animals. (See throckmorton.html) As in the very similar case of Widdrington, the true facts of the Throckmorton case are unlikely to come to light without a full public inquiry. (Mr Bradshaw's performance on the Today Programme this morning does little to inspire confidence. See more on the Campbell/BBC row on the Iraq Aftermath page)

June 28 ~ Throckmorton: "no grounds for compensation claims, .... Defra's "proper and responsible" actions in managing the site..."

Ananova reports
"....The report had previously concluded the site posed "negligible" public health risks, "acceptable" environmental risks and noted no direct link could be established between the site and increased stress levels among those associated with it. Animal Health Minister Ben Bradshaw says he hopes Defra's response demonstrated the department's willingness to work with the community. He added: "I hope that local people and others with an interest will find this written response positive, clear and helpful and that it will mark a new phase of restoration."
Mr Bradshaw will be hoping in vain. The people who have lived on the doorstep of the burial site have long memories. They feel that their views have been ignored - not just over Foot and Mouth disposal by Maff/Defra - but for the past decade. They had to suffer a huge expansion of the landfill site at Hill and Moor, then an intensive chicken farm was thrust on them against their wishes, then an HGV depot, and then in 2001 a mass burial ground for culled animals. (See throckmorton.html) As in the very similar case of Widdrington, the true facts of the Throckmorton case are unlikely to come to light without a full public inquiry. (Mr Bradshaw's performance on the Today Programme this morning does little to inspire confidence. See more on the Campbell/BBC row on the Iraq Aftermath page)

June 27 ~ CAP reactions: Oxfam said the deal "completely sidesteps the serious problem of dairy dumping by the EU on poor countries".

Robert Uhlig's article about the CAP deal in the Telegraph today has as its headline 'Historic' CAP reform praised by Beckett who says,
"she would decouple all English farmers' subsidies from next January. Provided they kept their land in "agricultural order", which in some cases would involve little more than trimming the grass and tending hedges, English farmers would be paid a fixed, "single farm payment" no matter how little food they produced....Those that produce food will have to meet 18 "cross-compliance" requirements on environmental, animal welfare and food quality standards to receive their payment.."
How strange and alien this language seems. Oxfam uses plain English to point out an underlying and serious worry. See article.
The DEFRA website proclaims: "Secretary of State Margaret Beckett today hailed a breakthrough in EU talks over reform of the Common Agricultural Policy as an excellent agreement. ..."
Valerie Elliot in the Times
".. Many farmers are concerned that the new payments are based on average subsidies received during the three years from 2000 to 2002. This period coincided with the foot-and-mouth outbreak in Britain, when payments for many farms were lower than normal, while other farmers may have rented out land during this period for family reasons."
Her article refers to "Sir" Ben Gill and reminds us of how useful are words such as "blank cheque" or "hand-outs" to anti-farmer spin. While the Times article says that "environmental campaigners were concerned that a patchwork farming policy in Europe would be detrimental to the environment and to wildlife habitats..." RSPB is reported by Mr Uhlig as describing the "the reforms as "a monumental change that would provide a real benefit to farm wildlife". .... "

June 26/27 ~ CIWF Applauds CAP Reforms as Good for Farm Animal Welfare

As one emailer says. "Well...lets hope something good can come out of it..." Compassion in World Farming have sent out a positive press release.

June 26 ~ "...a botched compromise" says David Lidington

"....which falls short of the radical changes that are needed, and it is British farmers who are going to have to carry more than their fair share of the costs of reform.
"We hoped this agreement would provide a fair deal for British farmers. What we've got is an agreement that carries with it an undoubted risk of big market distortions and unfair competition, especially in the beef and sheep sectors.
"The Government had promised repeatedly that it would use its influence in Europe to secure an agreement, which served the interests of British agriculture, the environment and the developing world. The EU may find themselves in a difficult position come the time of the WTO." Mr Lidington's full message

June 26 ~ "There must be strong doubts now that the watered-down deal agreed early this morning by Agricultural Ministers in Luxembourg will deliver the international trade, market orientation and environmental benefits hoped from the reforms."

Press release from the CLA: "The CLA has argued for many years that payments should be decoupled from production, this would simplify the system, give farmers the ability to produce for the market, and reduce accusations that our policy was distorting world trade. This agreement to introduce optional partial decoupling dilutes and delays these benefits and introduces a good deal of uncertainty about the fairness of a different policy operating around the EU...." (More)

June 26 ~ "it may still be helpful to undertake a brief literature review of the influence of trace elements, particularly selenium, on the disease status of cattle and badgers"

The EFRA report on TB
• "...... We would therefore encourage the ISG to indicate why specified topics which have been drawn to its attention are not recommended for further study...
• We understand why the Government wants to implement its Animal Health and Welfare Strategy as soon as possible. However, we recommend that Defra take time to assess what might be learnt from past responses to animal disease outbreaks
• ....In the longer-term the Government should consult interested parties about the merit of introducing flexible, 'on-request' testing for tuberculosis (paragraph 19)
• . ... necessary to establish once and for all whether killing badgers has any impact on bovine tuberculosis in cattle. We therefore welcome the Minister's clear statement that the Government will not sanction culling outside the trial areas whilst the trial continues
• ....Defra is responsible for the decisions made...
• ..provide some commentary on the reasons for their different approach (paragraph 36)
• ...It is apparent that all interested parties would be willing to endorse the use of an effective bovine TB vaccine. Therefore, despite the long time-frame, research into the development of vaccines should continue. ....the private sector should be encouraged to play a part in the development of a vaccine (paragraph 42). (Efra's recommendations in full)

June 26 ~stifling research will help nobody

From an article in the Western Mail The march of bureaucracy continues (external link) "... Three sets of findings - the lack of a CJD epidemic, the failure to associate CJD with beef products, and the Kings College work - are now casting doubt on the suggested BSE/CJD link.
If the link does not exist the associated bureaucracy is unnecessary and should be run down. Defra should explain its decision and whose advice it took.
Further findings might have raised problems, but stifling research will help nobody, certainly not the beef industry - and least of all CJD sufferers."

June 26 ~ Important News - Scrapie in resistant sheep

On May, 23rd. 2003 the German Ministry of Agriculture (BMVEL) officially admitted that a two year old sheep, tested for TSE under the fallen stock scheme earlier, had been found positive for scrapie on the routinely used fast test for TSE.
Furthermore, tests on the genotype confirmed the initial finding that the sheep was of the ARR/ARR genotype which is thought to be resistant against infection with scrapie.
The brain sample was in a state of deterioration which made it impossible to carry out histophatological examination of the tissue. Further tests are under way at the German Federal Research Institute (BFA) Riems.
The European Commission has been informed and the SSC is asked to look into the matter. Pending the outcome of further investigations it has to be decided on a european level whether community measures dealing with scrapie have to be changed accordingly.
So far no details have been released about the breed, sex or place/region of origin of the animal in question or the date of death (It might well have died some time ago) . Additional information is not available at the moment. More details when available.
The implications of this news will not be lost on readers.
See also VETERINARY TIMES Volume 33, number 2, 27th January 2003 Transmissible Spongiform Encephalopathies by Susan Haywood BVSc, PhD, MRCVS and David R. Brown M.Sc, Ph.D. Jonathan Long's article EU to destroy scrapie stock in Farmers Weekly Interactive in December and Rare Breeds International's response to the NSP programmes In the foreseeable future a test on blood that can sensitively and accurately predict scrapie infection will be available so that flocks can be tested and regardless of genotype be attested scrapie-free.

June 26 ~ There was no way they were willing to accept the loss of a fruit machine which gives their farmers far more than anyone else in the EU, mainly at the expense of German and UK taxpayers

Muckspreader From Private Eye ".... What really matters to the French and the Germans is that they have found a pot of gold to pay for those subsidies to the Poles and other eastern European farmers without breaking the EU bank. All they need, for the years after 2006, is another 33 billion a year, And, bingo!, they have found it. Constant references in the agenda of recent EU meetings to 'budget control' is code for the fact that, come what may, France and Germany will insist on an end to that UK budget rebate, negotiated through years of acrimonious argument by Mrs Thatcher. With backing from President Prodi, they are now determined Mr Blair must hand it over. After all, he would not like to be put in the dock as the man who blocked 'enlargement'. Gordon Brown will not be best pleased at having to cough up another 33 billion a year. But to keep Britain 'at the heart of Europe', what a small price to pay!" (Read in full)

June 20-24 ~ "Do you not understand the quite justified resentment that there is in our rural communities at the waste of both time and money on rebranding exercises?" asks David Lidington

"...to take just one example, your department's rural payments agency is persistently late in delivering to British farmers the payments to which they are entitled and on which the cash flow of their businesses may depend?"
The shadow minister said £329,000 was spent on the rebranding with an additional £200,000 for erecting new signs.
Mr Michael defended the need for the changes and rejected criticisms of policies. He said: "A lot of work has gone into making Defra an efficient organisation that serves the public interest and is focused on the needs of its customers....." Newcastle Journal (external link) See also warmwell entry for June 5

June 20 -24 ~"as Polish agriculture is forced, in the harshest possible way, to "modernise", millions will be driven off the land....A very great tragedy is in the making."

Christopher Booker : " ...the entrant countries will not receive full subsidies under the Common Agricultural Policy until 2013. In Poland, a quarter of the population, nearly 10 million people, are dependent on a backward and, by Western standards, inefficient agriculture. Yet as from next May the Poles will have to open their borders to fully-subsidised food surpluses from the West, so much cheaper that Polish farmers will find it impossible to compete.
The idea is that as Polish agriculture is forced, in the harshest possible way, to "modernise", millions will be driven off the land. If they go to the cities, they will find that many of Poland's subsidised industries have been closed, under EU rules banning "state aid". With 50,000 steel workers already unemployed, there will thus be little work for the dispossessed rural population, whose best hope of survival will be to head for Britain and Ireland, where they will be entitled to state support as soon as they can find somewhere to live..."

June 20 -24 ~ Food Standards Agency under fire

Two stories concern the FSA today. We read in the Independent on Sunday that
" in his first published article since being sacked by Mr Blair, Mr Meacher lists a series of reports and findings which suggest that the full impact of GM technology is still dangerously unpredictable. Many of the health tests carried out are "scientifically vacuous", he claims. In one of the most damning passages, he says: "The only human GM trial, commissioned ironically by the Food Standards Agency, found that genetically modified DNA did in fact transfer to bacteria in the human gut. Previously many scientists had denied that this was possible. "But instead of this finding being regarded as a serious discovery which should be checked and re-checked, the spin was that this was nothing new and did not involve any health risk."
Booker's Notebook in the Sunday Telegraph begins
"Krebs kills off shellfish industry Last week an industry worth £20 million a year, supporting several thousand people, was closed down by Sir John Krebs's Food Standards Agency on the basis of an obsolete scientific test so comprehensively discredited that even its Japanese inventor has admitted it should be abandoned....
...Last Thursday the FSA issued a blanket closure order on every cockle-bed in the country, leaving several thousand people without a livelihood. They deserve more than a self-serving bureaucratic explanation. "
Following so closely the scandal of the use of pork and beef proteins in chicken meat (external link to the Guardian) - only banned by the FSA after pressure from the Guardian and Panorama had shamed them to take a tougher stance - it does make one wonder what the words "Food" and "Standards" mean to the FSA. "The FSA said at the time that the issue raised no concerns about public safety and was a matter of labelling. Under pressure from MPs in the wake of the investigations, the FSA has toughened its stance."

June 20 -24 ~ fallen stock collection scheme...DEFRA says that farmers who received ten letters should have sent them all back...

"Figures could have been affected by producers who received more than one letter but only sent a single one back, the (DEFRA) spokesman admitted. "Producers should have sent all the letters back," he said. "We are now trying to quantify the impact of this." This was reported deadpan by Farmers Weekly interactive
....farmers are concerned about bio-security issues and the possibility that the annual charge for the collection scheme will rise. Devon farmer Phil Hosking, who is chairman of the Small Farms Association, said he did not like the proposed scheme and had not sent in his response.
"As it stands, the scheme will favour the large-scale livestock farmers at the expense of the small ones. Charges should be per animal, not a flat rate for the year....
... Another small-scale Devon producer, who asked not to be named, said he had not returned his form because the scheme would not be viable on his unit. "Any fallen stock I have - and its only one or two a year - are taken by the local hunt. They only charge £5 for a ewe. "A lot of the smallholders in Devon only have a handful of ewes. "Even if all their stock died at once it would still be cheaper to pay the hunt than go for the collection scheme as it stands."
See Defra's letter about the fallen stock scheme ( external pdf file - eleven pages)

June 20-24 ~ History has been rewritten.

Report of the Chief Veterinary Officer - Animal Health 2002 (external link to pdf file) Jim Scudamore's report looks back over last year but also dwells at some length on FMD 2001. He maintains that "..the source of infection was traced to a pig unit in Tyne & Wear..." Were others aware that the "source" of FMD 2001 had now been definitively identified? No mention at all is made in this retrospect of Professors Roy Anderson or David King, nor of the Science Group, nor the controversial nature of the contiguous cull nor the disastrous delays in slaughter times. "Over the summer, ring vaccination was looked at again as clusters of new cases developed. But the priority was to eradicate the disease, and scientific and veterinary advice remained that this goal would be achieved fastest and most effectively through culling and through the application of tight biosecurity measures..."( If target times had begun to be met, if the disease had been containable, if biosecurity had been followed by DEFRA and the killing teams, such "scientific and veterinary advice"might have been thought sound. But they weren't. )
The Introduction to the Report is similarly self-congratulatory:
"significant progress has been made in implementing the recommendations of the two independent FMD inquiries commissioned by the Government. In particular, attention has focused on developing contingency plans and improving the Government's emergency preparedness in case of another major disease outbreak..." The Government, meanwhile, has also been busy adopting EU legislation in a number of animal health and welfare areas as well as bringing forward important strategies, including the Animal Health Act 2002 in the aftermath of FMD. ...."
All most satisfactory sounding - to an outsider unaware of the implications of the Animal Health Act or EU legislation. "The Government accepted virtually all the recommendations made and endorsed the lessons drawn by these inquiries," says Mr Scudamore. The word "virtually" can cover quite an area.

June 20 - 24 ~ Just some of the questions about "next time" How far have lessons really been learned?

• Among its recommendations the Royal Society said that the Government should prepare the regulatory framework and practical arrangements (eg validation of tests, and the supply of vaccines) that would allow vaccination-to-live. Where is DEFRA's workable and implementable Vaccination Protocol? There are still so many practical issues not resolved.
• An FMD database (see below) is all very well - but where is independent (actually independent) and critical analysis of the epidemiological data? The Royal Society again : "There is considerable benefit to be gained from understanding the quantitative aspects of infectious disease dynamics. Quantitative modelling is one of the essential tools both for developing strategies in preparation for an outbreak and for predicting and evaluating the effectiveness of control policies during an outbreak. More work is required to refine the existing models and to strengthen their capacity to inform policy, which in turn requires full access by researchers to this database and to the data on previous outbreaks." The Imperial College models that informed policy in 2001 were as flawed as the data that went into them. Just how good is the data now? ("we would not claim by any means that the data set had been brought to a perfect state")
• The Royal Society also said: "The first suspected case in an outbreak must be diagnosed in an approved OIE reference laboratory. Thereafter, modern diagnostic methods - including pen-side tests - need to be developed that can shift the burden of diagnosis to veterinarians on the farm. Rapid diagnosis, particularly before clinical signs appear, would limit the size of any epidemic and improve strategic deployment of resources." How far have we progressed with these things? "Such diagnostic methods must be linked by modern telecommunications to central headquarters."
• And what has happened to improve DEFRA's Information Technology? "A prerequisite is a central database incorporating improved data on farms, the location of animals, animal movements, and the characteristics of the diseases, together with arrangements to input disease control data in a timely and assured way during an outbreak." (Royal Society) Are the taxpayers' £85 million per year for a new system "in the summer" going to make things more efficient?

June 20/24 ~ New Zealand in the news - flatulance tax, transgenic sheep trial to stop and concerns about GM

The "flatulance tax"on New Zealand's sheep and cattle is reported by the BBC (external link). The tax on New Zealand farmers - who are not at all content that they should be the ones footing the bill for an environmental measure to benefit the whole planet - is expected to raise 8.4 million New Zealand dollars (£3 million). Since scientists realised that animal emissions produce 15% of worldwide emissions of methane there has been widespread worry about the greenhouse gases produced by livestock.
Scottish PPL Therapeutics Ltd, who cloned poor Dolly the sheep in 1997, is calling a halt for at least three years on New Zealand's first transgenic livestock field trial - in which more than 1000 transgenic sheep, tagged and chipped, are grazing Waikato pastures behind a 2m-high, electronically alarmed, perimeter fence. PPL were trying to develop a lung drug extracted from the GE milk and had worked for three years with Bayer Biological Products(external link). No one seems to know what will happen to the 1000 sheep now.
The New Zealand Herald has been running a series of articles on genetic engineering questions. We particularly appreciated the balanced views of Barbara Sumner Burstyn: Unresolved issues in GM debate leave potential for disaster

June 19/20 ~ "we would not claim by any means that the data set had been brought to a perfect state"

says DEFRA on its Foot and Mouth Disease Information Page about the new FMD database.
The BBC's article, jokily entitled "Foot and Mouth goes virtual" says:
"About six million animals had to be culled because of infection or for welfare reasons. The cost to agriculture and the food industry has been put at over £3bn; the costs to the tourist and associated industries are thought to have doubled that figure."
So it would seem that accuracy at the BBC has not been brought to a perfect state either.
DEFRA proclaims: "we have most of the salient data available in electronic form. This dataset is available to any bona-fide researcher world-wide who is prepared to observe modest confidentiality conditions."
Modest confidentiality conditions.
So the data - not by any means brought to a perfect state - may not be accessed in depth by concerned members of the public. Any "academic researcher" or bona fide journalist who does manage to examine the data in depth may not publicise what he finds. The government can tick off another of the Inquiries' recommendations towards openness, secure in the knowledge that anything damaging is highly unlikely to see the light of day.

June 19/20 ~ "The spin machine gives the public the impression that government policy is to encourage sustainable farming and organic farming. Government actions do the opposite...."

A sheep farmer from Devon writes "... The arrangements for paying for the stock slaughtered in the name of controlling FMD benefited farmer-dealers who trade and transport animals and damaged, in many cases terminally, the smaller family farms who were trying to run sustainable home bred herds and flocks. For example, a large scale farmer-dealer near us, engineered, by mixing his flocks, that all his sheep were killed. I wondered about this at the time. I have since heard that the sheep slaughtered had been bought-in for about £8.00 per ewe. He was paid something in the order of £80.00 per ewe when they were slaughtered. He could use his profit to buy more land and import some more cheap sheep.
Our own sheep are all home bred in a closed flock. If our sheep had been killed we would have received payment on a similar scale of - say £80.00 per head. Replacements of similar sheep would have cost us at least £120.00 per head - and until we had been able to replace them we would have had to live without any income. The Winslades, who lost their home bred herd must have been affected in this way.
The result of this process throughout British agriculture, has been to selectively cripple the sustainable family farms who don't use mass long distant transport of animals and to assist the agribusinesses that rely on mass long distance transport. The spin machine gives the public the impression that government policy is to encourage sustainable farming and organic farming. Government actions do the opposite...."

June 19/20~ The closure of so many of the small abattoirs in Britain has meant that animals have to travel further and further for slaughter.

British interpretation of the EU directives were used to make it impossibly uneconomic to run small local abattoirs. Deliberate policy, which happened to suit the supermarkets and large scale agribusiness interests, was used to deprive farmers of the opportunity to have their own animals killed locally for sale in farmer's markets and High Street craft butcher's shops - and the effect has been to force the long distance transport of animals.
It is all very well to attend to welfare of stock when being transported (see below) - but animals are better not transported at all. A genuine attempt to implement a truly sustainable policy for agriculture and food should look to removing the need for the mass long distance transport of animals.

June 19 ~ A recently completed EU project has called for urgent action to improve the conditions for cattle transport in Europe

(http://dbs.cordis.lu ) stating that the welfare of cattle and the quality of meat produced is being adversely affected by current transport facilities. Funded under the quality of life and management of living resources section of the Fifth Framework Programme (FP5), the 'minimising stress-inducing factors on cattle during handling and transport to improve animal welfare and meat quality' project (CATRA) ran for three years. The UK did not take part. Commenting on the relevancy of the project's findings EU Commissioner for Research, Philippe Busquin, said:
'Avoiding needless animal suffering is in industry's own interest: the quality of its product can be seriously affected by substandard transportation. This is why EU research not only studies cattle transportation, but also aims to support policy-making towards improved and cost-effective animal welfare, whilst safeguarding consumer protection.'
From the europa.eu website: "Transport of live animals, especially over long distances, is a controversial issue, and seen by many consumers as having a major, negative impact on animal welfare. In addition, the movement of animals over long distances to slaughter can potentially affect meat quality, whether through stress or factors such as animals fighting or damaging themselves on handling facilities. " The European Commission is set to publish its proposals in July. It is expected to call for a nine-hour journey limit, followed by an 11 hour break as opposed to current rules allowing adult livestock to travel for 14 hours, followed by a one-hour break. The new proposal also suggests that animals have continuous access to water and room to lie down.
According to FWi " David Mitchell, vice-president of National Farmers' Union Scotland believes the plan is a major threat to livestock producers. ...The proposals wouldnt even let us operate within our own country."

June 19 ~ The "First Global Conference on Animal Welfare" .

"Animal protection is a complex, multi-faceted public policy issue that includes important scientific, ethical, economic and political dimensions." says the OIE webpage describing the conference which is to take place in Paris next February (2004).
" Because of its growing importance in society, animal welfare must today be addressed in a scientifically credible manner.......
The primary objective of the Conference is to improve the global understanding of the linkage between animal health and animal welfare ....
The Conference will bring together stakeholders (governmental authorities, scientists, private sector and non profit NGOs) from around the world to support OIE in its animal welfare activities and to assess the way they should contribute most effectively. It will also support the OIE in a science-based approach to the welfare of animals in agriculture and aquaculture as a start to the development of international standards."
As with the vaccination versus slaughter arguments, opposite sides in the animal welfare debate tend to be blinkered about the serious points the other is making. As Michael Meredith (pighealth.com) has wisely said," Polarised opinions and fragmented self-interests have stifled consensual progress and understanding for too long. We must establish on-going communication and dialogue structures that not only air people's grievances, but visibly facilitate all sectors of the welfare debate to influence each other as well as government policies."

June 18 ~ "We really must never let that kind of holocaust happen again because the whole thing wasn't just about animals, it was about people's lives being wrecked."

The Newcastle Journal reported the Memorial ceremony at Mossburn Sanctuary yesterday.".... The Duchess of Hamilton dedicated the commemoration stone, which has been sited in a garden at the Mossburn Animal Centre at Hightae, near Lockerbie in Dumfriesshire, during a special ceremony.
The plaque reads: "This memorial is dedicated to all the animals needlessly slaughtered in the foot-and-mouth crisis of 2001. "We remember the persecution of the animal kingdom and the trauma inflicted upon our countryside. "We resolve to work towards a more respectful, harmonious and sustainable relationship between the animal and human kingdoms. "We resolve to ensure that such an outrage will never be allowed to happen again."

June 17 ~ Today's Times:"The arrogant, brutal mishandling of the foot-and-mouth crisis did immense damage to countryside business, and to our sense of Britain as a kindly and gentle nation that values living things..."

"..Public authorities were unable to cope hygienically with the Herod policy, and the Army was brought in. It was a horrible time. You may have forgotten it. Rural voters haven't. " Libby Purves in the Times today: " the Blair regime right now looks less like a well-planned programme than a panicky lash-up."

June 17 ~ "It's been investigated to death"

Yes indeed. In a story that has strange parallels with the WMD search, we read "Final mad cow quarantines lifted, no BSE found." CTVNewsAt11 (external links)
"The Canadian Food Inspection Agency says tests on a final 700 animals have failed to turn up any new cases of BSE. "All the results are now in,'' said CFIA spokesman Dr. Claude Lavigne. "Everything that we'll ever get is here. There's no more to be gained here. It's been investigated to death.''
Lavigne acknowledged that investigators may never nail down the source of the infection.
"The trail is cold and we're not going to find a definite source of this infection.''
Pro-Med says: "In total, about 2700 cattle have been removed from farms and they have all been destroyed. Rapid diagnostic testing has been completed and all results are negative. The traditional tests are partially completed and all are negative to date. Negative results means that the incidence of BSE in Canada remains confined to one cow."
See also entry for May 26 where the ProMed moderator wrote: ".. there is no scientific justification for slaughtering herds that were in contact with the infected animal or its offspring. BSE cannot be passed by casual contact."

June 16/17 ~ Ash Moor Pit - illegal says EU

Wondering what became of the "Stop the Ash Moor Pit" movement, STAMP, and its claim against DEFRA, we were reassured to discover that the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs has been found in breach of EU law for
• failing to consult the public before digging three out of a planned 15 barrows in preparation for burying up to 400,000 animal carcasses and
• failing to carry out an environmental impact assessment into the site to find out if it was a suitable area to have a burial pit.
  The European Commission has now started formal proceedings against the UK Government under Article 226 of the EU Treaty. (Article 226 of the EU Treaty establishes the legal procedure to be followed if a Member State does not comply with EU legislation or with a Court of Justice judgment. In the case of non-compliance with a Court judgment the Commission may bring another action before the Court and specify the amount of the financial penalty which it considers should be imposed on the Member State.)
  The other pits, similar in their disastrous impact on local people, were: Great Orton (Cumbria), Birkshaw Forest (Lockerbie), Throckmorton (Worcs), Widdrington (Northumberland), Tow Law (County Durham) and Sennybridge (Epynt) in Powys
  Work (put out to tender by DEFRA) on filling in the holes at the 100-acre Ash Moor pit in Petrockstowe is expected to start later this year. It was built amid a storm of unheeded protest from residents living close by in the village of Meeth.

June 16 ~ Honours list:

CBE Anthony Alan Gibson, regional director, National Farmers' Union, services to agriculture and rural economy in the South West.
We are very pleased to see this accolade go to such a man as Mr Gibson whose forthright comments have always seemed to have been based on a genuine love of farming and on common sense.

June 12 - 16 ~ FMD Vaccination Trigger.

Chris Stockdale, stakeholder at DEFRA meetngs, writes, " Robert Uhlig's article in the Daily Telegraph of yesterday (13/6/03) contains the news that the EU "could impose emergency vaccination if a member state's infected livestock were not culled within 24 hours and dangerous contacts within 48 hours".
.....Without wishing to be overpessimistic, who will control the report to slaughter data? DEFRA, SERAD etc. Perhaps we should suggest now that all such should be automatically copied into the European central FMD Reference Library - otherwise how would they know? ....."
Read Chris Stockdale's message in full

June 12 - 16 ~ "exceptional psycho-social impact of the disease"

Link to European commission Press Release re FMD June 12 2003 FMD: Byrne welcomes political agreement on improved Directive to control outbreaks (external link) "... The Council of Agriculture Ministers achieved today political agreement on revised and improved legislation on EU measures to control outbreaks of foot-and-mouth disease (FMD). FMD is not dangerous for human health but outbreaks of this highly contagious viral disease in livestock have an exceptional economic and psycho-social impact on the rural and national economy in the EU, The amended Directive details the measures to rapidly control and eradicate the disease ..."
And the reaction from the NFU (emphasising those face-saving "developments since the 2001 outbreak" )

June 12 -16 ~ Michael Meacher to go as part of the prime minister's reshuffle.

We are very concerned - but far from surprised - to see his departure as Environment Minister . He spoke the truth and was accused by a leading member of the powerful pro-GM lobby of boycotting the field trials for the controversial plants....The GM lobby regard him as an obstacle to the development of such crops in Britain. Tony Juniper (Friends of the Earth Press Release) said: "With the Government's GM public debate barely 10 days old, the one minister urging caution on this issue has been sacked. This move increases fears that the Government won't listen to public opinion and is preparing to allow GM crops to be commercially grown in the UK."

June 12 - 16 ~ "Mrs Beckett was left looking isolated and out of touch at yesterday's negotiations.."

Robert Uhlig in the Telegraph Beckett farms out powers to EU
"Britain lost the power yesterday to decide its own policy on handling any future foot and mouth epidemic when agriculture ministers voted to give the European Commission the final say on whether any country should vaccinate or not.
Because of concerns about British shortcomings in dealing with the £8 billion epidemic that brought the countryside to a halt in 2001, the directive agreed yesterday gives the commission "a key role in managing an outbreak in partnership with the member states"....... "Mrs Beckett was left looking isolated and out of touch at yesterday's negotiations after it emerged that Germany and France had stuck an agreement that derailed British hopes of radically reforming the bloated Common Agricultural Policy..."

June 12 - 16 ~ It is agreed: emergency vaccination to move to the top of the list of control measures against Foot and Mouth in the EU

"Emergency vaccination is moved to the forefront of control measures instead of being the last resort. The agreement is a true reform." David Byrne.
European Agriculture Ministers have today (Thursday) agreed new laws for controlling foot-and-mouth disease - including requiring Member States to make arrangements for the use of emergency vaccination as soon as the disease is confirmed. It also gives the commission a key role in managing another FMD crisis, including the power to initiate a vaccination programme.
"This approach is bolstered by modified international trade rules and lab tests to distinguish vaccinated from infected herds," said a commission statement. Emergency vaccination will still be backed up with a stamping out policy for infected and "suspect" animals.
Para 5.1.1 "The present proposal provides more details on the measures to be taken in the event of an outbreak. With the aim to reduce the number of animals to be killed within the framework of the disease control measures, it particularly emphasises the role of emergency vaccination." The Directive would provide for regionalization within an affected Member State and allow movement of vaccinated animals from negative herds - following re-establishment of "FMD free status" -- within the Member State concerned but not between States. Restrictions on trade of milk and meat products are kept to the minimum required to prevent transmission and spread of the disease. It also provides for the maintenance of a vaccine bank and diagnostic facilities.
The Food Standards Agency has today made some welcome announcements:
"The Food Standards Agency announced in April 2001 that it was satisfied that eating meat, milk or other produce from animals that have been treated with authorised foot and mouth disease vaccines would not have any implications for food safety. Nor did the FSA consider that there would be any need to label meat products derived from animals that have been vaccinated with the food and mouth (sic) disease vaccine.
All vaccines for food animals have to be given a licence before they can be used.
As part of the licensing process, the Government's independent expert committee, the Veterinary Products Committee, thoroughly assesses the safety of the vaccine to ensure that its use will not pose any threat to human health."

June 12 _ 16 ~ DEFRA's response to the new law

Ignoring such comments in the EU FMD report as:
"The handling of the epidemic was characterised by a lack of co-ordination between veterinary and policy staff within the State Veterinary Service and between the Regions and the centre. This led to a number of difficulties in defining and implementing the Government's control strategy. A clear delineation of powers was lacking..." and "contingency plans and the logistical and staffing preparations for an outbreak of FMD or other notifiable exotic animal diseases in the United Kingdom were suffering from considerable shortcomings... Hardly anything had been done to implement (the Drummond Report) this report's recommendations for remedying the shortcomings before the crisis arose, even though in July 2000 the head of the state veterinary service expressed extreme concern about the state of preparations, particularly with regard to slaughter, disposal of animal carcases, staff training and the availability of up-to-date contingency plan...."
Defra reacts with what some might consider breathtaking assurance, claiming success all round: "Welcoming the Directive, Animal Health Minister Elliot Morley said: "The Directive is consistent with the Government's view that emergency vaccination should be considered as part of the control strategy from the start of any outbreak of FMD. The Greek Presidency has made rapid progress in negotiations on this Directive and are to be congratulated on the final outcome. The UK has played a pivotal role in the shaping of the Directive, calling on experience gained in eradicating the disease during the 2001 outbreak. Since the start of this year, Defra has been in discussions with a wide range of stakeholders about the implications of the EU proposals and how they will be applied in the UK" -
However, if general face-saving is the price to pay for emergency vaccination to be accepted in future outbreaks, so be it.

June 12 -16 ~If Professor Alan Ebringer's theory that BSE and MS are autoimmune diseases which are linked to the microbe Acinetobacter were to be confirmed, the implications are of huge importance - but his department is forced to close.

As has been mentioned on warmwell's BSE/CJD pages, the respected scientist Professor Alan Ebringer, Professor of Immunology, School of Health and Life Sciences, Kings College, University of London, has had all funding withdrawn, so that the next stage of his research (to investigate whether vCJD patients also exhibit antibodies to Acinetobacter) cannot now be undertaken. His entire department at Kings College is to close down and all the expertise that has been built up will be lost.
His findings were not consistent with the official infectious prion theory. However, if Professor Ebringer's theory can be confirmed that BSE and MS are autoimmune diseases which are linked to the microbe Acinetobacter, the implications are of huge importance and are far reaching. The following conclusions arise:
1. There will be no vCJD epidemic and the panic measures currently costing Canada so much will be shown to have been groundless.
2. A cure for vCJD, based on treatment for Acinetobacter, could be set in motion.
3. BSE cannot be passed on by eating infected meat. The meat from BSE cows is safe to eat and has always been safe to eat.
4. The massive cattle cull in the UK was unnecessary.
5. The devastating blow dealt to the UK livestock industry, and elsewhere, was unnecessary.
6. The financial outlay for the BSE disaster of £5 billion of taxpayers money could have been spent on other socially more relevant needs.
7. The massive European and wider research programmes on TSEs in sheep, with potentially disastrous implications for the sheep industry in the UK, are flawed and therefore worthless.
8. A possible cure for MS may be found.
9. The extremely costly tonsil screening programme plus associated costs was unnecessary.
10. Reputations will be damaged.
11. It may pave the way to improving the reputation/perception of science/scientists in the eyes of the public, by allowing scientific research to be open to rigorous peer group scrutiny, by showing that alternative views are encouraged rather than suppressed, and most importantly that funding is not linked to producing politically acceptable results.
More about Professor Ebringer's work can be seen on the vCJD/BSE page

June 12/13 ~"Depopulation"

The slaughter of cattle in Canada has revealed nothing: http://www.zwire.com/site/News.cfm?BRD=1996&dept_id=459492&newsid=8283993&PAG=461&rfi=9
"....1,500 samples. All cattle from these 18 farms have been killed and more than 1,500 samples have been submitted for laboratory tests. Rapid diagnostic tests from these 18 farms have all been negative. Canada has also depopulated approximately 1,000 additional animals from nonquarantined farms linked to the investigation. All samples submitted for testing came back negative."

Jun 12 ~ Nanotechnology will revolutionise our lives - it should be regulated

"We must not be blinded by science " Dr Caroline Lucas, (much respected on this website for, among other things, her work as Vice President of the EU Committee investigating the Foot and Mouth crisis), has written in today's Guardian:
...The government's announcement yesterday that it is commissioning the Royal Society to undertake an investigation into the benefits and problems of nanotechnology suggests that it might - perhaps - be about to learn from some of the mistakes it made over biotechnology and GM foods. .....Unfortunately, proponents of the new technology have learned from GM. Already they are presenting nanotech as a "scientific" issue rather than a societal one.
Policymakers must not fall for this doublespeak, and must ask the right questions about nanotech's social and environmental impacts: its effects on employment (if we can replace copper with carbon nanotubes, for example, what will be the future of those in Zambia who depend on the copper industry?), on human health and on biodiversity. The most immediate priority must be to prevent those with most to gain from the new technology from winning a regulatory race before government even arrives at the starting line." (article)

Jun 12 ~ "Leading Indian food analyst Devinder Sharma dismissed the GM potato...

... as "another magic bullet from the trashcan of biotechnology industry". He argued that protein could be better provided by the pulses used traditionally in India. "What this country needs is pulses. They contain 20%-26% proteins... this potato has 2.5% protein. Please tell me which one is better."... "
Read (external link) article from today's Guardian: Scientists develop GM 'protato' to feed India's poorest children

Jun 12 ~"Mrs. Beckett and Lord Whitty, the farms minister, are reduced to behaving these days like bullying traffic wardens; they have no more power to decide what goes on in British farming than a jobsworth from the local social services office."

We read in this week's Muckspreader (Private Eye) "One of Britain's most active GM campaigners recently received by mistake an invitation to a GM "consultation" meeting in Brussels. Delighted to have the chance to put her case directly to the EU's agriculture commissioner, Frans Fischler, she was intrigued to see the great man take the platform, flanked by representatives of companies concerned with pushing GM crops.
Fischler announced that growing GM crops would soon be legal throughout the EU. There was no opportunity for questioning or debate. "It was a 'consultation,'" as she put it, "only in the sense that Stalin was 'consulting' with the Soviet people when he announced one of his five-year plans".....
....As minister Michael Meacher recently admitted, the "competence" to decide GM policy was handed to Brussels more than 10 years ago and there is no longer anything he and his colleagues can do about it. But the same is true of all other aspects of farm policy. It seems strangely difficult for people to take on board that Britain's right to decide agricultural policy has been handed over lock, stock and barrel to Brussels; from deciding which crops should be grown in our fields to making it a criminal offence to bury a stillborn lamb or put a basket of free range eggs on the counter of a village shop. ..... (Read in full)

June 12 ~ Early Day Motion 1258 - Fluoridation of Public Water Supplies:"... the addition of medicines to public water supplies is a breach of fundamental human rights" Did your MP sign?

(See also warmwell entry for May 12 2003 and consider also Fax your MP) That this House considers that the only chemicals which should be added to public water are those which are essential for its purification for public consumption; believes that the addition of medicines to public water supplies is a breach of fundamental human rights; and rejects any proposals to amend legislation to permit the addition of fluoride to public water supplies.
Mr John Butterfill, Mr John Bercow, Mr Julian Brazier, Mr Colin Breed, Mr John Burnett, Mr Gregory Campbell, Mr Ronnie Campbell , Mr Christopher Chope, Jeremy Corbyn, Mr Jonathan Djanogly , Mr Brian H Donohoe, Mr David Drew , Mr Alan Duncan, Mr Bill Etherington, Mr Nigel Evans, Mr Edward Garnier, Mr John Gummer, Mr Mike Hancock , Mr John Hayes , Mr Gerald Howarth, Mr Alan Hurst, Mr Michael Jack, Mr Boris Johnson, Mrs Jacqui Lait , Mr Edward Leigh , Dr Julian Lewis, Mr Terry Lewis, David Maclean, Alice Mahon, Mr Andrew Mitchell, Mr Malcolm Moss, Mr Andrew Robathan, Mr Laurence Robertson, Mrs Iris Robinson, Mrs Marion Roe, Andrew Rosindell, Mr Richard Shepherd, Mr Keith Simpson, Mrs Caroline Spelman, Sir Michael Spicer, Mr Desmond Swayne, Mr Hugo Swire, Mr Robert Syms, Mr Simon Thomas, Dr Rudi Vis, Joan Walley, Mr Nigel Waterson, Angela Watkinson, Mr John Whittingdale, Mr Bill Wiggin, Mr Alan Williams (Swansea West), Ann Winterton, Sir Nicholas Winterton, Mr James Wray
If your MP is not there - please read this from the National Pure Water Association (external link) and the warmwell entry for May 12 : "...Ministers talk of enhancing consumer choice but are proposing a policy that offers no choice. Evian and Malvern must be rubbing their hands. If the government goes ahead with the plan, the main beneficiaries will be the bottled water companies."

June 12 ~" If you read the whole horse passport debate were you not struck by what the Lib Dem Lord Falkland said?"

asks an emailer today. "Viscount Falkland said: " would we be debating this at all if we were not in the EU?"
How blindingly simple; that should be the litmus test for all legislation. It should be the first question to be answered on any Impact Assessment. Why did I not think of it before; imagine the joy of scrapping whole swathes of Euro-directives with which we are increasingly burdened, brought in ONLY because we are in the EU quicksand."

June 11 ~ Team to look at suffering caused by foot-and-mouth outbreak

The Western Mail
"CHILDREN'S poems, farmers' views and media interpretations will be examined as part of a new two-year study into the foot-and-mouth outbreak of 2001.
Researchers at the University of Nottingham have won £135,000 to fund the project, which will look at the cultural and social implications of the disease.
The study, Caught Between Science and Society: Foot and Mouth Disease, is among the first of its kind looking at how the disease affected farmers, families and communities.
...It is hoped that, in the event of another outbreak, the investigation's results will give policymakers a better grounding on which to make their decisions."
The emailer who sent us this link comments:"Maybe. I'd be more impressed if the culprits were in front of a Court."

June 11 ~ "Has DEFRA gone stark, staring, raving mad in saying that we have to have the regulations?" The Earl of Onslow on Horse Passports

The House of Lords has been debating the question of Horse Passports. The Lords who stand up for reason and humanity are, as usual, eloquent, erudite, outspoken and funny - although the issue itself, alas, is far from being amusing..
The Earl of Onslow: ......We have existed for a thousand years without horse passports. Just because the French muck up the invasion of Russia and take a liking to eating horseflesh, we suddenly have to have horse passports, let alone the fact that we cannot bury livestock, and that every sheep has to have an ear tag. DEFRA is the department for making absolutely certain that it is weighed down with regulation, red tape and incompetence. I thought that the old Ministry of Agriculture was bad, but DEFRA!.....
...Lord Willoughby de Broke: I have some sympathy with DEFRA, and with the Minister, to the extent that his department is now relegated to the status of a branch office of the Directorate-General of Agriculture in Brussels. It seems that he has no option but to implement the directive with which we are dealing. To what extent did the Government resist this typically heavy-handed and costly EU directive? What was the position taken by DEFRA officials and our permanent representatives in Brussels when the measure was in its early stages? Did they fight it in the committee rooms? Did they fight it in the bars and on the beaches? Did they fight it in the fleshpots of Brussels, or was our "strong voice in Europe" reduced to the usual impotent squeak of protest before the ritual cave-in? Did our representatives support the directive and, if so, why? After all, they are charged with looking after our interests and not those of our horse-eating partners in the European Union. When the measure was considered by the EU standing committee on zootechnics in 1999, it was passed by 64 votes to 23. Which way did our representatives vote then? It is important to know. The Minister will not be able to give me an answer this evening, but I would be grateful if he wrote to me with that detail.
Read the debate ( Lord Willoughby de Broke is still waiting for a written answer from Lord Whitty.)

June 11 ~ I cannot see what is anti-European in an aversion to a supranational regime that fails to regulate its rotten apples and lacks any wider accountability.

Simon Jenkins' article in the Times today can be read on the warmwell Democracy in the UK page

June 11 ~"It is also unclear that Britain's current methods of slaughter would provide significantly improved animal welfare alternatives."

Telegraph opinion (external link) on the ritual slaughter recommendations
" ...The Shechita (Jewish) and Zabiha Halal (Muslim) practices of slaughter are not barbaric rituals, but religious ones. Quite apart from the sacred nature of these practices, the concerns for animal welfare in both religions existed long before animal welfare became such a prominent public issue.
It is false to suggest that this is a debate that simply sets religious practice against high standards of welfare. Both religions protect the animals until the last moment of slaughter and the killing is rigorously supervised. .......Not only did the bolt-gun technique employed during the foot and mouth crisis highlight the imperfections of current methods, but research carried out at Bristol University in 1993 also suggested that the electrode-stun method can require up to 15.6 per cent of animals to be re-stunned, as more than a third are stunned in the wrong head position......
It is the FAWC's responsibility to establish beyond doubt why the curtailing of these ancient practices will so dramatically improve the quality of animals' lives that we are left with no choice but to enrage these two religions through a ban on halal and kosher practices. So far, they are nowhere near doing so."
See also the FAWC report (external link)

June 10/11 ~ DEFRA should be the first ones taken to the European court. After all, in 2001 they buried 100,000's of carcases all over the country.

FAILURE OF NATIONAL COLLECTION SCHEME FOR DEADSTOCK a press release from Farmers for Action.
" Surely now DEFRA must realise this failure was not due to anything other than farmers using their democratic rights. The fact they chose not to send in their forms is a show of strength of feeling that they are not going to accept the proposed scheme. If fallen stock is a public health issue, then DEFRA should show us the evidence and if there is a strong case that the public is at risk, then DEFRA should be the first ones taken to the European court. After all, in 2001 they buried 100,000's of carcases all over the country. If indeed there is a need for such a scheme, FFA believe DEFRA should pick up the bill, after all public health is the government's duty not the farmer's. Most other EU governments pay, why not the UK?..."
(More)

June 10 ~ Manmade chemicals contaminating people? Samples will be sent for independent scientific analysis

Western Morning News(external link) " The World Wildlife Fund is visiting the Westcountry to test the extent to which manmade chemicals are contaminating people. A team of medical experts hired by WWF, which is campaigning for reductions in environmental pollution, will visit Exeter on Monday, June 23 to take blood samples for analysis from volunteers.
The samples will be sent for independent scientific analysis to determine whether hazardous chemicals used in everyday products are building up in human beings in the long term.
The charity hopes to test 10 people in 12 venues across the UK, with the results to be published later in the year and used to lobby the EU for tighter regulations on the use of chemicals in manufacturing."

June 10 ~ let us join this debate, and see how much the government likes it when "all voices are heard"

George Monbiot in today's Guardian. He says that the issue of human health has been over-emphasised by the media. The principal issue - "perpetually and deliberately ignored by government, many scientists, most of the media and, needless to say, the questionnaire being used to test public opinion, is the corporate takeover of the food chain", the second is environmental damage. He points out that "the weeds which, as a result of GM pollen contamination, have acquired multiple herbicide resistance" are now resistant to all three of the most widely used modern pesticides. "The result is that farmers trying to grow other crops must now spray it with 2,4-D, a poison which persists in the environment."
"...Like Monsanto, the British government has already invested in genetic engineering. In 1999, it allocated £13m (or 26 times what it is spending on the great debate) "to improve the profile of the biotech industry", by promoting "the financial and environmental benefits of biotechnology". ......
Last year, an unnamed minister told the Financial Times that the debate was simply a "PR offensive". "They're calling it a consultation," he said, "but don't be in any doubt, the decision is already taken."...... The only chance we have of keeping (GM crops) out of Europe is to ensure that....our governments fight the US through the WTO and, if they lose, pay compensation rather than permit them to be planted. So let us join this debate, and see how much the government likes it when "all voices are heard". Like Monsanto, it may come to wish it had never asked.
Read George Monbiot's article in full Join the debate at http://www.gmnation.org.uk/

June 10 ~ "If we leave animals alone in their natural habitat, viruses in the animal kingdom will remain there"...

Alert Issued as U.S. Monekypox Cases Grow to 33
Public health officials in three states tried on Monday to track down pet prairie dogs believed spreading a smallpox-like illness, not seen before in the Western Hemisphere, that may have infected 33 people. Only six of the victims were being treated in hospitals, officials said, and they were expected to recover with bed rest. The disease, caused by monkeypox virus, is not believed to spread person-to-person. But in light of the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome scare and an approaching summer season when mosquito-born West Nile virus was likely to again pose a deadly threat, health officials were moving rapidly to attack the newly diagnosed problem..." (Reuters external link)
From ProMed site (external link) "Investigators have traced the origin of the outbreak to a pet distributor in Villa Park, Ill. That distributor had a giant Gambian rat, indigenous to African countries, that may have infected batches of prairie dogs, Hughes said"......."The ending of vaccination programmes against smallpox in the late 1970s has probably led to an increase in susceptibility to monkeypox"
"If we leave animals alone in their natural habitat, viruses in the animal kingdom will remain there, but because we disrupt their environment, we are exposed to the viruses" [Universiti Malaya medical microbiology professor Datuk Dr Lam Sai Kit, SARS virus 'jumped species through handling' ].

June 9/10 ~ "People travelled miles to attend this meeting and it was really difficult to find the venue"

Western Morning News Campaigners vow to destroy all GM crops "..this weekend, farmers, campaigners, councillors and consumers travelled to Taunton's Holiday Inn to make their voices heard at what has been the "best-attended" meeting since the Government launched the nationwide consultation on GM seven days ago.
For the first time since the consultation kicked off in Birmingham last Tuesday, organisers - the GM Debate Steering Board - had to set up an extra meeting to accommodate the public.
.... "The publicity was absolutely appalling. There were only two A4 sheets on the main and back doors which indicated there was a meeting. Nothing else apart from that. People travelled miles to attend this meeting and it was really difficult to find the venue"....Keith Hatch, a regional member of Friends of the Earth, said: "I think it's pretty obvious that hardly anyone wants GM crops. At the end of the conference we were asked if we wanted to see GM plants grown in the UK. Nobody put their hands up."..... "

June 9 ~ "Replacing one gene with another is not as simple as the biotechnology companies suggest, and the long-term consequences for the environment and consumers are not clear."

Genetically modified food. Letter to the Times yesterday from Dr Kristin Becker Consultant in Clinical Genetics, North-West Thames Regional Genetics Centre
THE UK government surely does not represent the public in trying to stop labelling of genetically modified food under pressure from Washington. The public have a right to know what they are eating. The human genome has been sequenced, but we are only just beginning to appreciate the complexity of gene-gene interactions. One gene can have many functions and cause a variety of human diseases. Replacing one gene with another is not as simple as the biotechnology companies suggest, and the long-term consequences for the environment and consumers are not clear.
It appears the government hopes the public will happily eat GM food in years to come, for the sake of biotechnology companies making a huge profit. If labelling is abolished here, I will have to leave the country, having worked in the NHS for many years. "
See also updated GM page The knives are out, apparently, for Michael Meacher

June 9 ~ Britain ran a covert 'dirty tricks' operation designed specifically to produce misleading intelligence that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction to give the UK a justifiable excuse to wage war on Iraq.

The Iraq and after page gives details of Operation Rockingham, which was set up to 'cherry-pick' intelligence about the Iraqi WMD programme and suppress any intelligence indicating that Saddam's stockpiles had been destroyed or wound down.
Read how John Reid was instructed by Downing Street to make his attack last week on "rogue elements" within the security services. And share our concern that the US expects space to be "weaponised" in the medium-term future, and is determined to take an "unassailable technological lead."

June 9 ~ At the moment we dairy farmers are "lucky".

David writes about fallen stock: "... If the animal is over 30 months, you get the vet out to declare on the official form (4 copies) that the animal is fit for human consumption. He then kills it on the farm by lethal injection or the tried and tested gun. You then ring the British Cattle Movement Service (BCMS) for a Casualty Reference number, fill out an OTM17 form (4 copies), find the passport, sign all the appropriate bits, stick on the bar code stickers, send a tear off bit back to BCMS, contact the local knacker transport service (more paperwork) and he will remove dead beast to an incinerator approved by DEFRA. If you have not made a mistake on any of the paperwork and the animal has all the necessary tags/ID, you will eventually receive a cheque from the RPA (Rural Payments Agency) for an animal that was deemed fit for human consumption, but due to BSE restrictions had to be incinerated.
Now when the BSE restrictions come off next January (on certain age groups) or the animal is under 30 months, I think you go through all the above procedures except the incinerator. Problem is you need a slaughter house to take it and I don't know of one in the UK - so I have buried those - but now the EU says I cannot bury (or burn) them anymore ...." David's full message illustrates very well the "luck" of the dairy farmer today, hemmed in with the current legislation.

June 7 ~ Hundreds of people across the Westcountry have been denied access to the national debate on the commercialisation of GM crops in Taunton today.

Western Morning News report (external link): " Since the beginning of the week when the consultation kicked off in Birmingham, organisers - the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs - have been inundated with calls from the region's residents asking to book a place......
"However, the hall cannot accommodate more than 100 people at one time and there are health and safety regulations which prevent us from allowing more in."
John Watson, co-owner of the Riverford Organic Farm in Totnes and a staunch anti-GM campaigner, was refused entry to the meeting. ...... "I would have liked to approach the scientists and ask them a really important fact about the commercialisation of GM crops in this country. "If someone decides to spend millions of pounds on developing a super crop like the genetically engineered Chardon maize and then they refuse to produce any information about it, then surely something must be wrong. It's a shame I won't be able to raise this point." ......"

June 7 ~ The FSA doth protest

David Lidington: Government spins more yarns "This is just another example of this Labour Government 'spinning' reports for their own political gain" says the Shadow DEFRA secretary - but he sheds no light on what the disagreements may be about. Nor does Valerie Elliott in today's Times.
"...the leaking of an agency document which states that because of disagreements on policy between the agency and other government departments, sensitive briefing documents should not be available on the Cabinet Office's Knowledge Network. This is a computerised information system that keeps the whole of Whitehall "on message". Agency officials also fear that any material given to the Cabinet Office might be subjected to "political spin". ...
What could the Food Standards Agency be reporting that it fears "the Government" might subject to spin? A cynic might even suggest that this is just another piece of spun yarn with which to try to make convincing the much vaunted independence of the FSA from the government.

June 6 ~ "Maff span its way, appallingly, throughout foot and mouth, earning the enduring distrust and despite of a rural community..."

".. desperate for substance, not bluster. If Defra wants to win back trust, it should stop spinning, content itself with cheap writing paper and get down to work." The final paragraph of a Western Morning News article yesterday
"....farmers - truly modern, state-of-the-art farmers - are engaged in PR a great deal of the time, standing outside in all weathers at farmers' markets, smiling and being robust and jolly and trustworthy. Many are also acquiring other skills. They welcome the public to their homes. They are nannies, teachers, ambassadors, butchers, curers and even chefs. They are selling not just themselves and their products, but farming itself.
And that is all that they ask of the Ministry: that they tell the world about the glory of British food - that our natural ingredients are among the finest and our cooks and food producers among the most skilful and caring in the world. They ask for a level playing field, not the mountain range created by the iniquitously unjust and counter-productive Common Agricultural Policy. They ask that bureaucracy should be minimised so that they can actually get on with what they do best, which is farming, not form-filling. They need, in short, a fair crack of the whip from a Ministry appointed to serve them, not to command and obstruct them..."

June 6 ~ Percy Schmeiser, who found his fields heavily contaminated by Monsanto's GM canola

volunteers was ordered to pay fines and costs when taken to court by the company accusing him of stealing their patented seeds. Schmeiser broke down in tears in court; he has built up his own high-yielding canola variety by saving seeds for years, which has now been totally ruined by transgenic contamination.
A letter today in the Guardian (external link) from Elliot Long
"....Since Monsanto owns the patent, they own his canola, and there's nothing he can do about it. This is the scenario that opponents of GM foods are afraid of - and if not, they should be. Whatever the reasons the EU has used until now to block GM food production, it should be wary about giving up this status. I agree that consumers should be able to decide for themselves whether they want to buy GM food, but I wonder how long this choice will exist when the propagation of patented crops is governed only by the wind. "
Baroness Dr. Susan Greenfield is one of the major architects of a set of 'guidelines' for science journalists and scientists, discouraging them from reporting unpublished findings and from questioning the safety of GM. The Royal Society, the House of Lords and a transmogrified PR company known as the Social Issues Research Centre (SIRC) funded by the food industry were the major bodies promoting the guidelines. Sir John Krebs, head of the Food Standards Agency, was also involved. According to this article from I-SIS, the guidelines formed part of a concerted campaign to suppress scientific dissent after Dr. Arpad Pusztai alerted the world to possible harmful effects of GM foods.
(Warmwell's GM page)

June 6 ~" I'm all for taking children back to their roots instead of letting them play on their play stations..."

..was the remark of a Cirencester teacher during the visit of the Prince of Wales, Patron of the Soil Association, to Abbey Home Farm, Cirencester on Wednesday. The Prince opened the new education "Green Room" centre at the farm. Abbey Home Farm has 150 Friesian dairy cows together with a herd of 50 cross-bred beef cattle. Sheep are alternated with the cattle and the farm has a flock of over 500 breeding ewes, including pedigree Lleyns. Nearer the farmstead, there are free-range organic pigs and laying hens. Abbey Home Farm is part of Elm Farm Research Centre's demonstration farm network. As part of this important work, the farm provides visits for other farmers and professionals. This helps disseminate information on organic production and the latest research findings.
His Royal Highness described the farm and its educational centre as a "brave and courageous venture."
"It is important in an age when so many people live in urban area, to explain how things are grown. I hope this particular room will be of enormous value in getting the message across," he said. (http://www.princeofwales.gov.uk/news/news.php)

June 6 ~ Haskins on DEFRA - as much as possible must be handled at local level taking account of local concerns

Telegraph "....His proposals have already ruffled feathers in Whitehall. Under his plans, many Defra civil servants would lose their jobs as their roles were devolved to regional bodies.
Lord Haskins's proposals for the Environment Agency are also controversial. He sees its role primarily as a regulator, responsible for delivering new European Union directives on water, soil and waste."

June 6 ~Lord Haskins' review of DEFRA " would break up the Government's centralised structure...

which was so heavily criticised during the 2001 foot and mouth crisis - and involved the delivery of rural policy to the regional development agencies. The review would also lead to a major thinning out of the plethora of Government quangos and agencies. In an interview with the WMN yesterday, he admitted that change would not be easy, but said he believed the political will was there."Vested interest will shout and holler, but we will have to overcome that," he said. See three articles about Lord Haskins' review in today's Western Morning News

June 6 ~ Mrs Beckett yesterday " I constantly read that I have already made a decision about the commercial growing of the individual crops now being evaluated in these trials. That is totally untrue."

"I have not and I will not until the evidence of those trial results is available." She urged people to take part and vote in the debate on the internet at www.gmnation.org.uk, a website which, according to the Telegraph, has received 2,300 completed questionnaires since the debate began on Tuesday.

June 6 ~ David Lidington "I am in favour of a debate, but this one looks rigged"

Commenting on the continuing GM national debate and Margaret Beckett's speech on GM crops, David Lidington MP, Shadow Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs said, "I am in favour of a debate, but this one looks rigged. The public meetings were poorly advertised and worst of all the Ministers may announce a decision before the end of their own crop trials"
Commenting on the Lord Haskins preliminary report into reviewing rural delivery arrangements, David Lidington said,
"It is no surprise to any farmers that DEFRA is riddled with bureaucracy. I would cheer a genuine move to simplify the multitude of agencies and rules. But Labour's record so far gives little reason for optimism.

June 6 ~ A platform for change: European Livestock Alliance: www.ela-europe.org

"The European Livestock Alliance is a pan European, non commercial society, uniting breeders, keepers, vets, scientists, and specialist elements within Europe's rural infrastructure to preserve the well being, health and safety of humans and animals in the broadest sense of the word.....
Livestock breeders are responsible for ensuring that the health and well-being of livestock is guaranteed, which can only be achieved by obtaining the best unbiased scientific advice available and taking account of future developments. We are very concerned about the implications of an eradication policy that is only export-market orientated without taking into account the surrounding social, environmental and animal welfare issues. We feel that the situation in Europe has reached a point where the above mentioned factors must receive attention from those directly affected and involved. TO BE HEARD IN EUROPE WE NEED ONE STRONG VOICE .... " Visit the website

June 5 ~ The remaining private addresses of owners will soon be visited by the culling teams...

A sentence from the Pro-Med siteto chill the memory of those in Devon, Cumbria, Yorkshire, Wales, Dumfries and Galloway and elsewhere.. Is a blanket mass-slaughter of susceptible animals now the inevitable response to disease? Why must vaccination be denied to animals whose owners value them above profits?
"Next week, the remaining susceptible pet-avians should be culled in the areas previously affected by HPAI. The Gelders valley is already "empty," and in North-Brabant and Limburg the gassing of the birds is almost accomplished. The remaining private addresses of owners will soon be visited by the culling teams. According to the Dutch Association of Pet Avians Owners [Vereniging van Hobbydierhouders], quite a number of pet chickens and ducks have been hidden by their owners....
...The HPAI outbreak has cost the life of almost 30 million chickens on 255 poultry holdings (including 22 pet-avians premises). The poultry owners association is of the opinion that some of these farms will never return to business. "
Ghandi's words - that a society may be judged by the way it treats its animals - have never seemed more relevant.

June 5 ~ Rebranding DEFRA will cost us half a million...

"The cost of developing a new "corporate identity" for the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs was put at £329,000. Rural Affairs Minister Alun Michael said replacing or introducing new internal signs at Defra premises was forecast to cost a further £200,000..." Guardian's Yesterday in Parliament (external link)
The news was yesterday met with fury in the Westcountry rural community. (Western Morning News - What a Waste) Alan Michael said:
"The re-branding exercise is necessary to establish a new identity, which will assist in explaining the role and purpose of the new department among staff, stakeholders, other partners and the public...." and told Liberal Democrat Norman Baker (Lewes) that extensive research had helped the department develop a better understanding of "what our customers expect from us".
Anthony Gibson, South West NFU regional director, said:
"Substance matters rather than style. It's the substance of what Defra does, rather than the way it presents itself, that farmers care about."
( See also warmwell entry for May 28 ~ DEFRA offers £110,000 a year for "an enthusiastic and effective ambassador for rural communities" to "make a discernible difference to rural economic productivity".)

June 5 ~"McCrea is left wondering whether his cattle were needlessly slaughtered and whether he'll ever get the answers to the many questions he has..

..about the system that led to the confiscation and destruction of a herd that took his family years to build."
McCrea says CFIA lacking answers to BSE questions (external link)
.... It's eerily quiet on the McCrea farm these days and all cattle are all gone. The quiet intensifies sounds like the rain pelted against a metal surface and the wind blowing across miles of open space.
The quiet gives Trevor McCrea time to think and he's has a lot of questions that demand answers. He still doesn't understand why the DNA tests couldn't prove the infected cow wasn't born on his farm.
"I would just sit down with these scientists and have them explain to me why they couldn't get a real clear cut answer you know, just more of an explanation from them what went on, or why it didn't work," says McCrea. It's been nearly a week since his herd of Black Angus cattle were taken by the Canadian Food Inspection Agency and tested for BSE and he feels that the agency hasn't treated his family with the respect they deserve. McCrea says he doesn't want other farmers treated that way. "I almost think that they should have a person that is your link with them...that at any time of the day that you can contact them with questions," says McCrea..."
See entry for May 26 where the ProMed moderator wrote: ".. there is no scientific justification for slaughtering herds that were in contact with the infected animal or its offspring. BSE cannot be passed by casual contact."

June 5 ~ When someone asked if anyone in Govt. would listen, the facilitator replied "Margaret Beckett said she will respond and I'm taking her at her word".

We have been sent this report from the GM Nation public debate in Birmingham. "My feeling was that the whole thing was a charade to give us the impression that the public's views counted. This was summed up by one of the reporters. The Prime Minister is in favour of GM and the majority of the public is against. What assurances can you give us that our views will not be ignored as they were before the Iraq War?" This was greeted by loud applause...."

June 4 ~ Canadian Officials To Slaughter 650 More Cattle

Canada's Mad Cow Probe Stalled By DNA Test
"Officials have already slaughtered 1,160 head of cattle, but they say they have to keep checking cattle because DNA testing has failed to confirm the origin of the lone cow known to be infected. Knowing where the cow came from could let investigators pinpoint the source of the infection."

June 4 ~ Farmers are going to start asking, "Why should we carry on producing food at a loss?"

Article in the Spectator by the farmer Michael Wigan Extract:
"If agriculture takes up half the EU budget, Britain could demand the halving of its European contribution, huge funds thereby becoming available to market our farm goods worldwide and make our farming industries the competitive, cutting-edge industries they once were. Farmers could grow new crops without being disadvantaged by a competing CAP-cushioned crop, supported by the sort of aggressive marketing which made New Zealand, after subsidies were dropped, synonymous with global products......The supermarkets would whimper a bit if Britain left the CAP. It has suited them well to have farmers hog-tied with red tape, devoid (unlike themselves) of parliamentary representation and producing predictable crops. In many foodstuffs, supermarkets control 80 per cent of sales; that stranglehold would be loosened if farmers were free to grow whatever they wished....
...The fishing industry has been so savaged by domestic politicians that fishermen have created a breakaway group -- Save Britain's Fish -- which advocates leaving the Common Fisheries Policy. Farmers have yet to follow the same logic, anaesthetised, for the most part, by the £3 billion drip-feed from Europe. A combination of more intrusion (subsidies to livestock farmers will soon depend on welfare officers' approval) and shrivelling state payments (in the pipeline) may change that....
... times change, and a further acceleration of the already ballooning balance-of-trade deficit may yet pry open the modish anti-farmer mindset."
More and more people are saying now that subsidies are there to control farmers not farming.

June 3/4 ~ Western Morning News publishes 2 opposing views on GM

They are worth looking at side by side - we notice that the "pro" article, by Biotech expert Bernard Marantelli, relies on the Brooms Barn research - criticised by farm as fraudulent, and on "golden rice". But see Jeremy Rifkin's article above: "...The biotech industry has been singing the praises of the "miracle" rice for years, despite articles in scientific journals that say it simply doesn't work. To convert beta-carotene into vitamin A the body requires sufficient body protein and fat. Undernourished children lack the body protein necessary for the conversion."

June 3/4 ~ "I would respectfully ask our visionary prime minister to explain what the hell he thinks he is doing in France"

George Monbiot in the Guardian today Africa's scar gets angrier (external link) At Evian, the world's rich nations missed a golden opportunity to back fair trade
"A few weeks ago, President Chirac ... wanted to show that the G8 summit he is hosting in Evian, which concludes today, would offer something other than just the usual spectacle of the rich and powerful deciding how they would make themselves still richer and more powerful. He approached the US government to suggest that Europe would stop subsidising its exports of food to Africa if America did the same.
....Chirac's proposals ... could have begun the process of dismantling the system which does so much harm to our pockets, our environment and the lives of some of the world's most vulnerable people.
.... But our prime minister, instead, has single-handedly destroyed the French initiative. The reason will by now be familiar. George Bush, who receives substantial political support from US agro-industrialists, grain exporters and pesticide manufacturers, was not prepared to make the concessions required to match Chirac's offer. .... as soon as Blair made it clear that he would not back Chirac's plan, the initiative was dead. So, thanks to our conscience-stricken prime minister, and his statesmanlike habit of doing whatever Bush tells him to, Africa is now well and truly stuffed. . ..."

June 3/4 ~ Bush's Evangelizing About Food Chills European Hearts

The Guardian on Monday " ...Hunger in the third world is a complex phenomenon not likely to be reversed by the introduction of GM crops. ... Today, 21% of the food grown in the developing world is destined for animal consumption. In many developing countries, more than a third of the grain is now being grown for livestock. The animals, in turn, will be eaten by the world's wealthiest consumers in the northern industrial countries. The result is that the world's richest consumers eat a diet high in animal protein, while the poorest people on earth are left with little land to grow food grain for their own families. And, even the land that is available is often owned by global agribusiness interests.....
Second, President Bush ...ignores is that GM seeds are more expensive than conventional seeds and, because they are patented, farmers cannot save the new seeds for planting....companies such as Monsanto stand to make huge profits while the world's poorest farmers become increasingly marginalized.
"golden rice", a new genetically engineered rice strain that contains an inserted gene that produces beta-carotene. Noting that half a million poor children around the world suffer from vitamin A deficiency and become blind, the US trade representative Robert Zoellick argues that to deny them this valuable food source would be immoral. ...articles in scientific journals that say it simply doesn't work. ..." (More)

June 3/4 ~ GM Nation debate is a "catalogue of errors from start to finish"

Consumers' Association director Sheila McKechnie: "The debate has been very badly organised. The Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs appointed the Central Office of Information, not an organisation that's got much experience of this kind of thing, and in the last few months it's becoming very obvious the whole thing is chaotic."

June 3 ~ The Independent Science Panel on GM Final Report

(See ISIS report) "Dozens of prominent scientists from seven countries, spanning the disciplines of agroecology, agronomy, biomathematics, botany, chemical medicine, ecology, histopathology, microbial ecology, molecular genetics, nutritional biochemistry, physiology, toxicology and virology, joined forces to launch themselves as an Independent Science Panel on GM at a public conference, attended by UK environment minister Michael Meacher and 200 other participants, in London on 10 May 2003.
The conference coincided with the publication of a draft report, The Case for a GM-free Sustainable World, calling for a ban on GM crops to make way for all forms of sustainable agriculture. This authoritative report, billed as "the strongest, most complete dossier of evidence" ever compiled on the problems and hazards of GM crops as well as the manifold benefits of sustainable agriculture, is being finalised for release 15 June 2003...."

June 3 ~ NFU Mutual refuse to insure against GM contamination

NFU Mutual says it will not underwrite potential losses for organic or conventional farmers even if the technology gets the go-ahead, claiming it would be "irresponsible to provide insurance when working in the dark". See Western Morning News (external link)

June 3 ~ GM: " Franz Fischler's suggestion (of "co-existence") - that each European nation creates its own voluntary code and that farmers voluntarily tell their neighbours if they are growing GM crops - was widely ridiculed.

Article in Western Morning News
Such "co-existence" has failed expensively in the USA and Canada on many occasions. But what are the supposed benefits for which we are expected to pay this price?
...There are still only four GM crops of any commercial significance - soya, maize, canola and cotton. There was no evidence that GM increased overall yields. Africa's food and agriculture spokesmen and western aid charities agree that GM crops are irrelevant to solving world hunger. Only one nation in Africa (South Africa) has chosen to commercialise any GM crops. In India, GM cotton has failed catastrophically and there is fear that a major GM cotton project will clear up to 20,000,000 cotton smallholders off their land to make way for vast automated farms that employ few people and only benefit the richest farmers.
ActionAid recently campaigned against a GM coffee designed to do away with the need to employ the 60,000,000 coffee pickers who work in many of the world's 50 poorest nations. Farmers' unions from India to the Philippines to Brazil have organised the destruction of GM crop trial sand protests against Monsanto, while African farmers at the Earth Summit issued a joint declaration against GM crops.
Farm Scale Evaluations (FSEs) of GM crops in the UK have been called fraudulent because they compared a commercially-grown non-GM crop with a GM one grown to maximise wildlife rather than yield. ...." More
See farm critique -- Broom Barns' GM sugar beet research

June 3 ~ "There has to be a genuine debate. The Government must not spin its way to a decision it has already reached before that debate has taken place"

A press release from Shadow DEFRA Secretary David Lidington says: "The public deserves a clear scientific assessment of the environmental consequences of allowing GM crops to be grown in their country. It would be quite wrong for Ministers to sweep those issues under the carpet with a poorly advertised 'national debate', and then press ahead without even waiting for the results of its own field trials." "As for GM food, it's a matter of consumer rights. Customers have the right to know if the food they are buying has GM ingredients. That means a clear, honest system of labelling."
warmwell's GM page

June 2 ~"It's obscure. It's small scale. It's been starved of funds. It has not been nationally advertised. In fact, it hasn't been advertised at all. You could be forgiven for thinking the Government doesn't want you to know about it."

The Independent today
"Yet this is the National GM Debate. Starting tomorrow, it will be the only official chance people will have to make their views known over whether genetically modified crops should be commercially grown in Britain.....One of the crops intended for Britain, Bayer's GM fodder maize, already has its EU approval. Under current Brussels law, the only way Britain could now prevent its commercial use would be to find new evidence of harm either to people or the environment.
The farm-scale trials could provide this; if they do, commercialisation of GM may be prevented. But if they do not, sometime this autumn the Government is likely to give the go-ahead for the GM age to begin in our countryside.
But tomorrow it is finally going ahead, and people can have their say on one of the most important decisions that will ever be taken about the environment in Britain.
Whether or not the Government takes heed is another question"
See arguments for and against GMOs on warmwell's GM page

June 2 ~ Light, portable device to detect biological agents

Mary Marshall has drawn our attention to a recent press release from the American Society of Microbiology, about the development of a new PCR device, called RazorTM, which operates like its R.A.P.I.D. machine (reported in her submissions to Defra), except that it is hand-portable and can function in a moving vehicle.
"...Real-time PCR machines will be an essential component of the response to a bio-terrorist attack. Such machines should be portable, have low power consumption and require minimal expertise or equipment to operate," says Mark Poritz of Idaho Technology, one of the lead researchers on the study. "The RAPID, at 50 pounds and requiring a 110-volt power source is best used in a field hospital setting. A small, battery operated instrument is needed for true field operations."
Poritz and his colleagues present data today on a new PCR device, called RazorTM, that weighs only 8 pounds and can analyze 12 samples in 22 minutes running only on battery power. The Razor uses thin-film plastic pouches as reaction containers. The pouches are preloaded with freeze-dried PCR reagents and the DNA samples loaded into the machine using syringes so there is minimal operator setup
"Because of its ease of use and portability the Razor should have multiple uses in diagnostics and environmental testing," says Poritz..."
Although the Razor device has been developed with bioterrorist activity in mind, its usefulness as a rapid test in field conditions for such pathogens as FMD (whether naturally introduced or intentionally introduced) must surely be of great interest to the UK - whose FMD Contingency Plan, for example, is still reticent on the subject of available technology for rapid on-site diagnosis.

June 1 ~ Virus danger shuts down hospital labs - The problems are not just confined to hospital laboratories.

Inspectors act to prevent deadly germ leaks after safety lapses Antony Barnett, public affairs editor of the Observer, writes today about the instances of safety lapses in high-security laboratories in hospitals. In the past 10 months three hospital laboratories have been forced to close after government inspectors feared the possibility of potentially deadly viruses.
"Inspectors criticised another hospital laboratory in London last April for breaking safety rules in its work with a genetically modified virus that can cause dangerous respiratory illnesses in young children. In the worst case, health and safety inspectors visiting the Royal Brompton in Chelsea - one of central London's top hospitals - were so alarmed by its breach of safety rules at its microbiological laboratory that they ordered all its work on dangerous pathogens to stop immediately. ..."
"....The problems are not just confined to hospital laboratories. Health and Safety Executive documents obtained by The Observer reveal that in September 1999, Huntingdon Life Sciences in Cambridgeshire was criticised for breaching rule relating to BSE that it had administered to mice. The firm, which has been criticised by animal rights activists for its experiments on animals, was accused of inspectors of being a 'bit dirty and a bit messy' with the way it treated BSE waste."
It will be remembered by some that the source of the foot and mouth outbreak in this country has never been established. Suggestions that virus may have somehow come from Pirbright or from the Ministry of Defence's biological warfare research centre at Porton Down or that it had escaped from a MAFF experimental farm in the north of England ( where the ministry had been testing vaccines) have apparently never been officially investigated.

June 1 2003 ~ " industry is still pushing for a decision on future commercialisation, even though as the Royal Society acknowledged this week, the long-term impacts still remain unknown."

Do not promote poor science letter in the Financial Times
From Dr Tim Jenkins.
Sir, Instead of calling on the government to support technology industries unquestioningly in the face of public opposition, ("Research 'stunted by our culture of protest'", May 27), industry should look at why the public is so concerned by their so-called science.
Take the case of GM. The biotechnology industries are pushing for the introduction of genetically modified crops into our countryside, but have failed to provide the scientific data to show that such crops are safe. Nor have they managed to put forward a convincing argument as to why we need GM.
Instead, the government has carried out farm-scale trials in a half-hearted attempt to look at the environmental impacts. And industry is still pushing for a decision on future commercialisation, even though as the Royal Society acknowledged this week, the long-term impacts still remain unknown.
Science holds great potential for solving many of the world's problems. But it is frequently bankrolled by multinational companies, which are too often more interested in how they can develop their profits than in solving problems.
The government should not be in the business of promoting poor science. Indeed, it should demand higher standards from industry, so that the public benefits are made clear. Improved corporate regulation, as proposed in the corporate responsibility bill, would be a step in the right direction, obliging companies to recognise the rights of stakeholders as well as shareholders and forcing company directors to look beyond the financial bottom line.
Tim Jenkins, Policy Director, Friends of the Earth, London N1 7JQ
(warmwell.com's updated GM page)

June 1 2003 ~ "just wanted to let you know what is happening re this issue of DEFRA etc."

Janet Hughes writes: "The ECHR (European Court of Human Rights) is considering the case this coming week and I do hope that the Court will not reject it in view of Defra's actions recently. I'll let you know what the decision is as soon as I hear.
Defra is stalling in replying to the local solicitor and it now seems as if an application will have to be made for revocation of this Writ. It has definitely been obtained improperly and the High Court has colluded with Defra on this. "

May 28 ~ "Millions of others were unseen, unsung and uncompensated ..."

A very angry article about the foot and mouth crisis was published yesterday in the Western Morning News. It illustrates well how people who suffered are still feeling - and how very far from receding into the past is the experience of FMD 2001. Extract:
"....Some of the casualties of MAFF ineptitude were obvious - the farming families who were subjected to bullying, brutality, bureaucracy and force majeure and saw their lives' work rotting outside their windows, then going up in smoke. Millions of others were unseen, unsung and uncompensated - the farmers isolated and starved of accurate information, unable to trade or to move stock for month after month; the animals thus stranded in mires without fodder; the children subjected to ineradicable trauma; the many, many small, struggling, agriculture-related industries.
And when it was all over? It wasn't all over. It continues to this day. Hobbled businesses stagger into bankruptcy. Farms deprived of income for all that time are sold, having never recovered. One of the "lucky" victims, Bruce Ayre, who had 2,500 sheep and 250 cattle killed, said yesterday: "We're just getting back to normal now, and 'normal' will never mean the same again after we turned to our ministry for help and were rewarded with inefficiency, appalling and ignorant ministry vets, inept, bungling soldiery and slow, draconian, insensitive bureaucracy."

May 28 ~ DEFRA offers £110,000 a year for "an enthusiastic and effective ambassador for rural communities" to "make a discernible difference to rural economic productivity".

See today's Western Morning News(external link)
" .. Mr Lidington said: "If this means that Defra is going to change the way it works then that is welcome but given the record so far, I'm sceptical that it is anything more than a cosmetic gesture. "What I want to see is evidence that ministers, from Margaret Beckett downwards, are actually listening to people who are working in the countryside and are starting to address their problems.
"We have had a whole series of disasters - foot and mouth, bovine TB and farm stock burial. A great deal has gone wrong, and simply paying the salary of another Sir Humphrey isn't going to put that right.
"There is a fundamental and radical shift in approach needed by Margaret Beckett and her ministers.
"It has got to be recognition that what happens in the countryside matters. I think there is little evidence that it is regarded as a high priority."
However, Anthony Gibson, regional director of the National Farmers' Union, said that the appointment could be a good thing for the farming community, although he regretted that such a rural champion did not already exist within Defra. He said: "I think it is very important that farming does have a champion to try and explain what is happening in farming to the world and make the connections between the farming community and the rest of society...."

May 28 ~ " I hope that who ever they appoint has a strong stomach, because Defra has precisely nil respect from the farming community."

Yesterday's Western Morning News (external link) on the subject of the"six-figure salary for a troubleshooter who can improve its image in the countryside in the wake of the foot and mouth crisis."
".... Beth Coles, who with her husband Patrick farms cattle and sheep in North Cornwall, said: "All I can say is that I hope that who ever they appoint has a strong stomach, because Defra has precisely nil respect from the farming community." And Ian Hodgett of Lewdown, West Devon, who fought to save 300 ewes in lamb and 50 bullocks which were condemned during the foot and mouth epidemic, warned: "Whoever takes this job will have to have common sense and brilliant communication skills, because he or she has a steep hill to climb."
The appointment has been seen at Westminster as a sign that Defra is determined to try to improve its patchy image in the countryside.
Colin Breed, a member of the Commons rural affairs committee, welcomed the move but said it was no substitute for a more far-reaching shake-up of the department itself....."

May 27 ~ "Defra complain that farmers haven't signed up to the stock collection scheme but the Department's dithering over its organisation of the scheme is at the root of the problem." Andrew George Liberal Democrat shadow rural affairs secretary.

The Newcastle Journal reports:
"....Andrew George has written to Secretary of State Margaret Beckett, after reports suggested that only one third of livestock farmers have signed up so far. They only have until May 28 to do so.
"The burial ban is simply unenforceable until the official regulation has been laid before Parliament. And as the stock collection scheme will not be ready until August at the earliest the Government cannot expect farmers to foot the bill for delays which could have been avoided by Defra.
"Some farmers have told me that they have received two letters from Defra, while others have been asked to join despite giving up livestock farming or retiring altogether.
"The subscription deadline must be put back to at least July, giving the Department time to sort itself out, check that its benchmark is the right one and consult the industry."
We do not yet know for certain what causes BSE or how it may or may not affect human beings. Lack of funding for independent research means that much legislation such as the banning of on-farm burial, which is highly damaging to small farmers, is not necessarily based on sound science.

May 27 ~ "The problem is that the additives, properly known as antibiotic digestive enhancers, are not injected. They are given in feed."

According to the Guardian today, "the use of additives to hasten poultry growth is back on the rise, despite NFU pledge to phase them out" Extract:
"Question: Are the chickens injected with growth promoters?
Answer: No, none of the chickens covered by the farm assurance scheme is injected with antibiotic growth promoters.
That is how Assured Chicken Production, the industry's standards-setting body, and the "little red tractor" scheme that seeks to assure consumers about food production standards, dealt with the issues of chicken growth promoters.
.... by yesterday, after the Guardian had talked to members of the industry, that question and answer had disappeared from the body's website which lists common queries about the assured chicken scheme. The problem is that the additives, properly known as antibiotic digestive enhancers, are not injected. They are given in feed.....
One of the growth promoters still in use in chicken production is avilamycin. Commission scientists were worried by the fact that an antibiotic of the same class, evernimicin, was in development for combating "superbugs" in hospitals. ..... the Soil Association believes that this family of drugs could affect human medicine. The association says there is still a possibility that bacteria in people could quickly develop resistance to such drugs because food for humans might stem from animals given similar antibiotics...."

May 27 ~ GMOs " It will not be enough to make best estimates at the start and then assume that everything will turn out as expected..."

Scientists urge close scrutiny of GM crops' impact By Robert Uhlig, Farming Correspondent of the Daily Telegraph
"....The Royal Society issued the warning in a submission to the GM Science Review, one of three investigations set up by the Government to assess whether to introduce commercial cultivation of GM crops. "We advised the Government almost five years ago that it needed to carry out a review of the way in which the environmental impact of GM crops is monitored in the long term, but it still hasn't taken the necessary action. If the decision is taken to allow commercial planting of GM crops, it is essential that regulators in the UK and EU monitor the environmental impact to pick up any potentially beneficial or harmful effects over a long period. It will not be enough to make best estimates at the start and then assume that everything will turn out as expected." Professor Patrick Bateson, vice-president and biological secretary of the Royal Society
See also warmwell page on genetic modification

May 27 ~ No scientific justification (see below) - but the slaughter happens regardless

The entire herd on the Saskatchewan farm where officials believe the BSE positive cow lived for four years have been killed. Cattle from three Alberta farms where the diseased cow's calves and other relatives were sent were also slaughtered and tested. All 192 cattle from the diseased cow's most recent farm tested negative for BSE. The National Centre for Foreign Animal Disease in Winnipeg (mentioned on warmwell before in connection with FMD research) is testing the brain tissue of 400 cows from three ranches. Investigators are using DNA testing to determine how the brain-wasting disease got into the Canadian cattle industry.
The Globe and Mail (Canada) report says
Although no more farms were quarantined yesterday, officials did not rule out the possibility that more would be. Seventeen are under quarantine: 12 in Alberta, three in British Columbia and two in Saskatchewan.
The financially disastrous ban by the US and other major importers of Canadian beef continues as a result of the finding of this one isolated case of a BSE positive cow. The cattle industry has lost an estimated $66 million so far. The comparison with terrorism in the final paragraph of the newspaper report is more thought-provoking than was perhaps intended. Mere belief in the BSE/vCJD link - yet to be proven - is threatening economic disaster in Canada. Fear of BSE, like fear of terrorism, can give the raison d'etre for restrictions no one feels able to question.

May 26 ~ ".. there is no scientific justification for slaughtering herds that were in contact with the infected animal or its offspring. BSE cannot be passed by casual contact."

The moderator of the Pro-Med site (a program of the International Society for Infectious Diseases) once again cannot allow to pass without comment the statements in articles posted on the Pro-Med site about the possible slaughtering of herds that may have been in contact with the cow from Alberta that tested positive to BSE.
Dr. Claude Lavigne, a top official with the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, is quoted as saying: "We have to determine whether this animal has offspring in other herds, and that is still under investigation," and he told a news conference in Edmonton that he was unable to say how many animals were being quarantined or whether they would be slaughtered .. ..Dr. Lavigne said Canada has no plans to use the rapid tests for BSE that have been adopted in some European countries, although it's an alternative that must be considered.
We read here too that Indonesia announced on Thursday that it will refuse Canadian beef, joining the United States, Australia, South Korea, Singapore, New Zealand, and Japan.

May 24/25 ~ Peaster should have called a vet to look at the ailing animal.

This article from the Edmonton Journal (external link) raises an ethical question:
".... Ron Glaser, who speaks for the Alberta Beef Producers, said Friday that Peaster should have called a vet to look at the ailing animal. The vet could have euthanized the cow and sent her brain tissue for testing.
"An animal that cannot stand, that cannot load under its own power, should not be shipped to market," he said..."
Marwyn Peaster's sick cow, now referred to inevitably as "Cow Zero" might perhaps, in addition to causing economic and political shock waves, help give the go-ahead in Canada for even stricter regulations - not unfortunately to protect the welfare of the cows or protect them from disease - but rather to keep the unfortunate creatures away from human dinner plates. As another article in the same newspaper puts it:
"... the time has come for sterner measures. ... We must make clear to Canadians, and the world, that when it comes to fighting BSE, we're on a war footing."
All very reminiscent of 2001 and "bearing down on the disease", but, as then, things are unlikely to improve until the science improves. While independent research continues to be stifled, the uncertainties surrounding BSE, its causes and its dangers, will continue to fuel fear, have huge economic consequences and provide the excuse for yet more draconian counter-measures. ( See BSE/vCJD page)

May 24/25 ~ Saskatchewan's Agriculture Minister warns that widespread slaughter of quarantined cattle may be "the only way to restore public confidence"

13 farms have now been quarantined. The final paragraph of the news report from CBC News today repeats the old mantra :
"It's believed that people who eat meat from BSE-infected cows have a slight risk of developing Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease, a human variation of the illness "
"Everyone knows that the claimed link between BSE and the singularly unpleasant disease "new variant CJD" set off the greatest and most expensive food scare in history..." wrote Christopher Booker last Sunday before the news of this latest Canadian scare - but this fear based on a "belief", this apparent "slight risk" is still capable of miserable consequences. We are reminded of those who, in 2001, hunted down the FMD virus in the manner of the Witch Finder General, slaughtering healthy animals literally in their millions. The feelings and lives of ordinary people and the welfare of the animals were as nothing compared to the horror of finding even suspected traces of the "disease" on their patch.

May 24/25 ~ "it was DEFRA who had chosen to focus upon the one single negative review"

Mark Purdey writes about his meeting on May 15th with Michael Meacher and Tom King.
"They seemed more than keen to ensure that I was funded properly for my research, but then sadly handed me over to the very same senior government officials in the chief science group who were responsible for rejecting my last grant application. So once again, it seems that the officials, as opposed to the Ministers, have the final control of what research directions are followed. ....
Considering four and a half of the five reviewers had actually come out in support of funding my three year research study, it was DEFRA who had chosen to focus upon the one single negative review and run with that at the end of the day - irrespective of the validity of my protest.
So was I naive enough to have my fingers burnt yet again; and watch all my latest red hot data get whisked away and publicly ridiculed, but then, ironically, plagiarized and cuckooed out by some suitably 'tame' professor, appointed by DEFRA, into a further application that gets submitted to some alternative funding body like the EU and then funded to the tune of one million pounds?
That ordeal personally destroyed me and my family."
The "infectious prion" theory if disproved, could destroy the reputations of a very powerful and influential group. Those who are not politically wedded to the accepted theory are simply not getting the necessary funding to carry through their work. .

May 24/25 ~ the demand to establish virtual zero risk for any material that could have BSE/TSE contamination is an extreme precautionary approach in the context of other food risks, that has involved enormous costs.

Professor Jim Bridges (chair of the European Commission's toxicity committee)
'The precautionary principle has been employed widely, without its application necessarily being acknowledged. For example, the demand to establish virtual zero risk for any material that could have BSE/TSE contamination is an extreme precautionary approach in the context of other food risks, that has involved enormous costs. ... 'My biggest and unquantifiable concern, however, is that the precautionary principle may provide a major disincentive to innovation.'
See Science, risk and the price of precaution by Sandy Starr at spiked-online.com. "Restoring public confidence" seems to have become a very useful argument for getting away with murder. The public would surely be more confident if there were accountabilty. The precautionary principle seems to have moved far beyond the realm of common sense.

May 22 ~ EU Parliament votes for stricter GM labelling

From the Friends of the Earth website (external link)
" Brussels, 22 May.
The European Parliament Environment Committee today voted for stronger laws governing GM labeling and traceability. The vote, one week after the United States started a WTO complaint against the EU, paves the way for better consumer choice and action to protect organic and non-GM farmers from genetic contamination. The vote by the Environment Committee called for stricter rules on the labelling and traceability of GMOs and for legally binding rules to secure non- genetically modified (GM) agriculture and non-GM food in Europe. ..."

May 21 ~ "The circumstantial evidence is compelling, but it has not been proven scientifically..."

It is interesting that the moderator of the Pro-Med site is scrupulous in adding these words in parenthesis to the latest statements on Pro-Med (external link) about the cow in Alberta that has been diagnosed with "mad cow disease" (see below)
"Humans develop new variant CJD when they eat meat from infected animals, scientists believe. [The circumstantial evidence is compelling, but it has not been proven scientifically. - Mod PC/JW] "
Such a respectable source as Pro-Med cannot allow such statements to pass without commenting that widely accepted belief does not constitute scientific fact and that the evidence is "circumstantial".

May 21 ~ BSE Madness - One dead Canadian cow causes mayhem. The US immediately bans all Canadian cattle, sheep and goats, meat and other products. Tyson and McDonalds shares plummet...

The unfortunate cow, killed last winter but tested positively for BSE only on friday, threatens to set off a panic like the one that caused the economic crisis in Japan late in 2001. At least 150 more Canadian cows will now be slaughtered owing to the idée fixe that BSE spreads like wildfire and can be countered only by mass killing. The incident merited a nationally broadcast news conference. Reuters report (external link) :
" ....The actual test was taken Jan. 31 from a cow in Fairview, Alberta," an official with the Canadian Beef Export Federation said. "It's just one isolated case of an eight-year-old cow."
... the report sent a major chill through the continent's economy, triggering a U.S. ban on Canadian beef and sparking a sell-off in cattle futures and food-related stocks such as hamburger giant McDonald's Corp. The currency in Canada, the world's third-largest beef exporter, also fell after the news .... northern Alberta herd of 150 animals will be slaughtered...." I want to stress that the animal did not go into the food chain,"
Other herds had yet to be quarantined. "We've only been investigating this for about 24 hours," a government scientist said. ..... ."
Such shock waves strengthen the case for proper independent research to be funded and humane common sense to return to the area of animal disease control. One cannot but be reminded of the witch-hunt mentality, panic killing and economic repercussions of the FMD crisis.

May 21 ~ The stock-response belief that BSE kills people is still widespread;

Professor Stan Prusiner said, "A million cattle infected with BSE entered the British food chain so almost everyone in the country will have been exposed to the infectious prion proteins that cause variant CJD..." - and who would dare to doubt a Nobel Prize winner when he implies that BSE is "infectious" and that we in the UK should all be tested for vCJD?
Fear of vCJD through eating BSE infected meat seems to be as powerfully instilled in populations as fear of terrorism and has similarly given rise to a vast number of regulations and restrictions. Genuinely independent research into TSEs is not likely to receive public funding - or else, like that of Professor Ebringer and others, gets deprived of funding at the whim of SEAC and DEFRA if it questions orthodox views. However, even Professor Roy Anderson's team (external link) now says that 40 is a reasonable prediction of deaths from vCJD - whereas formerly we read, from the same modellers (who, it will not be forgotten, were largely responsible for the excessive culling policies of FMD), predictions of thousands of deaths from eating BSE- infected beef.
It is ironic that news of the hysterical reaction to a single case in Canada should follow so closely on the heels of Christopher Booker's article on Sunday; Britain's most expensive myth .
See also BSE/CJD page

May 20 ~"... knowledge commodified and subject to market forces"

David Bellamy, first speaker of the newly launched Independent Science Panel on May 10th at King's College London (at which Michael Meacher was present), "decried the folly of the human race that put us at odds with Nature, and lamented the trappings of modern universities, with knowledge commodified and subject to market forces. He called for a return to the original meanings of education and philosophy, which are essentially teaching about life in a holistic manner. "We are doing that today; we are discussing no small matter, of how we ought. to live," he said.
See report from the I-SIS website at http://www.i-sis.org.uk/ISP.php The Independent Science Panel (ISP) was set in motion after Micheal Meacher, suggested that GM technology is not necessary to solve world hunger and could prove dangerous over the longer term. Mr Meacher addressed the conference. He said that the GM Science Review will not be making their final report until after the public debate, adding that he welcomed the ISP's input into the national GM debate. But in the light of his statement below, this does not mean that the overwhelming distrust of the public and the sound arguments of the scientists in the new independent body will necessarily be able to make a scrap of difference.

May 20 ~ Ethical or moral reasons do not count. It is impossible under EU rules for Britain to stop GM crops being grown commercially....

Today's Guardian
"Meacher admits GM crops threaten organic output" Mr Meacher is all too aware that "....Though consumers might be opposed to GM crops .. it was impossible under EU rules for Britain to stop them being grown commercially, unless it found health or environmental evidence they were harmful. Ethical or moral reasons did not count. "
"Mr Meacher said the government was awaiting a report from an advisory body, the agriculture and environment biotechnology commission, on how to make it possible to combine GM, organic and conventional farming. .."
Ethical and moral reasons have not seemed to count for much for a great while now - but it was nevertheless refreshing to see that Michael Meacher could actually say so. They counted for tragically little in the FMD crisis - but surely that is not to say that we should willingly accept this state of affairs in today's affairs of state. Faced with so much arrogant muscle from the Goliath industries so eager to make a killing, our little David attempts to stand up for the ethical and the moral are even more important. In the Ecologist interview last March, Michael Meacher pointed out that the government does not have the funds or manpower to conduct its own trials into GMOs. He said, "The question is: can we trust the companies and be sure that they are telling us all they know? When asked if the system (of crop testing) is adequate, it is difficult to give the answer 'yes'. The system is very trusting and that is very worrying."
We share his worries.

May 18 ~ Britain's most expensive myth

Sunday Telegraph Booker's Notebook
"Everyone knows that the claimed link between BSE and the singularly unpleasant disease "new variant CJD" set off the greatest and most expensive food scare in history. In the days that followed the health minister Stephen Dorrell's fateful announcement in March 1996, predictions of deaths from eating beef ranged from 500,000 by the government's chief BSE scientist, John Patteson, to many millions (The Observer).
With very few exceptions (this column being one), the media unquestioningly accepted that there was such a link. As one result, £3 billion of public money was spent on incinerating elderly cows. The costs to industry and the UK economy, not least from a consequent thicket of further regulations, have been many times that, and are still continuing.
The chief reason for doubting a link between beef and CJD lay in the epidemiological evidence, which even in 1996 suggested that the promised epidemic was a fantasy. Over the past seven years, as the incidence curve has begun a steady fall, that has seemed ever more certain. Now, after reviewing the evidence, Professor Roy Anderson and his Imperial College team have published a revised estimate of the total number of victims likely to die of vCJD in the future (link available through www.warmwell.com). Their figure? Not 400,000, or 40,000, just 40.
As Britain's farming and food industry grapples with the latest regulatory insanity inspired by the BSE scare, the EU Animal By-Products Regulation that is predicted to drain billions more pounds from the UK economy, it is clearer than ever that Mr Dorrell's monumentally foolish statement in 1996 was the most costly blunder ever perpetrated by a British minister."

May 17 ~ The EU Standing Committee on the Food Chain and Animal Health has given North Rhine-Westphalia permission to vaccinate zoo birds.

ProMed site (external link) Second outbreak of avian influenza suspected in Kleve, Germany:.... The EU's Standing Committee on the Food Chain and Animal Health met this week to discuss again the avian influenza situation in the Netherlands, Belgium, and Germany. ...Germany may also decide to apply vaccination against avian influenza of susceptible birds in zoos and in recognised centres for endangered species in the area west of the Rhine of North Rhine-Westphalia. The situation and measures with regard to avian influenza in the Netherlands, Belgium, and Germany will be reviewed at the next meeting of the Standing Committee on the Food Chain and Animal Health scheduled for 28 May 2003...... In the Netherlands, approximately 28 million birds have already been slaughtered.

May 16/17 ~ Stop the slaughter "The issue of whether or not vaccinations should be carried out after an outbreak so as to avoid a mass cull of birds is a moral one"

BBC report (external link) "In Germany, the first confirmed case of a highly contagious bird flu has led to a call for a pan-European strategy of vaccinations to prevent the further spread of the disease."The issue of whether or not vaccinations should be carried out after an outbreak so as to avoid a mass cull of birds is a moral one," writes Berlin's Der Tagesspiegel. It concludes that Germany should advocate an EU-wide vaccination strategy inorder to avoid "great pyres" already seen in Belgium and the Netherlands."

May 16 ~ Avian influenza

Fears continue that avian flu may be fast approaching the UK
From Pro-Med site (external link)
".....Mr Scudamore added it was vital that producers notify their vet immediately if they suspect disease or have sick birds on their holding. Early clinical signs of avian influenza include increased mortality, falling egg production, signs of respiratory disease, and a drop in food consumption. His comments follow preliminary results indicating the first case in Germany within the avian influenza protection zone covering the German/Dutch/Belgian borders..."
The slaughtering of huge numbers of birds continues.

May 16 ~ "The authorities put the interests of a small group of exporters before the interests of hundreds of thousands of animal lovers."

From the same site we read:
" The Society for Animal Protection, together with the Dutch Association of Pet Animal Owners (NBvH), have delivered today a petition to the Minister of Agriculture Veerman against the culling of pet chickens and other birds, accompanied by 10 000 signatures... According to the daily Agrarisch Dagblad, 15 May 2003, the NBvH -- which numbers about 8000 members -- stated: "The authorities put the interests of a small group of exporters before the interests of hundreds of thousands of animal lovers." They have urged all animal lovers in The Netherlands to boycott the bio-industry and the products of the relevant egg-producing and breeding farms (which are to be repopulated, within the infected areas, after the culling of susceptible pet avians in the said areas).
http://www.promedmail.org/pls/askus "... Courts in The Netherlands and Belgium have rejected lawsuits filed by owners of pet birds to prevent the cullings. - Mod.AS]"

May 16 ~ These fine compassionate words from the 1954 Protection of Birds Act...

"If any person keeps or confines any bird whatsoever in any cage or their receptacle which is not sufficient in height, length or breadth to permit the bird to stretch its wings freely, he shall be guilty of an offence against the Act and be liable to a special penalty." (Quoted, Danny Penman, The Price of Meat, Gollancz, 1996, p.82) ... are followed by a small proviso: "Provided that this subsection shall not apply to poultry...."
The factory farming of hens and pigs is something most people would prefer not to contemplate. However, the diseases now emerging cannot be ignored because they are hurting the producers as well as the unfortunate animals. That there is a connection between intensive "farm" practices and new strains of disease is surely becoming an inescapable conclusion.

May 16 ~ "The curious conviction that animals are without feelings has gone largely unchallenged to this day"

......A thought provoking article from Media Lens on May 14th Demolishing Compassion - Greed, Profit, and Animals as 'Converting Machines' Extract:
" Mainstream culture has a vested interest in suppressing compassion for people and animals beyond our immediate circle of family and friends. The point is that self-seeking greed and compassion are opposed. Vested interests, such as advertisers, want us locked into desire mode, thinking primarily of ourselves, working hard to earn, buy and consume. The last thing our profit-maximising system wants is teenagers concerned about civilian victims of bombing in Iraq, or tortured animals in our farming system. Compassion, therefore, has to be ridiculed as 'naove' and 'sentimental'.......
"So persistent are the forces that militate against admitting the possibility of emotions in the lives of animals that the topic seems disreputable, not a respectable field of study, almost taboo...." (Jeffrey Masson and Susan McCarthy : When Elephants Weep - The Emotional Life of Animals)

May 15 ~ These recent Parliamentary Questions and Answers into Foot and Mouth show

• almost £675 million compensation for cattle alone - surely Gordon Brown won't allow this policy again, in spite of progress to strengthen measures mentioned in Parliamentary Answer of 7 March 2003, copied below.
• Secondly, what on earth was the Royal Navy doing in the FMD crisis - costs of £200,000. See below Parliamentary Question for 21 January 2003.
• Thirdly, just to remind us that the FSA has definitely told the government that vaccinated meat is safe to eat. Parliamentary Question 7 January 2003
These issues are not going to go away. There are still far too many able people who are not convinced that lessons were learned from the foot and mouth crisis. Recommendations from the Royal Society about such urgent measures as emergency vaccination preparations show few signs of being followed up in the time scale considered adequa