Just a day to go before the closing of the Welsh Assembly Government's consultation on culling badgers infected with tuberculosis.
Details can be found on the FUW website, which has online links to submit replies.
The deadline for replies to this consultation, is midnight on Friday, December 17th.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-12006861
ReplyDeleteThe Welsh Assembly Government has retracted a claim made in an official
leaflet sent to 26,000 homes in a proposed badger cull area.
The leaflet said previous trials had shown such culls could reduce TB in
cattle by as much as 50% in six months.
It should have said culls could start to show a benefit after six months
If thye can't even get a leaflet right - what hope is there?
You say:-
ReplyDeleteIf thye can't even get a leaflet right - what hope is there?
What you really mean to say is:-
What hope is there if they (not thye) can't even get a leaflet right?
Concentrate please!
My neighbour has had over 40 cows taken to slaughter after testing positive for
ReplyDeletet.b. Feedback however later confirmed only one of these cows actually had t.b.
The government test is pathetically inaccurate. Gwlad now finally informs that
tb can survive in slurry for 6 months or more. Farmers with infected herds spray
the infected slurry through the air onto their pastures where the tb pathogen is
able to survive & waits to further infect cows, badgers & possibly other life
forms. Also, with the spraying method of slurry distribution, the government in
Wales finally acknowleges the "aerosol" effect whereby the wind blows the tb
pathogen indiscriminately over large distances. A cleaner modern method of
dealing with slurry appears to be the answer, to stop farmers themselves
perpetuating the tb problem. Anaerobic digesters should replace all open
fermentation slurry lagoons. This would, apart from removing a bTB storage
facility, also stop the vast amounts of poisonous & greenhouse gasses escaping
into the atmosphere, notably hydrogen sulphide, ammonia, methane etc. in these
supposedly "green" times. SLURRY is the vehicle by which tb is allowed to
survive, spread & persist in the alarming way it does. Deal with this obvious
major problem first & not use badgers as a scapegoat. I cannot help feeling that
WAG is not prepared to acknowledge the tb/slurry liaison fully ( although there
is ample supporting evidence on government health websites)They are just leaking
out little bits of advice to farmers slowly in Gwlad as they have presided over
this issue for far too long & done next to nothing to tackle one of the main
causes of allowing tb to persist, the surface storing & spreading of slurry.
Anon 9.11
ReplyDeleteYour neighbour's experience answers your concerns we think.
The skin test is not 'pathetically inaccurate'. You misunderstand what it is detecting, which is the animal's immune response to EXPOSURE to m.bovis , the bacteria which may cause TB.
The fact that only one animal was found with lesions, is showing that the test is doing its job. the rest were slaughtered out ahead of the development of any clinical sign of disease.
The work on m.bovis in slurry is mainly laboratory based. If bacteria is buried in slurry (or underground) for sure, it can survive for months. But coming directly from cattle it has to be in the digestive tract to begin with and in open lesions. And from contact with the people who do the reactor postmortems, the majority of cattle lesions are safely walled up in lymph nodes in the throat, chest or head glands. They are in the main very small, with extremely low levels of bacteria.
If slurry and all the other recent bolt-ons to avoiding the problem, were to blame, then no other country would have been able to trade TB free, using just the skin test.
It is the universal tool of early diagnosis and in the absence of a wildlife reservoir, it works well. Many countries have completely cleared TB from their herds using it..
The first Anon - re BBC report of withdrawal of Welsh leaflet.
ReplyDeleteIt may be more pertinent to ask why did the BBC wait until just before the close of the consultation to release this.
We understand that the leaflet was withdrawn and ammended two months ago, with press information to that end.
Yes it was a stupid slip, and yes it shouldn't have happened. But very like the '74 per cent' vaccination success which we explored in novemeber, the press reaction was 'timely' to say the least.
Matthew said...
ReplyDeleteThe first Anon - re BBC report of withdrawal of Welsh leaflet.
It may be more pertinent to ask why did the BBC wait until just before the close of the consultation to release this.
oR WHY THE nfu WEREN'T JUMPING UP AND DOWN ABOUT IT
Much of what the BBC reports comes straight from the NFU - perhaps that's why
ReplyDeleteMatthew said...
The first Anon - re BBC report of withdrawal of Welsh leaflet.
It may be more pertinent to ask why did the BBC wait until just before the close of the consultation to release this.