'Boxster' clear on first skin test

Champion bull Hallmark Boxster, owned by the Jackson family in Yorkshire and condemned on gammaIFN earlier this year, then reprieved by a High Court judge, has passed his first skin test, the Yorkshire Post reports today.

A further blood sample was taken at the time of the jab, but the paper reports:

DEFRA said the sample had clotted, so it could not be properly analysed.

We couldn't possibly comment on that little gem. After putting the bull and his owners through sheer hell this last year, when all they asked for was the correct operating procedure for Defra's TB tests, one would have assumed that the sample from Boxster would have been airlifted to the bloody lab in cool cotton wool. But we digress. The report continues:

They want to come back and take yet another. But the Jacksons argue they might get a false positive arising from the skin test procedure. They say the Department should wait until Boxster is due for his second skin test, 60 days from the first.

Our readers will be aware that the intradermal skin test is the primary test for the EU, recognised by the OIE and used worldwide. GammaIFN is an ancillary and secondary test. And should Defra manage to extract yet another tail full from this animal, and even get to a laboratory in reasonable condition, he will still have to clear two skin tests to be declared out of restriction.

Background to this farce story is here and here.