Bovine TB

Constructive ignorance?

2012-01-21T18:50:00.008Z

We have spoken many times about overspill of bTB into other species, particularly alpacas. And we have spoken to Defra about this overspill too. Not with any great degree of success it has to be said - but hey, on this blog, we're nothing if not ~~persistent, bloody minded ?~~ tenacious.

We are aware of the cost and regulatory implications of flagging up bTB in group mammals other than bovines, but as cattle owners, we are equally aware of the problems which may occur for our animals (or clean wildlife), with onward transmission from such animals bouncing unchecked around the country, coughing up or excreting TB bacteria.
We face enough of that from translocated badgers.

From the alpaca TB support group we have data which just a handful of members have provided of their losses over the last couple of years. It is an eye watering over 422 animals. While another small group of alpaca owners, not members of this group, have lost a shed load more, with 28 going into Defra's mincer from just two breeders.

In July last year, hidden within a TB paper issued by Defra was the following snippet:

" We will be improving the current statistics collected for each non-bovine species to provide monthly statistics for the numbers of herds or flocks infected; number of animals’ skin or blood tested; number of TB test reactors and cases removed"

What Defra did not say of course, was when they would clarify these figures. And last week, we were alerted to a PQ answered by Defra minister, Jim Paice on just this subject.

Dan Rogerson: To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs how many mammals other than cattle were identified with or slaughtered for bovine tuberculosis as a result of (a) microbial culture sample, (b) reports from local veterinary practitioners, (c) gross pathology examinations by veterinary investigation centres, (d) disclosing diagnostic tests including intradermal skin or blood assays and (e) reports from Meat Hygiene Service examinations at abattoirs in (i) 2006, (ii) 2007, (iii) 2008, (iv) 2009 and (v) 2010. [89799]

Mr Paice: The risk to non-bovine species from TB is assessed as generally low and the surveillance system is therefore proportionate to these risks. This means figures are not collected or broken down by the specific categories the hon. Member has requested. Moreover, these scenarios are not mutually exclusive for a particular case and it would be difficult to allocate each case to one of these scenarios. In addition, TB in non-bovine species is not considered to have been “identified” until positive culture results are confirmed.

Figures from 1997 on the annual number of total samples from non-bovine animals that are (a) processed by the AVHLA laboratories and (b) found positive for M. bovis infection, are broken down by species and are available on DEFRA's website at:

http://www.defra.gov.uk/statistics/files/defra-stats-foodfarm-landuselivestock-tb-other-otherspecies-111124.xls

(These figures do not include the number of animals slaughtered from a herd where TB has been confirmed when M. bovis is not cultured from that animal.)

So, back we are directed to these damn statistics which only count the primary, single sample which a) confirms bTB and b) identifies the spoligotype. No skin or blood test failures and subsequent slaughterings, no deaths with TB confirmed by pm, and no knacker collections. As we said in our posting of 2010, all these have disappeared.

Defra seem to have quite a problem lining all their ducks in a row on this. They simply cannot count. This alpaca was not a primary sample death, so he too 'disappeared' - even with open TB lesions right up his trachea to his throat.

We aired the problem again in this posting as well. But the boss is more familiar with these duplicitous Ministerial shenanigans than perhaps we are. And while we would assume that these figures for alpaca (and other ) deaths are located 'somewhere', regardless of the minister's convoluted answer, he calls it deliberate and constructive ignorance.

SAM says 2 + 2 = 3 (or is it 5?)

2012-01-19T08:07:00.004Z

Everyone, from the Treasury's bean-counters downwards to your lowly bloggers, watch Defra's monthly TB statistics for signs of change. Over the past decade we have watched the inevitable and predictable rise in slaughtered cattle, as bTB has spread, unchallenged, through an increasing badger population. Until now.

But as well as delaying reactor removal , churning out - or not - paperwork, Defra's new toy, a computer system known as SAM, appears to have trouble adding up.

The monthly tally of tested slaughtered cattle, herds under restriction and confirmed outbreaks of (cattle) bTB can be viewed on Defra's website on this link. But the stats appear stuck at August 2011, with the following information note:

As previously announced, the TB in cattle statistics for September 2011 onwards are being produced from AHVLA’s new IT system. Unfortunately we are not yet in a position to publish these statistics as there are still some issues to check and resolve. Defra statisticians and AHVLA are working together to resolve these issues and to minimise any delay. As soon as this work has been completed we will publish statistics for September 2011 onwards.

Good old SAM.

Cull areas announced

2012-01-18T20:19:00.002Z

Today the North Devon edition of the Western Morning News announced the preferred sites of the two pilot badger culls. From the report...:

One of the pilot areas will be on Exmoor and the other around Tewkesbury in Gloucestershire, according to industry sources.

But there will not be a pilot cull in Devon – a major bovine TB hotspot county and widely expected to be the location of one of the two – because it was difficult to get a sufficient number of farmers to sign up in the individual areas.

An area of North Devon, however, is one of two reserve areas for a trial, if either Exmoor or Tewkesbury drop out.

In another part of this report, the privacy and security part of this project is again aired:

Natural England, the Government agency that will be handling the culls, will hold local consultations about the cull in the areas before they go ahead – so there is scant chance that the details about where and when will be a secret.

Now in his speech at the Oxford Conference which we touched on in this posting, Defra minister Jim Paice indicated that such actions were 'required by law'. By which law, or under what statute he did not explain, but cetainly when the Minstry's State Veterinary Service held the license, issued under the same part of the same Act, no such advance warning was given. In fact quite the opposite.

But then you can't believe everything you read in the press - this same article in WMN gives the cull area size as 30 sq km which could be a misunderstanding, a misprint or just plain mischief.

The pennies start to drop.

2012-01-07T19:07:00.003Z

As 2012 dawns, farmers and their representatives begin to grapple with the nitty gritty of the 'cull plan' concocted on their behalf by Natural England.
This is the operating protocol to which we referred in the previous posting as :

the most complicated, divisive strategy imaginable ...

... but one for which farmers must bear the undefined cost and clearly defined publicity. It appears from the press this week, that questions which we asked at the time of NE's publication are now surfacing.
A bit late, but there are a lot of pages.

Farmers Guardian published a long piece on the 3rd January, with the strap line 'Badger cull ball now firmly in the farmers' court'. Or put another way, 'This is your badger cull, this is how it's going to operate, now get on with it - if you can. The article defines the key concerns of farmers, which are and always have been - the timing, the cost and their security.

Timing looks as if the two pilots will be late autumn this year (post Olympic fervour) so another year bites the dust, as do several thousand more cattle.

Costs we have explored several times. Jim Paice is sticking with his £1.4 million + 25% contingency fund up front for each 150 sq km patch. That equates to £920 per badger. But the NFU have done their own fag-packet calculations and arrived at around £20. Until that gap closes, then we agree with Anthony Gibson's comments (made before he was hoovered back into the NFU fold) and aired in the posting below.

Unless these proposals are radically altered in the consultation process – particularly in terms of reducing the financial and other risks to participants – I find it hard to envisage a badger-culling licence ever being issued.

Quite so. But then licenses were never meant to be issued under these proposals and the costs relate to the operating protocol set out by NE and to which the 'industry' apparently agreed.

The security question is vital with the farming industry now at complete loggerheads with NE's proposals. FG reports that as far as the farming organisations go:

The names of farmers, landowners and contractors involved in the culling areas will not be made public. Neither will the exact timing of the culling operations.

Natural England’s guidance, however, states it should ‘give the public an opportunity to comment on the licence applications’. This has become a key area of debate between the licensing agency and industry, which is intent on preserving the anonymity of those involved .

And that is the problem. In their proposals, NE even go so far as to describe a '28 day consultation period with maps posted on parish notice boards'. That is what farmers are being asked to sign up to. And this was hammered home by Jim Paice at the Oxford Farming Conference this week.
Mr. Paice reminded delegates that:

Natural England is required by law in each area to consult the public. We are in discussion with them about how precise the boundaries on those maps need to be,” he said.
“But I have to say as a countryman myself that once these trials are underway, the grapevines will work and I don’t think it will be possible to keep it secret.
“I am afraid farmers will have to take that into consideration when they decide whether to sign up. I don’t think there is anything more we can do in reality,” he told journalists, adding that he hopes this does not deter farmers from signing up.

If nothing else about this half cocked load of bureaucracy, that one paragraph is enough reason to hand control of a serious communicable zoonosis back to Animal Health, where it belongs. That organisation (or its predecessor, the State Veterinary Service) always held a general license and applied it under Section 10 of the Protection of Badgers Act when and if it was deemed necessary. Control of TB has no place in NE's portfolio. And it's no use at this late stage, the great and the good throwing a hissy fit when at last they are reading the small print of that which they've already agreed in principle. Or thinking they can change it.

This is bureaucracy gone mad, said NBA TB committee chairman Bill Harper. “Our concern is the maps used in the consultation will be too precise. We want them to be fairly general.”

and the NFU's John Royle added that:

the NFU was still trying to persuade the agency ‘not to describe the areas involved exactly’.

How exactly you do not describe areas, which by the terms of the NE license have to be displayed for a 28 day public consultation ? But as Jim Paice said at the Oxford Conference:

“I am afraid farmers will have to take that into consideration when they decide whether to sign up. I don’t think there is anything more we can do in reality,” he told journalists, adding that he hopes this does not deter farmers from signing up.

Really? You could have fooled us.

Quotes of the year

2011-12-28T20:03:00.004Z

As 2011 draws to a close, several people have had their say about badgers, TB the proposed cull and much more. Below are a few snippets.

From Jeremy Clarkson in the The Sun [sorry, no online link] a comment on the cost of Jim Paice's proposed cull, using a protocol described by Natural England. While he admits it is 'safer' not to get bogged down on rights or wrongs of culling badgers, Mr. Clarkson explains that he doesn't understand the numbers being bandied about...

" It's been suggested that the cost of culling 100,000 badgers over the next eight years will be £92m. That works out at £920 per badger. I'm sorry but what are they going to use? Golden bullet? Hellfire missiles? Apache gunships? That's the trouble with modern government. It trots out these big numbers without ever pausing for rational thought".

You get to that figure quite easily on the 150 sq km blocks as well Mr. Clarkson. Divide Mr. Paice's £1.38m per patch by Natural England's maximum number of badgers culled of 1500 - and bingo. That £920 pops up again. But if only 1000 (NE's lower figure) are culled, the per head cost rises to £1,380. The NFU are quoting a few £ per head at meetings to drum up support - but the distance between the two is enormous and deserves further exploration.

Still on the subject of cost, in The Daily Wail last Saturday was a comment on the cost of moving a badger sett. It was pointed out that the animal in question could dig another home quite quickly and the quoted figure of £180,000 would fund the creature a council flat. Quite so.

When the proposals outlined by Natural England were published in August, we drew your attention to the main document and its many annexes in this post. Later that week, former SW regional director of the NFU, Anthony Gibson published his overview of the proposals in the Western Morning News. With a strapline "Badger cull rules must change to be workable," Mr. Gibson commented :

It is hard to say whether it is the cost of what is proposed, or the regulatory burden which it will involve, which evokes the greater degree of concern. But if you put one together with the other, it will be a very brave and very determined group of farmers which signs a "TB Management Agreement" with Natural England.

The bureaucracy associated with such agreements will be formidable, if anything like the measures proposed in the consultation are finally agreed. I don't have the space to go into any great detail, but you will find it all at www.defra.gov.uk/consult/2011/07/19/bovine-tb/ which should be required reading – including the annexes – for anyone planning to get involved.

In this piece, Anthony went on to say that:

Unless these proposals are radically altered in the consultation process – particularly in terms of reducing the financial and other risks to participants – I find it hard to envisage a badger-culling licence ever being issued.

and he concluded

The only consolations I can offer are, first, that the principle of a badger cull has been conceded, and that could be crucial to TB control when sanity is restored; and second, that a bad cull could very easily be worse in all sorts of ways than no cull at all.

So have the costs been reduced? Bureaucracy loosened or protocol simplified? We don't think so, but others are now starting to question whether this is yet another 'designed to fail' exercise.

In Farmers Guardian last week, Jim Paice explained why a cull was necessary.

“The science is not simple. But scientists agree that, if culling is conducted in line with the strict criteria identified through the randomised badger culling trial, we can expect it to reduce TB in cattle over a 150 sq km area, plus a 2 km surrounding ring, by an average of 16% over nine years, relative to a similar unculled area. That was based on trapping and shooting. Our judgement is that farmers can be trusted to deliver a similar result by controlled shooting

Our judgement is that Animal Health have abandoned their responsibility on this issue, preferring to dumb down overspill, test cattle to distraction yet still hang on to the coat tails of the worst bit of 'science' we have had the misfortune to be caught up in.

Predictably the Badger Trust, RSPCA and assorted followers are frothing at the mouth, with the Humane Society launching a broadside at the Bern convention on the following grounds :

The Government claims a badger slaughter will prevent livestock damage by reducing the spread of bTB. However, the proportion of cases of bTB in cattle attributable to badgers is very small and the Government itself admits that the slaughter is likely only to achieve a 12-16 per cent reduction in bovine TB cases in cattle after 9 years.
The Government has given insufficient consideration to alternative non-lethal solutions including cattle movement/testing controls and the development of vaccines for badgers and cattle. The Convention should not allow a slaughter of badgers in preference to alternative options such as stricter cattle movement controls, which have a potentially greater chance of reducing the spread of bTB, solely because it is more convenient for farmers.

Amazing how they talk of a 'massacre' of tuberculous badgers, but imply 'damage' to cattle and 'inconvenience' to farmers? Can't really get our collective heads around that one.

We do however see a distinct stumbling block in that mathematically modelled 12 - 16 per cent alleged benefit. It is farcical and Defra know it. Thornbury achieved 100 percent and even Professor Krebbs when he formulated his original protocol for the RBCT (before it became politicised ) had this to say about past culling strategies and their results : (p126)

7.8.3 The gassing and clean ring strategies, in effect, eliminated or severely reduced badger populations from an area and appear to have had the effect of reducing or eliminating TB in local cattle populations. The effect lasted for many years after the cessation of culling, but eventually TB returned.

7.8.4 The interim strategy, introduced following the Dunnet report, is not likely to be effective in reducing badger-related incidence of TB in cattle for the following reasons:

i) The policy involves removing badgers from a limited area (the reactor land or the entire farm suffering the herd breakdown if the former cannot be identified) ; but social groups of badgers may occupy several setts covering more than one farm.

(ii) Partial removal of groups could exacerbate the spread of TB by peturbation of the social structure and increased movement of badgers.

(iii) There is no attempt to prevent recolonisation by badgers of potentially infected setts; even if infectivety in the setts is not a problem, immigrant badgers may bring new infection.

In addition, the current operation of the interim strategy involves a delay (27 weeks in 1995) to the start of the removal. The average period from the herd breakdown to the completion of the removal was 41 weeks in 1995.

7.8.5 In common with the clean ring strategy and the live test trial, the effectiveness of the interim strategy is further undermined by the failure to remove lactating sows which may also be infected. We recognise that culling lactating sows has a welfare cost in terms of cubs left in setts, but this needs to be balanced against wider animal health and welfare considerations for both cattle and badgers.

All the great and the good who pontificate from a distance on the insidious spread of this disease, and the many who glean employment from it, know what Krebbs knew in 1996 and what his predecessors Professors Dunnet and Zucherman knew.

They knew it then, they know it now and yet they will do nothing to address the situation at all except cook up the most complicated divisive strategy imaginable - and expect farmers to carry the cost.

A Happy New Year.

After the Olympics...

2011-12-14T18:29:00.002Z

.. our Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs is 'minded' to allow two pilot badger culls to go ahead, each lasting 6 weeks, in the autumn of 2012. The Defra statement can be viewed here (pdf) - note section 5 for the cull protocol which participating farmers will have to abide by.

More on the official press release, from Farmers Weekly, Farmers Guardian and the Western Morning News.

We'll revisit this later in the week, as the dust settles around various reactions.

1, 2, 3, 4 ... Brocks.

2011-12-10T16:41:00.007Z

Still in the spirit of our Happy Brocklemas posting below we see from the Defra website that dear old FERA (Food Food and Environment Research Agency (UK)) have a received an early Christmas present in the form of a new project to keep them in the ~~manner to which they have become accustomed~~ handbags for the next couple of years.

Known as SE 3129, an estimated £870,984 will be spent enabling FERA to count badgers in 1700 x 1 km squares. They explain:

"Obtaining an up-to-date estimate of the current size of the badger population will help inform policy on badgers and will assist the UK in addressing its obligations under the Bern Convention. The last National Badger Survey of Great Britain was completed in 1997 and was a follow-up to the original survey carried out in the mid 1980s. The 1990s survey revealed that badger numbers had increased substantially in the intervening decade."

Although the Defra report appears somewhat reluctant to put a figure on that increase, members of the Mammal Society who carried out that survey revealed an increase in population of 77 percent in the decade to 1997. (Ref: "Changes in the British badger population, 1988 to 1997" (1997). G. Wilson, S. Harris and G. McLaren. People's Trust for Endangered Species (ISBN 1 85580 018 7))

The objective of the new study will be:

1. To conduct a repeat field survey of badger setts in approximately 1700 1km squares that were surveyed in the 1980s and 90s
2. To produce estimates of the number of badger social groups in 2011-2013
3. To assess change in the number of social groups since the 1980s and the 1990s, if any
4. To produce estimates of the badger population of England and Wales, and of the UK.
5. To build and make accessible a GIS for the estimation of badger populations at a regional scale

The Project will run from 2011 - 2013 with taxpayers coughing up £870,984 to fund it. Most of us trying to farm cattle, would say there are too many badgers (and thus a paucity of hedgehogs and ground nesting birds) and suggest that unless the badgers are sitting on each others' shoulders, density of the 1700 original 1 km squares may be similar, but their occupants are likely to have spread out a tad ?

And keeping within the spirit of ~~Christmas~~ Brocklemas, we wonder, will this poor old chap be counted ?

Happy Brocklemas

2011-12-05T19:53:00.004Z

Isn't he a cutey? And now we can reveal that you are able to buy bags of - Badger Food on which to feed him.
Searching amongst the shelves of a local pet superstore on a Saturday morning is not for the faint hearted, but occasionally it turns up something which may be a shock to some - particularly cattle farmers south / south west of Lancashire.
But such goodies would be viewed with delight by others of the Bill Oddie fraternity.

A quick 'google' turned up two brands of badger ~~bait~~ food. One is a formed biscuit of meat concentrate, oils and other stuff which should, say the instructions, be left out at dusk. On this link it was also marked 'out of stock', which is somewhat depressing.
The other one which we found was a coarse peanut based mix
which has secret ingredient, and comes in packs up to 52kg. And that's an awful lot of badger food.

In this instance and as it's Christmas, we won't mention the ethical arguments of encouraging an already top heavy badger population to increase by artificial supplementary feeding, purely for public gratification. And we will ignore the very real danger of badgers encouraged to feed up close and personal, bringing a highly infectious zoonosis into your front garden, and thus directly to your cat, dog or child.

From our parliamentary questions, we are already quite well aware of Defra's attitude to the translocation of badgers, sick, mended or disease status unknown and thus would presume that this intransigence extends to artificial feeding too.

The answers to our Questions confirmed that :

"as native species, there are no specific restrictions under current law regulating where badgers can be released once they have recovered". [ 6th Jan 2004: Col 249W 144446]

Although the use of the old Brock test (which boasts just 47 percent sensitivity) is encouraged and is mandatory if a license is applied for, relocations undertaken by so called 'animal hospitals' have more leeway and our Question revealed that:

" testing guidelines are not mandatory, but are set down in a voluntary code of practise". 31th Jan 2004: col 543W [ 1500609]

And finally on this thorny subject of these 'rescues', answers to our Questions confirmed that :

"this voluntary protocol was not devised or approved by Defra". 6th Feb 2004; Col 1109W [150583]".

So, you may release him anywhere at all. Your place or mine? Nobody really cares. And he now has a purpose built feed to sustain him too. But the result of this crazy over protection of a species in which Defra state "Tuberculosis is endemic" is no less distressing for old Brock himself. It may be called 'conservation' but under no circumstrances can it be deemed 'welfare'.

The badger is a victim of his protector's success.

Happy Brocklemas.

More chaos

2011-11-23T14:41:00.003Z

.. but don't mention that computer.

Last week, Farmers Weekly reported again on the slow down with data input to Defra's new computer system, and its consequences both to farmers, staff and taxpayers. Warmwell reports :

Animal Health and Veterinary Laboratories Agency's system has broken down and vital paperwork approving the movement of cattle has not been sent. Although applications for export health certificates are now being processed and consignments of calves in low TB incidence areas being able to move, calf exports from high TB incidence regions are not being processed. The AHVLA is an executive agency of DEFRA.

As cattle, including TB reactors, stack up farms while a couple of stiff fingers type test charts in, one laborious line at a time, AHVLA explain that they have "drafted extra staff in to input data manually". It would be churlish of us to point out that it may have helped if they had not sacked experienced admin staff to save on pensions, replacing them with untrained agency staff with little knowledge of veterinary terminology and even less interest. It would also have helped if the much vaunted SAM system could be directly accessed by LVI vets, instead of the 'manual input' referred to above. And it would have been really good if the original helpline number for vets using the system had connected with AHVLA, instead of a solicitor's office in Pall Mall.

Earlier reports on SAM from Farmers Weekly and Western Morning News are on these links. And we offer another glimpse at WMN's most excellent Comment which describes the reply from AHVLA to newspaper's point of frantic concerns of farmers snarled up in this unholy mess as :

"....anodyne and jargon-spattered response from the department, which talks about 'new functionality' [ snip] and seeks to paper over cracks rather than come clean about its shortcomings."

Farmers, AHVLA staff and taxpayers deserve better.

Progress? ...

2011-11-23T07:11:00.006Z

.. or a very un-holy alliance?
Time will tell, but news last week of a joint initiative between the NFU and the Badger Trust was announced.

NFU chief farm policy adviser John Royle and Badger Trust director Simon Boulter have agreed a joint project in which the badgers will be vaccinated on two farms owned by NFU members. In addition, the Badger Trust has identified five other landowners around the UK wishing to vaccinate badgers and is working independently with them as part of the initial trial project.

Vaccination on all seven farms started in October after surveys were carried out to identify active badger setts and licences have been granted by Natural England. The vaccination project will run until the end of November 2011 and resume in May 2012

And then what?
Badgers have been vaccinated on seven farms, and this helps how?
What is the aim here?

Are we looking at NFU saying it's too expensive, cumbersome and won't work and actually we weren't really planning to do it as part of Option 6 of any badger cull?
And conversely, Badger Trust saying no it's not and yes you must?

In Parliamentary questions last week, Jim Paice seems to sticking to his original £1.4 million price tag on each 350 sq km cull area and much of that cost was ring vaccination - however much his own department knows that the PR surrounding last autumn's mishmash of 'scientific' trials on vaccinating wild badgers was a huge con. And the NFU are said to have told its members vaccination is too costly, impractical and they can ignore it.

But we digress.

We are a cynical lot at blogger HQ and do not believe for one moment that the NFU and Badger Trust, holding hands with Defra / FERA and Natural England actually want to break the polemic log jam or stop the beneficial gravy train of bTB. However the members of both the alliance members do want action - but from different directions.

So, who is paying for this project? NFU members? Badger Trust? Defra? or could it be the first 'cost sharing' exercise via the proposed Cost and Responsibility levy?
FERA already know the cost of vaccinating badgers from several previous forays. And most importantly, they knew the TB status of the farm's cattle (if indeed there were any cattle on the land) at the start of the project. How will success or failure be calculated in this short time scale? Or is this merely the practicalities of vaccination which are being considered - again? Are the badgers in question screened for TB ahead of their annual jab (or peanut fest) as they were in previous 'trials'? If you remember this excluded all but 262 of that headline grabbing 844. The remainder showing TB positive to at least one of three tests.

And finally, what chance of any discussion on a selective cull going ahead while this ~~latest prevarication~~ project is in progress, or being digested?

The press release indicates that:

It is hoped that the two programmes, although small in scale, will help to identify whether the injectable vaccination of badgers is practical and cost effective.

... with, as we have pointed out, one organisation possibly trying to prove the opposite of it's partner?

Over years, the NFU and Badger Trust have repeatedly clashed on the relative merits of badger culling and badger vaccination as approaches to controlling bTB in wildlife and cattle. John Royle said:

“We are pleased that the NFU and the Badger Trust have successfully liaised to facilitate this joint project, sharing equipment and resources as necessary, despite having differing views on the degree to which badgers are implicated in the transmission of bovine Tuberculosis.”

Editor's note: As 99 percent of biosecurity advice involves keeping badgers away from cattle, that 'implication' is somewhat outdated we think.

The Government is expected to make a final announcement before Christmas on whether to give the go ahead to two proposed pilot badger culls next year.

And we confidently predict that the NFU's latest stroll down the corridors of power will have a disproportionate effect on its members ability to deal with the source of bTB in their cattle herds.

Update
Farmers Weekly report today that a decision on any pilot culls is likely before Christmas. In the same report,
police officers warn of increased problems with 'activists' should any cull go ahead which may impact on the policing of the 2012 Olympics.

Success v Failure

2011-11-03T15:02:00.002Z

New Zealand has produced a combined report of its progress in eradicating bTB. The documents report good progress in what they describe as 'an exceptional year':

"It gives me great pleasure to report on what has been an exceptional year for protecting the country from bovine tuberculosis (TB)," said Mr McCook.

The drop in infected herd numbers to around 80 in 2010/11 is the lowest recorded total since the TB control programme was conceived.

We covered their progress last in 2009, in this posting. And Christiane Glossop, in a paper written for the NZ Animal Health Board, also congratulated them on such stunning progress.

"We slaughtered 12,000 cattle infected with tuberculosis in Wales last year. In some areas of Wales, the infection rates are as high as 15%.

In contrast, New Zealand has an infection rate of 0.35% and it’s going down. You have nearly wiped this disease out through rigorous pursuit of pest management, stock movement controls and robust government policies built on co-operation between farmers, local councils and government."

So how are we getting on in GB? The latest figures produced by our Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, DEFRA to July 2011 show a somewhat different trend.
Herds under TB restriction in the seven months to July, are UP and number almost 8 percent of our cattle herds, with 18 per cent of the West region's herds caught up in restructuins.
New herd breakdowns are UP by 5.4 per cent on the figure for 2010.
And cattle ~~slaughtered~~ fed into Defra's mincing machine, are UP by 6.1 percent on last year.

So what are New Zealand doing differently. That was a rhetorical question by the way, but they describe their strategy thus:

Introduction to the revised National Pest Management Strategy
In September 2009, the AHB presented a proposal to Agriculture and Forestry Minister David Carter to amend the National Bovine Tuberculosis (TB) Pest Management Strategy. The strategy amendment was duly approved and the revised strategy came into effect on 1 July 2011. This strategy will guide the TB control programme through to 2026, subject to five yearly reviews.

Over the next 15 years, the strategy aims to achieve the following primary objectives. These include:

The eradication of TB from wild animals over at least 2.5 million hectares of Vector Risk Area (VRA), including two extensive forest areas representing relatively difficult operational terrain from which to eradicate the disease
Continued freedom from infection in wild animals (vectors) in existing Vector Free Areas (VFAs) and areas where eradication is considered to have been achieved
A secondary objective is to maintain the national infected herd period prevalence level (the number of herds with TB during a period of time) below 0.4 per cent during the term of the strategy. The amended strategy gives priority to wildlife TB eradication and allows the AHB to prioritise operations and resource allocation for this purpose.

The TB control programme has made significant gains over the past decade, especially in reducing the number of infected cattle and deer herds. However, TB-infected possums continue to be a source of livestock infection across some 10 million hectares of New Zealand’s TB Vector Risk Area. The revised strategy sets out to address this underlying problem by aiming to eradicate TB from possum populations in selected areas. These areas make up 25 per cent, or 2.5 million hectares, of the total area of New Zealand known to contain infected wild animals. Achieving this objective will also confirm that TB can be eradicated from possums and other wild animals across large forest tracts where possum control is most challenging.

Eradicating TB from the possum population across one quarter of the total area known to be at risk from TB-infected wild animals would also from a basis for extending the eradication approach to further large areas of New Zealand.

The revised strategy will continue to protect the reputation and value of New Zealand’s dairy, beef and deer exports by ensuring infected herd numbers remain below a 0.4 per cent period prevalence. To achieve the objectives of the revised strategy, the AHB will vigorously pursue improvements in the cost-effectiveness of possum control. Herd testing and movement control policies will also be adjusted to reduce the risk of herd-to-herd TB transmission and, over time, reduce the need for herd TB testing in areas of low disease risk.

With a TB incidence of below 0.4 percent, NZ is intending to eradicate the disease risk from their wildlife reservoir, from 2.5 million hectares. 25 per cent of the total area of NZ.

And us? With a TB incidence of almost 8 percent in the first half of 2011, Defra is 'mindful' of setting up a couple of pilot 150 sq km plots for a four year badger culling 'trial'. But using a published operating protocol which should guarantee the outcome of this plan is similar to that of its previous exercise in prevarication, the ~~RBCT~~ Badger Dispersal Trial.

These are outrageous figures by any standards. This country, its cattle, badgers and all the overspill victims of bTB deserve better. Much better.

Earthmovers

2011-10-26T07:55:00.009+01:00

The Daily Mail reports that tunnelling badgers have caused huge problems to the safety of school buildings in Somerset. Click link for full story.

A primary school is under threat of collapse after badgers tunnelled underneath it and shifted 7.5 tonnes of soil. The school, which teaches 420 pupils, has been blighted by the badgers - leaving deep gaps in the foundations underneath two main classrooms. Parents and governors now fear buildings could cave in at Ashcombe Primary School, Western-Super-Mare, Somerset.

A spokes~~man~~ person explained:

Our major concern is the fact that badgers have built or excavated under one of the buildings, which contains two classrooms. "These are elderly pre-fabricated buildings which need constant repair. The excavations by the badgers will have had some effect on the foundations.

"We worry that the buildings will collapse into the holes that have been left.

"Another problem is that the animals have brought their kill under the buildings, which of course we can't get to, so they decompose. All you can do is open the windows" ......

.
Read more of the antics of these weapons of mass destruction in this 2004 posting. We reported increases in tuberculosis in this posting and the predictable consequences for anyone getting up close and personal with diseased badgers, here.

The comments to this story are depressingly predictable. Forget the enormous damage to property and definitely air brush the risk to persons of discarded bedding, latrines or urine. You know, all those areas we farmers are supposed to fence off to protect our cattle from tuberculosis? Everybody just lurves badgers.... from a very safe distance which usually involves four walls and a settee.

Edit. The boss has sent his favourite pic of the appropriate 'earthmover' to illustrate this post. We are happy to oblige. 7.5 tonnes is a lot, after all.

More on SAM

2011-10-22T19:05:00.003+01:00

Following the Farmers Weekly report on Defra's new computer system 'SAM', which we posted here, another raft of problems appear to have surfaced. And the backlog of test charts awaiting input (and action), has reportedly increased to 1000.

Yesterday's Western Morning News, had the front page, an inside page and an opinion on all this. And the paper's 'Opinion' piece was not impressed by the mealy mouthed platitudes offered by a Defra spokesperson, which they describe as an:

"anodyne and jargon-spattered response from the department, which talks about 'new functionality' [ snip] and seeks to paper over cracks rather than come clean about its shortcomings."

The comment we note, is read from the same hymn sheet as that given to the FW, three weeks ago.

More of the problems with SAM are described in Farmers Guardian this week in a small snippet entitled 'IT Problems Hit Calf Exports. ' There is no online link, but the piece is as follows:

"Computer problems at the AHVLA Central Operations for Exports in Carlisle have seriously disrupted calf exports and it could be weeks before the backlog is cleared.
Exports were suspended on September 28th. and a statement sent to Farmers Guardian by the AHVLA said a new computer system was being developed to improve customer services, but problems in a new part of the system meant the agency was unable to establish the disease status of the some cattle prior to their planned export.

Although the article specifically mentions calf exports, this problem would affect all cattle exports, with breeding stock also snarled up. The window for exporting after a clear TB test is just 28 days from jab day, substantially less that the 60 day home market timeline, and export office vets at Carlisle would need to check the status of the consigning herd, as well as the log jammed test charts for these animals. And that apparently, they cannot do.

AHVLA problems with SAM are only one in a series of governmental cockups introducing new IT systems. The Telegraph describes a £12 billion bungle with NHS systems, following hard on the heels of the Fire Service's abandoned flagship which ratcheted up costs of £469 million of taxpayers' (borrowed) cash before being moth balled. The Telegraph piece on the NHS system notes that:

".. last month, the MPs on the Public Accounts Committee described the system (cost: £12 billion to date) as “unworkable”."

They haven't met SAM yet.

But all is not lost. While angry farmers were quick to point out on a BBC TV report, their own particular problems, snarl ups and confusing paperwork, ROD (perleese don't say Rod Who?) - Defra's acronym 'ROD' is the Regional Operations Director - a very nice man called Mark Yates appeared on camera to say that if farmers are experiencing any problems with SAM, they should report them directly to him.

According to his CV, Mr. Yates has been ROD for the South West for 2 years after a nine year stint in 'the army'. Now that could mean he was used to giving orders - or conversely, more used to taking them. But we digress:

Mark Yates, the South West's very own ROD is based at Exeter, and can be contacted on 01392 266373 - if the phones are turned on.

For readers in other areas of the UK, every AHVLA region has its very own ROD and they can be contacted from this list.

Don't mention the ....

2011-10-11T20:10:00.005+01:00

~~... war~~ computer. And in particular, Defra's new toy, SAM. This system was due on stream in July, but three months on is apparently causing havoc. Farmers Weekly reported this snippet last week. (sorry, no online link)

Under the strapline 'Computer Problems Jeopardise TB processing', the FW report describes:

".. how problems with the new [SAM] computer system and the loss of experienced administrative staff, have combined to create severe difficulties in dealing with TB paperwork."

While inexperienced and agency staff struggle to input TB test results, the report highlights a log jam

"..... of over 700 TB test charts for the SW region ( to the end of September) which have to be inputted manually."

The piece describes the morale of staff expected to 'lie to farmers' and the 'extra stress caused to lower grade staff'.
The report also describes problems with TB licensing experienced by one farmer, who having applied to move 20 animals, was given a licence for 23 including three breeding bulls, two of which had been sold. The final license sheet listed just 18 animals. So it would appear that manual overrides could be difficult, if not impossible too.

But with a unique piece of airbrushing, an AHVLA spokesperson gave the following comment to FW about Defra's new all singing, all dancing SAM computer system.

"This will improve the level of service provided to customers"

Not if the goddamn test charts aren't inputted on time, it won't. The main frame computer will generate a bloody shut down notice. Been there. Done that.
However

" ..... minor issues have been identified, and have now been fixed"

Really? How minor? And that backlog has decreased then? Yes? No?
No. Our information is that it has increased. The purring continues:

"During this time, additional manual checks have been implemented on all TB test charts and associated processes to ensure AHVLA is able to identify and remove reactor animals from farms as quickly as possible."

Additional manual checks? Why? So there is no backlog of reactors or test charts then?
According to many farmers we speak to, yes, there is. Mind, if the source was dealt with there wouldn't be any need for pernicious 60 day testing, abattoir slots, transport, or unskilled agency staff trying to log a million unique eartag numbers into a new computer system. But let that pass.

Sadly, all this sounds a tad familiar. Remember the phrase 'don't mention the war' ? We see a distinct parallel, and having been on the receiving end of a syrupy recorded message (twice) recently when trying to contact AHVLA, have a sneaking suspicion they may be turning the phones off. For hours at a time.
Nah, they wouldn't do that would they? What bit of 'Animal Health' is by passing the radar of Defra's top brass?

Of course they would. But don't forget, the AHVLA lady said it will " improve the level of service..."

What she did not say was when.

'white coat syndrome'

2011-10-10T19:07:00.007+01:00

.. is a well known cause of blood pressure when patients visit a doctor's surgery; the sight of pristine, dazzling white attire, guaranteed to cause a flutter in most of us.

So imagine the reaction of cattle, more used to olive green - be that grass, silage or the boss's overalls - faced with the eye catching vision of a man in a white coat advancing.
Like it, they do not. As was found a decade ago during the carnage of FMD.
The picture below, is by Chris Chapman and was taken on a Dartmoor dairy farm in 2001. Even normally placid dairy cows are looking askance at the ghostly figure as they are rounded up to be shot. These cows were sedated. Cattle gathered for inspection and TB testing by AHVLA operatives are not.

Thus for general farm work, AHVLA operatives have always worn dark green or navy disposable overalls. 'Elf and safety being paramount as several tonnes of spooked bovine, attempts to flatten any stranger wearing white.

Or that was how it used to be until the arrival of Defra's new, all singing, all dancing and very streamlined central ordering system. This was designed to give economy of scale, with orders channelled through the Finance section of the regional office. We understand that since FMD, Defra staff are not allowed to use the infamous 'white overalls' in the field. This is partly to avoid media surveillance but mainly to avoid being squashed by freaked out cattle.

But guess what? Our moles tell us that what were delivered by a this new team of desk bound admin clerks (with no idea of the problems faced at the coal face and no remit to listen) were packs of tissue-paper thin, single use overalls. And they were white.

Why are we not surprised?

Update;
At blogger HQ, we are more than familiar with Defra's deskbound windowbox solutions to livestock problems, but our co-editor roared with laughter over the white coat scenario.

"Perhaps if they wore the overalls over their heads, at least they wouldn't see what is coming."

... was his erudite comment - while not identifying the 'they'.

As cattle farmers, we tend to call a spade a spade - and suggested the correct interpretation could be for AHVLA operatives to layer their ~~'never-to-be-used-again after the carnage of FMD'~~, white tissue-paper overalls over the heads of the cattle. Simples.

Update - Michigan and a $200 bounty

2011-09-29T08:05:00.006+01:00

In 2005 we posted on the newly emerged threat of bTB to Michigan's cattle herds. Politicians and veterinarians had a dilemma with the needs of hunters and livelihoods of cattle farmers with tuberculosis the bone between two dogs.

Supplementary feeding of deer to encourage bigger horns, also had the effect of bringing them out of the woods to eat from molassed corn buckets, which could be shared by cattle. A voluntary ban on this practise was in place when the then Defra shadow MP Owen Paterson visited the state in 2005, to see for himself how such disease dynamics were handled.

In an update to this story, we learn that Michigan has made supplementary feeding illegal, and has also introduced a bounty on deer found to have bTB. The Michigan Department of Agriculture & Rural Development has announced an incentives program to encourage more Michigan hunters to have their deer tested for bovine tuberculosis.

"Under this new program, if a wild free-ranging, white-tailed deer harvested during the 2011 hunt is turned in for bovine TB testing, and it cultures positive, the hunter may apply for a $200 incentive," said MDARD Director Keith Creagh.

Bovine TB is a contagious bacterial disease of cattle that can affect other mammals, including humans. In 1994, a unique strain of bovine TB was identified in Michigan's free-ranging deer.

"MDARD recently announced 57 counties in Michigan's Lower Peninsula achieved bovine TB-free status; but there is still a pocket of bovine TB in deer that can be transmitted to cattle," Creagh said. "This new incentive program is one tool in our toolbox to help refine the footprint of the disease and protect Michigan's $9.2 billion beef and dairy industries."

"Some of the best hunting in the state is in Northeastern Lower Michigan," said State Sen. John Moolenaar (R-Midland). "Our wildlife enthusiasts can show they care about TB eradication, and at the same time, Michigan's Department of Agriculture and Rural Development will reward them for removing disease from the landscape."

Under the Incentives Program:

Hunters must take the deer to a DNR check station.
They can have the antlers removed, but the head is submitted for testing.
DNR collects the heads from all the check stations and transports them to the Wildlife Disease Laboratory at Michigan State University's (MSU) Diagnostic Center for Population and Animal Health.
If the deer is confirmed to be TB infected, the hunter will receive routine test notification from the DNR laboratory which will include an Incentives Program contact number.
Notified hunters should contact MDARD with their confirmation code. A form will be mailed to the hunter's address for them to fill out and mail back for payment.

Upon receipt of the completed form, hunters will be mailed $200 for each TB-positive deer harvested.

Visit the Emerging Diseases web site for an all-positives map and additional information, including an advertisement about the incentives program; or to join the Michigan Animal Health LISTSERV: www.michigan.gov/emergingdiseases.

Copyright 2011 WNEM. All Rights Reserved.

Link to more information on bTB in Michigan's white tailed deer is on this site.
The picture (from the site) shows tuberculous abscesses on the lungs of a deer.

RBCT Update

2011-09-27T07:16:00.006+01:00

Although the operatives of the ~~Badger Dispersal Trial~~ RBCT ended their 8 night forays (if they arrived at all) and chopped up the cage traps in 2005/06, data collection from this exercise in prevarication, continues.

We posted the first offerings from Prof. Donnelly's mathematical abacus in 2008. This was followed by a further tranche of number crunched advantages (and cost disadvantages) in 2010 which we posted here.

And last week, the modelling machinery clanked into action again with the following observations on the longer term effects of this most peculiar option of 'controlling' bTB in badgers. The paper makes the following observations:

In the time period from one year after the last proactive cull to 28 August 2011 (the post-trial period), the incidence of confirmed breakdowns in the proactive culling trial areas was 28.0% lower (95% CI: 15.0% to 39.1% lower) than in survey-only areas, and on lands up to 2km outside proactive trial areas was 4.1% lower (95% CI: 25.7% lower to 23.7% higher) than outside survey-only areas.

and continues;

Exploratory analyses stratified by 6-month periods (Table 1) are consistent with an ongoing, but diminishing (test for temporal trend p=0.008), benefit of proactive culling continuing through the latest 6-month period analysed (55 to 60 months post-trial).

The paper also observes that "the effects observed outside trial areas remained consistent with no ongoing effects of proactive culling in these areas."

Stating that their

"post-trial results must, of course, be considered in the context of the smaller reduction seen inside proactive trial areas and the increased incidence seen outside proactive trial areas in the period from the end of the initial proactive cull until one year after the last proactive cull in each triplet."

..... we can at least see where the current 'benefit' of culling modelled at a modest 16 per cent only, has come from.

But in the real world, well away from the square root of stupid, one would assume that the response to culling an infected GROUP of badgers would be somewhat different from picking off the scent markers one at a time during 8 nights annually, with time out for FMD and during hibernation periods, over six years. Thus the resulting drop in cattle TB would be more marked, as in Thornbury where a 100 percent drop in cattle TB was observed over a decade later, and more recently the RoI strategy where a more thorough and ongoing clearance is having marked and beneficial effect on cattle TB incidence.

A full analysis with graphs, of all this modelling post ~~Badger Dispersal Trial~~ RBCT can be seen here.

Cull management plan

2011-09-09T07:56:00.006+01:00

After a pep talk to the troops in Exeter this week, NFU leader Peter Kendall was in 'head teacher' mode - we're told.

"It's the only game in town"
"Get on with it"
"Only chance in a generation"

You get the picture ?

But when challenged Mr. Kendall said no, he had not read Natural England's proposals.

We published these in this posting.
(Click the underlined title for a link to the post)

Unlike the NFU president, if any farmer wants to understand the commitment being asked for, and if you read nothing else from the Natural England library on 'how we don't want to cull badgers' then have a look at their costings in Annex C.

The bio security obligations intended to form part of the package, but are said to be 'not stand alone' are in in Annex D. and Annex E.

A working draft of the NE Management Agreement in Annex F.

How to shoot a badger (with illustrations -above) in Annex G.

And how to prevent impact on non-participants in
Annex H

The farming organisations who are invited to answer the consultation on these proposals have until September 20th to respond on their members' behalf.

Update on PCR technology

2011-09-05T19:50:00.007+01:00

We have explored PCR (Polymerase Chain Reaction) technology in many previous postings. But it appears that some readers and the wider industry are falling behind in just how far these diagnostics have advanced in a few short years.

In 2003, the most usual 'primer' used for PCR was m.tuberculosis complex, an overall grouping of many bacteria, sharing some of the same genetic material. Thus the results were similar to putting lawn mower petrol in a Ferrari. It coughed and spluttered and only achieved an 86 per cent sensitivity. Compared to gammaIFN, that could be considered good - but let that pass.

Move on a few years and last week the International Society for Infectious Diseases, ProMed, reported the findings based on pathology and histology of another dead alpaca. First published in the Veterinary Record, ProMed describes the methodology of 'spoligotyping' to establish strain types of m.bovis, using PCR thus:

Spoligotyping (spacer oligonucleotide typing), a polymerase chain
reaction-based amplification of a region of the mycobacterial genome, is recognised as a rapid and reliable test for the differentiation between _M. bovis_ and other mycobacteria.

".. recognised as a rapid and reliable test, for the differentiation between m.bovis and other mycobacteria. So by amplifying part of the genome, unique to m.bovis it would appear that the Ferrari may function to expectations ?

Thus we offer our continued support to the Alpaca TB Support group for commissioning their Proof of Concept project. If this study can demonstrate that PCR technology, already widely used in VLA for other diseases including Johnnes (m.avium paratuberculosis), is useful in the diagnosis of bTB, then there is every likelihood of its being used for other species, especially cattle. For instance, PCR could avoid the long wait, sometimes of weeks, while bacterial culture is carried out to confirm that a suspected abattoir case showing visible lesions is, in fact bTB.

PCR technology detects m.bovis the bacteria: it is not fussy as to its host. So other species which vets are finding difficult to diagnose with the intradermal skin test (such as pigs), may also benefit. And ultimately, operating in 'real time' and not laboratory based, the technique may prove a vital tool in locating 'environmental' TB spilling back into domesticated species.

As an additional tool in the eradication of bTB, PCR could be extremely useful, plugging a gap in our current tests. Although commissioned and paid for by a small group of camelid owners and others, bTB (m.bovis) in camelids should not be seen in isolation from the disease in cattle or any other mammal, since the same bacteria is responsible.

Please note that any donations to this project should be made direct to the AlpacaTB Support Group who can be found on this link. For more information, see the PCR tab on the top bar, and how to contribute on the 'Donate' button.

This is bTB in an alpaca. And it is not pretty. This animal's lymphatic systemic was bursting with solid cheesy abscesses of bTB, his liver is spotted with abscesses and he was infectious with every breath he took, due to open lesions along his trachea, right up to his throat.

Now whether they are still regurgitating out of date research into PCR technology, or whether it is not in the interests of the wider alpaca sellers to confront the problem of bTB is debatable. But thus far we see no reference to this project on their websites, and certainly no information as to how camelid owners may support it, should they choose to do so.
And we are puzzled as to why this should be so.

But being a magnanimous lot at blogger HQ, we expect the main Societies representing camelid owners are waiting to contribute to some further validation projects for PCR, which could bear their unique names and affiliations.

The Big Bad Wolf ?

2011-08-29T19:55:00.006+01:00

Looking through Natural England's prematurely released consultation document, ( post below )- apart from getting the message that this is something they would rather not touch with the proverbial bargepole, we were struck by a paragraph on licensing contained on page 3:

Natural England is authorised to do so by what is known as “a Part 8 Agreement ” made in accordance with section 78 of the Natural Environment and Rural Communities Act 2006;

This is not just licenses to move badgers causing damage, but concerns the issue of licences under Section 10(2)(a) of the Protection of Badgers Act (1992) which deals with preventing the spread of disease.

It is our understanding that MAFF, the predecessor or Defra (when Agriculture still had a part to play in this department) held a general license under this section of the Act, and used it with great care and after outside scrutiny, to control badger populations where bTB outbreaks in sentinel tested cattle, proved not to be of a bovine origin.

But in 2006, along with sacking the WLU trappers, this part of the Act appears to have been thrown ~~into the long grass~~ to the quango known as 'Natural England'.

This agreement came into effect on 1st October 2006.
It's duration is twenty years from that date.
A review is allowed for in five years.

The clandestine transfer of responsibility is described in this document.

Five years from 01/10/2006 is 01/10/2011. In a month's time.

But, as of July 11th 2011, according to the Defra website, this agreement is currently under review. Note - none of Defra's links to their documents work.

Is it time to throw infectious disease control back to where it belongs, with AHVLA?

Or would that give Mrs Spelperson the 'get out jail free' card she's been angling for all along.

We've been sold a wolf in sheep's clothing.

Would you put a fox

2011-08-24T16:17:00.005+01:00

... in charge of a henhouse?

A rhetorical question, but it appears that this is what Defra have done with allocating the quango known as 'Natural England' control of the two pilot badger culls, which our Secretary of State is 'strongly minded' to allow.

We explored 'Natural England's somewhat un-natural armlock over this project, with links to their various policy protocols in this post.

But today, Farmers Guardian publish an overview of this organisation's views on the concept of controlling tuberculosis in badgers by culling. And it is illuminating. NE state that it has

a ‘low level of confidence that the predicted benefits can be delivered consistently’ under the proposed policy.

“This stems from the lack of evidence that a farmer-led cull can replicate what has only previously been undertaken by government (and even then on a smaller scale) and the complexity of the regulatory regime required to ensure successful outcomes,”

But while FG's strap line illustrates a decidedly luke warm response to the idea, it fails to point out that via its overall responsibility for monitoring any cull, Natural England may dictate both its progress and outcome.

The full consultation response from Natural England can be found in this pdf.

A comment from fellow architect of this cull, NFU's Kevin Pearce on his blog;

We have known from day one that many within Natural England have strong reservations about this policy. However, what worries me more is that Natural England is an advisory body that provides advice to ministers. This submission makes public their advice to ministers before the end of the consultation period. There can be only one reason for this; Natural England is playing a political game trying to influence wider opinion before ministers have had chance to consider all the responses to the consultation.

Perhaps it’s time to recreate a wildlife unit within Defra to deal with this issue because it’s clear Natural England do not believe in the policy, don’t want to do it and will do everything it can to frustrate the proper process.

Quite. And that much has been clear to us for some considerable time.

And our opinion? Why would Defra put a fox in charge of the hen house other than have its plan 'designed to fail'?

Control of a notifiable zoonosis does not belong with Natural England. It should be returned back where it belongs, with AHVLA.

PCR Update

2011-08-24T08:07:00.003+01:00

More details for the reasons behind the Industry funded PCR project, described in the posting below can be heard for the next 7 days on Radio 4.

Camelid vet Dr. Gina Bromage MA,Vet MB,DVM,MRVCS and Dianne Summers an alpaca owner, who produce the website speak of their experiences of bTB in alpacas.

To all our readers, we as cattle farmers support this project for its longer term potential. PCR being used to identify m.bovis is a concept we like and donations to it are most welcome. Details in the posting below.

Good news on PCR

2011-08-12T20:29:00.007+01:00

We are delighted to read on the alpaca TB support group website that they have secured a contract with AHVLA, to conduct a study into the use of PCR (Polymerase Chain Reaction) technology to support TB diagnosis in camelids. The news release explains:

"Following a further meeting in July with scientists at the VLA we are pleased to announce that we have now signed contracts with AHVLA Weybridge to conduct such a study. This technique is already used successfully for other similar
diseases and the AHVLA microbiologists are hopeful that due to the advanced gross pathology often found in camelids it may be possible to detect m.bovis in faeces, nasal swabs or blood."

This project will be trialled on alpacas presented for postmortem examination to AHVLA with suspected bTB, but the report continues:

"It is common knowledge that alpacas and llamas can be heavily infected and infectious with bTB and yet show no outward signs or symptoms whatsoever. If this project is successful the simplicity of taking a faecal sample or nasal swab to be tested at your local VLA would be a huge step forward.

If successful, the test could be used:
∙ Where an alpaca or llama in a herd that was not under TB restrictions showed clinical signs that could be attributed to TB.
. In herds recently confirmed as infected with M. bovis the test could be used to remove cases which were not picked up by the other ante mortem tests or whilst waiting for culture results or waiting for skin tests and blood tests to be carried out.
∙ As a routine screening test. Testing of faeces and nasal swabs will be quick and affordable. Samples can be taken by owners and sent to the AHVLA without the need for a farm visit from their vet."

The news release also explains that as well as being commissioned by the Alpaca TB support Group, they will be funding it. Further funding would be welcomed and would be ring fenced to this project.

Details of how to support this project can be found on the ‘DONATE’ tab on the Support Group website and they can contacted at any time for camelid support, as they explain in this flyer.

Tripping up

2011-08-09T22:46:00.002+01:00

'For Immediate Release, screamed a press release from the Badger Trust, demanding an immediate investigation into parts of a BBC Report programme.

But also in the document, as it splutters in indignation over the content of the Report's assertions, is this little gem:

The Trust is also challenging the BBC over an unattributed assertion in the programme that "since badgers became protected in the ‘70s the population has surged to an estimated 300,000".

The Badger Trust's David Williams said:

"The BBC must give the references for this figure. There has been no quantified estimate of population for 14 years. It must also quote any scientific basis for the clear implication that legal protection had caused a ‘surge’.

Now there seems to be a tad of confusion here. That BBC steal is a direct quote from the Badger Trust Factsheet, where this figure and the reason for it, is clearly stated. And so that there is no confusion, we will quote it.

"However the passing of the Badger Act 1973 (and consequent amendments 1981, 1991 and 1992) has helped badger numbers to recover and today they have a total estimated population of around 300,000.”

This estimate is however, quite wrong. What did you expect?

The answer to a Parliamentary Question asked in 2003, gave a figure of 350,000 in the mid 1990s. It is now 2011. But a survey by the Mammal Society (Wilson, Harris et al [ISBN 1 85580 018 7]) from 1988 - 97 and published by the People's Trust for Endangered Species, had logged a 77% increase in badger numbers in the previous decade.

We assume that that was the study referred to as '14 years ago' by the Badger Trust, but for obvious reasons, its content not elaborated on?

What a delicious little trip.

Natural England's guidance for a badger cull

2011-08-07T18:27:00.004+01:00

Nothing about our green and pleasant land is 'natural': its hedges and fields, spinnies, towns and villages created over thousands of years by human beings - and in the case of the field boundaries, by farmers. But we digress.

Animal Health, now joined at the hip to the Veterinary Laboratories Agency, have thrown responsibility for control of a Grade 1 hazardous material - a dead badger - (or even more dangerous, a live one) direct to farmers by way of the quango known as 'Natural' England, who will oversee, monitor and control any licenses which they see fit to offer, to control TB which is endemic in the wildlife reservoir of England's badgers.

This much has been announced already, with great reluctance, by the Minister of State for DEFRA, Caroline Spel-person, MP.

But buried in the labyrinth of the Defra website, are a handful of annexes issued by Natural England on the operating procedure which they expect from any signatories to this cull.
Links to these are below, together with a couple of ~~gems~~ quotes from each.

This is the overview document.

14. The policy proposal has been developed further in light of the consultation responses and the draft guidance sets out in greater detail (at paragraphs 9-11) how applicants would be expected to deliver an effective cull and demonstrate their capacity to do so. The specific requirements include:
•
co-ordinating activity across the entire area;
•
sustaining culling annually for at least four years;
•
reducing the total badger population in the Control Area by 70% overall during a six-week intensive cull and maintaining this reduction in each subsequent year of culling; and
•
minimising areas of inaccessible land within the Control Area, through a requirement that 90% of land within the application area is either accessible or within 200m of accessible land.

Before a licence is granted, participants will be required to submit to Natural England a Badger Control Plan detailing how badger control activity will be co-ordinated, carried out Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and funded, as well as providing information on the biosecurity measures in place on farms. Further guidance on the information to be included in a Badger Control Plan is at Annex D and a draft of Natural England’s guidance to applicants on biosecurity measures is at Annex E.

And should farmers be unable to carry out the plan, for whatever reason - and there could be many ?:

17. We propose that all participants would be required to enter into agreements with Natural England under section 7 of the NERC Act. These ‘section 7 agreements’, called ‘TB Management Agreements’ would set out the participants’ obligations once a licence was granted, and if necessary as a last resort allow Government to intervene, access all participating land, take over responsibility for a culling operation, and recover the costs from the participants, should the participants fail to meet the conditions of the licence. In the case of a tenant farmer, the agreement would normally need to be entered into by the farmer’s landlord (to ensure that access to land is available to complete the cull if there is a change in tenancy) unless Natural England considers that the likelihood of accessible land falling below 70% as a result of the termination of any tenancy for any reason is very low. A draft TB Management Agreement accompanies the guidance at Annex F.

and

18.
Participants would also be required to deposit sufficient funds to cover the total expected cost of the four-year cull (plus a contingency sum) before culling begins. Government would be able to access these funds in the event that it needed to intervene and assume responsibility for a culling operation, and be able to levy additional funds from the original participants should that be necessary. Details of the circumstances in which Government would be likely to intervene are set out in paragraph 31 of the draft guidance.

Annex A describes the part of the Protection of Badgers Act, which is still subject to a very un-parliamentary moratorium, introduced on receipt of £1 million bung from the Political Animal Lobby (PAL)in 1997..

The list of consultees are in Annex B together with the closing date of September 20th.

An updated cost/ benefit analysis in is Annex C.
A thumbnail sketch of Defra's rehashed figures compute to :

Cost to farmers in each cull area of £1.38m
Benefit to farmers in each cull area £1.32m
Benefit to farmers in surrounding areas £0.o4m
Benefit to Defra in avoiding cattle bTB incidents £2.94m

NE's draft guidance on their Badger Control Plan and pro forma sheet is in Annex D, which begins with a section on their compulsory bio security monitoring;

As part of the licence application you will have been asked to provide details of biosecurity training and advice that has been provided for farmers in the application area. Participating farmers/landowners must have carried out a disease-risk self-assessment questionnaire to help identify areas for improvement (see Annex E to the consultation).

This annex also comments on protecting badgers whose ancestral home happens to be on land not involved with culling by (for example) fencing them out of your land, or vaccinating them.

Biosecurity is part and parcel of this application, and more can be found in Annex E. This is the usual hopeful whitewash, which studiously ignores grassland watered with copious amounts of badger urine. NE say they may withdraw any license if, for example, they find cattle feeding troughs under 75cm are still used or there are gaps in building or feed store access which allow badger access.
Filming carried out by Professor Tim Roper in research released in 2001, showed badgers feeding from cattle troughs set at 130 cm, which is 4'3" off the ground, a height which as Defra were helpful to point out in answers to our Parliamentary Questions, is too high for cattle (or camelids) to access. Thus to comply with NE's licence conditions, may involve the modification of cattle with one of these.

NE's licence withdrawal section is phrased thus:

If Natural England considers that reasonable biosecurity measures have not been set in place then a licence may be withheld until such measures have been taken, or modifications to the application made (e.g. change of Control Area boundary), before a licence is issued, or Natural England may refuse to issue a licence for the proposed Badger Control Area. If a licence has already been issued and inadequate biosecurity measures have been found on a farm or farms then Natural England may exclude that farm or farms from the licence or, if the affected area is sufficiently large, suspend the licence until the issue is satisfactorily resolved

An example of the proposed management agreement can be found in Annex F including notes should a default occur.

6.1 A Relevant Authority shall be entitled to recover from the Licence Holder and all or any of the Land Holders all costs which it reasonably incurs if it undertakes any activities in connection with this Agreement as a result of an Event of Default occurring during the subsistence of the Land Holder’s interest in the Land, including the costs of carrying out any Licensed Activities that are required to be permitted under clause 4(1), however carried out, and whether or not those activities could have been carried out at a lower cost.
6.2 For the avoidance of doubt the Licence Holder and the Land Holders will be jointly and severally liable for any costs incurred as a result of an Event of Default

.

Best practise guidance for shooting or trapping badgers, "to prevent the spread of bTB in cattle" (which is at least an acknowledgement of that which has previously been vehemently denied) is in Annex G.
This is a 46 page document, dealing with closed periods, operating protocols, firearms and disposal of Class 1 hazardous waste material ( badger) Watch for little inserts like C & D of collection vehicles (already classified and licensed for Class 1 hazardous waste) between farms.

And finally, in Annex H are NE's ideas to reduce impact on non-participants, which will also be the responsibility of participating licence holders.
This includes not only 'liaising with non-participants', and protecting 'their' badgers from harm, but may involve posting intentions and map references on the parish noticeboard:

Licensees are required to liaise with local police forces in areas where badger control operations are to be carried out and follow police advice on measures to protect public and operator safety. For example, if so advised by the police it may be appropriate to post notices at relevant access points or, e.g. on parish notice boards, alerting people to the fact that shooting may take place in specified areas within a specified period.

So as proposed by Natural England, with numerous bolt ons to Class 1 Game Management licenses, this proposed cull will certainly not be.... OK lads load your shotgun, jump in the pick up and off we go culling a few badgers.

The way this reads is .. OK lads get out your cheque book, sign a couple, but leave the amount to pay blank. We ( who ever 'we' are) will fill that in later. In fact sign a direct debit with your bank, cheques are soooo outdated. But watch out for the biosecurity inspection, don't shoot too many (or too few) badgers, depending on the tally from NE's original survey and do watch your overdraft in the event of any alleged breaches. 'We' have our hand in your back pocket.
And opposition to this vital disease measure, which in our opinion is the responsibility of Animal Health/ VLA? It's effect on individual farmers?
Of course you won't be at risk because of the secret limited liability Company we have formed ...... other than the registration details of said company, the 28 day public consultation, the notice on the Parish notice board and of course any badger loving mole in Defra or NE. The provision of a 'contingency fund' to dip into for damage, court action etc., etc., should cover it.

Farmers will foot the bill ...

2011-07-31T18:33:00.007+01:00

... for culling badgers for just 6 weeks annually, after they have had a 'closed season' of 6 months in which to breed. (That's the badgers, with sows having 2- 4 cubs each - not the farmers. ) This might happen in a couple of mini pilot areas which the Secretary of State may be 'minded' to allow.

But buried in Defra's latest Eradication Plan on page 10, is this little gem:

" For some farmers and landowners, using vaccination may be the preferred option for tackling bovine TB in badgers and licences to trap and vaccinate badgers will continue to be available. Vaccination may also have a role in helping to reduce the risks from perturbation caused by culling, when no other buffers are available. To support its use in these circumstances, we propose to make available up to £250,000 a year in grant funding to help meet the costs of vaccination. Further details about how to apply for funding will be published shortly."

Excellent. Our industry leaders are quite happy to commit farmers to cough up in advance, a blank cheque for four years' worth of culling, while an annual grant of £250,000 is made available to vaccinate ? When Defra and the minister know full well that vaccination is an unknown quantity? And from that which we do know, injectible BCG would appear to be job creation for FERA and of little practical use to cattle farmers. Or the owners of alpacas, cats, dogs, pigs, sheep, bison or goats - all affected by spillover bTB.

Meanwhile a raft of new cattle measures and restrictions are to be introduced.

Very similar to those Bourne described to Efra committee in his very own version of a trojan horse.

The more things change, the more they remain the same. And even more of the same.

Don't look - won't find ?

2011-07-21T07:35:00.008+01:00

** We have updated this posting to fully explore Defra's pdf strapline for their Table 1 totals, adding the explanatory notes which appear (apparently with great reluctance)on their website version.

( Over the last several months, or even years, we have watched as the spillover of bTB has affected more and more domestic pets and companion mammals. One such group has proved to be highly susceptible to TB, hugely infectious and possible capable of forming pockets of the disease, which could then transmit into wildlife or cattle. Or worse still, their owners. These are members of the camelid group, and in particular, alpacas.
This one (above) had advanced TB lesions right up to his throat, and was described by the VI official conducting its postmortem as "infectious with every breath he took". He showed no symptoms, had passed skin tests and was euthanased as a contact.

It was at the start of the TB Awareness roadshows in 2009, that we realised all was not well with Defra's computing of their stats for these animals. Huge gaps appeared between Defra's headline 'culture sample' table, and the reality of deaths on the ground. We explored this further in this post.

Compare this collective dragging of Defra's institutional feet, to the Welsh Assembly Government's efforts to bring camelids under the statutory umbrella of TB control. And then read Spelperson's new ~~plans~~ dumbing down of policy, released yesterday in this pdf - and weep.

Adding insult to injury, in this document, even the notes explaining that these figures are for (often) a single 'positive culture' are missing, with Table 1 (printed as Table 4) above this strapline;

Table 4: Incidents of confirmed M. bovis infection in non-bovine farmed animals in Great Britain since 2000

But when the same table is viewed on the Defra website the following notes appear for Table 1:

* Infected = positive for M.bovis on culture.

Note 1: We can only provide data on the number of M. bovis isolations from notified suspect clinical and post-mortem cases of TB arising in some non bovine species.
Note 2: Cultures and post mortem examination may not be carried out at the VLA on every animal removed from a herd once TB has been confirmed.
Therefore not all animals removed for TB disease control purposes may have been reported above.

Which is somewhat diffeent from the explanantion in the currect pdf.
This implies just 68 camelids dead in 2009, and 43 in 2010. Is that all ? No, it is not. And those figures and the implicatios attached to them, are a damned insult to the owners of alpacas who have lost 110 (out of a herd of 110), 52 (out of 52) and 48out of 54 animals as bTB ripped through their herds.

The table below is just a snapshot of full case histories of just 17 alpaca owners, and for those with animals remaining, TB and losses are ongoing. Just 30 members of the group - a small number of herds recorded by Defra as having TB problems - have recorded 422 of their animals removed by Defra for TB control purposes. The news release from which this information comes, issued yesterday, can be viewed on this link. (Click NEWS button.)

In their latest statement on TB in non-bovines, Defra say :

" We will be improving the current statistics collected for each non-bovine species to provide monthly statistics for the numbers of herds or flocks infected; number of animals’ skin or blood tested; number of TB test reactors and cases removed"

Having been knocking at this particular door for almost two years, and with the non-description of Table 4 in the latest statement in mind, we are not holding our breath.

And Defra's intentions regarding the ongoing and increasing TB problems in other species groups ?:

119. A more consistent approach to TB policy for non-bovine farmed species is needed, one where eventually, and through building on partnership working, the various industry groups can become self regulating without unnecessary interference from Government. We want to give livestock owners more responsibility for tackling this disease, giving them a stronger stake in managing risks and empowering them to take action. We want owners to be able to decide for themselves, within a broad framework of the Bovine TB Eradication Programme for England, July 2011 (Defra) – Pages 48-52 set by Government and the industry, how to manage their disease risks in the best interest of their businesses.

That's Defra-ese, for 'Don't phone us, we don't want to know'.

A (very) small step..

2011-07-20T08:14:00.013+01:00

.. was announced (reluctantly?) yesterday, by Secretary of State, Caroline Spelman. Two 'pilot' culls of badgers in hotspot areas, with locations decided by the farmers concerned, under licenses issued (at some point) by Natural England and monitored on their progress.

Farmers Guardian has the story. And the ever hopeful BBC, trumpets a headline "There will be no badger cull in England this year. The time line following this shaky announcement, with the Secretary of State indicating that "she is strongly minded" to allow farmers to reduce populations, is long and vague.

Mrs. Spelman showed no enthusiasm for reducing the burden of tuberculosis either in the badger population, or the wider environment. But she intends, she says, yet another "consultation" on protocol, (taking us into 2012), then the start up of just two pilot areas, which will be closely monitored ahead of any possible roll out in 2013/14. And more cattle measures.

Meanwhile the media, when it is not obsessing about its own problems of 'news gathering', is plastered with pictures of healthy shiny badgers, gobbling peanuts. Not at all like this poor old (or not so old?) thing, suffering the final stages of tuberculosis.

Should we all beware of a Secretary of State who is "minded", strongly or otherwise? It shows little commitment, and appears a bit too woolly for us to unpick.

Oral vaccination - dead in the water?

2011-07-14T19:54:00.002+01:00

Farmers Guardian report today that the much vaunted oral vaccine for badgers has hit several stumbling blocks. The story reports that

Defra is understood to have conceded that the vaccine may now never reach the market and is, at best, ‘many more years away’ than had been anticipated until recently.

and

Farmers Guardian understands that Defra will also admit that there is now no guarantee its researchers will ever be able develop an oral vaccine that works well enough to be licensed.

The full story is on this link.

Commenting on this news, peppered with phrases 'never reach the market' and 'no guarantee an oral vaccine will ever be developed', John Royle of the NFU said:

The injectable vaccine had little potential for widespread deployment due to the ‘very, very high costs and impracticality of using it’ and questions about its efficacy.

That would be the 'efficacy' which we questioned once again, in this posting would it?

Plan B anyone?

Short memories

2011-07-13T07:19:00.002+01:00

Professor, Lord, Sir John Krebbs has popped up again. He of the original RBCT protocol in the mid 1990s. He is reported as saying that a cull of badgers'would not work' in this weeks' Farmers Guardian.

The scientist who instigated the 10-year Randomised Badger Culling Trials (RBCT) has insisted that a badger cull would not be an effective way of controlling bovine TB (bTB). Professor Lord John Krebs said the results was commenting on the publication of a Defra report suggesting that, based on the findings of the trial, culling badgers would reduce bTB incidence in cattle by approximately 12-16 per cent over a nine year period.

“You cull intensively for at least four years, you will have a net benefit of reducing TB in cattle of 12 per cent to 16per cent. So you leave 85 per cent of the problem still there, having gone to a huge amount of trouble to kill a huge number of badgers. It doesn’t seem to be an effective way of controlling the disease.”

He's right of course, if the result of a cull was 16 percent or any other number dreamed up by a mathematical modeller. But that is not what the man said in his observations or report which instigated the RBCT two decades ago.

We read this report cover to cover at the time and some snippets arein this posting where Krebbs observes, quite correctly, that:

7.8.3 The gassing and clean ring strategies, in effect, eliminated or severely reduced badger populations from an area and appear to have had the effect of reducing or eliminating TB in local cattle populations. The effect lasted for many years after the cessation of culling, but eventually TB returned

That's 'eventually' as in more than a decade in most cases, by the way.

Krebbs then (in his original paperwork)went on to describe a list of dos and don'ts with regard to any cull of badgers. A sensible list which Bourne and the ISG turned completely on its head when the trial began. In 2007, Bourne gave the following reasons for this in oral evidence to the EFRA committee.

What followed was an indignant Krebbs, spitting feathers at how his trial had been tweaked for political gain, which was entertaining for a short while. But he soon saw the ~~future prospects~~ light, and engaged in a group hug with the ISG in general and Professor John Bourne in particular. As our co-editor wryly remarked in a joint posting at the time, Krebbs was following the cash. To the FSA, to Climate Change committees and any other ~~lucrative rewards~~ appointments likely to be thrown his way.

So where did that '9 -16 percent' benefit originate? What was the data input responsible? The ~~RBCT~~ Badger Dispersal Trial, carried out by Bourne and the ISG, as later management of it showed, had an ongoing beneficial result according to Christl Donnelley's electronic abacus, of around 32 percent, and that extending beyond the cull areas, negating the wholly predictable 'perturbation' halo achieved earlier by the trial.
So 32 per cent (at least) is recorded data for culling badgers, very occasionally, for just 8 nights using cage traps, over a number of years.
At the other end of the spectrum, is Thornbury and the earlier Clean Ring clearances, where gassing took place for a few weeks. Months in the case of Thornbury (not years), and gave a 100 percent benefit to cattle herds for more than a decade.

The averaging of that actual data (not guesses, estimates or simple assumptions) and discounting the different operating procedures, would give a thumb nail benefit of 65 - 70 percent ?

But then we have no 'agenda' to follow and no 'expectations' to look forward to. Just more testing and more dead cattle.

Update - the laughing badger.

2011-07-10T21:18:00.006+01:00

We are grateful to Ken Wignall for permission to use this cartoon, originally published in Farmers Guardian last week.

It should be viewed in conjunction with this posting where we listed some of the hoops farmers will be expected to jump through in order to control TB in wildlife.

The cartoon strapline, where coughing badgers splutter as they read about a proposed 'Badger cull' that they have "nothing to worry about, but our great, great grandchildren might have to watch out" hits the nail squarely on the head.

They (and Defra) are laughing at us all.

Mischief

2011-07-07T20:49:00.003+01:00

This posting is an extension of the one below, in which we expressed our intense depression with the polarised comments following hyped up media headline grabs.

Many of these comments, after having the usual dig at cattle farmers, referred to the vaccination of badgers as an alternative to a hotspot cull.

If you remember, a tranche of vaccination papers were released in early November, with the ever predictable BBC offering the headline;

"In a four-year project, UK scientists found vaccination reduced the incidence of TB infection in wild badgers by 74%."

This is absolutely NOT what the papers showed, and no one from Defra stood tall enough to put the record straight immediately or publicly.

We added our take on the whole sorry debacle in this posting, after sight of an internal Defra memo in which they instructed;

"The data should not be used to make this claim."

Last week, Jim Paice MP, Minister of State for his Department of Evasion, Fables and Risible Arrogance, is reported as describing the press releases thus:

"... a research paper published by Defra suggesting a 74 per cent reduction in TB levels in badgers that had been vaccinated had been ‘seriously misreported and misunderstood’ and had ‘not helped’ the debate. "

This November 2010 release, as we said before, impeccably timed, has done a huge amount of damage - but that was intended. We have no illusions about the timing of these papers in the middle of a consultation on whether to cull badgers infected with TB, or the subsequent BBC press release, headlined round the world (even if it is now said to be "seriously misreported and misunderstood")
At the time it was eagerly supported with quotes from Cheeseman and MacDonald and swallowed hook, line and sinker by a gullible public and the Badger Trust.

The latest 'real' efficacy trail for BCG vaccination of badgers, even with a dose ten times normal, was done and published in 2010. We reported its findings here. And virologist Dr. Ruth Watkins explains the technical bits of BCG in an email to warmwell this week.

All the rest is pure mischief.

Don't get too excited.

2011-07-06T20:20:00.005+01:00

Headlines this week indicate a decision on badger culling may be in the wind, ahead of parliament packing its collective bucket and spade for the long summer recess.

Farmers Guardian had the story as does the Independent. The
Mail On-line echos the Independents 'farmers in shooting free-for-all' report.

Nothing could be further from the truth.
If the policy is given the green light, culling will not start until next May or June, as there would still be a number of details to be resolved, reports Alistair Driver in Farmers Guardian. And that's ignoring any time out for a celebrity funded Judicial Review.

Following the announcement, there is expected to be a consultation on the proposed licence conditions the groups of farmers will need to abide by. It will then take time for Natural England to process any applications and for the groups of farmers to prepare for the cull. There is also the prospect of a legal challenge.

So, a consultation on a consultation ? With a dose of Natural England added to the mix? Seen as a really urgent problem then.

Culling is likely to be introduced in a phased approach, with just one or two areas sanctioned initially.

Now at blogger headquarters, we don't 'do' kilometres but 150 of 'em squared, sounds huge. It is not. In fact eighteen of these areas would fit comfortably into Cornwall and still leave room for buckets and spades, urban areas and roads.. So 'one or two areas' as a pilot, leaves an area from north Staffs, Derbyshire, Cheshire, down through Leics., Glos., Hereford and Worcs., Somerset, Devon and Wiltshire to quietly cook ? And bubbling away with big increases in incidence are counties just over Defra's ever moving Maginot line like Dorset.

But it is the comments on these stories which are really depressing. A total divide and a complete lack of knowledge or appreciation about the dangers of tuberculosis - not to cattle, but to any mammal including and especially pets and companion animals, up close and personal with their owners.

Defra do produce a few stats on these hidden casualties, and after many searching questions, we did this posting last year, which explains some of the disparities, but more have come to light since.

The link to Defra's other species stats is here. Our explanations gleaned from patiently tabled questions is below.

Table 1 is cultures only - as the notes explain. But as cattle owners may know (but the alpaca people did not) only one sample is taken. The outbreak may involve several animals - up to 108 dead is the biggest single alpaca herd loss of which we've heard - but just a single sample will be logged on Table 1. And that may not be the first death.

Table 2 is headed 'animals examined'. Now that is really woolly. Examined? All of them? And? Do they then end up in Table 1 when cultures are cooked? Or are they the negatives? They are neither and they are both. Table 2 figures are carcasses examined, which are positive for TB by postmortem at either a VI centre or by an LVI vet and which need a culture sample taken to confirm tuberculosis, and the spoligotype responsible. But if TB has already been confirmed by culture, we have a sneaking feeling that this table is not counting them.
Missing completely are deaths, voluntary euthanasia and skin or blood test failures subsequently slaughtered. Either straight to the knacker yard, or buried, they have disappeared.

In this way 2010 figures of 43 alpaca samples in Table 1, is actually a single initial sample from each breakdown. The 151 in Table 2 were examined of which 43 were confirmed as having bTB at the very beginning of a suspected outbreak. But just 30 members of the alpaca TB support group report over 400 of their animals dead, when further un-cultured deaths or skin test and gamma failures are added in.
As far as we can see, one answer to the huge divide still so evident in these depressing comments, is to remove the public's long distance comfort blanket of someone else's 'cattle' (badly farmed, dirty conditions and moved illegally of course) and substitute ' MY cat', my dog or 'MY alpaca'.

Illustrated with pics like the lungs of this one, totally destroyed by tuberculosis, he was once 'somebody's' pet.

Only then will tuberculosis in a wildlife reservoir, become their problem as much as it is for any cattle farmer.

Wales cuts the tow rope

2011-06-23T21:11:00.002+01:00

For some time now we have assumed that England's proposed badger culls would piggy back the Judicial Review piloted by the Welsh Assembly Government(WAG). Particularly as the revised operating procedures for Wales included free shooting and ring vaccination, which was Defra's preferred Option 6 in the English consultation.

But this week, the new Welsh Assembly Government decided to put on hold the current plans, and re examine 'the science' behind them. We will resist the opportunity to comment on that piece of spin. This time.

So where does that leave England? Defra minister Jim Paice MP, is treading water just as fast as he can paddle, with mentions of higher up 'decision makers' and 'public opinion' coming thick and fast. The minister's commitment may be undiminished but his boss, having had her chain saw confiscated, is unlikely to be seen waving a dead badger around any time soon.
And his ultimate boss, the Boy King, has an irritating habit of 'U' turns at the slightest hint of public dissent.

We also hear from Jan Rowe, a member of the T-BEG , that a holistic approach will be considered. Mr Rowe said he was ‘still pretty confident’ Ministers will give the go ahead to the cull.

“But I think we will be expected to do quite a lot, including some quid pro quo tightening of cattle measures, and the rules will be very tight,” he said.

That latin expression quid pro quo (or something given up for something in exchange) strikes a chord in our memories, (and sends a shiver of apprehension down our collective spines) if not in T-BEG's. The Welsh farmers have already had the screws tightened with this 'holistic' approach. And extra cattle measures have now left them high and very dry. And in December 2005, we reported a similar ~~shafting~~ negotiation on behalf of English farmers, as industry representatives delivered preMT and tabular valuation, while Defra delivered - precisely nothing.

So what now for England, as the WAG cull and subsequent court case looks set to stall? It is our gut feeling that Defra will flunk it. As they and their predecessors have done so many times before. Thus the increasing environmental contamination will affect even more pets and companion mammals than it is doing now.
And in doing so, it will bring tuberculosis straight to the general public's hearthrug.

'Boxster' clear on first skin test

2011-06-12T18:38:00.004+01:00

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.

"My commitment is undiminished"

2011-06-07T19:29:00.005+01:00

.. so said Defra Minister Jim Paice today (June 7th) in parliament.
That is his commitment to dealing with bTB which he described at the end of the debate, thus:

Finally, I come to the issue of tuberculosis. I am grateful for the words of my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Torridge and West Devon about my personal commitment to the matter, which is completely and utterly undiminished. However, as he has said, we must get things right. A number of his presumptions about why we have not yet been able to make any final decision were accurate. We launched our consultation in September, and it concluded before Christmas. As I have said repeatedly in public, that consultation threw up some serious issues that must be dealt with because, as he rightly presumes, we would almost inevitably be faced with judicial review if we were to decide to go ahead with the badger cull. Several of those issues have taken some tackling. We are working with our own lawyers, and we have retained QCs to advise us. As he will know from his own eminent career, they have raised all sorts of issues to which we must have answers in the courtroom if the situation arises.

.

This sounds very much like an example of MPs being vociferous when in opposition, but treading water now they have the opportunity for some solid decision making. And that decision being the subject of a departmental musical chairs to determine ultimate responsibility with a disturbingly unquantified 'wider package of measures' thrown in to placate any wobblers.

Update. Link above mended. Apologies.

New link here which includes a piece on the BBC's "shall we let farmers ~~murder / exterminate~~ control badgers" questionnaire. The piece also includes an optimistic look at vaccination.
Perhaps if Defra's 'Other species' TB stats were more up to date and accurate, and perhaps if the public answering such questions were aware of the risk to them and theirs, their answers may have been somewhat different.

PR is vital, and with not a little assistance from the spinning axis of the BBC, FERA and Defra, farmers are losing that battle. The public are increasingly divorced from reality, assuming that bTB is limited to badgers or cattle - and probably just cattle. Meanwhile TB overspill is costing the lives of hundreds of their pets and companion animals, as we discussed here.

Not guilty.

2011-05-06T09:21:00.004+01:00

We have received sight of a press release from the Badger Trust in which our posting about the TB outbreak in Cumbria is quoted.

We're very grateful to Jack Reedy of the Badger Trust, for the heads up. Perhaps if people read the posting, they will see that we are treading water very carefully with this one, as we just do not know the source as yet.

However Mr. Reedy has voiced his own opinions on cattle farmers, and our animals, quite forcefully.

The press release is less than clear on a number of points, and we will summarise;

Badger numbers are tricky, but if populations are controlled then you do not see RTA badgers or badgers dead in fields. In fact you rarely see a badger at all. And that is how it should be. We stand by our statement that farmers in Cumbria have reported to us increasing numbers of road kill badgers and badgers dead in fields.
That was a precursor to our own TB outbreaks.

The Mammal Society (which the trust quote) did a survey on badger numbers and found that the population density had increased by 77% in a decade. That was what was reported in 1997. (14 years ago.)

(Ref: "Changes in the British badger population, 1988 to 1997" (1997). G. Wilson, S. Harris and G. McLaren. People's Trust for Endangered Species (ISBN 1 85580 018 7))

Nothing has changed since, except more growth.

Ernest Neal who helped frame the Protection of Badgers Act 1972, described 'good badger country ' and an 'excellent population' as about 1 adult per sq. km.
Roll forward 40 years of good intentions and our PQs noted that the highest recorded density in England (in 2003) was Witham Woods on Oxon, at 38 per sq km.
The vaccination trial last autumn cage trapped 16 adults per sq.km. in Glos.
PQs also note that as populations become larger, individual animals within them tend to get smaller as pressure on food supplies and space become higher.

We have been very careful not to hammer on the wildlife side for this outbreak, because we just don't know. But as we said, TB doesn't fly in with the tooth fairy. For the amount of cattle involved here, exposure has been high or continuous or both. This could be an open lung case cow (or udder lesion case with pooled milk) or a wildlife / other mammal continuing interface. And that could be a badger, alpaca or any other mammal with open lesions containing and shedding m.bovis.

But until that source is found and removed, tested cattle will continue to react and continue to get slaughtered.

AHVLA spoligotyping will nail the strain. Further investigation may nail the source.
Cumbria has its own unique strains, when further levels of DNA are examined down to VNTR. (Variable Number Tandem Repeats) And the county is certainly not TB free, as the Dunnett report quoted in our update, commented. But levels are low as shown by the tested, sentinel cattle.

From PQs:

Spoligotyping is used to determine molecular type for all isolates of the bovine tuberculosis bacillus (M. bovis) obtained from badgers and cattle. Variable Number Tandem Repeats (or VNTR), a technique able to subdivide some spoligotypes, is also used. Generally the different strain types of M. bovis that these techniques identify exhibit distinct and probably longstanding geographical clustering. Within each geographical cluster the same strains tend to be found in badgers and cattle .

.
It was found in 2002/03 that some FMD restock reactors did not carry the strain of the consigning farm, but had picked up the Cumbrian variety. (AHVLA info)

M. bovis isolates are routinely typed using a DNA fingerprinting technique called spoligotyping. In Great Britain 30 different spoligotypes have been identified in cattle and in 16 badgers. Of those in cattle, 12 of those account for 99 per cent. of the isolates.

Badgers can wander several miles, especially if they are 'dispersers' chucked out of a group - but many more if they are 'sanctuary' releases or caged transfers moved by car. Mandatory records are not required to be kept by such sanctuaries or rescuers of the location of released badgers. Just the permission or passive acquiescence of the landowner.

Alpacas may also figure, as they are capable of onwards transmission both within a herd, and to wildlife, and thus should be considered a possible source.

Finally, the number of cattle slaughtered as TB reactors, the Trust say is down.
But as shown in Defra's January figures for GB, reactor slaughterings are up by 34 percent on 2010.
AH tell us that this trend is continuing and they are having difficulty coping.

We think the ~~man~~ Trust doth protest too much.

Cumbrian TB outbreak

2011-04-27T19:58:00.003+01:00

Having colleagues in the area, we have been alerted several times to the increase in badger numbers in Cumbria. Road kill are increasing, and some have been found dead in fields. But the news last week that a dairy farm near Penrith had been hit, and hit hard with TB is an unwelcome wakeup call.

According to Defra and VLA staff, Cumbria does have its own unique spoligotype when the primary strains of TB are taken down to VNTR (Variable Number Tandem Repeat) detail. And not all the much publicised FMD restock reactors were SW consignees. Some were home grown.

As AHVLA officials continue to investigate the outbreak in this herd, said to be 'closed' and subject to a clear test 18 months ago, one wonders if they will look at other contact possibilities ? For instance untested, unregulated and unidentified alpacas.

Although the Welsh Assembly Government have indicated an intention to include camelids in their TB eradication scheme, England have made no such announcement. And AHVLA still have no right of entry to alpaca premises.

We are not saying that camelids are responsible for this outbreak, it is far too early to make any assumptions, but they should be considered, along with a wildlife interface, if a cattle index case can be ruled out. TB doesn't fly in with the tooth fairy, and 'something' heavily infected with this bacteria has had contact with these Cumbrian cattle. And if none of the 64 reactors have open lung lesions, then that 'something' may be still around, continually infecting the herd.

Update. 28/04

Farmers Guardian are reporting more cattle face slaughter in this outbreak.

And although Cumbrian farmers are heading for panic mode, and insisting the county is 'TB free' and that 'that there had never been TB in Cumbria, and where had it come from?', history has documented and published Cumbrian TB outbreaks, with badger involvement.
The Dunnett Report mentions two badgers with confirmed m. bovis and six cattle breakdowns with badger or 'unknown' (but not cattle) origins prior to 1984. So TB is a published and known problem for the county ...

Missing the point....

2011-04-20T19:47:00.006+01:00

A new website has started up, to 'Rethink TB. Using some pretty spurious quotes on the efficacy of the skin test, the site concentrates totally on cattle.
It asks why test? Why cull? With milk pasteurisation, cooking of meat - why bother?
The authors also seem to think that vaccination can be their Holy Grail. The cynical amongst us would consider that to be the observation of a 'scientist' with his hand out. Vaccinating anything against tuberculosis, by the very nature of the beast is fraught and difficult. As is any wishful thinking on 'treatment' of this particular bacterium, which has a waxy hard shell, and is notoriously difficult for any drug to reach.

Defra are not killing cattle for the benefit of the farming industry. Neither is protection of infected wildlife anything other than a response to lobby cash. Government have a statutory duty to eradicate this disease from both cattle and wildlife under several international directives which protect human health. Killing cattle while leaving a wildlife reservoir to re-infect, is both ineffective and expensive. Herd breakdowns have mushroomed from their original hotspots three decades ago, to affect up to a third of herds in much of SW England, Wales and the west Midlands. This is reckless in the extreme.

‘Bovine’ tuberculosis is not a disease of cattle; it affects many mammals and human beings. But government inertia will ensure that this ancient and deadly zoonosis, which should have been consigned to history books, will in future affect a wide range of species – including human beings. We posted our opinion in this piece.

The skin test is the universally used primary diagnostic tool for detecting exposure to the bacteria which causes TB, in a herd of cattle. Our PQs told us that its sensitivity / specificity is approaching 100%, when used regularly. And using this test + slaughter of reactors to it, in the absence of a wildlife reservoir, many countries have cleared their cattle herds of TB. Completely.

Taking this a stage further, what has the progressive lack of action by successive administrations on our particular wildlife reservoir over the last three decades, (and none at all since 1997) achieved? Put another way, what are these tested, slaughtered sentinels telling us? And who's listening with ears tight shut?

In the last few years, the overspill of what Defra euphemistically call 'environmental TB' has gone way beyond cattle. And despite only counting culture samples, and only taking one of those, many group animals and domestic pets are dying in their hundreds.

These victims include mammals as diverse as free range pigs, the owners of whom now a TB leaflet all to themselves, and bison. A couple of years ago, we highlighted the spillover into domestic cats and a high profile case in rare breed goats. But the biggest problem has arrived at the door of the highly susceptible GB alpaca population, with a small group of owners now reporting several hundred deaths.

We note that the authors of this new site have neither linked to us (which is understandable) or to alpaca TB website (which is reprehensible) Perhaps a look there would burst a few bubbles.

Our sentinel, tested cattle herds and their slaughtered members are a warning sign which must not be ignored, and to dismiss them is totally missing the point..

Boxter lives to fight another day.

2011-04-14T19:39:00.005+01:00

Today a High Court judge squashed the slaughter notice on prize winning British Blonde bull, Hallmark Boxter after his owner, farmer Ken Jackson appealed the procedure.

Farmers Guardian has the story.

RBCT + 4 years.

2011-04-12T19:46:00.002+01:00

We have today received a press release from the FUW (Farmers Union of Wales) which we are happy to post in full. (Sorry - no links to the paper.)

NEW FIGURES SHOW POSITIVE EFFECT OF BADGER CULL

The Farmers’ Union of Wales today welcomed figures which show badger culling continues to result in major reductions in TB incidences up to four and a half years after the end of a cull.

Figures published yesterday in the scientific journal PLoS ONE, under the heading “Analysis of further data (to 25 February 2011) on the impacts on cattle TB incidence of repeated badger culling” show a 31.5% reduction in confirmed TB herd incidences in English badger culling areas over the four and a half year period after badger culling ended and a reduction of 37% in the six months to March 2011.

“These figures completely undermine previous claims that the positive effects of badger culling were not sustained in the long term after culling ended,” said FUW vice president and TB spokesman Brian Walters.

“They also provide further evidence that the Welsh Assembly Government and National Assembly for Wales were right to support plans to cull badgers in north Pembrokeshire.

“The way in which the proposed north Pembrokeshire cull has been designed means the overall impact in that area is likely to be significantly better than the results seen in England..

“North Pembrokeshire has geographic boundaries and is almost three times the size of the English trial areas. All the scientific evidence published to date indicates that this will lead to reductions far higher than those seen in the English trial areas,” said Mr Walters.

“The latest results from England show that scientists have previously been wrong to make sweeping statements about the impact of badger culling.

“When the Independent Science Group published its final report in 2007 we pointed out that the overall impact of culling would not be known for years, and were harshly critical of the politically loaded and unscientific claims made in the report.

“These comments continue to be quoted to this day by anti-cull campaigners, especially the claim that culling ‘cannot meaningfully contribute’ to future TB control.

“Yet the latest figures clearly show that culling continues to contribute to ‘future’ TB control, long after culling comes to an end, and we are still waiting for a scientific definition of the word ‘meaningful’,” Mr Walters added.

ENDS

Badger set-aside.

2011-04-06T20:52:00.006+01:00

Dr. Brian May, has come up with a novel solution to the problem of TB. Move out the cattle. Farmers Guardian has the story, which is beautifully illustrated in Ken Wignall's cartoon (apologies for quality ).

Now while Brian was strumming his guitar, and strutting his stuff, it 'may' have escaped his notice that cattle moved out before. In their millions during FMD. And guess what? In the spring of 2001, when the badgers came out to play, there was long grass, no dung pats, no placentas - in fact nothing to encourage a badger (which Dr. Cheeseman is on record as telling us, is totally dependant on cattle habitats) to stay. So they didn't. They upped sticks and legged it to the nearest cattle, as we explained in this posting.

It would be helpful if before launching 'big ideas', Dr. May did a spot of homework.

Wales bring camelids under TB umbrella

2011-04-01T20:37:00.002+01:00

On March 31st, the Welsh Assembly Government brought in legislation to cover bTB in camelids. The full document can be viewed here.

England awaits.

... is enough.

2011-03-31T19:55:00.002+01:00

Coming hard on the heels of this posting where we decided not to bash our collective heads into brick walls anymore, Defra have issued the following press release today:

Cattle testing positive for Bovine TB are to be DNA tagged to further strengthen controls preventing spread of the disease.

Evidence is emerging that some cattle farmers in the South West and Midlands may have been illegally swapping cattle ear tags. That means they may have been retaining TB-positive animals in their herds and sending less productive animals to slaughter in their place.

Retaining cattle that test positive for TB on a farm increases the risk of spread of TB to other herds and wildlife.

To strengthen deterrents, from mid-April cattle testing positive for TB will immediately be tagged and a sample of its DNA retained by Animal Health. These samples will then be cross-checked at random, or where fraud is suspected, against the DNA of animals sent to slaughter.

Agriculture Minister Jim Paice said:

“I am absolutely appalled any farmer would deliberately break the law in this way. The vast majority of farmers with TB in their herds are doing the right thing, and it’s reprehensible that anyone should be trying to get around the tough measures that are helping to control TB in cattle. Anyone doing this sort of thing will be caught and have the book thrown at them.

“We are introducing this extra safeguard to minimise spread of this devastating disease to other herds and wildlife.”

The alleged evidence of fraud has emerged from an investigation instigated by Gloucestershire Trading Standards, which reviewed TB cattle sent to two slaughterhouses. Investigations are now ongoing there and at slaughterhouses in the South West and Midlands.

The Bovine TB Eradication Group for England (TBEG) said:

“We are appalled at this emerging evidence of TB reactor fraud, and we strongly condemn any such behaviour. We urge the farming industry and the veterinary profession to continue to work together with the Government on the swift and decisive action announced today.

“We have given clear advice on what measures should be put in place quickly to tackle the problem. This suspected fraudulent behaviour by a few farmers should not be allowed to unfairly damage the reputation of the responsible majority or to undermine the TB control regime.”

"This suspected fraudulent behaviour by a few farmers should not be allowed to unfairly damage the reputation of the responsible majority or to undermine the TB control regime.”

Quite so.
But it will.

FUW welcomes U-Turn over misleading TB claims.

2011-03-23T07:55:00.002Z

The FUW (Farmers union of Wales)today welcomed a decision by badger campaigners Pembrokeshire Against the Cull (PAC) not to repeat misleading claims in a leaflet distributed to homes in the county and published on the internet.

The decision comes after a complaint by the FUW triggered an eight-month investigation by the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA). PAC has since agreed not to repeat the advertisement and to amend problematic claims in line with the ASA’s Advertising Code.

FUW TB spokesman Brian Walters described the decision as a “welcome U-turn”. He added: “It is unfortunate that it took an eight-month investigation and the publication of a draft ruling by the ASA for PAC to finally cave in and admit that they published misleading claims, but we are glad they have finally conceded.

“PAC’s decision to accept they were wrong means the ASA has allowed the complaint to be closed informally, saving PAC the embarrassment of being ruled against in a formal adjudication.”

The original leaflet - which has now been removed from PAC’s website - claimed that "2 ½ years after the [badger] cull finishes, this benefit [the reduction of bTB] disappears"; that "WAG’s cattle measures are inadequate, and it has signally [sic] failed to address the most important route of infection, cattle-to-cattle"; that "there are no plans to control the movement of cattle within, into or out of the [north Pembrokeshire culling] area based on TB risk"; and that "Vaccination will help with TB eradication, culling will not".

“The FUW provided scientific evidence demonstrating why these statements breached Committee of Advertising Practice Code clauses on Truthfulness and Substantiation,” said Mr Walters.

“The ASA agreed with us, and PAC has now been forced to admit they were wrong. This gives out a clear message to politicians and the public that messages issued by single issue groups established to protect badgers need to be taken with a massive pinch of salt.

Pembrokeshire Against the Cull is a newly established organisation with only one objective, and as far as I am aware they were previously indifferent to the nightmare TB epidemic which has faced Pembrokeshire farmers for decades.

Conversely, the Farmers’ Union of Wales has been involved in the science of bTB for more than 50 years, and our views have been established following careful gathering and consideration of all the scientific evidence over a period of decades.

We don’t want to see either badgers or cattle being culled, but when you are faced with a massive disease epidemic in both animals you have to take action.”

Ends

Enough is enough.

2011-03-17T18:35:00.004Z

For some time now, we have been considering the time and effort which all of us put into this site.
It was built on the 500 Parliamentary Questions on bTB, badgers, badger welfare, bTB transmission and general epidemiology which were lobbed by our co-editor at the then Minister, Ben Bradshaw, in 2003/4. We wanted to collect as much information on our own experiences with herd restrictions, on TB transmission opportunities and on other country's efforts to clear this disease.

Support has come from a number of sources including farmers, veterinary professionals, scientists and wildlife operatives. We all had a single aim: that of healthy cattle and healthy badgers.

But over these six years, things have moved on and now alpaca owners are wringing their hands as 'environmental' TB rips through their herds. Similarly pig owners face TB restrictions which have no legal exit route except the skin test, which is not an option for many. Cats, dogs, bison, sheep, goats and deer have all made headlines which we have conveyed to you. While Defra have been noticeable by their absence in support for the true level of other species 'over spill'

Did we say bTB was a beneficial crisis? You bet we did.

In mid February, while a couple of us were busy preparing cattle for sale,(having dutifully pre movement tested them) a site comment late on Friday night had us reeling. No, not a scumbag dealer switching eartags, but one of the most high profile pedigree breeders in the country, drives a coach and horses through everything we have been trying to achieve over the last decade. No matter that none of this site's contributors have shifted restricted cattle, bounced them between holdings or presented unidentified cattle of unknown parentage for veterinary inspection. We're all tarred with the same brush, the damage is huge and the reaction, brutal.

Needless to say, the Badger Trust lumps us all together though.

And tonight another comment has found its way to our inbox. This describes how a Shropshire veterinary surgeon has been found guilty of not discharging his duty in respect of a TB test on a restricted farm.

No matter that we have yet to find our own vets wanting in this respect, and no matter that it is not the norm. Reports like this are seriously bad for our industry - and music to the ears of all those who do not want to face the fact that TB is endemic in badgers, and that over population has now exploded that disease into other mammals.

So, on balance, we have achieved nothing. And we have decided that enough is enough.

We will leave you with a link to a Farming Forum where a very dedicated and upset farmer is about to consign this lovely, healthy cow to the Defra killing machine.

By the time most of you read this, she will be dead.

News update for camelid owners

2011-01-26T07:21:00.002Z

A couple of points relative to our postings below, but more specifically for camelid owners, can be found here. (Click the 'NEWS' button on the top menu bar).

On the spread of TB from the colourful 'Maginot line' which they drew in 2009, for the 2010 map, Defra describe the spread thus:

There has been evidence that suggests there has been some further limited geographical spread and increased risk of TB in certain areas. As a result, for 2011 the core annual testing area has been expanded in some places, and the whole of the two year testing buffer has been widened, particularly in Cheshire and the East Midlands. In doing this the two year testing buffer and background four year testing areas have been brought in line with the requirements of EU legislation (Directive 64/432/EEC (as amended).

That statement - or understatement - on parish testing intervals (PTIs) is explained more fully:

The new PTIs came into effect on 1st January 2011 and are detailed below in the ‘England PTI List’. Animal Health has written to herd owners individually to confirm what their parish testing interval and herd testing interval will be.

But Animal Health will not have written to camelid herd owners, as by statute they have no control over identification, movement or disease control of these animals.

Thus the new regulations which began on January 1st, and which we looked into in that posting, do not apply to camelid herds. The alpaca TB website has more. They explain that they have been inundated with enquiries from camelid owners, following these changes in terminology and consequential action on TB breakdowns, which they assumed included camelids. They do not. For the simple reason that, as we pointed out, Defra still have no statute to cover TB in any other species than 'bovine animals and farmed deer'. During communications to confirm the position, senior Defra policy officials explain:

There are no ‘officially’ TB free herds of camelids in the UK for the simple reason that they are not routinely screened for TB with a validated ante-mortem test as most cattle herds are, plus there are no agreed criteria for designating camelid herds as ‘OTF’ (Officially TB free).

Those that are NOT currently subject to movement restrictions due to an infection confirmed by VLA should at best be regarded as ‘TB status unknown’.

The changes apply only to cattle, farmed buffalo and farmed bison herds, which (unlike camelids and other non-bovine farmed animals) are within the scope of EU Directive 64/432/EEC and, therefore, subject to mandatory routine TB surveillance by tuberculin skin testing at regular intervals.

Current TB policy relating to camelids, which was updated recently can be found on the Alpaca TB website on this link.

Meanwhile, tuberculosis continues to ravage camelid herds, (and cats, dogs, free range pigs and many other mammals) despite Defra's other species statistics indicating problem? - what problem ?

Moving the line

2011-01-25T18:19:00.005Z

Last year Defra produced a new Parish Testing Map, with areas shaded red having annual testing and the buffer of orange on two year testing.
This was the 2010 map.

And this one (left) is their 2011 version, showing how the insidious spread of bTB is now creeping northwards, north eastwards and east of the original hotspots.

To illustrate how decades of ministerial prevarication have affected the spread of bTB, this is a map of confirmed breakdowns in 1996 (right). This is not quite comparable with the maps above, but every confirmed breakdown would instigate an annual parish testing interval.

There are about eight major 'hotspots', (seen in the 1986 illustration (left)) which apart from expanding, had not changed in their geographic area or the spoligotype found there, in the time that TB breakdowns and badger postmortems had been logged by VLA.

We have been told that bTB tracks through the badger population, carried by 'dispersers' kicked out of their social groups and on the roam, at around 10 miles annually. So any guesses as to how long before Defra's map is solid red to the coastline of the North Sea and the Scottish borders?

To lead astray ...

2011-01-17T17:46:00.003Z

... to 'mislead', or 'cause to believe something incorrectly'. Or all of those, with a touch of duplicity and hubris thrown in. Details below.

On November 8th 2010, Defra released a bundle of papers on the vaccination of badgers with an accompanying press release which explained:

A key finding of the field study, conducted over four years in a naturally infected population of more than 800 wild badgers in Gloucestershire, was that vaccination resulted in a 74 per cent reduction in the proportion of wild badgers testing positive to the antibody blood test for TB in badgers

With the help of our resident scientific team, we explored the background to this in various posts throughout November, and early December.

Meanwhile on December 1st, the the BBC launched their campaign, with the strapline:

In a four-year project, UK scientists found vaccination reduced the incidence of TB infection in wild badgers by 74%.

This was picked up by lazy ~~media tarts~~ journalists, and flipped around the world.

The 'consultation' on whether to cull badgers infected with tuberculosis, closed on December 8th 2010 in England and December 17th., in Wales.

The Badger Trust cite the BBC report in their submission.

But on December 14th., one week after the close of the English consultation, and with just hours before the close of the Welsh one, Defra issued a sort of retraction or plain English explanation of this bundle of research papers. And it says categorically that some media interpretation of this data, should not have been used to make the claim:

1. The findings in the paper were reported by some sectors of the media to mean that vaccination produced a 74% reduction in the proportion of badgers that had TB: e.g. "In a four-year project, UK scientists found vaccination reduced the incidence of TB infection in wild badgers by 74%."

The data should not be used to make this claim.

The results of the field study actually show that BCG vaccination of free-living badgers reduced the incidence of positive serological test results by 73.8% (a new incident being a badger that changed its test status from negative to positive during the study). This is not the same thing as saying that vaccination reduced the incidence of disease by 74% as a negative blood test is not an absolute indicator of protection from disease, so the field results cannot tell us the degree of vaccine efficacy.

Data from the laboratory and field studies do not lend themselves to giving a definitive figure for BadgerBCG vaccine efficacy, defined as the reduction in the incidence of disease (new cases) among badgers who have received vaccine compared to the incidence in unvaccinated badgers. A definitive figure for efficacy could only be determined by field-testing the vaccine on a large scale over a long period of time. Several thousand badgers would need to be killed to determine the presence and severity of TB at detailed post-mortem examination." 　

This paper was not released as a follow up press release to Defra's November 8th. offering, and neither was it released hard on the heels of the original ~~misleading~~ simplified BBC version which got the Badger Trust so excited. We are grateful for sight of it. As were Farmers Guardian who had the story on the FG online edition of January 4th.

So dear readers, what do we make of the time line on this?
* A bundle of papers and their million annexes on badger vaccination, released in a blaze of glory just a few weeks before the end of a consultation on whether (or not) to cull badgers infected with TB?
* The media scrum, led by the BBC and supported with quotes from Messrs. Cheeseman and Macdonald, offer their spin that 'Scientists have found that vaccination reduces TB in 800 wild badgers by 74%'.
* The consultation closes in England.
* With hours to go to the Welsh consultation deadline, Defra offer this little gem to their in-house group. "The data should not be used to make this claim."

Too bloody right it shouldn't. But it was, and it was not corrected until after the event - or at least the English event. And then only released within the magic circle of Defra's TB section.

And under those circumstances, we make no apology for the title of this post.

Jan 1st. - love thy neighbour?

2011-01-02T08:42:00.004Z

As we enter 2011, the UK will adopt new terminology for TB breakdowns, courtesy of our paymasters in the European Union (who coughed up 27 million euros last year to help test and slaughter more cattle.) It all sounds fairly innocuous, but the implications are far from that.

Back in early December, some English cattle farmers would have received a missive from Animal Health explaining that 'in Wales', things were changing. And?
As we are not in Wales at blogger HQ, we shredded it. Nothing has been sent to English farmers yet, but Farmers Guardian has details of the changes.

The main difference is not terminology at all, but the implications of a confirmed breakdown on future problems in a herd and more importantly on any breakdowns in the herds of 'contiguous' neighbours.

Herds not under TB restriction will be known as OTF or Officially TB free. If a breakdown occurs which cannot be confirmed by either lesions or culture, then that status is suspended (OTFS) but if TB is confirmed then status becomes withdrawn (OTFW).

In England and Wales, to regain OTF status herds designated as OTFS will require one clear short interval test and this was the testing situation prior to Jan 1st 2011.
But from now on things change:

However, if either of the following circumstances applies, two consecutive tests will generally be needed:

* The herd has had OTFW status in the three years prior to the current breakdown, or;

* The herd is contiguous to another which currently has OTFW status. This will not however be changed retrospectively if contiguous herds subsequently have their OTF status withdrawn

And it is those changes, but particularly the latter, which will have a far greater impact on testing regimes than has been realised. Like a ripple in a pond, any neighbour of a herd which has had TB confirmed and status withdrawn, will adopt that status (or the testing regime that accompanies it) if there is a breakdown in his herd - regardless of post mortem results. And that could involve several farms in a 'ripple' generated from a confirmed outbreak.

Meanwhile, Animal Health have just retrieved short interval TB testing from LVI vets, with herds between 100 and 250 animals having the benefit of a Defra vet to test cattle. Just how they are going to cope with Treasury budget cuts, extra paperwork and now extra short interval testing this will generate, is up for discussion.

Meanwhile we have a feeling of deja vu as this year begins.

In the 5 years since Defra's last 'consultation' on whether or not to remove badgers infected with tuberculosis, 250,000 cattle have been shot, not a single TB riddled badger apprehended but the industry face another raft of new cattle restrictions.

A very Happy New year.

Update:
We are hearing from LVI vets up and down the country, that many have been hauled back into short interval TB testing due to injuries sustained by AHO desk jockeys. Some of these people are good with cattle, but many may be more used to handling a computer mouse, than a ton of angry cow.

And this change in TB 'terminology' - which is not that at all - is still generating much discussion as to how it may be implemented in practise. Will it be 'contiguous' as in neighbouring holdings on a parish map? Or 'contiguous' areas where cattle have grazed, and when they grazed? We understand that this is still very much work in progress. And we think this could generate quite a discussion at the coal face, as to exactly what herd restrictions may follow a new breakdown.

And English farmers have still to receive formal notification from Defra, of any changes to its policy at all.

ASA uphold (another) complaint by FUW.

2010-12-21T18:49:00.008Z

Once again, the Advertising Standards Authority have upheld complaints against misleading statements issued by the so-called protectors of badgers. This time the 'Save the Badger' campaign, operating from the address of 'Secret World Wildlife Rescue' in Somerset, has had the majority of its claims ruled as being 'untrue and unsubstantiated' by the ASA, say the Farmers Union of Wales.

Following a complaint by the FUW (Farmers Union of Wales), the ASA ruled that claims made in advertisements placed by the 'Save the Badger' charity and published in May this year, repeatedly breached Truthfulness, Substantiation, and Matters of Opinion codes. Welcome though this ruling is, it is too late. The 'Save the Badger' campaign encouraged members of the general public to oppose badger culling, and called on them to write to the Welsh Assembly Government and the Rural Affairs Minister opposing plans to cull badgers in north Pembrokeshire. And it used advertisements which repeatedly made statements which the ASA now say breached their standards of 'Truthfulness, Substantiation and 'Matters of Opinion' codes.

Following the ASA’s ruling, the advertisements must not appear again in their current form, and the ASA has written to the operators of 'Save the Badger' instructing them to ensure in future that claims which are not clearly an expression of their view, can be substantiated.

In 2006, publication of unsubstantiated claims by the RSPCA and others, once again brought by the FUW, provoked a similar response from the ASA, as we reported at the time. But the damage - and it is considerable - is done. People are misled, many animals suffer and the only winner is tuberculosis.

We note that similar emotive and misleading generalisations which are today condemned as 'matters of opinion which were untrue and unsubstantiated' by the ASA can still be found on Brian May's 'Save the Badger' website. Including, ~~amusingly~~, irritatingly, the old assumption that mycobacterium bovis, is a virus. Dr. May's website has the following introductory paragraph:

The disease at the centre of this appalling tragedy is called Bovine TB. The history of the establishment of this virus in populations of Cattle in the British Isles is well documented. It did NOT, of course come from Badgers (or it would presumably have been called "Badger TB") - it was allowed to flourish because of intensive farming methods, and was spread around the UK by farmers moving cattle around to maximise the profit that could be made from them when they were slaughtered. Badgers were infected by the cattle, entirely innocent of any wrong-doing except being in the vicinity of these diseased farm animals.

.

And that from a superannuated, former pop star with a newly acquired 'ology?

Corrections to all Dr. May's erroneous assumptions may be found in this post and the PQ answer below. We do not intend to go through them again.

But we also note that pictures of badgers adorning his site, do not reflect the true result of tuberculosis on badgers. Emaciation, exclusion from the social group, starvation and finally death? Very nice. Disease in the badger on the right, had developed as tuberculous pleurisy and when the animal was caught, it was emaciated to the point that its death was imminent.

And this badger, weighing a fraction of its optimum weight had starved to death. A postmortem showed that it too, had generalised tuberculosis, the bacteria from which were available to any mammal which crossed its miserable path.

Finally, we would remind readers of the answer to our Parliamentary Questions as to the likely reason for the total and complete clearance of 'bovine' TB from the cattle herds at Thornbury, after a short period of badger clearance. The effect lasted for over a decade:

No confirmed cases of tuberculosis in cattle in the area of the Thornbury operation were disclosed by the tuberculin test in the ten year period following the cessation of gassing" Hansard: 28th Jan 2004 col 385W [150573]

So, what was the cause of the Thornbury success? Whole herd slaughter? Cohort slaughter? Zoning and movement restrictions, licensing and more cattle measures? Biosecurity and stricter testing? Change in the weather? All measures offered today by the Badger Trust, discussed ad infinitum by the T-Beggars ( T-BAG's successor around Defra's TB round table ) - and tried in the past by others, with humiliatingly expensive and ignominious results.

However, we did ask. And remembering that it is a hanging offence to mislead a minister in written parliamentary questions, his answer was thus:

The fundamental difference between the Thornbury area and other areas in the south west of England, where bovine tuberculosis was a problem, was the systematic removal of badgers from the Thornbury area. No other species was similarly removed. No other contemporaneous change was identified that could have accounted for the reduction in TB incidence within the area" (Hansard 24th March 2004: Col 824W [157949]

Congratulations, once again to FUW.

Deadline for the Welsh consultation.

2010-12-16T15:22:00.002Z

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.

24 hours to go.

2010-12-07T11:32:00.002Z

The consultation on whether or not to control infectious badgers to prevent the spread of tuberculosis closes on the 8th. December.

Farmers Guardian has a timely reminder.

Responses can be sent via email to: tbbc@defra.gsi.gov.uk

Professionals comment on that 74%

2010-12-06T15:04:00.002Z

When we put up a brief glimpse of the source of Defra's '800 badgers, vaccination and 74% efficacy assumption' posting, it attracted the attention of several biologists, veterinary pathologists and other suitably qualified people.

Their somewhat explosive response, we did not expect.

A protocol designed to do one thing cannot and should not be tweaked to fit another scenario, and assumptions made without postmortems to support. That is 'outrageous' was one comment offered. The following snips are from a comment of the efficacy of BCG posting (below) with which we absolutely agree.

"As a biologist, I find these results rather perturbing. I know that BCG isn't all that effective, but results such as this demonstrate that it is so ineffective as to be near-useless, especially given the stress and disruption of vaccinating wild badgers ."

As cattle farmers, the results that even badgers receiving a very high dose of BCG, still developed lesions and still shed m.bovis was not good news to us either. As was the postmortem result for badger D313, (1 of the 9 given high dose BCG after a clear pre-jab screen) and for whom BCG gave no protection at all. The comment continues:

This is worthy of much wider publicity, since the general public seem to think that one dose of vaccine gives immediate, 100% effective, lifelong protection from a disease. This simplistic notion needs to be corrected; people need telling that BGC isn't all that effective, and that M bovis is definitely not a disease only of cows and badgers, but one which can readily spread to people.

We are trying, but when faced with a brick wall of vested interests, lobby money and index linked pensions, a TB riddled badger supports a huge industry on its back. Pushing water uphill may be easier.

This is, I think, a matter of some urgency since if this isn't done then the usual myths and magical thinking regarding vaccination will persist (i.e. the disease isn't a problem for people, and vaccination is a cure) and the necessary widespread badger cull will be that much more difficult to achieve

We think that as soon as Defra delivered this skewed piece of non-science to the Badger Trust, the general media and various assorted celebrities in need of a cause, it was game over.

And you are absolutely correct in thinking that the public and many animal activists genuinely believe that BCG will protect the badger, completely and indefinitely, whatever its current disease status. And yes, the label 'bovine' TB implies the only victims are cattle.
As to what can be done, well we've tried. Lord knows we've tried. But battling against arrogance and vested interests, who are in an armlock with government is a thankless task and one which we are afraid we have lost. The winner is the bacterium known as m.bovis, which will continue to infect any mammal unfortunate enough to fall over it.

BCG efficacy - does it work?

2010-12-05T17:28:00.003Z

We have so far concentrated on ploughing through the reams of paper and annexes associated with the 800 badger project, the results of which we explored below. But VLA / FERA have had several goes at vaccinating badgers with BCG, and then chopping them up to see the result.
With nothing better to do on a snowy Sunday afternoon, we trawled a couple of recent documents, where VLA / FERA checked their results with recognised efficacy protocol of a measured challenge and a postmortem of their results.

Briefly, 23 badgers were captured in Suffolk, where cattle sentinels are testing clear, and pre screened them to check they were clear of TB at the time of vaccination.

They were then allocated into three groups. VES1 which received a normal (low) dose of BCG vaccine, VES2 which received a higher dose (10 x higher) and a Control. Interestingly, the measured dose of m.bovis was inconsistent, with low dose vaccinates (VES1) receiving a higher dose of bacteria than the VES2 group.(Table 1, p.5 in the first link)

Of the these 23 animals, 5 were controls with exposure to m.bovis but no BCG, 8 had a low dose vaccine and 9 a high dose. All had m.bovis introduced by measured dose. All were euthanized 29 weeks after vaccination, and 12 weeks after experimental introduction of m.bovis.

The postmortems showed all badgers to have visible lesions in several parts, including lungs, lymph nodes etc. varying in severity. and m.bovis of the spoligotype introduced experimentally (VLA 9 - 8 5 5 5 *3 3 3 ) was recovered from all 23 animals in the trial.

In one test used (Dunns) a statistically significant reduction was found in the high dose animals compared to control. But using another test (Tukey's) all tests revealed 'no statistical significance' between the groups.

Below a couple of quotes from the postmortem reports:

Distribution of infection.
As there was some discordance between culture positive and histologically positive tissues, to describe the dissemination of infection an affected site was defined as either culture positive or histologically positive or both.
The median number of tissues affected by M. bovis was nine in the non-vaccinated group, five in the HD BCG group and eight in the LD BCG group. These differences were not significant.

However, the authors conclude that there was a reduction in excretion of bacteria of 13 per cent (compared with the control animals ) in the low dose VES1 group, twelve weeks after challenge. And a higher reduction of 67 per cent in the VES2 high dose BCG group - with the exception of one animal ( D313) , who was badly affected with tuberculosis and whose protective vaccine, even at high dose, had failed completely. It is not clear from the paper whether this animal was included in the results - or not.

After ploughing through all this, it appears that at twelve weeks after challenge and twenty nine weeks after vaccination, using a dose of BCG ten times 'normal' may reduce bacteria shed, although there is still a measurable quantity. All the vaccinated badgers had lesions and all were shedding bacteria to some degree.

Twenty nine weeks is just over six months, and no animals were kept longer than the three months post vaccination to see if their ability to shed m.bovis remained low, after high dose BCG or increased parallel with their level of disease progression.

More postmortem reports:

Summary of gross and histopathological findings in Vaccine Efficacy Studies VES1 and VES2
Macroscopic visible lesions were observed in the lungs, particularly in the right middle (inoculation point) and other lung lobes. Lesions were typically multifocal to coalescent tuberculous granulomas, variable in size and were found within the lung parenchyma and often protruding to the visceral pleura (Figure A8.1). Multifocal to coalescent granulomas were also frequently observed within the mediastinum The right bronchial lymph node was the most affected (Figure A8.3), but other lymph nodes within the thoracic cavity (posterior mediastinal and left bronchial) showed also visible lesions. The typical observed gross lesion was a multifocal to coalescent granulomatous lymphadenitis, affecting occasionally more than half of the lymph node section.
TB-like lesions were observed in spleen, liver and extrathoracic lymph nodes, and most of them were confirmed caused by M. bovis by culture.

The rest of this pathological description and illustrations can be found on p71 of the second paper to which we linked, but the authors say:

Briefly, the main differences were a higher severity of gross and histopathological lesions in the “most severely diseased” lung lobe and the draining lymph nodes (right bronchial and posterior mediastinal) in the control badgers compared with the vaccinated badgers with the High Dose BCG. In addition, the higher average score of the granulomatous lesions and the presence of more collagen in the non-vaccinated control group, together with a higher number of AFBs, are indicative of more severe/advanced lesions in this group in comparison with the High BCG dose.

Within the Low BCG vaccinated animals, many individual differences have been found, showing features similar to those of the non-vaccinated control group, and on the other hand, some animals showed similar results to those of the High BCG dose.,

In the real world, at twelve months post the first jab, the animal would need another booster jab. And by then it may be clinically infected. All the badgers in this trial, whether vaccinated at high rate BCG or low, had lesions and all were shedding m.bovis Thus the success rate of BCG, in an environment now so contaminated (remember the background level of the 800 captured badgers in the posting below? 69 per cent positive to at least one of the pre screening tests?) may be over estimated.

... and more

2010-12-03T19:47:00.005Z

In our posting below we explored in a little more detail, Defra's headline grabbing claim:

A key finding of the field study, conducted over four years in a naturally infected population of more than 800 wild badgers in Gloucestershire, was that vaccination resulted in a 74 per cent reduction in the proportion of wild badgers testing positive to the antibody blood test for TB in badgers.

Further explanations have been passed to us which confirm that of the 844 badgers trapped in this project, after the prescreening with three different tests, just 262 were negative to at least one test. We questioned that background level of TB in the posting below, but now we have the words of the author himself which confirm:

"We worked in a high density population of naturally infected badgers, in what was the largest clinical trial in wildlife of its kind. Studies of vaccination are always focused on evaluating the prevention of new incident cases, so our analysis is based on 262 animals in 64 social groups that were test negative when they "entered" the study and which we caught a second time so that we could see how the vaccine had affected them. However, the total population size we report of 844 badgers is important, since it correctly includes all the animals that were already infected and gives an indication of the typical force of infection present in badgers in a TB problem area."

It most certainly does. 69 per cent of the badgers captured presented a result which would have guaranteed the death of a similarly tested bovine, and gives an indication why 34.9 per cent of herds in Glos had TB breakdowns in 2009. And 844 trapped over 55 sqkm gives a captured population density of 15.3 badgers per sq km. which is higher on both counts than the Consultation assumptions and which the Defra press release omitted to mention. But we digress...

In the posting, we quoted work done by Chambers et al, on the sensitivity (ability to detect disease) of the Statpak rapid blood assay. This work was published in 2008, and involved the postmorteming of almost 1500 badgers to more accurately validate this diagnostic test.

The Statpak achieved a very variable sensitivity ranging from 33 - 78 percent, the latter in grossly infected, super excreter badgers. Its average was a published 49.2 per cent only, which we compared with the much rubbished Brock test. If you remember, this is one Prof Bourne described this as 'poorer than hoped' as it 'only' detected about 40 per cent of infected badgers.
And Statpak starts life at 33 per cent? And averages 49 per cent? Do the maths.

But we are now even more puzzled by the Defra headline and inevitable media fest on this '74 per cent reduction' in the same breath as 'tuberculosis' and '800 badgers'.

The lead author on the Statpak validation we quoted in the paper below as 'Chambers et al., 2008, and is none other than Dr. Mark A.Chambers, who was lead author on the Vaccine project running at the same time. As were a number of the et als.

So let's get this right.
* While validating the Statpak blood test at an extremely low sensitivity in 2008, in the paper just published, the same authors attempt to morph their project to assess whether BCG is safe for badgers, into an efficacy test of BCG - even though they say it should not be taken as such?
* From an original trapping of 844 badgers, they then shake out the positives (582) leaving 262 testing negative of which around 160 are vaccinated. (60 percent of the 262, leaving 40 percent as controls ?) So it was not 844 trapped badgers which formed part of this 'efficacy' bit, (that should not be counted as efficacy) but 160?
* Having turned the badgers loose after their annual vaccination, the authors have no knowledge of what (or even if) any challenge from m.bovis has been faced. But they assess the results of the BCG vaccination on approximately 160 naive candidates, with gammaIFN (sensitivity 80.9 percent) and achieve a benefit of 19% to this unknown challenge ?
* Similarly with Statpak, which their own validation procedures give only a 49 percent sensitivity to, and they achieve 74 per cent benefit, again on an unknown, unquantified challenge ?

Having been questioned as more of this comes to light, the authors are keen to stress that :

"It's important to realise that the 74% (73.8%) figure represents a reduction in incidence of positive antibody tests brought about by vaccination and should not be equated to a vaccine efficacy of 74% "

And they do say that in the paper. But it is a pity Defra (or whoever wrote the press release) didn't realise that. Or the media or anyone else similarly ~~taken in~~ mislead by the headlines which followed the press release.

Dr. Chambers is also keen to stress that Statpak is very sensitive when faced with grossly infected badgers. Sure it is, but in this project the badgers were not post mortemed. So was it the 33 percent end of Stakpak's very variable sensitivity which it was flagging up? Or the 'more sensitive' 78 per cent? They don't know because they didn't look.

And then the inevitable wriggle. That annexes may be overlooked,(nope, read those too) and possibly not immediately explicit to 'lay-persons'. ( A wild assumption there.) And the fact that the main paper was prepared for submission to a regulatory authority as a 'health and welfare' issue for badgers. But presumably not submission to the VMD as an indication of efficacy, as the previous Statpak validation paper would have already covered that bit?
Nothing like telling you, you're stooopid is there? And of course cannot be expected to understand papers of this ilk.

And then the nitty gritty (that's not a very 'scientific' term, but hey, we'll live with it):

"...the decision was only taken subsequently by Defra to make the data widely available as part of the public consultation."

Well, well well. Impeccable timing with a startling, if misleading headline. So it was Defra who decided to publish. So that's all right then. And the media fest, headline grabbing, 800 badgers, 74 per cent reduction in TB? Which most of Defra's 'lay readership' swallowed hook, line and sinker? Is that all right too ?

Of course it is. And not a hair of a single badger will be harmed. Even the hairs on the heads of the 43% blood assay positive ones, roaming the Gloucestershire countryside and still available for more research.

Things are never what they seem.

(We have updated the headcount of blood assay positive rejects to this research, after contact from the authors. They offer around '43 per cent' of the 844, a figure which they describe as a 'typical force of infection present in badgers in problem areas'. The remaining 26 per cent comprised badgers which were only trapped once and those which expired during the research.)

More on that 74 percent.

2010-12-02T18:15:00.003Z

We touched the surface of the most recent headline grabber from Defra in the posting below, but having had a trawl through the project again, we think we have sorted where the 74% comes from.
How accurate is its reporting, is quite another matter. But it was not only the Badger Trust and media which ran with it, Defra issued the original high profile press release on November 8th, stating that :

A key finding of the field study, conducted over four years in a naturally infected population of more than 800 wild badgers in Gloucestershire, was that vaccination resulted in a 74 per cent reduction in the proportion of wild badgers testing positive to the antibody blood test for TB in badgers.

As we said in the posting below, if that was true, when do we start?

But as usual, the devil is in the detail. This project was not ever about efficacy of BCG. It was to study the health and welfare of badgers vaccinated with BCG. Thus no postmortems were done to support the blood assays, assertions or conclusions. And the project morphed into an 'estimated efficacy' on blood assays and cultures alone.

Blood assays are notorious for giving less than optimum results. Results are measured by 'sensitivity' or the ability to diagnose disease or antibodies associated with that particular disease. The lower the sensitivity, the less confidence can be placed in it.

For example, the opinion of the ISG contained in their Final Report

on the old 'Brock' test:
1.7 [] ... A live test for badgers had been developed and subject to trial from 1994-96, but its sensitivity was much poorer than had been hoped, successfully detecting only about 40% of infected badgers (Clifton-Hadley et al., 1995-a,Woodroffe et al., 1999)

Thus the 'sensitivity' of this Brock blood test test, (which our PQ answers also put at 'very low' and other research at around 47%) was described as 'much poorer than was hoped" by the ISG and hovers around the 47% mark, at which point the live test trial was abandoned. Bookmark that sensitivity rating and the ISG comment on it.

So back to this paper on the Health and Welfare of badgers vaccinated with BCG.

As we pointed out, the original 844 badgers were taken back to secure laboratory facilities and screened using GammaIFN / Elisa and Statpak Rapid blood assays. Out of the headline 844 badgers trapped, 265 took part in the annual research. Does that mean that at the first screening test, and before vaccination, almost 70% had TB antibodies? But we digress. Efficacy of BCG is the subject.

Much if not all, depends on the sensitivity of the test applied, and as we pointed out above, the old 'Brock' test was roundly condemned for a low sensitivity. So what of the blood assays used to estimate BCG efficacy here? The project cites work done on assays which was supported by postmortems, by Chambers et al, in 2008:

4.7 Immunology Results
Two immunological tests were applied in this study: the IFN EIA and the Brock TB Stat-Pak Test (Chembio Diagnostic Systems, Inc.).
The first test [GammaIFN/EIA] measures the production of IFN following stimulation of whole heparinised blood with bovine and avian tuberculins and has an estimated sensitivity of 80.9% and an estimated specificity of 93.6% (Dalley et al., 2008).

So the gamma IFN / Elisa test has a sensitivity of 80.9% and vaccinated badgers in this project had a protection level of - what?
19% according to the results.

And the second blood assay :

The Brock TB Stat-Pak is a lateral flow assay to test for the presence of antibodies in serum to M. bovis antigen MPB83. It has an estimated sensitivity of 49.2% and an estimated specificity of 93.1% based on a study of 1464 badgers naturally infected with M. bovis as determined by culture (Chambers et al., 2008). Sensitivity of the Stat-Pak varies according to disease severity, such that sensitivity was found to be 34.4% in infected badgers with no visible lesions at post mortem, 66.1% in infected badgers with visible lesions at post mortem, 41.7% in infected badgers that excrete M. bovis; rising to 78.1% in so-called "Super-Excretor‟ badgers (Chambers et al., 2008).

From that we see that Chambers postmortemed his badgers to qualify sensitivity, and found the StatPak test variable, with a combined sensitivity of 49.2% , including super excreters and 'badgers which excrete m.bovis'.

So what criteria have the authors of this project used?

"Here an “all test” exclusion criterion was used such that any badger positive by any of the three tests at T1 or at the time of first capture/vaccination (T2 onwards) was excluded from the analysis. This analysis addresses more directly the prophylactic effect of BCG vaccination since the effect of vaccination is measured in badgers considered to be free of TB by virtue of negative results in all three tests. Whilst this does not rule out infection completely, it is the best measure of TB status in the live animal. As the combination of all three tests would not be 100% sensitive, some badgers regarded as TB-free by this criterion would actually harbour infection."

The authors observe that should badgers actually be already infected with TB when vaccinated, "This would have the effect of reducing the measure of vaccine efficacy."

Quite. So, having excluded from the modeling any badger pre screened as positive at the time of vaccination, the results for gammaIFN / Elisa were?

Against this background, the incidence of IFNγ EIA positivity was reduced by vaccination from 35.0% cases (95% confidence interval: 23.0%, 49.3%) to 28.5% cases (95% confidence interval: 20.8%, 37.7%) but it was not significant at the 5% level. The analysis presented currently for the IFNγ EIA test alone provided no conclusive (P < 0.05) evidence that BCG vaccination was able to prevent infection with M. bovis, although the trend was in that direction.

And the modelled result was the '19 percent' reduction contained in the phrase 'Between 19 and 74%'. Gamma has a sensitivity described in this paper of 80.9%

And the StatPak results about which the headlines are so enthusiastic?

In contrast, vaccination was found to have a significant effect on reducing the incidence of positivity for both Stat-Pak or Stat-Pak and culture combined. The incidence of Stat-Pak positivity was reduced by vaccination from 17.1% cases (95% confidence interval: 10.8%, 25.9%) to 4.4% cases (95% confidence interval: 2.4%, 8.2%), which was significant statistically (P < 0.001). [that is the 74% - ed]
The incidence of Stat-Pak and culture combined positivity was reduced by vaccination from 21.7% cases (95% confidence interval: 13.5%, 32.9%) to 8.3% cases (95% confidence interval: 4.9%, 13.9%), which was also significant statistically (P = 0.008). As the likelihood of a positive Stat-Pak result or excretion of M. bovis increases with disease progression/severity (Chambers et al., 2008; Gallagher & Clifton-Hadley 2000) this study provides evidence consistent with the progression/severity of TB being significantly reduced in BCG vaccinated badgers after they become infected.

It does? With a sensitivity very similar to Brock test, abandoned and severly trashed by the ISG? A sensitivity averaging 49.2 per cent, and with no postmortems to confirm?

'A Way Forward' - new download.

2010-11-22T14:57:00.005Z

A new on-line download version of Chris Chapman's film is now available.
We introduced the film in this posting and the top quality DVD is still available from Mr. Chapman direct, or via Mole Valley Farmers.

With thanks to Clearstats.

Vaccination myths

2010-11-20T18:34:00.002Z

We should be used to the grammatical gymnastics of the Badger Trust by now, so many may be blown out of the water by a simple read through of the paperwork they love to misquote.

We saw it here and here and posted the correct information so that our readers could make up their own minds. So when a 'proper' journalist starts throwing his teddies with a polemic rant about 'controlling landowners', and vaccinating badgers it is, er disappointing.

After his rant about cattle farmers, whom he seems to hate as much, or more than the badgers he claims to want to protect, ~~George Monbiot~~ the Graudian's Great Moonbat offers this gem:

As for the badgers, they should continue to be trapped in cages, but vaccinated and then released, as this prevents their social structures from being disrupted. By 2015 an oral vaccine for badgers could be ready to roll, which will be far cheaper than the current options.

This is straight of the Badger Trust website where they offer a press release claiming:

Laboratory studies showed that injections of BCG significantly reduced the progression, severity of cattle TB and excretion of bacilli. A key finding of a four-year field study in more than 800 wild badgers in Gloucestershire was a 74 per cent reduction in the proportion of wild badgers giving positive results to TB tests.

Well that's fine then. A jab of BCG and a 74 percent reduction in badger TB? Excellent. What's to misunderstand?

A lot. A great big, huge lot. As is explained in the operating procedure for all these vaccine trials, released with impeccable timing by Defra last week. The one which should be of interest to cattle farmers is use of BCG on a headline figure '800wild badgers', in this paper. But these badgers were screened. Not 'wild' as in of unknown disease status. They were trapped, then subject to three tranches of blood assays to try and ascertain disease status prior to vaccination. That is a far cry from launching into the TB hotspots of the UK with hope, and a long needle, on two night forays.

So what was the result? The Badger trustsays 74 percent. Er, no. At least not until a huge proportion of the candidates were shaken out of the selection process by our old friends the mathematical modellers. On page 33 of the Appendix which readers may have missed, the text tells us:

"However, the numbers of animals eligible for analysis was sometimes very small, although larger than in the interim analysis as a result of the additional observations from two further trapping campaigns in 2009. For instance, for the StatPak test, 47% of the groups analysed have three or fewer individuals. This was 45% for the Gamma and Culture test individually and for StatPak and Culture tests and all three tests combined. As a result, the scale for proportions is very coarse (e.g. 0%, 33%, 66%, 100% for n=3) and this leads to very high variability where group size is small. "

Conclusion:

This additional analysis has shown that there were differences in the proportions of cases of new incidences between groups A and B (treatment A showed a reduction of between 19% and 74% in the proportion of cases of new incidences, depending on the outcome of interest). Two of these differences were found to be statistically significant at the 5% level (StatPak on its own and StatPak and Culture combined.)

Never miss an opportunity to grab a headline, do they? Nobody mentioned the mathematical modelling, the pre screening, the shakeout to a small 'high variability' group using all three blood assays, or the need for annual vaccination. And no-one mentioned the crucial "between 19%", which preceeded the 74% mis quote.

The actual figures of pre-screened, annually vaccinated badgers showing a possible reduction in TB at subsequent blood screening was around 25%, with 41.5 per cent of non vaccinated badgers proving positive to a dose of m.bovis on all the blood screens and 31.1 percent of the vaccinated badgers.

For all three tests combined (total number = 262), there was a reduction from 41.5% cases (95% confidence interval: [28.0%, 56.3%]) of new incidence in group B down to 31.1% cases (95% confidence interval: [22.7%, 41.0%]) of new incidence in group A

But the crucial postmortems have not been done, to check for transmission opportunities.

Vaccine efficacy in the context of BCG vaccination of badgers may be defined either as a reduction in the incidence of uninfected badgers becoming infected with M. bovis or a reduction in the progression/severity of TB in badgers that do. The effect of vaccination is measured with reference to a non-vaccinated control group. According to this definition it was not possible to estimate the efficacy of BCG vaccination in this study as the decision was taken not to subject study badgers to post-mortem determination of infection. However, it was possible to use the tests employed in this study (IFNγ EIA, Stat-Pak, culture) in live animals as surrogate measures of vaccine efficiency

So far from that gallopingly wild headline, adopted by all and sundry - and Moonbat - of a 74 per cent reduction in TB of the 800 wild vaccinated badger trial group, the conclusion on p 9 of the Appendix, opines that

"it is not possible to to estimate efficacy of BCG vaccination, in this study"

And by that, the researchers, whose names have been blanked out of the paper, indicate that they would like more cash to do it all again.

No badgers were injured during this trial.

Consultation responses

2010-11-09T08:02:00.007Z

The latest Defra Consultation on controlling badgers to prevent the spread of TB, (as opposed to the previous one) offers a monumental pile of dead trees and several Annexes. And not unreasonably, farmers are asking 'how do we respond?'. Their main representative bodies, the NFU and the NBA are keen that farmers do respond, but appear to give them little help to do just that.

In the previous 2006 consultation, the RSPCA and the Badger Trust used a flood of postcards to give a huge and overwhelming block vote against any action, driven on a wave of rhetoric and misinformation, from people who had absolutely nothing to lose. This was widely criticised and the current consultation has a preferred format of 8 questions. The difficulty is, finding this template.

The NFU website expresses the opinion that replies do not have to be the 8 answer format. (Click pdf link in the right hand box for finer details) While the National Beef Association have an out of date and limited list of meeting venues, and little else that we could find.

So we are most grateful to Dr. Brian May, for a clear template on how best to respond to Defra's latest effort.

A postcard from 'a farmer' saying yes, we must cull badgers, is not good enough.

Meanwhile with impeccable timing, yesterday Defra announced that BCG injectable vaccine could reduce TB levels in badgers.

"Farmers' representatives ..

2010-11-03T17:59:00.007Z

... tried to play politics, only to find the politicians were better at it".

The last line of a Badger Trust press release, issued last week, which describes the coalition government's preferred Option 6 as a 'futile jumble'.

The Badger Trust appeals in a new leaflet for the public to respond to the Coalition Government’s consultation on its pointless plans to license farmers to kill badgers in parts of England, its preferred option after setting out a futile muddle of assertions in its official consultation document. It is vital for those concerned about the welfare of this indigenous species to respond not least because the National Farmers’ Union – a far larger and wealthier organisation – is staging briefing meetings countrywide to encourage its members to support the killing of badgers – at their own expense.

We gave links to the consultation documents in this posting. But the one which farmers should read and inwardly digest is Annex F, (number 8 on our list) entitled 'Impact assessment', which describes in detail the impact of an RBCT type area cull on the pockets of participating farmers.

The Badger Trust's reply to the consultation is predictable, and can be found here.

The Badger Trust press release also contains a delicious example of John Bourne misquoting, er, John Bourne:

The consultation document contains inconsistencies, confusing statements and omissions at various points throughout its great length. It is cynically slanted against the badger and fails to quote fairly the principal scientific finding which it buries in an annex 134 pages down. This states:
“First, while badgers are clearly a source of cattle TB, careful evaluation of our own and others’ data indicates that badger culling can make no meaningful contribution to cattle TB control in Britain.

That 'principal scientific finding' would be the oft (mis)quoted Professor John Bourne, when describing his ten year prevarication. A single decade amongst many where the epidemiology of TB in badgers and cattle has been cogitated and investigated, published - and ignored.
(**See later edit, for the source of that misquote)

However on many occasions, including in oral evidence to
The Welsh Assembly Government in July 2007, this truncated version of what Bourne said is expanded thus:

"We repeatedly say "culling, as conducted in the trial." It is important [that] we do say that. Those limitations were not imposed by ourselves. They were imposed by politicians."

So, what do we have? Badgers are 'clearly a source of cattle TB, but culling them 'as conducted in the trial' ... can make no meaningful contribution to cattle TB control in Britain".

We knew that, and so did Bourne at the beginning of his ~~RBCT~~ Badger Dispersal Trial. And as our chart shows, it is evident what happens to tested, slaughtered sentinels when TB infected badgers are progressively left to share their infectious load over a series of sanitised strategies, culminating in a moratorium on any control of badgers 'for the purposes of disease', in 1997. And inevitable, as levels of environmental contamination rise, despite Defra's extreme reluctance to publish the true totals of other spillover victims of badger TB, they will continue to die.

And sooner or later, someone is going to hold government accountable for this.

Meanwhile, we have to agree with the Badger Trusts' final line.

Edit 5/11 : The Badger Trust press release clearly states Bourne's statement : " It (the consultation document) is cynically slanted against the badger and fails to quote fairly the principal scientific finding which it buries in an annex 134 pages down."

As we are easily bored at blogger HQ, but also a tad pedantic about such sources, we trawled 'it' - as in the consultation document and its various annexes. The document itself comprises 53 pages, and each annex between 6 and 40 pages. Even with a calculator to add these together, arriving at the appropriate '134 pages down' or thereabouts, we were unable to locate such a quote. Had a grammatical nicety got in the way? Was this gem to be found 134 pages into the Final Report of the ISG ?

Nope. We have marked p.134 of that document, but not because of this statement. It deals with biosecurity, badgers and cattle. And the ISG conclusion is that "It is not possible to identify particular risk factors which can be adopted across all regions with the expectation of ensuring reduced transmission of disease to and from cattle." That will not stop Defra trying to link pseudo and obscure biosecurity advice to farmer payments however, but we digress...

Where did that quote come from?
From what we can see, it is not in the Consultation documents at all, on page 134 of various annexes or anywhere else: neither is it in the ISG Final Report at the reference given. We found it in Bourne's letter to the then Secretary of State, elder brother to small pretender Ed, the Right Honourable David Milliband, MP .... right at the start of the ISG Final Report of 2007, on page 5.

While on our trawl of the consultation stuff, we did find another quote which the Badger Trust obviously missed. This one is on page 17 of Annex F of the package, and states that the policy to cull is to "address the reservoir of the disease in wildlife." Page 18 gives the options but page 16 [1.4] states that the key element not currently deployed is badger control. It continues:

"Scientific evidence indicates that in areas with high TB incidence in cattle, it will not be possible to eliminate the disease in cattle without addressing the transmission from badgers."

Furthermore the document asserts:

" No other country in the world has successfully tackled bTB in cattle without addressing any wildlife reservoir involved in maintaining and transmitting infection to cattle. We therefore regard this as the most pressing issue if we are to make progress on tackling the disease in cattle."

Precisely. And while 'we' are making such statements, perhaps as well as cattle, 'we' should mention the other bTB overspill victims of an unfettered wildlife reservoir of disease. The now hundreds of other mammals which we have highlighted on this site, but which 'we' still seem keen to ignore.

We are most grateful for the opportunity to correctly quote a Badger Trust mis-reference.

Inevitable overspill - pigs.

2010-10-23T08:08:00.005+01:00

We have spoken many times of the inevitable overspill of 'bovine' TB from its tested, slaughtered sentinels into any other mammal which happens to cross its path.

We have given mileage and support to the owners of alpacas, reeling as their animals die from a dangerous zoonosis which many of them had never associated with their particular group. So seriously do they take the risk to their animals, that they have set up this new website (on the link and the sidebar) to inform and support owners.

However, we still get the age old comment it's "bovine" TB - so it's carried by cattle, spread by cattle and only affects cattle. The posting below, a gem of a comment from the Viva! organisation actually states just that. Stop cattle farming everything will be fine. Except that the environmental contamination from the primary wildlife host of m.bovis, has already affected several other species, and continues to do so.

Last week, we were alerted to a new leaflet issued by BPEX, the pig industry support body. This describes bTB as in pigs as 'a spillover' problem, as opposed to maintenance host of the disease:

"bTB is a mycobacterial disease and its ability to infect many species, makes it a very problematic disease. As well as cattle, some of the species bTB can infect include camelids, horses, badgers, cats, sheep, humans, wild boar, pigs and deer. Pigs are classed as a spill-over host. This means when levels of bTB circulating among wildlife and cattle in the local environment become very high, it literally spills over into other species, which are not usually infected with bTB. This situation is most likely to occur in bTB hot spots such as the South West and the Midlands but it is essential that all producers are vigilant due to ‘off-site’ and contract growing and finishing, and also pigs being moved between regions for finishing.

To produce such a bulletin, which is fairly long and detailed, and to combine its launch with area meetings, one would assume that the numbers of pigs found with TB at slaughter are likely to be significantly more than the 13 shown on Defra's 'other species' TB statistics show? These figures relate to positive cultures only, and then only one or two of the beginning of an outbreak, and are many months out of date. But a BPEX a spokes-person has confirmed a figure of 40 pigs (in the last eighteen months)to Farmers Guardian, who have the story.

National Pig Association regions manager Zoe Davies said, while the increase might be partially down to an increase in reporting, it is also being driven by high levels of infection in the environment, with pigs picking it up from badgers.

No cattle mentioned then? No unpasteurised milk? At least someone has their brain cells in gear. Dr. Davies continued on the subject of free range, outdoor pigs:

Dr Davies said free range units were particularly susceptible. Owners of rare breed and pedigree pigs tended to be worse hit as these animals were generally kept for longer than commercial pigs.

The NPA and BPEX have put together an advice leaflet [link above] on how to minimise the risk of infection that has been distributed to most major pig keepers in the country.

Along with the British Pig Association they have also met with Defra’s TB policy team to seek to develop a proper policy to deal with the problem.

“Our big issue is that Defra don’t have a policy for how to deal with TB in pigs. It is vaguely based on what they have for cattle, which doesn’t really work [for pigs]." she said.

We have been told of pig TB cases in closed indoor units, carried in on badger-contaminated feed and also the more worrying instances of very rare breed pigs, particularly at risk in a hotspot area. More TB casualties are inevitable, as the scale of bacterial contamination in the environment rises. There will come a time when Tuberculosis infection in all these animals (and their in-contact owners ) cannot be excused by visits to foreign shores, or drinking unpasteurised milk.

'We should stop farming cattle'

2010-10-19T08:10:00.005+01:00

.. and then 'bovine' TB would disappear. So says a grammatically challenged, totally naive but absolutely priceless rant from a long term opponent of livestock farming, Viva!
The missive airily dismisses the badgers' role in transmission, pointing out that:

" ... other species will transport Tb to neighbouring herds of animals. These species may not necessarily be badgers. Minks, Deers, Foxes, Moles, Rats and Ferrets are examples of other species of wildlife that have been positively tested for bovine Tb."

"Minks" and "deers"? Sheesh. But we digress. Smaller species may contract m.bovis, as any mammal can. The important difference between them and badgers is the progression of disease (does it kill them quickly?) and the amount of bacteria they are able to ~~share~~ shed in that time. In badgers, the answer to the former is no, they are able to live for years while intermittently shedding the bacteria which causes bTB. But the amount shed, both in the confines of a badger sett, and plastered over grassland, corn/root/vegetable crops and cattle feed, is phenomenal, thus they are the most successful 'host' species of bTB in this country. The writer continues:

It is important to bear in mind that the main vector for bovine Tb are found in cattle, not badgers – hence the name bovine Tb ! If it weren’t for the farming of cattle, bovine Tb wouldn’t exist and other animals wouldn’t suffer – including wildlife.

Unfortunately this type of simplistic claptrap is spouted all too frequently, and is gobbled up by the young (and the not-so-young) idealists who do not so much 'lurve' badgers - as hate farmers. And especially livestock farmers.

But studiously ignoring the continuing and growing overspill into other group mammals, some of which we reported here and here, and the many
companion animals does not make it disappear. Despite the position being reinforced by Defra's strangely dumbed down accounting system for such 'other species' TB casualties, which only counts positive culture samples submitted to VLA - and nothing else. Of these, there may be only a single one to log in, but many deaths in a continuing tested or untested, outbreak. (We note with not a little amusement, that the table of exclusions from these statistics, is now longer than the table itself.)

The Viva! piece predictably refers to 'the science'. The ten year ~~farce~~ 'trial' between 1997 and 2006, which blots out all other 'science' from 1895 onwards; and from 2008 to the present day. This 'political' science which appears to have the added benefit of numbing the power of common sense in its groupies, and which Canute like, continues to haunt this country.

However, the Viva! spokes-person has the answer:

Therefore the answer is quite clear. If the objective really is to prevent the spreading of bovine Tb for future generations of humans and animals, we should stop farming cattle.

Simples.

New website

2010-10-09T12:00:00.003+01:00

We have added a new link ( on the left hand bar) to a site dedicated to TB in alpacas.
From the press release:
"Dianne Summers, Dr Gina Bromage MA,Vet MB,DVM,MRVCS, and recently resigned B.A.S. Chair Mike Birch have developed a new website dedicated to the subject of bTB in Camelids.

The purpose of the website is two-fold – first and foremost is to help camelid herds who come down to Tb and secondly to educate camelid owners on the serious issue of bTB with the hope it will reduce the risk of it happening to them."

The pic is Dianne Summers with one of her alpacas. Dianne explains:

"The site is dedicated to the 320 plus alpacas and llamas lost to members of the TB Support Group and their owners. This website is dedicated to all of them - gone but not forgotten".

And for anyone still hooked on a badgers v. cattle polemic, and thinking b.tuberculosis doesn't affect them - please click on this link.
Should any pig, goat, sheep or any other groups decide to create their own support network we will be pleased to offer a similar link.

Good timing

2010-10-07T17:46:00.002+01:00

Just as the Con-Dem coalition launch their 'consultation' document on possible ways out of the mire of their own making - bTB , further mileage is provided by farmers co-operative Mole Valley Farmers, who have sponsered distribution of Chris Chapman's beautifully made, sensitive film about bTB.

We spoke of this almost a year ago. In the October edition of Mole Valley's magazine a download of the film is available. Or a telephone contact number for a free copy of the DVD. This is available both to members or non members of the co operative.

Contact Vicky Hosegood on 01769 576433

The cost of 25 years of fluff.

2010-10-02T18:17:00.007+01:00

The progressive sanitisation of TB policy by successive governments of both colours, which we described here combined with a £ multi billion (or is it trillion?) bale out to bankers, GB plc is broke. The cupboard is bare and the thought of stumping up more cash for continually testing and killing cattle, and now alpacas, sheep, goats and pigs is finally being questioned.
That's 'questioned' as in putting veterinary TB testing out to tender, and bringing more herds under former-desk-jockey AHO control. And 'questioned' as in shafting the ultimate cost of dealing with the problem in wildlife to farmers.

The Consultation Document produced by Defra, is high on rhetoric but lean on exactly what farmers will be expected to cough up and for what. But having explained in the Final Report of the ISG that culling badgers 'in the way it was done in the RBCT' was expensive and inefficient, a very similar scenario is proposed for a farmer controlled cull. Only this time, it will be the owners of cattle, alpacas, sheep, goats and outdoor pigs, who pick up the tab and not the taxpayer.

Farmers Guardian has the breakdown and further explanations can be found in the quaintly entitled Annex F - Impact Assessment, where farmers may have missed the mention of the £1.6 million they are expected to stump up for each 150 sq km, controlled under Defra's favoured Option 6.

That figure is made up with £.7 million for cage trapping and free shooting about half the badgers in 150 sq km patch.(70% of badgers in 75% of the land area) Numbers offered by Defra to support these cost estimates are less than 2 badgers culled per 1 sq/km. Further costs include surveying regularly and the use of fragmenting shot at £4 per bullet. Disposal will be at least £20 per carcase.
£.9 million is added to that for the vaccination in option 6, which Defra want to run parallel with any cull, both inside the area and on any exposed boundary.

This document does have one redeeming point. It categorically states that:

Badgers are known to harbour bTB and without addressing TB in badgers, it will not be possible to eliminate the disease in cattle.

And with that, our new Minister of State for the Department of Food, Environment and Rural Affairs the Right Honourable Caroline Spel~~man~~person, MP, becomes the only Minister in the world,( of whom we are aware ), to throw control of the zoonotic disease known as 'bovine' Tuberculosis back to farmers, with her department and her employees taking no active part whatsoever, other than monitoring cattle breakdowns.

For this reason, (and several others, not least a potential block vote by the RSPCA and the Badger Trust) we think it is important that everyone directly involved with this: cattle farmers, owners of other herd or flock mammals, owners of dogs and cats, many of which have succumbed to 'badger' TB, veterinarians and supporters of healthy British wildlife reply to this consultation paper in a sensible and coherent manner.

More on the reasons to complete this Consultation, from NFU president, Peter Kendall.

Mail to : TBBC mailbox
Address: Nobel House, 17 Smith Square, London, SW1P 3JR

Email: tbbc@defra.gsi.gov.uk

Summing up

2010-09-20T19:36:00.004+01:00

While the tabloid press and the farming press are chock full of 'farmers to cull badgers' stories, a comment from a Devon farmer [see comments section, below article] summed up for us, exactly how most farmers want this to proceed."

I'm writing ahead of what will be the usual barrage by the pro-badger lobby. I am a dairy farmer from Devon that operates a closed herd (that is for those that don't know - we don't introduce any animals on to the farm) We also have excellent boundary fences and high hedges which very much limits interaction between our stock and that of our neighbours.

In the past we suffered badly with TB and had multiple breakdowns over a period of time. This was during a period when MAFF were trapping and culling badgers on infected farms. 80 percent of the badgers trapped on our farm where diagnosed with TB at post mortem, once they had been removed - big surprise, so was our TB problem.

We currently have badgers on the farm and they have been there for a number of years now. I have no doubt that they are free from TB and therefore would have no plans to cull them. "

So this farm had enduring TB problems, regular 60 day tests, cattle reactors slaughtered and finally a badger removal. And that was the end of the story. The badgers repopulating this farm were not diseased, the cattle in Devon are tested annually, and this farm can trade with confidence. Neither is it a 'badger free' zone. The comment concludes:

"Those that live and work in the countryside know that wildlife along with all the other factors has an important role to play in the spread of this terrible disease, and whilst successive ministers have passed rules and regulations that address cattle to cattle transfer, at last we have one with the balls to address the wildlife problem. Congratulations to Jim Paice for a bit of common sense, it's a rare quality in a politician."

We started this site after being in exactly the same position as this Devon dairy farmer, but without the benefit of a badger removal operation. Three of us also had the misfortune to be included in the ~~RBCT~~ Badger Dispersal Trial, which certainly confirmed its orchestrator's words of wisdom that culling badgers " the way it was carried out in the RBCT" was inefficient and expensive.

The RBCT certainly showed anyone who was listening, how not to cull badgers. And like the tightly targetted clearance described by the Devon farmer, the only driver of culling should be the presence of disease.

A survey for alpaca owners..

2010-09-17T21:15:00.007+01:00

It has been brought to our attention that a student at Nottingham University is requesting help in writing up bTB problems in alpacas.

In July, she asked the B.A.S. if they would kindly email her short survey to all their members, or put a contact within the magazine which is circulated to members.
She offered B.A S. the results of the survey.
After some considerable delay, the B.A.S. declined her offer, politely offering their “regret” that they were “not able to circulate this for you."
The full letter, with the views of some alpaca owners, and BAS members can be viewed here.

Their reply could be summarised as follows:

“No. We do not want to know about bTB in alpacas. We are trying to run a business here.”

Undaunted, this young lady gathered names and addresses of alpaca breeders from the BAS website which were local to her own address, and at her own expense mailed them, together with a stamped addressed envelope for their replies – should they wish to participate. As her survey would be more robust if it reached BAS members over a wider area, we are happy to post it for her and hope alpaca owners will circulate it further.

One would think the B.A.S. would welcome an independent study into the increasing problems of bTB within alpacas, carried out at no cost to the B.A.S and with its results then able to inform the Board of its member’s attitude to this disease. Obviously we were quite wrong.

To download a copy of the survey form, please access this link. [click reload option, if an error box appears, or delete the error box on the X in the right hand corner]

We offer Ysella Woods every good wish with her project.

Possibly her next one should be on ostriches.

PCR - The HPA take an interest

2010-09-15T20:59:00.002+01:00

UK scientists say they have developed a 'one hour test' for diagnosing TB.

"We’re confident that it will pick up very small amounts and tests so far have show that it seems to be as sensitive as the gold standard of using culture, but there are various aspects which we need to develop further before we can offer it as an off-the-shelf product.”

Details of the work are being presented at the HPA’s annual conference at the University of Warwick.

Story is here.

New consultation

2010-09-15T19:09:00.003+01:00

Today the ~~Con-Dem~~ coalition government announced a TB strategy for England, which involves a consultation on culling badgers.

The documents can be accessed on the following links:

1. Defra's overview.

2.The Consultation document

3. History of badger control (And for a Defra document, this is quite good. Not as good as ours, but good enough)

4. The scientific argument for Culling

5. Vaccination (We note that the paper does not inform that vaccination of badgers is an annual event.)

6. Veterinary Assessment of badger vaccination.

7. Veterinary Assessment of badger culling

8. Impact assessment

The Defra consulatation document contains the following gem:

"A decision on this policy will be made early in 2011, taking into account
views provided during this consultation, the available scientific and
economic evidence, and the results of the spending review".

An admirable wish list, of which we suspect the latter may play a dominant part.

With grateful thanks to our Staffordshire contributer, for the bedtime reading links.

TB tests and Cross Compliance.

2010-09-09T21:55:00.002+01:00

As part of cross compliance for EU payments, all UK farmers must TB test cattle when Defra instruct them to. If they fail to comply, then initially herd restrictions are invoked, preventing any movements on or off the holding. Animal Health officers may also go in and test the cattle themselves, and could possibly invoice the farmer for the test.

Penalties may be applied to any EU environmental payments due, as a breach of 'cross compliance'.

Today the Welsh Assembly Government enforced an overdue test on a farm in Chirk, near Wrexham, NE Wales. And in an ugly outcome to this, three cattle were shot.

Full report is in the Wrexham Leader, which describes:

One woman, who did not want to be identified, said: “It was a big operation with police and other official looking people taking part. There were two to three quad bikes and several Land Rovers around.”

A spokesman for North Wales Police said: “We attended on the execution of a warrant. Officers were working with trading standards.”

With rifles?

The 'disappeared'.

2010-09-01T21:16:00.003+01:00

The posts below and here highlighted the difference between the figures which Defra produce to illustrate tuberculosis overspill into other species, and the grim reality of just how many animals are now dying.

We collect paper at blogger headquarters and in a trawl through various print-offs from Defra's 'other species' website over the last year, we note that the explanatory notes for these tables are getting longer - in direct proportion to the number of animals reported, which is shrinking.

A year ago the explanatory notes were as follows:

* Infected = positive for m.bovis on culture

** All data for 2009 is provisional and subject to change as more data becomes available. Current data has been collected during the period Jan-July 2009

Note: We can only provide data on the number of m.bovis isolations from notified clinical and postmortem cases of TB arising in some non bovine species.

Data to be updated on a quarterly basis - last updated 11 August 2009.

This is when the figure of 17 dead alpacas was challenged by vets running the TB in Alpacas roadshows, who had collected members' data which totalled, anecdotally of course, around 200 dead.

So fast forward to earlier this year, when these figures had not moved from Defra's November posting of 68 dead alpacas. The note adds that:

Data for 2009 is provisional and subject to change.
NB Current data has been collected during the period Jan-Dec 2009 but some culture results are still pending.

Note 1: We can only provide data on the number of M. bovis isolations from notified suspect clinical and post-mortem cases of TB arising in some non bovine species.

Note 2: Cultures and post mortem examination may not be carried out at the VLA on every animal removed from a herd once TB has been confirmed.
Therefore not all animals removed for TB disease control purposes will be reported above.

And one assumes that they are still 'pending' as the figure of 68 has not been upgraded. Or perhaps the samples were all negative. But it is clearer that when a group of animals are still having fatalities, only the first couple of samples are counted in these tables.
So we started asking a few pertinent questions as both pigs and camelids from personal communications, were just not showing the full extent of TB 'spillover' deaths.

And the new tables have an even fuller explanation of just what Defra are not counting. And it isn't dead 'other species' TB victims. The charts in August came with the following health warning:

Veterinary Laboratories Agency TB Culture database
* Infected = positive for M.bovis on culture

** Data provided for 2010 is for the period 1 January - 30 June 2010.
All data provided for 2010 is provisional and subject to change as more data becomes available.

Note 1: We can only provide data on the number of M. bovis isolations from notified suspect clinical and post-mortem cases of TB arising in some non bovine species.

Note 2: Cultures and post mortem examination may not be carried out at the VLA on every animal removed from a herd once TB has been confirmed.
Therefore not all animals removed for TB disease control purposes will be reported above. i.e., where multiple skin or blood test reactors are identified in an infected herd undergoing TB testing.

Note 3: The figures represent submissions from individual animals, not premises i.e. Several submissions may be from the same premises.

Data to be updated on a quarterly basis - last updated August 2010

So, when one looks for figures of 'other species' TB casualties on Defra's website, it is probably more informative to read the notes and see what isn't being counted, especially those detailed in Note 2.

Note 2: Cultures and post mortem examination may not be carried out at the VLA on every animal removed from a herd once TB has been confirmed. Therefore not all animals removed for TB disease control purposes will be reported above. i.e., where multiple skin or blood test reactors are identified in an infected herd undergoing TB testing.

Skin and blood test failures? Not counted. Deaths where no cultures have been collected, but gross pathology has indicated TB? Not counted.

These animals are dead. They have contracted tuberculosis, which is usually identified as the spoliogotype 'indigenous to the area'.

They have 'disappeared' from Defra's radar. And that is by no means good enough.

The cynical amongst us would perhaps comment that by shrinking the TB overspill problem to just a few culture samples, even with increasingly convoluted explanations of how this is done, the problem will, er shrink away. Don't count the bodies, so the bodies do not exist. They are the 'disappeared'. Simples.

How will Defra count ... bison?

2010-08-27T08:13:00.005+01:00

A herd of 30 bison at a tourist attraction in South Gloucestershire is under TB restriction, after 5 of the animals at "Cattle Country Adventure Park" near Berkely, failed the TB test.

The story is here. Owner, Tony Cullimore commented on the outbreak:

We are only the second bison herd in the country to get it, but bison are cattle, so there is no reason why they can't.

Tuberculosis is a zoonosis, and there is 'no reason' why any mammal should not 'get it' - but let that pass.

"But it's more of a heartbreak when it's bison. They will have to be slaughtered."

As 40,000 cattle were in 2008 / 09 ? And several hundred alpacas? Why should an owner's 'heartbreak' over bison be any different at all? Losing any animal to tuberculosis is 'heartbreaking'. And stressful and bloody unecessary.

The bison are likely to be slaughtered over the next few days.

Mr Cullimore said three Highland cattle at the attraction also tested positive, which prompted tests on the bison. The Highland cattle will have to be slaughtered and the number of bison lost to the disease comes to six – one died after another knocked it down during the testing process, which bison find particularly stressful.

Most animals find testing 'stressful'. Early abortions in cattle are frequent and calves may get crushed and damaged as their mothers 'stress' in confined situations, leading to broken bones. We note that without access to the highland cattle for routine testing under TB regulations, Defra would not have found these bison.

And we also note that the previous outbreak in bison, to which Mr. Cullimore refers does not yet appear in Defra's 'other species' statistics. We await with interest to see if his animals are ever logged.

Number crunching

2010-08-26T20:27:00.002+01:00

We have brought up the subject of Defra's statistics with regard to numbers of 'other species' which have succumbed to tuberculosis, on several occasions.

We will continue to do so, until they realistically and accurately reflect the correct numbers of deaths, and not a mere thumbnail snapshot of positive culture samples.

Today Farmers Guardian have picked up on the vast difference between positive deaths from tuberculosis which a small group of alpaca owners are reporting to their TB Support group, and the meagre figures of culture samples which Defra publish, occasionally.

Having done a bit of detective work into the various layers of Defra officials charged with reporting this Grade 3 zoonosis in line with the Tuberculosis (England) Order 2007 (as amended in 2006 to include 'all mammalian species') we have the following guidance on notification:

Para 6
Notification of disease in carcases :
(1) Any person who—
(a) has in his possession or under his charge any carcase that is affected with or suspected of being affected with tuberculosis;
(b) in the course of his practice as a veterinary surgeon, examines a carcase that is affected with or suspected of being affected with tuberculosis; or
(c) in the course of his duties, inspects, for any purpose, a carcase that is affected with or suspected of being affected with tuberculosis,
must, immediately he suspects the carcase may be affected with tuberculosis, notify the Divisional Veterinary Manager.

(2) A person who has in his possession or under his charge a carcase mentioned in paragraph (1) must detain it on the premises where it then is until it has been examined by a veterinary inspector.
(3) In this article, “carcase” means the carcase of any bovine animal or other farmed or pet mammal.

Para 18
Control of infection from other animals
18.—(1) Where a veterinary inspector reasonably believes that an animal kept on any premises is or may be affected with tuberculosis, he may by notice served on the occupier of such premises—
(a) require him to keep the animal under control in such manner as may be specified in the notice or to confine it to such part of the premises as may be specified; and
(b) prohibit the movement of animals on to or off such premises, except under the authority of a licence issued by an inspector.

(2) In paragraph (1), “animal” means any kind of mammal except a bovine animal or man.

Para 20
Isolation of M. bovis in a laboratory
(1) Where the presence of the organism M. bovis is identified by a laboratory examination of a sample taken from any mammal (except man) or from the carcase, products or surroundings of any such mammal, the person in charge of that laboratory must immediately notify the Veterinary Laboratories Agency.

Pretty clear, we think. Except that there are fudges here. Where tuberculosis is already confirmed in a group of animals, then samples of every carcase could be said to be a waste of resources. And in cattle only samples from the first couple of a TB breakdown are strain (spoligotype) sampled. With cattle identification now robust, further deaths or test failure slaughterings are logged. But with 'other species', particularly larger groups of pigs and alpacas, then culture samples are the only thing which Defra are counting - as they explain on their chart. And as with cattle, due to 'cost constraints' only a couple from the first casualties are taken. We are assured by vets and AHO staff further down the ladder that they are reporting positive pm's to the local VI centre, who in turn confirm their reports to Defra, London. But there the logs appear to jam. Although the lift goes to the top floor, the figures appear not to be passed to the people in FFG who collate those statistics.

Furthermore, again due to cost constraints, unexplained 'other species' deaths are now being refused postmortems, even if the herds are under TB restriction, and the owner, complying with the above Act 6 (1) reports such a suspicious death as possible tuberculosis.
Farmers Guardian:

This was confirmed by an irate owner of a heavily infected alpaca herd, from Devon, who told Farmers Guardian he had recently reported a dead animal to Animal Health to be told he would have to organise and pay for any post mortem, himself.

It is our understanding that the animal in question ended up at the local knacker yard, and was not examined, even cursorily, by any Veterinary Inspector as defined in the Order.

The lack of right of entry to premises, any statutory movement records or publicly available identification is thought to have led to delays in tracing many cases of onwards transmission of TB among purchased alpacas. And has not helped those deaths associated with movements to agisted matings.

We wrote about this lack of joined up thinking in this posting last October. And apart from a change of heads in Westminister and great deal more anguish for owners of pets and companion animals, which have died from TB - not to mention the risk of onwards transmission to these owners - absolutely nothing has changed.

An anniversary

2010-08-25T07:00:00.003+01:00

One of our contributors has forwarded the following text:

"And now we are fortunate enough to possess a method that enables us to recognise very early if an animal is infected with Tb or not, viz the tuberculin test.

Tuberculin is an extract of tubercle bacilli cultivated in bouillon with glycerine. The bacilliare killed so that the fluid cannot infect, but it has, when injected under the skin of an animal, the marvellous property of producing a typical fever, which appears after some hours and lasts about 12 – 16 hours – so called reaction – if the animal is affected with tuberculosis even in the slightest degree, while a healthy animal is not at all influenced by the injection. Tuberculin was for the first time prepared by Koch in 1890.

He hoped to have found a remedy to cure tuberculosis, and tuberculin seems indeed to have some curative influence, though not as much as hoped. But its diagnostic property is recognised by all, and the tuberculin test is used on a very large scale.

It is true that tuberculin is not absolutely infallible. Very old small tubercular deposits enclosed in a thick layer of fibrous tissue sometimes fail to call forth a reaction, but it is of no practical consequence, because such deposits will as a rule do no harm. A worse thing is that animals suffering from TB in a very high degree sometimes cease to react. This fact has done much harm, because such animals will usually have open tuberculosis, and their presence in a healthy herd may therefore occasion much contamination, but when the person in charge is aware of the danger, it will as a rule not be difficult to recognise the disease by clinical examination.

It is still worth mentioning that repeated injection of tuberculin may in some animals provoke immunity to the test, which may be used by a cattle dealer with intent to defraud."

Several pages are devoted to the development and use of the 'Tuberculin Test', which originally used m.tuberculosis as its base. Later this was changed to a derivative of m.bovis (AN5 strain) and in the UK, an m.avian comparative jab was added.

The reference to old walled up lesions from previous exposures is also mentioned in the CVO reports after the eradication sweeps of the 1950s and 60s., where it was expected that some cattle would present at slaughter with such scars, over the next decade. After which time, the cattle herds of the UK, in parallel with many other countries (and in the absence of a wildlife reservoir) would have eradicated Tuberculosis.

The quote is taken from ‘The Standard Cyclopedia of Modern Agriculture’ vol X11 TRI – Z , which was published in 1911 - a century ago.

Happy Anniversary.

Camelid consultation

2010-08-19T20:33:00.004+01:00

Today, the Welsh Assembly Government have launched a consultation document, aimed at bringing camelids, goats and deer under the statutory regulations to control bTB. They say:

The arrangements proposed in the consultation would impose duties, obligations and responsibilities on the keepers of these animals. This would be done by largely replicating the arrangements already in place for bovine animals through secondary legislation. The proposed policy will be delivered by means of the draft Order annexed to the consultation entitled the Tuberculosis (No 2) (Wales) Order 2010.The measures provided for by the Order are consistent with the objective of the Wales TB Eradication Programme which aims to address all sources of infection, including in non-bovine animals.

Meanwhile, Defra has resurrected the 'other species' TB stats which appeared to have stuck in departmental groove last November. But as we have pointed out before, these are numbers of culture positive animals only, and are not representative of total deaths which are reported to and postmortemed by, VI centres. And running in just about a parallel time frame with the figure of 28 alpacas in the stats, other
information from Defra indicates a total of at least 35 herds under TB restriction, with 3 more notified at the end of last week.

So of the 28 alpacas identified on the stats, each of the almost 40 holdings presented an arm and a leg, presumably ?

For comparison, this time last year (July 2009), 11 camelid herds were under TB restriction. And to illustrate the yawning gap between Defra's stats and reality, members of the alpaca TB Support group have reported 155 deaths up until the end of July 2010. At least 19 herds under restriction are not members of this group, thus their casualties (apart from animals culture sampled) are not publicly logged anywhere at all.

Update - Alpaca side effects thread.

2010-08-14T20:42:00.002+01:00

Since posting of the video clip of the alpaca suffering an anaphylactic type reaction to the skin test, Dianne Summers has told us that she has been contacted by two owners of alpacas, whose animals had exactly this type of reaction when veterinary drugs were administered for possibly pneumonia.

Although initially appearing to recover from this distressing reaction, the animals concerned subsequently died. And on postmortem, were found to have generalised tuberculosis.

A veterinary pathologist, after seeing this video clip, remarked that regardless of the result of the skin test, (or apparent short term efficacy of anti-pneumonia drugs [ Nuflor and Metacam have been mentioned]) this reaction appears to be a good indication of generalised TB in any alpaca suffering it..

How high is your dustbin?

2010-08-01T18:31:00.003+01:00

We have mentioned many times the value of Defra advice on bio security, and in particular, the recommended height of cattle troughs. Now Defra will say 30 inches, while our parliamentary questions very helpfully pointed out that badgers had been filmed accessing troughs at over 40 inches, "at which height cattle could not feed". Quite.

h

So if you are offered this gem of advice, please remember this dustbin.
Our dustbins are about 28 inches high - and the one in the video clip was secured on both sides, yet accessed with ease, several times .... no contest was it?

Tuberculosis - as it is.

2010-07-29T19:00:00.009+01:00

Further to the Side effects - A request thread which we posted in May, one alpaca owner filmed the side effect of the skin test, which appeared within a couple of hours of the tuberculin antigen jab on an alpaca subsequently found to have generalised TB. The video shows this side effect.
This animal is gasping for breath, its lungs already destroyed by this disease, are now seriously compromised. This is not pretty.

This is the reality of tuberculosis - speeded up to 'end stage'.

Prior to the tuberculin antigen skin test jab, this alpaca appeared perfectly healthy. She was euthanased and found to have generalised TB. Dianne Summers tells us that she too had an alpaca react in this way:

"I had this happen on one of my animals and it is horrific when you experience it. He recovered fully the next day BUT as with all the others was found at postmortem to be riddled with TB".

NB: Dianne also explains that on the video, when the owner describes an 'injection' he means the tuberculin antigen jab, given on day 1 of the intradermal skin test.

Dianne's small group of 28 alpaca owners who have experienced this in their animals, report 22 instances. In four cases, the animal either died or was euthanased on welfare grounds before the reading of the skin test, 72 hours later. All the animals in this group had appeared, as we described the animal on the video clip, perfectly healthy prior to the jab. All of the animals who experienced this reaction were subsequently found at post mortem, to have generalised tuberculosis. Of the 22, only 3 had failed the skin test. Most passed - if they were alive for it to be read. Of the animals remaining, some subsequently failed a blood test, some died and others were volunteered to AHO after showing signs of TB.

We are grateful to the the Alpaca TB Support group, for this information, and to Di Summers for patiently collating it. Ms. Summers would like us to add, that the importance of monitoring alpacas after a skin test should not be underestimated.
She strongly recommends that owners isolate (with a companion) any animals showing this type of reaction - even if they appear to have recovered. The data gathered thus far would indicate that this 'reaction' to an introduction of tuberculin antigen in the skin test, is far more accurate than the test itself. All the animals affected have proved to be riddled with tuberculosis, regardless of the measured result of the test.

The effect of Tuberculosis on lungs tissue is illustrated in this pm slide of alpaca lungs. Very little of the lung remains able to function: the examining veterinary pathologist estimated only about 20 per cent.

If you remember - and we do - the RSPCA, in a considerable underestimate of its descriptive powers, described tuberculosis in badgers as 'A slight wheeziness' helpfully adding that:

"In the few badgers that do have symptoms, they are wheeziness and loss of weight and condition. There may be some skin ulceration."

So that's OK then? OK for badgers to die, drowning in their own body fluids, - as long as that death is unseen and its route progress airbrushed?

Anyone still under the impression that tuberculosis - or consumption as it used to be called in human beings - is a small inconvenient blip, or that any mammal suffering its end stages is not actually 'suffering', needs a reality check.

'Healthy wildlife - a prerequisite for healthy humans'.

2010-07-24T20:27:00.007+01:00

The latest newsletter issued by Florida based 'One Health', opens with an observation on the interaction between human beings, animals and the environment.
It describes two basic types of 'intrusions':

The first involves the intrusion of new and expanding human communities into uninhabited areas utilized by free-ranging wildlife. The second type of intrusion involves the colonization and/or seasonal uses of these communities by free-ranging wildlife. Both situations will continue to increase in association with the increasing human population and landscape changes that displace wildlife from their historic habitat.

While pointing out that in general, this interaction is not a cause for concern, nevertheless, with some diseases caution is needed. The author points out that this is because:

"In general, there is an absence of any coordinated approach for disease detection and reporting for many of the species groups beyond that independently carried out by specific interests. When infectious disease emergence is detected, timely response often is impeded by jurisdictional and social issues that serve to advance disease spread and establishment."

He continues,

"The wildlife ingredients within this “mixing bowl” are the most difficult to address because, unlike human and domestic animal health programs, there is no formal wildlife health infrastructure that links regulatory authorities, responsibilities for wildlife wellbeing, and disease reporting with dedicated agency programs for combating disease occurring among various wildlife populations. Instead collaborative efforts involving an informal coalition of various agencies, and interests, may become involved in any specific event. For example, it is common for the public to submit impaired wildlife to private sector wildlife rehabilitators. These individuals and programs have varying capacity to determine if infectious disease is involved or to prevent disease spread within their facilities."

Here, the author was talking about the USA, but he could just as easily have referred to the UK and bTB. With Defra, VLA, AHOs and veterinary surgeons operating independently of each other, and selectively from doctors and the HPA.

Another quote points out that pathogens do not indulge in specific species preference, and might be able to circulate in and between different animal populations, including wildlife, and people. The conclusion, is that

... healthy wildlife is a prerequisite for healthy humans.

Appearing in this medico/veterinary/environmental publication One Health is an update on the badger 'management' initiative which we posted here. (See p.7 of the 'One Health' pdf)
Author Richard Gard, describes the operating protocol:

"Working in areas of ten square miles, the activity of the badgers, their territories and the location of unhealthy or ‘skanky’ badgers are assessed and their location matched on a map with the location of the cattle. The farm boundaries and land ownership cease to be important. Many farms have parcels of land separated from one another. The picture that this provides is extremely interesting to the farmers and their veterinary surgeons and offers a means of reducing the transfer of infection. The planned programme is to achieve Healthy Badgers and Healthy Cattle."

This initiative involves not only farmers, but their vets, maps of farms and detail of land where reactor cattle have grazed. An overlay of badger setts and territories is then applied to this data. Cattle testing clear, and the badgers associated with their grazing areas are seen as as important as the TB reactor areas.

This postmortem pic is of a hugely emaciated badger with tuberculous pleurisy. Did it 'suffer'? A veterinary pathologist wryly points out that "it would be naive to assume that it did not". It is also naive to assume that prior to a very painful death, this badger did not share its burden of disease.

Mr. Gard's article continues on the theme of protecting healthy badgers:

Our observations show that the herds in areas with healthy badgers do not have the problem of repeated bovine TB. Farmers do need healthy badgers and by participating in the work cattlemen have shown a willingness to co-operate in this, even if in nothing else. The badgers also need help to prevent the spread of TB within their population. In many TB hotspot areas healthy badgers are in decline.

Further information on this project are available from Mr. Gard. Contact details at www.agmed.org.uk/projects.htm.

Copies of a film showing the basics of this initiative, can be obtained from :
www.chrischapmanphotography.com at £4.99 inc postage.
.......................................................

Another bTB article in One Health, appearing just below that written by Richard Gard, explains the problems of wild boar as wildlife vectors of bTB in North America. The author warns of the folly of letting bTB establish in feral swine populations :

"At the strategic level, federal and state officials have called for the establishment of a coordinated, comprehensive feral swine control program. To succeed, such a program would likely require legislation and regulatory changes,
coupled with a sustained multidimensional effort involving public education, law enforcement, and feral swine population suppression.
Current efforts to control feral swine, which differ widely among states, are fragmented and only marginally effective.

He concludes with an observation that is is equally valid in the UK:
"

History has shown that once bovine TB becomes established in a wildlife population, it is very difficult to eradicate the disease. "

One could add that as the longer bTB is allowed to establish, the more difficult and expensive it becomes to eradicate, the sooner we start, the better.

Cost v. benefit ( or skewing the numbers)

2010-07-17T19:32:00.003+01:00

Much is made of the alleged cost of culling badgers aka the ~~RBCT~~ Badger Dispersal Trial. And as both we and the trial managers have said, this proved 'ridiculously expensive for what it delivered'.

The quoted figure for each square kilometre of the RBCT cage trapped areas was £3,800, which at x badgers per sq.km is nothing short of - crazy.
This figure first surfaced in the Defra publication, 'Cost Benefit analysis of Badger management as a component of Bovine TB control in England', as £3,799 and neatly rounded up, has passed unhindered into TB numbers.
An 'Opinion' piece in Farmers Guardian (sorry, no link) this week, has drawn our attention to yet another Defra anomaly surrounding this assumption.

Jim Webster has placed two documents side by side. The ISG tome "Bovine TB : The Scientific Evidence, A Science Base for a Sustainable Policy to control TB in Cattle .. blah, blah, blah..' And the 'Impact Assessment of Amendments to legislation to allow the Vaccination of Badgers by persons other than Veterinary Surgeons.'

In both processes, areas are mapped, setts identified and cage traps set. In the case of the now defunct Vaccination Trial, large mesh English cages with 2 x 2 inch mesh (capable of taking a shot via any aperture) (In the case of the WAG cull, cages were designed shorter, with smaller mesh from which anything daft enough to enter had to be translocated to be shot.)

The RBCT used the 2 x 2 inch large mesh cages and PQs told us of the wastage for this type of high profile operation thus:

"..... Management records indicate that - over 116 culling operations, across 19 trial areas, between December 1998 and 10th October 2003, during which 15,666 traps were sited - there were 8981 individual occasions where a trap was interfered with, and 1827 individual occasions when a trap was removed."
 (Ref: Hansard 8th Dec 2003 Col 218W [ 141971]

Thus almost 70 percent of traps proved useless - and a published a cost of £3,800 per sq.km . Leading to the conclusion that this method of badger culling, would too expensive.

But the Vaccination Trial, using exactly the same cages and protocol published a annual cost of £1,440 per sq. km. for trapping and vaccinating badgers.

As Jim says, to account for the £2,360 per sq.km difference, and as they were providing the vaccine, Defra must 'be paying way over the odds for the 0.22 hollow point ammunition'.

(Or have the illegal antics of the Animal Rights Activists during the RBCT cost the taxpayer £2,360 per sq.km ?)

On the other hand, the pen pushers advising Defra and the WAG Ministers, may be somewhat economic with their information on culling, over enthusiastic about vaccinating infected badgers - and a tad ~~skewed~~ confused with their numbers.

As Jim Webster says,

"At the very least Defra is going to have to go back and prepare these figures properly this time, and ideally under the supervision of competent professionals".

Quite.

Good news for m.bovis bacteria

2010-07-13T10:38:00.004+01:00

It was announced this morning that the Welsh Assembly Government have lost their high court Appeal for a cull of badgers in the TB hotspot area of north Pembrokeshire.

Excellent news for m.bovis, the bacteria which cause TB, but seriously bad news for badgers, cattle, alpacas, cats, dogs, sheep, goats and possibly children, sharing their space and increasingly exposed to their spread.

UPDATE
High Court judgement is here.

Simplifications debunked.

2010-07-10T22:10:00.007+01:00

During these last weeks, several publications have carried some very simplistic comments on past strategies to control bTB in this country. Mainly they are along the lines of this rant by superannuated pop star and newly qualified stargazer, Dr. Brian May.

We have aired this chart before but it is important to see (we think) how, as badger control was progressively sanitised over time, cattle TB increased. Indeed, we are now told that was 'expected'. Well nice of the vets and MAFF to alert cattle farmers to this wasn't it? Cattle testing did not change over this time, in fact it increased as more herds went under restriction and needed six tests annually instead of one, and more parishes came under the annual testing net. England has always had a strict 'lock down' of herds revealing reactors. But Dr. May, following the lead from the Badger Trust's various spokes-persons argues that 'history shows badger culling does not work as a method for controlling bTB'.

We would say that our chart, together with explanations for ongoing 'badger friendly' exceptions to culling, shows that it did. From the early 1970s, when stringent cattle only measures in Glos and Cornwall were failing, badger setts close to persistently affected farms were gassed. No exceptions. No 'closed season' so that a sow could infect her cubs, and no waiting around for permission from various focus groups.
The CVO reports from the mid 70's finally recorded a drop in cattle slaughterings.

The number of cattle slaughtered in GB during 1982 was 605.

The Clean Ring strategy (1982 - 86) used the information from the cattle tests and gassed badgers in rough circle up to 7km from the outbreak, until badgers postmortemed clear of TB. The change to cage traps during this period showed a slight increase in cattle TB but was still workable - although fraught with opportunities for interference such as the ~~RBCT~~ Badger Dispersal Trial suffered. And the relocation of 'rescued' TB-takeaways didn't help disease control, but obviously gave the rescuers a warm glow.

In 1987, the number of cattle slaughtered in GB was 1183.

But in that year (1987) the most significant sanitisation occurred when the Interim Strategy reduced the land available to the WLUs for trapping to just 1km, and then only on land grazed by cattle. So if the sett was in an arable field, fenced woodland or on a neighbouring farm, the WLU couldn't touch it. Finally after £1 million bung from the PAL in 1997, gov'ment introduced the moratorium on Section 10 of the Protection of Badgers Act and MAFF / Defra refused to issue licenses to control disease.

In 1997 GB slaughtered 3760 cattle, and one year after the moratorium 6083.

Our chart uses MAFF / Defra cattle slaughter figures to log the difference these sanitising tweaks to badger control made to the disease in cattle. And Dr. May is mistaken if he genuinely believes that cattle testing and movement restrictions over this time were in any way loosened. They have progressively tightened as hotspots expanded.

And of course his (and the Badger Trust's) wide generalisations fall apart when the same TB testing of cattle in other countries which either do not support a wildlife reservoir of disease, or take parallel measures to control it, have cleared their cattle herds completely. The number of cattle found with TB by slaughterhouse inspections do not support this assumption of a huge hidden reservoir either.

Then there are Defra's carefully crafted spoligotype maps showing a consistent strain in one area. Not a hotchpotch which there would be, if cattle continually and over the decades this data has been collated, had moved TB around the country.

Dr. May is quoted in FG article as "citing the Independent Scientific Group’s (ISG) 2008 report and subsequent updates based on continuing monitoring of the cull areas as the scientific proof."

Now that is interesting. Just this week we hear from the lead ex ISG mathematical modeller that although her electronic abacus is showing sustained reductions in TB across all the proactive areas of the RBCT, her input data (details of which was not shouted loud enough for us to hear) indicate that although a badger cull reduces cattle TB, it would be too expensive. In fact Christl Donnelly went so far as to say it would take "12 years to recoup the cost". This was on Sky News (no link)
And with that we would agree. Culling badgers as done in the RBCT showed us exactly how not to do it. Launching into a highly infectious population for just 8 nights, using cage traps just once a year - if you were lucky. Ridiculous - as key bits of this EFRAcom submission from a trial manager explain:

5. Krebs had too many anomalies and weaknesses in the strategy for it to be successful. It took us four years to steer away from trapping setts that had been interfered with by Animal Rights Activists, to be able to trap badgers anywhere, in order to eliminate them. That was only one of a raft of operational problems we faced and had to endure.

6. Limited trapping - eight days per year with Krebbs - has little effect if carried out late in the year. The effect being that areas went almost two years without an effective cull.

7. The costs for a future culling policy must NOT be based on Krebs costings. [ snipped ]
Krebs was ridiculously expensive for what it delivered.

But as we have said before when we explored the original Krebs' protocol and compared to the the 'political science' John Bourne was sooooooooo proud to deliver, this exercise was designed to fail.

At its outset, both vets and trial managers say they were told by the diminutive professor, "this is a cattle disease, and will be treated as such". End of story.

But a change came in 2004, with a new trial manager appointed, protocol loosened (as explained above), traps laid on badger trails and more diseased ones were caught.

Thus the 2008 update report from Jenkins et al, after cattle tests caught up with this change, saw a reversal of Bourne's unique 'halo' effect - his reason for dismissing badger culling in the 2007 report - and that improvement in cattle TB both within the proactive areas and around them was intensified and sustained in Donnelly's publication of 2010.

Can you see their little brains ticking ? ... "Good grief, this wasn't meant to happen ...."

Cattle slaughterings have dropped a little in the first couple of months of this year, compared with 2009's figure of 36,322. And inevitably this is used as an excuse to say 'cattle measures must be working'. But the only 'cattle measure' which is newish, preMT, was introduced in 2006, and that would (should?) find more reactors, not less. So what is happening?

1. Across all ten RBCT proactive areas, incidence of cattle TB has dropped. And much to the chagrin of the ISG team, that drop is continuing.

2. We've had a lot of UV sunlight this spring, which is death for m.bovis deposited on pasture in a short period of time. Dull, wet weather extends its survival.

3. Imported Dutch tuberculin antigen was introduced for testing in June/July 2009. And the last time this happened, in 2006, the cattle slaughterings similarly dropped, with the CVO's report of that year explaining:

"The comparison of the tuberculin data, indicates to date that a proportion of VL animals [ ] differs significantly between Weybridge and Dutch PPD batches, with the Weybridge results having a smaller % of VLs.

The authors of the report say that there are two ways of interpreting this, but conclude that the following is most likely:

"The sensitivity of the combined Dutch PPDs is less, because of failing to pick up NVLs (animals which could be in the early stages of disease) which may or may not be confirmed with culture, to the same extent as Weybridge PPDs. This would result in under detection of cases, resulting in a transient decline in cases reported, despite there being no true decline in cases."

Thus the incidence of bTb may not be dropping significantly, but the incidence of its detection, especially in the early pre visible lesion stages, was.
If this is the case again, then we will see a greater number of lesioned reactors this summer and later.

4. Areas of the country with deep, entrenched TB problems are said to be exploring a management plan.

5. Defra tweaked the interpretation of IRs on severe on January 1st this year, with a new test chart, leading to less severe interpretation IRs slaughtered..

All will have had an impact on numbers of reactors.

And so to the latest money spinner. Biosecurity.

Despite Dr. May's and the Badger Trusts' outraged howls that bTB is all about cattle, Defra and others have spent an inordinate amount of effort printing guidelines of how to keep badgers away from cattle. Much is as useful as a wet paper bag, and is contradicted by research which ~~Defra~~ the taxpayer has funded.

The big one is trough height. Still the figure of 30 inches is quoted. Why? Defra know full well from Dr. Tim Roper's reserach that badgers can easily access cattle feed in troughs over 4 feet high. And at that height, our PQs kindly tell us, 'cattle cannot reach to eat'. Quite.

Our PQs also told us that while cattle will avoid faeces on their grazing ground, they cannot avoid the yard long trails of urine voided by incontinent wandering badgers.

And then there is electric fencing. Fence 'em out - that'll sort it. But in their evidence to EFRAcom, the Wildlife Trusts explained that badgers are the main predator of bees' and wasps' nests. So, if thousands of angry bees stinging their nose didn't put them off - what chance electric fences?

This was such a nest - which became badger MacDonalds. All that is left are two pieces of honeycomb - and some seriously angry occupants. So before anyone launches into this sort of advice, they had better be sure that it will work.

And they would do well to remember the words of the retired director of Woodchester Park, Dr. Chris Cheeseman, who, when asked how to keep badgers and cattle apart, replied "You can't, you get rid of your cattle".

Badger vaccine project scrapped

2010-06-25T22:16:00.002+01:00

News today that the badger vaccine project, of which we have been less than enthusiastic in the areas and with the operating procedure proposed, is to be scrapped. One pilot will go ahead near Cheltenham.

Details here.

The silent killer

2010-06-22T20:04:00.008+01:00

These videos (click left hand arrow to view) were kindly sent by one of the members of the Camelid TB Support Group. We have permission to use them. Their purpose is not to break your heart (and it will) but to show you how perfectly healthy a young alpaca can look (this cria was under a year old) - and yet be riddled with TB having PASSED a skin test.

The first clip was taken an hour before he was put down. He was in his pen - alone, waiting to be culled. He wasn't showing ANY signs of ANY illness let alone TB. He had passed the skin test twice, but failed the blood test. He is eating, inquisitive, bright and has no weight loss. No outward signs at all.

This alpaca was culled one hour after the footage was taken. He had TB lesions throughout his entire organs. This is the silent killer known as TB. Alpaca owners cannot rely on the skin test alone to detect TB infected animals. They cannot trade with any confidence when out of restriction having only used the skin test.

Advice from alpaca vet, Gina Bromage is to not consider selling, showing or moving alpacas around for a minimum of one year (possibly longer) - on the back of a negative skin test. As the video clip clearly shows , a negative skin test in alpacas does not mean a lot and stresses the importance of the blood tests and the current research into the gamma interferon validation project and the hope of a reliable ante-mortem TB test.

(This posting from Dianne Summers, who runs the Camelid TB Support Group)

Biocsecurity cash snatch ?

2010-06-12T20:23:00.005+01:00

... and it is likely to be ours.
We have been uneasy for several months now with the recurring mention of 'bio-security' (whatever that might mean in the context of bTB ) in the same breath as tabular compulsory purchase monies, or cross compliance with the SFP.

Our co-editor gave his unique overview of Defra's 'fence 'em out' big idea, in a previous post. But like a bad smell, it keeps recurring. In fact researchers have had taxpayer's cash to further line their pockets in a couple of reports, produced for Defra where they explore 'bio-security' in no particular depth, and little background certainty that their 'big ideas' will yield anything at all.

Farmers deserve better. But at the moment it looks as if, once again, we may be led up a garden path on a journey based more on hope than experience.

In January, we posted the job opportunity advertised by the NFU, paid for with ~~European Union~~ UK taxpayers' cash. This team has now been interviewed and appointed and can be contacted on email to info@southwest-tbadvice.co.uk and a new website ( under construction) at www.southwest-tbadvice.co.uk

While many farmers will welcome dedicated support as described in the flyer leaflet from the SW TB Advisory service, most of us would prefer it was not necessary. And some of us, seeing that one part of the package involves 'Disease Risk management' are wondering how long it will be before such ideas as explained in Defra's advice booklet (Number 10) become part of compulsory action with cash penalties for alleged breaches?

Defra have abandoned their single booklet which was given to farmers at the time of a TB breakdown, in favour of 15 separate leaflets, heavy on pictures but short on information. Or information of any value. If this (or the SW TB Advisory Service's) advice is followed, then farmers are entitled to expect results. And from what we have seen of the basic list, that will not happen.

A decade ago, 'keep a closed herd' was the mantra. That didn't work for some of our contributers and now all manner of bolt-ons have appeared in the form of 'shared slurry spreaders' and access. (Our contributers have neither but still have TB) And Defra are still banging on about feed troughs 'at least 75cm ( that's 30 inches in old money) off the ground'. This despite having added to Prof. Tim Roper's pension pot, by commissioning research in 2001 which saw badgers easily accessing troughs at 43 inches. They didn't have to stand on each others shoulders either. And it was the lightweight ones with overgrown claws, which then hooked these over the edge of the trough, then swung up and in. Simple. PQs confirmed this research, adding the proviso that "at this height, cattle would not be able to access". Quite.

What we did like about Defra's No 10 leaflet entitled 'Dealing with TB in your Herd', was the pretty pictures of badgers all over it - although why not pics like this we really cannot imagine. The leaflet tells us (so it must be true):

"Badgers present a particular challenge to all cattle farmers who want to keep their herd bovine TB free"

Strictly speaking that is not true. Defra's intransigence and decades of prevarication over what action to direct at TB infected badgers is the challenge cattle farmers face. But we digress. The blurb continues:

"Badgers in particular, suffer from TB and are able to transmit the disease to cattle causing a breakdown in a herd that will result in movement restrictions and slaughter of affected cattle".

Yes. Of that we are only too well aware. But what are Defra going to do about it as these animals have acquired cult status and their ancestral homes a Grade 1 listing?

"This leaflet provides some guidance on what you can do to reduce the risk of transmission to your cattle".

Troughs at 30 inches? Not according to that Defra funded film.
Sheeted gates 4 inches off the ground? Nope, they can slither under those.
And whaddya do about the grass? That isn't mentioned.
Oh, and for goodness sake don't leave a ladder about.
Seen in a Kitchen Garden magazine this month, the following gem as an answer to a gardener wanting to harvest carrots for himself and seeking advice on how to exclude ~~vermin~~ badgers:

"I do know of an allotment holder who built a 6 foot high fence around his land to protect his sweetcorn, with access via a ladder which he left at one side for him to get into the enclosure"

You know what's coming next, don't you?

"He left the ladder up against the fence one night, and the badgers got in."

We reiterate what we said in the posting which advertised the SW Advisory team jobs.

Someones idea of 'bio-security' may have a profound effect on any compensation monies due, however unproven, ineffective, impractical or costly such measures may be.

We are also reminded of the words spoken at least twice in our hearing, by the former chief at Woodchester Park's Badger Heaven, Dr. Chris Cheeseman. When asked how to keep badgers and cattle apart, his reply was unequivocal:

"You can't. You get rid of your cattle".

Cattle farmers, you have been warned.

2010-06-05T20:00:00.002+01:00

The maiden speech of the new MP for Totnes, Dr. Sarah Wollaston, contained the following observation.

In the South Hams, we also have some of the most spectacular countryside, but I have to inform Members that that countryside is in crisis. We are fast losing our sustainability as more and more dairy farms in particular go out of business because of the problems of bovine tuberculosis. Devon is, in fact, at the very heart of the bovine TB epidemic.

As a doctor, I have to tell Members that we cannot treat infected badgers by vaccination. Vaccination can only hope to prevent the disease in unaffected individuals.

I have been teaching junior doctors evidence-based medicine for 11 years, and I can say that one of the problems we face is that the randomised badger culling trial has for years wrongly been used to justify a policy of inaction.

Unless we do something about bovine TB, more and more of our farmers will go out of business. We need to recognise the effect on them and their families, and the very real distress bovine TB causes them.

With that we would agree. Vaccinating endemically infected badgers with a BCG type jab, and that only for a couple of nights and only 3 hours daylight per night trapping, is about as daft as it gets. On the other hand, is has been suggested that the effect of this extra stress on an infected (or infectious) badger, plus a top up BCG jab, may cause an anaphylactic type reaction, seen in alpacas, which could lead to death.

Other farmers have told us that they only signed up for the proposed Vaccine Deployment Project, in the hope of getting their land surveyed early, ahead of any targetted cull. If that was implied by Defra or Fera at the VDP launch meetings, it is a pretty shoddy way to deliver their next ~~prevarication~~ 'Big Idea', piggy backing a £20million scam onto hope value.

'Side effects' after the skin test - a request

2010-05-30T07:14:00.006+01:00

The intradermal skin test, universally used to screen cattle for exposure to bTB, is also used when a breakdown has occurred on goats, sheep and camelids.

We are hearing of increasing numbers of whole body 'reactions' to skin test jabs in alpacas.

In another life, we were taught that the mantra of "clinical disease + an introduced top up dose" - in the form of vaccination, or possibly a screening jab? - meant death. In almost 40 years of first hand experience of the test used on cattle, we have never seen a reaction such as this. But talking to cattle farmers who were around during the eradication years of the early 1960's, and who remembered the effect of the skin test on some clinically infected cattle, it could happen.

We have received the following request for further information on these 'reactions' from the Cornwall Alpaca Group's welfare liaison officer, and organiser of the Alpaca TB Support Group, Dianne Summers, which we are happy to post:

'REACTIONS' FOLLOWING THE SKIN TESTING OF ALPACAS.

Members of the Alpaca TB support group who have kindly forwarded details of their tests, losses and post mortem results to me for filing, have also mentioned some extreme reactions in their animals, following the skin test jabs.

One of my own animals, (Cloud) also had this reaction. In Cloud’s case, it appeared within an hour of the test, (after my AHO had left) and left him gasping for breath, with legs extended, distressed and with an increased heartbeat. Although his ‘reaction’ had gone within a couple of days, Cloud was subsequently found to have generalised TB at postmortem.

Within our small support group of 28 alpaca owners, 22 animals have suffered a similar reaction. In three cases, the animals have died before the reading of the test. Others have been euthanased on welfare grounds. Some appeared to recover, but a positive skin test and/or blood test has meant they have been culled and found to have clinical TB at postmortem, some in several organs of their bodies.

A retired veterinary scientist, who attended an Alpaca TB Awareness Roadshow and is on my mailing list for updates of our support group, has expressed interest in this 'side effects' data which the group have provided. Although he has been worked for almost 40 years with bTB in cattle (and badgers), the extreme reaction to the skin test which some of our alpacas have had, is something he has not experienced before.

He is keen to document it and offer his findings to the veterinary / scientific press. To do this he needs to speak directly to the owners (or their vets) of animals in which this reaction has been seen. In papers of this sort, owner's anonymity is completely protected, with the animal in question given a label 'a' or 'b', or numbered.

It is not lumps or bumps he is looking for. It is this violent (and sometimes fatal) whole body type reaction to the skin test, which is of interest. This may happen within the first minutes (or hours) of the jab and in my case (Cloud) could not have been passed off as ‘stress’. The interest of the veterinary professionals who have requested information from owners, is driven by concern for the welfare of our alpacas. As this reaction is not routinely seen in cattle, it is possible that it is a violently ‘positive’ reaction of alpacas who may have clinical TB (as the majority of this 'side effect' group have proved to have) when given the screening test of a bTB ppd antigen jab.

If any alpaca owner has experienced this ‘side effect’ of the skin test on any of their animals, and would be prepared to contribute this experience to the author of the proposed veterinary paper, could they please contact me on the numbers below.

Dianne Summers
Camelid TB Support Group
01209 822422
07949511316
summersdianne@yahoo.com

Amongst the members of the TB support group, 28 alpaca owners have reported that 22 of their animals suffered this type of reaction a short time after receiving the intradermal TB skin test. In some animals, the reaction eventually proved fatal. Others were euthanased ahead of an elective cull, after a positive reaction to the test, on welfare grounds.

For the welfare of alpacas, we think it is very important to investigate the scale of this 'reaction', when the intradermal TB screening test is offered to animals which may be already clinically infected.

A day is a long time in politics....

2010-05-20T20:08:00.004+01:00

....and a week even longer. Before the election, both the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats committed to a targeted cull of badgers to end this crazy one sided polemic of slaughtering sentinel cattle, while ignoring the cause of up 90 percent of their problems.

But on Tuesday 18th May, Caroline Spelman, newly appointed Secretary of State for the Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, in an interview with Farmers Guardian political editor, Alistair Driver, was less than enthusiastic about honouring this manifesto pledge.

She indicated that there was no guarantee the policy would be delivered, despite a pre-election Tory pledge to implement a badger cull if they were elected.
Asked if the Tory pledge on a badger cull still held, Ms Spelman said only that she had ‘not closed down any options’. Mrs Spelman was clear she wanted make up her own mind on the issue and was prepared to take her time in order to develop a ‘science-led policy’.

Mrs. Spelman said she wanted to monitor the effectiveness of the Welsh pilot badger cull, due to start in north Pembrokeshire this month, before deciding whether to pursue the policy in England.

(And how long is that lukewarm prevarication going to take, one may ask? The Honourable Lady's predecessor was going to 'await for the outcome of the Irish 4 County trial'. And when it successfully reported, he ignored it.)

“In all areas, I must take my time and be properly briefed,” she said, adding that the problem had got much worse since she was last involved in the agricultural industry more than a decade ago. “The fact that the disease is now much more widely penetrated over a much wider geographical area makes the decision more difficult and more complex. I believe in evidence-led policy making and I think we should wait to see how the Welsh get on,” she said.

But in curious twist to this comment (made by Mrs. Spelman on Tuesday 18th May) today, 20th May a press release was issued by her office which appeared less reticent. The Guardian has the strapline, "English Badgers set for Targeted culls" and describes how:

The new coalition agreement released by Downing Street today says: "As part of a package of measures, we will introduce a carefully managed and science-led policy of badger control in areas with high and persistent levels of bovine tuberculosis."

While Valerie Elliot of The Times seems to have cut and pasted a different offering from Caroline Spelman's department. Carrying the strapline "Minister blocks cull of badgers in bovine TB hotspots", The Times continues:

Plans for an emergency cull of badgers in hotspots of bovine TB are to be delayed while Caroline Spelman, the Rural Affairs Secretary, reviews the scientific evidence. Ministers will also await the outcome of a pilot cull in West Wales before embarking on such a policy in England.

The decision will disappoint many farmers, especially those in areas with highest incidence of the disease, such as the South West. A further review is surprising because the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats supported an emergency cull of badgers during the election campaign.

But while readers of The Times were digesting that with their organic muesli, the Minister of State, Jim Paice MP., speaking on the opening day of the Devon County show confirmed his commitment to a targeted cull of badgers in TB hotspots.

A cull of badgers is to be introduced in Devon and Cornwall to combat bovine tuberculosis (TB) in cattle. Farming Minister Jim Paice confirmed the news at the Devon County Show. The government says it is examining how best to roll out the policy, with a pilot vaccination scheme due to start across England this month.

So dear readers, make of that what you will. Wriggle room? More prevarication? More dead cattle - and alpacas, cats, dogs, sheep, pigs, goats and companion mammals?

As manifestos are torn up and our newly self-appointed Siamese Twins bulldoze their ideas through and over their party faithful, the only sure thing about politics is that when a politician's lips are moving - he's lying..

Shrinking halos ?

2010-05-19T17:02:00.006+01:00

During the ~~RBCT~~ Badger Dispersal Trial's 8 night, very infrequent hit-and-run excursions into TB infected badger populations, the ISG's computer models logged an increase in cattle TB in the areas surrounding the 'clearance' zones. These 'halos' were offered as an argument for doing nothing, as they had appeared to make matters worse for cattle herds surrounding culled areas.

The fact that in previous decades of GB's progressively sanitised badger removals, no such 'halos' appeared around areas (large or small) which were culled out adequately, seems to have escaped the great and the good of the ISG. As did the change in RBCT protocol after the first 4/5 years of chaos, which meant that they did actually achieve some sort of a clearance as we reported here.

This was reflected in the Jenkins paper, published in 2008 which we discussed here. The ISG team requested more ~~government cash~~ work, and they were able to continue to log cattle breakdown data from the RBCT areas for a longer period of time. The team of scientists and statisticians undertaking the follow-up work to the RBCT trial have published again updating data on the impacts of cattle TB incidence of repeated badger culling

This additional data has been further analysed as a comment on a scientific website by one of the team, Prof. Christl Donnelly.

Since publication of the paper “The duration of the effects of repeated widespread badger culling on cattle TB following the cessation of culling”, (see abstract here) an additional six months of cattle testing data have become available. These allowed analyses to be updated.

In the time period from one year after the last proactive cull to 31 January 2010 (the post-trial period), the incidence of confirmed breakdowns in the proactive culling areas was 37.0% lower (95% CI: 25.3% to 46.8% lower) than in survey-only areas and in areas up to 2km outside proactive trial areas was 3.6% lower (95% CI: 29.0% lower to 31.0% higher) than outside survey-only areas.

"Exploratory analyses stratified by 6-month periods (Table 1) suggested, unexpectedly, that the beneficial effects observed within trial areas in the first year post-trial, have reappeared in the last 6-month period analysed (37 to 42 months post-trial)."

"These latest results are consistent with a constant benefit of proactive culling continuing through this latest period. However, the effects observed outside trial areas are consistent with no ongoing effects of proactive culling in these areas."

"There is no clear explanation for the unexpected pattern observed within trial areas based on these latest data. (We examined parish test intervals and they are very similar in and around proactive and survey-only trial areas.) Continued monitoring is necessary to quantify any further temporal changes in the effects."

This updated data shows that in the period starting one year after culling stopped up until 31 January 2010 the incidence of confirmed breakdowns in the proactive culling areas was 37% lower than survey only areas (areas which were surveyed but not culled). Furthermore in the areas adjoining the culled area the incidence was 3.6% lower. This means that any initial perturbation effect has been quickly overturned and there is now a lower than previous incidence in these areas.

So, a begging bowl extended for 'more monitoring' ? - that was to be expected.
But no halos? And the excuse for doing nothing goes where, exactly?

Doubling up

2010-05-12T08:13:00.002+01:00

We have received the following update from the Alpaca TB Support Group. This small number of owners and breeders (about 28 herds) are in contact with each other for support and advice, when they find they have a TB casualty among their animals. The number of deaths from bTB which they have reported within the group, is a mere snapshot of camelid deaths from TB in the country, but even among this group, casualties have almost doubled from last year.

Through their enquiries, the group have learnt that the 'official' camelid TB figures, produced occasionally by Defra and updated quarterly (although we note that this chart has been the same for six months ) refer only to samples submitted to VLA. So if an animal dies on farm, is postmortemed on farm, but is part of a larger or ongoing TB breakdown, then culture samples are not submitted. And thus it drops off the 'official' statistics radar.

Which would go some way to explaining why the Defra figures are (still) showing 68 confirmed TB casualties for 2009, with 120 samples submitted, while the members of the TB support group have recorded 144 deaths. All positively confirmed by veterinary post mortems.

Up to Dec 31st 2009 those in contact with the TB support group lost 144 alpacas/llamas [with] confirmed TB. This works out roughly 12 a month. From that 144 we had 12 skin test positives 7 of which were from one herd.

In the first 4 months of 2010 From 1st Jan - 30th April 2010 members in contact with the TB support group have lost 94 alpacas.

.... which works out to over 23 animals per month - and almost double the incidence of 2009.

Statistics for cattle are more robust, as BCMS and CTS are involved and individual animals are logged. But we understand that due to financial pressures, (and numbers?) as with camelids, samples consigned to VLA for TB strain cultures or 'spoligotyping' are limited to the first couple of an ongoing breakdown.

For over forty years, the results of cattle casualties and RTAs or badger removals, have been painstakingly logged and mapped by VLA and our posting gives some results of the blocks of GB countryside where an 'environmental' strain of TB is circulating between sentinel tested, slaughtered cattle and free ranging, endemically infected badgers - and available to any other mammal who happens to wander by. Including highly susceptible alpacas.

From a comment on the Alpaca blog, it would appear that although TB can be spread between infected imported herd members, only 6 herds could nail their outbreaks positively to this source. For the others TB had come from a wildlife source, whose name Defra are not keen to mention.

Welsh pilot area begins

2010-05-01T08:30:00.002+01:00

Today, May 1st, the Welsh bTB eradication area pilot begins.
This was kick started with clearance of the pilot badger cull from the Bern Convention which yesterday decided to squash a complaint brought by the Badger Trust.

"The Rural Affairs Minister Elin Jones has welcomed the decision by the Bureau to the Standing Committee of the Convention on the Conservation of European Wildlife and Natural Habitats - also known as the Bern Convention - not to continue with a complaint brought by the Badger Trust with regard to the planned cull of badgers in west Wales."

In a meeting in Strasbourg on 29th March 2010, the Bureau, which takes administrative and organisational decisions between meetings of the Standing Committee, decided to remove the complaint from its complaints list.
Elin Jones said:

“This is confirmation that the Bureau agrees with our view that the provisions of the Bern Convention have been fully respected in considering the proposed badger cull. “

“We will continue with the preparations in the pilot area. Bovine TB is one of the biggest problems facing cattle farmers across Wales, and we have to tackle all sources of the disease. We will face serious consequences if we do not.”

This decision comes hard on the heels of a recent Judicial Review in the High Court, where the Welsh Assembly Government successfully defended its decision to implement a limited badger cull in west Wales.

At the same time, cattle measures in Wales will be tightened up to reflect 'severe interpretation' protocol on all tests. Farmers Guardian gives the following details:

* Herds to be tested every six months.

* All breakdowns, whether or not ‘confirmed’ by post-mortem, will require two clear 60 day tests, to release movement restrictions.

* Breakdowns will also be subject to tracing which will generate additional testing for associated cattle herds. (We assume this means 'all' breakdowns, as confirmed ones generate traces at present? - ed)

* There will also be restrictions on cattle movements within and outside the area.

* All British Cattle Movement Service (BCMS) linkages and Sole Occupancy Authorities (SOAs) between holdings inside and outside the pilot area are being cancelled, requiring farmers to report all movements to BCMS and comply with pre-movement testing requirements.

* Farmers have also received visits from their private vets to discuss bio-security arrangements on their farms to reduce risk of TB getting into and spreading in their herds.

“The bovine TB eradication programme is a long-term project will last for five years and includes a range of measures designed to restrict and ultimately eradicate TB in cattle,” said Chief Veterinary Officer for Wales, Dr. Christianne Glossop “In the pilot area, local vets have been working with farmers since before Christmas to improve bio-security on farms. The additional measures are a vital element of the programme.

“We know that cattle and badgers are the main sources of the disease and that, if we want to achieve our aim of eradicating bovine TB, we have to tackle the disease in both species." said Dr. Glossop.

With that we would agree, and we wish them luck.

But if they get the badger part wrong then as has been tried before, no amount of nailing cattle to the floor, will make the slightest difference to TB incidence, which is already spilling over into other mammals both in the Principality and England.

Northern BAS shows to restrict entries.

2010-04-24T18:41:00.004+01:00

Below are new biosecurity conditions which will apply to entries to the following two northern shows for alpacas. This is follow up post to our posting below, where the new BAS bio security guidelines were given an airing at Bristol.

The Northumberland show, to be held on 31st May, and the Border Union show, scheduled for July 30 - 31st at Kelso, have published the following conditions of entry:

Entries at both these shows are to be restricted on a geographical basis. This has been agreed by the BAS Board for 2010 only. The situation will be reviewed in 2011.

For any alpaca owners who are unaware of their parish testing interval, all areas west of Defra's maginot line (which is roughly from North Staffordshire, dropping south to Dorset, and coloured red on the map), are on annual testing of their cattle herds. The buffer zone to the east of this line and coloured orange, is on two year testing. The line has already moved further east than this illustration shows.

Full details are available on the website (www.bas-uk.com) under Shows & Events/Programmes.

The restrictions are as follows:

Northumberland

In order to instill confidence in both alpaca and other livestock exhibitors, entries will only be accepted for animals from 3- & 4-year cattle bTB testing areas. Please check your Parish Testing Interval on the Animal Health website before making your entry and include your holding number with your entry fees.
A reduction in the number of entries has been necessary to enable a 3-metre gap between breeders. Spit barriers and comprehensive biosecurity procedures will be in place, as per BAS recommendations.

And over the border to Scotland, which has recently been granted TB-free status,

Kelso

By order of the Border Union Show Committee, because of Scotland's TB-Free status, entries from England are only open to animals from 3- & 4-year cattle bTB testing areas. Please check your Parish Testing Interval on the Animal Health website.
Full postcodes and Holding numbers of origin are mandatory. Any herd that has been in contact with animals from a 1- or 2-year testing area within the 6 months prior to the show will not be eligible to enter.

More details can be found on the BAS website and local AHOs will confirm the parish testing interval of your holding.

© 2006 British Alpaca Society Ltd www.bas-uk.com

Biosecurity - camelids

2010-04-19T06:57:00.008+01:00

The BAS (British Alpaca Society) is well aware after a series of 'TB Awareness' roadshows that when TB hits an alpaca herd, it is more than capable of inter herd spread. The society recently issued Bio security guidelines to all its members. These included the following advice which was designed to minimise contact with other alpacas:

* Herd pens should be separated three metres apart, if possible, with animals penned by county. If the Show Organiser deems it necessary, animals that have been bTB tested should be penned together and kept separate from those herds that have not been tested.

* There should be no collecting ring; the alpacas should enter and exit the show ring via single one-way circular routes.

* The show ring should be as large as possible to allow for the maximum separation of show animals.

* There should be no fans of any type for reasons of bio security and electrical safety

* Alpacas should only be permitted to leave their designated pens to enter the show ring for judging or exiting the showground. There should be no 'airing of the fleece' in outside areas.

Hard on the heels of this most sensible list, came an alpaca show in the SW, from where this pic was snapped. Pens 3m apart to prevent inter herd contact? No fans?
(see later Contributor Update for more on this)

We have given alpacas a considerable airing on this site, as unfortunately for them, they are particularly susceptible to tuberculosis. They also have the ability to become infectious very quickly, to spread the disease between themselves and the potential to transmit to TB to their owners or other mammals.

Unfortunately, even squeezed down to practically zero, the intradermal skin test is not a good indicator of TB exposure in alpacas, and Defra have recently pulled the financial rug on one promising supplementary blood test. The reason given for this was 'lack of funding'. But the cynical amongst us would point out that the "don't look, won't find" culture thrives in the upper echelons of Defra. Particularly as we understand that the BAS has offered to underwrite the costs of validating blood tests on behalf of their members. In a different pot, and slightly off topic, Defra are sitting on £420 million (yes that is correct - lots of noughts) underspend after over estimating take up on some Environmental schemes, and last week's national media reported the department spent (sorry - no link) £7000 per week (£3.5 million in the year) moving furniture around its many departments.

We do not overestimate the importance of clearing reservoirs of TB - wherever they may be. That is the ethos of the site. So to see irresponsibility on the part of some camelid owners is - disappointing. Particularly as from a very small section of owners who have banded together to form a TB support group, come the news of 144 confirmed alpaca deaths from TB during 2009. The group now report a doubling of TB incidence to 68 in the first three months of 2010.

We look forward to seeing these figures accurately reflected on Defra's 'Other species' TB stats, in due course.

This picture is of an alpaca trachea, heavily infected with open TB lesions right up to his throat. He had passed a couple of skin tests.

When questioned about infectivity of this animal: "would he have been infectious when he coughed or spat?" .....

... veterinary advice was that he was "grossly infectious" with every breath he exhaled.

And with no outward symptoms of disease, and having passed skin tests, this animal could have been amongst those in the pens, pictured above.
Right next to other groups - no 3m gap - and with his exhaled air having the benefit of electronic spread.

There are times when words really do fail us.

CONTRIBUTOR UPDATE:

We have had contact from several alpaca owners who attended the SW show. These are some of their comments on the biosecurity arrangements in evidence.
One breeder was 'interested to see how the new organiser would implement the BAS biosecurity guidelines', and being a BAS supported show, had expected to see efforts made to protect alpacas from disease.

What a disgrace. Just about every guideline was breached.
* There was nowhere near 3m between pens.
* Most pens had fans running, some as many as 3 fans per pen.
* There was a holding area, and alpacas were nose to nose.
* People were walking their alpacas around airing them outside...
* and allowing them to kiss noses with other alpacas.

This comment noted that there was 'a disinfectant pad to walk over'. That was the only measure he could see. And this breeder concluded that it would be unwise to bring his animals to a show.

A second breeder was equally unimpressed, commenting that on his arrival:

* We saw people walking their alpacas outside.
* We could have walked in without being challenged..
* and there were no disinfectant footbaths or pads at the front of the building.
* There was nobody to ensure that animals were walked over pads either on their way to the show ring.
*Animals were kept separated by one pen in the showhalls but this would be ineffective as they were in close proximity to each other in other areas..

The comment continued on the use of fans:

We were shocked at just how many fans there were. We counted at least 11 before we gave up and there were only 23 breeders in attendance; we have made a note of exactly who was using fans.

This writer of this communication questioned whether the organisers of this show had received the BAS Guidelines. And he ended with the comment on this apparent lack of biosecurity awareness:

This is particularly horrifying as it was the South West Show and we all are now aware that this is the area of the country at greatest risk from TB"

Tie a yellow ribbon?

2010-04-18T07:03:00.002+01:00

The BVA (British Veterinary Association) have issued a statement supporting the High Court decision, that the proposed cull of infected badgers in Wales, is lawful.

Commenting on the verdict, Professor Bill Reilly, President of the British Veterinary Association, said:

“The BVA and BCVA welcome the outcome of the Judicial Review which means that the Welsh Assembly Government’s important work to control and eradicate bovine tuberculosis can go ahead.

John Blackwell, Senior Vice President of the British Cattle Veterinary Association, (BCVA) added:

“We have strongly supported the Welsh Assembly Government’s TB Eradication Order because it combines strong measures to tackle the disease in both cattle and wildlife. We are therefore pleased that the court has declared the Order is lawful.

“We will be watching the outcomes of the measures in Wales under the Order closely and hope that, if successful, these measures will be replicated in other areas of the UK.”

And therein lies the problem, as it was with the ~~RBCT~~ Badger Dispersal Trial. Just how is this exercise going to be carried out and will it be 'successful' - as in reducing sentinel tested cattle slaughter and the opportunity for disease spillback into other mammals?

Will it be quiet, clean, thorough and anonymous? Will experienced operatives be allowed input to decision making, so that problems are tackled before they disrupt the operation? Or, like the bureaucratic, intermittent, incomplete and highly visible RBCT, will it actually achieve it's aim and just scatter a highly infectious population of badgers?

Several contributers to this site had the serious misfortune to be included in the ~~RBCT~~ Badger Dispersal Trial triplets. Some in the Proactive areas, one in the Reactive. Their experiences were the same. Intermittent hit-and-run highly publicised visits led to trap interference and trespass by 'activists' hell bent on protecting their chosen species, no matter what the cost to others. And this especially in the first four years of so-called 'culling'. We do not label this farce 'badger disersal' for nothing.

Our bitter experiences were supported in a submission to EFRAcom in 2006, by one of thetrial managers who said:

. * Krebs had too many anomalies and weaknesses in the strategy for it to be successful. It took us four years to steer away from trapping setts that had been interfered with by Animal Rights Activists, to be able to trap badgers anywhere, in order to eliminate them. That was only one of a raft of operational problems we faced and had to endure.

* Limited trapping - eight days per year with Krebbs - has little effect if carried out late in the year. The effect being that areas went almost two years without an effective cull. (In some cases three, or not at all - ed)

* The costs for a future culling policy must NOT be based on Krebs costings. [ snipped ]
Krebs was ridiculously expensive for what it delivered.

So what of the Welsh effort? Who is the trial manager? Will he listen to his operatives and has he learned anything at all from what went so wrong with the English version, described so eloquently in the submission above?

Cage trapping individual badgers is arguably the most expensive method of dispatching an infected group. So have the Welsh commandeered all those English badger cages (or what's left of them) lurking somewhere at the taxpayer's expense, or have they bought their own? The English ones, in use since the mid 1980s have been developed over time, to ensure that the mesh gauge encourages - as much as any cagetrap can - entry? We are told that a small mesh will not get many volunteers, and that in past trials, 5cm square, or the old 2 x 2 inch was about right.

This also allowed dispatch of the occupant without too much fuss. Any smaller mesh meant entry was limited but more important, the barrel of the rifle or pistol couldn't make entry. This would mean that the occupant had to be translocated into another cage before dispatch. A procedure which is neither fast, easy, or desirable and has meant escapees on many occasions.

The pistols or rifles used in the English badger culling operations were a) silenced and b) used hollow nosed shells for accurate and instant kill with no ricochet. (Too powerful a rifle using supersonic shells, as used in free running target running in open country, runs the risk of operator or onlooker injury in a confined area.)

The RBCT publicised their locations on websites. And sympathisers within Defra offices ensured that WLU operatives ran the gauntlet of abuse and physical attack on a daily basis. The vehicles used in the early days of the trial were like pink elephants, with white Crown tax discs, sparkling clean and their registration numbers noted. Have the Welsh learnt from this and will they protect their operatives? Or will bright shiny suits and noisy cloned vehicles be the order or the day?

We have reported many times the wastage of man hours and trap opportunities which resulted from this 'open house' on the ~~RBCT~~ Badger Dispersal Trial. Hansard confirms that up to 2003, 5 years into the English trial, almost 70% of traps set were either 'interfered with' or had 'disappeared'. Have the Welsh Assembly taken on board this opportunity for disruption, or like the New Zealanders, do they plan to hang yellow ribbons from trees surrounding the trap areas?

In New Zealand, the aerial drops of poison pellets to clear out infected colonies of bush possums over a large area requires public notification so that anyone approaching an area thus baited, can keep a tight hold on dog, child or grandma. Cage traps laid one night and visited within hours are a different kettle of fish.

We make these points with a clear message to our Welsh colleagues. Don't let bureaucratic intransigence or inappropriate operating protocol screw this up.

As John blackwell of the BCVA said:

“We will be watching the outcomes of the measures in Wales under the Order closely and hope that, if successful, these measures will be replicated in other areas of the UK".

Carried out correctly, culling of groups of TB infected badgers works quickly. Get it wrong and they have the ability and opportunity to spread the disease far and wide.

The Welsh have it

2010-04-16T20:59:00.002+01:00

.. and the English do not, as we pointed out in this posting.

TB eradication in the round, will go ahead in Wales.
BBC Wales and Farmers Guardian have the story.

While in England, we just kill cattle. And now alpacas. And cats. And dogs. And ...

That £1 million bung from PAL was well spent then? Good value?
Defra have overseen the slaughter of 255,963 cattle since it was paid, and the law of the land tied in knots by a backdoor moratorium on the clearing of tuberculosis from wildlife sources, whose name they dare not speak.. A moratorium which this government have no intention of repealing. In fact Jim Fitzpatrick said in the House of Commons as recently as April 8th., that although "The key issue with bovine Tuberculosis (bTB) in wildlife is when the disease is transmitted to livestock," the Government's policy is that

"no licences will be issued for culling badgers for the purpose of preventing the spread of bTB in cattle, although we remain open to the possibility of revisiting this policy under exceptional circumstances, or if new scientific evidence were to become available."

We have the best administration money can buy.