While farmers are struggling with herd tb restrictions and undervalued pedigree cattle (see post below) there appears to be no shortage of the readies in the research field. Dr. Cheeseman of badger heaven, overwise known as Woodchester Park, has been awarded £1million to explore badger vaccination. This involves trapping around 250 badgers, transporting to a laboratory and vaccinating them and "could lead to more than 100, 000 badgers being vaccinated nationwide"
www.warmwell.com has a good piece on this little publicised work culled from the ever vigilant
ProMed .. The moderator's comments are, as usual, well worth reading in full. Extract :
"...The Randomised Badger Culling Trials demonstrated that if you do not achieve culling targets above 60 percent (and sometimes these were no more than 20 percent), you will only make matters worse -- Bovine TB was practically eradicated in the UK by 1986 by proactive badger culling along with tuberculin testing of cattle when only 84 herd breakdowns were recorded in that year. ...... as the UK Government acknowledges in their report of 2004, if the present policy of inaction continues there is no way but up!....... Culling, when done efficiently, i.e. when delineated areas are free of badgers for at least 12 months, has an immediate disease control benefit. In the UK there is a stark dichotomy between the demands for culling by the farming community, including wildlife veterinarians, and the extreme reluctance on the part of the government. We have yet to see what the impact of badger vaccination will be. - Mod.MHJ"
www.warmwell.com wonders " However good this news may seem, we are left once again wondering why - if the trials are successful and the vaccine found to be safe and effective - it has to "take at least 5 years before the vaccine could be administered to the general badger population outside the lab through microcapsules mixed with peanuts."
Parliamentary Questions explored some of these questions and received the following answer;
23rd March 2004: Col 686W.
"Under European legislation marketing authorisations for veterinary medicinal products, including vaccines, may only be granted where scientific assessment of data supplied by the applicant demonstrates that the product meets statutory criteria of safety, quality and efficacy. The fee currently charged by the Veterinary Medicines Directorate (VMD) for processing an application for a UK marketing authorisation is between £1,480 and £21,210, depending on the type of application and application and the complexity of the assessment required. The fee for a novel veterinary vaccine, such as a TB vaccine is likely to be at the upper end of the scale.
European legislation requires applications for new markewting authorisations for veterinary medicinal products to be processed within 210 'clock' days of submission of a valid application. 'Clock days' are calendar days,including weekends and holidays, but excluding any period where further information is requested and awaited from the applicant. [..]
Typically, the total time taken to determine an application for a marketing authorisation for a novel medicine, such as a TB vaccine, could be approximately two years.
European legislation permits provisional marketing authorisations to be granted, in exceptional, objective and verifiable circumstances, without the need for a full data dossier. Such authorisations are only granted where safety has been established and are subject to specific conditions, such as carrying out of further studies for efficacy."
Any progress on damping down the badger / cattle interface is to be welcomed. However, we also note from PQ's March 22 2004, Col 510W, that "M.bovis is endemic in British badgers".
What therefore would be the result of 'vaccinating' an animal already infected with the disease?And if the vaccine were transferred to peanuts, what would be the effect of other species ingesting a not-very-accurate dose? In fact, as badgers are agressive eaters of most things, what would be the result of a single alpha male, scoffing all the laced peanuts on behalf of his tribe? And how practical is 'trapping and injecting' on a wider field scale?
Finally, although this research gives valued employment for Dr. Cheeseman et al , given the parliamentary answer quoted above re vaccines, plus the cost of drug registration, how viable would this product be to pharmaceutical companies? They usually trade worldwide, but this vaccine's use would probably be limited to the UK and Ireland. ( possibly as a single dose jab)
No comments from us here; just pondering.
Sunday, June 25, 2006
Defra challenged over Tabular valuations.
A challenge to Defra's tabular valuations has been launched by West country law firm, Clarke Wilmot. The case has been brought on behalf of Devon dairy farmer, Graham Partridge who has 300 pedigree dairy cattle on his farm near Tiverton and who feels they are seriously undervalued by the new system.
Introduced in February, the tables cover 'average market value' of various class of livestock. Male or female, beef or dairy, an age banding and crucially, 'pedigree or non pedigree'. Thus an aged pedigree jersey cow would be 'valued' at the same rate as a young holstein in her prime. Conversely a old Dexter bull with minimal influence on beef values, would rate the same as a Perth show winning Charolais or Limousin. 'Market value' is exactly what it says. The price of that class of animal traded in the local livestock market, in the previous time frame. And therein lies the problem. Animals of high genetic merit are rarely traded in that marketplace. And on farm dispersals, breed 'showcase' sales and private sales are excluded from Defra's tables.
Little Ben, our remaining Minister is quoting - or misquoting - his two reports into cattle compensation, both of which concluded that the majority of valuations were OK. Reading was the first, the most recent Exeter, who followed Reading's format so as not to tread on any professional toes. Exeter found that 80 percent of the valuations were 'in line', and that, said the author, was "as good as it gets" on the scale that these compensation payments were made. (We think he meant there were a lot) He went on the describe as many 'under valuations' as over, with just one or two very high profile over payments, making headlines.
Mr. Partridge feels that Defra's valuation tables do not reflect the true value of his stock, and his lawyers will now use this case to bring a judicial review of the controversial new system.
In an ideal world, this situation should not have arisen at all, with farmers able to insure for any value above 'average' that they felt their stock merited. In fact a couple of years ago, our own Rear Admiral Ben, gave the following answer to just such a parliamentary question:
15th Dec 2003: Col 629W
Mr. Paterson.
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs whether farmers are able to obtain insurance cover for TB infection in dairy cattle after a TB breakdown and subsequent claim. [141083]
Mr.Bradshaw:
It is government policy to pay compensation at 100 per cent of market value, with no upper limit, for cattle that are compulsorily slaughtered under TB control measures. Farmers therefore do not need to take out insurance on their animals. Theoretically, insurance can be bought to cover other consequential losses for which compensation is not paid, but that is a commercial matter between farmers and their insurers.
Section 34 (5) of the animal Health Act 1981, explicitly allows insurers to deduct the amount of Government compensation from the value of any payout they may make.
Insurance companies will make their own decisions on whether to insure, and about the size of the premiums, based on their assessment of risk.
Recent contact with the insurance industry in early 2003 indicated that, although companies were honouring existing policies, they are not offering new policies to cover TB in cattle herds, particularly in areas where TB is increasingly prevalent. This is because farmers do not wish to take cover in areas where the risk is low (such as Yorkshire) but do wish to purchase cover in areas of high incidence (such as the South West) However, the insurance companies consider that the financial risks in offering insurance policies in areas of high incidence are too high at present.
Quite explicit isn't it? Farmers need not take out insurance. Defra will pay 100 of valuation, but even if they wanted too insure, exposure to risk is likely to be too high for them to get cover. Last year, the cost of tb cover increased tenfold, and cover halved. That's if you were lucky enough to still have a policy in place, and not been unlucky enough to have made a claim.
Introduced in February, the tables cover 'average market value' of various class of livestock. Male or female, beef or dairy, an age banding and crucially, 'pedigree or non pedigree'. Thus an aged pedigree jersey cow would be 'valued' at the same rate as a young holstein in her prime. Conversely a old Dexter bull with minimal influence on beef values, would rate the same as a Perth show winning Charolais or Limousin. 'Market value' is exactly what it says. The price of that class of animal traded in the local livestock market, in the previous time frame. And therein lies the problem. Animals of high genetic merit are rarely traded in that marketplace. And on farm dispersals, breed 'showcase' sales and private sales are excluded from Defra's tables.
Little Ben, our remaining Minister is quoting - or misquoting - his two reports into cattle compensation, both of which concluded that the majority of valuations were OK. Reading was the first, the most recent Exeter, who followed Reading's format so as not to tread on any professional toes. Exeter found that 80 percent of the valuations were 'in line', and that, said the author, was "as good as it gets" on the scale that these compensation payments were made. (We think he meant there were a lot) He went on the describe as many 'under valuations' as over, with just one or two very high profile over payments, making headlines.
Mr. Partridge feels that Defra's valuation tables do not reflect the true value of his stock, and his lawyers will now use this case to bring a judicial review of the controversial new system.
In an ideal world, this situation should not have arisen at all, with farmers able to insure for any value above 'average' that they felt their stock merited. In fact a couple of years ago, our own Rear Admiral Ben, gave the following answer to just such a parliamentary question:
15th Dec 2003: Col 629W
Mr. Paterson.
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs whether farmers are able to obtain insurance cover for TB infection in dairy cattle after a TB breakdown and subsequent claim. [141083]
Mr.Bradshaw:
It is government policy to pay compensation at 100 per cent of market value, with no upper limit, for cattle that are compulsorily slaughtered under TB control measures. Farmers therefore do not need to take out insurance on their animals. Theoretically, insurance can be bought to cover other consequential losses for which compensation is not paid, but that is a commercial matter between farmers and their insurers.
Section 34 (5) of the animal Health Act 1981, explicitly allows insurers to deduct the amount of Government compensation from the value of any payout they may make.
Insurance companies will make their own decisions on whether to insure, and about the size of the premiums, based on their assessment of risk.
Recent contact with the insurance industry in early 2003 indicated that, although companies were honouring existing policies, they are not offering new policies to cover TB in cattle herds, particularly in areas where TB is increasingly prevalent. This is because farmers do not wish to take cover in areas where the risk is low (such as Yorkshire) but do wish to purchase cover in areas of high incidence (such as the South West) However, the insurance companies consider that the financial risks in offering insurance policies in areas of high incidence are too high at present.
Quite explicit isn't it? Farmers need not take out insurance. Defra will pay 100 of valuation, but even if they wanted too insure, exposure to risk is likely to be too high for them to get cover. Last year, the cost of tb cover increased tenfold, and cover halved. That's if you were lucky enough to still have a policy in place, and not been unlucky enough to have made a claim.
Wednesday, June 21, 2006
The survivor.
After an (almost) complete cull of ministerial staff in Defra recently, only our own little Ben, Rear Admiral Bradshaw survived. Years ago he reportedly told enquirers that his policy for bTb was "not to be in the hot seat when action needed to be taken". Well folks, he's still there. He's cogitated, created committees and stakeholder groups, and most recently asked for a public consultation on culling badgers. One may ask of the latter, why? as the responsibility for control of a grade 3 pathogenic zoonosis is wholly and completely - Defra's.
As government sneak through a fast track method of what is euthemistically called 'ventilation shut down', in the event of bird flu striking intensove flocks of chooks, we cull from from www.warmwell.com, comments with which we fully agree on the bTb situation still facing the single surviving minister of Defra's old team:
"When Ben Bradshaw, with no apparent understanding of the undertow of his words, proclaimed last week, in relation to the killing of badgers:
"My Department undertook a desk study of possible culling methods and identified shooting, snaring and gassing as the methods most worthy of further investigation. This research is currently under way. .."one wonders, and not for the first time, about the methods and ethics of the sort of research needed to decide on ways of mass killing. We wonder too, as we did in April, why animal health policy always seems to be driven by politics, bureaucracy and budgets instead of by science, technology and veterinary skill. No one really wants an untargetted mass cull of badgers and the Government, surely, has within its grasp a Middle Way. The tools to avoid such a politically unpopular, ethically questionable and scientifically unnecessary move are documented. The research below using UK built rapid RT-PCR diagnosis in badger setts and latrines shows which badgers are infected;
"we would prefer that culling is targeted at diseased and infectious animals" said the researchers.Have Mr Bradshaw and "his Department" really not seen the importance of the work from Warwick University?"
from wwww.warmwell.com.
As we have said many times, every PCR magic box negates the need for a couple of 'government scientists', so why would they agree? Perhaps ventilation shut down (VSD might be a better way out for them (the scientists, not the badgers or the chooks) Up to 60 minutes to suffocate. Nice.
As government sneak through a fast track method of what is euthemistically called 'ventilation shut down', in the event of bird flu striking intensove flocks of chooks, we cull from from www.warmwell.com, comments with which we fully agree on the bTb situation still facing the single surviving minister of Defra's old team:
"When Ben Bradshaw, with no apparent understanding of the undertow of his words, proclaimed last week, in relation to the killing of badgers:
"My Department undertook a desk study of possible culling methods and identified shooting, snaring and gassing as the methods most worthy of further investigation. This research is currently under way. .."one wonders, and not for the first time, about the methods and ethics of the sort of research needed to decide on ways of mass killing. We wonder too, as we did in April, why animal health policy always seems to be driven by politics, bureaucracy and budgets instead of by science, technology and veterinary skill. No one really wants an untargetted mass cull of badgers and the Government, surely, has within its grasp a Middle Way. The tools to avoid such a politically unpopular, ethically questionable and scientifically unnecessary move are documented. The research below using UK built rapid RT-PCR diagnosis in badger setts and latrines shows which badgers are infected;
"we would prefer that culling is targeted at diseased and infectious animals" said the researchers.Have Mr Bradshaw and "his Department" really not seen the importance of the work from Warwick University?"
from wwww.warmwell.com.
As we have said many times, every PCR magic box negates the need for a couple of 'government scientists', so why would they agree? Perhaps ventilation shut down (VSD might be a better way out for them (the scientists, not the badgers or the chooks) Up to 60 minutes to suffocate. Nice.
Sunday, June 11, 2006
"Time for a Veterinary concensus"
A letter in this weeks' Vet. Record calls for a concerted and joined up effort on the part of the veterinary profession, to eradicate bTb from any sources which harbour it.
In his letter Bovine TB policy and badgers " A joint and co-operative approach" is needed :
Mr. Swarbrick wrote:
"...... Like many others, Bourne and colleagues appear to be ignoring several important factors and offering no real solutions. Over 25 years there does not appear to have been any concerted national action to control, let alone eradicate, the relentless spread of bovine TB. We have an EU obligation to eradicate bovine TB. Given that there are no vaccines, prophylaxis or therapy for bovine TB, we can only adopt the long-established medical and veterinary principles for infectious disease control by removing all infected, and more especially diseased, individuals from any contact with healthy populations............. We need a veterinary consensus as to what to do and how to do it, and veterinarians must also find consensus with the ecologists, who have an important contribution. ...... We also need to persuade the pro-badger lobby that some of their comments are incorrect. Time is not on our side and veterinarians, farmers and the UK as a whole cannot allow the perceived difficulties to be an excuse for inaction. Will the ISG please now put forward its strategy and protocols for the eradication of bovine TB from the UK and also for preventing diseased badgers from infecting cattle, badgers and all the other animals, bearing in mind that there is a potentially important human dimension." Read in full
(With thanks to www.warmwell.com )
In his letter Bovine TB policy and badgers " A joint and co-operative approach" is needed :
Mr. Swarbrick wrote:
"...... Like many others, Bourne and colleagues appear to be ignoring several important factors and offering no real solutions. Over 25 years there does not appear to have been any concerted national action to control, let alone eradicate, the relentless spread of bovine TB. We have an EU obligation to eradicate bovine TB. Given that there are no vaccines, prophylaxis or therapy for bovine TB, we can only adopt the long-established medical and veterinary principles for infectious disease control by removing all infected, and more especially diseased, individuals from any contact with healthy populations............. We need a veterinary consensus as to what to do and how to do it, and veterinarians must also find consensus with the ecologists, who have an important contribution. ...... We also need to persuade the pro-badger lobby that some of their comments are incorrect. Time is not on our side and veterinarians, farmers and the UK as a whole cannot allow the perceived difficulties to be an excuse for inaction. Will the ISG please now put forward its strategy and protocols for the eradication of bovine TB from the UK and also for preventing diseased badgers from infecting cattle, badgers and all the other animals, bearing in mind that there is a potentially important human dimension." Read in full
(With thanks to www.warmwell.com )
Friday, June 09, 2006
"Krebs was a pseudo-scientific charade.."
Ever vigilant, Muckspreader (Private Eye) has been reading the veterinary comments emerging from the Krebs trial and concludes that the RBCT was never designed to work at all:
"Even Defra admits that the percentage of badgers culled was sometimes as low as 20 percent. Prof.Bourne has admitted in the Veterinary Record that his staff were not allowed into a third of the land chosen for study. Meanwhile the tragedy rolls on: for farmers, for cattle, for taxpayers, and for all those sick badgers, condemned to a lingering death, only because humans became so blinded by sentimentality that they allowed badger numbers to explode to a level nature could no longer tolerate.."
And from a landowner who also happens to be a member of the RCVS, yet another damning indictment of skewed 'science'.
"As a landowner in one of the 'trial' areas, I had the dubious pleasure of being invited and attending Professor Bourne's meeting to explain the aims and implementation of the Krebs trial to landowners. (Mmm, us too. Good weren't they?)
His presentation was fluent, forceful and full of spin. During the presentation, he pontificated on some events in the history of badger / bovine TB in Dorset. Unbeknown to him, these were events that I had been personally involved with and knew full details of.
It was very educational to me.
I realised that he was describing the facts in a strictly accurate - yet totally misleading - way, so the impression given was the opposite to the truth."
(Well there's a surprise - doesn't he always? - ed) The letter continues:
" That the trial is severely flawed - in my opinion, fatally so - is self evident to any objective scientist. A sound experiment, for that is what the 'trial' purported to be, depends on knowledge of, and control of, all the variables. This trial had no control.
In the 'proactive' areas no culling took place during the lactating periods, and 20 percent of the babgers were left behind. (In our patch we reckon it was more like 80 percent left behind - ed) It would seem that there was, effectively, not a great deal of difference between proactive and reactive areas." (Err there was. At least in the proactive, eventually the Wildlife teams actually turned up. In some of the reactive areas, not a sign. Sick badgers and dead cattle, but no diminutive professors with cage traps. But we digress - the writer explains further:)
"When one allows for the unofficial culling that took place in the no treatment areas, these results are skewed. No matter how the statistics are applied (we prefer 'tortured' - ed) the conclusions drawn can be challenged by a competent sixth former.
Over the past 25 years or more, many veterinary officers have diligently collected masses of data on thousands of breakdowns, and have had their work scrutinised by a sceptical mini panel. All that work, together with that of the veterinary investigation officers, has been effectively been ignored by both Krebs and Bourne. The results of the inquiry and the trial appear to have more to do with egos of eminent men, than science or truth. Bourne's insulting personal response to the points raised by Paul Caruana is no less than I expected from this most arrogant of men."
That broadside, with which we fully agree, was launched by John Cohen, BVetMed, MRCVS of Chard, Somerset, and printed in Veterinary Times, June 12th.
"Even Defra admits that the percentage of badgers culled was sometimes as low as 20 percent. Prof.Bourne has admitted in the Veterinary Record that his staff were not allowed into a third of the land chosen for study. Meanwhile the tragedy rolls on: for farmers, for cattle, for taxpayers, and for all those sick badgers, condemned to a lingering death, only because humans became so blinded by sentimentality that they allowed badger numbers to explode to a level nature could no longer tolerate.."
And from a landowner who also happens to be a member of the RCVS, yet another damning indictment of skewed 'science'.
"As a landowner in one of the 'trial' areas, I had the dubious pleasure of being invited and attending Professor Bourne's meeting to explain the aims and implementation of the Krebs trial to landowners. (Mmm, us too. Good weren't they?)
His presentation was fluent, forceful and full of spin. During the presentation, he pontificated on some events in the history of badger / bovine TB in Dorset. Unbeknown to him, these were events that I had been personally involved with and knew full details of.
It was very educational to me.
I realised that he was describing the facts in a strictly accurate - yet totally misleading - way, so the impression given was the opposite to the truth."
(Well there's a surprise - doesn't he always? - ed) The letter continues:
" That the trial is severely flawed - in my opinion, fatally so - is self evident to any objective scientist. A sound experiment, for that is what the 'trial' purported to be, depends on knowledge of, and control of, all the variables. This trial had no control.
In the 'proactive' areas no culling took place during the lactating periods, and 20 percent of the babgers were left behind. (In our patch we reckon it was more like 80 percent left behind - ed) It would seem that there was, effectively, not a great deal of difference between proactive and reactive areas." (Err there was. At least in the proactive, eventually the Wildlife teams actually turned up. In some of the reactive areas, not a sign. Sick badgers and dead cattle, but no diminutive professors with cage traps. But we digress - the writer explains further:)
"When one allows for the unofficial culling that took place in the no treatment areas, these results are skewed. No matter how the statistics are applied (we prefer 'tortured' - ed) the conclusions drawn can be challenged by a competent sixth former.
Over the past 25 years or more, many veterinary officers have diligently collected masses of data on thousands of breakdowns, and have had their work scrutinised by a sceptical mini panel. All that work, together with that of the veterinary investigation officers, has been effectively been ignored by both Krebs and Bourne. The results of the inquiry and the trial appear to have more to do with egos of eminent men, than science or truth. Bourne's insulting personal response to the points raised by Paul Caruana is no less than I expected from this most arrogant of men."
That broadside, with which we fully agree, was launched by John Cohen, BVetMed, MRCVS of Chard, Somerset, and printed in Veterinary Times, June 12th.
More on the RBCT. A vet's view.
In response to letters to the veterinary press by Professor John Bourne, defending (or trying to) the badger 'culling' trial carried out by his ISG group, Worcestershire veterinary surgeon, Jessica Thornton, MRCVS weighs in with a robust critique in this week's Veterinary Times:
"The "results" of the Randomized Badger Culling Trial (RBCT) have been continously upheld and used by the ISG, Badger Trust and RSPCA to sway political and public opinion against a badger cull. It's unbelievable that Prof. Bourne is so blinkered by his scientific tunnel-vision that he has no capacity to see the blatant weaknesses of the RBCT.
He is not only insistent about denying the faults of the trial, but he denigrates fellow scientists and insults veterinarians who have worked on the frontlines of the bTB battle for years, in some cases decades."
Ms. Thornton then makes the following points:
* "The trial may have been rigorously implemented, but it was not well implemented.
*Sixty-nine percent of traps were interfered with - 57% had interference while 12% went missing (Parliamentary Questions 8, December 2003, column 218W [141971]).
* Treatment groups were not treated similarly. For example, in the reactive groups 36% of TB breakdown notifications received no culling while the remainder received partial or full culling.
*Foot & Mouth Disease (FMD) disrupted culling in proactive areas, which were supposed to be culled every 5-9 months.
* Only 2 proactive areas were culled in this time frame, while the other 8 areas ranged from 12-25 months between intitial and first culls.
*Several proactive areas' follow-up culls resulted in more badgers being culled than in the intial cull. Was this due to inadequate culling to begin with? Interference with badger traps? A long delay between culls?
It is safe to say that culling of badgers in the RBCT was a failure, and so the very aim of the study was missed. It doesn't matter how "robust" statistical analyses are or what world renown magazines published the study. There is no way that such a large amount of interference and variation within treatment groups could result in a reliable outcome.
Perhaps this 'peturbation' effect is actually the reuslt of inefficient badger culling, and not localised badger culling.
Another concern raised is this issue of peer review. A peer reveiw is scrutiny of a scientific paper by an independent, anonymous specialist. As Deputy Chair of the ISG, Prof. Donnelly would not be eligible to peer review the ISG's report, as he is neither an independent nor anonymous specialist. After putting so much time and effort into the RBCT, it would be very difficult for any member of the ISG to be unbiased enough to peer review the report.
In addition, I am confused as to which "past, failed TB control policies" Prof. Bourne is refering to in his May 13th letter to the Veterinary Record, and May 22nd to the Vet. Times. History shows that the 1950's TB outbreak was controlled using the tuberculin skin test and mandatory slaughter of reactors. Present day success in the other EU states have successfully reduced/eradicated bTB with the same method.
Prof. Bourne then argues that cattle-based TB control measures need to be more vigorously adopted and applied. One main difference between then and now is the large wildlife population acting as a bTB resevoir (namely badgers, but also deer and other mammals). Cattle-based controls alone will not reduce TB incidence in cattle when there is a high disease incidence in a wildlife reservoir population.
The disease in the wildlife resevoir must be reduced as well. If it is clear that badgers contribute to TB in cattle, then what does the ISG propose we do about this wildlife bTB reservoir? Ignore it? That's a great plan. Or why don't we waste another decade and £millions in taxpayer's money to set up another scientific research trial to determine the effects of ignoring bTb in the wildlife reservoir?
(don't give them ideas Ms. Thornton - ed)
Unfortunately, the RBCT has not made the "extent to which badger culling can be reduce TB incidence in cattle" any clearer. The fact is, the longer we stand by jostling between ourselves, the worse the TB situation is getting for everyone involved, badgers included!
It would be disheartening for anyone who has worked on the RBCT to admit that circumstances within and outside their control have resulted in no conclusive evidence in regards to badger culling and its effects on bTB in cattle. Perhaps working so closely to the project has made it difficult for some to see the trial's weaknesses, making any criticism personally offensive.
However, as men and women of science we must be responsible and mature enough to be self-critical of our own work and to consider humbly the criticism given by our peers. Otherwise our "scientific results" may wrongly influence those unable to deterimine whether science is good or bad, as well as take advantage of the faith they place in science and scientists alike. "
"The "results" of the Randomized Badger Culling Trial (RBCT) have been continously upheld and used by the ISG, Badger Trust and RSPCA to sway political and public opinion against a badger cull. It's unbelievable that Prof. Bourne is so blinkered by his scientific tunnel-vision that he has no capacity to see the blatant weaknesses of the RBCT.
He is not only insistent about denying the faults of the trial, but he denigrates fellow scientists and insults veterinarians who have worked on the frontlines of the bTB battle for years, in some cases decades."
Ms. Thornton then makes the following points:
* "The trial may have been rigorously implemented, but it was not well implemented.
*Sixty-nine percent of traps were interfered with - 57% had interference while 12% went missing (Parliamentary Questions 8, December 2003, column 218W [141971]).
* Treatment groups were not treated similarly. For example, in the reactive groups 36% of TB breakdown notifications received no culling while the remainder received partial or full culling.
*Foot & Mouth Disease (FMD) disrupted culling in proactive areas, which were supposed to be culled every 5-9 months.
* Only 2 proactive areas were culled in this time frame, while the other 8 areas ranged from 12-25 months between intitial and first culls.
*Several proactive areas' follow-up culls resulted in more badgers being culled than in the intial cull. Was this due to inadequate culling to begin with? Interference with badger traps? A long delay between culls?
It is safe to say that culling of badgers in the RBCT was a failure, and so the very aim of the study was missed. It doesn't matter how "robust" statistical analyses are or what world renown magazines published the study. There is no way that such a large amount of interference and variation within treatment groups could result in a reliable outcome.
Perhaps this 'peturbation' effect is actually the reuslt of inefficient badger culling, and not localised badger culling.
Another concern raised is this issue of peer review. A peer reveiw is scrutiny of a scientific paper by an independent, anonymous specialist. As Deputy Chair of the ISG, Prof. Donnelly would not be eligible to peer review the ISG's report, as he is neither an independent nor anonymous specialist. After putting so much time and effort into the RBCT, it would be very difficult for any member of the ISG to be unbiased enough to peer review the report.
In addition, I am confused as to which "past, failed TB control policies" Prof. Bourne is refering to in his May 13th letter to the Veterinary Record, and May 22nd to the Vet. Times. History shows that the 1950's TB outbreak was controlled using the tuberculin skin test and mandatory slaughter of reactors. Present day success in the other EU states have successfully reduced/eradicated bTB with the same method.
Prof. Bourne then argues that cattle-based TB control measures need to be more vigorously adopted and applied. One main difference between then and now is the large wildlife population acting as a bTB resevoir (namely badgers, but also deer and other mammals). Cattle-based controls alone will not reduce TB incidence in cattle when there is a high disease incidence in a wildlife reservoir population.
The disease in the wildlife resevoir must be reduced as well. If it is clear that badgers contribute to TB in cattle, then what does the ISG propose we do about this wildlife bTB reservoir? Ignore it? That's a great plan. Or why don't we waste another decade and £millions in taxpayer's money to set up another scientific research trial to determine the effects of ignoring bTb in the wildlife reservoir?
(don't give them ideas Ms. Thornton - ed)
Unfortunately, the RBCT has not made the "extent to which badger culling can be reduce TB incidence in cattle" any clearer. The fact is, the longer we stand by jostling between ourselves, the worse the TB situation is getting for everyone involved, badgers included!
It would be disheartening for anyone who has worked on the RBCT to admit that circumstances within and outside their control have resulted in no conclusive evidence in regards to badger culling and its effects on bTB in cattle. Perhaps working so closely to the project has made it difficult for some to see the trial's weaknesses, making any criticism personally offensive.
However, as men and women of science we must be responsible and mature enough to be self-critical of our own work and to consider humbly the criticism given by our peers. Otherwise our "scientific results" may wrongly influence those unable to deterimine whether science is good or bad, as well as take advantage of the faith they place in science and scientists alike. "
Tuesday, June 06, 2006
"What do I know - I'm only a vet...."
Two letters in the Veterinary Times (June 5th.) take issue with Professor John Bourne's comments on the qualifications - or not - of the veterinary profession dealing with bTb in the past. His insultingly vague comments referred to ;
"dogmatic belief [held] by scientifically uninformed veterinary opinion".
And up with that, senior and practising veterinary personel, will not put.
Andrew Proud, BvSc, DVSM, MRCVS weighs in with a the conclusion that with a comment like that, Bourne has "destroyed any credibility that they [the ISG] might have had".
He continues:
" The 'scientifically uninformed dogmatism' is exhibited by those who take the line that the significance of cattle to cattle transmission may be assumed without evidence, while the alternative view has to be subjected to protracted, expensive and gold plated experimental method. Bourne et al, cling to the straws of cattle-to-cattle transmission, pre-movement testing and 'heightened on-farm biosecurity', but conveniently ignore the facts that led most of Dr. John Gallagher's contemporaries among officers of the State Veterinary Service of the south west to abandon their beliefs in such possibilities".
"Too many closed herds experience breakdowns, and too many herd breakdowns involve only one animal. ..[] the minimal techniques of veterinary hygiene (old and better; English for 'bio security') on which the Attested herds scheme depended, were too effective to leave any room for confidence in any control measures that stop short of separating cattle from infectious badgers. ..[] And as Paul Caruana will be well aware, in those days badger removal operations were pursued with a much greater intensity than was the norm in the 'trial'".
Another letter from Adrian Wingfield BVMS, MRCVS based in (badger free?) Cambridge also questions John Bourne's credentials.
"The ISG states that it took an explicitly scientific approach in designing the RBCT, and took full account of practical aspects and limitations from the outset. Yet we are told that many changes in procedure were adopted and implemented during the trial, including modification to the rather pivotal matter of trapping badgers.
We are told that statistical analysis has duly dealt with any aberrations arising from such operational changes, though it is, of course, a well established principle that if the data are tortured for long enough, and by a sufficient number of methods, they will eventually admit to the version of the 'truth' that is being sought.
Of equal, if not greater concern is the fact that the design of the RBCT was explicitly constrained by "a ministerial directive that badgers should not be totally eliminated from large tracts of the English countryside". It would therefore appear that, rather than be rigourously scientific, the RBCT may actually have been designed to evaluate the a form of badger cull that politicians had already decided that they might be able to 'live with' or 'sell to the public'".
That the ISG has apparently so readily bowed to political diktat may call into question the use of the words 'Independent' and 'Scientific' in the title of the group.
The vehement attack on the scientific integrity of the veterinary profession, and the very personal attacks on Paul Caruana, John Gallagher, John Daykin and colleagues, are as extraordinary as they are unconstructive, and are very clearly founded in the arrogant belief that statistical experimental science is the only discipline worthy of serious consideration.
However, colleagues may recall that the involvement and influence of statistical experimental scientists during the UK FMD outbreak in 2001, directly resulted in the greatest animal health disaster that the United Kingdom, and probably the world, has ever had the misfortune to suffer.
But I am just a vet, so what could possibly know about animal health and disease?"
Both these excellent letters are describing the group of scientists - led by the diminutive John Bourne- who for several years based their cattle-to-cattle transmission theory on the '14 million animal movements' gleaned from BCMS: announcing to all and sundry that these were made by 'cattle', when in fact they were multiplications of data.
What on earth did they expect?
"dogmatic belief [held] by scientifically uninformed veterinary opinion".
And up with that, senior and practising veterinary personel, will not put.
Andrew Proud, BvSc, DVSM, MRCVS weighs in with a the conclusion that with a comment like that, Bourne has "destroyed any credibility that they [the ISG] might have had".
He continues:
" The 'scientifically uninformed dogmatism' is exhibited by those who take the line that the significance of cattle to cattle transmission may be assumed without evidence, while the alternative view has to be subjected to protracted, expensive and gold plated experimental method. Bourne et al, cling to the straws of cattle-to-cattle transmission, pre-movement testing and 'heightened on-farm biosecurity', but conveniently ignore the facts that led most of Dr. John Gallagher's contemporaries among officers of the State Veterinary Service of the south west to abandon their beliefs in such possibilities".
"Too many closed herds experience breakdowns, and too many herd breakdowns involve only one animal. ..[] the minimal techniques of veterinary hygiene (old and better; English for 'bio security') on which the Attested herds scheme depended, were too effective to leave any room for confidence in any control measures that stop short of separating cattle from infectious badgers. ..[] And as Paul Caruana will be well aware, in those days badger removal operations were pursued with a much greater intensity than was the norm in the 'trial'".
Another letter from Adrian Wingfield BVMS, MRCVS based in (badger free?) Cambridge also questions John Bourne's credentials.
"The ISG states that it took an explicitly scientific approach in designing the RBCT, and took full account of practical aspects and limitations from the outset. Yet we are told that many changes in procedure were adopted and implemented during the trial, including modification to the rather pivotal matter of trapping badgers.
We are told that statistical analysis has duly dealt with any aberrations arising from such operational changes, though it is, of course, a well established principle that if the data are tortured for long enough, and by a sufficient number of methods, they will eventually admit to the version of the 'truth' that is being sought.
Of equal, if not greater concern is the fact that the design of the RBCT was explicitly constrained by "a ministerial directive that badgers should not be totally eliminated from large tracts of the English countryside". It would therefore appear that, rather than be rigourously scientific, the RBCT may actually have been designed to evaluate the a form of badger cull that politicians had already decided that they might be able to 'live with' or 'sell to the public'".
That the ISG has apparently so readily bowed to political diktat may call into question the use of the words 'Independent' and 'Scientific' in the title of the group.
The vehement attack on the scientific integrity of the veterinary profession, and the very personal attacks on Paul Caruana, John Gallagher, John Daykin and colleagues, are as extraordinary as they are unconstructive, and are very clearly founded in the arrogant belief that statistical experimental science is the only discipline worthy of serious consideration.
However, colleagues may recall that the involvement and influence of statistical experimental scientists during the UK FMD outbreak in 2001, directly resulted in the greatest animal health disaster that the United Kingdom, and probably the world, has ever had the misfortune to suffer.
But I am just a vet, so what could possibly know about animal health and disease?"
Both these excellent letters are describing the group of scientists - led by the diminutive John Bourne- who for several years based their cattle-to-cattle transmission theory on the '14 million animal movements' gleaned from BCMS: announcing to all and sundry that these were made by 'cattle', when in fact they were multiplications of data.
What on earth did they expect?
Tuesday, May 30, 2006
Update on Wales
Welsh farmers breathed a collective sigh of relief this week after the Welsh Assembly voted not to introduce the contentious 'tabular valuation' system into the Principality.
Cattle compulsorily purchased as bTb reactors in Wales will still be subject to a valuation procedure by a professional, independent valuer rather than an 'all size fits none' figure dreamed up by the Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs.
The news was met with relief by the Cymru NFU president, Dai Davies who commented;
"Welsh farmers whose herds are hit with tuberculosis do not want 'compensation' - what they want is for the disease to be eradicated. Compensation should not an issue, and it would become unecessary if the fundemental issue of stopping the spread and eradicating the disease was addressed by government."
Mr. Davies continued: " Valuation tables are based on averages, and are not representative of the animal, as they over compensate poor quality stock, and under value good quality stock".
He added that he hoped the Welsh Assembly would "now put all its efforts into eradicating this business-crippling disease which continues to spiral out of control across Wales".
Other comments on the decision from politicians of various hues included:
Lib-Dem - "tackle the disease, rather than slash farmers' payments"
Plaid Cymru - "valuation 'tables' not only unfair to cattle owners and breeders, especially pedigree cattle breeders, but an inefficient use of taxpayer's money"
The same arguments were levelled at our Minister for Fisheries, Ben Bradshaw, the only member of Deathrow's team to survive the recent parliamentary cull. But he ignored them, and it is now a very strange phenomenon that a pedigree cow in Wales can be valued in £ thousands, but if she has contact with m.bovis in England she's 'worth' just over £900.
Tommorrow, May 31st. Wales' survey of road kill badgers comes to an abrupt - and some say premature - end.
Announced in December and beginning in January, the programme was expected to last a year. Road kill badgers reported to the department of agricluture were to be collected for post mortem, and the results correlated with areas and instances of cattle Tb. But after tomorrow, members of the public have been told "don't report any more thankyou, we have enough" .
These excercises usually involve a 'target' figure with funding to match it and the general concensus from industry commentators is, that the almost 500 badgers collected in just four months, is more an indication of a population explosion in the species than a funding famine.
All commentators expressed "surprise" that a survey which was supposed to last a year, has met its target body count in just four months. But they welcomed the news from the Welsh Assembly that the results of the survey would also be brought forward, and after postmortems are carried out, are due to be published on September 28th.
Cattle compulsorily purchased as bTb reactors in Wales will still be subject to a valuation procedure by a professional, independent valuer rather than an 'all size fits none' figure dreamed up by the Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs.
The news was met with relief by the Cymru NFU president, Dai Davies who commented;
"Welsh farmers whose herds are hit with tuberculosis do not want 'compensation' - what they want is for the disease to be eradicated. Compensation should not an issue, and it would become unecessary if the fundemental issue of stopping the spread and eradicating the disease was addressed by government."
Mr. Davies continued: " Valuation tables are based on averages, and are not representative of the animal, as they over compensate poor quality stock, and under value good quality stock".
He added that he hoped the Welsh Assembly would "now put all its efforts into eradicating this business-crippling disease which continues to spiral out of control across Wales".
Other comments on the decision from politicians of various hues included:
Lib-Dem - "tackle the disease, rather than slash farmers' payments"
Plaid Cymru - "valuation 'tables' not only unfair to cattle owners and breeders, especially pedigree cattle breeders, but an inefficient use of taxpayer's money"
The same arguments were levelled at our Minister for Fisheries, Ben Bradshaw, the only member of Deathrow's team to survive the recent parliamentary cull. But he ignored them, and it is now a very strange phenomenon that a pedigree cow in Wales can be valued in £ thousands, but if she has contact with m.bovis in England she's 'worth' just over £900.
Tommorrow, May 31st. Wales' survey of road kill badgers comes to an abrupt - and some say premature - end.
Announced in December and beginning in January, the programme was expected to last a year. Road kill badgers reported to the department of agricluture were to be collected for post mortem, and the results correlated with areas and instances of cattle Tb. But after tomorrow, members of the public have been told "don't report any more thankyou, we have enough" .
These excercises usually involve a 'target' figure with funding to match it and the general concensus from industry commentators is, that the almost 500 badgers collected in just four months, is more an indication of a population explosion in the species than a funding famine.
All commentators expressed "surprise" that a survey which was supposed to last a year, has met its target body count in just four months. But they welcomed the news from the Welsh Assembly that the results of the survey would also be brought forward, and after postmortems are carried out, are due to be published on September 28th.
Saturday, May 27, 2006
Spitting badger terrorises staff at sports centre.
Reported in the Western Morning News this week, staff at a watersports centre are nervous after being attacked and chased by a large badger:
"Night staff at a top Westcountry watersports centre are fearing for their safety after a string of attacks... by a three-foot angry badger.
The fearless animal has been terrorising late-shift workers at the Mount Batten Centre in Plymouth.Several members of staff have reported being ambushed by the creature as they make their way home through the car park. The badger, which is thought to be protecting young nearby, lurks in bushes near the centre's car park - and charges at anyone who strays too close. Recent victims have included night porter Glynn Webb and barmaid Tamsin Parish. Miss Parish, 23, had the fright of her life when the stocky animal started thundering towards her as she made her way home at the end of a shift."I was making my way to my boyfriend's car when I caught sight of it out of the corner of my eye," she said. "I've never seen anything move so fast in my life - it was just streaking towards me."I know it sounds silly but I ran as fast as I could. I haven't been to the car park at night since."
Mr Webb, 68, was also left shaken after a run-in with the badger. The former able seaman said the animal has absolutely no fear of humans and is quite willing to launch an attack."I shone my torch at him, and he spat at me. Then he just put his head down and charged. I was so startled I hit my nose on my torch."
Plymouth naturalist Kevin Witts said badgers only became confrontational if they felt their young were threatened - or if they were going senile. He said: "It may be a female with
cubs, or possibly an elderly badger that's losing it a little bit. Either way, it keeps the security staff on their toes."
Well, well well. The passage which we have highlighted in bold is extremely relevant to 'transmission opportunities' for bovine Tb.
So when you hear a scientist in need of further research funding, pleading with his audience:
"but we don't know how bTb is transmitted between badgers and cattle", we do hope that our readers will remember, not only that this animal charged members of the public, attacked them, and generally pursued them around a car park, but that it spat at them. We also suggest that any 'naturalist' wheeled out to comment, will be aware that badgers who behave in this way are not necessarily 'senile', but may be in the later stages of Tb, excluded from their social group and its area, behave 'atypically' (aggressively?) and wander more.
23rd. March 2004 : Col 684W
Mr. Bradshaw: Research conducted by the Central Science Laboratory has identified behavioural differences between badgers excreting M. bovis, and uninfected animals. Badgers excreting M.bovis had a larger 'home range' and were more likely to visit [farm] buildings.
Or sports centres?
"Night staff at a top Westcountry watersports centre are fearing for their safety after a string of attacks... by a three-foot angry badger.
The fearless animal has been terrorising late-shift workers at the Mount Batten Centre in Plymouth.Several members of staff have reported being ambushed by the creature as they make their way home through the car park. The badger, which is thought to be protecting young nearby, lurks in bushes near the centre's car park - and charges at anyone who strays too close. Recent victims have included night porter Glynn Webb and barmaid Tamsin Parish. Miss Parish, 23, had the fright of her life when the stocky animal started thundering towards her as she made her way home at the end of a shift."I was making my way to my boyfriend's car when I caught sight of it out of the corner of my eye," she said. "I've never seen anything move so fast in my life - it was just streaking towards me."I know it sounds silly but I ran as fast as I could. I haven't been to the car park at night since."
Mr Webb, 68, was also left shaken after a run-in with the badger. The former able seaman said the animal has absolutely no fear of humans and is quite willing to launch an attack."I shone my torch at him, and he spat at me. Then he just put his head down and charged. I was so startled I hit my nose on my torch."
Plymouth naturalist Kevin Witts said badgers only became confrontational if they felt their young were threatened - or if they were going senile. He said: "It may be a female with
cubs, or possibly an elderly badger that's losing it a little bit. Either way, it keeps the security staff on their toes."
Well, well well. The passage which we have highlighted in bold is extremely relevant to 'transmission opportunities' for bovine Tb.
So when you hear a scientist in need of further research funding, pleading with his audience:
"but we don't know how bTb is transmitted between badgers and cattle", we do hope that our readers will remember, not only that this animal charged members of the public, attacked them, and generally pursued them around a car park, but that it spat at them. We also suggest that any 'naturalist' wheeled out to comment, will be aware that badgers who behave in this way are not necessarily 'senile', but may be in the later stages of Tb, excluded from their social group and its area, behave 'atypically' (aggressively?) and wander more.
23rd. March 2004 : Col 684W
Mr. Bradshaw: Research conducted by the Central Science Laboratory has identified behavioural differences between badgers excreting M. bovis, and uninfected animals. Badgers excreting M.bovis had a larger 'home range' and were more likely to visit [farm] buildings.
Or sports centres?
Sunday, May 21, 2006
'Failure' redefined ?
This week's Veterinary Times, after leading with Paul Carunana's attack on the Krebs RBCT last week, gives the ISG and John Bourne centre stage and the right to reply.
"The comments from Paul Caruana to the EFRA committee criticised the handling of the trial by the ISG and dismissed the labelling of the trial as "robust".
John Bourne replied to this :
"The explicit scientific approach taken by the ISG in designing the randomised badger culling trial was crucial, as was its implementation, to ensure that appropriate scientific information was collected". He said it was unfortunate that Paul Caruana had failed to grasp the necessity of imposing such scientific discipline to the field work of the WLU when conducting a scientific study. He branded suggestions that the WLU staff and operatives were not consulted as 'utterly false'.
The ISG said that its plan was never to remove all badgers from culled areas and rebutted Mr. Caruana's comment that interference by animal rights activists had affected the trials outcome. He (Professor Bourne) was unequivocal in his opinion of the views of Dr. Gallagher, Dr. Thomas and John Daykin: "The continued dogmatic belief by scientifically uninformed veterinary opinion that failed past bovine Tb control policies should continue to be more vigourously pursued must be challenged by available scientific understanding".
Well that's told 'em then. More on that ISG 'science' later....
Dr. Lewis Thomas said of the ISG's reponse "To embark on a large scale culling trial knowing that 'culling was never expected or designed to remove all badgers from culled areas' is positively breathtaking". Dr. Gallagher and John Daykin added " A salient point of the ISG's response concerns 'failure' of the culling policies of the 1970's and 1980's. They should have better informed themselves on this subject - in fact the original gassing policy was extremely effective in reducing outbreaks more than threefold in just over five years to a national total of 88 confirmed outbreaks in 1981.
The 'Clean Ring' trapping policy which followed was less effective, but maintained some progress until it was halted in 1986 when the total number of outbreaks was 86.
Now under the 'robust' stewardship of the ISG, there were 1,922 new confirmed herd outbreaks during 2005 and a total of 5,539 herds under Tb restriction. So is failure being redefined as well as science?".
With respect (of course) to all parties in this debate, the only people who can give an 'informed' view of the RBCT are the farmers who took part. It was our fences trashed, and our woods invaded by 'activists' intent on letting out their little furry friends. Paul Caruana was spot on, when he stated that 'it took the teams 4 years to learn how to catch badgers' and avoid such interference. That was assuming that his masters at the ISG directed their little green landrovers in our direction at all. On one of our contributer's farms the 'gap' between any semblance of 'clearance' - which now Bourne says was not not going to happen anyway - was three long years. So much for the ISG acetates in 1997, explaining to participating farmers that the ISG were going to 'Cull ALL Badgers' in the proactive areas, and 'Cull ALL badgers' following a Tb breakdown in the reactive zones. (He lied, Matt, he lied.)
We have quoted PQ's many times as to the level of interference with the Krebs traps:
"57% were 'interfered with, and 12% disappeared" as at October 2003. So of 100% set, 69% were absolutely useless. Defra have estimated the ISG 'badger bag' as somewhere between 20 - 60 percent'. This we suspect is on land made available to the trial teams, and does not take into account the trapping problems. And to compound the problems, as Mr. Caruana stated, the trapping was limited to less than 2 weeks before the team moved on. Sometimes for good. And in Matt 5's case for a good 3 years.
It may be worth recording here the effect on the farm of this totally inadequate attempt to 'cull all badgers'. In the wake of the first foray in 2000, a huge amount of activity was generated among the remaining badgers. Farms became 'motorways' as the groups which had been 'shredded' dispersed, fought and regrouped. And the following disease was devastating, some farms losing 30 animals at a time. And it was three years until the teams returned, and again only for 8 nights. So on balance we would agree with Mr. Caruana and those veterinary practitioners who see the results of Defra's prevarication on a daily basis. Krebs wasn't a trial into the effects of culling badgers at all, it proved to be an excercise in badger dispersal. But hey, what do we know, a Professor calls it 'available scientific understanding' .
Would that be the same Professor who chased 14 million postcards convinced that they were cattle? Yup, it would. And the very same who told farmers in 1997, that he was going to 'Cull all badgers', and now writes that this was never the intention at all. Try, cull as many as we can trap, stir up the rest then - just disappear. That'd be right then. And that's the level of 'available scientific understanding', in dealing with a very serious zoonotic pathogen.
I'm glad I'm not a 'scientist'.
"The comments from Paul Caruana to the EFRA committee criticised the handling of the trial by the ISG and dismissed the labelling of the trial as "robust".
John Bourne replied to this :
"The explicit scientific approach taken by the ISG in designing the randomised badger culling trial was crucial, as was its implementation, to ensure that appropriate scientific information was collected". He said it was unfortunate that Paul Caruana had failed to grasp the necessity of imposing such scientific discipline to the field work of the WLU when conducting a scientific study. He branded suggestions that the WLU staff and operatives were not consulted as 'utterly false'.
The ISG said that its plan was never to remove all badgers from culled areas and rebutted Mr. Caruana's comment that interference by animal rights activists had affected the trials outcome. He (Professor Bourne) was unequivocal in his opinion of the views of Dr. Gallagher, Dr. Thomas and John Daykin: "The continued dogmatic belief by scientifically uninformed veterinary opinion that failed past bovine Tb control policies should continue to be more vigourously pursued must be challenged by available scientific understanding".
Well that's told 'em then. More on that ISG 'science' later....
Dr. Lewis Thomas said of the ISG's reponse "To embark on a large scale culling trial knowing that 'culling was never expected or designed to remove all badgers from culled areas' is positively breathtaking". Dr. Gallagher and John Daykin added " A salient point of the ISG's response concerns 'failure' of the culling policies of the 1970's and 1980's. They should have better informed themselves on this subject - in fact the original gassing policy was extremely effective in reducing outbreaks more than threefold in just over five years to a national total of 88 confirmed outbreaks in 1981.
The 'Clean Ring' trapping policy which followed was less effective, but maintained some progress until it was halted in 1986 when the total number of outbreaks was 86.
Now under the 'robust' stewardship of the ISG, there were 1,922 new confirmed herd outbreaks during 2005 and a total of 5,539 herds under Tb restriction. So is failure being redefined as well as science?".
With respect (of course) to all parties in this debate, the only people who can give an 'informed' view of the RBCT are the farmers who took part. It was our fences trashed, and our woods invaded by 'activists' intent on letting out their little furry friends. Paul Caruana was spot on, when he stated that 'it took the teams 4 years to learn how to catch badgers' and avoid such interference. That was assuming that his masters at the ISG directed their little green landrovers in our direction at all. On one of our contributer's farms the 'gap' between any semblance of 'clearance' - which now Bourne says was not not going to happen anyway - was three long years. So much for the ISG acetates in 1997, explaining to participating farmers that the ISG were going to 'Cull ALL Badgers' in the proactive areas, and 'Cull ALL badgers' following a Tb breakdown in the reactive zones. (He lied, Matt, he lied.)
We have quoted PQ's many times as to the level of interference with the Krebs traps:
"57% were 'interfered with, and 12% disappeared" as at October 2003. So of 100% set, 69% were absolutely useless. Defra have estimated the ISG 'badger bag' as somewhere between 20 - 60 percent'. This we suspect is on land made available to the trial teams, and does not take into account the trapping problems. And to compound the problems, as Mr. Caruana stated, the trapping was limited to less than 2 weeks before the team moved on. Sometimes for good. And in Matt 5's case for a good 3 years.
It may be worth recording here the effect on the farm of this totally inadequate attempt to 'cull all badgers'. In the wake of the first foray in 2000, a huge amount of activity was generated among the remaining badgers. Farms became 'motorways' as the groups which had been 'shredded' dispersed, fought and regrouped. And the following disease was devastating, some farms losing 30 animals at a time. And it was three years until the teams returned, and again only for 8 nights. So on balance we would agree with Mr. Caruana and those veterinary practitioners who see the results of Defra's prevarication on a daily basis. Krebs wasn't a trial into the effects of culling badgers at all, it proved to be an excercise in badger dispersal. But hey, what do we know, a Professor calls it 'available scientific understanding' .
Would that be the same Professor who chased 14 million postcards convinced that they were cattle? Yup, it would. And the very same who told farmers in 1997, that he was going to 'Cull all badgers', and now writes that this was never the intention at all. Try, cull as many as we can trap, stir up the rest then - just disappear. That'd be right then. And that's the level of 'available scientific understanding', in dealing with a very serious zoonotic pathogen.
I'm glad I'm not a 'scientist'.
Defra to 'test' Dutch tuberculin.
The sudden drop in numbers of cattle slaughtered as bTb reactors prompted a flurry of reaction from industry and media, if not from Defra, when figures were published in the second week of May. (see post below)
Farmers Guardian reported the story and gave more information:
Entitled "Dutch tuberculin under scrutiny as TB figures fall", their article continues:
"Defra vets are investigating whether a switch in the type of tuberculin used to test cattle is contributing to the sudden and dramatic decline in recorded incidence of bTb. In the first 3 months of this year there were 954 Tb incidents where cattle reacted to the skin test compared with 1,315 in the first quarter of 2005. A remarkable 27 percent drop.So far there have been 512 confirmed new TB cases [ ] In the first quarter of 2005, there were 802.The figures for January 2006 were broadly unchanged on January last year, indicating that the change happened suddenly in February / March. What makes the decline even more dramatic, is that 2000 more herds, and over 100,000 more animals, were tested in the first three months of 2006, than 2005."
Other reasons for the drop are listed in the article by various sections of the industry:
*Jan Rowe, the NFU TB spokesman highlighted Defra's 'zero tolerance' of overdue Tb tests which was introduced in Feb. 2005 as possibly giving an artificially high comparison figure.
*And Tb levels in badgers could be falling, or the tabular valuations introduced in February 2006 may be encouraging farmers to take the law into their own hands.
*NBA chief executive Robert Forster suggested a colder spring could be an influencing factor.
*BCVA president Andrew Biggs said that the 'knock on ' effect of zero tolerance could be contributory, but that the change to Dutch tuberculin "had to be a possible factor".
*Defra said that changes to the tuberculin was considered as a "possible factor", and analysis was underway to compare the performance of the Dutch Lelystad tuberculin, and the VLA home produced product.
The full text can be viewed at:
http://www.farmersguardian.com/story.asp?sectioncode=1&storycode=2246
As we said in our comments section of the previous thread, many hypotheses may contribute. But that 'something' happened very suddenly, in February / March. Without wishing to dismiss any of the 'possibles' flagged up, we would point out that from Parliamentary questions, the residual effect of exposure to bTb in cattle is "up to 221 days in the UK strains".
So anything that happened to the badgers / cattle interface would have had to have occured, just as dramatically, last autumn and not in February this year. Which is why we suspect, Defra are "monitoring the effect of the tuberculin". By which of course, they may mean checking which batch numbers of Lelystad tuberculin went where. Not publicised is a county or regional breakdown of the figures in a format which allows comparison. Is one region affected by the drop more than another? We have heard figures of 40 percent bandied around for the SW, but Glos. do not seem to have had a similar reduction.
Of the 'zero tolerance' possibility mentioned by the NFU and the BCVA, comparison between Jan/Feb/March 2004 and its introduction in 2005, again using Defra figures which we had fortunately printed off and stored, produced no dramatic upturn. NHI's (New breakdowns) were 1093 in the first 3 months of 2004, compared with 1163 in 2005 - an increase of 50. Confirmed incidents recorded 587 in 2004, against 802 in 2005 and currently 512. Cattle slaughtered as Reactors to the skin test show a drop on 2004 of about 100; 5543 in 2004 and 5455 in 2006 (7731 in 2005) . So February / March 2006 is significantly down even when compared with Defra's 2004 figures.This should be excellent news. So why are we so jittery? And why are Defra (very belatedly) 'testing' the efficacy of Dutch tuberculin (used February / March?) when they have distributed it for almost a year with no apparent problems?
We reported the prelude to it's introduction in February 2005 in our posting;
http://bovinetb.blogspot.com/2005/02/ooops.html
A case of shutting the stable door?
Farmers Guardian reported the story and gave more information:
Entitled "Dutch tuberculin under scrutiny as TB figures fall", their article continues:
"Defra vets are investigating whether a switch in the type of tuberculin used to test cattle is contributing to the sudden and dramatic decline in recorded incidence of bTb. In the first 3 months of this year there were 954 Tb incidents where cattle reacted to the skin test compared with 1,315 in the first quarter of 2005. A remarkable 27 percent drop.So far there have been 512 confirmed new TB cases [ ] In the first quarter of 2005, there were 802.The figures for January 2006 were broadly unchanged on January last year, indicating that the change happened suddenly in February / March. What makes the decline even more dramatic, is that 2000 more herds, and over 100,000 more animals, were tested in the first three months of 2006, than 2005."
Other reasons for the drop are listed in the article by various sections of the industry:
*Jan Rowe, the NFU TB spokesman highlighted Defra's 'zero tolerance' of overdue Tb tests which was introduced in Feb. 2005 as possibly giving an artificially high comparison figure.
*And Tb levels in badgers could be falling, or the tabular valuations introduced in February 2006 may be encouraging farmers to take the law into their own hands.
*NBA chief executive Robert Forster suggested a colder spring could be an influencing factor.
*BCVA president Andrew Biggs said that the 'knock on ' effect of zero tolerance could be contributory, but that the change to Dutch tuberculin "had to be a possible factor".
*Defra said that changes to the tuberculin was considered as a "possible factor", and analysis was underway to compare the performance of the Dutch Lelystad tuberculin, and the VLA home produced product.
The full text can be viewed at:
http://www.farmersguardian.com/story.asp?sectioncode=1&storycode=2246
As we said in our comments section of the previous thread, many hypotheses may contribute. But that 'something' happened very suddenly, in February / March. Without wishing to dismiss any of the 'possibles' flagged up, we would point out that from Parliamentary questions, the residual effect of exposure to bTb in cattle is "up to 221 days in the UK strains".
So anything that happened to the badgers / cattle interface would have had to have occured, just as dramatically, last autumn and not in February this year. Which is why we suspect, Defra are "monitoring the effect of the tuberculin". By which of course, they may mean checking which batch numbers of Lelystad tuberculin went where. Not publicised is a county or regional breakdown of the figures in a format which allows comparison. Is one region affected by the drop more than another? We have heard figures of 40 percent bandied around for the SW, but Glos. do not seem to have had a similar reduction.
Of the 'zero tolerance' possibility mentioned by the NFU and the BCVA, comparison between Jan/Feb/March 2004 and its introduction in 2005, again using Defra figures which we had fortunately printed off and stored, produced no dramatic upturn. NHI's (New breakdowns) were 1093 in the first 3 months of 2004, compared with 1163 in 2005 - an increase of 50. Confirmed incidents recorded 587 in 2004, against 802 in 2005 and currently 512. Cattle slaughtered as Reactors to the skin test show a drop on 2004 of about 100; 5543 in 2004 and 5455 in 2006 (7731 in 2005) . So February / March 2006 is significantly down even when compared with Defra's 2004 figures.This should be excellent news. So why are we so jittery? And why are Defra (very belatedly) 'testing' the efficacy of Dutch tuberculin (used February / March?) when they have distributed it for almost a year with no apparent problems?
We reported the prelude to it's introduction in February 2005 in our posting;
http://bovinetb.blogspot.com/2005/02/ooops.html
A case of shutting the stable door?
Thursday, May 11, 2006
Drop in Cattle Reactors - Good News?
A comment on the thread below gave us a wake up call to delve more deeply into the latest slaughter figures from Defra.
The comment we print in full:
"The latest bovine TB figures would appear to be good news!
According to the Provisional TB statistics for Great Britain released on 5 May 2006
TB TESTS CARRIED OUT (in the year to 31st March) increased from
1,649,543 in 2005 to
1,807,805 in 2006
Despite this the number of cows slaughtered as reactors decreased from 7731 to 5455.
I reckon that is about 29% DECREASE
However 6099 herds were under movement restriction on 31 March 2006 (due to a TB incident, overdue TB test, etc), almost half of these
(2994) restricted due to overdue TB tests!
More cattle tested, loads less reactors than last year, and half of the herds under movement restrictions due only to late testing.
Am I missing something, or is this very good news?"
Mmmmm. We really are not sure and for that reason had not explored this too deeply. That's not to say we were unaware of the figures, more listening hard to the many reasons flagged up.
Here are some:
*Defra will no doubt attribute the drop to pre movement testing, but as that only started at the end of March, any cattle involved will not have had a second 60 day test at the posting of these figures. In other words, it has not been around long enough.
*Cynical members of the farming community may have realised that when tabular valuations arrived on Feb 1st., both non pedigree and pedigree cattle values would be severely affected and up with that they would not put.
*Vets were telling us that the Dutch tuberculin, used as we exhausted UK supplies late last year, and mentioned in previous postings, was more sensitive. And in fact it contains 30,000 iu/ ml of bovine antigen compared with 25,000 iu/ml in the UK dose. (25,000 iu/ml of avian in both).
And now we have this amazing drop in cattle numbers. You ask us why. We don't believe in the tooth fairy, and think that the vets may have a point in their concern over the Dutch tuberculin.
The figures have been dropping (they say) since February. But that should have resulted in more reactors if the Dutch serum was more sensitive.
So we are asking some serious and pertinent questions of the specific antigen used and its concentration. Some serum doses are constructed on a broad base to cope at a low level with many strains, but others have a specific 'receptor site' antibody / antigen lock and only identify the strains they are set up to find. And if that were the case, not too many UK cattle wear clogs, or produce Edam cheese. But we return to the earlier veterinary concerns that the Dutch product was TOO sensitive. So if it has it changed, how has it changed from being 'more sensitive' to less? HAS it changed at all? Are they now saying it is not sensitive enough?
The label on the vials still say 25,000 iu/ml for Avian, and 30,000 ph.eur.u/ml for bovine)
Are other factors mentioned above all playing a part?
For the moment the Chancellor may be grateful for small mercies from the Department of the Environment, Food and rural Affairs. His Tb budget is dropping, but if this serum is failing for whatever reason to find reactors, then initially slaughterhouse cases will be seen to increase and eventually, the chickens will come home to roost with an explosion in undiagnosed cases. And that is the worst news.
Defra figures are here: http://www.defra.gov.uk/animalh/tb/stats/detailedstats.htm
'Slaughterhouse' figures have almost doubled from 109 to 189, but the confirmed culture samples from these animals is stable at 68 / 71 respectively.
The comment we print in full:
"The latest bovine TB figures would appear to be good news!
According to the Provisional TB statistics for Great Britain released on 5 May 2006
TB TESTS CARRIED OUT (in the year to 31st March) increased from
1,649,543 in 2005 to
1,807,805 in 2006
Despite this the number of cows slaughtered as reactors decreased from 7731 to 5455.
I reckon that is about 29% DECREASE
However 6099 herds were under movement restriction on 31 March 2006 (due to a TB incident, overdue TB test, etc), almost half of these
(2994) restricted due to overdue TB tests!
More cattle tested, loads less reactors than last year, and half of the herds under movement restrictions due only to late testing.
Am I missing something, or is this very good news?"
Mmmmm. We really are not sure and for that reason had not explored this too deeply. That's not to say we were unaware of the figures, more listening hard to the many reasons flagged up.
Here are some:
*Defra will no doubt attribute the drop to pre movement testing, but as that only started at the end of March, any cattle involved will not have had a second 60 day test at the posting of these figures. In other words, it has not been around long enough.
*Cynical members of the farming community may have realised that when tabular valuations arrived on Feb 1st., both non pedigree and pedigree cattle values would be severely affected and up with that they would not put.
*Vets were telling us that the Dutch tuberculin, used as we exhausted UK supplies late last year, and mentioned in previous postings, was more sensitive. And in fact it contains 30,000 iu/ ml of bovine antigen compared with 25,000 iu/ml in the UK dose. (25,000 iu/ml of avian in both).
And now we have this amazing drop in cattle numbers. You ask us why. We don't believe in the tooth fairy, and think that the vets may have a point in their concern over the Dutch tuberculin.
The figures have been dropping (they say) since February. But that should have resulted in more reactors if the Dutch serum was more sensitive.
So we are asking some serious and pertinent questions of the specific antigen used and its concentration. Some serum doses are constructed on a broad base to cope at a low level with many strains, but others have a specific 'receptor site' antibody / antigen lock and only identify the strains they are set up to find. And if that were the case, not too many UK cattle wear clogs, or produce Edam cheese. But we return to the earlier veterinary concerns that the Dutch product was TOO sensitive. So if it has it changed, how has it changed from being 'more sensitive' to less? HAS it changed at all? Are they now saying it is not sensitive enough?
The label on the vials still say 25,000 iu/ml for Avian, and 30,000 ph.eur.u/ml for bovine)
Are other factors mentioned above all playing a part?
For the moment the Chancellor may be grateful for small mercies from the Department of the Environment, Food and rural Affairs. His Tb budget is dropping, but if this serum is failing for whatever reason to find reactors, then initially slaughterhouse cases will be seen to increase and eventually, the chickens will come home to roost with an explosion in undiagnosed cases. And that is the worst news.
Defra figures are here: http://www.defra.gov.uk/animalh/tb/stats/detailedstats.htm
'Slaughterhouse' figures have almost doubled from 109 to 189, but the confirmed culture samples from these animals is stable at 68 / 71 respectively.
Monday, May 08, 2006
The iron has it - Mark Purdey on bTb
Mark Purdey, an organic farmer who plays a clarinet to his cows in Somerset had some interesting theories on the origins of BSE. While he was including organophosphates in the equation, our casualties fitted his thesis, but when he jumped to ley lines and the phases of the moon, Matt 5 got a bit lost. anyway, a comment on the previous thread reminded us of Mark's brush with bTb and his theories on that.
As we replied after the comment, if the facts don't fit our contributer's particular situation - and here they did not, then a theory it must remain.
TUBERCULOSIS ALERT** --
"Despatches from behind the iron curtain of a British "biohazard" zone."By Mark Purdey, High Barn Farm, Elworthy, Taunton, Somerset, TA43PX,UK.
European livestock farmers dread the day when their cattle succumb to a tuberculosis breakdown. The implications are severe; a ruthless cull of infected cattle and badgers(not since 1997 Mark!), with all remaining healthy cattle impounded behind an iron curtain of government mandated movement restrictions and red tape. The knock on effects have virtually paralysed small farming businesses into a state of financial melt down. /**/But the official procedures of TB control are archaic and outmoded.They are founded upon the age old hypothesis that humans develop TB as a sole result of exposure to TB infected animals, whilst failing toaccommodate the more recent front line revelations in the multifactorial science surrounding mycobacterial disease. In this respect, we need to be questioning whether such cruel and costly strategies that are currently involved in TB control programmes are actually fulfilling their desired effect -- to protect the human population against the TBagent.
Earlier this summer , I was forced to come to terms with my own cattle joining the ever increasing ranks of TB infected herds that are currently blighting the UK.
TB Breakdown; a testing time.
At dawn I scaled the hill to collect the cattle from the furthest fields. The earth still held the heat of the previous day, and I was forced to coerce the cows a little, for they seemed more reluctant to rise and amble the few feet to the green lane than usual. Perhaps the cows were more perceptive than me, their sixth sense receptive to the fate that was about to befall them in a few hours time. As we reached the steeper gradients of the shillet track, the cattle accelerated a little, rutting up the dust with their hooves. The tailswish of a cow disturbed an early morning bee, that droned off beyond the bank of bluebells and into the haze of the dazzling sun. Gradually, the entire caravan of cattle snaked its way down the track to the valley bottom below. On the last stretch to the farm, a patch of giant foxgloves towered over us like an array of mauve lanterns, their luminescence still resonating the brilliance of first light. But I failed to heed their red alert, and just drove the cows on without a second thought. Back at the yard, the vet was ready and we led the cows straight down to the inspection pens. The procedure was simple - to measure the size of any lumps that had erupted on the cows' necks which served as a yardstick for gauging the extent of allergic response to the TB skintest - an intradermal injection of tubercle bacillus that had been administered by the vet three days earlier. After a few minutes I saw the vet stand back abruptly. "Oh" he said in a despondent, drawn out tone, popping on his spectacles slightly askew."We could have a problem here, Mark". I watched him fumbling through his pockets for the callipers, and now knew that he had to take a more precise measurement of what obviously looked like a colossal reaction lump on the cow's neck. I became anxious, and my mouth was beginning to parch up in anticipation of what was coming next.The air was heavy, like that period of suspense before a thunderstorm. Even the robins who had been busy in the yard a minute earlier rustling up the brittle leafs, seemed to have stopped in their tracks. The vet raised his glasses and wiped the sweat off his forehead. "You have a reactor, I'm afraid Mark". A few minutes later there was another reactor, and then several more. My mouth had parched up completely now and my stomach felt nauseaous.
I became angry at the thought of these fine young pedigree animals just into their prime, now condemned to slaughter under the government's animal health diktat. Furthermore, like many other cattle farmers in the UK, I was confused by the perfect condition of the TB reactor cows, since I had always assumed that TB was a debilitating disease. Although these cows had reacted tothe skin test and were therefore deemed to carry TB, I began to wonder whether they had successfully adapted to the infection by knocking out the greater majority of the invasive mycobacteria. In this respect, TheTB slaughter programme could actually be annihilating the resistant animals -- culling the genetically robust individuals that we really needed to be keeping as breeding stock for future generations.
Badgering the true evidence.
The next stage of the so called 'crisis' procedure was to retire to the farmhouse for a tree's worth of form filling, where I was presented with several sheets of a TB questionnaire. I was amazed by the reductionist contents of the questions that followed. Each one had been designed on the assumption that the transmission of the TB agent from infected badgers to cattle was the sole cause of bovine TB. In this respect,*/baddie the badger/* had been dubbed the guilty culprit before the necessary detective work had even begun. ( If this was the TB 99 form, we found only one paragraph of the many sheets referred to badgers - ed) The exact same 'back to front' investigation was applicable to the questionnaire which the government presented to farms that had experienced a case of mad cow disease (BSE) where every question was based on the assumption of a meat and bone meal feed cause - despite the diversity of evidence which indicated that this theory was totally flawed.
The search for susceptibility factors -- the seeds of TB ?
The real question was why had my farm always boasted a TB-free status, despite being surrounded by TB affected cattle / badgers for many years. I began to wonder what changes had been integrated into our farming practises over recent years: changes that could be responsible for switching on the susceptibility of our cattle to the TB agent ? I felt that this was the relevant question that I should be asking right now.TB is virtually endemic in the soils, waters and atmospheres of themajority of ecosystems, where mycobacteria have co-existed with mammalian life for centuries. Despite its widespread prevalence, the TBagent has produced relatively few major outbreaks across the world. It seems that an epidemic of clinical TB can only erupt once some anti-TBcomponent of our immune defence has been disrupted. In this respect, the primary event is a disruption of immunity which enables the TB agent to breach the body's defences and opportunistically take a hold. A historical study of the epidemiology of TB demonstrates that epidemics of TB have occurred since the iron age, and that this disease has always been rife amongst specific population groups who are nutritionally impoverished in some way. For example, TB was rife amongst city slum dwellers who had no choice but to breath the industrially polluted air 24 hours a day, as well as the half starved Scottish / Irish crofterswho were evicted and forced onto boats bound for North America. Another more recent example involves AIDS victims whose immune systems are so severely compromised that they invariably develop TB as a secondarycomplication.
A Limey's view of TB cause.
So what is the key factor that has suddenly unleashed TB susceptibility amongst my cattle following so many years of TB-free status ? After much thought about the specific changes that I had integrated into my farming system over recent years, I began to wonder whether the TB breakdown in my herd could be connected to the drastic cost-cutting measures which I have been forced to adopt in order to survive the current agri-economiccrisis. Along with most other hard pressed livestock farmers across the UK, we had foolishly cut back on the use of the so called '*/non essential'/*lime / calcified seaweed based fertilisers. Furthermore, the trend in reduced usage of lime based fertilisers has been exacerbated by recent conservation measures that have debarred the harvesting of Cornish calcified seaweed altogether - thereby preventing future usage of this material on the farm. It is the general reduction in use of lime fertilisers, combined withthe recent increases in winter rainfall across the western UK, that has acidified the top soil as a result; whilst other eco-influences such as acid rain and the continued use of so called '*/essential'/* artificial fertilisers will undoubtably be playing their contributory roles in the acidification of Agricultural ecosystems. The pH alkaline/acidic value of the soils on our farm has dropped from an acceptable neutral pH 6 to an acidic pH 5 over the last three years -evidenced by the invasion of buttercups into our pastures where clover used to flourish. Research has shown that there is a correlation between areas of high mycobacteria incidence and regions where the soils are acid. This association is strengthened by the results of studies where lime was spread on farms in Michigan that were suffering from high rates of mycobacterium infection ( albeit the paratuberculosis strain of mycobacterium ). The study concluded that the lime treatment had produced a ten-fold reduction in the infection of cattle after a three year period had passed. [ Johnson-Ifearulundu and Kaneene 1997 ].
*/Branding the Iron on TB/*/cause/*
The relevant issue in respect of TB infection and soil acidity hinges on the fact that acidification of the topsoil leads to an excessive accumulation of available iron [ Pais and Benton Jones 1997] --particularly in the regions where soil iron is naturally elevated and rainfall is high. The iron is taken up by the pasture herbage (especially ryegrass, plantain [ McDonald and others 1973 ], bluebell tubers, etc) as well as percolating into the local water supplies as aresult; which, in turn, is taken up by any animals who thrive upon the local iron rich ecosystem -- particularly those individuals who are genetically predisposed to an increased uptake/retention of iron within their biosystems. Interestingly, the key hotspot zones of bovine TB across the UK are the Forest of Dean, Exmoor, Cornwall, Devon and the Mendip hills. These regions all correlate with the areas where iron has been mined in abundance [ Flett 1935 ] and rainfall is high. Preliminary pasture sampling from the specific fields on my own farm (June 2005) where the TB reactors had been pastured has consistently demonstrated an */excessive/* elevation of iron ( average 378 mg/kg), in relation to the levels of 143 mg/kg recorded three years previously.This research is being expanded to cover TB-free and TB farms across the key TB cluster areas of the UK .
*/What is the relationship between elevated iron and increasedsusceptibility to TB ?
Much research is published in the scientific literature which demonstrates that Iron represents an essential prerequisite in the pathogenesis of TB , enabling TB and other strains of mycobacterium to proliferate, metabolise and survive within the mammalian biosystem [Ratledge 2004 ]. In this respect, it is the supply of 'free' iron within the host which provides the TB agent with its 'fire power' capacity to unleash its deleterious pathogenicity, thereby invoking the often fatal, devastating consequences that result from TB infection. Although TB victims adapt to their parasitic attacks by stashing away their iron supplies in tissues that are inaccessible to the mycobacteria, the grand finale of the TB disease process usually culminates in the parasite getting the upper hand; whereby the host develops the classic iron deficient anaemic state that is a central clinical feature of TB. Mycobacteria acquire their iron from the host's own transferrin /ferritin molecules -- the iron binding transport / storage proteins thatare integral to the healthy metabolism of iron within the mammalian biosystem. The mycobacteria rob their host's iron by releasing a type of iron-capturing siderophore called an exochelin; which, in turn, transfers and donates the iron back to the mycobactins which exist inthe cell walls of the mycobacteria themselves [ Gobin and Horwitz1996 ].This hijaking of the host's iron supply is beneficial for the survivalof the TB mycobacteria in more ways than one. Not only does the TB agent utilise the host's iron for its own proliferation and survival, but it also utilises this metal to indemnify its own long term security within the host; by disabling the host's immune defence against itself. The parasite achieves this means of self protection by curtailing the viable synthesis of the iron binding beta-2-microglobulin molecules whose role is to activate the killer T lymphocytes [ Schaible and others 2002 ] -the host's main line of immune defence against mycobacteria infection.This could explain why individual humans whose T immune systems have become compromised through nutritional deprivation or AIDS toxicity areat a significantly greater risk of developing TB as a secondary complication. But TB is not the only pathogen that depends upon the host's iron for its maintenance and growth within the body. The infamous Clostridium Botulinum ( implicated in grass sickness of horses ), Leprosy, HIV,Candida , Listeria, Salmonella, Malaria etc, are all members of this insidious family of */ironmonger /*pathogens to which TB belongs[Weinberg 1999] Only last week, champion horsebreeder Gail Dunsbee had been in touch with me over the sudden death of one of her horses as a result of grass sickness -- a devastating paralysis of the autonomic nerve endings inthe horse's gut due to infection with clostridium botulinum. But much like TB, Botulinum is virtually endemic in the gastro tract of horses where it rarely produces any adverse health effects at all. So what environmental factor had suddenly switched on the susceptibility of her horse's gut to the infection ? Dissatisfied with the professional ignorance surrounding the root causes of grass sickness, Gail had taken matters into her own hands in order to safeguard the future of her surviving horses. And once again, it looks like the results of her preliminary soil analyses have provided the causal clues that might address this catastrophic problem for horsebreeders. Apart from the low potassium readings, the extremely excessive readings for Iron ( at 1344 ppm ) was the only other element of the twelve elements tested which had deviated from its respective reference range.This result could explain why grass sickness, like TB, has invariably remained confined to acid soil districts where iron levels are generally elevated.
*/Ironing out the TB pathogen./*
Since elevated iron increases TB risk , it is easy to understand how the management of dietary iron can influence the outcome of TB [ Ratledge2004, Cronje and Bornman 2005 ]. For example. when TB infected mice weretreated with the iron chelating lactoferrin protein ( a natural ingredient of colostrum milk ) , there was a one hundred fold reduction in the number of pathogens present in the mice. [ Schaible and others 2002 ]. Likewise, TB diseased individuals used to be regularly treated with the iron-chelating compound p-aminosalicylate with some success [ Ratledge2004 ]. In this respect, it could prove beneficial from a preventativeas well as a curative perspective to introduce copper or zinc bicarbonate supplements into the diet of TB affected populations [ Paisand Benton Jones 1997 ]. Whilst these anionic compounds do not act as iron chelators as such, they will impair the absorption of iron across the gastrotract by competing for its uptake system of transport proteins. Furthermore, any foodstuffs containing phytic acids, such aslegumes ( alfalfa, clover, etc ) and grains [ McDonald and others 1973 ]will produce the same anti-iron effects. Use of inorganic phosphorus as an inclusion in fertilisers or mineral feed supplements would also assist in reducing the amount of free iron that is rendered 'available' in the soil or taken up into the animal respectively [ Underwood 1977 ]. The phosphorus competes for the ironbinding site on the transport proteins that normally convey iron acrossthe gut wall; thereby arresting the uptake of iron at its initial pointof entry into the body. It is also important to consider the knock-out effects that iron chelators might impact upon the */horror chamber/* of other pathogens which need to bite the */iron bullet/* before they can trigger disease.For instance, it has already been demonstrated that the iron chelating compounds, deferoxamine and 8-hydroxyquinoline-5-sulfonic acid have produced beneficial effects in the treatment of leprosy and clostridiumbotulinum respectively .[Weinberg 1999][ Bhattacharyya and Sugiyama 1989]
*/Iron in the Ecosystem. /*
It is proposed that badgers and cattle that co-exist within the same environments will both develop TB due to their separate co-exposure to the same iron-rich foodchain, and not necessarily due to across-infection from one animal to the other. Bluebell and other iron-rich tubers constitute a large part of thebadger's diet and these will gradually load up the badger's biosystem with a concentrated source of iron until threshold levels are exceeded - thereby providing any mycobacterial pathogens that are present with the sustenance to proliferate to pathogenic levels. Likewise, the high incidence rates of human TB that have been recorded amongst steelworkers and slum dwellers ( who lived beside their workplaces during theindustrial revolution ) could have been induced by the high levels ofiron in the atmospheres of their local environment.
*/The politics of TB. /*
I believe that government ministers in the UK have been correct in resisting pressures to re-enact wholesale slaughter of badgers as a means of controlling TB in the bovine / human populations. For the badger culls of bygone years have achieved nothing in terms of eradicating TB. (Thornbury? 100% eradication for 12 years? - ed)The disease has kept on re-occurring irrespective of the various slaughter measures that have been put in place. In this respect, we need to consider what is actually achieved each time that we re-enact this final farcical solution for TB control --eg; badger gassing and blanket cattle culls ?Furthermore, it is scientifically naïve to think that we will ever be able to eradicate a pathogen that is endemic in the environment at large. As long as optimum eco-conditions for the survival of TBmycobacterium are allowed to exist ( eg; high iron / soil acidity ),then TB epidemics will continue to rear their ugly head, as and when alterations in weather conditions and husbandry methods permit. In respect of consumers who are anxious about exposure to TB pathogens in their foods, they need to be aware that modern methods of foodprocessing safeguard consumers from exposure to the TB agent -- methods that did not exist half a century ago. For example, any milk that is taken from a TB affected animal today is automatically pasteurised in the modern dairy set up. (prohibited from the food chain including calves from January 2006- ed) Although pasteurisation produces some negative health effects -- by switching our immune response to TB and other pathogens into 'sleep mode' - this ultra efficient sterilisation process provides a guarantee of biosecurity for those who are concerned about TB exposure.
Whilst it is high time that governments should say farewell to their archaic strategy for TB control, some viable alternative will be needed to replace it. In this respect, governments should begin to examine the considerably cheaper / animal welfare friendly option of encouragingfarmers ( via subsidies) to adopt husbandry practices which prevent cattle from succumbing to TB infection in the first instance. Eg; by subsidising the spreading of lime fertilisers across the TB endemic/highiron regions, as well as promoting feeding / fertilising with iron-chelating/ anti-iron compounds on farms in the TB risk areas. This would reduce the amount of iron that is flowing up the farm foodchain, which, in turn, would reduce the levels of TB mycobacteria.Such a radical approach which curtails the susceptibility of cattle to the TB agent could produce some major advantages over the existing system which slaughters out the end results of TB infection. This would achieve a considerable reduction in the overall incidence rates of TB ,thereby reaping major savings for both human and animal life, farmers' livelihoods and the tax payer. Since the incidence of TB is increasing amongst the human population, it is high time that we adopted a more intelligent, civilised and updated strategy for dealing with the prevention of TB. In this respect, we need to be taking a closer look at the underlying causes of 'iron overload' in the human foodchain and ecosystem at large. This would entail looking at the impacts of acid rain and how it brings about a rise in the levels of available iron within the soil and water supplies. Issues surroundingthe industrial emission of iron particulates into the atmosphere, as well as the supplementation of our foods with iron additives representimportant areas that warrant investigation and the development of controls. Likewise, the indirect impact of various toxic or mutagenicenvironmental agents upon the metabolic processes that regulate iron homeostasis is an area that also needs to be considered. For a whole range of environmental chemicals /metals are recognised to disrupt or mutate the body's capacity to regulate the balanced uptake, storage and/or excretion of iron; thereby representing an alternative means through which iron levels could become elevated in the biosystem; which in turn, switches on an increased susceptibility to TB infection.
Meanwhile back on the farm, the knacker man had arrived to collect theTB reactors at nightfall. I lead the unsuspecting cows to the loading pen, feeling guilty that I had betrayed them by failing to mount any kind of resistance against the government's strategy of senseless slaughter. The cows waited, absorbing their final moments of life in the half light. Their backs were steaming and heads held low.The monster lorry rattled in like an aluminium alien, and then backed upto the loading pen. The ramps came down, and after a rapid fire of whelpings and whip lashings, the cattle reluctantly surrendered themselves to their fate; hooves sliding and clattering up the steely ramp into the dark hold of the lorry. As the truck turned the top corner, I caught my last glimpse of the cows, their noses frantically pressing through the six inch slats - a last ditch attempt to escape their premature and pointless execution.Tonight they will be sectioned to the post mortem bench, abattoired into oblivion..As I walked back to the farmhouse in the half light, I caught a glimpse of the patch of foxglove petals glowing like red hot irons on the hill, still resonating with the evening sun. It was a timely reminder that our TB problem had not been extinguished by the removal of our reactor cows from the farm, but was still very much alive and well, and rooted in the acidity of our soils. As I walked back to the farmhouse, I remembered that the presence of foxgloves indicates high iron and high manganeselevels in the soil. Mark Purdey 15/8/05
As we pointed out, Mark's withdrawal of lime from his land for monetry pressures and the subsequent increase in iron levels does not necessarily apply to all of us. And in our case, it did not. Ph levels were 5.8 - 6.2 at the last testing session. we would hope that Mark has rectified the acidity of his land since last August. Did it have any affect in subsequent tb tests I wonder? Conversly the 'cause' of his problem may have died or gone to pastures new.
A farmer in the north feeds 'his' badgers with selenium and reckons it protects them and his cattle. Time will tell.
As we replied after the comment, if the facts don't fit our contributer's particular situation - and here they did not, then a theory it must remain.
TUBERCULOSIS ALERT** --
"Despatches from behind the iron curtain of a British "biohazard" zone."By Mark Purdey, High Barn Farm, Elworthy, Taunton, Somerset, TA43PX,UK.
European livestock farmers dread the day when their cattle succumb to a tuberculosis breakdown. The implications are severe; a ruthless cull of infected cattle and badgers(not since 1997 Mark!), with all remaining healthy cattle impounded behind an iron curtain of government mandated movement restrictions and red tape. The knock on effects have virtually paralysed small farming businesses into a state of financial melt down. /**/But the official procedures of TB control are archaic and outmoded.They are founded upon the age old hypothesis that humans develop TB as a sole result of exposure to TB infected animals, whilst failing toaccommodate the more recent front line revelations in the multifactorial science surrounding mycobacterial disease. In this respect, we need to be questioning whether such cruel and costly strategies that are currently involved in TB control programmes are actually fulfilling their desired effect -- to protect the human population against the TBagent.
Earlier this summer , I was forced to come to terms with my own cattle joining the ever increasing ranks of TB infected herds that are currently blighting the UK.
TB Breakdown; a testing time.
At dawn I scaled the hill to collect the cattle from the furthest fields. The earth still held the heat of the previous day, and I was forced to coerce the cows a little, for they seemed more reluctant to rise and amble the few feet to the green lane than usual. Perhaps the cows were more perceptive than me, their sixth sense receptive to the fate that was about to befall them in a few hours time. As we reached the steeper gradients of the shillet track, the cattle accelerated a little, rutting up the dust with their hooves. The tailswish of a cow disturbed an early morning bee, that droned off beyond the bank of bluebells and into the haze of the dazzling sun. Gradually, the entire caravan of cattle snaked its way down the track to the valley bottom below. On the last stretch to the farm, a patch of giant foxgloves towered over us like an array of mauve lanterns, their luminescence still resonating the brilliance of first light. But I failed to heed their red alert, and just drove the cows on without a second thought. Back at the yard, the vet was ready and we led the cows straight down to the inspection pens. The procedure was simple - to measure the size of any lumps that had erupted on the cows' necks which served as a yardstick for gauging the extent of allergic response to the TB skintest - an intradermal injection of tubercle bacillus that had been administered by the vet three days earlier. After a few minutes I saw the vet stand back abruptly. "Oh" he said in a despondent, drawn out tone, popping on his spectacles slightly askew."We could have a problem here, Mark". I watched him fumbling through his pockets for the callipers, and now knew that he had to take a more precise measurement of what obviously looked like a colossal reaction lump on the cow's neck. I became anxious, and my mouth was beginning to parch up in anticipation of what was coming next.The air was heavy, like that period of suspense before a thunderstorm. Even the robins who had been busy in the yard a minute earlier rustling up the brittle leafs, seemed to have stopped in their tracks. The vet raised his glasses and wiped the sweat off his forehead. "You have a reactor, I'm afraid Mark". A few minutes later there was another reactor, and then several more. My mouth had parched up completely now and my stomach felt nauseaous.
I became angry at the thought of these fine young pedigree animals just into their prime, now condemned to slaughter under the government's animal health diktat. Furthermore, like many other cattle farmers in the UK, I was confused by the perfect condition of the TB reactor cows, since I had always assumed that TB was a debilitating disease. Although these cows had reacted tothe skin test and were therefore deemed to carry TB, I began to wonder whether they had successfully adapted to the infection by knocking out the greater majority of the invasive mycobacteria. In this respect, TheTB slaughter programme could actually be annihilating the resistant animals -- culling the genetically robust individuals that we really needed to be keeping as breeding stock for future generations.
Badgering the true evidence.
The next stage of the so called 'crisis' procedure was to retire to the farmhouse for a tree's worth of form filling, where I was presented with several sheets of a TB questionnaire. I was amazed by the reductionist contents of the questions that followed. Each one had been designed on the assumption that the transmission of the TB agent from infected badgers to cattle was the sole cause of bovine TB. In this respect,*/baddie the badger/* had been dubbed the guilty culprit before the necessary detective work had even begun. ( If this was the TB 99 form, we found only one paragraph of the many sheets referred to badgers - ed) The exact same 'back to front' investigation was applicable to the questionnaire which the government presented to farms that had experienced a case of mad cow disease (BSE) where every question was based on the assumption of a meat and bone meal feed cause - despite the diversity of evidence which indicated that this theory was totally flawed.
The search for susceptibility factors -- the seeds of TB ?
The real question was why had my farm always boasted a TB-free status, despite being surrounded by TB affected cattle / badgers for many years. I began to wonder what changes had been integrated into our farming practises over recent years: changes that could be responsible for switching on the susceptibility of our cattle to the TB agent ? I felt that this was the relevant question that I should be asking right now.TB is virtually endemic in the soils, waters and atmospheres of themajority of ecosystems, where mycobacteria have co-existed with mammalian life for centuries. Despite its widespread prevalence, the TBagent has produced relatively few major outbreaks across the world. It seems that an epidemic of clinical TB can only erupt once some anti-TBcomponent of our immune defence has been disrupted. In this respect, the primary event is a disruption of immunity which enables the TB agent to breach the body's defences and opportunistically take a hold. A historical study of the epidemiology of TB demonstrates that epidemics of TB have occurred since the iron age, and that this disease has always been rife amongst specific population groups who are nutritionally impoverished in some way. For example, TB was rife amongst city slum dwellers who had no choice but to breath the industrially polluted air 24 hours a day, as well as the half starved Scottish / Irish crofterswho were evicted and forced onto boats bound for North America. Another more recent example involves AIDS victims whose immune systems are so severely compromised that they invariably develop TB as a secondarycomplication.
A Limey's view of TB cause.
So what is the key factor that has suddenly unleashed TB susceptibility amongst my cattle following so many years of TB-free status ? After much thought about the specific changes that I had integrated into my farming system over recent years, I began to wonder whether the TB breakdown in my herd could be connected to the drastic cost-cutting measures which I have been forced to adopt in order to survive the current agri-economiccrisis. Along with most other hard pressed livestock farmers across the UK, we had foolishly cut back on the use of the so called '*/non essential'/*lime / calcified seaweed based fertilisers. Furthermore, the trend in reduced usage of lime based fertilisers has been exacerbated by recent conservation measures that have debarred the harvesting of Cornish calcified seaweed altogether - thereby preventing future usage of this material on the farm. It is the general reduction in use of lime fertilisers, combined withthe recent increases in winter rainfall across the western UK, that has acidified the top soil as a result; whilst other eco-influences such as acid rain and the continued use of so called '*/essential'/* artificial fertilisers will undoubtably be playing their contributory roles in the acidification of Agricultural ecosystems. The pH alkaline/acidic value of the soils on our farm has dropped from an acceptable neutral pH 6 to an acidic pH 5 over the last three years -evidenced by the invasion of buttercups into our pastures where clover used to flourish. Research has shown that there is a correlation between areas of high mycobacteria incidence and regions where the soils are acid. This association is strengthened by the results of studies where lime was spread on farms in Michigan that were suffering from high rates of mycobacterium infection ( albeit the paratuberculosis strain of mycobacterium ). The study concluded that the lime treatment had produced a ten-fold reduction in the infection of cattle after a three year period had passed. [ Johnson-Ifearulundu and Kaneene 1997 ].
*/Branding the Iron on TB/*/cause/*
The relevant issue in respect of TB infection and soil acidity hinges on the fact that acidification of the topsoil leads to an excessive accumulation of available iron [ Pais and Benton Jones 1997] --particularly in the regions where soil iron is naturally elevated and rainfall is high. The iron is taken up by the pasture herbage (especially ryegrass, plantain [ McDonald and others 1973 ], bluebell tubers, etc) as well as percolating into the local water supplies as aresult; which, in turn, is taken up by any animals who thrive upon the local iron rich ecosystem -- particularly those individuals who are genetically predisposed to an increased uptake/retention of iron within their biosystems. Interestingly, the key hotspot zones of bovine TB across the UK are the Forest of Dean, Exmoor, Cornwall, Devon and the Mendip hills. These regions all correlate with the areas where iron has been mined in abundance [ Flett 1935 ] and rainfall is high. Preliminary pasture sampling from the specific fields on my own farm (June 2005) where the TB reactors had been pastured has consistently demonstrated an */excessive/* elevation of iron ( average 378 mg/kg), in relation to the levels of 143 mg/kg recorded three years previously.This research is being expanded to cover TB-free and TB farms across the key TB cluster areas of the UK .
*/What is the relationship between elevated iron and increasedsusceptibility to TB ?
Much research is published in the scientific literature which demonstrates that Iron represents an essential prerequisite in the pathogenesis of TB , enabling TB and other strains of mycobacterium to proliferate, metabolise and survive within the mammalian biosystem [Ratledge 2004 ]. In this respect, it is the supply of 'free' iron within the host which provides the TB agent with its 'fire power' capacity to unleash its deleterious pathogenicity, thereby invoking the often fatal, devastating consequences that result from TB infection. Although TB victims adapt to their parasitic attacks by stashing away their iron supplies in tissues that are inaccessible to the mycobacteria, the grand finale of the TB disease process usually culminates in the parasite getting the upper hand; whereby the host develops the classic iron deficient anaemic state that is a central clinical feature of TB. Mycobacteria acquire their iron from the host's own transferrin /ferritin molecules -- the iron binding transport / storage proteins thatare integral to the healthy metabolism of iron within the mammalian biosystem. The mycobacteria rob their host's iron by releasing a type of iron-capturing siderophore called an exochelin; which, in turn, transfers and donates the iron back to the mycobactins which exist inthe cell walls of the mycobacteria themselves [ Gobin and Horwitz1996 ].This hijaking of the host's iron supply is beneficial for the survivalof the TB mycobacteria in more ways than one. Not only does the TB agent utilise the host's iron for its own proliferation and survival, but it also utilises this metal to indemnify its own long term security within the host; by disabling the host's immune defence against itself. The parasite achieves this means of self protection by curtailing the viable synthesis of the iron binding beta-2-microglobulin molecules whose role is to activate the killer T lymphocytes [ Schaible and others 2002 ] -the host's main line of immune defence against mycobacteria infection.This could explain why individual humans whose T immune systems have become compromised through nutritional deprivation or AIDS toxicity areat a significantly greater risk of developing TB as a secondary complication. But TB is not the only pathogen that depends upon the host's iron for its maintenance and growth within the body. The infamous Clostridium Botulinum ( implicated in grass sickness of horses ), Leprosy, HIV,Candida , Listeria, Salmonella, Malaria etc, are all members of this insidious family of */ironmonger /*pathogens to which TB belongs[Weinberg 1999] Only last week, champion horsebreeder Gail Dunsbee had been in touch with me over the sudden death of one of her horses as a result of grass sickness -- a devastating paralysis of the autonomic nerve endings inthe horse's gut due to infection with clostridium botulinum. But much like TB, Botulinum is virtually endemic in the gastro tract of horses where it rarely produces any adverse health effects at all. So what environmental factor had suddenly switched on the susceptibility of her horse's gut to the infection ? Dissatisfied with the professional ignorance surrounding the root causes of grass sickness, Gail had taken matters into her own hands in order to safeguard the future of her surviving horses. And once again, it looks like the results of her preliminary soil analyses have provided the causal clues that might address this catastrophic problem for horsebreeders. Apart from the low potassium readings, the extremely excessive readings for Iron ( at 1344 ppm ) was the only other element of the twelve elements tested which had deviated from its respective reference range.This result could explain why grass sickness, like TB, has invariably remained confined to acid soil districts where iron levels are generally elevated.
*/Ironing out the TB pathogen./*
Since elevated iron increases TB risk , it is easy to understand how the management of dietary iron can influence the outcome of TB [ Ratledge2004, Cronje and Bornman 2005 ]. For example. when TB infected mice weretreated with the iron chelating lactoferrin protein ( a natural ingredient of colostrum milk ) , there was a one hundred fold reduction in the number of pathogens present in the mice. [ Schaible and others 2002 ]. Likewise, TB diseased individuals used to be regularly treated with the iron-chelating compound p-aminosalicylate with some success [ Ratledge2004 ]. In this respect, it could prove beneficial from a preventativeas well as a curative perspective to introduce copper or zinc bicarbonate supplements into the diet of TB affected populations [ Paisand Benton Jones 1997 ]. Whilst these anionic compounds do not act as iron chelators as such, they will impair the absorption of iron across the gastrotract by competing for its uptake system of transport proteins. Furthermore, any foodstuffs containing phytic acids, such aslegumes ( alfalfa, clover, etc ) and grains [ McDonald and others 1973 ]will produce the same anti-iron effects. Use of inorganic phosphorus as an inclusion in fertilisers or mineral feed supplements would also assist in reducing the amount of free iron that is rendered 'available' in the soil or taken up into the animal respectively [ Underwood 1977 ]. The phosphorus competes for the ironbinding site on the transport proteins that normally convey iron acrossthe gut wall; thereby arresting the uptake of iron at its initial pointof entry into the body. It is also important to consider the knock-out effects that iron chelators might impact upon the */horror chamber/* of other pathogens which need to bite the */iron bullet/* before they can trigger disease.For instance, it has already been demonstrated that the iron chelating compounds, deferoxamine and 8-hydroxyquinoline-5-sulfonic acid have produced beneficial effects in the treatment of leprosy and clostridiumbotulinum respectively .[Weinberg 1999][ Bhattacharyya and Sugiyama 1989]
*/Iron in the Ecosystem. /*
It is proposed that badgers and cattle that co-exist within the same environments will both develop TB due to their separate co-exposure to the same iron-rich foodchain, and not necessarily due to across-infection from one animal to the other. Bluebell and other iron-rich tubers constitute a large part of thebadger's diet and these will gradually load up the badger's biosystem with a concentrated source of iron until threshold levels are exceeded - thereby providing any mycobacterial pathogens that are present with the sustenance to proliferate to pathogenic levels. Likewise, the high incidence rates of human TB that have been recorded amongst steelworkers and slum dwellers ( who lived beside their workplaces during theindustrial revolution ) could have been induced by the high levels ofiron in the atmospheres of their local environment.
*/The politics of TB. /*
I believe that government ministers in the UK have been correct in resisting pressures to re-enact wholesale slaughter of badgers as a means of controlling TB in the bovine / human populations. For the badger culls of bygone years have achieved nothing in terms of eradicating TB. (Thornbury? 100% eradication for 12 years? - ed)The disease has kept on re-occurring irrespective of the various slaughter measures that have been put in place. In this respect, we need to consider what is actually achieved each time that we re-enact this final farcical solution for TB control --eg; badger gassing and blanket cattle culls ?Furthermore, it is scientifically naïve to think that we will ever be able to eradicate a pathogen that is endemic in the environment at large. As long as optimum eco-conditions for the survival of TBmycobacterium are allowed to exist ( eg; high iron / soil acidity ),then TB epidemics will continue to rear their ugly head, as and when alterations in weather conditions and husbandry methods permit. In respect of consumers who are anxious about exposure to TB pathogens in their foods, they need to be aware that modern methods of foodprocessing safeguard consumers from exposure to the TB agent -- methods that did not exist half a century ago. For example, any milk that is taken from a TB affected animal today is automatically pasteurised in the modern dairy set up. (prohibited from the food chain including calves from January 2006- ed) Although pasteurisation produces some negative health effects -- by switching our immune response to TB and other pathogens into 'sleep mode' - this ultra efficient sterilisation process provides a guarantee of biosecurity for those who are concerned about TB exposure.
Whilst it is high time that governments should say farewell to their archaic strategy for TB control, some viable alternative will be needed to replace it. In this respect, governments should begin to examine the considerably cheaper / animal welfare friendly option of encouragingfarmers ( via subsidies) to adopt husbandry practices which prevent cattle from succumbing to TB infection in the first instance. Eg; by subsidising the spreading of lime fertilisers across the TB endemic/highiron regions, as well as promoting feeding / fertilising with iron-chelating/ anti-iron compounds on farms in the TB risk areas. This would reduce the amount of iron that is flowing up the farm foodchain, which, in turn, would reduce the levels of TB mycobacteria.Such a radical approach which curtails the susceptibility of cattle to the TB agent could produce some major advantages over the existing system which slaughters out the end results of TB infection. This would achieve a considerable reduction in the overall incidence rates of TB ,thereby reaping major savings for both human and animal life, farmers' livelihoods and the tax payer. Since the incidence of TB is increasing amongst the human population, it is high time that we adopted a more intelligent, civilised and updated strategy for dealing with the prevention of TB. In this respect, we need to be taking a closer look at the underlying causes of 'iron overload' in the human foodchain and ecosystem at large. This would entail looking at the impacts of acid rain and how it brings about a rise in the levels of available iron within the soil and water supplies. Issues surroundingthe industrial emission of iron particulates into the atmosphere, as well as the supplementation of our foods with iron additives representimportant areas that warrant investigation and the development of controls. Likewise, the indirect impact of various toxic or mutagenicenvironmental agents upon the metabolic processes that regulate iron homeostasis is an area that also needs to be considered. For a whole range of environmental chemicals /metals are recognised to disrupt or mutate the body's capacity to regulate the balanced uptake, storage and/or excretion of iron; thereby representing an alternative means through which iron levels could become elevated in the biosystem; which in turn, switches on an increased susceptibility to TB infection.
Meanwhile back on the farm, the knacker man had arrived to collect theTB reactors at nightfall. I lead the unsuspecting cows to the loading pen, feeling guilty that I had betrayed them by failing to mount any kind of resistance against the government's strategy of senseless slaughter. The cows waited, absorbing their final moments of life in the half light. Their backs were steaming and heads held low.The monster lorry rattled in like an aluminium alien, and then backed upto the loading pen. The ramps came down, and after a rapid fire of whelpings and whip lashings, the cattle reluctantly surrendered themselves to their fate; hooves sliding and clattering up the steely ramp into the dark hold of the lorry. As the truck turned the top corner, I caught my last glimpse of the cows, their noses frantically pressing through the six inch slats - a last ditch attempt to escape their premature and pointless execution.Tonight they will be sectioned to the post mortem bench, abattoired into oblivion..As I walked back to the farmhouse in the half light, I caught a glimpse of the patch of foxglove petals glowing like red hot irons on the hill, still resonating with the evening sun. It was a timely reminder that our TB problem had not been extinguished by the removal of our reactor cows from the farm, but was still very much alive and well, and rooted in the acidity of our soils. As I walked back to the farmhouse, I remembered that the presence of foxgloves indicates high iron and high manganeselevels in the soil. Mark Purdey 15/8/05
As we pointed out, Mark's withdrawal of lime from his land for monetry pressures and the subsequent increase in iron levels does not necessarily apply to all of us. And in our case, it did not. Ph levels were 5.8 - 6.2 at the last testing session. we would hope that Mark has rectified the acidity of his land since last August. Did it have any affect in subsequent tb tests I wonder? Conversly the 'cause' of his problem may have died or gone to pastures new.
A farmer in the north feeds 'his' badgers with selenium and reckons it protects them and his cattle. Time will tell.
Friday, May 05, 2006
Hold the Front Page
The headline and front page of this weeks' Veterinary Times highlights the submission by Paul Caruana who was part of Defra's Wildlife Unit, and who entered a personal submission to the EFRA commmittee, describing the Krebs' RBCT as "having too many flaws to be taken seriously".
In our posts below, we forecast the demise of this highly competent unit. Mr. Caruana's statement is also listed.
"Defra Employee Blasts ISG over Culling trials."
A submission to the EFRA committee by a Defra employee has slammed the Independent Scientific Group's (ISG) badger culling trials.
Veterinarians and bovine tb experts, Dr. John Gallagher and John Daykin called the information contained in Paul Caruana's submission "dynamite".
Dr. Gallagher told the Veterinary Times "This submission shows how the ISG badly mismanaged this trial and refused to listen to those with practical knowledge who could have done the job properly, if allowed".
Defra's badger culling consultation has attracted more than 41,000 responses: the biggest interest to date in a public consultation. most of the responses are thought to have been promoted by public campaigns orchestrated by the RSPCA and the Badger Trust.
Dr. Gallagher said that these groups had used (the first year results ) the ISG's badger culling trial to back up their arguments. "Assertions based on the findings of the recently completed culling trials have been used as 'hard factual evidence' by welfare groups who've been saying that culling (badgers) does not resolve the TB problem in cattle"
Paul Caruana, field manager at the Defra wildlife unit, Polwhele, Cornwall was unapologetic when offering his submission to the EFRA committee. ........ He outlined that the Krebs trial had too many anomalies and weaknesses in its 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 being 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".
Mr. Caruana said he did not believe scientists had all the answers, and added "most certainly, Krebs doesn't". According to him, the trial had far too many flaws to be trusted to produce meaningful evidence. ......... The whole basis of the trial was to remove badgers off the ground and this, said Mr. Carauna was "farcical " due to restrictions that were placed on staff.
Professor John Bourne, chairman of the ISG has repeatedly stated that the trials represent 'robust science', but Mr. Caruana disagreed with this assessment of events. His condemnation of the trial is unequivocal. "How much weight do we give the latest ISG report detailing 'robust' findings to the minister? If it were down to my staff and myself - very little".
John Daykin who is based in East sussex, said "The evidence in Paul's statement is a shocking indictment of the implementation of badger culling in the experimental triplets. It provides clear evidence that the ISG refused to change course despite repeated entreaties from from operatives carrying out the work at the sharp end. It is vital, that such significant information is looked at in depth by Parliament, before any pronouncements are made on the badger culling consultation."
Dr. Gallagher said that all other badger culling trials conducted in Britian and Ireland had been carried out to a proper standard. He concluded "It is only the ISG's trials that have produced these totally spurious findings, and it is these that the RSPCA and Badger Trust have used".
This front page article also carries a comment:
Where are we now?
"New evidence questioning the efficiency of the ISG's culling trials .... brings many questions to the surface about the ongoing bTb debate.
Do the criticisms that have been levelled at the trials mean that the ISG has in effect, misled ministers and therefore Parliament?
And does this new evidence mean that that the results of the RBCTs are totally discredited?
Ends.
In our posts below, we forecast the demise of this highly competent unit. Mr. Caruana's statement is also listed.
"Defra Employee Blasts ISG over Culling trials."
A submission to the EFRA committee by a Defra employee has slammed the Independent Scientific Group's (ISG) badger culling trials.
Veterinarians and bovine tb experts, Dr. John Gallagher and John Daykin called the information contained in Paul Caruana's submission "dynamite".
Dr. Gallagher told the Veterinary Times "This submission shows how the ISG badly mismanaged this trial and refused to listen to those with practical knowledge who could have done the job properly, if allowed".
Defra's badger culling consultation has attracted more than 41,000 responses: the biggest interest to date in a public consultation. most of the responses are thought to have been promoted by public campaigns orchestrated by the RSPCA and the Badger Trust.
Dr. Gallagher said that these groups had used (the first year results ) the ISG's badger culling trial to back up their arguments. "Assertions based on the findings of the recently completed culling trials have been used as 'hard factual evidence' by welfare groups who've been saying that culling (badgers) does not resolve the TB problem in cattle"
Paul Caruana, field manager at the Defra wildlife unit, Polwhele, Cornwall was unapologetic when offering his submission to the EFRA committee. ........ He outlined that the Krebs trial had too many anomalies and weaknesses in its 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 being 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".
Mr. Caruana said he did not believe scientists had all the answers, and added "most certainly, Krebs doesn't". According to him, the trial had far too many flaws to be trusted to produce meaningful evidence. ......... The whole basis of the trial was to remove badgers off the ground and this, said Mr. Carauna was "farcical " due to restrictions that were placed on staff.
Professor John Bourne, chairman of the ISG has repeatedly stated that the trials represent 'robust science', but Mr. Caruana disagreed with this assessment of events. His condemnation of the trial is unequivocal. "How much weight do we give the latest ISG report detailing 'robust' findings to the minister? If it were down to my staff and myself - very little".
John Daykin who is based in East sussex, said "The evidence in Paul's statement is a shocking indictment of the implementation of badger culling in the experimental triplets. It provides clear evidence that the ISG refused to change course despite repeated entreaties from from operatives carrying out the work at the sharp end. It is vital, that such significant information is looked at in depth by Parliament, before any pronouncements are made on the badger culling consultation."
Dr. Gallagher said that all other badger culling trials conducted in Britian and Ireland had been carried out to a proper standard. He concluded "It is only the ISG's trials that have produced these totally spurious findings, and it is these that the RSPCA and Badger Trust have used".
This front page article also carries a comment:
Where are we now?
"New evidence questioning the efficiency of the ISG's culling trials .... brings many questions to the surface about the ongoing bTb debate.
Do the criticisms that have been levelled at the trials mean that the ISG has in effect, misled ministers and therefore Parliament?
And does this new evidence mean that that the results of the RBCTs are totally discredited?
Ends.
Thursday, April 27, 2006
Wildlife Unit field staff - sacked.
Anyone hoping that our wonderfully 'responsible' Department of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs would take its responsibilities seriously and use the expertise of its highly trained staff to control an extremely pathogenic (grade 3 on a scale of 1 to 4), invariably fatal zoonosis for which Defra and Defra alone has responsibility, will be disappointed to hear that considerable redundancies are forecast among the Wildlife Unit fieldstaff.
Rumours circulated in February, and early March we understand that many staff were offered cash in lieu of notice. Over 100 operatives are involved, many with up to 20 years experience of field work with badgers, and considerable expertise in the habits of sick ones. How to recognise a vibrant and healthy sett etc. (Or even - we kid you not - how to recognise a badger sett, and not confuse it with rabbit holes or a fox's earth - many of which were happily mapped by Chris Cheeseman's rosy cheeked graduates in the early days of Krebs. Well it was a 'hole' - what did you expect? But the down side of their reigned in exuberance was that we had 3 single hole 'hospital setts' which were completely missed by the mappers, and their very sick occupants left to wreak their havoc for several years.)
"The cost of sacking the wildlife officers, some of whom have been with the department for more than 20 years, has been put at between £2 million and £3 million and is covered in a story by the Western Morning News "
The redundancies have been attacked as an attempt by ministers to shift responsibility for the handling of the bovine TB crisis on to farmers while allowing Defra to meet Treasury budget targets. ...
www.warmwell.com comments on the story:
" It continues to amaze that we hear nothing at all from DEFRA about the technology that can make real progress in the eradication of bovine TB in wildlife. Is there no one with any scientific or veterinary knowledge able to talk to the policy makers? Policy, it appears, must always be driven by bureaucracy and budgets instead of by (sound-ed) science, technology and veterinary skill. And more and more is it to be paid for by the hapless farmers.
The government does not really want an untargetted mass cull of badgers - fearing, as it did not in 2001, a horrified urban outcry. (Farmers don't want that either. It is only the shrill shrieks of the diminutive professor Bourne, echoed by the sound of rattling money boxes from the Badger Trusts and RSPCA that are flagging it up, based on the 'results' not of culling badgers in the Krebs' RBCT, but of stirring up the social groups and dispersing the whole goddamned lot of them over a very wide area.)
When will the government recognise that the tools to avoid such a politically unpopular, ethically questionable and scientifically unnecessary move are ready and available?An article in the Veterinary Times back in 2004 concluded that the attraction of using rapid real-time PCR is that it may be "accurate enough to distinguish the TB status of individual badgers within a sett. If a half hour test can reveal this, then the targeted cull of badgers that we propose might be refined even further. " While the research below using UK built rapid RT-PCR diagnosis in badger setts and latrines shows that we have now, at this moment, the technology that can show which badgers are infected. "we would prefer that culling is targeted at diseased and infectious animals" said the researchers - and this would indeed be possible. See also bovine TB page and the abstract of the Warwick RT-PCR work in the Royal Society "Biology Letters" in March this year."
Rumours circulated in February, and early March we understand that many staff were offered cash in lieu of notice. Over 100 operatives are involved, many with up to 20 years experience of field work with badgers, and considerable expertise in the habits of sick ones. How to recognise a vibrant and healthy sett etc. (Or even - we kid you not - how to recognise a badger sett, and not confuse it with rabbit holes or a fox's earth - many of which were happily mapped by Chris Cheeseman's rosy cheeked graduates in the early days of Krebs. Well it was a 'hole' - what did you expect? But the down side of their reigned in exuberance was that we had 3 single hole 'hospital setts' which were completely missed by the mappers, and their very sick occupants left to wreak their havoc for several years.)
"The cost of sacking the wildlife officers, some of whom have been with the department for more than 20 years, has been put at between £2 million and £3 million and is covered in a story by the Western Morning News "
The redundancies have been attacked as an attempt by ministers to shift responsibility for the handling of the bovine TB crisis on to farmers while allowing Defra to meet Treasury budget targets. ...
www.warmwell.com comments on the story:
" It continues to amaze that we hear nothing at all from DEFRA about the technology that can make real progress in the eradication of bovine TB in wildlife. Is there no one with any scientific or veterinary knowledge able to talk to the policy makers? Policy, it appears, must always be driven by bureaucracy and budgets instead of by (sound-ed) science, technology and veterinary skill. And more and more is it to be paid for by the hapless farmers.
The government does not really want an untargetted mass cull of badgers - fearing, as it did not in 2001, a horrified urban outcry. (Farmers don't want that either. It is only the shrill shrieks of the diminutive professor Bourne, echoed by the sound of rattling money boxes from the Badger Trusts and RSPCA that are flagging it up, based on the 'results' not of culling badgers in the Krebs' RBCT, but of stirring up the social groups and dispersing the whole goddamned lot of them over a very wide area.)
When will the government recognise that the tools to avoid such a politically unpopular, ethically questionable and scientifically unnecessary move are ready and available?An article in the Veterinary Times back in 2004 concluded that the attraction of using rapid real-time PCR is that it may be "accurate enough to distinguish the TB status of individual badgers within a sett. If a half hour test can reveal this, then the targeted cull of badgers that we propose might be refined even further. " While the research below using UK built rapid RT-PCR diagnosis in badger setts and latrines shows that we have now, at this moment, the technology that can show which badgers are infected. "we would prefer that culling is targeted at diseased and infectious animals" said the researchers - and this would indeed be possible. See also bovine TB page and the abstract of the Warwick RT-PCR work in the Royal Society "Biology Letters" in March this year."
The technology is there. It's been there for years. It's British. It's trialled and proven to work. But for every real-time PCR machine specifically targetting any disease problem - a quasi-scientist / researcher loses his job. No more trials = no more cash. Simple really.
And as we said, do turkeys vote for Christmas? The Defra Wildlife unit staff, whose wide ranging expertise backed with this stunning technology ( which can target any bacteria where they occur, could have delivered a closely targetted cull to comply with Bern convention, public sensitivities and the taxpayer - are under notice to quit. The Flat Earth society has spoken.
Saturday, April 22, 2006
Krebs - A study in badger dispersal?
In our post below, we quoted from a Wildlife operative's submission to the EFRA committee which described his experiences trying to catch badgers for the Krebs RBCT, and he warns observers not to take any Krebs results seriously.
http://bovinetb.blogspot.com/2006/03/robust-basis-of-krebs.html
The whole basis of Krebs was to compare methods of ..... errr, culling badgers.
And it appears that on that basic premise the trials failed, so what of any conclusions drawn from this trial in 'peturbation'?
A letter printed in this week's Veterinary Record from Dr. John Gallagher and others follows:
TB policy and the badger culling trials.
With reference to last weeks letter (Bourne et al. 2006 ) from the Independent Scientific Group on TB (ISG ) we feel the catastrophic problems surrounding the current TB policy are such that this requires a response.
The raison d’etre for the formation of this Group was to carry out the badger culling trials as recommended by Krebs (1997). Despite the huge logistical difficulties encountered and problems with animal rights activist interference, intimidation and lack of cooperation compromising its efficacy, it is understandable that the ISG wish to defend the findings of their trial.
However, DEFRA staff carried out the trapping as determined by the ISG and it is DEFRA which admitted that the overall trapping efficiency was remarkably poor at between 20 and 60 per cent (DEFRA 2005). The consequential social disruption and dispersal of infected badgers was found to have been very considerable . Thus these trials have been so badly compromised that extreme caution is required in their interpretation.
It is unfortunate that the ISG have disregarded earlier work on this subject but understandable as to admit the veracity of this work would have made the Krebs culling trials unnecessary. But it is folly not to heed such work as it was carried out to more exacting standards with regard to culling efficiency, being virtually 100 per cent in both the Thornbury and Steeple Leaze trials and over 80 percent in the East Offaly Trial and Hartland clearance (Gallagher et al 2006). The ISG’s trial was envisaged as a culling trial but as a result of the many problems encountered it turned out to be virtually a study of disruption and dispersal of badgers.
Based on many years of practical experience of tuberculous disease in cattle and badgers and its control we disagree with the ISG over their conclusions based on their trials and their recommendations for future control of TB in cattle. The ISG should be aware that TB has been eradicated from cattle in 23 of the 25 Member States of the European Community by test and slaughter. It was almost eradicated in this Country in 1986 when only 84 confirmed outbreaks were recorded before effective strategic culling of infected badgers ceased. Only Britain and Ireland have a problem and Ireland is making encouraging progress in tackling theirs. Whilst the huge carnage of cattle taken as TB reactors continues it is quite irrational for the ISG to assert that cattle to cattle transmission is the real problem.
We can assure this Group that until the badger maintenance host is effectively dealt with TB in cattle will not be controlled and certainly never eradicated.
This is also the agreed opinion of over 420 veterinarians mostly from the problem areas in the South West, South Wales and Sussex and dealing on farm with this problem. Considering there are now only about one thousand veterinarians in farm animal practice this represents a considerable body of informed opinion. These views were expressed in a jointly signed letter to the Secretary of State for DEFRA in February and June 2005. We consider that this problem is too serious to be put off track by views based on a trial with highly questionable results.
J. Gallagher
R.H. Muirhead
A.T.Turnbull
J.I.Davies
W.L.G.Ashton
J.Smith
J.M.Daykin
A.McDiarmid
Dr. Gallagher refers to Defra observations of the number of badgers caught in the Krebs triplets as "remarkably poor, at from 20% to 60%". It is our understanding that this figure is calculated using the amount of land available to the RBCT, and John Bourne has said that as much as 50% of that was 'unavailable' in some areas. Whether that included the RBCT's own 'exclusions', i.e farms already under Tb restriction at the start of the 'trial' or just land whose owners refused access, we do not know. Neither do we know if the Defra figure factored in the RBCT trapping efficacy as described in Parliamentary Questions:
8th Dec 2003: Column 218W
Mr. Paterson. To ask the Secretary of State for Environment,Food and Rural Affairs in how many cases badger traps laid by or on behalf of the Department in the TB culling trial have been interfered with or removed without authorisation. [141971]
Mr. Bradshaw. Interference with badger traps laid in the Randomised Culling Trial is variable between operations. It is usually quite geographically localised and repetitive within a culling operational area. Management records indicate that - over 116 culling operations, across 19 trial areas, between December 1998 and October 2003 , during which 15,666 traps were sited - there were 8,981 individual occasions where the trap was interfered with, and 1,827 individual cull sites when a trap was removed.
We make that 57% opened or trashed, and 12% went AWOL altogether.
So out of a 100% cage traps set, 69% were unavailable to catch anything at all. And we suspect that this figure was attributable to in some cases on only 50% of land available and mapped in the RBCT, some of whose boundaries changed over the time of the 'trial'.
Amazing stuff this 'science'. You couldn't make it up.
http://bovinetb.blogspot.com/2006/03/robust-basis-of-krebs.html
The whole basis of Krebs was to compare methods of ..... errr, culling badgers.
And it appears that on that basic premise the trials failed, so what of any conclusions drawn from this trial in 'peturbation'?
A letter printed in this week's Veterinary Record from Dr. John Gallagher and others follows:
TB policy and the badger culling trials.
With reference to last weeks letter (Bourne et al. 2006 ) from the Independent Scientific Group on TB (ISG ) we feel the catastrophic problems surrounding the current TB policy are such that this requires a response.
The raison d’etre for the formation of this Group was to carry out the badger culling trials as recommended by Krebs (1997). Despite the huge logistical difficulties encountered and problems with animal rights activist interference, intimidation and lack of cooperation compromising its efficacy, it is understandable that the ISG wish to defend the findings of their trial.
However, DEFRA staff carried out the trapping as determined by the ISG and it is DEFRA which admitted that the overall trapping efficiency was remarkably poor at between 20 and 60 per cent (DEFRA 2005). The consequential social disruption and dispersal of infected badgers was found to have been very considerable . Thus these trials have been so badly compromised that extreme caution is required in their interpretation.
It is unfortunate that the ISG have disregarded earlier work on this subject but understandable as to admit the veracity of this work would have made the Krebs culling trials unnecessary. But it is folly not to heed such work as it was carried out to more exacting standards with regard to culling efficiency, being virtually 100 per cent in both the Thornbury and Steeple Leaze trials and over 80 percent in the East Offaly Trial and Hartland clearance (Gallagher et al 2006). The ISG’s trial was envisaged as a culling trial but as a result of the many problems encountered it turned out to be virtually a study of disruption and dispersal of badgers.
Based on many years of practical experience of tuberculous disease in cattle and badgers and its control we disagree with the ISG over their conclusions based on their trials and their recommendations for future control of TB in cattle. The ISG should be aware that TB has been eradicated from cattle in 23 of the 25 Member States of the European Community by test and slaughter. It was almost eradicated in this Country in 1986 when only 84 confirmed outbreaks were recorded before effective strategic culling of infected badgers ceased. Only Britain and Ireland have a problem and Ireland is making encouraging progress in tackling theirs. Whilst the huge carnage of cattle taken as TB reactors continues it is quite irrational for the ISG to assert that cattle to cattle transmission is the real problem.
We can assure this Group that until the badger maintenance host is effectively dealt with TB in cattle will not be controlled and certainly never eradicated.
This is also the agreed opinion of over 420 veterinarians mostly from the problem areas in the South West, South Wales and Sussex and dealing on farm with this problem. Considering there are now only about one thousand veterinarians in farm animal practice this represents a considerable body of informed opinion. These views were expressed in a jointly signed letter to the Secretary of State for DEFRA in February and June 2005. We consider that this problem is too serious to be put off track by views based on a trial with highly questionable results.
J. Gallagher
R.H. Muirhead
A.T.Turnbull
J.I.Davies
W.L.G.Ashton
J.Smith
J.M.Daykin
A.McDiarmid
Dr. Gallagher refers to Defra observations of the number of badgers caught in the Krebs triplets as "remarkably poor, at from 20% to 60%". It is our understanding that this figure is calculated using the amount of land available to the RBCT, and John Bourne has said that as much as 50% of that was 'unavailable' in some areas. Whether that included the RBCT's own 'exclusions', i.e farms already under Tb restriction at the start of the 'trial' or just land whose owners refused access, we do not know. Neither do we know if the Defra figure factored in the RBCT trapping efficacy as described in Parliamentary Questions:
8th Dec 2003: Column 218W
Mr. Paterson. To ask the Secretary of State for Environment,Food and Rural Affairs in how many cases badger traps laid by or on behalf of the Department in the TB culling trial have been interfered with or removed without authorisation. [141971]
Mr. Bradshaw. Interference with badger traps laid in the Randomised Culling Trial is variable between operations. It is usually quite geographically localised and repetitive within a culling operational area. Management records indicate that - over 116 culling operations, across 19 trial areas, between December 1998 and October 2003 , during which 15,666 traps were sited - there were 8,981 individual occasions where the trap was interfered with, and 1,827 individual cull sites when a trap was removed.
We make that 57% opened or trashed, and 12% went AWOL altogether.
So out of a 100% cage traps set, 69% were unavailable to catch anything at all. And we suspect that this figure was attributable to in some cases on only 50% of land available and mapped in the RBCT, some of whose boundaries changed over the time of the 'trial'.
Amazing stuff this 'science'. You couldn't make it up.
Friday, April 14, 2006
Fern - Positive for Tb on post mortem.
Western Morning News the story yesterday:
POST-MORTEM SHOWS FERN DID HAVE BOVINE TB
"A post-mortem examination on a calf at the centre of a bovine TB testing row has confirmed the animal did have the disease, it emerged yesterday. Sheilagh Kremers had battled to prevent her nine-month pedigree bull calf Fern, from falling victim to the Government's strategy for controlling TB in cattle.
However, 63-year-old Mrs Kremers' battle ended last week when Fern was slaughtered in the stall at her New Park Farm in East Ogwell, near Newton Abbot. (see post below) Now the State Veterinary Service (SVS) has released details of the post-mortem that was carried out on the calf. A spokesman for SVS said the results had "confirmed the accuracy of the diagnostic skin test, by showing clearly visible pathological signs of bovine tuberculosis".
He said the examination showed the presence of visible lesions, typical of the presence of the disease. Tissue samples from the carcass have been sent to the Veterinary Laboratories Agency to confirm the strain of infection.
"If left alive, this animal would, in time, have been likely to suffer typical signs of disease such as emaciation, weakness, breathing difficulties and, probably, premature death," said the spokesman.
"Bovine TB is a highly progressive, chronic disease which worsens with time. It is essential that animals reacting to the diagnostic skin test are removed and slaughtered at the earliest opportunity."By delaying slaughter, infected animals pose a significantly greater risk of spreading TB among other animals in the herd, to neighbouring farms and wildlife."
Couldn't agree more. Leave a hotspot of infection and it will only get worse.
So why exempt badgers from this disease description? Arhh, sorry, we forgot. Badgers don't suffer do they, and of course they don't transmit bTb to cattle either do they . . . silly me.
I wonder where 'Fern' picked it up from?
Shelaigh Kremers will now be served a notice requiring her to 'cleanse and disinfect every part of the premises occupied by the reactor animal', in this case Fern, with an 'approved disinfectant' . This to include his drinking and feeding equipment, disposal of his bedding and disinfection of walls and floors of his 'premises'. Quite right.
But compare this to action on an infected badger sett;
http://bovinetb.blogspot.com/2004/07/you-cannot-be-serious-3-sticks.html
POST-MORTEM SHOWS FERN DID HAVE BOVINE TB
"A post-mortem examination on a calf at the centre of a bovine TB testing row has confirmed the animal did have the disease, it emerged yesterday. Sheilagh Kremers had battled to prevent her nine-month pedigree bull calf Fern, from falling victim to the Government's strategy for controlling TB in cattle.
However, 63-year-old Mrs Kremers' battle ended last week when Fern was slaughtered in the stall at her New Park Farm in East Ogwell, near Newton Abbot. (see post below) Now the State Veterinary Service (SVS) has released details of the post-mortem that was carried out on the calf. A spokesman for SVS said the results had "confirmed the accuracy of the diagnostic skin test, by showing clearly visible pathological signs of bovine tuberculosis".
He said the examination showed the presence of visible lesions, typical of the presence of the disease. Tissue samples from the carcass have been sent to the Veterinary Laboratories Agency to confirm the strain of infection.
"If left alive, this animal would, in time, have been likely to suffer typical signs of disease such as emaciation, weakness, breathing difficulties and, probably, premature death," said the spokesman.
"Bovine TB is a highly progressive, chronic disease which worsens with time. It is essential that animals reacting to the diagnostic skin test are removed and slaughtered at the earliest opportunity."By delaying slaughter, infected animals pose a significantly greater risk of spreading TB among other animals in the herd, to neighbouring farms and wildlife."
Couldn't agree more. Leave a hotspot of infection and it will only get worse.
So why exempt badgers from this disease description? Arhh, sorry, we forgot. Badgers don't suffer do they, and of course they don't transmit bTb to cattle either do they . . . silly me.
I wonder where 'Fern' picked it up from?
Shelaigh Kremers will now be served a notice requiring her to 'cleanse and disinfect every part of the premises occupied by the reactor animal', in this case Fern, with an 'approved disinfectant' . This to include his drinking and feeding equipment, disposal of his bedding and disinfection of walls and floors of his 'premises'. Quite right.
But compare this to action on an infected badger sett;
http://bovinetb.blogspot.com/2004/07/you-cannot-be-serious-3-sticks.html
Wednesday, April 12, 2006
...or just a comedy?
In our post below, http://bovinetb.blogspot.com/2006/04/comedy-of-errors.html , we pointed out a couple of extraordinary gaffs which were lurking in a recent paper submitted to 'Nature' the headline of which - if nothing else - is being widely quoted. A comment on the post reminded us that "badgers had been factored into the predictions" and for that at least we should be grateful. Or should we?
The Veterinary Times (April 10th) prints a letter from which we quote:
"When you are writing a scientific paper, the title is most important because it is all that most people will read".
So what do we make of the flyer on the cover of 'Nature' which asserts: " Bovine tuberculosis - Cattle Movements spread Disease" ?
The author the letter has not picked up on the sentence which we printed below re. the start date of BCMS mandatory registrations, but he has explored much more of the badgery data. And very interesting (weak?) it is too.
He says: "The paper is in fact a 6 page letter that reports on the statistical comparison of cattle movements against a number of other possible 'risk' factors described as "environmental, demographic, agricultural and climatic parameters".
Among these other risk factors, I could find no trace of any really 'fruity' predictors, like the observed presence of badgers in the farmyard, dead badgers in grazing fields, maize crop fields sited so that badgers were crossing grazing fields in early autumn, or even operations likely to disturb badgers, such as a national programme of tree felling on railway lines. Indeed apart from cattle movements, I could find no clear definition of any risk factor."
"The letter is surprisingly coy about specifying what the risk factors it compared were. "
The author explains that the information he required, is not available with the original 'letter' but as a supplementary addendum. And yes, as a 'predicter', badgers were mentioned, but not diseased badgers, and not on a comparable time scale to the BCMS data.
"The considerable datbase, built up by the SVS (State Veterinary Service) during the two decades prior to 1998, of locations where diseased badgers had been found was not mentioned; all I could find was the following remarkable statement:
"Badgers. Detailed information about badger distribution in Great Britain has not been possible to obtain".
" Information published in summary form for 1988 and 1997 was unavailable because the original data was collected by volunteers on the strict understanding that it remain confidential. Alternative, freely available data, are at best, patchy. The geographically most complete source from the Countryside Information System contains 1km resolution information on badger distribution from the Mammal Society, the Biological Records Centre and the British Deer Society surveys between 1965 and 1990. Even when aggregated to 10km. these records are unlikely to provide a very realistic representation of actual distribution" (Too goddam right - Amateur 'guessimates' from 1965 compared with BCMS data 2000 - 2003?? And they call this science? - you couldn't make it up. - ed)
The letter's author is more polite, "In other words, the only badger data entered into the analysis were of dubious value and covered a period between 1965 and 1990. By contrast the Cattle Movement data used in the statistical analyses covered the years 2000 - 2003"
"The elegant statistical analysis therefore compared worthless and irrelevant data from a 25 year period with extremely detailed and reliable data from a 4 year period - a decade later."
Describing the paper's authors as engaging in 'statistical gymnastics', the author also points out that even when a purchased animal proves to be the only reactor in a herd, this is still classed as a 'herd breakdown', as there is no other box to tick on SVS forms. "This is misleading. In any meaningful use of the term (breakdown) the disclosure of a purchased animal as a reactor, when no other animals in the herd react, either at the disclosing test or subsequently, is not a herd breakdown. "
He concludes "I am no statistician, but I am confident in asserting that no valid conclusions can be drawn from this 'statistical excercise' as to the relevant significance of cattle movements and the uncontrolled disease in a protected badger population".
Andrew J. Proud. BVSc, DVSM, MRCVS
We agree.
The Veterinary Times (April 10th) prints a letter from which we quote:
"When you are writing a scientific paper, the title is most important because it is all that most people will read".
So what do we make of the flyer on the cover of 'Nature' which asserts: " Bovine tuberculosis - Cattle Movements spread Disease" ?
The author the letter has not picked up on the sentence which we printed below re. the start date of BCMS mandatory registrations, but he has explored much more of the badgery data. And very interesting (weak?) it is too.
He says: "The paper is in fact a 6 page letter that reports on the statistical comparison of cattle movements against a number of other possible 'risk' factors described as "environmental, demographic, agricultural and climatic parameters".
Among these other risk factors, I could find no trace of any really 'fruity' predictors, like the observed presence of badgers in the farmyard, dead badgers in grazing fields, maize crop fields sited so that badgers were crossing grazing fields in early autumn, or even operations likely to disturb badgers, such as a national programme of tree felling on railway lines. Indeed apart from cattle movements, I could find no clear definition of any risk factor."
"The letter is surprisingly coy about specifying what the risk factors it compared were. "
The author explains that the information he required, is not available with the original 'letter' but as a supplementary addendum. And yes, as a 'predicter', badgers were mentioned, but not diseased badgers, and not on a comparable time scale to the BCMS data.
"The considerable datbase, built up by the SVS (State Veterinary Service) during the two decades prior to 1998, of locations where diseased badgers had been found was not mentioned; all I could find was the following remarkable statement:
"Badgers. Detailed information about badger distribution in Great Britain has not been possible to obtain".
" Information published in summary form for 1988 and 1997 was unavailable because the original data was collected by volunteers on the strict understanding that it remain confidential. Alternative, freely available data, are at best, patchy. The geographically most complete source from the Countryside Information System contains 1km resolution information on badger distribution from the Mammal Society, the Biological Records Centre and the British Deer Society surveys between 1965 and 1990. Even when aggregated to 10km. these records are unlikely to provide a very realistic representation of actual distribution" (Too goddam right - Amateur 'guessimates' from 1965 compared with BCMS data 2000 - 2003?? And they call this science? - you couldn't make it up. - ed)
The letter's author is more polite, "In other words, the only badger data entered into the analysis were of dubious value and covered a period between 1965 and 1990. By contrast the Cattle Movement data used in the statistical analyses covered the years 2000 - 2003"
"The elegant statistical analysis therefore compared worthless and irrelevant data from a 25 year period with extremely detailed and reliable data from a 4 year period - a decade later."
Describing the paper's authors as engaging in 'statistical gymnastics', the author also points out that even when a purchased animal proves to be the only reactor in a herd, this is still classed as a 'herd breakdown', as there is no other box to tick on SVS forms. "This is misleading. In any meaningful use of the term (breakdown) the disclosure of a purchased animal as a reactor, when no other animals in the herd react, either at the disclosing test or subsequently, is not a herd breakdown. "
He concludes "I am no statistician, but I am confident in asserting that no valid conclusions can be drawn from this 'statistical excercise' as to the relevant significance of cattle movements and the uncontrolled disease in a protected badger population".
Andrew J. Proud. BVSc, DVSM, MRCVS
We agree.
Sunday, April 09, 2006
End of the line for 'Fern'.
Last Friday, 7th April 'Mous'el Fern', the little Dexter calf at the centre of Shelaigh Kremer's fight against the bureaucracy, arrogance and downright stupidity of Defra's one sided 'fight' against bTb, - which seems to involve killing off as many of the country's cattle as possible, without looking out of their respective boxes at wildlife - finally reached the end of (his) road.
Western Morning News reports:
"The tiny bull looked up at the young woman expectantly, as if she might be about to give him a treat - she stroked him and slowly lifted the thing that looked like a gun to his head.
"Phut!" The tiny bull's big wide innocent eyes rolled heavenwards, he grunted once, and it was all over.
So ended the saga of Fern, the ninth-month-old Dexter bull calf, which had tested positively as a reactor to TB. A small crowd had gathered to witness his passing: government vets who appeared to look somewhat apologetic about the whole thing; press photographers whose flash bulbs cast an eerie strobe as the diminutive bovine keeled over; even a BBC camerawoman who said: "They won't use it, but I'm going to film it anyway."
Just about the only person with a key interest in the whole debacle who wasn't there was the bull-calf's owner, Sheilagh Kremers. She stood at the top of her South Devon field with a face like thunder. Sheilagh couldn't face seeing the death of her beloved bull.
Britain's best known TB protester went on to say she wouldn't accept a penny short of £1,000 as compensation, so when valuer Derek Biss, from Greenslade, Taylor, Hunt eventually gave her a price of £2,100 after inspecting Fern and the rest of the herd, an almost imperceptible expression of puzzlement flitted across Sheilagh's face. With a sigh that spoke a million words about wearied inevitability, the retired schoolteacher looked at no one in particular and said: "Yes, do it."
"All I want to do is enjoy my retirement," said the woman who first fell in love with animals when she was teaching special-needs children in a London school. "My dream was to come somewhere like this and live the good life. But the good life has turned into a nightmare. I can't live with this - they (the state vets) will come every 60 days to test the rest of my cattle and my heart is going to be in my mouth every time. Is it Daisy this time, or is it Buttercup?"
In another section, Western Morning News explains:
Western Morning News reports:
"The tiny bull looked up at the young woman expectantly, as if she might be about to give him a treat - she stroked him and slowly lifted the thing that looked like a gun to his head.
"Phut!" The tiny bull's big wide innocent eyes rolled heavenwards, he grunted once, and it was all over.
So ended the saga of Fern, the ninth-month-old Dexter bull calf, which had tested positively as a reactor to TB. A small crowd had gathered to witness his passing: government vets who appeared to look somewhat apologetic about the whole thing; press photographers whose flash bulbs cast an eerie strobe as the diminutive bovine keeled over; even a BBC camerawoman who said: "They won't use it, but I'm going to film it anyway."
Just about the only person with a key interest in the whole debacle who wasn't there was the bull-calf's owner, Sheilagh Kremers. She stood at the top of her South Devon field with a face like thunder. Sheilagh couldn't face seeing the death of her beloved bull.
Britain's best known TB protester went on to say she wouldn't accept a penny short of £1,000 as compensation, so when valuer Derek Biss, from Greenslade, Taylor, Hunt eventually gave her a price of £2,100 after inspecting Fern and the rest of the herd, an almost imperceptible expression of puzzlement flitted across Sheilagh's face. With a sigh that spoke a million words about wearied inevitability, the retired schoolteacher looked at no one in particular and said: "Yes, do it."
"All I want to do is enjoy my retirement," said the woman who first fell in love with animals when she was teaching special-needs children in a London school. "My dream was to come somewhere like this and live the good life. But the good life has turned into a nightmare. I can't live with this - they (the state vets) will come every 60 days to test the rest of my cattle and my heart is going to be in my mouth every time. Is it Daisy this time, or is it Buttercup?"
In another section, Western Morning News explains:
"A four-month battle to spare the valuable calf at the centre of a bovine TB testing row ended yesterday with his slaughter. Fern, a Dexter bull calf, was shot dead with a bolt after his owner Sheilagh Kremers accepted an independent valuation of the animal's worth. She said she had no choice but to sign the form to allow the animal, which had registered positive in a bovine TB test, to be killed. It was the final defeat in her battle to prevent her nine-month pedigree bull from falling victim to the Government's strategy for controlling TB in cattle.
The slaughter was carried out in the stall at New Park Farm in East Ogwell, South Devon where Fern has been isolated from the rest of Mrs Kremer's 12-strong herd of rare-breed Dexters. She did not watch the procedure, which was carried out by a skilled markswoman from the local abattoir, but did witness her pedigree pride and joy being brought lifeless up towards the farm buildings in a tractor trailer.
Mrs Kremers, who is 63, now has to wait for several days for the results of a post-mortem which will establish whether Fern actually had TB.She said: "I just think it is absolutely horrendous, outrageous. If they had a test that could prove he had TB I would be in agreement that he had to go, but this test doesn't prove it."He may have tested positive because he is immune to it, and if we kill our immune cattle we kill our strongest."
I'm not happy that he goes but he has to, according to the rules."
She said the Government's policy on slaughtering all cattle which were shown as "reactors" in TB tests was wrong, because only about 30 per cent testing positive actually proved to have TB. This would only be established with a post-mortem."It is a farce from beginning to end," she said. "This testing and slaughtering isn't stopping the disease at all, in fact it has increased tenfold in ten years."
She will now receive £2,100 from the Government, several times what she had been expecting. However, she says that Fern, who comes from brindled stock, is probably irreplaceable. "At the end of the day I still would rather have him than the cheque," she said." I was hoping it would be less and then I could have turned it down and taken it to court. It is not just about my cattle. Something has to come out of this."Mrs Kremers secured a Government apology that the first test carried out on Fern in December, which was positive, was flawed. However, a second test in early March was also positive, meaning it was only a matter of time before Fern would be destroyed.
Mrs Kremers is urging the Government to cull of badgers, which many farmers believe are the root cause of the explosion of the disease among cattle.
Richard Haddock, chairman of the regional board of the National Farmers' Union, said he applauded what Mrs Kremers had done in refusing to sign the valuation form until she knew what value she would get for her calf. Mr Haddock, who has one of the largest herds in the Westcountry, near Kingswear in South Devon, said: "We would advise every farmer not to sign a valuation form until they know what they are going to get for the animal."
The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs is deciding whether to go ahead with a badger cull.
A spokesman defended the use of the current bovine TB test. He said: "The skin test has a high degree of accuracy -- 75-95 per cent. It is scientifically, legally and internationally recognised as an effective diagnostic test."
And at least on that bit of this whole shoddy episode, the 'governmennt spokesman' was absolutely right. The skin test shows exposure to m.bovis. A deadly group 3 zoonotic pathogen which has no business being at anywhere at all near either cattle, badgers or anything else which is susceptible, including human beings.
Fern now joins almost 30,000 cattle culled as reactors in the last 12 months. We've said it before and we'll say it again; too many bTb parasites are in a feeding frenzy on this part of the Defra budget to let go. It is a beneficial crisis that is fuelling itself. The use of rt-PCR can and will identify infected areas, whether these are badger sets and latrines or capable of onward transmission from cattle, deer, feral cats or the man-in-the-moon. But will our Minister for Fisheries use it? We doubt it. Too many of his 'advisors' would be on the scrap heap if he did.
Oh and the chances are it could identify H5N1 bird flu too - which would save an 8 day wait as VLA bugger off for the weekend instead of testing material from that dead Scottish swan.
" Dr Roger Breeze patiently points out below, if the existing technology were used
"we are actually talking about moving Scotland to the head of Europe for about £350,000 "In addition, it would cost perhaps £12,000 a year for new test kits. The RAPID RT-PCR replaces procedures that require high containment laboratories with enormous fixed operating costs. With RT-PCR costs are low because you already have all the other infrastructure and the trained people. And far from waiting for a week for results, you can test accurately for positive infection, pinpoint it, report on it and respond to it within hours.
Exactly. More on this at www.warmwell.com
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