Save the Badger... ??

A stunning piece of artwork behind Dr. Brian May, backed by the RSPCA and fellow travellers, this picture is an amazing piece of PR. It may stir the hearts of his followers, but is it accurate?
Dr. May says he wants to 'Save' badgers. But obviously not from tuberculosis.

Cattle farmers  regularly see badgers in the later stages of tuberculosis, crawling around their fields and buildings in an emaciated and distressed state, coincidentally, often just before losing a shed load of cattle. But they don't look anything like the sleek, iconic beast behind Dr. May.

They look like this.

So in the interests of accuracy rather than spin, we invite Dr. May to pick up a badger with tuberculosis to advertise his aims . This one is rather messy, his tuberculous neck abscesses having burst... 

But it may look something like this. Now obviously this badger would not attract nearly so much attention ..... or funding. It may however attract sympathy for its plight and the manner of its death.

A victim of its protector's success.

How much is enough?

When people (who should know better)  talk about vaccinating badgers, because this over time 'reduces transmission opportunities', what exactly do they mean, and in the case transmission to cattle, by how much?

As we pointed out in many previous posts about this subject, including the posting below, the amount of bacteria left behind is crucial to a sentinel tested cow. And although we are not in the habit of making assumptions, presumably to many other species too.

Secretary of State, Owen Paterson's Parliamentary Questions queried this and received the following answer on January 29th 2004:

Mr. Paterson: To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs pursuant to the answer of 8 December 2003, Official Report, column 210W, what the presumptive infective dose range of M. bovis is in respect of cattle; and whether some badgers suffering from bovine TB are capable of excreting sufficient numbers of M. bovis bacilli to constitute such an infective dose. [150526]

Mr. Bradshaw: Determination of the minimum infectious dose of Mycobacterium bovis in cattle is part of the TB pathogenesis research programme. Early indications are that the minimum infectious dose for cattle via the respiratory tract is relatively small; the lowest infectious dose recorded so far is 70 colony forming units (CPU) when introduced by the intracheal route or 9,600 CPU by the intranasal route.

Relatively high levels of M. bovis in the urine of badgers with renal TB have been identified. Bacterial loads of up to 300,000 CPU per millilitre of urine have been measured. This suggests that inhalation of as little as 0.03 ml of the urine could result in infection.

 Thus up to now, 70 CPU has been the figure which we have quoted. But coming in under our radar, and once again published in the USA is a paper   prepared by our own VLA which has downgraded that figure to just 1 CPU for calves. The paper explains that four groups of calves were infected with 1,000, 100, 10 or just 1 CPU of M.bovis.  These animals were skin tested twice and blood tested, then subjected to rigorous post mortem. The results were described thus:

 One-half of the animals infected with 1 CFU of M. bovis developed pulmonary pathology typical of bovine tuberculosis. No differences in the severity of pathology were observed for the different M. bovis doses. All animals that developed pathology were skin test positive and produced specific IFN-γ and IL-4 responses. No differences in the sizes of the skin test reactions, the times taken to achieve a positive IFN-γ result, or the levels of the IFN-γ and IL-4 responses were observed for the different M. bovis doses, suggesting that diagnostic assays (tuberculin skin test and IFN-γ test) can detect cattle soon after M. bovis infection regardless of the dose.

So 1 CPU of M.bovis is all it takes to infect a calf. Is this one 'safe'? Does anyone care?

As it is established that badgers can excrete up to 300,000 CPU (colony forming units) of bacteria in each 1 ml of urine, we would respectfully point out, that the amount of  'bacterial reduction' achieved by vaccinating an unscreened population of tuberculous badgers, has to go down a very long way for it not to affect our tested sentinels.

This paper was primarily about the minimum infectious dose needed to infect cattle, but not from any particular source. So we share the author's 'comfort' that the skin test found all the infected cattle.The summary is as follows:

In summary, we found that 1 CFU of M. bovis is sufficient to cause established tuberculous pathology in cattle. This pathology is identical to that resulting from significantly higher experimental doses (up to 1,000 CFU in this study) and reflects the pathology seen in naturally infected field reactor cattle. Cattle infected with 1 CFU that developed pathology exhibited strong positive responses to the diagnostic tuberculin skin test. Furthermore, the infectious dose of M. bovis had no bearing on the time taken to obtain a positive IFN-γ response in the animals that went on to develop pathology.

Our data are in accord with very low numbers of bacilli transmitted aerogenously between cattle, potentially by nasal shedding. Comfortingly, the animals that do go on to develop pathology and therefore become a likely source of contamination within a herd can be detected at an early stage with the IFN-γ test and also provide a positive tuberculin skin test response.

Quite. We kill all our positive skin test reactor sentinels, and leave their herd mates free to be infected by just 1 CFU of M.bovis. Very sensible.

Edit: The term CFU or CPU is a pathological term meaning a cluster of single bacteria, capable of establishing disease. Although Owen Paterson's  PQ referred to CPUs and the second paper CFUs, essentially they mean the same. A colony forming or producing clump of single m. bovis bacteria. 

Vaccination myths

We are hearing the 'V' word from numerous sources at every photo opportunity at the moment. Vaccination is the holy grail for bTB it seems. But does it work? We covered the debacle surrounding badger vaccines in several postings as the Myth unfolded in 2010. As that 74 per cent efficacy lie bounced round the world, courtesy of the BBC and FERA, very belatedly Defra told its advisory group that 'the data should not be used to support this claim', and Jim Paice found the headline was 'misleading and unhelpful'.

Nevertheless, on the basis that it did no harm to badgers, BCG was licensed as a Limited Market Product by the Veterinary Medicine Directorate (VMD) and is now being administered to un-screened populations of badgers in several parts of England and Wales. And the reason?







 In 2011 Defra published this little gem:

a): Bovine tuberculosis Animal species: Badger vaccination: Description of the used vaccination, therapeutic or other scheme Badger BCG licensed in March 2010 has been used as part of the Badger Vaccine Deployment Project to build farmer confidence in vaccines as a key tool in an eradication programme.

To build farmer confidence? What an extraordinary reason for promoting a vaccine which doesn't work.


 So what about cattle vaccination?
 Many people, some of whom really should know better, slip this into their conversations at every opportunity. If we vaccinate the cattle (who are telling us the true level of badgerTB in our increasingly polluted environment) then all will be well? No it will not. It's far to late for that, even if it were effective or affordable. Despite Defra's contorted gymnastics to dumb down its own statistics for over spill into other mammals, it is happening on a wide and increasing level.

But back to BCG for cattle. Weybridge VLA have published a report where sentinel vaccinated yearling cattle were kept with reactor cattle in 10 pairings for twelve months. Post mortem results from this study published in Vet.Record found that the pen level transmission rate was 50 per cent but crucially:

"There was no difference in the number of infected sentinels in the non-vaccinated or vaccinated groups."

This should come as no surprise, as Defra put its collective thoughts into this paper in 2007 which gave efficacy of cattle BCG little encouragement:

Annex 3. 6:3. A BCG vaccine is likely to confer full protection against M. bovis infection to 50% of vaccinated animals. For both the epidemiological model and economic assessment it is assumed that the protection conferred will last a lifetime. Of the remaining 50% that remain susceptible to infection, it is estimated that over half will be partially protected and have a much reduced capability of transmitting M. bovis should they become infected. The benefits of vaccination are likely to last for at least 12 months.

The cost is assessed at £8.25 per dose. The skin test is still mandatory and thus the DIVA test which differentiates between vaccinates and infection, must be used. So how accurate is that?

2.5.2: The DIVA test would be used when a vaccinated animal gives a positive reaction to the skin test (i.e. will be used as an ancillary test to the skin test). In such cases the DIVA test will confirm whether the animal is indeed infected or whether the positive response to the skin test is due to vaccination with BCG. 62. However, the nature of the test makes it impossible to guarantee the disease status of an animal. As with existing antemortem diagnostic tests for TB, there will be a number of false positive and false negative test results since neither the specificity nor the sensitivity respectively is likely to be 100%. The diagnostic accuracy of the new test will have to be assessed in field trials of herds of known TB status, which has already been done for some prototype DIVA reagents. In order to get the test accepted in EU legislation it will need to be at least as good as the current skin test in terms of sensitivity. However, data is available to suggest that the prototype DIVA reagent will satisfy this criteria, although as noted above this will need to coincide with the recommended age of vaccination.

So giving variable sensitivity / specificity, the DIVA test will cost around £26.00.

 Trade implications are huge, in that a number of both International and EU directives would need to accommodate this country's love affair with wildlife infected with tuberculosis. Withdrawal periods for vaccines and bans on all exports out of vaccinated 'zones' are mentioned.

So in summary, Defra say they are 'pump priming' farmers to accept vaccination, however futile its efficacy - and they will have to pay for it. All of it. As explained in this posting which invites farmers to have a 'conversation' with them.

Defra invite a 'conversation'.

Our cash strapped Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs cordially invite all interested parties to 'engage' with them, on how they can screw cattle farmers even more save money from their TB budget.

Some of the ideas being bandied about are on this link.

It would be churlish to point out that if they'd kept a handle on infected wildlife two decades ago, they wouldn't be in this position, but we'll do it anyway as the patronising language phrasing this proposed cash grab is - irritating in the extreme. A 'conversation' implies a two way dialogue, but bitter past experience has proved this not to be case with Government. And successive 'consultations' have only served to show that Defra will do what they like, having 'consulted', regardless of replies.

We note that these reductions  proposed changes seem only to apply to farmers under restriction and their reactor cattle. So vets are not being asked to jab one, jab one free? Rhetorical question, as the EU's latest broadside has doubled testing requirements for many - hence doubled the cost to Defra.

Your views can be emailed to bTBengage@defra.gsi.gov.uk
Or you can write to: AHWBE (Bovine TB Call for Views), Nobel House, 17 Smith Square, London SW1P 3JR.

The AHWBE is also planning four open events in Exeter (September 18), Pulborough in West Sussex (September 25), Telford (October 2) and York (October 11).

"UK politicians must accept their responsibilty...

....to their own farmers and taxpayers as well as to the rest of the EU and commit to a long-term strategy that is not dependent on elections."

 This is the conclusion of the latest European Union report on Defra's efforts (sic) to comply with their assigned international obligation to eradicate bovine TB.

We touched on the most recent tranche of cattle measures, in this posting as our masters in the EU deftly unravelled almost all the measures put in over the last decade in order to allow farmers to trade while under TB restriction. These measures all had the effect of pushing further into the long grass, the question of what to do about the main cause of their problems.

In 2006, DG SANCO, the department responsible for Health and Consumer Affairs in Europe had this to say  about Defra's prevarications. They visited again this spring and their full report can be viewed on on this link.

Its conclusion is unequivocal.

"It is however of utmost importance that there is a political consensus and commitment to long-term strategies to combat TB in badgers as well as in cattle.

The Welsh eradication plan will lose some impetus as badger culling will now be replaced with badger vaccination. This was not part of the original strategy that consisted of a comprehensive plan that has now been disrupted.

There is no scientific evidence to demonstrate that badger vaccination will reduce the incidence of TB in cattle. However there is considerable evidence to support the removal of badgers in order to improve the TB status of both badgers and cattle.

UK politicians must accept their responsibility to their own farmers and taxpayers as well as to the rest of the EU and commit to a long-term strategy that is not dependent on elections.

The TB eradication programme needs continuity and it must be recognised that success will be slow and perhaps hard to distinguish at first. There is a lot of skill and knowledge among the veterinary authorities and they must be allowed time to use it."

There is nothing we could add to that.

Welcome Back!

A resounding welcome back to Owen Paterson, MP whose new appointment is Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra)

It was Owen Paterson's Parliamentary Questions on bTB and more importantly, their answers, which form the basis of this site. When he was Shadow Minister, the number of cattle herds having TB problems in Great Britain was 5.6 per cent, a figure which shocked him. Last year that total had almost doubled to10.07 percent. The number of cattle slaughtered in GB during 2004, (the year Owen asked the PQs ) was 23,000. Last year Defra sent  34,617 to their  premature deaths. The spillover into other species, especially camelids, had just started in 2004 and Defra recorded 6 herds with at least 1 infected animal 1999-2004.  We will post again on their contortionist gymnastics to avoid the question,' how many alpacas have you killed today?' But infected herds of camelids, (not individual deaths) we are told, now stands at 60.

A full biography of Owen Paterson is  here from Alistair Driver at Farmers Guardian.

New badger welfare group launch

Today, August 14th is the first meeting to introduce a new initiative which aims for healthy badgers, rather than shed loads of unhealthy ones. (Report of the Sedgemoor meeting is here. )

 Rather than get snarled up in a cats' cradle of mathematical calculations of how many badgers of undetermined health status to remove from a given area over a set time frame, a group of west country farmers have turned the clock back.

They have taken the sentinel cattle tests, badger tracking to determine territories and thus presented a much tighter target on those groups responsible for prolonged TB breakdowns in regularly tested cattle.

 The inaugural meetings to introduce the concept, are this week. Full story with venues and times are explained by the Western Morning News,  in this link.

We hope that the research painstakingly carried out over several years and which has now resulted in PCR being described in this publication thus: "An Inter-Laboratory Validation of a Real Time PCR Assay to Measure Host Excretion of Bacterial Pathogens, Particularly of Mycobacterium bovis" may find a place in this.

And we would point out, with the greatest of respect of course, that far from being 'never used in my lifetime' as described to veterinary practitioners a few years ago by the diminutive Professor Bourne,  PCR used on badger setts is now a real time test, validated (which means capable of repitition) by three different laboratories in two countries, the research peer reviewed and published. We have also touched on its use in abattoirs, in this project on sheep, and the posting below describes an ongoing project to investigate its eventual use as an ancillary ante mortem test for alpacas, who have a very poor response to the skin test.

So is this the 'science' needed to support this new farmer initiative, which seeks to identify unhealthy badgers, rather than take pot shots at any which cross across the countryside using the ISG's mathematical models?
Badger supporters (and Dr.Brian May) cannot really want them to suffer like this one, can they?

Someone else deserves a Gold medal.

As the country is gripped by Olympic fever, with medals and congratulatory speeches at every turn, we offer our sincere congratulations to the Camelid Tb Support and Research Group who last year, commissioned a Proof of Concept study into the use of PCR (Polymerase Chain Reaction) to detect m.bovis (bTB) in alpacas and llamas. Although the project still has to publish its full report in the scientific press, we are able to show you an interim glimpse of its preliminary results.

“The pilot project demonstrated that a two stage PCR test on camelid clinical samples has the potential to detect Mycobacterium bovis with reasonable sensitivity. Samples were taken post-mortem from 21 alpacas with gross lesions of tuberculosis: most of the alpacas selected had severe lesions. Fifteen faeces samples and ten nasal swabs were positive.
Samples that were negative in these PCR tests were from alpacas with less severe pathology”.

The full text of this announcement can be seen on the website of The Alpaca TB Support Group who commissioned the study. (Click the left hand buttons for more information on PCR including its current commercial uses by AHVLA)

 Using a combination of faecal and nasal material, this project showed PCR's ability to detect m.bovis in 17 out of 21 animals (80.9 percent) and importantly, gave no false positives.

We have supported PCR as a diagnostic tool for years; and in previous postings brought other major successes to your attention, including earlier this year, this project which detected m.bovis in badgers. We are puzzled why no media hacks have grabbed these 'good news' stories. But then it is easier to cut and paste press releases than to dig into what is really going on. We missed this validated, peer reviewed and published paper into PCR and badgers and we also missed this little gem.

In a project undertaken by a Nottingham University School of Biological Sciences student, Derrick Fall,  looked into using PCR in abattoirs to detect bTB. In this case on sheep. This is probably not the time to remind readers that in 1997, Professor John Bourne announced quite confidently to his farmer and veterinary audience that ‘sheep did not contract TB’. As in so many things, the man was quite wrong. But we digress ….. Commercial drug manufacturers MSD (Merck, Sharpe & Dohm) Animal Health offered this student a Bursary to investigate abattoir lesions in sheep. And his conclusion was that bTB was now present in the UK sheep flock. We may return to this project, if we can have sight of the Veterinary Record report on it.

The Camelid Tb Support and Research Group have had no such industry funding and indeed the brickbats keep flying, especially from within the alpaca community. Such breeders cannot really want to risk losing hundreds of animals, possibly exporting bTB and moving it around the country on the strength of a rubbish skin test, can they?  That was a rhetorical question, by the way.

The results of this Proof of Concept project on alpacas are extremely encouraging, especially where bTB is advanced. AHVLA now wish to undertake a further screening of samples where bTB lesions are less pronounced. This will investigate the level at which detection of bTB using PCR is possible. Samples are held ready to use and the PCR screen of these could be completed within a month. Donations towards this second phase would be most welcome. A 'donate' tab is available at the alpaca TB support group's website, www.alpacatb.org. When the second phase is completed, results will be published together with those from the initial screen which we report today.

As we have said before, if nothing else, this small group has shown the farming industry how to commission PCR as a diagnostic tool for bTB. It is no use asking Defra to do it; they have no cash and no interest in stopping this gravy train of misery which employs so many hangers on. But AHVLA now have to stand on their own commercial feet, and if cattle, sheep or pig  farmers and owners of other mammals susceptible to bTB want better diagnostic tools, then they only have to ask - and then pay up. Even the Badger Trust could put their hand further into Brian May's deep pockets and commission a wider screening of badger setts. That's if they have any interest at all in cleaning up the cess pit   maintenance reservoir of infection festering away in their chosen species.

The Badger Trust pick up their pencil...

... and appeal the judgement, handed down by Mr. Justice Ouseley last week. In fact they appeal every point on which he trashed their original challenge. From Farmers Guardian report, (link later)

“It underlines the trust’s strong belief that the Government’s proposals to kill badgers in England are likely to do more harm than good,” the trust said, claiming that, despite the judge’s ruling, the science still showed ‘culling badgers can make no meaningful contribution to the eradication of bovine TB in Britain’.

FarmersGuardian has the full story, but those weasel words, contained in the ISG Final Report, were not bourne born out by their author's oral evidence to the EFRA committee, which we reported in this 2007 post.  To refresh your memories, this is what Professor John Bourne actually said, not what was written for him:.

"Let us go back to 1999 when we started our work. It was made very clear to us by ministers of the day - and they have not refuted it since - that elimination of badgers over large tracts of countryside was not an option for future policy".

and

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

and finally:

"Whatever has driven that I do not know [ try copious multi million ££ donations to political parties? - ed) but the fact is that a price has been put on the badger in this country which related to the way we were able to carry out our scientific work. That is exactly what we report".

"Culling, as conducted in this trial, can make no meaningful contribution to the eradication on bovine TB in Britain" is much more sensible that this oft quoted truncated version. But the man knew this at the beginning, he said he did and he geared his trial protocol to achieving it.

This expensive charade known as the RBCT  showed us exactly how not to control tuberculosis in badgers.

2 + 2 = 1 - The bigger the lie...

The title makes no sense does it? Of course 2 + 2 doesn't equal 1 unless of course you happen to be a treasury bean counter, or in this case a TB statistician within Defra.

Over the past months, we have noticed that many articles, all culled from Defra press releases, refer with shock and horror to '25,000 cattle slaughtered in 2011'. Leaving aside the hiccoughs with Defra's new toy, a computer called SAM, who found it difficult to add up and abandoned its monthly stats mid way through the year, the final tally was not 25,000. Or not if you were wanting a figure comparable with previously quoted figures. The oft mis-quoted 25,000 or 26,394 to be precise, is the figure for England. But Defra always collated their figures for 'GB', not its devolved parts. Unless of course this dumbing down was deliberate act. Surely not?

For the pedants among you, the total cattle casualties for GB which SAM has coughed up for 2011 are 34,505, including 7971 for Wales and 140 for TB free Scotland.

 But far worse are Defra's statistician's mathematical gymnastics when collating  'other species' deaths from TB, or slaughterings in the course of a Defra inspired cull. We have highlighted this many times and originally had not a little fun, printing off the most ingenious reasons which Defra gave for not making 2 + 2 = 4. This post describes a list of exclusions, which at one point, was longer than the table itself.

Nothing changes, and we now learn of another ruse to dumb down the 'other species' figures.

If trace animals prove positive on another holding, or in another group; or if they are not traced but merely die from TB but have originated in another herd, the stats 'tether' them to the index outbreak. Thus, the 398 animals slaughtered in the Sussex alpaca TB breakdown would which we told you about in this posting,, would appear on the Defra tables as the single (or a couple if we're being generous) microbial sample, confirming bTB. But moving on, the four herds traced (so far) which bought animals from this source and were found to be infected, remain on Defra's unique abacus as 1 outbreak.

"Je größer die Lüge, desto mehr Menschen es glauben werden."

Paraphrased from Adolf Hitler's Mein Kampf in 1925, (but attributed also to Joseph Goebbels) the point of any political party's speeches is to persuade people of what they think right. ... misquoted or paraphrased the above phrase translates as: "The bigger the lie, the more it will be believed."

And this is how we come to have press releases and statements from Defra, indicating '25,000 cattle slaughtered last year' (but forgetting to say that they are only from a devolved part of the previously quoted total GB figures) and a very small handful of bTB outbreaks in alpacas, which of course, are no problem at all. Except to the many hundreds which are dead.

Over the first hurdle...

Press reports today tell us that the judge who presided over the Judicial Review into the proposed pilot badger culls, has not upheld the Badger Trust's challenge on its legality. However, despite this verdict, the legal threat has not entirely disappeared. The Badger Trust said it was ‘considering an appeal’, after the judge refused an oral request for appeal but left open the option of a written application.
 Farmers Guardian has more. And the Guardian's comment section has some predictably inane comments. The Farmers Union of Wales had this to say:

The Farmers’ Union of Wales today welcomed a High Court ruling that proposals to cull badgers in England to control bovine TB are legal.The Badger Trust had challenged the English proposals on three grounds, all of which were turned down. Responding to the decision, FUW’s TB spokesman, Carmarthen dairy farmer Brian Walters, said: “During the hearings the Badger Trust’s barrister acknowledged that they were not challenging the science behind culling badgers, but the legality of the decision. “The judge has made it clear that the English decision is legal and that licenses to cull badgers ‘for the purpose of preventing the spread of disease’ can be issued.”

Perhaps someone should point out to the learned judge that a moratorium, brought in in 1997, is still in force on that particular section of the Protection of Badgers Act, some 7 years after the RBCT ended its dispersal efforts.

Anytime soon would be good...

We read last weeks' news from Northern Ireland with great expectations. With a strapline "Northern Ireland Announces a Badger control Programme", one would expect the thing to be on the starting blocks.

The research project, which will involve a combination of culling and vaccination of badgers, could begin in targeted areas of Northern Ireland as early as next year, the Minister told the Agriculture and Rural Development Committee. She has tasked her officials to develop an approach to bTB control that would involve testing live badgers in the targeted areas. Badgers that test negative for bTB will be vaccinated and released back into the wild, while those that test positive will be ‘removed'.

The majority of farmers we speak to, want this type of approach. Not 'wipe out', not 'extermination' or any other emotive claptrap designed on a Pythagoras based model, but a measured and parallel strategy to protect other mammals from tuberculosis carried by free ranging wildlife. What was interesting was the reported response to this announcement. A measured welcome from Ulster Farming union with the caveat that this approach might take a while, but from the Belfast Telegraph report:

The Northern Ireland Badger Group also said it welcomed the minister’s announcement of a science-led badger strategy.

Well ain't that a surprise? After decades of blaming cattle and their owners for the spread of tuberculosis among many other mammals (and human beings), they 'welcome a science led badger strategy'. Mmmm.
So we asked exactly what 'screeening tests' would be used to identify groups of infected badgers. Together with others who enquired, we received what can only be described as a 'fudge' :

“Considerable preparatory work is required before the TVR approach can be finalised. The first step will be to commission the necessary mathematical modelling in order to help us design this wildlife intervention research to ensure that it is scientifically robust. This modelling will help us to answer “what if” questions, identify the most appropriate area, the optimum size of that area, and the appropriate duration of the intervention.

Methods of badger capture and removal and the types of tests to be used are also under consideration as part of this preparatory work. Animal welfare considerations will be paramount in the test, vaccinate, remove (TVR) approach that we are planning to pursue in the north of Ireland. We are committed to ensuring that any badger removal will be undertaken in as humane a manner as possible and in compliance with the terms and conditions of any legal requirements.”

So what is on the table to 'model' as a screening test for TB ridden badgers? This has been trialled before. First a lab based blood assay, known as the 'Brock Test' about which the ISG in their Final Report had this to say:

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

Then Chambers et al, they of the '74 per cent' fame at FERA had the following comments having investigated the Stat-Pak blood screen :

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

So, to date, with much fanfare publicity, not born out by the results of 40% and 49% sensitivity respectively, two laboratory based blood tests, which require animal capture and blood samples before action - in either direction. Compare this, to the total media silence on this screening test, which can be field based, uses faecal samples, is pretty much instant and whose candidates may either vaccinated or 'removed' on results of over 80 per cent sensitivity - and no false positives. PCR is now a peer reviewed and validated test for TB in badgers, and awaits a larger field trial. Where? Ireland? Wales? England? Don't all shout at once.

We wait with baited breath, the results of the 'modelling' described in our reply to 'how are you going to do this'. Of course, being simple souls, we could suggest using the sentinel tested cattle as 'canaries' of a wildlife problem. But that wouldn't involve a 'scientist' or a model. We are assured that no coughing badger will be harmed in this exercise, but don't expect anything to happen any time soon. They still have to work out the 'removal' bit.

(With acknowledgement and thanks to Ken Wignall for the use of his cartoon, first published in Farmers Guardian)

Losing sight of the plot

Today, June 25th 2012, saw the beginning of the Badger Trust's challenge in the High Court; they are objecting to a couple of pilot badger culls. And the chattering classes are out in force, all with a view on something which affects very few.

Damian Carrington from the Guardian leads the pack with his report, which has attracted 130 comments so far. Very few show any awareness of the reason why tuberculosis in any species needs to be tackled and the risk to themselves and their pets, even in inner cities, is conveniently airbrushed. Leaving aside the grammatical niceties within its title, one sentence in the Guardian report has generated not a little hot air in itself, and it's nothing to do with a badger cull.

Cull opponents are also attacking the "undue influence" of the National Farmers' Union (NFU) in the decision to go ahead with the shooting of badgers across England. In a February letter to the Badger Trust, seen by the Guardian, officials at the environment department (Defra) argued that "advice from the NFU was so integral to the development of the cull policy" that it considered the NFU to be a part of the government in this instance, and would therefore not release its "internal" communications with the lobby group.

The incestuous relationship between Defra and the 'Guardian' newspaper which is also mentioned in the piece, is obviously seen as a different sort of 'relationship' by Guardian readers, as it escapes their comment. But the NFU part of government? We call it a revolving door. Government says jump, NFU replies 'on whom?' Why else is the moratorium on Section 10 of the Protection of Badgers Act still in place, a full 6 years after the end the RBCT? Why else have cattle farmers born the brunt of endless futile cattle measures in exchange for.... what? Deals which never materialise, promises never kept.

 So what have we really got here for barristers to squabble over? An untried policy to take pot shots at badgers, cobbled together from snippets of a political prevarication   ' trial ' which from its outset was designed to fail , with permissive licenses overseen by a quango which has made no secret of its discomfort over culling any badger, let alone one with tuberculosis. Some appear surprised to see Rosie Woodroffe (ex ISG) perching amongst the Badger Trust supporters, having given them a statement.
We are not surprised; it is a position she has always held.

When badger tuberculosis is eventually sorted out, and it will be, all these people will need another cause to support them in the manner to which they have become accustomed. The wider this polemic gets, the more hangers-on it attracts. And the excuses for doing nothing, become quite remarkable.

We like this...

Searching for something else can sometimes turn up solid gold. And a search today has done just that.
PCR (Polymerase Chain Reaction) has been around for decades now, and  the most logical use of it with bTB would be to identify infected badger setts as opposed to those used by groups relatively clean and healthy. Ex WLU staff tell us that much of the resistance to culling badgers across wide areas using mathematical models could be negated if more confidence could be given to the disease status of the badgers themselves.

So it is with our apologies that we have to say, we missed this one, submitted for publication in August 2011, and published November 14th 2011 as a validated, peer reviewed piece in PlosOne. It is attributed to Travis E.R et al (2011) and entitled;

"An inter-laboratory validation of a real time PCR assay to measure host excretion of bacterial pathogens, particularly of mycobacterium bovis".

The Abstract from the paper :

Advances in the diagnosis of Mycobacterium bovis infection in wildlife hosts may benefit the development of sustainable approaches to the management of bovine tuberculosis in cattle. In the present study, three laboratories from two different countries participated in a validation trial to evaluate the reliability and reproducibility of a real time PCR assay in the detection and quantification of M. bovis from environmental samples.

The sample panels consisted of negative badger faeces spiked with a dilution series of M. bovis BCG Pasteur and of field samples of faeces from badgers of unknown infection status taken from badger latrines in areas with high and low incidence of bovine TB (bTB) in cattle. Samples were tested with a previously optimised methodology. The experimental design involved rigorous testing which highlighted a number of potential pitfalls in the analysis of environmental samples using real time PCR. Despite minor variation between operators and laboratories, the validation study demonstrated good concordance between the three laboratories: on the spiked panels, the test showed high levels of agreement in terms of positive/negative detection, with high specificity (100%)and high sensitivity (97%) at levels of 105 cells g21 and above.

Quantitative analysis of the data revealed low variability in recovery of BCG cells between laboratories and operators. On the field samples, the test showed high reproducibility both in terms of positive/negative detection and in the number of cells detected, despite low numbers of samples identified as positive by any laboratory. Use of a parallel PCR inhibition control assay revealed negligible PCR-interfering chemicals coextracted with the DNA.

This is the first example of a multi-laboratory validation of a real time PCR assay for the detection of mycobacteria in environmental samples. Field studies are now required to determine how best to apply the assay for population-level bTB surveillance in wildlife.

So, what are we waiting for? The field trial could be done at Badger Heaven  Woodchester Park, where not only is the disease status of every social group known and has been logged for decades, but no doubt individual badgers have Christian names too. This is from where some of  the 300 field samples mentioned in this study were matched to epidemiological information already held. Will someone please contact Brian May, the RSPCA, Jack Reedy and Secret World. In no particular order of course, but perhaps include Jim Paice too - as his department co-funded this project, he may be interested. Or not.

Haven't we done well?

As we approach the first Judicial Review on whether or not to cull badgers by taking pot shots at them, in Farmers Guardian, Alistair Driver examines how this country arrived at such a position.



Defra's graph shows that in 2011, despite ongoing problems with the ability of the new IT system to count correctly, we culled 34,175 cattle (compared with 31,965 in 2010)

Almost 3,000 herds (2,965) had their TB free status officially Withdrawn, meaning that TB had been confirmed in the slaughtered cattle. This represents 4.95 per cent of tests on TB free herds.

Of 80,454 herds registered on the VetNet system with Defra, a staggering 10.07 percent (8,108) had TB problems and herd restrictions due to a 'TB incident' during the year 2011.

For our readers' comparison, International TB free trading status demands 99.99per cent of herds test clear, and 99.98 per cent of cattle.

Haven't we done well?

The silly season

They keep coming and sometimes it seems as if they come in bundles of ten. What are 'they'? Half cocked theories published in journals which really should do some checking before giving them credence and from people whose pedigrees suggest they should know better. Wild assumptions do not a theory prove. Especially when sooooo many other so called facts in the published papers are just downright wrong.

But then a judicial review is on the horizon, and true to form the beneficiaries of the badger v. cattle polemic are rising to the occasion. This time, trying (once again) to prove this huge undiscovered reservoir of bTB in cattle, researchers from Liverpool made some pretty wild leaps of faith and connected incidence of liver fluke with an alleged failure of the skin test. The 'science' journal  Nature published this, obviously without checking the detail. Jumping off the page was the assertion that preMT began in 2001. It did not, that was 2006 - but let that pass.

Lumping New Zealand with the UK and Ireland, as a country with a wildlife reservoir and bTB problems in cattle is also overstating the facts. After a twenty year blitz on its TB infected  possums, by 2013 NZ hopes to achieve TB free trading status, while ignoring our wildlfe reservoirs has ensured that the heap of sentinel slaughtered cattle in the UK and Ireland, continues to grow. For the record, NZ has achieved 0.35 per cent incidence in its cattle herds in 2010/11; but herd restrictions were applied in around 24 per cent of cattle herds in the west of England and Wales, with a GB average of 10 per cent. Hardly comparable.

But the assumption of specificity of the intradermal skin test with a mean average of 80 percent is the core of the paper. Thus it is missing shed loads of cattle - all with liver fluke? But the specificity of the skin test need not be 'assumed' at all. From a F O I request, Defra answered this question recently thus:

"... the SICCT test specificity in GB would be at least 995.9 per 1000 or 99.59%. Given that the majority of skin test reactors detected in GB originated from endemic TB areas of England and Wales and were likely to be infected (regardless of post-mortem findings), a better estimator of the true test specificity would be the converse of the proportion of test reactors observed in a very low TB incidence area such as Scotland, where the majority (but not all) of the test reactors could be expected to constitute false positive test results. Since we had a rate of 0.8 tuberculin skin test reactors per 1,000 animal tests in Scotland in the first nine months of 2010, this means that the test specificity was about 999.2 per 1,000 (or 99.92%). Therefore, in addition to the field trials carried out by Lesslie et al. in the mid-1970s, the current field data continues to indicate a very high specificity of the SICCT test ... "

And for once, Defra's answer to this paper's publication was spot on. If the skin test was missing millions of cattle - up to 20 % the paper asserts - then not only would this happen in all other countries using the test (unless Faciola hepatica is unique to the UK as well) but eventually all these infectious cattle would end up with gross lesions in the abattoir. A Defra spokesperson told Farmers Guardian that:

"..... research showed that ‘cattle that have both liver fluke and bTB still test positive for bovine TB, and would be culled to control the disease. The absence of positive cases of bovine TB in some areas coinciding with large amounts of liver fluke cannot be used to claim liver fluke is hiding cases, as cattle carcases are inspected in abattoirs and we would see evidence of TB in the slaughtered animals if this was the case."

Assuming this paper is correct in its many 'assumptions' that would mean about 20 per cent of all cattle slaughtered in the UK were riddled with liver fluke and also bTB would it not?
The UK cattle herd is around 9.6 million animals. Annual slaughterings involve about 3.5 million cattle so 700,000 or thereabouts should have lesions? Yes? No?
Just 1013 were confirmed with bTB at abattoir inspections in 2011.
That is the huge 'reservoir' which attracts so much hot air.

 And this week, Nature ran another paper, this time from Donnelly and Woodroffe, claiming that no one could really count badgers and thus the 70 percent clearance in the proposed pilot culls may be breached, leading to compliance problems with the Bern Convention. As one comment on this story pointed out, Bern has yet to have grasped the ecological impact of too many badgers - particularly on hedgehogs.

 Northen Ireland too has the begging bowl out. In this oral presentation, the Oliver syndrome is much in evidence. Please may we have some more porridge research cash? On top of the £3.5 million already spent of course.

And again some repeated wild assumptions about the skin test sensitivity (see above) and mathematical models based on mathematical models based on ... And Rosie Woodroffe's assertion seems to have gathered credence with the telling. Did you know that dead cattle spread TB?

Felling a single tree needs an 'ecological impact' assessment, so how much more 'impact' was there when these modellers cleared 11 million animals from the landscape in 2001? Thousands of acres were barren with altered cropping, long grass, funeral pyres and noise. And vitally for badgers, no grazing cattle or sheep. There was nothing for badgers to eat and so they moved. Woodroffe opined that delayed cattle tests 'were the only explanantion' for the spike in badger TB and thus cattle had given the disease to badgers. Rubbish. The whole ecology changed for that year, and the badgers moved out to find the nearest live cattle. They met resident badgers and fought. Result? Perturbation and TB, which they brought back with them when they returned back to restocked farms in the heartlands of this bloody carnage.

As well it being the silly season, on 25th June there's a Judicial Review coming up, and jobs to protect. These people need another cause.

Is there a difference?

AHVLA's Regional Operations Director (or ROD) in the SW and based at Exeter is was a chap called Mark Yates. He first came to our attention when problems surfaced last year for Defra's new toy,  a computer which they call SAM.

We are assured that the acronym stands for nothing at all, but many farmers and AH staff on the receiving end of its ongoing indigestion could invent a few words - Sodding Awful Machine is one more polite suggestion offered. In an interview, Mr. Yates offered to help out any farmer with problems.

The fact that most of us couldn't get within a mile of him is neither here nor there... but we digress. Mr Yates has gone. Left, as in disappeared ... gawn. It is said that he may have rejoined his previous employer, the British Army, called to the colours to do battle with them in forin parts.

Now that is scary. Surely a cosy seat in AHVLA, talking (or not) to cattle farmers whose main concern is the health and welfare of their animals, is preferable to facing a Taliban fighter waving an AK summat, or an RPG wotsit launcher in his face?

Or perhaps when the latest tranch of cattle measures hit farmers and there is no sign of a parallel policy to control badgers, there may be no difference at all.  But then, hell hath no fury like a cattleman scorned. It could be safer where he's going.

The ostrich syndrome

We have used that description before when describing the overspill of bTB from an ‘environmental, non-bovine source’ – badgers, into another popular mammal, alpacas.
　
Playing with their own published statistics, and deflecting searching questions about the true level of losses has become just a game to Defra. But just how are their bTB team going to deal with the latest news, widely reported not only in the Farming press but the BBC  and some national papers, of a 400 animal cull of alpacas from a single herd in Sussex?

From the FG piece:

"The sheer scale of the outbreak sheds new light on the scale of the bTB problem in UK alpacas. Official Defra figures show 58 alpaca and llama herds had been confirmed with bTB in Britain up to September 2011, although there is a suspicion that not every case has been reported over the years.
There is, however, no official record of the number of animals slaughtered as result of the disease as Defra’s official figures for ‘non-bovines’ only record the positive sample or samples that has confirmed the outbreak, not other animals subsequently slaughtered."

                                


We cannot identify the collective head of Defra in this picture. Or precisely who is responsible for the arrogant and misleading hubris which their bTB team spit out so convincingly. That is very firmly in the sand.

How can you be 100% sure ....

...   that she contracted TB from wildlife? So said a curt note from the Badger Trust in reply to a farmer in Wales, about to lose this beautiful cow. For good measure they also said they cared about ALL animals. You could have fooled us;  they sure as hell don't care about badgers riddled with TB. Those collecting tins wouldn't rattle much if they'd showed the reality of TB in their chosen species.

The answer of course, is quite simple. Whenever a new TB breakdown is flagged up by sentinel tested cattle, then AH do a 'risk assessment' to discover the source. The clue is in the word 'risk'. AH officers trawl movement books and BCMS records (amongst other documentation) back to a couple of months prior to the herd's last clear TB test.  Any cattle sold will be traced and if alive, check tested.

But if like many self contained pedigree herds, no cattle have been purchased in, and if like most of us, boundaries are secure from nose to nose contact with any other cattle, as bTB bacteria don't fly in with the tooth fairy and aren't wind borne,  then the conclusion has to be .... wildlife.
Then it is down to whether deer can scramble under gates and share food with housed cattle.

When these assessments are done, the Badger Trust's money machines favourite  mammal starts way down the list of possibles. But guess what? In the majority of cases, they come out AH's favourite. By default, and having excluded every other possibility, up to 90 per cent of TB breakdowns in the West and SW are officicially placed at the door of badgers.

Her name is 'Candice' by the way : she lived in Powys, tested clear in December 2010 and again in May 2011. But she failed the herd's annual test this year and on monday, May 21st. 2012 she will die.

Update - Dianne Summers

Following our postings on Dianne's illness, she has updated the  website with this thumbnail of how she is coping with the intensive bTB drug regime. (click News tab for the full account)

On April 12th 2012 Dianne started a nine month regime of a cocktail of drugs and was advised the side effects can be very unpleasant. 

"Unfortunately 8 days into the course I had severe side effects to the drugs which included severe all over body rash – blurred vision – faintness – severe headache and aching joints and had to seek emergency care on Sunday 22nd April. The drugs were stopped immediately and once again I had to go to hospital. I was then put on drugs to sort out the side effects and once they had cleared then the drugs could be reintroduced one at a time until we discover which drug caused the problem. "

As Dianne says, bTB (m.bovis)  in humans isn’t a quick fix – and it isn’t a case of 2 weeks of aspirin and you will be right as rain.

On April 29 I ended up back in hospital for 6 days because of a downturn in my condition. The drugs were reintroduced in a controlled environment and it was revealed I had an allergic reaction to Ethambutol. A new regime was set up and I have been on the new drugs for the past week. The side effects of the drugs are very difficult to cope with – total fatigue – dizziness – nausea to name but a few. The thought of feeling like this for the next nine months is pretty daunting
.

On 10 May I received a letter from H.P.A. in response to my constant requests asking why none of my contacts had been offered testing. The letter informed me that because I was culture positive but smear negative this meant I was not infectious to others and therefore none of my contacts would be offered tests. Only members of my family household would be offered: but as I live on my own this meant no one would be tested. It is a relief to me and no doubt to my contacts that they were not at any risk nor were my own animals.

On May 11th I was informed by my consultant that the spoligotype was the same as my herd from 2009. I had not helped any other herd with the same strain type as myself so at least we now know it was from my breakdown back in 2008/09. As stated earlier I had lost 8 only 6 of these had visible lesions and I took all the necessary precautions once I knew I had TB. We have many many owners who have lost far more infected alpacas then I have so the risk to them/us is huge and let’s not forget Vets and Shearers who are constantly exposed to risk .

The full script of Dianne's story and her fight with 'bovine' TB can be viewed on http://www.alpacatb.com/