Brexit, UK exports and zoonotic Tuberculosis

One of the reasons given for leaving the clutches of the European Union was red tape. Happily, a bonfire of regulations will occur shortly. But this will be replaced for the farming community by another pile of Regulations - [link]


 Entitled REGULATION (EU) 2016/429 OF THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT AND OF THE COUNCIL, this 208 page pdf contains over 300 Directives or 'Articles' concerning animal diseases, animal welfare and, with relevance to the UK, imports from third countries into the EU.

 It comes into force on 21st April 2021.

Article 9 (Annex IV on p. 177) is particularly relevant, as are Articles 229 / 300 which end with this gem:

"The Commission shall be empowered to adopt delegated acts in accordance with Article 264 concerning derogations from paragraph 2 of this Article, limiting the possibility for Member States to decide from which third countries and territories a specific species and category of animal, germinal product or product of animal origin may enter the Union, where necessary due to the risk posed by that specific species and category of animal, germinal product or product of animal origin."

That sounds suspiciously like a European Beef Ban to us. And we've been there before, have we not?

And the European Union is not without form on the thorny question of zTB . In 2004 when Russia - [link] was sabre rattling about quality of imports, zTB was used as a stick to beat three EU states. These were listed as Spain, the Republic of Ireland and the UK. To offset that threat, the EU drew up an export note, which, like the Beef Ban was a cascade of products ranging from milk powder, through gelatin to hides for tanning. In fact anything and everything - [link] that can be produced from a bovine animal. There is more clarification. [link]  on the this as answers to our questions were dragged from the Department of Trade.

And our apologies for the broken links in the first piece on Russia. As readers probably know, the Defra website is pretty rubbish at the best of times, and articles / notes and information are archived very quickly. In this case, the export document. But it exists. It is in someone's drawer and with herd TB incidence now over 10 per cent in the UK, for sure it will be used.

But if no one else is on the case, the FUW (Farmers Union of Wales) are up to speed. Yesterday's lead article on the Welsh lobby group's website, giving details of  Tb in Wales - [link]  and well written by FUW's policy director, Dr. Nick Fenwick gives a potted history of TB non policy by successive political leaders. It then points out the risks to exports from the current levels of TB in herds. Dr. Fenwick concludes:

The situation would be bad enough under normal circumstances, but with Brexit looming, competitors in other countries have one eye on our TB status, and how it might be used to their benefit – and our detriment – in trade negotiations. The clock is ticking.

And that point is made today by our sister site, with emphasis on exports of agricultural products and including several paragraphs from those new EU Regulations - [link] to which we refer above.

 Nick Fenwick is quite correct - for eradication of zTB and the security of our exports, the clock is ticking.

'Build that Wall'

News has been trickling in over the last couple of months of a cow in Canada, slaughtered in the USA and found to have lesions by the US meat inspectors. Cultures - [link] subsequently confirmed zoonotic tuberculosis.

We won't go into too much detail on this story, leaving readers to follow these links - [link] for in depth reporting from Alberta. And our grateful thanks to the cattle farmer who sent them.

 But one snippet caught our attention.
 zTB is practically unheard of in Alberta, and as such treated very seriously. Tracing is going back five years, and so far just 6 cattle have proved positive to zTB - all with the same strain of the disease.

After culture and spoligotyping (strain typing of the bacteria) it was found that the strain of zTB in these cows had not been found in Canada before, and was genetically very similar to a strain predominate in Central Mexico. The latest information from Alberta tells us that:

Genetic analysis has shown that the bovine TB organism from the infected cows is not the same as any strains detected in Canadian domestic livestock or wildlife or humans to date. All six currently confirmed positive cows have the same strain of TB. This strain of TB identified in these confirmed cows is closely related to a strain first found in cattle in Central Mexico in 1997.

Mexican herdsman with a cough? Just a thought.

And please, don't tell President Trump.

(No) Common Sense and COSHH

COSHH- or the Control of Substances Hazardous to Health - is a legal requirement of those employing people in any capacity, or the  letting of property - [link]
 It involves a detailed risk assessment to identify and remove, as far as possible, risks to health from hazardous substances.

With holiday lets, often gas appliances are the most likely suspects, with carbon monoxide emissions the 'hazardous substance' to be avoided at all costs. Dodgy wiring and badly maintained flues are all on the hit list for COSHH - [ link] But so are any 'substances known to be injurious to health'.

So the recent experience of a holidaymaker staying in a self catering cottage has shocked us.

 Upon entry to the property he noticed a stainless steel bowl and four cans of dog food.

"I don't have a dog" remarked the visitor.
"Oh, they're for the badgers" replied the hostess, glibly explaining that part of the 'countryside experience' she offered, was to encourage local badgers and for guests to view their 'dining table' - which doubled as the property's patio. 

Now the conversation became a bit heated, as her guest was a veterinary surgeon, well versed in zoonotic Tuberculosis and its primary wildlife hosts. So when the cottage owner proceeded to tell him, with all the arrogance of the totally stupid, that zTB had nothing at all to do with badgers, and it was a cattle disease, he was able to inform her with the degree of certainty that his qualifications bestowed, that badgers were the main wildlife host of zTuberculosis in this country.

 And for good measure he added that as her cottages were situated within one of the worst hot-spots for that disease in the country, not only was she putting her guests at risk, she was breaking every COSHH rule in the book, by doing so. And as such had laid herself wide open to litigation should any of her guests, contract zTuberculosis  from a badger bowl which she had provided, swilled in tepid water along with the family's breakfast dishes.

This is one of those occasions where words really do fail us.

Going in circles, or another Trojan horse?

As Wales prepares to implement yet another round of cattle measures, bearing down hard on compensation levels and 'risks' of restocking in the post EU Brexit era, some stirrings can be heard in the farming community.

 Enough is enough ... reports Wales on line - [link] with the strap line pointing out that cattle controls alone, will not halt TB.

The Daily post - [link] gives a thumb nail sketch of what is to come for Wales' remaining cattle. If not for the infected wildlife they have to live alongside.

And thus we are reminded of what the chairman of the ISG (Independent [it wasn't] Scientific [ not unless you mean political science] Group [maybe]  told the EFRA Committee - [link] in 2007.

“What we are saying is that badger culling in the way it can be conducted in the UK, we believe, cannot possibly contribute to cattle TB control, and in using the word ‘ meaningfully’ what we mean there, is that if it is the only inducement that would encourage farmers to co-operate fully, and introduce effective cattle controls, it could have an effect”.

This was questioned, somewhat more politely than we would have done, by the EFRAcom Chairman.

He said:

“Can I make quite certain that my ears did not deceive me a moment ago, when you said with your almost impish smile, “Left to its own devices, culling is not the silver bullet but if it induced some other activity as a quid pro quo, it might have a role to play?”. Is that what you are saying to me?”

Prof. Bourne (left) replied:

“It would be most unfortunate if that happened but that is exactly what I was communicating to you, because farmers have made it clear they will not co operate unless they can kill badgers. Farmer co operation is absolutely essential to get this disease under control. It will be appalling thing for us if farmers were given the opportunity of knocking off a few badgers, just to get their co operation.”

So as the cattle measures, futile as they are, rain down on us, think of John Bourne's words, delivered with a smirk, that if farmers can knock off a few badgers, they will accept more draconian cattle measures.
Quid pro quo. Where have we heard that before?.
And will we accept them? Will we really?



So laid on the line,  imagine the map of England and Wales, with small disparate chunks of a few hundred sq km. allowing farmers to cull badgers for six weeks in a year, for a four year period only. And paying for the privilege.

We've snuck the map from Facebook, but you get the picture. It's a minute effort. Tiny.

Is it Bourne's Trojan horse?








 Compare those tiny patches on the map above to the area now affected by zoonotic tuberculosis, stretching from Cheshire in the north to the eastern borders of the Midlands, through Wiltshire and Dorset in the south and right down to Lands End in Cornwall - for England.

And of course,  the whole of Wales, conveniently missing from Defra's latest picture postcard.




 Meanwhile the Farming Unions are not happy with the spin being put on the 36 per cent increase in Welsh cattle reactors. Farmers Guardian - [link] has the story.

In the UK, we shoot the canaries, don't we?

We frequently refer to our regularly tested cattle, as 'canaries in the coalmine'. These tiny birds were taken into coal mines as an early warning system. Toxic gases such as carbon monoxide, methane or carbon dioxide in the mine would kill the bird before affecting the miners. Signs of distress from the bird indicated to the miners that conditions were unsafe due to the presence of gas.
So, if the canaries fell off their perches, it was time for the miners to leave. Quickly.

If cattle react to the skin test, they are sending a message that the bacteria which causes zoonotic Tuberculosis is around in the environment and available, not only to tested sentinel cattle, but any mammal..

From the NZ Farmer comes a much more sensible way of reacting to these 'biological markers' - [link] for a disease which may affect cattle or deer in a country which is heading for TB Free status in the very near future. In an area of New Zealand thought to be clear of TB, the disease has been found in wild pigs.

A survey of Marlborough's wild pig population is helping determine the extent of bovine TB in the region. Pig hunters have been contracted by OSPRI and Landcare Research to hunt in specific areas and collect pig heads for TB analysis since July. Lymph nodes under the neck of the animal can show that TB was evident in the region. Pigs contract TB by scavenging dead animal carcasses which have been infected, but do not pass on the disease themselves.

In New Zealand, the wildlife vector of zTB  is the brush tailed possum, so by checking wild pigs for disease, the authorities conclude:

"When TB is present in possums in an area, it is highly likely that it will also be present in local pigs. If we can pinpoint where disease is, we can be specific about possum control."

And the New Zealand authorities do 'control' those possums. Whereas in the UK, we test the canaries ( cattle) and then shoot the messenger. Leaving the wildlife vector to run wild and free. Farm to farm.

Very sensible.

If it's good enough for the Aussies??

A new and said to be 'highly reliable' diagnostic solution - [link] for bovine tuberculosis, a major infectious disease among cattle, other farm animals and certain wildlife populations, is now on the market, reports Vet Practice magazine (Australia)

“The VetMAX M. tuberculosis Complex PCR Kit is a reliable and fast tool to confirm the presence of mycobacteria belonging to the tuberculosis complex,” said Martin Guillet, global head and general manager of AgriBusiness at Thermo Fisher Scientific, the company that has developed what is the only commercially available PCR test that detects all seven strains of the M. tuberculosis complex in a single solution.

Using the test on suspect cattle lesions, the article explains that results using this PCR approach can be returned much faster when compared to bacterial culture testing methods. While the results of a M. bovis culture can take up to six weeks, results using PCR—from sample preparation to testing—take just three hours.

 And we note that the same kit (VetMax M. tuberculosis Complex PCR) was trialed in 2014 alongside conventional culture testing on abattoir suspect lesions, in France - [link] This is the result:

The aim of this study was to estimate and compare sensitivities and specificities of bacteriology, histopathology and PCR under French field conditions, in the absence of a gold standard using latent class analysis.

The studied population consisted of 5,211 animals from which samples were subjected to bacteriology and PCR (LSI VetMAX™ Mycobacterium tuberculosis Complex PCR Kit, Life Technologies) as their herd of origin was either suspected or confirmed infected with bTB or because bTB-like lesions were detected during slaughterhouse inspection.

Samples from 697 of these animals (all with bTB-like lesions) were subjected to histopathology. Bayesian models were developed, allowing for dependence between bacteriology and PCR, while assuming independence from histopathology.

The sensitivity of PCR was higher than that of bacteriology (on average 87.7% [82.5–92.3%] versus 78.1% [72.9–82.8%]) while specificity of both tests was very good (on average 97.0% for PCR [94.3–99.0%] and 99.1% for bacteriology [97.1–100.0%]). Histopathology was at least as sensitive as PCR (on average 93.6% [89.9–96.9%]) but less specific than the two other tests (on average 83.3% [78.7–87.6%]).

These results suggest that PCR has the potential to replace bacteriology to confirm bTB in samples submitted from suspect cattle.

As regular readers will have guessed, we are fans of PCR diagnostics - [link] both for speeding up diagnosis in cattle lesions, and having pushed government to support its use, identifying infection in badgers.

So were somewhat floored by the reaction of its British developers - link] (scroll forward on the video to 20 minutes in to see that reaction which we have pasted below.)

" I’m extremely busy and it’s difficult to find time to watch the film as it is long, however, I have just watched it and I don’t feel I can be involved in the film as the tone and message are not in line with my views. Some of what has been said is unscientific, including some of the comments from your vet. Also, you have criticised scientists at least twice in 5 minutes. I am not pro cull and I do not believe the evidence supports culling badgers, even in the case of your farm. I do hope you understand that the tone of this video and the content is not in agreement with my views so I cannot be involved. "

We get the picture. Follow the money, and the 'group conformity' to keep zoonotic tuberculosis rolling  - in GB at least.

But if PCR diagnostics is good enough for the Aussies, and results compare very favourably with bacterial cultures in France and also in a privately funded study into zTB in alpacas - [link] why not here too?

Clarifications.

Starting with the Final Report of the RBCT (Randomised Badger Culling Trial) we have heard the oft repeated phrase that the primary, OIE approved screening test for cattle world wide, is missing shed loads of infected cattle. But only in the UK: or at least in parts of the UK. The ISG used modeling and the following hypothesis to concoct a heap of infected cattle on page 140  para 7:4

"Thus, if for example the true sensitivity of the test is 75 per cent, infection will remain undetected in one in four herds with a single infected animal. Given that only one confirmed reactor is detected at the disclosure test in about 30 per cent of breakdown herds, this represents a large number of additional infected herds that may remain undetected."

And from that hypothesis, the ISG's electronic abacus expands the risk to thousands of cattle in hundreds of herds. This was repeated more recently by Cambridge University models - [link] with Dr. Andrew Conlan, ignoring the obvious, and stating unequivocally that:

Around 38 per cent of herds that are cleared experience a recurrent incident within 24 months, suggesting that infection may be persisting within herds.

Not that those tested herds may be experiencing an insidious and constant reintroduction of infection from a non-bovine source? The cynical amongst us would suggest that would stop the funding stream generated by badger TB, stone dead. and that would never do.

 Scientists also, in the time honoured fashion of Not Made Here, ignore work done on actual transmission opportunities from reactor cattle, both in Ireland and GB.

In 1978 and 1988 Eamon Costello and Louis O'Reilly tried in Ireland with such pairings. Six months -[link] of shared feed, water, and air failed to transmit anything at all, and twelve months - link showed early lesions in just 4 out of 10 pairings. Conclusion: transmission in the field from cattle was very difficult.

The 'Pathman' project - [link] reporting in 2007, spent £2.8m trying to do the same and salami sliced reactor cattle into very tiny bits. After taking 1600 samples from that project's candidates and 1000 from a parallel study, they report that all failed to transmit. - [link]

A further overview, also written a decade ago by practising veterinary surgeon, the late John Daykin and Dr. Lewis Thomas also squashes flat, the elusive reservoir - [link] of zoonotic Tuberculosis in cattle.

But still, right up to date, we hear the same sing-song lament from this 2016 Defra tome - [link] Page 9.

Because of the limitations of the test and the nature of the response to the bovine TB bacterium we may miss 20 to 25 per cent of TB-infected cattle using the standard interpretation of the test (these animals are known as false negatives).

Defra personnel tend to ignore research and data which doesn't fit their particular bill, and true to form, they have ignored project SE4500, which examines slaughterhouse cases of TB.

Think about it: if the skin test was missing shed loads of cattle, then that abattoir surveillance - [link] designed for exactly the purpose of finding TB lesions, would be finding the 25 per cent of the annual kill that the skin test missed, would it not? So some 600,000 animals? That 'reservoir' which they seek?

Wind up your calculators dear readers, because there are too many noughts for us in that Defra paper.

But briefly it tells us, that out of 11.1 million animals from TB free herds, passing under the MHS officer's TB inspection microscope 2009 - 2013, just 5,366 samples proved positive for m.bovis. And that is nothing like 25 per cent of cattle, it is barely 0.05 per cent. We cannot find any more details as to whether these samples were from old, walled up lesions, or open active disease. But nevertheless, the figures and evidence from around the world do not support the ISG's and Defra's   mischievous assumption that  'If for example....' the skin test (as used in the UK or parts of it)  is rubbish.
 

So as cattle farmers, we are grateful to veterinary surgeon Den Leonard, for permission to quote his letter of explanation of the 'skin test' when used regularly  as a whole herd test. The letter was featured in Farmers Guardian January 13th.2017.

"Many people ask for a ‘better’ test for TB, quoting the low sensitivity of the single intradermal comparative cervical test (SICCT) or ‘skin test’ as we all call it. Because it has a low sensitivity it misses some infected animals. However, because so many tests are done on a farm and an area basis, infected areas are soon discovered.

When this happens many thousands of tests are performed in that area, as well as repeatedly on infected premises, which overcomes this issue of sensitivity from an eradication point of view, as the test is given many opportunities to identify the presence of TB.

This is how the test is used across the world very successfully and indeed was how our country virtually eradicated TB when we were managing the badger population density at the same time (before the 1992 Protection of Badgers Act).

However, what is needed more than sensitivity is specificity, and this is where the skin test is the best test. It has a specificity of 99.98%, which means that only 1 in 5000 of the positive test results are NOT positive. If we chose a more sensitive test, then we would reduce the specificity. If we reduced the specificity to 99.5%, which still sounds really good, then 1 in 200 positive results would be incorrect.

An area with perfectly clean cattle in it, or even a farm, would never test clear because of the increased false positive rate.

The skin test can be interpreted in a more sensitive (as in misses less positives), and consequently less specific way, by altering the skin thickness thresholds – what is known as ‘severe interpretation’. Also the gamma interferon blood test is more sensitive and less specific. This alteration in testing is appropriate when you know that infection resides in a herd as you want to ensure you find more truly positive cattle quickly, so you ‘accept’ more false positives during that phase. Using the combination of the skin test, gamma interferon blood testing, and severe interpretation, areas without wildlife infection are rapidly cleared of infected cattle throughout the world.

Farmers get frustrated when positively testing cattle do not show up with lesions. This is because nobody is explaining the test result to them properly, or because myths get perpetuated by people unwilling to understand. This aspect has been covered well in David Denny’s letter.

There is no need for any new cattle tests; we just need better education of stakeholders by the government and by practicing vets.

Den Leonard. Lambert, Leonard and May

From what we've read, perhaps we should start that education process with Defra.






We finished the previous posting with Damien Hirst's cow safe in her hermetically sealed formaldehyde tank. We'll end this one with a coughing badger similarly incarcerated.

 A much better idea for all our cattle, we think.

Cattle Health Schemes - an unwanted, unworkable addition.

Various bodies operate cattle health schemes in the UK, and are very enthusiastic about adding a new disease to their piggy bank  disease risk portfolio.
We mentioned this in less than glowing terms in our September posting - [link] with a withering swipe at Chief Vet, Nigel Gibbens, for describing those of us who try and farm cattle in a responsible way in his 'High Risk Area' for TB as 'unlucky'.

We are not 'unlucky' at all. As we said in the that posting, we and our half a million dead cattle, are victims of governmental neglect of the wildlife reservoir of zoonotic Tuberculosis on a monumental scale over many decades.

 But despite the fact that zTB is primarily a spill over disease into cattle, from a maintenance reservoir in an untouchable wildlife source which has acquired cult status, the umbrella organisation CHeCS ( Cattle Health Scheme Certification Scheme) have launched their New Year with a flourish.

They and Defra Ministers describe their new risk assessment for zTB as 'rewarding farmers for good biosecurity'. So how has this risk assessment been prepared?

Working from a list of some very dubious 'factoids', the ESVPS (European School of Veterinary Postgraduate Studies) have developed cobbled together a risk assessment hymn sheet [link] for vets to refer to. At the time of writing, numerous meetings have been held to promote this, but we are unsure whether the pamphlet in the link is the final draft, or a primary. The gist of it however is clear enough. Badgers with TB pose a huge problem for cattle farmers, but 'responsible cattle farmers' will keep them away from cattle.

And once again, Defra have thrown this thorny problem to another outside agency, in this instance a veterinary one, and cobbled together the risk of TB with other uniquely cattle diseases.
And that you cannot do.

To compare TB carried by wildlife and their detritus, with such uniquely cattle problems such as BVD (Bovine Viral Diarrhoea) IBR, (Infectious Bovine Rhinitis) Leptospirosis or Johnes disease etc. is both crass and unhelpful.

 The notes from which the Risk Assessment appears to have been drawn up, are mainly computer generated assumptions and factoids, bearing little relation to actual 'risks' which may practically be avoided on any working cattle farm.

Below we list them, with our interpretations:

1. In high risk areas, farms with herds of >150 cattle are 50% more likely to suffer a bTB outbreak than those with 50 or fewer

2.In herds with endemic bTB, herd sizes >300 are likely to circulate disease at a level which may be missed at individual TT test.

That computation is mathematical, not a given. Test 500 cattle in one herd and get one reactor, but test 500 cattle split between ten herds and nine herds will be clear. Simples.

3. Dairy herds tend to undertake higher risk practices including feeding. They also tend to be larger.

' High risk practices feeding Dairy herds’. Are they referring to maize or the way cattle are fed in the shed? Sheds were perfectly O.K until badger numbers got out of hand and used cattle feeding areas as their very own Badger MacDonalds on a regular basis. Grass silage too is mentioned, incurring (shock, horror) a 50% 'risk'. Just what else cattle are to fed during winter months is not explained as 'rough grazing' is also damned, incurring penalties.

4. The risk level can be assessed as highest when groups of cattle are purchased regularly and can be reduced by reducing the frequency of purchase and the size of the groups purchased.

Farmers are trying to run commercial businesses. This document appears to say that farmers should not purchase cattle, or only very occasionally and then  in small numbers. Several of our contributors run 'closed' herds using artificial insemination, have no bought in cattle at all and secure boundaries against any cattle contact. It makes no difference at all to an infected badger. He can infect any cow, any time, whatever its original home.

5. A small scale survey is ongoing to investigate whether reducing the water level in water troughs makes them less attractive to badgers who may not be able to reach in for the water level. This remains an experimental hypothesis at this time.

Experimental hypothesis??? How are smaller calves meant to drink? Via a U shaped straw?

6. Maize is grown on farm or by close neighbours and /or maize silage is fed to cattle leads to a 20% increase in TB risk per 10ha of maize grown.

So the growing of a wonderful home grown source of starch and sugar for cattle feed, is a 'risk', merely because it is also 'valued' as a magnet, by an overprotected pest? Add that to the grass silage and rough grazing previously tabled and cattle are left with precisely what to eat? Thistles?

7. Building access by badgers is recognised as a greater risk than occasional pasture contact.

It doesn't matter how or where cattle come into contact with badgers, if those badgers are infected and infectious at the time of contact and leave behind them infected evidence of their visits. That can be in farm buildings or grazed grass. A reactor is still a reactor. And she's shot.
The infectious culprit continues on its merry way.

8. Badger tracks are recognised as a lower risk than latrine and shared feeding areas at pasture

Badger tracks are still subject to the contents of leaking bladders and scent marking for territorial boundaries. They will use the same tracks too and these lead to 'badger feeding areas' (grassland) containing dung pats etc.. And badgers constantly create new latrines, now that their numbers are so great.
It is not explained how farmers can shrink wrap cattle grazing areas.

9. This [ nutritional deficiencies] may increase susceptibility to TB

That assertion was not born out by the salami sliced post mortems of reactor cattle in the the £2.8m Pathogenesis project - [link]

10. This (above?) should include Johnes disease vaccination if utilised. Using a Johnes vaccine may increase the chances of not detecting infected animals. Work is underway to investigate if the gamma interferon test may be of use in this situation.

Vaccines for Johnes [m.avium paratuberculosis] is not available in UK, as far as we are aware.

11. Evidence to support previous recrudescence or repeated incursions of bTB will need to be looked at in conjunction with the genotype results from infection in SICCT positive cattle.

How about looking at whether badgers have continued and are continuing to visit cattle areas rather than assuming recrudescence via cattle? And if you slaughter out the primary Genotype (should one be found) what happens to number two? Or three? Or four? Cognitive dissonance? No cattle = no TB.

12. There is an odds ratio of 3.1 times greater risk of lifetime risk of becoming a reactor if an individual has at any time tested as an inconclusive reactor.

Not in our, or ex DVMs practical experience over decades. Mathematical models again using assumed data?

13. Even relatively short extensions in the testing interval are associated with an increased risk of disclosing disease in the high risk area.

This will no longer apply as any farmer going over the stated window for his herd's TB testing, automatically has BPS docked and his herd put under immediate restriction. Penalties for any reactors found are also in the pipeline. All certain to focus the mind.

14. If the period of time during the test is prolonged, this can exacerbate the impact of any spread within the herd.

Some extraordinary grammar in that one. A longer time for a vet to test cattle, or a longer period between tests? We'll assume the latter. But if testing periods are extended and exposure has longer to generate lesions (as in four year testing areas) then more lesioned reactors than NVLs would be expected.

15. If this is the case, then local spread from either wildlife or locally purchased stock is suggested. If this is not the case, then purchase from outside the area is suggested.

Spoligotypes will nail that question, without making any more wild assumptions.

16. Byrne et al identified in 2012 that the average maximum distance a badger would roam was 2km. However, under exceptional circumstances hungry animals were found to roam up to 7.5km from their sett, possibly over a couple of days. The risk level can be assessed as highest when groups of cattle are purchased regularly and can be reduced by reducing the frequency of purchase and the size of the groups purchased.

One minute talking about badger ranges and then goes back into stopping farmers purchasing cattle??

And if Woodchester Park's peanut fed pets were used as the guinea pigs for Byrne et al, then forget distance. In the real world, territorial distances traveled are reported to be much, much more. In fact we have been told that one Woodchester badger, collared to track her movements, trundled 21 miles to Bristol Docks. And returned after viewing the estuary. But we don't expect Byrne or et al was told that.

We are told this is an industry led initiative. Really? The names of the AHDB, APHA, DEFRA and the NFU appear as endorsements. Did they really understand what they were suggesting?

We would reiterate, as would our supporting vets, that in no way can the disease zoonotic Tuberculosis carried by over protected wildlife,  be compared in terms of 'risk' with that of genuine cattle diseases, some of which we mentioned above and over which farmers do have an element of control..

So from that list of 'risks', is Damien Hirst's cow offering the only 'safe' place for our cattle to exist?

In a hermetically sealed tank full of formaldehyde, to protect them not only from infected wildlife, but a gravy train of hangers on intent on trousering cash from government negligence?

New for 2017

First off the post, is Dr. Brian May's March 2017  Symposium - [link] where the magic circle cogitate and invent new ways of trousering taxpayer cash, attempting to prove the earth is flat or in their communal cases, badgers infected with zoonotic Tuberculosis do not infect anything else at all.

There is a phenomenon which encompasses such groups. It is loosely described as 'Group Conformity', but it is also now recognised in the journal, Nature - [link] which offers a scientific perspective on such stupidity and intransigence in the face of bare facts. The paper deals with political conformity, but may just as easily describe the attitude of most of the high profile badgerists 'networking' under Dr. May's banner, 'Save Me'..

 Some snippets from the paper:

"... resistance to evidence may entail disengagement from external reality and increased inward focus."

and ...

"Defending one’s beliefs against challenging evidence is a form of internally directed cognition, involving both disconnection from the externally presented evidence and a search through memory for relevant counterarguments."

and ...

".... when people are confronted with challenges to their deeply held beliefs, they preferentially engage brain structures known to support stimulus-independent, internally directed cognition".

In other words, when people have settled on their particular beliefs, they shut off external stimuli and rely on an internal stock of arguments to validate them. They create their own bubble and dwell within it.

 Having witnessed this over two long decades, (twenty years in which GB slaughtered half a million sentinel reactor cattle) we'll go with that explanation from our co-editor..

And then there is, as we have pointed out before. the 'gold standard' of disease transmission, familiar to epidemiologists if not to many others with obscure degrees, or no scientific background at all. These are a short list of 'postulates' which, if fulfilled, it may be assumed disease transmission will occur to any vulnerable species. A 'scientist' does not need to observe such transmission happening or have recorded such an event.

 First described by Professor Koch in 1884, updated several times since, most notably by Evans in 1977 and then again by our co-editor a century after the initial finding.

This is pure epidemiology, where if certain events happen, (causality) then how transmission occurs does not need further investigation. Such transmission can be assumed. And searching Parliamentary questions aimed at just that conclusion, formed the anchor of this website in 2004. The answers we received showed that the postulates of zoonotic Tuberculosis transmission from badgers were fulfilled. There was no need for the £squillions spent on spurious research, which sadly still goes on. The recipients of this largesse are not any sort of solution, but the main part of the problem.

These early postulates from Koch upgraded by Evans include:

  * Disease should follow exposure to the putative agent

  • Exposure increases disease incidence prospectively

  * Exposure increases disease prevalence

 • Exposure to the cause more common in those with the disease than those without ceteris paribus

 • Dose-response relationship.

 * Experimental reproduction of the disease possible

• Measurable host response following exposure to the cause

• Elimination of putative cause reduces incidence

• Prevention of the host‘s response eliminates the disease

 • The whole thing should make biologic and epidemiological sense.

 But as we pointed out in 2014 - [link] , how this Grade 3 zoonotic, bacteriological killer has been handled in this country over the last three decades make no sense whatsoever; biological, epidemiological or any other descriptive term Defra can dream up.

 And from the past history of the listed attendees at Brian May's Symposium, we do not expect any more sense to emerge. Only Oliver Twist's  begging bowl, for more research.

As one of our more acerbic contributors pointed out, the most helpful thing anyone could do to eradicate zoonotic Tuberculosis from our country's cattle, goats, sheep, pigs, alpacas, cats and their owners -  and its maintenance host, badgers - was when Dr. May's badgerists were all safely in one place,  lock the door.
And throw away the key.

Christmas thoughts 2016 - and a turkey to chew on.

As Christmas draws nearer, Defra has launched another Consultation - [link] document to stuff into your Christmas stocking. This is a proposal to continue a 'management' strategy for badger numbers in cull areas, after the initial four year blast.The document explains thus:

1:3 Licences have been issued under section 10 of the Protection of Badgers Act 1992 and section 16 of the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981 to enable the culling or vaccination of badgers for the purpose of controlling the spread of TB in endemic TB areas. When successfully completed, these licensed intensive culls can be expected to reduce cattle TB breakdowns (see paragraph 3.2) in an area for around seven and a half years. To prolong the disease control benefits it is necessary to maintain a steady badger population at the level achieved at the end of the licensed culls.

Now that would seem to indicate that the moratorium on section 10 (2) a of the Protection of Badgers Act 1992, bought and paid for with £1m bung in 1997, has been quietly lifted?
But we digress. The consultation document continues:

1:4 Natural England (NE) would need to licence a supplementary form of culling to achieve this.[ Ed- the disease control benefits of a smaller number of badgers] Continuing with badger control in this way is consistent with the TB Strategy’s adaptive, evidence-based, long-term approach to disease control and would complement the other measures within the Strategy.

The paper explains that two such farmer-led operations have now completed successfully their fourth and final year, eight areas have two or three years to run and more than 30 other areas have expressed interest in starting operations.

And then possibly the most sensible thing that the CVO has said in a long time:

The UK Chief Veterinary Officer (CVO) advises that preserving over the long term the benefits achieved through these operations is important to sustain the good progress being made on the strategy.

In other words, a few disparate patches shooting badgers for 42 nights, just doesn't cut it, given the scale of government neglect of zoonotic tuberculosis in wildlife, over the past two decades.
The document explains more:

4.12 Licensed supplementary badger control must start in the year following the conclusion of a prior cull, as allowing the badger population to recover and then undertaking badger population control risks causing a perturbation effect in cattle TB incidence and undermining the disease control benefits achieved.

What we glean from this, is that further culls may be licensed on a 5 year rolling timescale, and certainly before giving the badger population time to recover and reinfect sentinel cattle. But to qualify for this, farmers must also comply with a shed load of thought-to-be-important sops to the badgerists, in the form of cattle controls, biosecurity and they must continue to jump through ever increasing NE hoops.
None of which will have the slightest effect whatsoever.

The paper needs to be completed by February 10th 2017 and the online response form can be found    on this link -[link]

Meanwhile, badger expert Rosie Woodroffe (who explains helpfully that she is a ' disease ecologist ' ?? Que? Is there such an animal?) has posted an abstract - [link] explaining that the vaccinated collared badgers playing in west Cornwall showed no different behaviour patterns from their un-vaccinated sett mates.

With respect, the ranges and rambles that vaccinated badgers take, are of less importance to a cattle farmer, than the detritus they may leave behind. And caging, jabbing and then releasing a badger already infected (but possibly not infectious at the time he is jabbed) is perhaps not the wisest of activities, especially when even a clean badger can succumb to a dose of m.bovis, after vaccination.

 Remember poor old D313? - [link] We do. And in that posting is the disgraceful preamble of Woodroffe's old boss at the ISG, explaining to the EFRA committee that at its inception, their £74m trial, from which Woodroffe is so keen to quote, had a predetermined conclusion.
He taught her well.

 In a recent visit to the Welsh Assembly, using ten words where one would suffice, our Rosie had this to say:

Professor Woodroffe: Yes, I should preface what I say, that, whilst I’m a disease ecologist, I am primarily a wildlife ecologist, so, you know, I’m not the biggest and best expert on cattle TB, except as it applies to badgers; badgers are particularly my expertise.

Nope Rosie; badgers are your bread and butter. And you'd like to keep it that way.

Read the whole ramble on this link - [link]

And you're gonna love this one, from 'disease ecologist' Rosie;

[81] Professor Woodroffe: In terms of other hosts, evidence suggests that the principle host, or the overwhelmingly most important host of TB in this country, is cattle.

That 'evidence' would be the modelling from the RBCT would it? Where two parts cattle to one part badger was the rough assumption fed into Christl Donnelly's magic box? She continues:

The evidence strongly suggests that badgers are involved.

Badgers can and do give TB to cattle in those places where that’s a serious problem. The best estimate of badgers’ contribution is that they’re responsible for about — in England, this is; in the high TB risk areas of England — 6 per cent of newly affected herds.

Whaaaat!!!
Rosie then rambles into the range of 'confidence levels' for that wild assumption of just 6 percent badger related cattle breakdowns - presumably leaving 94 per cent of outbreaks down to cattle?

                                                                                                                                                                                   Actually she estimates 75 per cent - but let that pass. She's got an 'ology, after all.
But please look carefully at the pi chart above.  We have more 'confidence' in the actual figures complied in Devon by veterinary professionals, who having excluded cattle contact and bought in cattle, attributed some 86 per cent of new breakdowns to - badgers.

 So this year ends with another consultation, inviting farmers to mop up government negligence in disease control - and pay for the privilege;  and more wild statements from people who make their living by keeping this gravy train going. As Bryan Hill - [link] says in his newly published book, "20 per cent of scientists say one thing, 20 per cent will contradict that and 60 per cent ask for more funding".

Merry Christmas from us all.

Defra receives an early Christmas present.

Several items in the news this week. The first, picked up by the red tops, is the construction of an artificial badger sett - [link] in Lincolnshire, which, together with dyke repairs, is said to have cost £313,000.







Sadly, it appears that the badgers didn't care for the decor, and began digging a few yards downstream of the new sett.

 The Grimsby Telegraph story explains:






 

The agency is trying to combat a surge in badgers along the Steeping River near Wainfleet, which are eroding the land. But locals are shocked at the cost, which could buy a five-bedroom house in the area.

Lincolnshire county councillor Chris Pain, 51, uncovered the cost. He told Lincolnshire Live:

"There are a dozen other setts dug into the banks of the Steeping, so if each gets the same treatment it will cost £4 million. "It worries me dearly as a local county councillor that we've spent nearly £313,000.00 on this one badger set which is not guaranteed to solve the problem."

And not for the first time,  Councillor Pain explained:

I believe there were also costs up to £300,000.00 on the Burgh le Marsh bypass. We have serious issues in the Louth area with Badger sets affecting roads and in my own council ward issues to roads in Firsby has already cost roughly £15,000.00 and £10,000.00 on both occasions and the current issues at Toynton St Peters will cost another £40,000.00.

" The Environment Agency refused £800,000 plans to dredge the river, which has not been done in 35 years, in favour of the badger home."

Giles Trust, vice chairman of the local drainage board, said the animals have rejected the extravagant new home because it is too damp. Mr. Trust told a national newspaper:

"They have dug a new sett half a mile away — straight into the river bank."

So, along with acres of carrots, there appears to be a surplus of badgers in Lincolnshire, which is just one county and a very short hop, away from Defra's notorious and useless zTB Edge area. The area we call a Maginot line ( and about which APHA say very little) and which is bubbling up some nasty clusters of TB outbreaks in the east Midlands. Making so much of the Low Risk area of England, while abandoning any meaningful wildlife control in the High Risk area, was always going to be a risky strategy.

Combined with unfettered movement of badgers, either on foot or delivered to order - [link] and alpacas, the Edge area has been a movable feast since it was dreamt up.  And as it moves steadily east and north, carrying with it annual increases in zTB, a wild deer has given Defra a slight headache with their plans to get the Low Risk area TB free within the next two years. While abandoning the rest of us to ever more cattle controls, insults and bio-garbage advice.

Just one county separates  the East Midlands Edge and the North Sea and now a dead roe deer, with zTB cultured as spoligotype 21 a (home range, Somerset / Avon) smack in the middle?

We found this in an APHA mid-term report on the situation in Linconshire - [link]
 

One laboratory-confirmed isolation of M. bovis in a wild roe deer, shot in College Wood near Wragby (estimated grid ref TF120756), by a XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX in March 2016.

Carcase presented VL in mesenteric LN only. Spoligotype 21:a, typical from Somerset/Avon.

[ snip ] This case is being investigated further, with no other evidence of indigenous reservoir of M. bovis infection in the local wildlife populations. Passive surveillance in the deer population has been strengthened through intensified liaison with local Forestry Commission and private Estates for increased awareness and reporting of suspect cases and improved collection of data.

Radial testing has not yet been instigated.

No voluntary badger BCG vaccination known to have taken place.

This roe deer was dispatched in March, and allowing 8 - 10 weeks for cultures, only now in areas near where it was shot, are farmers being contacted for radial testing. So APHA's assertions of  'no other evidence of m.bovis infection in local wildlife populations', maybe somewhat premature if they haven't looked. Or more likely, were in panic mode denial about this nasty red splodge, smack in the middle of a Low Risk area, which we are confidently told will go TB free in a couple of years.

 The area concerned for radial testing is described by a farmer thus:

"The area it covers is quiet large. 7Km radius Mareham le Fen, 7Km radius of Langton by Wragby, 3Km radius 1 mile North of Woodhall Spa. The [ deer died] in March so it has taken them a long time to decide the course of action."

An early Christmas present indeed. And a wake up call.

Badger / Cattle contact

The latest chunk of zTB 'research' has been released by the ZSL (Zoological Society of London). Some of which can be viewed on this link - [link] That link deals with vaccination, and another leaked chunk deals with badgers visiting farm buildings. The direct link /to UCL is now unavailable, but we are grateful to Farming futures - [link] for posting the abstract. The project, part funded by Defra, was labelled SE3046, cost £1.4m and its aim is described thus:

Scientists’ poor understanding of the most important route(s) of interspecific M. bovis transmission compromises the control of cattle TB. Were it known how and where badgers transmit infection to cattle, specific management could be implemented to reduce transmission. Lacking such information, guidelines on keeping badgers and cattle apart are necessarily based on judgement rather than evidence of cost-effectiveness, potentially discouraging farmers from implementing effective methods, and perhaps wasting resources on ineffective techniques.

Link to the full paper: click here. [link]

Scientists may have a 'poor understanding' of m.bovis transmission, but we would venture to suggest, with the greatest respect of course, that veterinary practitioners, pathologists and many farmers have ample knowledge, combined with decades of experience.

Some twenty farms volunteered their cattle to be collared, to see if badgers came within spitting distance - if you'll pardon the expression. Now that, when you think about it, would involve an awful lot of collars. And so it proved as a letter from one participant in this week's Farmers Weekly explained:





 Not exactly what Mr. Wallis was expecting - two collars between 120 cattle?
And hardly the coverage described in the paper which was some 400 collars:  would they be virtual collars, and modeled? Who knows. Of  Mr. Wallis's 120 cattle, just two wore collars.

But the most galling to any cattle farmer, is his mention of the release of sick animals to up-cycle infection to any mammal crossing their paths.

He also mentioned the filming of these animals, playing with footballs.  Not sure how helps control a zoonotic grade 3 pathogen - but hey, it keeps the ball rolling. Mr. Wallis comments:

" They were very pro badger and had a line of students to do all sorts of surveys with the badgers including giving them footballs to play with. They are given government funding to research a project that has the conclusion all mapped out before it starts. This cartwheel of funding keeps them employed without sorting the problem or finding a permanent solution."

 

The LZS paper, also published as a letter to Veterinary Record was inevitably picked up by the BBC, - [link],  The Guardian - [link] and many other publications. But few mentioned that the contamination of that shared environment, was likely to be a continued source of infection to cattle herds under TB restriction, tested every 60 days, with reactors removed.

For that we have to rely of a veterinary and epidemiological view, offered in Vet. Record (Nov. 5th edition) by Stephen Davies BVetMed, MRCVS.

 Mr Davies points out epidemiological facts (which we have reported on here - [link] and which our Parliamentary questions also confirmed)  that badgers infected with zoonotic tuberculosis are very adept at contaminating on a nightly basis, the environment in which they live. And that contamination is likely to remain long enough to infect cattle.

And Mr. Davies also points out that Woodroffe's paper reports a significant one liner, missed in the headlines:

".... transmission may typically occur through contamination of the two species' shared environment'.

This is concept many veterinary practitioners working in the field, have no problem with.
In fact as long ago as the early 1970s the results - [link] of the late William Tait's cattle carnage through west Cornwall, were mentioned in the annual report of the CVO.
Six monthly testing, severe interpretation of tests - all now coming to the High Risk Area, according to Defra's latest 'consultation' paper - and a total waste of time and taxpayer's money. The only thing the reports show, which reduced TB incidence in cattle in the 1970s was a clearance of badgers.

But we digress.  Mr Davies' letter continues:

I have long advised farmers that if they are feeding concentrates to cattle at pasture, they should at least turn troughs over afterwards, to prevent badgers licking in the troughs for any leftovers. I also advise that salt licks and mineral licks (especially molassed formulations) should never be placed on the ground. An infected badger licking the surface, potentially leaves a dose of bacteria for the first bovine to ingest afterwards.

And the impact of dead or dying badgers on environment shared with curious cows is graphically illustrated by Adam Quinney.
He points out that after that picture of his heifers investigating that dying badger was taken, these cattle suffered a breakdown. 





Stephen Davies finishes his letter with a word of support for practising veterinary surgeons and farmers, and a plea that their knowledge of experience of this disease (zoonotic Tuberculosis) which has been built up over many years, "and yet seems to be ignored or dismissed by policymakers."

By ignoring this pool of veterinary knowledge, Mr. Davies feels one tool has been left out of the box.

And we would add that by ignoring the epidemiology of the last 40 years concerning infectivity of both badgers and cattle, relying on mathematical models - [link] fed a raft of assumed data, coupled with incredible naivety of the 'scientist' of the day, this country faces the real possibility of further trade bans. And many, many more dead cattle.

The Parliamentary Questions tabled a decade ago, were unequivocal in their answers and this is arguably the most important one.
We asked what was the reason the Thornbury badger clearance had kept that area's cattle clear of TB for over a decade.

The answer needs to be inscribed over the door of every building occupied by this most political of government departments.:

" The fundamental difference between the Thornbury area and other areas [] where bovine tuberculosis was a problem, was the systematic removal of badgers from the Thornbury area. No other species was similarly removed. No other contemporaneous change was identified that could have accounted for the reduction in TB incidence within the area" [157949]

As a postscript, we think that the area of the twenty farms (including that of Mr.Wallis and his two collared cows) may be subject to 'environmental screening' - [link] which could involve Warwick's qPCR, - amongst other things - in its £930,000 grant. How very odd then  that Defra reject out of hand this method of non invasive screening for badgers, and yet rely on its results for other species? But as Upton Sinclair remarked:

"It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.”

We are grateful to both Mr. Wallis and Mr. Davies for their permission to use their letters and comments.

Complementary pieces.

This week a couple of complementary pieces have emerged from the mainstream media. No doubt a lot of 'twittering' will be caused but nevertheless, it's encouraging to see a spade being called, err, a spade.

The first is a two page spread in the Mail on Sunday - [link] with a strap line describing badger vaccination as a 'catastrophic failure'.

The Mail on Sunday can reveal that in key vaccination trials, the number of infected cows has not reduced at all but has in fact risen dramatically. Yet new Defra figures show that in the 12 months to the end of July 2016 the number of cattle culled in Wales as a result of TB was 7,380, an increase of 25 per cent on the same period to July 2015. West Wales is a bovine TB hot spot, but for the past four years badgers in the area have not been shot – they have instead been injected. It is a key experiment for the vaccination programme.

That is shocking, horrific and completely unacceptable. But the figures are incorrect. Defra statistics show that cattle slaughtered in Wales, during the year to July numbered 9492, an increase of 38 per cent, over the previous year's total of 6872. This despite vaccination of badgers, intensive action areas, annual testing and a whole load of biosecurity advice.

 Indiscriminately vaccinating a group of animals of which up to 50 per cent are likely to be already infected, is tantamount to madness. But fortunately, that particular bandwagon  exercise has ground to a halt as supplies of BCG are very limited - [link] and needed for human beings.

As is often the case with media pieces on this subject, some fairly wild, headline grabbing adjectives have snuck into the Mail's story: badgergeddon' being one of the least offensive. The point missed of course, is that our ministry and its henchmen have placed livestock farmers on the front line against this disease, couched as a 'population reduction', but sold to the gullible as a farmer v. badger war.
Defra have offered little help in the form of PR.And made no mention at all of the massive increase in population of badgers since ultimate protection was offered, or of the seriousness of the Grade 3 zoonotic pathogen  which is now endemic in them. 

For that we must go to the second article, which comes from Pro Med, via The BBC website - [link] and tells the story of a vet, working in Africa who contracted 'zoonotic Tuberculosis' from the animals with which he worked.

His story has familiar echoes of misdiagnosis and inadequate treatment in the early stages of the disease, as UK doctors and clinicians struggle to bring their 50 year old text books up to speed.
 'Unpasteurised milk', 'foreign travel' and 'drug shelters in inner cities ' are still top of the list of risks offered by Public Health England. As are drugs tailored to the treatment of  m.tuberculosis but not to m.bovis.

There is of course little or no mention of the endemically infected wildlife which successive governments have allowed free travel permits over our land and gardens.

 And finally, from the BBC website, an X ray of the infected lung of  vet, Jonathon Cranston.





This is zoonotic or 'bovine' tuberculosis. And this is what it can do to a healthy young adult.

This country is playing Russian roulette, not only with our sentinel cattle, but with our population: offering them increasing chances of exposure to the biggest killer of human beings on the planet.

Defra Consultation

Yet another consultation - link on whether they should test / kill more cattle is in Defra's melting pot, with a closing date of November 9th.

This one suggests gammaIfn to be used more widely in the High Risk Area, more severe interpretation situations and other niceties - all to do with cattle.

There is also a second document - [link] which calls for views on how to save Defra money, under the guise of a simplified testing regime. This document proposes to abandon trace testing, rationalise contiguous tests, extend 60 day Short Interval tests to 90 days, but test every herd every 6 months.

Now it may be stating the obvious, but during the last decade all this testing has produced sweet FA except an increasing pile of dead cattle. GB's reactor numbers are still nudging 40,000 per year and we are in serious danger of being a trade leper once again.

And, more importantly, as we have said so many times, synchronised cattle testing, brutal interpretations etc, etc, have been done before. In the 1970s by the late William Tait - [link] and repeated in Ireland in 1988, by Liam Downie - [link] And they failed. Because the reservoir of infection was not in cattle, but in badgers. And until that is treated with the respect it deserves, culling more cattle, more frequently will achieve nothing at all.

 Already the NFU are challenging Defra, suggesting that one measure concerning Finishing Units has been imposed, without 'consultation'. They have yet to realise that the description is hollow. Defra have made up their minds what they would like to do, and will merely 'consult' before doing it anyway.

 Nevertheless, the NFU overview is on this link.

This follows Defra's previous  tranche of carnage - [link] reported in April by Farmers Guardian, in a very readable format which includes those Finishing Unit restrictions.

Passing the buck?

News this week from the Cattle Health Certification Standards (CHeCS) scheme, and reported in the Vet Times - [link] that Defra and the Welsh Assembly Government are seeking to add zTB (zoonotic Tuberculosis) to their list of non-statutory diseases screened for under the scheme.

"Farmers who take part in the Cattle Health Certification Standards (CHeCS) bTB Risk-Level Certification Programme – available through existing CHeCS cattle health schemes – will also be able to market their animals as being at lower risk of contracting or passing on the disease.

As well as reducing risk of infection, the initiative – which has the backing of Defra and the Welsh Government – could present risk-based trading opportunities for farmers selling cattle from regions with a high risk of the disease, or those wishing to minimise exposure from bought-in animals.
It also offers recognition for efforts to help Government and industry strategies aiming to control infection."

This idea of shafting a statutorily notifiable disease onto a voluntary body dealing with non-statutory cattle diseases was first mentioned by the Chief vet, Nigel Gibbens - [link] in Farmers Guardian earlier this year, where he said:

“Defra is currently working on a new scheme which will allocate a TB risk score to every herd in the country. The idea is to incorporate this into the Cattle Health Certification Standards scheme to give buyers more knowledge about the cattle they are buying.

“The two-tier market is already happening,” added Mr Gibbens.
“Risk-based trading will just make it better informed. Forty per cent of holdings in the HRA have never gone down with TB. If people engage in risk-based trading it allows those farmers to benefit from their good practice, although some people are just very unlucky because the environmental challenge is so high.”

Very unlucky?!
How on earth can Defra lump a disease over which farmers have had no legal control whatsoever, if it trundles in on a wildlife vector (as around 90 per cent of incidents do in the HRA) with diseases like BVD, IBR, Johnnes and Leptospirosis?

And where does Mr. Gibbens get his 'forty per cent of holdings' never had TB from??
Obviously not the same place from which this information came, or he would see that in the South West heartlands of his quaintly labelled 'environmental' zoonotic Tuberculosis, only a handful, some 2- 5 per cent of dairy herds have never had a breakdown since 1990.


With thanks to Bovine TB information - [link] for the AHVLA chart, dated 2013.

We would also point out, with the greatest of respect, of course, that:

It wasn't farmers who trousered £1m in 1997 and stopped all badger culling "to prevent the spread of disease", as licensed under the Protection of Badgers Act: Section 10 (2) a.

It wasn't farmers who then employed the most political of all scientists and allowed him free rein with a £74m so-called trial, which he was proud to say, had a predetermined conclusion.

And it wasn't farmers who oversaw a spread of this 'environmental challenge' as Gibbens so quaintly describes TB in badgers, from 6 or 7 hotspots in 1996 to the unholy mess we see today.

So ‘very unlucky’ doesn’t even begin to cover this complete abdication of responsibility by Government, which has overseen cattle slaughtered as reactors to TB rise from 3,881 in 1996 to 36,000 in 2015.

And that isn’t ‘very unlucky’ at all. It’s Governmental negligence on a grand scale."

So this summer, rather than address the spread of disease through wildlife reservoirs, Defra appear to have put a great deal of effort into passing the proverbial. Having shafted control of the badger population to disparate, widely scattered groups of farmers, they now attempt to foist fictional control of a statutorily Notifiable disease - a Grade 3 zoonotic pathogen - into  the hands of the voluntary Cattle Health schemes.

Putting us all on a scale of 1 to 10 won't solve the problem, or stop its spread through the wildlife.

Exports: load up, fire, aim.

Yes, we know that sequence is the wrong way round, but in the case of APHA / Defra and anyone in charge of our exports, it is most definitely the way to go. Blindly firing. And putting international trade at risk.

Even though they are well aware that the skin test on some class of animals (alpacas) is about as rubbish as it gets, and even though they also know that a much more accurate - [link] test is available.

 This time, following on from an international incident concerning the export of alpacas to Norway - [link] (with zTB), calves to Holland [link] (with zTB), we have now exported another infected alpaca (or more) to Belgium. Cultures from this animal, exported last year, were described thus:

The TB isolate obtained by the Belgian Government was of a spoligotype whose ‘homerange’ (geographical area in which it is most frequently recovered) in the UK includes the county of origin.

So made in the UK. In fact due to the 'regional accents' - [link]' carried in the DNA of strains of m.bovis, identified down to the county it originated from.

Are we stark, staring mad?

After Brexit - or even before that -[link] - our trading partners owe us no favours whatsoever. And will be looking for any chance to block our exports, without the department responsible for Animal Health offering this type of opportunity on a solid silver platter.

Sacrilege

Several papers this week have reported the ongoing problems of badger earthworks in an ancient churchyard. The details do not make for easy reading. But they do show quite clearly just how far these exalted animals have risen. Cult status has been awarded and with the Ancestral home given a grade 1 listing, they have a value way above that of mere mortals, it seems.Even in death.

This desecration was reported by the local newspaper in May 2105 - [link] but obviously nothing was achieved by approaching Natural England to move the culprits on. And then there is the thorny question of where exactly to move them to?

 This week, after a long, hot summer, the problem has re-emerged with a vengeance. The Huffington-Post -[link] reports that skulls, pelvic and leg bones have been unearthed, some belonging to children,  in a heap of excavated soil some 2.5m wide and 1m high.

'If it was rats they would have dealt with it straight away’

was the accompanying strap line.

The Church is the 13th century All Saints Church, Loughborough, Leicestershire.The occupants of this sacred ground would have been from the surrounding area. Their remains now scattered and gnawed.

'Bovine' Tuberculosis - A Political Disease

This week and wonderful film was released, telling the story of one herd of beautiful Longhorn cattle, and their battle with so-called 'bovine' TB.

 Instigated and partly narrated by their owner and breeder, the film tracks over thirty years of joy and success, ending in death for these cattle and heartbreak for their owner.

 It also shows the indomitable spirit of many farmers, who try, and keep trying, against all the guff thrown around, to find a way through to a sensible solution for control of this zoonotic disease.

And finally it shows how many of our universities and civil service, while appearing to help, are actually in the grip of 'group conformity', a phenomenon explained here - [link]

"Within the group scenario, therefore, there is no premium in conveying accurate information. It is far more important not to diverge from a narrative supported by high-prestige persons. Personal prestige depends on conformity with the peer group view. It is conformity, not the truth, which fosters prestige.

Conformity is everything: facts are optional."

       

With grateful thanks to Mrs. Quinn and the film crew, for this wonderful but sad portrait of livestock farming in parts of Great Britain, today. From Stockyard of the world, to graveyard, in just three decades.
That is the legacy successive governments have left.

'Marmite' anyone?

Just occasionally - well more than that, if we're honest - we feel we inhabit a different world from some high profile 'naturalists'. For them reality and Beatrix Potter collide, particularly when it comes to badgers.

 Last week, the Telegraph - [link] carried a piece on animal tracking described by Simon King. In extracts from his new book, the general public are encouraged to go out and seek signs of badgery behaviour.
Mr. King informs his readers that:

Badgers leave a characteristic footprint that has a “square” overall shape. On harder ground, they may leave nothing more than a few claw marks but even these, with their even spacing and fairly parallel alignment, are distinctive. In addition to individual prints, badgers create well-worn tracks or paths around their territory.

And then he goes on to tell his readers about this animal's ablutions, and in particular,  its toilet training:

Badgers are almost unique among European wild mammals in their habit of digging pits into which they deposit their dung. Because several animals from a badger clan use the dung pits communally, you frequently find several different textures and colours of fresh dung in the same shallow pit. The animals also have scent glands which they use to mark the ground (and each other).

Now not to put too fine a point on it, these piles of badgery droppings, parked conveniently in their shallow latrines, along with urine and scent marks, have proved useful to many scientists - [link] in tracking a Grade 3 zoonotic pathogen, known as mycobacterium bovis.

This bacterium ( the subject of this blog) is the cause of a lethal, slow burn disease called Tuberculosis.


And being a zoonosis, humans and indeed any mammal can contract it, particularly if they are in the habit of sniffing faeces or other material containing it. Such is the influence of this detritus on the cattle skin test, that cattle farmers are beaten over the head with bio security advice to fence off such latrines, this to prevent cattle coming into contact with them. To approach one and sniff, is all too often the equivalent of a bovine death warrant.

For human beings, handling anything near these latrines requires the wearing of protective clothing, masks and gloves. And testing such material requires that the laboratory concerned has Grade 4 clearance - [link] and bio security extending to years of screening tests, for its workers.

Mr. King however, thinks that this product, excreted by one of the most lethal weapons of cattle destruction on the planet, is rather nice. He explains that the smell of a latrine contents:

".. is easily detected by the human nose and is reminiscent of Marmite. I rather like it, but, like Marmite, it’s not to everyone’s taste."

After that description, if you've still got the stomach for it, there's more here - [link] including a picture of the charming interviewer, Boudicca Fox-Leonard, sniffing a chunk of otter poo.

 This man's advice should come with more than one health warning.