FMD explain this to me please

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lorenababbit

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as i am clearly`the stupid english person`many people in mainland europe consider me to be as i cant quite understand how it is that since the outbreak in august, why there seems to me to be this completely blasé attitude to teh current outbreak. restrictions on animal movements seem half baked and lifted far too quickly and lo and behold there is another positive test confirmed and yet another farmer loses his livelihood. i suppose 2001 is too far in the past for the powers that be who clearly have the t5wenty second memory and interlectual capacity of goldfish, if that is not insulting the fish.
i would like someone to explain this lack of interest to me as i do not wish to return to britain to be greeted by clouds of black smoke and the smell of charred flesh.
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Don't mince your words, do you?
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I think the Government is convinced they can contain the disease to the Surrey area due to the nature of the infection from Pirbright.

If we see cases in other areas of the country, say the Midlands where I am or Cumbria, I am pretty sure you will find the country back down in complete lockdown.

Restrictions aren't really being eased as much as they seem on the face of it. We can only move animals direct to slaughter. Nothing else. Animals are being moved on a single pick up general licence as far as I am aware. This means transporters are not travelling around from one farm to another gathering stock as they go.


Edited to add: We can of course also move casualty cases that require humane destruction or the carcasses of deceased animals.
 
What I don't understand is in August when we had the first outbreak, farmers all round me (we are 80-100miles from Surrey) had disinfected straw/mats out and my local farm shops were spraying the cars, but now, with this sceond outbreak no one has done anything, so what is different now?
 
think the first time round the farmers remembered 2001 and the source of the outbreak wasn't known

this month - the source is Pirbright and I hope the affected people take the gov. to the cleaners for compensation - even though it is us as taxpauyers that will 'pay the bill' as usual

what is even worse is that there is up-to-date vaccination available for fmd and the Belgians are pressing the EU to make vaccination MANDATORY for FMD - and their suggestion is gaining a lot of momentum

so soon hopefully defra will no longer be able to incinerate fmd animals - instead the EU will force them to vaccinate
 
EU will only force them to vaccinate to contain an outbreak in the short term, should they ever bring that type of ruling into force.

Vaccinated stock cannot enter the food chain and the country loses it's FMD free status if we keep vaccinated stock.

All vaccinated stock would still be culled at a later date. Vaccinating just forms a "firebreak" of animals to stop the disease spreading outside of that "firebreak". That's the theory anyway.

Vaccinating all stock is NOT the way forward at all.
 
disagree
read warmwell.com - vaccination IS the way forward

monetary stats.

cost of fmd 2001 = between 2 and 12 billion quid

loss of 'exports of meat' in 12 months if stock is vaccinated = 300 million

after 12 months the ban on exports to the eu from a fmd country is lifted as well under current eu 'law' - which is also being proposed to be changed by Belgium

also fmd vaccinated meat CAN enter the food chain - we eat it every time you buy argentinian meat

Holland has already supported the Belgian move I mentioned above as their farmers are NOT prepared ever again to tolerate vaccinated stock being culled.

I quote from Warmwell....

"September 23 2007 ~ The first ever case of Bluetongue disease in Britain in one cow near Ipswich, Suffolk. It has been culled and restrictions put in place on the infected premises.
There was no need to kill this cow - culling is not a strategy for bluetongue. More on Bluetongue page.
There is heavy irony concerning vaccination for FMD and for Bluetongue.
On one hand we have excellent FMD vaccines, they are available within mere miles of the infected zone, vaccinated animals have never been implicated in the spread of FMD - and yet the UK will not agree to use them. Already about two thousand animals have been killed and no one knows where the disease may emerge next.
On the other hand we see Europe crying out for bluetongue vaccine, but this is not yet ready for distribution.
Michel Barnier, the French Minister of Agriculture, has been pressing for the subject of bluetongue vaccination to put on the agenda of the next EU meeting of the Council of Ministers of Agriculture on 26 September 2007. We saw on ProMed on Wednesday that Holland has also obtained the support of Belgium and Germany to raise bluetongue vaccination at that meeting of agriculture Ministers on Wednesday.
" The vaccine must be ready before Christmas, [so that] veterinarians will be able to carry out preventive vaccination in spring [2008]."
What is more, the Dutch MP, Krista van Velzen, wants to see preventative vaccination against Foot-and-Mouth Disease made compulsory." The Belgian minister Laruelle (Agriculture) is already willing to provide the government's partial financial coverage of the vaccination costs". And the French Agriculture Minister, Michel Barnier, is solidly behind the move to an EU-wide vaccination programme for bluetongue. Can EU legislation making FMD vaccination truly the control measure of choice be very far away when bluetongue vaccination is being so very urgently requested? Will Hilary Benn be led by the archaic advice of the Fred Landeg brigade, anxious not to be seen retreating from the UK's entrenched slaughter policies? Or, when he goes to that meeting next Wednesday, will he add his voice to those of the EU Ministers who are eager for change? "
 
[ QUOTE ]
Sky News 6.15 pm - fmd alert in Petersfield in Hampshire
3km zone around a farm there

[/ QUOTE ]

S**t its getting nearer. I bet the straw will come back out now!
 
Are you a farmer?

I'm sorry but Argentinian meat is not from FMD vaccinated stock. Foot and Mouth is endemic in their country. You only have to look at the poor condition of some of their stock to see this is the case.

There will always be people who propose vaccination is a good idea....much like there will always be people who believe Elvis is still alive and Life on Mars does exist. We absolutely do not want to have our FMD status classed as Endemic. If it was the best option, don't you think the Government would have utilised the available vaccine in 2001? Don't you also think the EU would have stepped in and forced us to vaccinate?

Nowhere in Europe wants to voluntarily keep hold of FMD diseased stock. Nowhere.
 
so you'd rather see millions of animals that can survive the fmd disease tormented by defra (the interview with the latest surrey farmer on sky news on sat was horrible - his pregnant cows and those with recently born calves were chased round a field at Runneymede for 5 hours on friday to be 'inspected' by defra - that is harcly 'animal welfare')

and yes - I do farm and I fully support vaccination as the 'loss of exports' merely means that the meat can be sold in the UK instead and save us importing meat from abroad.

Vaccination for fmd has moved forward since 2000 and 2001 and is now effective, can discriminate between infected and vaccinated stock and means that animals are not 'shot by police marksmen on Pirford golf course' when they escape the humane 'cull' (read slaughter) by defra.

If vaccination was so awful then why are literate people in France, Belgium and Holland supporting it at EU commission level ??

Furthermore - if Bluetongue is going to be vaccinated against (and fmd - the animals survive - bluetongue 50% of the animals will die) then so should fmd.
 
so what

it costs 300 million loss for one year

against a potential 2 billion quid loss and millions of animals 'culled' in sight of their herd members (which doesn't happen in licensed abbatoirs) and then trucked across the country to be incinerated for a disease that the animals actually get, have, survive if left to themselves.

there ARE alternatives to the 'spin' put out by DEFRA - and if you look at warmwell.com you will see a balanced viewpoint and not merely the gov. spin put out by defra and the politicians

what people seem to be losing sight of to me is that the animals are the ones that are being killed in sight of their fellow herd members; that they are being chased every 2nd day by defra/svs/aho staff to 'inspect' them if they are inside one of the zones and are getting very stressed about this; and that the animals are the ones that are being slaughtered

for a change - just substitute new forest ponies, or any other of the native, feral breeds of horses/ponies that we have and see if you find the actions of defra acceptable.

If you wouldn't find defra actions acceptable for ponies then why are they acceptable for pigs/cattle/sheep ??
 
i dont know if this applies to cows (patches will know) but to get rid of smallpox in this country there had to be masss vacination and i am sure there were some nad reactions to it but its gone now and we, the descendants dont test for the resistance. is that where the vaccination thing is coming from that it would be better to lose one generation than have reooccurences every few years. once it was gone you would stop vaccinating? is that what they are getting at?
 
yes - please do question rather than just believe defra

this could be a case of the lunatics in charge of the asylum tbh - we are prepared to question gov. spin on things like Iraq and yet if the gov. says we must chase cattle round and round every other day for a week and then chase them round with guns until they are so terrified they make a bolt for it to a nearby golf course (where they are then shot by Police marksmen) and that this is OK - we believe them ?!?!

yet the Belgians, Dutch, French and Germans are raising at EU level that vaccination should be mandatory ....(and these are countries that eat horse meat and do not have the reputation the the UK has for being devoted to animals....)

if you are prepared to question gov actions on other issues then please question defra actions on fmd and bluetongue and don't just accept the spin

At least please question the culling and not just accept it. If you come to a different view to warmwell and myself after that then fine - but please just look at both sides of this issue

2001 fmd was a disaster and defra and this gov was in charge of that don't forget....

and this time round - the Government are responsible for fmd and yet once again the farmers are paying the price along with their unfortunate animals - many of the animals have names the same as the horses that we on here have and love.
 
How do you propose that we only lose FMD free status for 12 months? Surely you're talking about a vaccine that will need boosters every 12 months. If this is the case, then we lose our disease free status every twelve months on a rolling rota.

Unless all of the world...let us not forget we don't just export to Europe....adapts a vaccination policy it just cannot work.

I see the point you are getting at, really I do. However in today's climate and with the way other countries and mainland Europe prefer to tackle FMD it would fool hardy and downright wrong for Britain to suddenly decide to make a stand and vaccinate. It would cripple farming and farmers. We'd all be left with meat and dairy produce that had no market. No means of making money and no income to feed our stock.

It just won't work unless there's a blanket vaccination Europe wide and I simply don't see that happening any time soon....and quite frankly I personally wouldn't want it to either.
 
Of course you couldn't just vaccinate one generation.

Great Britain was foot and mouth free for 34 years from 1967 until 2001. Foot and Mouth was still rife around the rest of the world but hadn't reoccurred in that time on our soils. On the balance of probabilities we thought FMD was long gone.

If it can come back onto our soils again after 34 years, what's to say it won't come back again at some point in the future if we only vaccinated for a generation?

There is NO WAY on this Earth that you will be able to get global FMD vaccination as routine. No way. The poorer countries can barely care for their cattle, much less afford the vaccination policies that we already implement in this country. That's before adding Foot and Mouth to the list of vaccinations. How do we completely get rid of FMD world wide then and prevent an outbreak in generations to come?

I think we're forgetting here that this isn't an epidemic that's sweeping Europe. This is an outbreak started by the negligence of a Government Laboratory through failings in their bio-security. It is absolutely nothing like the outbreak we saw in 2001 and comparing the two really isn't prudent.
 
Yes it would. I was working for a vet during the 2001 outbreak (which, mercifully, did not get to this area)and I asked why livestock isn't vaccinated. The vet told me that vaccination can result in animals carrying the virus without showing any symptoms (the result of which could be horrendous given the amount of travelling around the country that some of our livestock does) and we could not be designated disease free. It's the same with the pet passport thing, Britain is no longer technically rabies-free as a (vaccinated) dog or cat could contract rabies abroad and then introduce it here without ever showing symptoms. Scary thought, but true.
 
the vaccine works in this manner

You vaccinate ring fence round the outbreak - every single one of the vulnerable species.

The virus needs hosts that are shedding the virus to spread. Scientific studies (which are as accurate as any of the gov. 'incident management probability studies') show that if the vaccine kills the virus in only 70% of the animals then the spread of the virus stops.

Cannot remember the EU statute number but it is on the warmwell site. Basically it says that you are not allowed to export meat to any EU state for 12 months after vaccination has been used. After that you can resume exports. This was a protectionist measure brought in by the original 7 EU states to stop meat from south america coming into the EU to protect French, etc farmers products.

The moves from Belgium, etc to make FMD vaccination mandatory inside the EU includes the revocation of this statute (or modification of it).

The export meat market is only worth 300 million per year compared with a 2 to 12 billion loss in 2001 across all sectors of the UK economy.

In 2001 the horse had bolted before the vaccination could have been effective.
This time round it hasn't and if we ringfence vaccinated now - as the Dutch did in 2001 - then fmd would be over much sooner and with less risk

Don't forget the difference - in 2001 we choose to go down the mass slaughter route and still do - fmd here went on for months

In 2001 the Dutch ringfence vaccinated around every outbreak and their fmd outbreak was over in weeks.....

Furthermore - catching animals up once - vaccinate and then let go is far less stressful for them and far less prone to unacceptable handling of the stock (e.g. chasing them round a field for 5 hours when in calf) than the current methods without vaccine being used by defra

Also - if vaccination was such a no-no then why does defra have a vaccination team on standby at an airport near guildford ?
 
How can you say the export meat market is "only worth 300 million"? ONLY?

Be realistic. How do you suppose the farmers lumbered with stock they can't shift are going to deal with the ensuing welfare crisis? Believe me, it would be a massive crisis too. Too many animals, not enough housing for them over winter (don't forget this is the time when most producers are selling before winter as they cannot feed and house them over winter.) They will be forced to take direct to slaughter and rendering simply to ease the financial burden of keeping them.

Farmers would be going bankrupt in droves. The Government don't like the slaughter policy, neither do us farmers. I would hate to lose our dairy herd to FMD. However, I realise that realistically the alternative IS more crippling.

You have your opinion and I have mine, but you will never convince me or most farmers I know that a 12 month export ban in favour of vaccination is a viable way forward for farming. It would financial suicide.

Holland may have ring vaccinated but they still culled the vaccinated stock once all the last cases of FMD had passed. They had no intention of integrating vaccinated stock into their food chain.

I have no objection to ring vaccinating in Surrey if the idea is to cull at a later date. They would have to be certain that the risk to all of the stock is incredibly high as vaccinating does sign the animals death warrants in the near future.

Personally, I think they're holding off because it will be almost impossible to ensure all vulnerable stock are indeed vaccinated. How do you propose they tackle the wild deer population for instance?

You have your opinion and I have mine, but you will never convince me or most farmers I know that a 12 month export ban in favour of vaccination is a viable way forward for farming. It would be financial suicide.

Yes I will admit that we weren't exporting to Europe during the last outbreak due to BSE restrictions. Surely we'd not be able to use vaccinated meat in the UK either? As far as I am a aware, and correct me if I'm wrong, but there's a ban on meat products vaccinated with FMD entering the food chain in Europe...including Great Britain?
 
QR:
I don't have any comments about the arguments for or against vaccination, but have just been on the warmwell site, and read 'Fields of Fire' (clickable link on the left hand side of the main page).
I was nearly in tears at some of the excerpts on there, about how the slaughter was carried out.

I don't know what the answers are, but DEFRA just has to do better than it did in 2001.... Heartbreaking.
 
yes - it is

anyone who thinks vaccination is not the right solution ought to read warmwell from 'cover to cover'

vaccination techniques and fmd detection techniques have moved on since 2001 and on-site testing is available that is accurate

we shouldn't need to wait days to have an 'all clear' for Solihull or whereever (hoping Petersfield is also clear). There are on site swab testing kits that are accurate - again information on warmwell

the stress to the farmers concerned

and the possibility/probability that their animals will be killed anyway and then turn out to be uninfected is awful.

if this was a rabies outbreak what do you think would happen if defra came along and said 'cos the dog at No. 7 has rabies we're going to kill all dogs in houses from nos 1 thru to 20

there would be outrage

same with horses

it just seems sad to me that because these are 'meat' animals there is so little protest and so much acceptance of the kill kill kill policy

the UK is supposed to be a nation of soft animal lovers looked on by europe as a bit 'fluffy' and yet it is these same european nations that we tend to view as 'hard' because they eat horsemeat that are trying to stop the fmd slaughter
 
[ QUOTE ]
How do you propose that we only lose FMD free status for 12 months? Surely you're talking about a vaccine that will need boosters every 12 months. If this is the case, then we lose our disease free status every twelve months on a rolling rota.

Unless all of the world...let us not forget we don't just export to Europe....adapts a vaccination policy it just cannot work.

I see the point you are getting at, really I do. However in today's climate and with the way other countries and mainland Europe prefer to tackle FMD it would fool hardy and downright wrong for Britain to suddenly decide to make a stand and vaccinate. It would cripple farming and farmers. We'd all be left with meat and dairy produce that had no market. No means of making money and no income to feed our stock.

It just won't work unless there's a blanket vaccination Europe wide and I simply don't see that happening any time soon....and quite frankly I personally wouldn't want it to either.

[/ QUOTE ]

I quite agree with everything you've said.

If we vaccinate and cannot export for a year, it would absolutely cripple farmers. I work at my local cattle market, as well as being a farmer's daughter, and the prices of lambs on yesterday were abysmal because they cannot be exported and the domestic market cannot stand up it... and bearing in mind many farmers are sitting on their lambs at the moment. In five or six weeks the prices could be far, far worse.

Before FMD, lamb prices were over 100p/kg. Yesterday, they averaged 81p/kg, and dropped as low as 75p/kg. The top price paid for any lamb was £42/head yesterday, with the majority in the 30s. It is absolutely impossible to make any money on this, and british agriculture would buckle under a year of an export ban.
 
the reason for the low lamb and meat prices at market generally is NOT down directly to the lack of export - it is TOTALLY down to the large supermarkets seizing on the opportunity to make more profit. This was reported in Farmers Guardian a couple of weeks ago.

Basically the supermarkets know that the farmers cannot sell their stuff anywhere but to them and so are all only offering a pittance.

The supermarket buyers are fully aware that teh farmers have livestock needing to be shifted and also that the price of feeding them if they aren't sold due to bad hay crop and price of wheat is uneconomic - so like with the dairy industry - the supermarkets can now offer a pittance and the farmers just have to take it - no way can they protest.

Don't blame vaccinatio for the low prices - blame the supermarket buyers looking to make more profit for thier shareholders at the expense of british farmers

nothing - unhappily - unusual about that as the competition commission is beginning to realise.
 
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