Press report about not reporting FMD

[Patches]

Seems the "new outbreaks" aren't so new after all.

http://www.farmersguardian.com/story.asp?sectioncode=1&storycode=12942

 

[vivhewe]

 

[bluecalypso]

And more bad news: another case of FMD confirmed, as well as another case of blue tongue on the same farm as the original one.

 

[reynold]

Todays reports from Warmwell - the middle one talks about the threat to fine farmers for 'missing' fmd - and puts the difficulty into perspective.

The gov. have known about the potential for arrival of bluetongue over here for 12 months


September 25 2007 ~ "The Government must listen to the specialists"
The Times today publishes a long letter from Dr Colin Fink. Extract:
".....once again the handling of this infection has been an illustration of a woeful lack of understanding within Defra of viral disease....If we had started a thorough ring vaccination programme on August 10, when the onset of infection in the second affected herd was obviously so sudden that a large amount of virus was now within the countryside, the outbreaks in other herds would not have occurred. ... It is quite extraordinary to report that there are no virologists within Defra. This is contrary to a reply given to the Countess of Mar's question in the House of Lords when the Deputy Chief Veterinary Officer (DCVO) replied that there were more than 100.
There is a lack of understanding within the vet labs' scientists of the mechanisms of clinical containment of viral disease. ... There is a failure to use newer techniques of nucleic acid amplification (RT-PCR) to detect the virus in pre-clinical stages in animals. This is a much more sensitive surveillance than veterinary clinical inspection or the penside crude antigen test that has been made for the Third World which Defra has sanctioned although it is of unverified sensitivity.
It may be helpful to the Prime Minister's Cobra group to read Mary Critchley's voluntary website www.warmwell.com, to which a number of us contribute. The group should invite the most informed virologists with clinical experience to join their team and formulate sensible policies to contain this disease.... The British are subscribing to EU rules that virologists and informed vets consider to be ill-informed. It would be better to solve the problem with good science and then lobby for change in Brussels.
A lack of coherent virological advice from the CVO and DCVO makes matters worse...."
Full text is here. It is important that an expert practising virologist's understanding about vaccination is seen. We also refer people again to the very important paper written for warmwell in 2001 on veterinary vaccination and transmission by FAO expert Dr Keith Sumption back in 2001. In an article on the FAO website, describing the successful vaccination programme in Turkey last year, Dr Sumption says: "FMD is a virus that propagates incredibly quickly -- when it discovers a new niche where there is no immunity among animals, it just rips through them. Europe is FMD free, and animals there aren't vaccinated against it - so they have no immunity."
( Hansard reference)


September 25 ~ Farmers face fines for 'missing' foot and mouth
DEFRA really are amazing. Here we read (Telegraph) of the threat to farmers who 'missed' old lesions in recovered cattle " being investigated by local trading standards officers and could be fined £5,000 or imprisoned for six months."
We remember the moderator comment on ProMed on September 16th:
"[Detection of FMD-suspected animals is a professional undertaking. During an outbreak, frequent visits of veterinarians to farms around infected areas will probably enable early detection of disease. The discontinued activity of many district veterinary investigation centres in the UK, an unfortunate process which took place during the 80's, had devastative effect upon this vital surveillance system. This has been demonstrated during several animal-health events since, culminating during the 2001 FMD epizootic. Putting the blame on the farmer -- whatever his/her age may be -- seems to this moderator unfair. - Mod.AS]"
DEFRA has insisted on holding central control of animal disease. But the 'professional undertaking' of proper and adequate surveillance has been shown in the past six weeks to be beyond its capabilities. Such attempts to deflect criticism by threats of prosecution will strike many as quite breathtaking. As one emailer puts it. "... Action against farmers ? What next ? Taking midges to court over Bluetongue ?"
The virologist, Ruth Watkins, wrote last week that Pirbright's "lateral flow" device would have been unlikely to spot disease either. On-site PCR is the ultra fast and reliable way forward:
" I would think that sampling old lesions by their penside test is likely to be negative, whilst the PCR test will remain positive. This would not be because of antibody coating but because there is not enough virus present to register positive in the Pirbright lateral flow device. I think DEFRA should bring its ideas of good diagnostic practice up to date. I agree with Roger Breeze." (See article for warmwell by Roger Breeze)
Relying on visual examination in the infected area is disastrous. As Dr Watkins says, "we have heard nothing of faecal sampling or milk sampling where essentially pooled specimens can be submitted to PCR and culture. Nose swabs and lesion swabs and blood can all have PCR done on them. Again nose swabs can be pooled. This appropriate test is looking for the presence of virus. If there are lesions then the penside test can be done as well. Obviously they have not invested in a. mobile laboratory. Any animal susceptible to FMD should be sampled in this way."

September 25 ~ "The real disaster is that, six years after the 2001 epidemic, a needless rule is still in place"
A week ago, the farmer Toby Tennant gave a succinct and knowledgable reply to an article that had appeared in the Scottish Farmer, Vaccination "catastrophe" warning He rightly called obsolete the EU requirement for the treatments of vaccinated meat that has turned so many farmers against vaccination
"....Modern science, which Defra seems so reluctant to understand and accept, has made these rules obsolete.
Modern vaccines no longer mask the presence of the disease. They carry markers, which enable today's new diagnostics tests, which are fast, cheap and accurate to differentiate between antibodies induced by vaccines, and those induced by the disease itself.
Therefore it's no longer necessary to impose an extra three month export ban on vaccinated animals for fear that they might act as carriers of the disease, or discriminate against vaccinated meat on the domestic market. The disaster of 2001 must never be allowed to happen again, and, thanks to modern veterinary science, it need not. The next battle is to ensure outdated rules, with harsh economic penalties, are abandoned.... The recent outbreak was a wake up call, which shows the urgent need to modernize the regulations..."
read in full But DEFRA's heirarchy seems unable to contemplate the possibility that it could be wrong. We are reminded of what Magnus Linklater wrote, well over six years ago "So there you have it: the research, it seems, was wrong, the science was outdated, the slaughter unnecessary, the policy unethical, and the strategy ineffective. Apart from that, things seem to have been just fine. "