("...a ban on swill..." - sounds like something the Monty Python troupe would've thought up. :)

Recapping: We have info in the forum that F&M is not deadly to 95% of livestock, and is more like "a bad cold" than the horrific plague it's being made out to be. The numbers of cows dying in the UK are dying at the hand of "public health officials", not from the disease itself.

Now the UK govt is seeking permission (which it has to get from the EU) to vaccinate all the remaining cows - which will make a tidy sum for someone; and it's likely the vaccination program will continue for many years to come (the orthodoxy's idea of "preventative medicine") and be copied in many other countries around the world.

The result, for someone, will be a "government mandated fortune" for supplying the vaccines.

We also have info in the forum that "homeopathic borax" is the remedy for F&M - but that any licensed vet who advises or administers that remedy stands to lose his/her license. I have no idea what rationale has been given for that restriction.

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Britain traces foot-and-mouth outbreak, seeks
permission to vaccinate animals

LONDON
(March 27, 2001 4:48 p.m. EST) - Britain's agriculture minister said Tuesday that the country's debilitating outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease has been traced to swill fed to pigs on a northern farm and may have come from meat imported illegally or food smuggled in by a passenger.

The government announced a ban on swill and said it would seek the European Union's permission to vaccinate livestock, though Agriculture Minister Nick Brown emphasized there was no decision yet on whether to begin a vaccination campaign.

"This is an unprecedented outbreak which has not yet reached its peak," Brown told the House of Commons as the number of confirmed cases rose to 682.

Britain has sought to avoid vaccination because it would keep other nations' doors shut to livestock exports. Nations that vaccinate lose their "foot-and-mouth free" status on world markets because inoculated animals are difficult to distinguish from those carrying the virus.

"Vaccination is no easy option. It would be expected to delay full return to international trade, at least for the region affected, and would be likely to require tight additional controls, at least in the area concerned," Brown said.

Zoos around Europe, fearing the disease could lead to the slaughter of endangered species, also petitioned the European Union for permission to vaccinate if necessary. EU veterinary experts were to consider the requests from zookeepers and the British government on Wednesday.

Animals infected with the disease, which is not known to effect humans, experience an eruption of blisters in the mouth and on areas of tender skin. The blisters grow larger and then break, exposing raw skin and making eating painful. The disease often kills very young animals.

Authorities have traced the outbreak in Britain to a farm at Heddon-on-the-Wall in northern England, where pigs were fed swill, a feed made from food discarded by humans.

Brown said it was unclear how the disease, an Asian strain first identified in India in 1990, entered Britain. It might have been brought in an illegal shipment of imported meat, he said, or it may have come on food carried by an arriving passenger.

By the time the first case was identified near London on Feb. 20, Brown said, the disease had spread far across the country.

"By Feb. 23, when infection was confirmed at Heddon-on-the-Wall, infected animals had already spread through markets and dealers to Cumbria, Dumfries and Galloway, Devon, Cheshire, Herefordshire and Northamptonshire," Brown said.

Cumbria in northwestern England, Dumfries and Galloway across the border in Scotland, and Devon in southwest England have been especially hard-hit by the disease.

Brown said it was difficult to nail down the spread of infection because some sheep apparently were bought and sold outside markets, and there was no record of the transactions.

Bobby Waugh, the farmer at Heddon-on-the-Wall, told reporters Tuesday that he was confident his farm was not the source of the infection.

"I have been treating swill and feeding pigs for more than 25 years since new regulations were introduced in 1974 and have never had a problem," Waugh said. "I honestly don't think I am at the heart of this."

Swill was once a common food for pigs, but its use has declined in Britain. Currently fewer than 2 percent of pigs get it.

Ben Gill, president of the National Farmers Union, said a ban on swill was "taking a hammer to hit the wrong point." The feed is safe if it is cooked according to regulations, he said.

"The real issue is how did this illegal importation take place?" Gill said on Channel 4 television news.

"Was it a personal import, as we have seen examples in ports around the country, or was it an illegal commercial import, which we know takes place with false manifests? We don't have at the ports the sort of rigid controls that other countries have."

Opposition Conservative lawmakers renewed criticism of the government for what they said was foot-dragging in controlling the disease.

"If the government decides that some form of vaccination is necessary it will, in effect, be admitting that its other policies have failed," Conservative lawmaker Tim Yeo said, drawing a sharp response from the normally placid Brown.

"Frankly I don't need telling to get on with it and nor do the officials on the ground," Brown said. "There are some very hard choices to be made and there is not a single recommendation that anyone could make that doesn't have a good argument against it."

In France, Agriculture Minister Jean Glavany said Tuesday that vaccination "has not been excluded" but the government hoped to avoid it, fearing "catastrophic" economic consequences for farmers. France has two confirmed cases.

Danish authorities suspended livestock exports as veterinarians investigated three suspected cases of foot-and-mouth disease in the west of the country.

The EU allowed farmers in most of Northern Ireland to resume exports of fresh meat, unpasteurized dairy products and untreated hides, but continued restrictions in a border district where one case of disease was found on March 1.

The Czech Republic said it would drop restrictions at the border with Poland but foot-and-mouth precautions would continue along the borders with Germany and Austria, at least until April 5.

News Copyright © 2001 Interest!ALERT

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