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Defra is like a dead swan. Discuss
The department's 'swift' response to avian flu
has actually
been slow and inefficient
Magnus Linklater
Columnist,The Times
Filed 12 Apr 06
©Magnus Linklater
This
article, which was originally published in The Times
on 12th April 2006, is reproduced on Land-Care with the kind
permission of the author and the newspaper
THE DEAD SWAN has been safely tucked away in the
laboratory’s deep freeze. The scare story has retreated to
the inside pages. The Government’s chief scientist pronounces
himself happy with the way the outbreak has been handled. There
is really nothing much left to trouble us, it seems, about this
avian flu business — save for the tell-tale whiff of complacency
hanging in the air.
The way that the Government and the poultry industry
responded to the discovery of an H5N1-infected bird in Scotland
was, by all accounts, calm and professional; the precautions taken
were swift and exemplary. Just one swan infected out of more than
1,100 birds tested suggests that we are not witnessing the early
stages of a pandemic. We can be quietly satisfied with the way our
procedures worked.
We can? Why, then, are we still shuttling dead
birds across the country to the single laboratory capable of testing
them, when there is a sophisticated and foolproof form of local
testing that could diagnose the virus in under six hours? Why do
ministers continue to tell us that vaccination of birds at risk
does not work when detailed scientific analysis from the Far East
shows not only that it prevents the spread of the disease, but can
eliminate it as well, without the risks that are routinely cited
as the main impediment to its use? Why does the chief scientist
Sir David King talk about a possible requirement to end free-range
flocks, when all the evidence suggests that the disease spreads
quickest among intensively farmed poultry? Why are we still intending
to slaughter millions of healthy birds at the first sign of a proper
outbreak when we know that it is unnecessary? Why, in short, have
we learnt so little about these animal pandemics and how to control
them?
I have a theory. I even have a solution. But first
the facts: there is a device called a Rapid PCR machine, which has
been developed in the United States, to carry out instant diagnosis
of diseases such as swine fever, foot-and-mouth and avian flu. It
costs about £40,000 per machine, with each individual test
costing £3 a time. It can be operated by any trained vet.
Professor Roger Breeze, former head of the US Department of Agriculture’s
laboratory at Plum Island, looking at the tests carried out in Britain
after the discovery of the Cellardyke swan, has calculated that
just nine of these devices, located across Scotland, would have
cost less than £500,000 and done the job of testing 1,000
suspect birds in a tenth of the time that it took to ship them south
to Weybridge.
The Rapid PCR is being used in many countries
where “zoonotic” diseases (the ones that can be passed
from animals to humans) have occurred. There are, however, no plans
to introduce it here. The same blinkered view informs the outlook
of the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra)
on vaccination, which has not changed essentially since the foot-and-mouth
outbreak of 2001. Every minister and every official, taking their
cue from government scientists, dutifully repeats that vaccines
would only “mask” the disease rather than control it.
Ben Bradshaw, the Defra Minister, claims that “overwhelming
scientific advice” shows that the disadvantages of their use
greatly outweigh the advantages. Clearly he has not read the detailed
scientific papers on the Hong Kong and Vietnam outbreaks, where
the opposite has been proved: that vaccination can control and eliminate
avian flu and that tests can establish whether it is still present
or hidden.
What is disturbing about so many of the statements
coming out of Defra — about the need to bring free-range flocks
indoors, to end organic farming, to “monitor” but never
to introduce vaccination — is that they are made by people
with little first-hand knowledge of the one science they should
be on top of: virology. There is brilliant work being done in research
centres in Britain on zoonotic diseases and the vaccines needed
to control them, but it rarely seems to filter upwards to Defra.
After the privatisation of much of this work in the Thatcher era,
a seemingly unbridgeable gulf has opened up between those doing
the research in privately run laboratories and the ministries that
should be using it. “The problem with the public sector,”
said one microbiologist I spoke to, “is that it outsourced
the intellectual resource to the private sector, and now it won’t
talk to it.”
This is all the more worrying when it comes to
the new generation of zoonotic diseases that are bound to follow
avian flu. Because new viruses are likely to mutate, and may one
day spread from animals to humans, there should be first-class communication
between veterinary and human medicine. Yet here, too, there is a
vacuum. Britain has no strong tradition of co-operation between
the vets and the physicians. The scientific innovations that should
be driving medical policy seem to collide with the inertia of those
who are delivering it. There is good research being done, but we
no longer seem to have the nerve to make use of it.
What needs to happen is that this vital
work should be removed from under the dead hand of Defra and handed
to an independent advisory body that could draw together the necessary
scientific expertise from all sources and then come up with objective
advice, free of government constraints. Perhaps the Royal Societies,
north and south of the border, with their long traditions of independence,
could act as the umbrella body. Something needs to be done if we
are not to stumble into another pandemic disaster. Next time we
may be dealing with more than just a dead swan.
©Magnus Linklater
Further reading recommended by Land-Care
 Breeze,
Roger (2006). The management of Avian Flu. If not us, who? If not
now, when?
See ANIMAL HEALTH - GENERAL Homepage, filed 07 April 05,
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