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DEFRA is now funding a new
FMD cost benefit risk analysis
James Irvine
Teviot Scientific, Edinburgh & Cultybraggan
Farm, Comrie
Filed 30 Jan 04
©www.land-care.org.uk
In its press release of 26 January 2004 (1)
DEFRA announced that a contract had been awarded to “Risk Solution
Ltd” to carry out “a cost benefit analysis on FMD control
strategies”.
This raises a number of points, including:
Why has it taken DEFRA so long to be thinking of a cost benefit
analysis of FMD control strategies, if indeed such analysis or analyses
have not already been carried out?
Is it that there is now clearer information as
to what the alternatives are, or is it that DEFRA have just been
painfully slow in responding to the various inquiries into the UK
FMD 2001 epidemic? DEFRA reminds readers that these inquires reported
in the summer of 2002 - more than a year and a half ago. It is my
understanding that previous costings were published. Were they unsatisfactory
in some way?
While DEFRA may have been waiting for the Inquires
to report and for the EU to come up with its recommendations as
to how FMD should be managed in the future, it is a self-evident
fact that there are only a limited number of options possible. Also,
DEFRA having been paying the bills (or more accurately only some
of them (2)) in relation to the 2001 UK
outbreak, DEFRA itself should be familiar with the costs of different
strategies, including emergency vaccination for which DEFRA had
acquired permission from Brussels to use in 2001.
Who is “Risk Solution Ltd”?
Efforts to find out who this organisation was
by means of a web search (www.google.co.uk) were time consuming
and fruitless. A helpful correspondent to Land-Care suggested it
might be a company in Wales called “Risk Solutions” but
directory enquires (118 118) could not trace them. It was
only on contacting DEFRA direct that it transpired that the company
that was awarded the contract is:
Risk Solutions Ltd.
It was set up in 1997 as a division of AEA Technology.
AEA Technology describes itself as “one of the world’s
leading innovation businesses, turning science and engineering
into profit for the benefit of its customers and investors”.
The main businesses of AEA Technology are to do with rail, environment
(including future energy solutions but excluding nuclear which
they have apparently abandoned), specialist battery systems, production
of software etc.
The respective websites are www.risksol.co.uk and www.aeat.co.uk
Is Risk Solutions Ltd likely to have the necessary information
and expertise to produce a useful cost analysis on the subject of
FMD control strategies
The areas of expertise listed on their own website
does not immediately suggest that this Company would be an obvious
choice for such a task. One obvious problem the Company has to face
is from where can it get the scientific knowledge to form the basis
of such an analysis, especially in relation to the option of vaccination.
In the view of some, DEFRA - and indeed the State
Veterinary Service - have perhaps not been the most up-to-date and
forward thinking in applying scientific knowledge regarding FMD
vaccination that has been available for many years.
Will these contractors swallow the erudite but
seriously flawed assertions of the epidemiology computer modellers
that caused so much grief during UK FMD 2001?
Will they be persuaded by the apparently self-seeking
views of the UK’s world reference laboratory for FMD located
at Pirbright (3, 4),
but which does not have the resources nor the particular skills
required to run a large service laboratory in the face of a crisis?
It would seem inevitable that Risk Solutions Ltd
will get bogged down - like everyone else - with the slow, pedantic
and often incomprehensible workings of national and international
bodies which deliberate on such issues as FMD and who get tied up
by their own regulations, definitions and criteria for validity
testing of laboratory diagnosis.
Why cannot DEFRA do such a cost benefit analysis itself?
To get ballpark figures - which probably is as
good as can be expected no matter who does the analysis - it is
difficult to see why DEFRA could not do this in-house, and long
before now.
Was it not the case that abundant evidence was
given to the various Inquires into UK FMD 2001 about the cost to
tourism, disruption of countryside pursuits and foot path closures?
Are new estimates from such an organisation as Risk Solutions Ltd
really going to come up with something that is convincingly different?
The cost of this contract, awarded we are assured
after the process of competitive tendering, was not declared in
the DEFRA press release. Is it really an appropriate use of public
money?
What the Animal Health Minister says about it
The DEFRA press release quotes the Animal Health
Minister, Ken Bradshaw, as saying:
“The Cost Benefit Analysis (CBA) will help inform decisions
on which disease control option to use in which circumstances.
It will also help plan resources for an outbreak; refine the
Decision Tree; build consensus on when to use emergency
vaccination and more generally improve the evidence on the costs
of different disease control policies.”
Comment
Are we not being served up with more civil-service-type
speak, endless bureaucratic delay, and over-laced political correctness
- all at substantial unnecessary expense to the taxpayer - in an
effort of to achieve what DEFRA should have managed to do itself
long ago?
A simple risk assessment would be that, unless DEFRA (and indeed
SEERAD) gets a move on a bit faster than to date with adequate contingency
planning (5, 6),
the costs of another outbreak of FMD in the UK will be very high
indeed.
It also needs to be said that the EC has
directed that consideration must be given to emergency vaccination
as an initial strategy in the management of a future outbreak of
FMD (7) . Indeed, they have stipulated that
Member States must comply with the provisions by 30th June 2004
(8)
What DEFRA (and SEERAD at its coattails)
have to do is to get the science of FMD vaccination across to the
public, to the retailers of food and to the farmers, adopting a
more progressive and co-operative attitude with their European colleagues,
rather than labour theoretical and improbable objections.
The application of science to the management
of disease seldom fulfils every idealist criteria, but can be mighty
effective nevertheless. It is doubtful if a company such as Risk
Solutions Ltd is really in a position to do DEFRA's job for them.
© www.land-care.org.uk
Reference
1. DEFRA (2004). News Release.
DEFRA announces cost benefit analysis of FMD disease control strategies.
26 January
www.defra.gov.uk
2. Forum for Private Business
(2004). £55 million still owed to businesses affected by foot
and mouth
See www.fpb.co.uk/cmn/viewdoc.jsp?cat=all&docid=BEP1_pressrel_0000061041
3. Fink, Colin G (Micropathology
Ltd) (2002). Evidence Submitted to the Royal Society of Edinburgh
Inquiry, January 2002. (Download
PDF)
4. Walfield, Alan M (United Biomedical
Inc) (2002). Evidence Submitted to the Royal Society of Edinburgh
Inquiry, January 2002.
5. Irvine, James (2003). DEFRA’s
new contingency plan for FMD.
See FMD Homepage, filed 9 Dec 03, www.land-care.org.uk Click
Here to View
6. Irvine, James and Marshall,
Mary (2003). FMD simulation exercise in Scotland: lessons are still
to be learned.
See FMD Homepage, filed 8 Oct 03, www.land-care.org.uk Click
Here to View
7. DEFRA (2003). News Release,
12 June 2003. Government welcomes adoption of EU FMD Directive.
www.defra.gov.uk/news/2003/030612b.htm Click
Here to View
8. EU Institution (2003). Press
Release 29 Sept 2003. FMD: Byrne welcomes new EU legislation to
control outbreaks
http://europa.eu.int/rapid/start/cgi/guestn.ksh?p_action.gettxt=gt&doc=IP/03/1307/0/RAPID&Ig=EN&display=
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