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It is what Debby Reynolds didn't say
that could be so very important
James Irvine
Teviot Scientific, Cultybraggan Farm, Comrie,
Perthshire
Filed 5th Aug 07
©www.land-care.org.uk
Debby Reynolds is the Chief Veterinary Officer
for England. Her recent statements on BBC TV are significant more
for what they don't say rather than what they do say.
So the extraordinary coincidence of an outbreak
of Foot a Mouth Disease (FMD) occurring within 3 miles of the UK's
only high security facility for handling FMD virus (1)
does indeed look like - in all probability - cause and effect.
Human clinical medicine is effectively run largely
on the basis of likely probability, rather than on absolute certainty.
Veterinary medicine should be no different.
Just look at the evidence as it stands now:
The type of virus found in the infected cattle
is exactly the same as the type recently being used by Merial for
vaccine production and by Pirbright for diagnostic testing 3 miles
away: namely
O1 BF567.
This virus has not been known to be implicated
in any recent FMD outbreak throughout the world, but dates back
to an outbreak in the UK in 1967.
In human clinical medicine this would surely provide
such good evidence of cause and effect that it would be certainly
good enough to immediately create an action plan that could be put
into immediate effect. Yet Debby Reynolds advises caution that the
situation has not been proven beyond doubt. That sounds like a pedant
giving science a bad name.
What Debby Reynolds did not say was whether or
not an effective vaccine exists at Merial, or at any vaccine bank
throughout the globe, that is effective against this particular
strain of typeO FMD virus. Surely, both the Institute of Health's
own laboratory at Pribright and the vaccine manufacturer Merial
(also located on the same site at Pirbright) would know the answer
to that simple question. They had both been recently working with
it. But we are not told.
This could be because
there is no effective vaccine available
and information was being withheld as the genie would then really
be out of the bag, or
in the absence of a known effective vaccine,
tests would have to be done to see if there is an effective cross
over protection obtainable by using an existing vaccine, or
the Government authorities are not keen on using
vaccination, for all their talk. After all, the EC directive only
insists that they consider vaccination as an early line of defence.
But before analysing the vaccine situation further,
there are other bits of key information that should have been available
for inclusion in Debby Reynolds' statement.
Why are there not answers by now to the movements
of cattle on and off the affected farm? What is the point of the
British Cattle Movement Service (BCMS) that all livestock farmers
have to comply with, if they cannot use their computers to bring
up immediate answers to the key questions that justify their existence?
We are informed that there were sheep on the affected
farm. But there was no mention of this in her statement. Why not?
It could make an enormous difference, especially if any of them
were recently sold through markets such as Bicester in Oxfordshire.
There was no mention of the fact that roe deer
are a common feature of the land in the vicinity of the affected
farm. They are highly susceptible to FMD. If they are infected,
robust culling of livestock will not prevent re infection of livestock
and spread to other areas as the deer take fright from all the commotion.
She made no mention of the application of modern
rapid technology to detect antibodies and live virus in suspected
livestock or wildlife. In 2001 there was an unholy lack of cooperation
on the part of the UK authorities with regard to offers of help
from the USa Department of Agriculture. Surely this is not happening
again.
There is a fear that the Government's selective
awarding of licences for only their laboratories to do tests for
FMD is a political move, rather than a logical one. Is it designed
to keep out help from abroad, where it is understood research into
the application of science to the veterinary field is far more advanced?
The same applies to the award of licences for the use of FMD vaccines.
The UK had better give some thought to this, as
it could be that the EC authorities might take a deem view of the
apparent lapse in biosecurity at Pribright. They could withdraw
their licence as a reference centre.
One wonders if part of the problem is that the
Government authorities have not really got round to sorting out
with the EU and among themselves what stance they want to take in
terms of vaccination. There are EU rules that are based on politics
rather than science: they talk about FMD-free status that greatly
affects exports. The UK government were opposed to the EU efforts
to achieve a vaccination-to-live policy, but in the end they had
to accept it. Do they still think like that? The EU/EC leaves it
largely up to individual member states to choose what they want
to do. But they do want to see good science being applied effectively.
The Government in the UK has been cutting back
on funding research in its institutions. Is the lapse in biosecurity
a reflection of this?
This time round, please let good science
prevail. Let not policy be dominated by those who might be thought
to be better versed in political rather than biological science.
Somehow it seems that in modern days it is the political variety
who seem to surface at the top of the UK advisory ladder.
©www.land-care.org.uk
References
1. Irvine, james (2007). Foot
and Mouth Disease confirmed in the UK: is it going to be handled
better than in 2001?
See FMD Homepage, filed 04 Aug 07, www.land-care.org.uk
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