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19 December 2002
A bovine attempt to vaccinate us against the truth
Magnus Linklater
The Times
19 December 2002
My award for most brazen performance of the year
in the face of hostile evidence, goes not to Peter Foster, who claimed
that his advice to Cherie Blair was nothing more than “a little
help from your friends”, but to Professor David King, the Government’s
chief scientific adviser. He described the handling of last year’s
foot-and-mouth epidemic as “quite an achievement . . . a magnificent
record”. He told the Today programme yesterday that securing
Britain’s status as an FMD-free country was a cause for “celebration”.
This is taking presentation beyond mere spin.
It is the steamroller approach to bad news — you simply flatten
it into the ground and roll on as if nothing had happened. The fact
that it comes from a scientist rather than a politician is rather
shocking. It suggests that, here too, factual evidence is less important
than defending positions. Professor King was reacting to the European
Parliament’s report on how Britain had dealt with the outbreak.
It concluded that the Government had been ill-prepared, slow and
inefficient in its response, that the mass culling of healthy animals
had been “unacceptable”, and that the slaughter had caused
enormous suffering and social dislocation, resulting in massive
financial losses to tourism and sport, as well as farming.
On the scientific side, it said that the UK’s
contingency planning for vaccination had been minimal, and was a
serious policy flaw. Far from being unworkable, as Professor King
and his colleagues have consistently claimed, vaccination would
have enabled Britain to control the outbreak more quickly, without
the killing and burning which caused such damage. “In future,”
it recommended, “when an outbreak occurs, emergency vaccination,
with the aim of allowing animals to live for normal use, should
no longer be regarded as a last resort for controlling FMD, but
must be considered as a first-choice option from the outset.”
One might have thought that this conclusion, flying as it does in
the face of government policy, would have provoked a vigorous response
from Professor King. But no. Pressed to say how Britain would respond
if there were another outbreak, he talked about the importance of
restricting animal movements. The 20-day ban on moving newly purchased
sheep or cattle meant that the epidemic “should never happen
again”. In short, controlling the disease is now in the hands
of farmers rather than scientists. It is not an encouraging prospect.
I find Professor King’s obduracy almost impossible
to comprehend. In Uruguay, recently, a full-scale FMD outbreak was
brought under control after all its ten million cattle had been
vaccinated. The disease was eradicated in 15 weeks, and fewer than
7,000 animals were killed. Uruguay is once again exporting meat
to the EU. It has to de-bone and hang it first, but that seems a
modest price to pay, compared to the multibillion- pound cost of
our own epidemic.
Why, then, is that route not open to Britain?
Professor King argues that one of the barriers against vaccination
is that there are no “validated” tests to distinguish
between vaccinated and infected animals — so there is a risk
of spreading, rather than containing, the disease. He must know
that there are perfectly good tests available, and the only reason
for the delay is that the OIE, the Paris-based organisation whose
approval is needed, suffers from ice-bound bureaucracy. Why is Britain
not loudly complaining about the delays? Why are we not, in the
words of the EU report, “expanding research into vaccines”
and taking the lead in science, rather than waiting for European
bureaucrats to tell us what to do? Why are we choosing to protect
farm exports at all costs, instead of using every opportunity to
make the case for good science and humane practice?
I wish that Professor King would tell us.
Magnus Linklater, Times Columnist
Related Articles on Land-Care
Final Report
of the European Parliament Temporary Committee on Foot and Mouth
Disease (18/12/2002)
Correspondence with UBI:
FMD vaccines and diagnostic tests (16/12/02)
Editorial - UBI FMD Vaccine Advance
(16/12/02)
New development in FMD
vaccine - UBI Press Release, 9th December 2002 (11/12/02)
EU Temporary
Committee on FMD: Compare Draft Report (20th Sept 2002) with Final
Report (20th Nov 2002) (28/11/02)
European Temporary
Committee on FMD (08/11/02)
Update September
2002 on Uruguay 2001 FMD Outbreak and its Subsequent Control (04/11/02)
Editorial -
20 Day Standstill Rule for Livestock (28/10/02)
Comments
on the Draft Report of the EU FMD Inquiry (07/10/02)
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