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Comments on FMD InquiriesFollowing publication of the foot and mouth disease inquiry reports by the Royal Society London and the Royal Society Edinburgh, three articles of interest were published in the newspaper Scotland on Sunday. These have been reproduced on this page. Simply scroll down the page to view them, or click on the links below. Also on this page is an article from The Spectator by Emma Tennant in which she comments on the Anderson Inquiry Report. So That's it Then - No One to Blame
for F&M Disaster Vaccination was not the Answer to
F&M Vaccination a Tool of First Resort
in Foot and Mouth A Barbaric Policy
So That's it Then - No One to Blame for F&M DisasterMagnus Linklater, Columnist. Humility is a rare commodity in public life these days. In politics it is virtually unknown. Rarely, however, has its absence been more glaringly apparent than in the aftermath to last year’s outbreak of foot and mouth. The three national reports which have now been published into the origins of the disease and the devastation it wrought upon the country have exposed a sorry picture of our national institutions and their inability to respond. Caught out by the early spread of the disease, they seem to have been incapable of understanding the nature of the virus or the way in which it was spreading. There was incompetence from civil servants, a failure of leadership by ministers, narrow self-interest from the farmers’ unions and the food industry; a disastrous lack of communications from top to bottom of the system. A nation that once prided itself on the sound state of its veterinary science emerges as ill-prepared for a major epidemic and bereft of clear-cut decision-making. For all that, however, we have heard not a whisper of apology from those responsible. Margaret Beckett, the minister whose department was largely responsible for the mass slaughter and the funeral pyres, while acknowledging to parliament that mistakes had been made, took no personal responsibility for any of them and was not to be drawn on what steps would be taken to correct them. Tony Blair, who ‘took control’ of the strategy during that awful spring when millions of healthy animals were slaughtered and our tourist industry was driven on to the ropes, has left for his holiday without saying anything about the wholesale reforms that are clearly essential if the same mistakes are to be avoided next time. Last week, the government’s chief scientist, Professor David King, came to Scotland to address the Royal Society of Edinburgh, whose own report exposes the widespread misconceptions about vaccination and the inadequacies of our scientific research. From him at least one might have expected a measure of self-criticism. After all, it was he who was the Prime Minister’s principal adviser on handling the disease; he who once boasted that the culling operation had been implemented "within days" when, as all the reports confirm, it needed the army to do the job; he who claimed in April that the epidemic was "fully under control" when of course it lingered on until September; above all it was he who ensured that vaccination, the one course that might have saved the countryside, was never adopted as a policy. By arguing that vaccinated animals could still carry the disease and become hidden spreaders of it, he effectively skewered the pro-vaccination argument. Yet that claim was directly challenged by the RSE’s report. In paragraph 100, it examines the ‘carrier’ issue and dismisses it. "There are no grounds for believing that vaccination per se will enhance the carrier state," it says. "Indeed there is some evidence that substantially fewer carrier animals are found amongst vaccinated animals that have been exposed to infection." At the very least one might have expected Professor King to take those arguments on board. Instead, he made it clear that his views had not changed. Next time, we were given to understand, the same policies would be adopted. For sheer complacency, however, I would like to single out one man whose adamantine opposition to vaccination, and whose close contacts with the Prime Minister helped ensure that the programme of mass slaughter was followed through to the bitter end, whatever the arguments raised against it. Jim Walker, president of the National Farmers Union Scotland, was quoted last week as saying of the report by Dr Ian Anderson - ‘Lessons to be Learned’ - that it bore out his own views on the need for good planning and communication. "It is reassuring," he said, "that Dr Anderson agrees with these crucial points." This is quite breathtaking. What Dr Anderson in fact makes clear, as do all the other reports, is that it was opposition to vaccination from the farmers’ unions, on the narrow grounds that exports had to be preserved at all costs, which meant that this civilised option which would have avoided so much of the horror and the suffering, was never implemented. No one was more vociferous in condemning it than Mr Walker. In April last year he launched a furious attack on ministers who were beginning to consider it. "Vaccination is not an option," he said. "I think it is absolutely despicable that politicians for dirty political ends are using farmers who are in a desperate situation," he said. "The politicians see vaccination as an easy route out and are clearly more biased in favour of tourism." So there we have it. Mr Walker believes that an export trade which amounts to no more than £500m a year is more important than a tourist industry whose losses have been calculated at up to £9bn. And he was arguing, as we now know from the RSE report, on the basis of wrong information, biased reasoning, and a minimal understanding of science. If farmers are indeed in "a desperate situation" then perhaps their leader must bear some of the responsibility. It is time, I would suggest, for a little humility from the man universally known as ‘Walker the talker’.
Vaccination Was not the Answer to F&MJim Walker, President, NFU Scotland, Rural Centre,
Ingliston. Magnus Linklater really has got the wrong end of the stick in his article about last year’s foot and mouth outbreak (‘So that’s it then - no one to blame for F&M disaster’, July 28, 2002). And he has chosen to quote me completely out of context. The Royal Society report which examined the scientific issues surrounding the outbreak makes clear that in the circumstances prevailing in Scotland last year, where sheep were the main vector for the disease and where the outbreak was multi-centred and complex, vaccination was not the answer. This echoes the NFU Scotland position. The report recommends moving to a position where emergency vaccination could be used in future - in conjunction with the slaughter of infected animals and dangerous contacts. And it recognises the obstacles which would have to be overcome before such a policy could be introduced. These have been consistently highlighted by NFUS and include the fact that marker vaccines and tests to distinguish between vaccinated animals and infected animals need to be fully validated; trade implications both within and beyond the EU need to be sorted out and retailers and consumers would need to accept products from vaccinated animals. Meanwhile, Mr Linklater fails to even mention the most frightening aspect of the whole foot and mouth debacle: our woefully inadequate import controls leave us vulnerable to the horrors of foot and mouth or another disease striking again. And if you need any proof, just look at last week’s revelations of illegal pork and beef from China on sale in our shops. An influential journalist like Mr Linklater would do more good putting pressure on the government to sort this out rather than wasting his time on misguided personal attacks. [TOP]
Vaccination a tool of first resort in foot and mouthGavin McCrone, Vice-Chairman, Royal Society of
Edinburgh Inquiry into Foot and Mouth Disease Jim Walker, president of the NFU Scotland, goes too far in asserting that the Royal Society of Edinburgh inquiry, of which I was vice-chairman, accepted that vaccination was not the answer for the 2001 epidemic of foot and mouth disease (Letters, August 4). The focus of our inquiry was to find a better way of handling this dreadful disease in future, in the firm belief that what happened in 2001 was unacceptable and should not have been necessary. We recognised that the disease was in some respects better handled in Scotland than in England and was eliminated more quickly. But the cost was immense, not only in economic terms but in trauma and anguish for so many of those affected. Having examined all the issues, we recommended that for the future emergency vaccination should be a tool of first rather than last resort, with the vaccinated animals allowed to live and subsequently go into the food chain. Because we concerned ourselves with the future we did not make a judgment on whether vaccination should or should not have been used in 2001. We recognised there would have been problems to overcome had vaccination been used then, but the policy which was followed also created major problems and did widespread damage. Some of the problems raised by vaccination, such as the trade restrictions following the use of vaccine, have now been eased, and we recommended how others should be tackled for the future. But we were impressed with the experience of Uruguay, which also had a very serious outbreak in 2001. This started in late April, two months after the first case in the UK; Uruguay vaccinated its cattle with relatively small numbers slaughtered and was able to export deboned beef to the European Union on November 1, 2001. The restrictions on exports from the UK to the European Union were not lifted until January 2002. The real lesson of the 2001 epidemic was that, despite the known spread of the disease across the world, the UK was inadequately prepared.
A Barbaric Policy Emma Tennant Emma Tennant says Iain Anderson’s report
on foot-and-mouth is a feeble whitewash To those of us who were at the sharp end during last year’s foot-and-mouth epidemic, these words rang very hollow indeed. I remembered the way in which the government did all that it could to stifle debate on the merits of vaccination, and refused to listen to the country’s leading experts, or to develop new diagnostic tests. I thought of the brilliant young scientist whose expertise was ignored. He wrote that ‘there is little or no point in undertaking a career in veterinary science on infectious diseases of global importance if the peer-reviewed papers we are meant to produce are dismissed when inconvenient’ — and he has now emigrated. At the end of his lecture, Professor King admitted that he has a problem: ‘a mistrustful public’. Surveys show that 48 per cent of those asked believe university scientists, but only 20 per cent have confidence in government scientists, and a minuscule 4 per cent believe the politicians. As one of those mistrustful members of the public, I would put the problem the other way round. The national mood of weary cynicism is caused by dishonest politicians. It is now almost a year since the end of the FMD epidemic. The various inquiries have published their reports, but has the government learnt anything? Apparently not. Dr Iain Anderson, chairman of the Lessons Learned Enquiry, sets the tone of his report by saying that ‘the nation will not be best served by seeking to blame individuals’. Up to a point, Lord Copper. What this means is that, though government bungling turned a serious problem into an unprecedented catastrophe, nobody is expected to take responsibility. What strange times we live in. If a hard-pressed teacher smacks a child, or an exhausted nurse makes a mistake, he or she is mercilessly pilloried and their career ruined. But when the politicians and their advisers get things wrong, to the tune of £10 billion and 70 suicides, they duck all responsibility. At the height of the epidemic Mr Blair announced that he was taking personal charge of the battle against FMD — and in a recent television broadcast he emphasised, ‘If you’re Prime Minister, then the buck stops with you.’ I wonder if our Tony knows the old saying ‘There’s no such thing as a bad regiment, only bad officers’? So what did they do, these bad officers? For a start, they told lies — lots of lies. The first casualties of the disaster were truth and trust. Over and over again the Minister of Agriculture, Nick Brown, and the chief vet, Jim Scudamore, said that the outbreak was under control, when any fool could see that the virus was spreading like wildfire. Dr Anderson gives one shocking example. On 11 March, Brown told the BBC’s Breakfast with Frost programme that he was ‘absolutely certain’ that the disease was under control. What this remark did, of course, was to create a cynical and dishonest atmosphere, and to destroy what little trust still existed between the government and the whole rural community — not just farmers. But, incredibly, Dr Anderson comments, ‘It is understandable that the Minister should have sought to reassure the public.’ Dr Anderson goes on to say, even more absurdly, ‘The Minister’s comments also sent a message to government as a whole that the outbreak was being comprehensively managed by Maff.’ Surely our canny Prime Minister is not taken in by his own Cabinet ministers? Anderson stresses the lack of formal ‘trigger points’ to flag up the moment at which a local problem becomes national, and recommends a new horizon-scanning procedure to solve this problem. In fact, of course, all that is needed is common sense. Most people scan the horizon perfectly well by watching Channel Four News, reading the papers or talking to people on the ground. So why didn’t the government listen to the MPs whose constituencies were suffering so terribly? This is one of many questions that Anderson fails to answer. David Maclean, MP for Penrith and the Border, begged the Prime Minister to declare a state of emergency in Cumbria for weeks before the army was eventually called in and COBR (the Cabinet Office Briefing Room, which is used to manage civil emergencies) opened. But no one in London listened. Dr Anderson makes mistakes of his own. The statement that ‘slaughtering of stock on contiguous premises only occurred if the slaughter on suspicion case tested positive’ is not true. I know this from my own experience. One of our farms was culled in early April as a result of what was then called ‘clinical diagnosis’, which sounds convincing but in fact just means the vet’s best guess. Cases like this were later described as ‘slaughter on suspicion’, most likely to make the figures look better in the run-up to the election. Our vet wanted a second opinion, but this was refused by Maff HQ at Page Street in London, where decisions were being taken. Without waiting for the diagnosis to be confirmed by tests, Maff began to slaughter our neighbours’ healthy animals. The tests came back negative: the whole thing was a terrible mistake. But our farm was now classified as ‘Infected Premises’, and there was no way of removing that label: once an IP, always an IP. It meant, for instance, that the whole place was subject to an incredibly expensive, and absolutely pointless, cleansing and disinfecting programme. Then an official rang me to say that we would not be allowed to restock for four months. A whole summer’s grass would be wasted. I am not normally a foul-mouthed person, but at that point I let fly with a spot of verbal abuse. Even as I did so, I felt sorry for the official at the other end of the line. He had not chosen the unscientific, impractical and barbaric policy that he had to enforce. So who was responsible for the debacle? Dr Anderson’s report poses more questions than it answers. He suggests a few unconvincing explanations for the month-long delay in calling in the army and opening COBR. I suggest that he asks the Parliamentary Recording Unit (tel: 020 7219 5511) for the video of the public accounts committee held on 3 July 2002. There he will see Brian Bender — permanent secretary at Maff’s successor, Defra — saying that the delay was due to indecision at the highest levels of government. Most important of all, who was responsible for the extraordinary experiment of killing healthy animals on farms which were either contiguous to, or within 3km of, every IP? This unscientific, unworkable policy was adopted by the government in preference to the use of vaccination. It made British politicians and scientists the laughing-stock of the world. None of these reports provides a satisfactory explanation. Dr Anderson makes an extraordinary statement in his chapter on pre-emptive slaughter. He says that in Scotland ‘informally at first, and, as far as we have been able to discover, without any scientific evidence, plans were rapidly worked out for a 3km pre-emptive sheep cull’. The idea apparently came from the Scottish Executive and the NFU Scotland, which worked together very closely. Why did Anderson not have access to the records of the discussions which led to this bizarre policy? The boffins who produced the admirably clear report of the Royal Society of Edinburgh say that the pre-emptive 3km cull of sheep was undertaken on the advice of the state veterinary service. Who is right? Wherever the idea came from, it was announced on 15 March (though not implemented immediately). Meanwhile panic was rising. On 21 March, Professor Roy Anderson, head of infectious disease epidemiology at Imperial College, told the BBC’s Newsnight that the disease was out of control. Dr Anderson says that he was ‘unable to find a clear account of decision-making around that time ...Brian Bender told us that there was a great deal of confusion.’ After 26 March, the chief scientist, Professor David King, took the lead and — following advice from Professor Anderson’s group of modellers, none of whom had any previous experience of FMD — persuaded the government to cull all animals on contiguous premises. The FMD experts and the pro-vaccination lobby had been sidelined, though the debate went on until Easter. Dr Anderson has failed to find out what happened at this crucial stage. He says that ‘some of the most important [decisions] taken during the outbreak were recorded in the most perfunctory way and sometimes not at all.... This has made the task of conducting an audit trail extremely difficult.’ There are three possible explanations for Dr Anderson’s failure to find the records. Perhaps the relevant documents were so embarrassing to the government that they have been destroyed. Assuming that they still exist, Dr Anderson has either seen them but, owing to a psychological block, forgotten what they said, or the authorities have deliberately concealed the papers. If the government is serious in its espousal of ‘openness’ and ‘transparency’, it must tell the truth. I attended the meeting held by Dr Anderson in Lockerbie. He came across as a decent and open-minded man. His report is a feeble whitewash and a bitter disappointment. So much is left out. Occasional quotes from farmers, vets and other front-line troops hint at the story that remains to be told. It has been well said that the Anderson report reads like a court case in which only the defence lawyers have been heard. The saddest long-term result of the 2001 FMD disaster is the destruction of trust. It will not be restored until the government comes clean about what happened and why. Only then will the lessons be well and truly learnt. Return to the FMD homepage for further reading and references. |