Meeting with Veterinary Expert, Linda Farrant
If you want to fudge an unpopular issue in Government, one of the easiest ways is to use bad science as an excuse to avoid important decisions like culling diseased badgers. The Randomised Badger Culling Trial, RCBT, has been held up as a reason not to take action on bovine TB. I met with recently retired DEFRA vet, Linda Farrant, to discuss concerns about the RBCT and the attitude of vets to this important issue.
This trial was fatally flawed from the outset, as it did not allow the investigation of whole set culling, but only allowed for very short 2 week periods of cage trapping and shooting of badgers. The trial areas were far too small and the trial of so-called reactive culling, was only continued for 1 year. The trial was logistically flawed and severely disrupted by foot and mouth disease and, in some areas, by animal rights activists.
The report of the scientific group was that culling could not be justified due to an increase in bovine TB at the boundaries of culled areas, but ongoing analysis of these boundary areas showed that in the years after the cull, there was a drop in bovine TB; these results were published, but too late for them to be taken into account.
Vets are agreed that badgers are an important vector for transmitting TB to cattle. The cattle are repeatedly culled but the source of infection is allowed to remain. This makes no sense and is immensely damaging to the morale of farmers battling to keep the disease under control.
The problem is spreading; Linda told me that cats are now becoming infected as well as other animals like alpacas and deer. Whilst there is no risk from drinking pasteurised milk, there is a risk to farmers and all of them will know of colleagues who have been affected. For badgers too, TB is horrific, resulting in a slow and distressing death. Badgers can suffer for many years with the disease and are heavy excreters of bovine tuberculosis bacteria in their urine, faeces and saliva; far more so than cattle.
Many people assume that vaccination trials hold the key to solving TB in badgers, but this is not the case. Vaccination will never treat a diseased badger, and it will be years before we know if it can be effective in preventing it in healthy badgers. I fully support the farming community in their call to allow culling of diseased badgers to help prevent the inexorable spread of TB especially in Devon, which has the highest incidence in Britain.
The numbers speak for themselves:
Numbers of animals slaughtered in Devon as a result of TB:
1998....599
2006 ...4471
2007....5388
2008....7163
In the first 6 months of 2009 provisional figures are 4600, so we are on course for another huge annual increase.
Doing nothing should not be an option.
