Foot and mouth

[andrewo]

Anyone heard the news, that they are saying Foot and Mouth was spread from an allotment site near the quarantine area. It appears that whoever worked at the labs in Surrey had an allotment, went there, and next door to the allotment was cows - oh oh - this is no joke - now Brown's cobra cabinet is looking at the positioning of allotments all over the UK. Does the word farce spring to mind? Has anyone else heard this, is it the 1st of April, I did see it on TV but then again the news is so much hyperbole.

[Nicos]

Think they should ban foreign travel whilst they are at it!!

[kernowyon]

not guilty, we live in a village nextdoor to pirbright (the suspected source) and rumours are rife, will be v. difficult to get FYM from local farmers from now on methinks!

[valmarg]

Think they should ban foreign travel whilst they are at it!!

Not so much foreign travel, as ban the imports of foreign meat, whether it be from the EU, South America, etc. The only exception I would make on this would be lamb from New Zealand.

I don't buy supermarket meat anymore, preferring to use local butchers, farm shops, particularly the Chatsworth farm shop.

I think a lot of crimes are committed in the name of cheap meat in the UK, thanks mainly to the EU.

valmarg

[NOG]

I think any one who wanted us in the EEC should hang their heads in shame.

We were doing ok with Austrialian and NZ Lamb and we had the Commonweilth to trade with.

Remember British Standard. if it had the Kite mark it worked....now England seems to be the only ones playing by the rules. The French dump all the Illigials on us.

[Alice]

Are Scotland, Ireland and Wales not playing by the rules Nog ? Do you know something we don't know - or did you mean Britain ?
I know very little about this, but my heart goes out to the farmers who are again having their livlihoods destroyed by this disease. In the last outbreak maybe we could say they have to look at their animal rearing practises. On this occasion - well dear knows what is going on.

[kernowyon]

tried to take the mutt for a walk and all the local heath land is now closed to the public. also saw my first disinfectant mat, still at least only the three confirmed cases so far. rumours are currently the recent floods, sabotage, allotments, UFO's and bigfoot. OK not sure 'bout the last two but it looks like the press and the companies involved want a scapegoat so anyone seems fair game at the moment.

[andrewo]

Hmmmm, if I was a conspiracy theorist....what a nice way to kill off farming and allotments in the UK. They all want us round TVs, folks, run, run from cobra. Hail to the braindead generation!!!!!

Seriously, they are looking for a scapegoat and it won't be DEFRA or the labs.

[Madasafish]

Any country that places laboratories in the middle of farming country.. let alone animal disease labs next to cows...gets the infection outbreaks it deserves.

The positioning of a research lab should be based on the likely risk to nearby inhabitants (animal or human) and the implications...

It's horribly obvious that both the Labs in question should not be within 20 miles of any cows/sheep or other animals likely to contract F&M.

It's so bloody obvious that no-one has asked what it's doing there. It's absolute muppetry. Both should be relocated to a remote island....Rockall?

As for the ergumenets about allotments.. 100% irrelevant. No disease should be able to escape. once it does.. it's pot luck where it strikes. This is all spin to hide the obvious and clear errors on basic siting of the plant and failed biosecurity..

[kernowyon]

about five miles away from us is the VLA (veterinary Labs) where they actually do the testing and diagnosis of FMD. the labs are actually in the middle of a residential area, they have all sorts of bugs/viruses in that place and little thought is placed on the fact that people live next door to this place, so why would they be concerned about placing a lab/reasearch company in the countryside near susceptible farms. it's all about money in the end.

[andrewo]

Ah but they will never admit to that - they will blame everyone but themselves, silly. It's the same problem we have with the transporting of cattle. Originally small slaughter houses dealt with cattle and instead they centralised it(?) - middle management gone mad - now they transport them too far, spreading any disease further. I have worked in small slaughter houses (independent) and the big ones - not a fan of the latter, as meat travelled to far and the produce was often stressed or worse (in the case of chickens) too many packed into small cases, a third of them suffocated to death and the rest are covered in their own...well you can guess....and then the government holds up their hands and say, why does this disease spread? We have to respect our meat, from the field to the final day, and if that means local slaughterhouses, less travelling miles and a re-thinking of how we distribute meat, then it's time we did. If any disease gets into the human system, due to population numbers and the same ad hoc approach to centralisation of the workforce (note how we have the same system for workforces, e.g. mass transit to centralised places of work, that we do for meat), the conservative estimates are that 1-3 will be carriers of any disease. We live in a mad world, the industrial revolution and capitalism is to blame - neither of which have anything to do with democracy but that is another argument....

[zebedee]

Why is it that, on the continent, meat from cattle infected with FMD is still sold to the public because the meat is perfectly alright for human consumption? They do not kill off millions of cattle. Who's right? We or They?

[valmarg]

What I find unbelievable is that we are importing beef from Brazil, where F&M is endemic, and the food hygiene regulations fall way below ours.

The way this outbreak is being handled shows that no lessons have been learned from the 2001 outbreak. Carting carcases miles in lorries to be incinerated, where the infected fluids can (and will) leak on to the roads, thereby providing a source of further infection, is madness. In fact the way things are being handled now, nothing seems to have been learned from the 1967 outbreak.

Alice I don't think farming practices were to blame for the last outbreak, if I remember correctly it was imported meat, but I stand to be corrected.

Bernard Matthews was to blame for the bird flue outbreak, by his unhygienic methods. Why the taxpayer had to pay him compensation for bringing the attack on himself I shall never know. OO er, sorry I do know, it was because the EU told us we had to!!!

NOG, I'm with you, we were always very well served by our 'old colonials' in peacetime and in war. I hope grocer Heath is currently rotting in purgatory, and for the next million years, before descending into hell, for taking us into the (now) EU. But thats going off (full cock) in this case away from topic.

valmarg

[bubblewrap]

Anyone heard the news, that they are saying Foot and Mouth was spread from an allotment site near the quarantine area. It appears that whoever worked at the labs in Surrey had an allotment, went there, and next door to the allotment was cows - oh oh - this is no joke - now Brown's cobra cabinet is looking at the positioning of allotments all over the UK. Does the word farce spring to mind? Has anyone else heard this, is it the 1st of April, I did see it on TV but then again the news is so much hyperbole.

Government involvement More like FOOT IN MOUTH!

[moggssue]

Totally agree with Madasafish!