Foot and mouth

[Madasafish]

I understand from Last Night's Newsnight that DEFRA approved the site for animal research.
DEFRA's rules say you should not build research site on zones with high risk of flooding.
Th Envirnoment Agency website (DEFRA!) show the lab site has high risk of flooding.

If you made it up, no-one would believe you. These people are clowns...and if they were companies we would have Ministers ranting about how evil and incompetent they are.

But it's DEFRA> which is a new way to say Totally Incompetent.

[valmarg]

In 2001 the Ministry for agriculture, fisheries and food (MAFF) changed its name to DEFRA.

I understand that one of the reasons for the change of name was. that during the 2001 F&M outbreak MAFF was known as 'murdering animals for fun'.

Either way, whatever the department is called, it seems to be as incompetent as ever!!

valmarg

[nick the grief]

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....

It wasn't middle management Andrew ... it was EU legislation

[Madasafish]

"it was EU legislation"

No . It was the way We (UK) IMPLEMENTED EU legislation.. There is a difference....

[valmarg]

"it was EU legislation"

No . It was the way We (UK) IMPLEMENTED EU legislation.. There is a difference....

My understanding is that EU legislation overrides any UK legislation, although I do admit we do go overboard on the implementation, particularly Human Rights.

Whereabouts up the moorlands are you madasafish? We are in Alton (as in Towers).

valmarg

[kernowyon]

despite the apparent relaxing of the transportation etc, all the footpaths and heathland around us is still out of bounds, getting fed up with trying to find dog walking patch that hasn't got red/yellow tape across the entrance, so i went a little further afield, found a wonderful damson tree there so have filled two carriers with them and going to make loads of jam, sorry bit sidelined there, one of the farms which had pedigree cattle on it slaughtered turned out to not be Foot and Mouth after all, the farmer is devistated. still loads of gossip about cause of it, but the 'locals' have the labs as prime suspect despite the denials of both suspected parties, they will start blaming each other soon.

despite the sun shining today, there is a definate cloud hanging over the village, hope this is over soon.

[TPeers]

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?

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.valmarg

Most cattle in Europe and I believe in South America, is vaccinated against F&M. The vaccine has been around for years and the inoculated herds build a natural immunity due to low exposure levels.

British cattle are routinely slaughtered, no inoculations, no building of immunity - just thoughtless bureaucracy destroying livelihoods.

Aaaaggghhhh!!!!!!!!


Rant over! Thank you for your patience

Terry

[Madasafish]

>Valmarg
Sunny Biddulph:-)

[valmarg]

TPeers, the following is a copy of a letter in today's Daily Telegraph:-

"Sir ……….. asks why vaccination is not an option for foot and mouth disease. The problem with vaccination is that it doesn’t always work, is expensive and needs to be repeated at frequent intervals. It would be impossible to police.

It affects not only domestic animals but wild animals, too, so although it is theoretically possible to eradicate the disease, vaccination would more or less ensure that it became permanently endemic.

It would be impossible to tell whether the animals were disease-free, so it would become impossible to export meat or milk products, since it would be impossible to attest these as virus free. They could be a source of infection for countries not having the disease.

The combination of loss of markets with increased costs of production would put many people out of business."

The case for vaccination or not, seems more complicated than would at first appear.

All I will predict is, that not one 'head will roll' nobody will be sacked for incompetence. Compensation will, eventually!!! be paid out. Meanwhile the farmers who have been affected, and have seen their life's work, if not generations of their family's work destroyed will have to try to carry on.

Who'd be a farmer in this country??

valmarg.

PS madasafish, if you and your family ever fancy a day out at the idiots funfair, we get local rezzies tickets, and you would be more than welcome to some.

[bubblewrap]

I understand that one of the reasons for the change of name was. that during the 2001 F&M outbreak MAFF was known as 'murdering animals for fun
DEFRA = Department for the Elimination of Farm Reared Animals

[TPeers]

I understand that one of the reasons for the change of name was. that during the 2001 F&M outbreak MAFF was known as 'murdering animals for fun
DEFRA = Department for the Elimination of Farm Reared Animals

I feel a name change coming on......

[TPeers]

TPeers, the following is a copy of a letter in today's Daily Telegraph:-

"Sir ……….. asks why vaccination is not an option for foot and mouth disease. The problem with vaccination is that it doesn’t always work, is expensive and needs to be repeated at frequent intervals. It would be impossible to police.

It affects not only domestic animals but wild animals, too, so although it is theoretically possible to eradicate the disease, vaccination would more or less ensure that it became permanently endemic.

It would be impossible to tell whether the animals were disease-free, so it would become impossible to export meat or milk products, since it would be impossible to attest these as virus free. They could be a source of infection for countries not having the disease.

The combination of loss of markets with increased costs of production would put many people out of business."

The case for vaccination or not, seems more complicated than would at first appear.

All I will predict is, that not one 'head will roll' nobody will be sacked for incompetence. Compensation will, eventually!!! be paid out. Meanwhile the farmers who have been affected, and have seen their life's work, if not generations of their family's work destroyed will have to try to carry on.

Who'd be a farmer in this country??

valmarg.

PS madasafish, if you and your family ever fancy a day out at the idiots funfair, we get local rezzies tickets, and you would be more than welcome to some.

Thanks for that, interesting. What is more interesting for me is that we import cattle and so on that has been vaccinated, and could therefore be a 'carrier', and this state of affairs is kept very quite!

And what about the poor bloke who had a sick cow, lost his pedigree herd and was then told - sorry, not F&M, didn't need to do that!

Will he get his compensation?


I accept I don't understand all the rammifications of the vaccine question but if it works in Europe, why can't it here?

[Sue]

Presumably all this imported meat is at the cheaper end of the market And to be found in processed food? And mostly to be found on sale in supermarkets?
And while I think it's disgraceful that it should be imported, sold and promoted, we the consumers can say no.
And if it's more expensive to buy British meat then we can eat less of it.
After the Bernard Matthews fiasco (compensation) I've lost faith in our politicians and their attitude to our food and farmers.
Sue

[sewer rat]

Most cattle in Europe and I believe in South America, is vaccinated against F&M. The vaccine has been around for years and the inoculated herds build a natural immunity due to low exposure levels.

British cattle are routinely slaughtered, no inoculations, no building of immunity - just thoughtless bureaucracy destroying livelihoods.

Aaaaggghhhh!!!!!!!!


Rant over! Thank you for your patience

Terry

You can vaccinate against F&M but the problem is that there are many strains of the disease and before the vaccine can be used, the particular strain needs to be identified.
Although up here in Scotland we have had some restrictions lifted (ex farm to abbatoir) a lot of my mates are still very very concerned about the knock on effects. In particular the cancellation of the Lairg lamb sales next week - where tens if not hundreds of thousands of sheep from all over the Highlands, crofts farms and estates alike are sold - biggest sheep sale of the year and for some hill units, the only real source of income for their years hard graft.

[kernowyon]

sorry to drag this one up again, but here we go again, they have only just taken the control zone road signs down and they are putting them up again further up the same road!!! the last outbreak was in the next village from us and now the new outbreak is close to my workplace, (not really paranoid, wasn't me honest) it also appears that it is the same strain (uncomfirmed) if it is confirmed as the same, that is meant to be good news! according to the press, means that they are still isolated cases! tell that to the farmers whose buisnesses are once again threatened.