Foot and Mouth is a nasty illness. I understand it makes the animal's mouth sore, so that it doesn't want to eat and so loses weight and marketability. It causes their milk to dry up. The virus, which mutates, is transmitted through the air like flu or the common cold, and most animals start recovering after about six weeks. However the animal's temporary loss of weght or milking potential can set farm incomes back for several months, and it is for this reason that few countries which are free of the disease want to trade live or dead animals with countries where the disease is endemic. It is a commercial issue, which has nothing to do with animal welfare or food hygiene.
The question is how best to eradicate the disease from the UK. There are two possibities: killing the animals, or vaccinating them. The cull depends on the animals that are in the infected herd being kept totally isolated from other animals before slaughter. It also depends on the use of disinfectant, because the virus, as well as being transmitted through the air, can also be picked up on the feet of people or other living creatures and carried to other places.
Unfortunately, a farm is not just the home of the farmer and farm animals. Wild deer cross the land unseen. So do other creatures. It may be possible to cull all the deer and dartmoor ponies, to gas all the badgers, and snare, shoot or poison the more visible and "protected" wildlife in the countryside, but there's no way you can hope to eliminate all the otters, voles, moles, stoats, weasels, squirrels, mice, rats and rabbits who might unwittingly carry the desease. Crows are known to perch on the backs of sheep. So, are we going to try and kill all the crows? Honey bees have a range of six miles from the hive. So, should we put all the bee-keepers out of business? Foxhunting has been abolished, but will that mean fewer foxes or make the fox behave like a gentleman, and wash his feet in disinfectant, as he goes from one farm to another? The householder can keep his dog on her lead and walk her on the road, but how many people are going to keep their cats at home and stop them roaming the fields at night?
The culling policy worked in 1967, but when applied in 2001, it devastated the farming industry and set rural tourism back light years
The World has moved on since 1967. At that time animals were killed locally: now superstores insist that they be taken long distances for slaughter. The disease can now spread more rapidly than 40 years ago when it was confined to one area.
In 1967, most people still lived close to their place of work. There were only two motorways. People travelled less and so it was much easier to contain the desease. This is no longer true. According to the National Statistics library, there were 14,096,000 licensed vehicles in 1967: in 1999, there were 23,975,000. In 1979, all motor vehicles travelled 256 billion vehicle kilometers: the figure for 1999 is 467 billion vehicle kilometers.
Now, there are almost twice as many cars travelling almost twice as many miles from one end of the country to the other. So, would it be surprising if animals were to pick up the infection from cars coming from infected areas?
With the current outbreak the same arguments will be used against vaccination as in 2001.
Then we were told that a policy of vaccination would be a confession to other countries that the disease is endemic within the UK. So, does the fact that most UK citizens have been vaccinated against smallpox, TB or polio mean that smallpox, TB and polio are endemic within the UK?
We were told that it would be difficult to identify vaccinated animals, because their blood samples would be similar to those of diseased animals. So, why can't the vaccinated animals have their ears tagged to distinguish them from the rest?
We were told that animals would lose weight and milk-producing capacity if they are vaccinated - but wouldn't a vaccinated herd be better than no herd at all? And why would all animals have to be vaccinated anyway? Why couldn't there be a cordon sanitaire of vaccinated animals rather than a cordon sanitaire of dead animals ?
And finally, if a policy of vaccination, is so detrimental, why is it that there are other countries in the developed world which have it, and seem to be able to manage without a cull?
