NFU says badger cull must still go ahead despite MP vote

“Well fancy that, me running a computer programme on a continuous loop. Oh that I was that knowledgeable with computers it would save me many thousands of hours.:((

I think you will find that the analysis of the RBCT shows significantly more than a 16% reduction in TB. It should read 34% if the final analysis had been carried on to include the years following the trials. Still hopefully this is now being re-analysed.

Oh and another thing, in case you think that the science trying to find solutions to the problems associated with vaccines, DIVA's etc. has come to an end, I can assure you that there are in access of 5 different sites (in this country alone) where work is ongoing.”

“You want to hope that your vet picks up the fact that your pet has TB otherwise they will certainly suffer. My poor dog wasn't diagnosed until the lesion that grew rapidly on the back of her neck burst and she had to be euthanased. She was found to have lesions throughout her body.”

“In any right angled triangle, the area of the square whose side is the hypotenuse (the side opposite the right angle) is equal to the sum of the areas of the squares whose sides are the two legs (the two sides that meet at a right angle).

For the benefit of eyeopener, I am not Pythagoras. . He has difficulty accepting scientific or medical facts.”

“@eyeopener

For an anonymous poster you've got a damned cheek.

All you need to worry about is that I have now forgotten more of the finer details of the science surrounding tuberculosis and the BCG than you will ever know. . I attended my first lectures on the subject when still only 18. . Professionals currently involved like Dr Ueli Zellweger are loath to put their heads above the parapet because of extremists.”

“All domestic animals that come victims of Mycobacterium bovis will have to be euthanazed.

You are now beginning to understand why M.bovis can not ever be allowed to become increasingly endemic in badgers.

Hence this oft repeated post!!!!!

Apart from the obviously now very urgent imperative to end the slaughter of thousands of reactor cattle that's causing endless misery for farming families; those of us who care about children, way above their own self-promotion, know that there has to be a badger cull or eventually we'll just have more and more of this.

EMAIL SENT/RECEIVED April 2nd. 2006

County Times. Powys, Mid Wales.

"Dear Mary,

This is winding up into something very nasty. We were told about the problem last autumn, but the newspapers / media had very little on it. Local vets and farmers knew and fed us bits. This (below) was published 30th. March, and our source has now had another conversation with SVS vets and private vets in the area.

In the late 1990's just a couple of farms were under bTb restriction, but that has now surged to become 30/40. Dead badgers have been found in the area, including one on school playing fields.

This carcass was taken to test for 'poison'. but HSE stepped in and stopped the postmortem - inadequate Group 3 pathogen facilities (?). . It was riddled.

SVS sent letters to Welsh Assembly / Page St. and they were lost stolen or strayed. The whole episode was buried. Page St. wanted absolutely no positive Tb badgers.

In the last 3/4 years eight or nine children, not including this little one, have had treatment for enlarged neck glands. This involved either a 6 month course of antibiotics, or operations to remove. Classic m.bovis lesions I'm told (by a vet) but referred euphemistically by doctors as "Atypical tuberculosis from a non human source". They are telling these kids, that they picked it up from the ground.

The badgers use the school playing fields as latrines, and a newish housing estate borders the same farmland too.

We're ignoring those canaries again. (reactor cows)"

http://tinyurl.com/9r6ennv”

“@2ladybugs

Thank you for clarifying that.

The reference had appeared so frequently, that readers could have been forgiven for believing the two were one and the same.

So in the absence of any other declaration by Charles, the reader may assume that he is just an interested commentator, and that he is just like anyone else including myself in that he has no professional standing as a vet or scientist.

I'm grateful for your assistance in this.”

“Watch out,after badgers, our cats are next!!!!

Finally I am amazed that in all the discussions about bTB, the testing of dairy and beef herds and biosecurity on farmyards the role of pet cats is never mentioned. Cats can carry bTB and being a veterinary surgeon myself I do remember very well the one single cat we had finally sorted out in my home-country some 35 years ago to have infected and reinfected 3 different dairy herds in one bigger hamlet over almost 2 years. To diagnose TB in a cat the usual intra-dermal test is not reliable. The only way to do it is by radiography or by long lasting cultures of dubious excretions.
Dr. Ueli Zellweger, MRCVS, GST, GThT”

“Email received December 30 2009 by Warmwell.

DEFRA and bovine TB

After some 30 years as a country vet for cattle mainly I feel entitled to comment.

When a vet surgeon is called out to treat a cow or a whole herd of cattle it is vital that he finds the real cause of the trouble. Quite often this is an infection by a species of bacterium, virus, a mycosis or when there are parasites involved. It is common that there is a mix or environmental influences e.g. a draught in the calf shed.

It is the skill and experience of a successful vet to find the real diagnose and to treat or eliminate the very cause. Infections by bacteria are normally treated with antibiotics and disinfectants and subsequent preventing methods. If an infection is treated soon after starting success is most of the time quick and guaranteed.

Not so easy to treat are chronic infections. Bovine Tuberculosis ( bTB ) is in 99% of all cases a very chronic disease, mainly because of the extremely slow multiplying of these bacteria. Apart from bTB there are quite a number of other strains causing Tuberculosis like the human strain, the strain causing leprosy, the avian strain, Mycobacterium paratuberculosis (Johns disease) and others which are even harmless.

There are a lot of vaccines against all kind of infections on the market. They normally give quite reliable results if administered correctly and in healthy animals (and humans). For Tuberculosis the common vaccine is the BCG which was found some 80 years ago and has been used to vaccinate healthy babies mainly. BCG does not prevent an infection like all other vaccines; it just keeps it from becoming generalized, thus reducing the risk that the bacteria are swept into various other organs followed by massive excretion (coughing, urine, faeces, milk etc ). There is scientific evidence that the efficiency of BCG is not more than 50 % and in a lot of countries it is therefore not used any longer.

Any animal, group or herd of with bTB is a focus and as long as such a focus is not eliminated it is a high risk for further infections. It is outrageous that these aspects are widely ignored by DEFRA for years now with absolutely no end in sight. In 2008 over 40,000 head of cattle reacting to bTB were slaughtered (10% annual increase to be expected) and nobody knows how many 10,000s of badgers and their setts are infected. Thus the infection within this most relevant wildlife reservoir is permanently growing including all its risks of infecting further cattle, other farm animals, pets and humans.

Vaccinating badgers cannot be the solution for there are locally far too many badgers and setts infected and vaccinating cattle with BCG is in my view absolutely contraindicated for the only way of diagnosing bTB in cattle will be seriously compromised.

DEFRA thinks to manage to develop a DIVA test thus being able to differentiate between a skin reaction caused by bTB and the one caused by BCG. It is unclear if such a test ever will reach permission or Europeanwide approbation; however there is a high risk that some countries will decide at some stage that they are not interested in any English beef products any longer when it cannot be guaranteed that there is no bTB. The routine bTB skin test alone in many cases is unreliable enough (inconclusive or even false negative results) and the Gamma Interferon bloodtest - apart from being expensive - is quite often hampered by some other influences. There definitely is no need of another uncertainty in this whole issue.

It is horror for me to see how things are going the wrong way and every month some hundred more farms are starting suffering dramatically. It is not 5 minutes before noon to rethink this whole approach by DEFRA - politically steered as it is - NO it is half past noon and even with a quick U turn the future of battling bTB looks bleak.

Dr Ueli Zellweger MRCVS GST TVL Somerset”

“@eyeopener

Now what the devil are you going on about????

Charles has never ever claimed to be a country vet for 30years nor has he ever claimed to be Dr Ueli Zellweger. . Neither has he ever claimed to be Dr John Gallagher, Professor Ivo Pavlik, Dr Jerome Harms or any other person whose work or statements he regularly uses and attributes.

I hope your analysis, of the links that are put on some of these reports, are not as badly off-centre, because you aren't really going to learn much if that is the case!!!! :(((((”

“@Charles2pk

I am not asking you to reveal personally revealing details, but apart from stating that you have been a country vet for thirty years in these columns, and that you are a vet, for clarities sake are you the Dr Ueli Zellweger MRCVS GST TVL Somerset you frequently quote.

I ask to help myself and other readers put your comments into context.”