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cab
Joined: 01 Nov 2004
Posts: 30173
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 Posted: Thu Nov 05, 09 2:41 pm Post subject: |
 
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| Rob R wrote: |
In those terms yes, I agree, I didn't mean to make comparisons about the actual disease, rather the way in which they are handled by the authorities. These measures may not necessarily reduce the spread and measures, if they don't work, are kept in place at unfair expense whilst other practises continue unchecked. |
While I agree that there are failings in how such disease outbreaks are handled, I'd say that the varying pathogenicity and epidemiology are sufficient to justify the stance that the different pathogens mentioned need to be handled very differently by the authorities. If anything, I'd criticise contingencies put in place where they don't really differentiate enough between diseases. |
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Rob R
Joined: 28 Oct 2004
Posts: 16829
Location: York
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| Posted: Thu Nov 05, 09 2:53 pm Post subject: |
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They're not handled that differently though, both were handled terribly and we had to bear the cost of their decisions. The way legislation is going we are going to have to bear even more of the cost of their cock-ups. You don't mind complying when the cost to you makes a positive difference to the wider community but when you are paying and other people are continuing to do things that do spread the disease then you can't trust those in power to do the right thing. I am all for cost-sharing, but if that means having less control and having to pay then it cannot be justified. If they were paying I would not mind so much. |
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mihto
Joined: 03 Feb 2008
Posts: 2521
Location: West coast of Norway
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| Posted: Thu Nov 05, 09 2:57 pm Post subject: |
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| Ixy wrote: |
| mihto wrote: |
| colour it green wrote: |
as far as I understand it - they are not trying to remove bovine TB because it is a threat to human health.. after all if a cow is found to have it.. it is killed and enters the food chain!!
milk is pasteurised etc |
I'm rather surprised at this statement 
No, as far as our laws go TB animals certainly do not enter the food chain.
Sure milk is pasteurised. That happened because of TB. Quite a bit of unpasteurised milk is used in some cheeses, on farms etc. That is one way for people to become infected.
Tb in animals is a classical, huge risk to people's health. I refuse to believe that GB is any different from Norway.
Please put me right on this if the British laws are different. |
Apparently only 1-5% of cattle with it shed it in milk. They pasteurised milk because of TB, and how many people have TB now?
You won't catch it from beef if you cook the meat - cooking is pasteurisation of meat.
90% of cattle who have it never develop clinical signs. |
Quote on quote on quote...
Ixy, you ask how many have TB now.
Answer: a lot. This is one of the great emerging diseases in large parts of the world. The frightening thing is the antibiotic-resistant bacteria strains.
Eating cattle with TB infection. If meat is well cooked you will not become infected. Many parts of cattle is eaten undercooked, however. According to DEFRA TB is not transmitted through meat. Well, well......
Ros asks if there are TB carriers like badgers and foxes.
Answer: badgers live in the south-eastern part of the country. Foxes are all over. So far we have no reports of TB in these species.
Again, we consider the disease eradicated here. Our measures are draconian, by your standards. I mentioned your problems at lunch today and people did not believe me when I told about your slaughter/use of meat.
Colour it green wrote: indeed, but it is so widespread here in the UK.. we cannot take the same approach.
Totally agree with you. I'm having trouble with the British risk assessment, however. TB is often a slow disease. Conquering TB was one of the great achievements in the health sector in the 20th century.
I'll shut up for now and follow the discussion. It is very interesting. |
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ros
Joined: 19 Jul 2005
Posts: 1824
Location: Beds
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| Posted: Thu Nov 05, 09 3:01 pm Post subject: |
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Conquering TB was done mainly by BCG vaccination wasn't it?
A vaccine that has more or less been dropped in the UK (why?)
- although it's now used again in certain parts as TB has spread from the developing world |
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wellington womble
Joined: 08 Nov 2004
Posts: 11335
Location: Bucks
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| Posted: Thu Nov 05, 09 3:10 pm Post subject: |
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| ros wrote: |
| Conquering TB was done mainly by BCG vaccination wasn't it? |
Immigration and heroin use have put it on the increase again. Might be why it's more topical? |
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toggle
Joined: 30 Dec 2006
Posts: 5322
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| Posted: Thu Nov 05, 09 3:13 pm Post subject: |
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| ros wrote: |
Conquering TB was done mainly by BCG vaccination wasn't it?
A vaccine that has more or less been dropped in the UK (why?)
- although it's now used again in certain parts as TB has spread from the developing world |
it's offered at birth in high risk areas, not at all in low risk areas. |
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Rob R
Joined: 28 Oct 2004
Posts: 16829
Location: York
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| Posted: Thu Nov 05, 09 4:42 pm Post subject: |
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| wellington womble wrote: |
| ros wrote: |
| Conquering TB was done mainly by BCG vaccination wasn't it? |
Immigration and heroin use have put it on the increase again. Might be why it's more topical? |
Exactly my point; it's all those immigrant farmers  |
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Nat S
Joined: 15 Aug 2008
Posts: 3635
Location: York
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| Posted: Thu Nov 05, 09 6:09 pm Post subject: |
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| mihto wrote: |
| Ixy wrote: |
| mihto wrote: |
| colour it green wrote: |
| as far as I understand it - they are not trying to remove bovine TB because it is a threat to human health.. after all if a cow is found to have it.. it is killed and enters the food chain!! milk is pasteurised etc |
I'm rather surprised at this statement
No, as far as our laws go TB animals certainly do not enter the food chain.
Sure milk is pasteurised. That happened because of TB. Quite a bit of unpasteurised milk is used in some cheeses, on farms etc. That is one way for people to become infected. Tb in animals is a classical, huge risk to people's health. I refuse to believe that GB is any different from Norway.
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Apparently only 1-5% of cattle with it shed it in milk. They pasteurised milk because of TB, and how many people have TB now? You won't catch it from beef if you cook the meat - cooking is pasteurisation of meat. 90% of cattle who have it never develop clinical signs. |
Ixy, you ask how many have TB now. Answer: a lot. This is one of the great emerging diseases in large parts of the world. The frightening thing is the antibiotic-resistant bacteria strains.
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No, the answer is a lot less than there were, in countries that pasteurise their milk. And the remaining cases will be in people who did not get it from milk (or if they did they knew when they drank/ate the unpasteurised milk they were taking a risk, like myself). Antiobiotic resistant strains like the very scary ones in russian prisons are caused by misuse of antibiotics. This can (and does IMO) happen in dairy farming of course, but that's why we pasteurise milk. Can't be blaming cows or farmers for that. |
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mihto
Joined: 03 Feb 2008
Posts: 2521
Location: West coast of Norway
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| Posted: Thu Nov 05, 09 7:00 pm Post subject: |
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Ixy, we do not disagree in principle.
I just want to point out that the TB epidemiology is extremely complex. Any disease gets a much heavier impact once it becomes a zoonosis, that is transmition between humans and animals.
Milk used to be the great vehicle for the bacteria to spread. Then the disease was all but eradicated in cattle in many countries. Together with x-rays of the lungs, vaccination, antibiotics and pasteurisation of milk the disease was brought to its knees in most of Europe.
Today this has changed. AIDS is now the huge killer in part of the world because this disease lets TB go on a rampage. With British cattle reinfected the fight against TB has taken a huge step backwards. Nobody is blaming the farmers; they are but a small part in a world-wide return of a very scary disease.
Some of the old weapons in our arsenal should now be sharpened. We can combat this disease if we attack on many fronts. The zoonosis part just makes the war more prolonged and the cost so much higher. |
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Nat S
Joined: 15 Aug 2008
Posts: 3635
Location: York
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| Posted: Thu Nov 05, 09 7:11 pm Post subject: |
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I think in this country we have the emphasis on the wrong places - keeping the spotlight on the badger debate stops us blaming the government for not getting their cash out and tackling it properly. |
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welshboy454
Joined: 21 May 2009
Posts: 92
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| Posted: Thu Nov 05, 09 7:29 pm Post subject: |
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A cousin of mine had his dairyfarm buildings covered by cctv and nightvision funded by the govt as part of the research into tb and the interaction between cattle and badgers/other wildlife.
They gave him a copy of the tape which showed that after dark badgers freely mingled with the cattle in the cubicles and feed area.
This is the area of concern -nose to nose -contact in the feeding area.
The report can be read here
http://www.defra.gov.uk/foodfarm/farmanimal/diseases/atoz/tb/documents/husbandry_background.pdf |
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Rob R
Joined: 28 Oct 2004
Posts: 16829
Location: York
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| Posted: Thu Nov 05, 09 7:32 pm Post subject: |
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| mihto wrote: |
| Nobody is blaming the farmers; they are but a small part in a world-wide return of a very scary disease. |
mihto, may I introduce you to the British Government & DEFRA? Blame is something we can take, the cost of their cock-ups, we can't. |
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Gervase
Joined: 17 Nov 2004
Posts: 7006
Location: Ceredigion, West Wales
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| Posted: Thu Nov 05, 09 7:38 pm Post subject: |
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I was talking about this today with a vet and a farmer as we struggled with a pile of Edwardian farm machinery. The consensus was that the badger population has exploded in the past five years or so, and so has the incidence of TB among badgers. Some 90 per cent of roadside badger corpses around here test positive for TB.
As a result of that population explosion, a heck of a lot of setts have been seeing a boom in young males.
This leads to fighting (which causes sepsis, bleeding and shedding of TB bacilli around the sett) and also forces males to migrate to new territories, covering several hundred acres in their search. The badgers' urine contaminates the grass wherever it goes, and thus is passed to cattle.
As for the solution, neither the farmer nor the vet had one, other than to control the population as with deer to stop over-population and enforced migration. Then someone said, "There's no bloody TB in Scotland," and we were all stumped. |
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welshboy454
Joined: 21 May 2009
Posts: 92
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| Posted: Thu Nov 05, 09 8:43 pm Post subject: |
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My farming neighbour has no tb and he thinks the badgers without tb tend to keep the area/setts protected from migration of sick badgers.
He says that when a badger becomes ill with tb the rest eject him from the sett so he has to migrate to fresh ground- haven't seen or read any evidence of this though. |
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Dr Rob
Joined: 04 Sep 2008
Posts: 273
Location: Moylgrove, nr Cardigan, Pembs
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| Posted: Sun Nov 08, 09 1:54 pm Post subject: |
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There's a conference 'Saying ''no'' to the badger cull' at the Welsh Wildlife Centre, Cilgerran, nr Cardigan on Thursday 19th December 2-4pm. It's chaired by Iolo Williams and other speakers include Dr Dan Foreman of Swansea University and Sarah Kessell, CE of the Wildlife Trust of South & West Wales.
Hope to see some of you there. |
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