Originally from: Farmtalking
                        
From: ...

Originally from telephone calls I recieved and conversations I had, with vets and farmers during the epidemic, I know that there are no 'hard and fast' rules when it comes to the FMD virus and how it affects different animals, no matter how adamant that there are, some people may continue to be.

I suppose this should not come as a surprise to any of us as we are only too well aware that the common cold or flu virus affects human beings with differing severity. We have to ask why and certainly endevour to find out.

It is true to say that some sheep, cattle and pigs are extremely unwell and no doubt suffer tremendously with FMD.

It is because of the high infectivity of the virus and loss of production that it was/is considered to be a disease causing economic disaster to farmers and thus the economy, that a slaughter policy was introduced to the UK on the recommendation of established beef breeders in the early part of last century.

However, it is equally true to say that in many sheep and some cattle and pigs, FMD seems to affect them very little, if at all. There is no doubt that even the most diligent and experienced shepherd and or vet might not notice the symptoms in some sheep, while others might only appear to be a little off-colour, for instance, lying down and not eating or chewing the cud for a few hours. Ater a short while, certainly within 24–48 hours, the animals appear to recover and return to normal.

This latter description can also be applied to some cattle, and was described to me during the epidemic by a farmer who owned them and the MAFF vets attending the farm at the time.

Before you draw the conclusion that they were not suffering from FMD, let me tell you that they were blood tested and slaughtered and the results were positive!

In my opinion, a chance for research into why these animals were unwell and not seriously so for such a short time, has been missed and more importantly, the genetic pool they might have posessed, which gave them such resistance, has also been lost.

If it is possible that animals could be bred to resist the virus in this way there would be no need for either a slaughter policy or vaccination.

IMO we are far too qick to jump to conclusions and act according to habit or theories in many instances, instead of reconsidering the problem and seeking the truth. The possibility that nature itself, can evolve mechanisms capable of resisting infections that some are blessed with and others wish they had must be further researched.

We have only to look to the aids virus and parts of the USA and Africa where some people are proving resistant to HIV and we certainly need to find out why.

It is tragic that we rushed in with a slaughter policy and the illegal contiguous cull, failing to consider that we were destroying some of the crown jewels of British Agriculture. For instance the largest flock of pedigree Wensleydale sheep in the world, all Scrapie resistant and healthy, were slaughtered as contiguous. It probably goes without saying that the cattle with whom they were grazing were not and remained alive and well.