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ReferenceRE: [eurofaq] EU 'LIFELINE' IGNORED

Nigel Cannings 06 September 2002 12:26

Originally from: David
                        
Christina,

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The number of animals that lost their lives thro the Governments mishandling of FMD2001 was 10–15 million and I think DEFRA has now admitted it to be the case. Not taken into account in the official figures were the healthy animals slaughtered on neighbouring farms (contiguous policy), animals slaughtered on the Livestock Welfare for Disposal Scheme (LWDS), the young progeny of those slaughtered plus any embryos inside the pregnant animals. (A sow with a litter of 15 piglets counted as ONE).

The other BIG scandle is that we will never know the extent of the "epidemic" (if there was one). Round about April 2001, the Government changed the policy to "slaughter on suspicion" which included the contiguous farms (= x each case by three of four?). At the beginning blood tests were taken to confirm the diagnosis, then it changed to kill and wait for the result of blood tests but so many came back negative that they finally dropped blood testing all together. OK, they were being overwhelmed with blood tests but samples should have been taken for later testing and we would then have KNOWN how much of an epidemic we actually had. In Gloucestershire there were (oficially) 78 cases with something like 78,000 animals (oficially) slaughtered. However, a local vet who helped DEFRA says that there were only SIX definite cases in the County.

David

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