Originally from: Farmtalking
                        
My apologies, I have to admit that in one of my messages yesterday I expressed my feelings of irritation and I'm sorry.

Sometimes I forget that not everyone has been a member of this board since it's inception and even if they have, they may not have lived every day since early 2001 with FMD and it's consequences. Therefore, I should not expect everyone to know or remember the full story, as I understand it.

In an effort to make amends I will try to explain a few things as I see them. I don't expect everyone to agree with me but perhaps it will at least jog a few memories for some and at least give everyone a better idea of, as they say 'where I'm coming from'!

I'm trawling my memory and haven't looked things up to remind me exactly as I've had a busy night assisting a little with a difficult calving!

From: ...

Originally from what I remember, and if I've got it wrong I'm sure someone will put me right, our Govt was offered a machine from the US but turned it down, as you say.

With hindsight, as we didn't even know about it at the time it was offered, we could perhaps, understand why.

The likely reasons it was refused, seems because there were very few machines available and none of them had been validated. I think one had been sent to China to be tested and validated there and others, (I'm not sure how many, but certainly less than 20), were in other places or still being built and tested in the US. As Andrew says, by then we knew that FMD was in too many places.

We would have needed hundreds of validated machines to cope with the situation as it was then and I can understand that the Government was reluctant to use just one machine, even in order to validate it for the US, they were far too busy with the task in hand.

Their prime concern at the time was getting the disease under control and they believed what their own expert 'modelling team' told them; which was that the disease could be controlled with the slaughter policy.

What nobody realised at the time, including the Govt, was just how many animal movements there had been which they believed had spread the infection. As we know, they tested some farms by taking samples and using the ELISA test in the labs but once the 'Contiguous' and 3k culls were introduced, many farms were not tested and so we will never know if they were infected or not.

It was Alicia Eykyn who first heard about the machine and alerted us to it in April 2001. The machine had first been developed to detect substances that might be used in bio-terrorism and then the developers asked Fred Brown (a British Veterinary Scientist and an expert in FMD, working in the US), to test it with FMD virus and he found that it worked.

When FMD was announced here, it must have seemed this might be an opportunity to test and validate the machine in the UK, hence it's being offered to our Govt. Alicia also persuaded Fred Brown to come over from the States to talk to our Govt, arranging a meeting at Westminster and various interviews with the media. Then later in the summer of 2001 she and John Dobson brought Fred Brown, the machine and Drs. Sutmuller & Barteling to talk to farmers in Cumbria.

Of course we were all hoping that they would be able to validate the machine by using it on our infected farms. We were hoping that even if they used one machine it might help to save some of the farms. All we were concerned about was stopping the slaughter of healthy stock.

Again with hindsight, perhaps we can see that this was logistically impractical. One can just imagine the difficulties that might occur, for instance, if the machine was available for one farm and not others.

The one good thing that came out of all this is that many more people became aware of the way such a machine could be used. Pirbright received a machine to test and Dr. Paton has already told us about that. There is no doubt that it has probably speeded up development and if it's capabilities can be further improved with more research that's great! However, many more validated machines would be needed, not only if, heaven forbid we had another outbreak but also because at the same time they might be needed in other parts of the world.

At present we’re fortunate in that the current vaccine available did stop an epidemic in Uruguay in 2001. So for those that didn’t know it had been used for some years, it proved it worked at an important time and blew out of the window all those who maintained the vaccine doesn’t work! There is nothing wrong with the vaccine. It does work!

However, much as many others and I urged that we should use it in the UK in 2001, our Govt chose not to.

I could go into details why I think they didn't but I think that perhaps is for another time.

What is very important is that both our Govt and the EU have said the use of this vaccine will be an option of first choice if we get another outbreak. That is very good news!

As far as I understand it, they mean they will slaughter infected stock exhibiting signs of the disease but will vaccinate the animals in the surrounding area. That will stop the disease in it's tracks wherever it occurs, which is great.

However, the vaccine will only last as a protection for 6 to 12 months. So it might be necessary to vaccinate again. Either to maintain some protection or if there was another outbreak but it would still affect our FMD free status because, as Dr. Paton says, the vaccine does stop the animal foam being ill but does not stop it from being infected. Therefore, we might have some 'persistently infected' stock.

Although they are not thought to cause a great risk and some doubt they are a risk at all, however small, we have to admit the risk cannot be denied, which is why a country has to be free of FMD and vaccinated stock to maintain it's FMD free status. As things stand at present we will have to live with it and I'm sure we're all quite happy about that.

Ruth Watkins told us that the disease could be eradicated if this vaccine was used in 85% of the livestock population. No doubt she's right but as every country is unlikely to do this at the same time, as they may not be infected at the same time, it could take a long time to achieve the aim. Hence the risk would still exist and re-vaccination might have to be used, maybe several times and for many years.

This is why I'm sure that if a vaccine can be developed to replace the existing vaccine, which not only gives long term protection but also stops an animal becoming infected, there would no longer be any risk of persistently infected stock. Such a vaccine would ensure livestock no longer suffered from FMD, and could eradicate the disease.

I hope this has been helpful and my apologies to those who may have known it all already.

BTW the calf has been up on it's feet and had some breakfast from a proud and well-recovered cow that certainly had a very big baby!