Jiglu: Farmtalking: Discussion: Re: FMD

Originally from: coleen

Dear Francis

I guess I must be the one who has opened up areas you did not wish to go. I was not sure who did and did not know about some people being allowed to keep some of their animals.

I wrote it – to show how totally pathetic and uncalled for the whole fmd fiasco was. If some animals could be spared – then they ALL could have been. If however many could have been monitored then so could they ALL. We would listen to the radio Kaz Graham in the late evening. Farmers were ringing in and crying 'my animals are healthy' – yet they are coming tomorrow to slaughter them. Why? Because someone 2 miles away had been confirmed or slaughtered on suspicion. No chance for them. It was not written to stir up hurtful memories. Just to show how ill thought out and wicked the whole exercise was.

I can remember very well that many people on this board at the height of fmd were calling for whatever ways we had to stop the mass slaughter, to be used. That included the rapid blood tests. True hindsight is a wonderful thing and maybe they would not have worked – then again they might just have. All I know is they were available and we ALL wanted them used. It is easy for people to sit back now and pull them to bits.

There were many people Andrew who did not want to loose their animals and were NOT rolling their hands together in glee, at the thought of all that money. Sure some did, but then you get those sort of people in ALL walks of life. Your own profession has a lot to answer for. I think we are also apt to forget that it was the Government who was turning this into a bean feast – by allowing the prices of compensation. Why? Well we know the answer to that, the cull was illegal and they wanted NO one to block their paths. Later they reduced the payment/compensation.

I remember one Vet telling us how he went trampling the Southlakeland fells slaughtering sheep. He later said it was NEVER in the sheep. To that many people have said 'yes but the sheep were bred to die anyway'. Well we all are born to die in the end. That is not the issue.

I remember Francis, and I so would like to see the real guilty culprits made to pay. If for no other reason – then to stop it happening all over again. If not through fmd, then TB, Scrapie or whatever else is out there just around the corner.

Coleen

Original Message -----
From: ...

Originally from: <...>

To: <...>
Sent: Thursday, October 02, 2003 7:19 AM
Subject: [farmtalking] FMD

Andrew, I have to take exception to some of your postings. I find them both insulting and incorrect. I believe you are a vet, I don't know if you are in practice or if you were directly involved in the 2001 FMD epidemic.I think that some of your colleagues who were wish they had not, in that respect,so do we. We do have that much in common. but for differing reasons.
Let me tell you how it actually was, as you write "for the most part farmers were happy to take the compensation ". There was no compensation, that is a misnomer, there was only compulsory purchase, we received no compensation for loss of living or earnings. The lambs we could not sell, the ewes and rams we could not breed (because they killed them) were not taken into account, nor the fact that they may have been rare breeds or bloodlines that were irreplaceable.
Death came to our part of the country swiftly, overnight it seemed. It aphixiated more than the animal population, it crushed the life out of the people as well. Fields that were full of life one day, lambs being born, cattle lowing, were eerily silent. Even the birds were hushed. And the faces, Andrew, you should have seen the faces ! I shall never forget the faces. Afterwards, some were confined to their farms,looking at 4 walls and remembering, the children were not allowed to go to school, even the wives had to get a licence to go shopping. A visit to the dentist was a day out! The grief, anguish and despair was palpable, it hurt, Andrew, it hurt unbearably at times. These people who"were happy to take the compensation" had the legs knocked from under them ,their dreams and hopes smashed to smithereens,they felt hopeless and helpless against the killing machine that was Defra,army and police, they did not feel happy.Many of these people are scarred for life, they will never get over it. A well-known local farmer whose pig was the cause of what he termed "some of the best farms in Berwickshire " being killed out , was devastated when a vet phoned him some time after the slaughter to say his blood tests for FMD were negative. He has to live with that the rest of his life.
Both vets and farmers lost a lot during FMD, the vets forfeited trust and, well, I think you get an idea of what we on the other end lost. There is an essential and fundamental difference, though. Vets chose to collaborate, despite the fact that they ignored ethical guidelines from the RCVs, and us
? We had NO CHOICE AT ALL. Please, do feel free to dissect and pull to pieces what I have written , Andrew, there is plenty more to tell .Some of the recent postings have brought much back into my mind that I would rather have left there, locked away. I did not initiate this , at times, heated exchange, but I did want you to know that some of your more ascerbic remarks are as hurtful as they are untrue.
Frances

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