Jiglu: Farmtalking: Discussion: Re: Re: BSE/Scrapie files

Originally from: coleen

I am afraid Ron, that we little people 'could never know what is happening in the REAL sheep World' we little people will always be outsiders'. It the dreaded day ever comes when they do decide to take your sheep, my sheep – it would give me NO pleasure to say 'well I did try to tell you so', to the keepers, breeders and enthusiastics of this breed .

We did not go to Carlisle this year – because the future does not look certain – does it? (we also knew you would be buying up the show Ron!!

Our Shetland sheep are 'beauties' not because they came from one of the top breeders in the Country, but because we love them for all of their traits and silly little ways. Some people need to realise that you cannot undo what DEFRA and their scientific advisers are propelling them towards . Waking up and crying afterward the event will be useless. Once gone – that's it. We seem to be sitting back and just waiting for the axe to fall.

Coleen

----- Original Message -----
From: ...
Originally from: "Another Old Codger" <...> To: "Shetland Sheep Link" <...>; "Foot and Mouth Group" <...>; "Farmtalking Email" <...>; "maryatwarmwell" <...>
Sent: Saturday, November 22, 2003 11:59 PM
Subject: [farmtalking] Re: BSE/Scrapie files
Mary Critchley of Warmwell and I are good friends from the early days of
The
Foot and Mouth Horror/Madness. She has sent me Muckscraper 20 November
2003.
I forward it to you with the following comment:-
Have we not learnt anything from Foot and Mouth when almost 12 Million
animals were slaughtered, of which less than 2 Million were supposed to be
infected. Where vets, government officials, police and the Services
bullied
and lied their way through the Countryside. Where good and honest farmers
were reduced to physical wrecks, some have never fully recovered. There
have
been around 60 suicides. We are left with long term environmental
pollution.

So you co-operate with inflicting further madness on the rural community!
What the hell is the point of us protecting an already limited gene pool
for
some lunatic to decide to reduce it even further by this mad scheme.
Next year, with luck, we may have some first-class lambs. Especially as we
have an excellent example of a Shetland Ram, he of the twice tested R1,
plus
DNA testing. Three of our ewes were 1st, 2nd and 4th in the Carlisle Show
last year. We are breeding for colour and quality.
My farmer friend who is a good sheep man chose those lambs last year
without
knowing anything about Shetlands and not realising that they had won in
the
Show. He sees our Flock every day and says that they are superb sheep.
If you do not believe that the whole scheme is madness visit
www.mikepurdey.com and that is just part of it. The Schemes have been
challenged by others.
I am truthfully already beginning to regret that we decided , late in our
lives, to have our own flock of Pedigree Sheep. Our intention was to fight
like hell if Defra turned up with another planned massacre. We did not
think
we would have to defend ourselves against the complacency of fellow
breeders!
Ron.
----- Original Message -----
From: "maryatwarmwell" <...>
To: "Another Old Codger" <...>
Sent: Saturday, November 22, 2003 9:20 PM
Subject: Re: BSE/Scrapie files
Thank you very much Ron
Mary xx
Here is Muckspreader
Muckspreader 20 november 2003
***
Phyllida Barstowe is not only an admired novelist and married to the
journalist Duff Hart-Davis, but professionally breeds Wiltshire Horn sheep
on their Gloucestershire farm. Until recently her flock roamed happily
over
the meadows round a fine young pure-bred ram. Then, on 1 September, she
was
visited by the department for the elimination of farming and rural affairs
(Defra), to test her sheep under the EU-sponsored 'National Scrapie Plan'.
To understand what happened next, some background is relevant. Defra, it
may
be remembered, has spent millions of pounds trying to establish a link
between scrapie, a brain disease affecting a tiny minority of sheep, and
BSE, a brain disease affecting a tiny minority of cattle. They haven't
actually found any link (although readers may recall the famous episode
when
they tested thousands of sheep's brains for two years, only to discover
they
had been looking at the brains of cows).
The reason for such excitement, of course, is that Defra still believes
there may be a link between BSE and vCJD, a brain disease affecting a tiny
minority of human beings. So, if they can prove a link between scrapie and
BSE, this would be a tremendous breakthrough, because it would show there
may be a link between eating sheep and CJD. They also believe that a tiny
minority of sheep are genetically susceptible to scrapie. They have
therefore taken this as justification, on EU orders, to test pedigree
sheep.
Any which do not have the 'scrapie-resistant genes', they can then order
to
be slaughtered or castrated.
Every step of Defra's tortuous logic is in fact based on a hypothesis for
which there is no proof. There is no proven link between eating cattle
infected with BSE and CJD (indeed this becomes ever more implausible).
There
is no evidence that any sheep has ever naturally become infected with BSE
There is no evidence that scrapie has ever infected humans. Even the
theory
about scrapie-resistant genes has been rubbished by one of the top
independent scientists in the field. Dr. Alan Dickenson. The whole of the
EU's scrapie eradication programme thus rests on a card-house of unproven
hypotheses.
When Defra tested the brains of 54,000 sheep from abattoirs, they did find
56 infected with scrapie. But no fewer than eight of these also possessed
their so-called 'scrapie resistant genotype'. Since this made total
nonsense
of their theory, they then carried out another test, which luckily came
out
with the result they were after: i.e. that only 28 of the sheep were
infected with scrapie, none of which had the resistant gene. 'At present
it
is not known if the cause of these findings' said Defra, 'is a flaw in the
methodology'. But, flawed methodology or not, the great thing was they
still
had the excuse they needed to kill any animal they could find without that
'resistant gene'.
All of which brings us back to Mrs Hart-Davis's Wiltshire Horn ram, Of
course it turned out to be the one animal in her flock without the
resistant
gene. So, although it was a perfectly healthy young sheep, off to the
slaughterhouse under EU rules it had to go – on the basis of four
different
hypotheses piled on top of each other, for not one of which there is any
proof a genuine scientist could accept. Mrs Hart-Davis was none too
pleased.
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