Originally from: frances fish
                        
So now we know, despite the reluctance of Defra to publicize the fact, TB is rampant in the wild life of Great Britain. No wonder they are so reluctant to authorise a massive badger cull. They are obviously the tip of a rather embarrassing iceberg ! Again, yet again, the question of vaccination has to be asked. We are told that the current vaccines are inadequate for the job, but surely they would have some effect in controlling the disease ? Surely anything is better than sitting on your hands and saying you can do nothing about the spread of TB ? Funny thing is, apparently beef cattle and all cattle under a year old, cannot have TB. At least that is what you would be lead to believe as these animals are not part of the testing program.The latest outbreak in Scotland was from animals from a beef fattening herd sent for slaughter when a high proportion were discovered to have suspicious lesions suggestive of TB.A friend of ours has purchased about half a dozen heifers (heifers because, as you do not get a premium paid on them,are cheaper than steers). He intends fattening them and sending them for slaughter, under the current restictions of the 30 months rule. Suckler heifers of an equal age ARE liable for TB testing, his are not. Steers of the same vintage are not(in fact, I do not think any steers have to be tested). So, do they NOT get TB ? Oh, yes they do,no reason to suppose they don't. It is worth the trip around the Defra website to discover just how many animals are slaughtered and compensation paid because they have teated positive for TB only to appear later in the statistics as negative. There are so very many false positives and, more worryingly, false negatives with the current test for TB as to make it almost totally useless as a diagnostic tool.Funny thing is, as I recall, Tb is only a threat to humans through the milk or, very unusually from working with infected cattle. So, if they test the milk shouldn't we all be able to sleep at night ? The amount of public money wasted is astounding. The sam e logic applies to the pursuit of the dreaded Scrapie in sheep. Are there human implications ? None are known. Someone, somewhere, started the witch hunt and did not just have a bee in their bonnet but a whole mind-blowing swarm ! Frances