Fwd: Virus spread by burning carcasses, inquiry told - Ananova Alerting

Originally from: Molly Maxwell
                        
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Originally from: "Ananova" <533...>
To: Molly Maxwell <...>
Subject: Virus spread by burning carcasses, inquiry told – Ananova Alerting Date: Fri, 12 Oct 2001 14:41:56 GMT

Foot-and-mouth was spread by a carcass pyre lit on an infected farm, a vet has told a public inquiry.

Unburnt hair and skin from the pyre fell on land around the village of Knowstone, in Devon.

A number of cases of the disease were later confirmed, said vet Wendy Vere.

Mrs Vere, from Devon, said she had "great big bags" of unburned skin and hair, which had also fallen on cars travelling up and down the north Devon link road.

Pyres were used to dispose of carcasses despite a report into the 1967–68 outbreak saying that fires should not be lit, she told the inquiry co-ordinated by Devon County Council in Exeter.

Inquiry member Eric Ley asked her: "They took no notice of it?" Mrs Vere replied: "Yes."

Because such mistakes had been made in controlling what was a "horrible and distressing disease", more thought should be given to breeding animals which were better resistant to it, she added.

Mrs Vere said in future contingency planning should be "gold plated", adding that it should have been "sitting on a computer programme waiting to be sent out as required".

Better use of local vets by the Ministry of Agriculture could have speeded up decisions on which animals presented a real risk of developing the disease.

Instead there was the "terrible computer carnage" which was instigated by MAFF – in which livestock on farms contiguous to infected premises were culled.

"It is incredible that farmers were bullied into having perfectly healthy animals slaughtered on the basis of pseudo-science.

"All decisions must be accountable scientifically – after all this is not a new disease," said Mrs Vere.

She said one farmer told her: "I did not feel in control of my destiny."

Mrs Vere put before the inquiry some notes on the crisis, one of which related to MAFF asking if they could borrow her fibreglass horse for vaccination teams to practise on.

She said when she pointed out that not only could they not inject it, it was a horse, she was told by MAFF it did not matter because they needed a life-sized model so personnel could "get used to moving round an animal".

*Foot-and-mouth story sent by Ananova

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