R.S.P.C.A. Issue Press release re: FMD Vaccination

Originally from: Farmtalking
                        
Thursday 12 June 2003
 
Vaccination is Vital in all Future Foot and Mouth Emergency Plans
 
Plans agreed in Europe today should reduce suffering to farm animals in the event of any future foot and mouth disease (FMD) outbreak and put vaccination at the forefront of an emergency response.
 
The decision, welcomed by the RSPCA, means the new vaccination programme forming the basis of the EU Directive would ensure vaccination was one of the main methods of disease control and would be introduced at the earliest opportunity. But while the RSPCA believes the directive is a step in the right direction more must be done to ensure the horrific 2001 epidemic is not repeated when hundreds of thousands of animals were slaughtered with a number suffering agonising deaths.
 
David McDowell, RSPCA senior veterinary officer, said: "Vaccination would be vital in any future fight to control this potentially devastating disease and reduce suffering to farm animals. Under the new vaccination-led plan fewer farm animals would need to be killed and those that are should be slaughtered to much higher welfare standards than during the 2001 outbreak when numerous alleged incidents of improper slaughter were reported to us."
 
The RSPCA has today urged DEFRA to implement the EU directive following the agreement and warns the government must be prepared at all times for another FMD outbreak.
 
The Society was hit hard during the outbreak with a quarter of its 328 inspectors allocated to assisting suffering animals and well over £1 million of charity funds designated to the crisis.
 
In its response to the National Audit Office last year about the spiralling costs of the FMD outbreak, the Society said that delays in movement licences and welfare disposal schemes, inadequate slaughter supervision and reward for speedy slaughter all led to gross animal suffering during the worst of the FMD crisis. The RSPCA believes that better contingency planning and improved communication could have prevented some of the worst suffering.
 
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RSPCA, Wilberforce Way, Southwater, Horsham, West Sussex RH13 9RS
Tel: 0870 010 1181 Fax: 0870 753 0048
                        

Originally from: chris stockdale
                        
Dear all,

David McDowell is one of the five Stakeholder Representatives on DEFRA's Stakeholder FMD Communications Group, along with myself, Cate Le Mack Grice from the South-West Rural Affairs Forum, and representatives from the Dairy Industries Association the British Retail Consortium and the NFU.

The primary function of this Group is to develop and and help DEFRA deploy the best methods for Communicating the (good) news about vaccines against FMD, both to the Agricultural community and to consumers, ie that vaccines work, are safe, and can help prevent the horrors of 2001, what will happen if vaccines are used next time, and also, awkwardly, that they may not be for a small outbreak, if none suitable is available etc, and also that culling will still take place.

Davids' statement, offered at our inaugaural meeting on Monday, was released to-day to coincide with Elliott Morleys statement welcoming the new European policy. I have just heard that the FSA have published an endorsement of the safety of FMD vaccinated product, and further statements on similar lines are expected from the Organic sector, CIWF, etc soon.

This programme of information and 'education' is expected to last until Christmas, requiring subtle management so as not to overcook the message and incur distrust, and will remain ongoing thereafter.

We should endorse and welcome it. It is the best show in town.Very many of the Stakeholder Reps at these meetings have studied the Inquiries and Reports, learned from the real experts and quietly changed their minds.

Are we being taken for patsies? We must be realistic, culling will still take place on IP and DC's, and vaccination may not be used. Furthermore, the AHA Slaughter Protocol hangs over our heads

I am still fighting night and day, tooth and nail with DEFRA to gain increased transparency, to widen the remit of the Communications Group to include inter-Stakeholder communications, Innovations Monitoring, (Rapid Diagnostics, Mobile Laboratories, bio-secure entry portals, etc.) and take one step back for every two forward; I am presently in the Communications cooler for stating a bald truth slightly too baldly.

However, following a lot of midnight oil communications and quite a few meetings I do believe that this is all genuine. Of course their will always be some voices opposed to vaccination, our task is to inform them, assuage their doubts, find compromise solutions. Only time will tell if I have been wasting my time.

 Best wishes, Chris.
                        

Originally from: Burkie
                        
Dear Chris: For what it's worth...it was announced on the 30th of May, that Argentina utilized 270,000,000 million doses of FMD vaccine since their outbreak occurred in late August, 2000.

My notes taken throughout that period reflect an additional 120,000,000 (yes, that's million) vaccinations have ocurred since last year alone. (This was based on information put out by SENASA in Argentina both this and last year). In addition to those awesome figures....five sequences of initial plus re-vaccinations have occurred since March/April 2001 when Argentina finally was forced to admit they had FMD, after attempting to cover up the fact for a period of six months.

In addition to that....it was the OIE and the EU....in association with the Hilton Quota....that INSISTED vaccination be utilized in all the South American countries that had FMD outbreaks.

Now, on May 30th, this year, it was announced that Argentina is "FMD-free with vaccination." And, in addition to that little announcement (made with no press or fanfare to speak of) it also was made clear that the Hilton Quota for beef from these South American countries should be added to and increased, in order to fulfill the needs of EU-member countries beef requirements.

Also, without much press from either European sources or American Media....on May 25, 2003, a new President for Argentina was installed.

The conclusion I have always drawn has been this:

Someone decided to kill as much of the livestock in the U.K as possible, in order to allow meat to be bought, shipped and imported from South America into all European countries, including the U.K.

It has always boggled my mind, with Pirbright being the World Reference Lab for FMD.....why in the world a country in the throes of economic chaos, due in part to FMD there, can that very same country produce 270,000,000 (millions, yes) doses of FMD vaccine, when a country like the U.K has not ever seemed able to produce one drop of vaccine, itself? Let alone allow it to be used.

Perhaps you can answer that gnawing question. I surely hope so.

All the Best,

Burkie in Kansas

Originally from: chris stockdale
                        
Dear all,

Re. FMD Vaccination 'Trigger'.

Robert Uhligs? article in the Daily Telegraph of yesterday (13/6/03) contains the news that the EU ?could impose emergency vaccination if a member states? infected livestock were not culled within 24 hours and dangerous contacts within 48 hours?. This belated or ?backstop? trigger was in the original Proposed Draft Directive upon which DEFRA invited Stakeholders to comment at our meeting on and from 30th January this year onwards.

Resistance to this proposal was most fiercely pressed by the representative of SERAD, whose arguments, partially based around a fear that a trade competing Member State may disadvantage another by triggering an emergency vaccination policy, (and hypothesised around an outbreak in the Islands of Scotland where, for some reason, failure to meet these not arduous criteria appeared satisfactory) ?these arguments, we were subsequently informed, had been put to our partners in Europe many of whom had concurred and subsequently rejected this ?trigger? to vaccination in the interests of an (infinitely) ?flexible? response capability.

It was therefore a very considerable surprise to find this trigger still live and well and proceeding towards ratification. Of course, this legislation is still at a Draft stage, and presumably will remain subject to revision until approved;however, the proposal that ? ?Any infected member nation that refused to implement vaccination after a vote in favour would become ineligible for compensation from Brussels? suggests to me that our fellow Member States (and their Treasurers) are in earnest about this;after all, Continental Europeans have had the recent experience of ridding themselves of hugely endemic FMD by use of efficacious, economical and ethically sound FMD vaccines, and their scientists have not fallen into the semantic error that equates emergency vaccination with an ?admission of endemicity? (which it is not), but rather regard it, like slaughter, as a means to bring an outbreak to an end.

The survival (to date) of this ?trigger? despite committed lobbying against it, may be a factor intensifying DEFRA?s desire to fully communicate the vaccination message,although their failure to mention such as recently as Monday the 9th suggests that they were lobbying for it?s removal to the last (and will probably continue so to do).
 
Conclusion – still keep the champagne on ice, it could yet come unstuck (and let?s face it, a trigger that is only invoked if infected livestock are not culled within 24 hours and dangerous contacts within 48 hours is in itself only so much to celebrate; how many animals will have died before the EU Parliament bring themselves to overrule the dodgy data presented (or looking at that another way, before DEFRA admit that failure)? Without wishing to be overpessimistic, who will control the report to slaughter data? DEFRA,SERAD etc. Perhaps we should suggest now that all such should be automatically copied into the European central FMD Reference Library ?otherwise how would they know?

Shocking to have to propose such a check (and balance) against ones? own government, but no worse actually than a Parliamentary opposition. By the same token, the World Reference Library at Pirbright will act as a check against failings, falling standards or corruption at the forthcoming European central FMD Reference Library.

Many thanks for all the messages of encouragement over the last few days,

 With best wishes,
 Chris.