A BADGER VACCINATION FANTASY WORLD
(Open in New Window)

YOU COULDN’T MAKE IT UP!

‘ROME IS BURNING’. .

Bovine TB Blog. Alpacas. . (Open in New Window)

The following is the opinion of former Chief Scientist Sir David King as well as hundreds of highly respected veterinary surgeons that is (was) being totally disregarded by this (the previous) Labour government.

1. Badgers are a clear source of infection for cattle. Reducing the density of badgers in those areas of England where there is a significant level of TB in cattle reduces the incidence of TB in cattle in the same area;

2. Removal of badgers should take place alongside the continued application of controls on cattle. Genuine commitment by all interested parties to the overall TB strategy is needed if TB is to be successfully controlled;

3. Removal of badgers is the best option available at the moment to reduce the reservoir of infection in wildlife. But in the longer term, alternative or additional means of controlling TB in badgers, such as vaccination, may become available. Research into these should continue;

4. Removal of badgers should only take place in those areas of the country where there is a high and persistent incidence of TB in cattle. It is not an appropriate measure in other areas.

5. The minimum overall area within which badger removal should take place is 100 km2, although increasing the area would increase the overall benefit;

6. Where there is inaccessible land within the overall removal area, badgers should be removed on the accessible land bordering it;

The full report, including an expanded list of conclusions, can be viewed at the Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills website.

Hilary Benn has caved in to an hysterical minority interest and has put the value and life of a badger above that of all other wildlife and livestock that are born and bred into a controlled environment. . The threat also remains to all those in the population who may inadvertently come in contact with any activated latent infection as apparently did the veterinary nurse in Cornwall. . He is not fit to hold office.

Charles Henry 1945-(diuturnity)

Badger vaccination plan ‘guaranteed to backfire’
28th. May 2009 by Joanne Pugh. FARMERS GUARDIAN.

Vaccinating badgers against TB was not only impractical, but could promote the spread of the disease, according to independent TB adviser, Ueli Zellweger, speaking at Beef Expo last week.

The Swiss-trained vet, now based in South West England, said Defra’s plan to inject badgers was ‘guaranteed to backfire’, as there were only two ‘golden rules’ regarding vaccination; and this would break both of them.

The first rule was to ‘never, never vaccinate a stressed or weakened animal’, but trapping and manually injecting badgers would do just that, he said.

Stress compromised the immune system and the effectiveness of the vaccine, but more seriously, a weak badger would fall down the social pecking order and be forced out of the sett, increasing perturbation.

A displaced badger trying to join a sett would lead to fighting, with a high risk of TB transmission. A weakened badger with no sett would be more likely to forage in a farmyard, depositing infected excretions (saliva, urine and faeces), putting cattle at risk.

The second rule was to never vaccinate against a disease when you have ‘even the slightest suspicion’ the animal already had it.

Mr Zellweger said apparently healthy animals could be carrying TB, but their bodies had ‘walled it off’, keeping it contained. Vaccinating those animals could boost infection and lead to badgers shedding a lot of bacteria.

Testing a badger before vaccination was not a solution, he said, as that would involve keeping it caged for several days, further stressing and weakening it. A stressed animal would give a less accurate reading to a test not particularly reliable in the first place.

Mr Zellweger also cast the vaccine in doubt, saying the human BCG vaccine was known to be of reduced efficacy and ‘poor at protecting most animal species’.

Who would prescribe the vaccine, he asked, saying it would be a POM-V, like most animal vaccines. He doubted vets would get involved and said Defra was mistaken if it thought vets and farmers would fund vaccination long-term.

In response to Mr Zellweger’s arguments, a Defra spokesman said it did not appear to have ‘any basis in existing research’, whereas the vaccine development and badger vaccine deployment project were ‘underpinned’ by research findings. (Hogwash)

Defra said there was no suggestion that trapping badgers caused perturbation or that vaccinating infected badgers caused them to excrete more or less TB.

LEVEL OF INFECTION A SERIOUS CHALLENGE

DESCRIBING how Switzerland had eradicated TB, Ueli Zellweger said all reservoirs of infection were isolated and closed down.

He said the badger was the ‘most serious reservoir’ in the UK, but the bigger challenge was that the overall level of infection in all species was very high.

Switzerland started its eradication programme from a much lower level of infection, something Christianne Glossop, chief veterinary officer for Wales, said the UK should have done in the 1980s.

Speaking at the conference preceding Beef Expo, she said: “It’s not ideal that we’re starting from the point where we are now.”

But the predominantly English audience listened in envy to her plans involving £27.7 million of extra Welsh Assembly funding. She said the badger cull would not work on its own, but was a vital part of a wider plan.

When asked about the public’s reaction to the cull, she said things were ‘eerily quiet’ with tens of letters, rather than the tens of thousands seen when Wales first considered a cull a year ago and Defra went to consultation.

Zoon, another dawn has already passed here on Earth where people still seem to think only in straight lines, never laterally. . You mention Alpacas. . We keep them here on Earth for their wool, not for eating or for beasts of burden, though I believe Alpaca meat was once considered to be a great delicacy on some parts of this planet. . They are the latest species to be overtaken by Mycobacterium bovis, the earliest recognised disease spreading bacterium here on planet Earth. . With no realistic cure for the disease it causes, particularly in wildlife; slaughter is the only remedy to curb the spread of infection. . Many species live with it and become hosts to the disease with people rarely observing the miserable death it causes. Meles meles the European badger is one of these, but misguided anthropomorphics have eulogised it here on Earth, and it is now protected in law, so allowing this disease to now spread expotentially and insidiously into many other species. . Until now its very slow growth and the ability of animals to build some defence against it, so slowing its progress has produced human blindness to the seriousness of the problem, but now we have a problem that few foresaw. . Alpacas succumb far more rapidly to a now more virulent pulmonary strain of this disease (It is called Tuberculosis.TB). . And their owners are far more likely to come in close physical contact with them also putting them at risk. . Slaughter is the ONLY remedy at this time and will be for the foreseeable future, but if the Criminal Class Politicians overseeing this debacle do not act soon. . We may have to remove them all to another planetary system. . Can you help us with that?? . . This is now an SOS!!!

SEEKING UFO CONTACT

( Open link in new window.)

The Editor
Western Daily Press

The Future Revisited

First published SEPTEMBER 11th. 2001.

Dear Editor,

It’s 12 midday on WEDNESDAY 20th. MARCH 2011 AD.

The City is deathly quiet. The Air Quality Police haven’t reopened the City since The Festival break in December and all vehicles are still banned. (more…)