BADGER TB : OUT OF THE DARKNESS ?

Martin Hancox writes -

 Amidst the enormous confusion over this 40 year old saga, three new beams of "light"   have now arisen . The Oral badger vaccine  field trial has just started in Ireland .  Rather ironic that an inconclusive trial took place there some 20 years ago .This trial was not allowed in GB because of the risk a cow Might wander past a badger sett, eat the choccy coated pill and  so upset the skin test ! And here the Glos. Injectible trial must be nearing completion .. so why on earth are DEFRA still planning another wildly impractical Injectible trial in 6 areas next year.

 Whilst on dodgy testing .. it is tragic that a number of big dairy herds have been under TB restriction  since foot & mouth or longer .. clearly skin plus IFN tests are NOT removing the culprit active spreader cow .. so what is needed is either a blood antibody ELISA now routinely used in Ireland in such chronic herds , OR an antibody MAPIA Rapid Test, or DNA PCR on faecal swabs .

Lastly a very important finding of the "TB Eradication Group Report 0ct.2009" It is that the huge reservoir of UnConfirmed cases SHOULD be treated as though they DO have TB (under EC Directive 64/432) .

Thus since FMD 2001 there have been some 30,000 new herds, about half unconfirmed, and some 230,000 TB cases in an area roughly a quarter the size of G B ; everything west of a line up from Dorset to Derbyshire. This is nearly 3 times worse than at the start of the textbook Area Eradication scheme in 1960. And so with the greatest respect with all this TB swirling about amongst the cattle population , it is hard to see how any badger cull or vaccine strategy will have the slightest relevance. Take the Welsh cull of the  1000 badgers  in Pembroke , if 80% culled that is 800, and if  as worst case scenario in Powys 25 % have TB , that is only 200 out of 200 sq.km  ie. l TB badger /sq.km which can hardly make any difference ?

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