APPENDIX 8
Memorandum submitted by Mary Quicke (P7)
TB IN DAIRY COWS
I write to share any concerns about TB which
I perceive to be a food scare in the making.
1. COWS
DEFRA have been 25000+ tests late, although
the situation has improved.
Anecdotally, one quarter of late tests are coming
back with confirmed TB in Devon.
As positive tests come back, neighbouring farms
move from three yearly to three or six monthly testing, thus increasing
the demand for testing. The disease is also spreading into new
areas.
From the outside, the stance of DEFRA in the
face of this rapidly increasing workload is not such that will
overcome this. It appears it occurs to them as an insuperable
resource problem, rather as we saw in foot and mouth disease,
that they cannot and will not resolve.
2. HUMAN RISK
Currently bovine TB (I believe) is only a zoonosis
in cowmen: infected urine or sputum as aerosol, breathed in in
milking parlours. Pasteurization is considered correctly to have
eradicated it as a food-borne disease. However, the two pronged
defence against the disease of relatively low incidence and regular
testing in dairy herds, plus pasteurization has in many parts
of the country been reduced to one layer.
Unpasteurized cheese represents a theoretical
risk, although literature reviews conducted for the Specialist
Cheesemakers Association by John Dennis of the Institute of Food
Research suggests that even under the worst case, an infective
dose is several orders of magnitude away via the oral route from
consuming unpasteurized cheese.
3. POLITICAL
BACKGROUND
Animal campaigners have made addressing the
"wildlife reservoir" issue extremely hot for spin-sensitive
politicians. Prof Bourne, responsible for the Krebs trial, now
clearly states the role of badgers in the transfer of the disease.
However no practical action on stemming the wildlife transfer
of this disease to farm animals is politically possible until
the trial is complete.
4. BADGERS
Our perception on the farm is that badgers are
in the process of a population boom, having no predators. All
setts are growing and daughter setts are being created. Badgers
are now common sight on our farm, unlike 20 years ago. Farms previously
clear of TB are going down to TB all around us.
5. INTERNATIONAL
BACKGROUND
Countries such as Denmark and Germany are in
the process of TB eradication campaigns. They have no significant
wildlife reservoirs and will probably achieve their aim. Once
they have done so, they may be tempted to create a market advantage
to compensate for the costs of this action.
6. A FOOD SCARE
IN THE
MAKING?
Farmers are starting to shout vociferously about
TB in the national herd; other countries may not be averse to
raising the profile.
DEFRA could be portrayed as paralysed: late
tests, under manning, excuses.
Human health has relied on two layers of defence.
One layer of defence, the relatively low incidence of the disease
in the national herd, has disappeared.
Journalists undoubtedly could find evidence
of a (very low) level of phosphatase failure in pasteurised products,
perhaps insufficient to cause disease, but possibly sufficient
to run a good story given the other "juicy" elements
of the story.
If the retailers thought consumers would be
averse to FMD vaccinated milk, the impact of attempting to sell
even the pasteurised milk from tuberculous cows is not already
clear.
SUGGESTED AGRICULTURAL
COMMITTEE ACTION
I request that the Agricultural Committee use
its influence to elevate the resources put into TB testing by
DEFRA. The apparent lack of vigour into pursuing the disease is
too reminiscent of salmonella in eggs, BSE and FMD.
While I guess that the food-borne TB risk has
elevated marginally, the publicity risk has elevated enormously.
The Agricultural Committee needs to have addressed this issue
before it becomes a media football: that way the real risk and
the perceived risk will stay more aligned.
29 January 2003
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