APPENDIX 27
Memorandum submitted by Eunice Overend
(P27)
It is encouraging that DEFRA's new enquiry into
the spread of bovine TB intends to look beyond the usual subject—badgers.
Lack of success so far must imply that other factors are involved
which earlier terms of reference have ignored. As a consequence
many farmers, particularly the NFU, still pin their faith on untested
assumptions given in good faith in the 1970s and have equally
misplaced confidence (as it turned out) in the accuracy of the
skin test. Neither DEFRA (MAFF) nor farmers can afford to face
public wrath against the widespread badger- culling which this
blinkered viewpoint has produced.
I have been involved in the problem since the
early days, advising on badger behaviour when very little had
been published and so had access to confidential results, particularly
post-mortems. By the time of the Zuckerman Report (1980) I could
see that the situation was not as MAFF vets assumed and sent a
submission, which Zuckerman ignored. Part of this was published
in ORYX, the journal of the Fauna and Flora Preservation Society.
August 1980 Vol XV No 4. Since things turned out as I predicted
I have no reason to change my opinion, though now we know that
false negatives can infect badgers.
When culling became the accepted solution, post-mortem
research was greatly reduced, little more than "visible lesions"
and "positive on culture" being recorded, and "positive
on culture" and "infectious" being considered,
at least to the farmers, synonymous—useless for epidemiology.
The Krebs trial under John Bourne should remedy this, but at a
cost. Apart from the delay and loss of badgers it is seen as a
sop to farmers, so generating more ill will, and as a waste of
money that could be better spent on new research. Deer have long
been known to carry TB, with infected offal left in the woods
for wildlife to clear up, but we still have no idea how much or
where. Adequate sampling needs the money.
A vaccine for the cattle would be ideal, provided
it carried a marker and did not make them positive—easier
said than done. Regulations make it impossible at the moment and
would take long to change, but probably no longer than the 20
years since it was first suggested and turned down. A vaccine
for badgers (and deer?) brings problems in ensuring that enough
animals get an adequate dose without harm from an overdose or
to non-target species and that cattle are not made positive by
mistake. We fed mock-vaccine capsules to badgers in the M.vaccae
trials many years ago and concluded that, while possible, this
would be time consuming and beyond the skills of most field-operatives.
M.vaccae (also turned down by MAFF) does not make animals positive
and is an immune-system booster rather than a specific against
mycobacteria, as first thought. It may yet have its uses. A better
and farm-practicable test with both funding and regulation to
ensure its regular use seems the best achievable goal at present.
Most of all, the key findings of recent research
into the disease itself in cattle and badgers and likely transmission
routes, and also pointing out previous assumption which turned
out to be wrong, should be pulled together and presented in a
way which is both accessible and intelligible to farmers and the
public.
1 February 2003
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