Examination of Witnesses (Questions 20-39)
26 MAY 2004
PROFESSOR DOUG
YOUNG, MR
ALICK SIMMONS
AND DR
CHRIS CHEESEMAN
Q20 Mr Breed: So I cannot work out the
percentage increase that we have got in the south-west over and
above where it was in 2002?
Mr Simmons: There has been a slight
decrease—admittedly these are very much provisional figures—in
the first three months of 2004 in comparison with the first three
months of 2003.
Q21 Mr Breed: That is possibly because
those that have decided to go out of milk or have been driven
out of milk by TB and other factors have come off the radar and
those that have remained have enabled you to show a slight decrease
in the percentage.
Mr Simmons: The testing effort
during those three months in terms of number of cattle tested
are comparable, it is a little over two million in both cases.
What I think is important is that drawing comparisons between
the current position and one or two or three years ago is extremely
difficult because of the major disruption caused by Foot and Mouth
Disease. We have now have recovered almost completely from that
in terms of the management of the epidemic and therefore we are
now seeing the benefits of that and there appears to be a slight
decrease, but I would emphasise that that decrease is in the very
early days yet and one would not wish to say that that is the
beginning of a long-term trend without several months or possibly
even one or two years more data.
Q22 Mr Breed: Does the Department expect
to wait until the Krebs trials are completed before it decides
on a future policy? Is it going to stick it out to the very end,
bearing in mind all the delays and all the other aspects, or is
it going to make some declaratory policy before the official end
of the Krebs trials?
Mr Simmons: As a Department we
are committed to working in partnership with the various different
stakeholders we have to work with and that includes the farming
community, those with an interest in wildlife, consumers, etcetera.
We have been working with them to develop this strategy. We are
about to complete the consultation exercise and then we will start
developing a strategy with, where appropriate, further consultation.
What I can say is that the intention is to have a framework to
develop a longer-term strategy based on the culling trial results.
So the framework will already be in place prior to the results
of the trial becoming available.
Q23 Mr Breed: So the results are not
driving the framework, the framework is going to be developed
and, no matter what the figures are or what the results are, the
framework is there for implementation?
Mr Simmons: One can make a number
of predictions about the results of the proactive elements of
the trial: they could make the disease worse, they could make
it better or they could make it stay the same and, depending on
those results, we can develop a framework for dealing with it.
We need to be in a position to be able to act on those as soon
as possible. The other point I would like to make is that in addition
to that we have firm proposals for short-term options which we
propose to start implementing shortly once we have finished the
consultation exercise and those are mainly to do with reducing
the risk of spread via the cattle movements from the badly affected
areas of the country to the less affected areas of the country.
Chairman: I am sure we will come on to
that.
Q24 Mr Drew: Given that even in the worst
breakdowns there are always cattle that demonstrate resistance
to bovine TB, is there not some merit at least in thinking of
an equivalent to the national scrapie plan where we try and breed
bovine TB out of the cattle stock and indeed maybe in due course
away from badgers?
Professor Young: I think that
is certainly an interesting concept. At the moment we are involved
in a study in Ethiopia where we are trying to pin down the circumstantial
evidence that suggests that cattle that were originally domesticated
in the Indian subcontinent are apparently more resistant to TB
than the kind of Friesian cattle that we use here. Nobody has
ever really done the basic research to tie that down and look
at the cattle genetics of it. We are doing a study in Africa at
the moment which we are hoping will look into that to try and
see if we can work out the genetic basis for differential resistance
to M.bovis. If we could do that, I think that would be
a very interesting study.
Q25 Chairman: That is another area that
you want to look at. I presume you have not got any money for
that?
Professor Young: No. We are asking
the Wellcome Trust to support us with a little bit of money for
that.
Q26 Chairman: Not the Government?
Professor Young: This is related
to the problems that people have in Ethiopia. In Ethiopia they
are bringing in Holstein Friesians to increase their milk yield
and we are very concerned that that will also increase their bovine
TB problem.
Q27 Chairman: We have just had a question
about all the work you have got to do on vaccines. Now we have
had a new line of inquiry looking at possibly TB resistant cattle.
Given a free hand what else would you like to look at?
Professor Young: What we are dealing
with here is this interface between fundamental research and putting
things into practical policy and I think what is interesting in
the context of bovine TB vaccines is to try and take the top of
this basic fundamental research tree and try and move that into
some kind of practical intervention. When you go back down beyond
that and you say what do we want to understand about basic biology
of infection with TB and so on the list is endless.
Q28 Mr Wiggin: You said field trials
in the UK did not work because we did not keep the cattle long
enough, is that right?
Professor Young: I think that
is going to be a problem, yes. If you had a vaccine, how would
you know it had worked or not?
Chairman: Let us try and contain our
enthusiasm for a moment and stick to this area of general science
and vaccination.
Q29 Paddy Tipping: Can I pick up a point
that Dr Cheeseman was making earlier on which was that in the
short-term bio-security measures are the way forward and I think
Mr Simmons confirmed that around cattle movement. That is the
only game in town just now, is it not?
Mr Simmons: That is right.
Dr Cheeseman: I would say that
there is more to be done. We are actually in the middle of some
research on investigating farm husbandry and trying to pin down
the risk factors. At the end of that research I hope we will be
in a better position to say to farmers that these are the measures
that they can easily take living in the real world. We would not
recommend anything that is either impractical or too expensive.
Q30 Paddy Tipping: So you are saying
to farmers there are things that they can do to reduce the risk?
Dr Cheeseman: Yes.
Q31 Paddy Tipping: Why are farmers not
doing this?
Dr Cheeseman: I think perhaps
there is a need for us to be more proactive in disseminating this
information and we have been talking about how we can possibly
do this. I speak regularly to groups of farmers. I believe it
is an important function of a research scientist to communicate
the findings to the people that matter and we do this whenever
we can. Defra has it in mind to add the recommendations that we
are making into the demonstration farms and attending shows and
functions where the farming community can be reached, so it is
a PR job as well as a research exercise.
Q32 Paddy Tipping: Why are farmers writing
to me and saying that this is a load of rubbish?
Dr Cheeseman: I get very depressed
by that sentiment.
Q33 Paddy Tipping: They say we ought
to be shooting the badgers. Why is that the dominant theme at
the moment?
Dr Cheeseman: There is nobody
here from the NFU to answer. I do see farmers and I know their
feelings. Sometimes it is put to me that these measures are impractical.
Well, shutting a door is not impractical, putting roller shuttered
doors in front of feed stores is not impractical and indeed making
feed troughs in the open field inaccessible to wildlife is not
impractical. It may involve a cost. I can remember having a conversation
with a farmer recently who said exactly these things to me, he
said it is all too expensive and you cannot demonstrate that it
is going to work. He had just finished telling me that his string
of breakdowns had cost him in excess of £100,000 and I put
it to him that the expenditure of maybe a few thousand or maybe
even a couple of tens of thousands would be a good investment
and I think he conceded that I had a point.
Q34 Paddy Tipping: Mr Simmons, perhaps
you could remind us of what the cost of compensation TB annually
is running at at the moment?
Mr Simmons: In 2003-04 compensation
is £34.4 million.
Q35 Paddy Tipping: So these are big sums
of money that we are paying out and I think what you are saying
to us, Dr Cheeseman, is that by better husbandry, better fencing,
better security measures you could certainly reduce the risk,
is it not?
Dr Cheeseman: Yes.
Q36 Paddy Tipping: Professor Young, you
talked to us a bit about vaccination. For 12 years whilst I have
been an MP people have been telling me that a vaccine is ten years
away. Just help me, where are we now?
Professor Young: We normally use
this phrase ten to 15 years just to protect ourselves.
Q37 Paddy Tipping: You have got three
years left then!
Professor Young: The Chairman
put it as eight years which I thought was very delicate. My most
optimistic colleagues working on a human TB vaccine say that they
will have a vaccine ready in seven years and that is based on
this sort of scenario. People ask how long physically it takes
you to do a trial. Well, if everything works well you are talking
about seven to eight years.
Q38 Paddy Tipping: So you are confident
about the science?
Professor Young: We are not confident
about the science. We have a lot of scientific uncertainty. We
are working right at the edge of our knowledge. We are trying
our best and if we are right in our guesses then we are talking
about seven to eight years, but, no, do not take the message as
I am confident in the science. I am confident we are doing our
best in science, but we are not working from a solid knowledge
base where we just say it is a technology, we just have to take
known fact A and translate it into known product B, we are not
at that stage.
Q39 Paddy Tipping: If you wanted to extend
the frontiers of your knowledge do you need some more money?
Professor Young: Always.
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