Examination of Witnesses (Questions 240
- 247)
WEDNESDAY 20 JUNE 2007
MR MEURIG
RAYMOND, MR
JAN ROWE,
MR MARTIN
HAWORTH, MS
CATHERINE MCLAUGHLIN
AND PROFESSOR
ROSIE WOODROFFE
Q240 Mr Gray: One other thing about
pre-movement testing which the NFU Council said they might interfere
with if you did not.
Mr Haworth: No, we did not actually
say that. The Council said that, unless the Government had a comprehensive
TB eradication strategy, it would be difficult for us, perhaps
impossible for us, to co-operate with the Animal Health Strategy
the Government has got, which is not a matter of breaking the
law, that is just a partnership approach that we have got with
the Government, which we are anxious to pursue, we do not want
to do that. We are also anxious to have a proper partnership and
responsibility sharing agenda across the whole animal health sphere.
If you look at our public evidence, that is what we have said,
but if the Government is not prepared to act in partnership with
us on TB, it will be very difficult for us to deliver the industry
for the rest of the responsibility sharing, but there was never
any threat not to participate or not to co-operate with pre-movement
testing. That is the law.
Chairman: Roger, could we move to vaccines.
Q241 Mr Williams: Much has been hoped
for in terms of developing vaccines, both for badgers and for
cattle. When you read the report it does not seem desperately
hopeful. I cannot remember the last couple of lines in the report
relating to vaccines, but should Defra now put a deal of effort
in terms of science and resources into supporting the development
of a vaccine? After all, the cost to the country of TB is absolutely
huge. Have you got any ideas perhaps about where we are in terms
of developing a vaccine and any costs that could be incurred in
making sure that that development is accelerated as much as possible?
Mr Raymond: We have advocated
for many, many years the use of vaccines, the R&D around vaccination.
I will hand this across. Point number six in our joint agreement
with the rest of the industry states, "The industry and Government
to work together to develop a strategy that would allow healthy
badgers and cattle to co-exist post clearance. Full support to
be given to the ongoing development of vaccines." It is very
much part of our plan, our priorities. What I find very sad about
the vaccine debate is that, whenever I speak to people within
that sphere, we keep getting told five to ten years, five to ten
years, and I fear that the industry does not have that five to
ten years at this stage. Again, we see the incidence level in
the cattle population increasing, but as we see the hotspot areas
develop and move outwards, there is no doubt in our mind that
the wildlife has been contaminated, that disease is spreading
and the longer it goes on the greater the problem is going to
be. That is why we would suggest that we need action now rather
than in five years' time. Yes, vaccination, yes, develop the vaccines
and we will support that whole-heartedly.
Q242 Mr Williams: It has been suggested
to us that the problem is not one of technology of developing
the vaccines but of taking the vaccine from the laboratory to
use and all the regulatory hurdles that such a process would involve.
Do we know anything?
Mr Rowe: I do not know in detail
all the legislative procedures, but at the moment there is a trial
going on very near to where I live, in fact, which is actually
looking at the efficacy and the safety of an intradermally used
vaccine using BCG.
Q243 Mr Williams: Is that with cattle
or with badgers?
Mr Rowe: That is with badgers,
and it is involving matched sets of badgers, some are rejected
every year and some not, and comparing whether it has any effects,
how long that effect lasts, whether it is safe in terms of other
animals around. Provided you have got through that hurdle, and
I believe David knows as much about it as I do, probably that
is a three-year period that that is running over, of that sort
of magnitude. One then has to go through the various legislative
licensing procedures. There is also the fact that it has to be
put into an oral form of bait which is protected so it will go
through and work effectively within the badger. The Irish are
doing some of this work. That is where this sort of eight to ten-year
timescale comes in and then, fingers crossed, if it works, you
then have to start applying it in the field, and, of course, its
effect would not be immediate, it would take quite a lot of time
to build up, which is why you are probably looking at nearer a
15-year timescale, even if everything goes to plan, before you
get any beneficial effect in a large scale from a vaccine; and
that is where we come back to Meurig's point. The industry will
have gone by then if we do not do something different now.
Q244 Mr Williams: There is the other
problem, of course. If you use vaccination in cattle, how do you
develop an appropriate test?
Mr Rowe: There is a lot of work.
There are huge problems with even developing new vaccines for
human beings. A lot of the cattle work is riding on the back of
huge investments from pharmaceutical companies going into developing
a TB vaccine, but it is a very strange disease to develop a vaccine
for, and you have to be able to identify animals that have been
vaccinated and infected and be able to say, no, it is one or the
other. There are huge difficulties, but science is changing all
the time. There are some amazing developments going on and that
may be possible, but at the moment if the only vaccine they have
available is BCG or variants of it, put that into a cow, you can
no longer use the skin-test and nobody in the world would want
any of our products or trade with us at all. It is not very effective
in a cow, it might work with very young animals if it is used
repeatedly, but, of course, as you say, you cannot then use them
in any testing.
Q245 Chairman: One of the things
that have intrigued me about Defra's approach to this is that
in all of their strategy documents they have produced these tables
projecting the ever rising costs, and we are running anywhere
between 80 and 90 million pounds a year. The only reaction so
far from Defra has been the valuation issue, which has been aimed
at reducing the amount of cost to responding to this. I find it
very odd that in many areas of government activity spend to save
is a regular part of the thesis. In the tax world they employ
more inspectors to get more money in, but in this area there is
almost a penny pinching. Just looking at the breakdown. Let me
see if I can find the table in here. The cattle testing regime—this
is the 2004-05 figures—was costed in a forecast figure around
£36 million and the compensation figure was again £36
million. So, £72 million just on testing and compensating.
I have not seen anybody say, "If we threw a shed load of
cash in this, could we actually crack it?" Even if you said,
let us take £100 million, one year's cost, and throw that
at vaccine, testing the whole lot, that is a huge budget, but
if you do not do it this thing seems to have a life of its own.
I do not understand. Perhaps you could help me. Why is it that
Defra have not said spend to save?
Mr Raymond: Can I add to that
as well? It is the cost on individual farmers and farmers under
restriction, increased costs, increased cattle numbers, the cost
of testing. Farmers have to carry the pre-movement test costs,
so there are additional costs on the industry, on the individuals
who can least afford it, on top of those figures that you have
just quoted. If you follow through some of the recommendations
on further cattle measures, I think we are going to see a huge
increase in the costs. If you are going to roll gamma interferon
out, I am led to believe that the cost of the skin-test is between
five and six pounds per animal, whereas the cost of gamma interferon
is about £75 per animal and, obviously, from a veterinary
point of view, it is going to take a lot longer. The cost implications
on the additional cattle measures are going to be fairly huge;
so at some stage somebody is going to have to do the cost-benefit
analysis on that, but I honestly do believe that if we are going
to see a reduction, if we are going to reduce this graph that
is constantly going upwards, then it is going to take a lot of
resource and a lot of determination as well and a change in strategy.
Q246 Mr Drew: The point is that even
the Irish with their much more favourable view towards culling,
have stated (and I am not sure this is stated scientifically or
this is a judgment) that the only answer is a vaccine. We all
know where we are going, and obviously there is some interesting
work being done in New Zealand at the moment. I do not know why
there is not—. I think we actually know where plan B is
now, and plan B was what we were actually calling for, it was
effectively a subtext for vaccination, except that we are clear
(at least I hope we are clear) as a select committee, it has got
to be a badger vaccine rather than a cattle vaccine. Why do we
not try and fight this? Why do we not all try together to get
this and, for once, move forward and say it has got to be a vaccine
and we have got to crack it sooner rather than later? I know what
John Bourne said on Monday. He said science has to take its natural
consequence, whatever actions you would want to have it take,
but there must be some logic in that argument.
Mr Rowe: I totally agree with
you, and this shed load of money should have been spent 15 years
ago, but it has not been and I am not sure a shed load of money
would actually make much difference to the speed a vaccine would
develop. It might help a little, but I do not think it would help
a lot. I think we are quite a long way down the road towards an
effective vaccine, but there are a number of hurdles that have
to be jumped, and they all take time and money is not necessarily
going to speed that up. I wish it would and if there was a way
it would, let us look at it.
Q247 Chairman: Thank you very much
indeed. Thank you for your forbearance at the slightly unusual
nature of our proceedings, but I think it was to our advantage
to have the benefit of a special tourist giving us the benefit
of her views. May I thank, again, Professor Woodroffe for her
contribution. Can I thank our earlier witnesses and may I again
reiterate our thanks to the NFU. You will gather that the Committee
perhaps have got themselves into a slightly bigger area for further
inquiry and questioning than we perhaps realised. I think we had
all hoped that we might be getting somewhere towards the development
of an alternative strategy and I suspect that we will all still
be scratching our heads for the foreseeable future. Anyway, we
have much to reflect upon. Thank you very much for coming and
giving evidence to us this afternoon.
Mr Raymond: Can I thank you, Chairman,
and the Select Committee, and can I hand this across. It is the
seven-point plan.
Chairman: Thank you very much. We will
ensure that all members of the Committee get a copy of it. Could
I ask colleagues to stay behind for a couple of minutes for reflection
afterwards, but if members of the public would be kind enough
to vacate the room, we would be most grateful.
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