Memorandum submitted by the Independent
Scientific Group on Cattle TB
Thank you for your letter of 28 June inviting
me to submit further evidence in the light of that given by the
National Farmers' Union on 20 June 2007 and on other matters relating
to the Final Report of the Independent Scientific Group on Cattle
TB (ISG).
You are, of course, aware that the ISG was dissolved
on 30 June,[2]
thus I am no longer Chairman of the Group. However, the content
of this letter has been agreed by all former members and is being
sent with their approval.
I will deal with the Report first. On 23 May
we sent Defra Ministers a near-to-final draft of our Final Report,
comprising what was eventually published as Chapters 1 to 7 inclusive,
9 and 10. Between 2 and 18 May we had been sending various draft
chapters to Defra officials for comment, and to enable them to
fine-tune in advance any Ministerial briefing that they may have
felt was appropriate.
As a scientific document the report was based
mainly on scientific publications, the majority of which were
already in the public domain. All ISG publications were prepared
in consultation with Defra policy and scientific advisors, the
majority included Defra scientists as co-authors, and Ministers
received copies of the papers at the time of submission to scientific
journals.
Draft copies of the Chairman's Overview (comprising
the commentary of progress and list of acknowledgements) and the
Summary of Scientific Findings (a brief summary of Chapter 10),
were not seen, as far as I am aware, by Defra Ministers before
an advance copy of the printed version was hand delivered to their
respective offices on the morning of 15 June 2007.
Having read the uncorrected transcript of the
evidence given on 20 June 2007 I must say how very disappointed
I am by some of the inappropriate and unfounded comments directed
towards the ISG and our report, particularly those suggesting
that the "...report has been slanted at the last moment..."
(NFU response to question 202). Comments of this nature have no
place in the public record, and I am grateful to your Chairman
for providing Professor Rosie Woodroffe with an opportunity to
respond to them at the time. I do of course support everything
that Rosie said in evidence.
But I would like to take this opportunity to
add to that and to set out in a little more detail what was reported
to Ministers in the intervening period between our early 2006
comments on Defra's badger culling consultation and the publication
of our Final Report.
On 24 April 2006 Christl Donnelly, Rosie Woodroffe
and I met Defra Minister Ben Bradshaw. Defra officials were also
present. A number of issues were discussed at that meeting, but
I have set out below a number of the key points made by the ISG
at the time which were relevant in particular to our position
in relation to badger culling then, and which are relevant to
our subsequent Final Report conclusions:
— There was widespread scientific
agreement on the detrimental impacts of localised culling;
— To be effective, any cull would
need to be delivered in a co-ordinated and efficient manner for
a sustained period of time over a large area that was isolated
by features such as major rivers, roads or coastline (to avoid
the detrimental edge effect caused by badger immigration);
— By extrapolating from the RBCT
results, Defra's Science Advisory Council had suggested that culling
over an area of 300km2 might bring benefits, but we recommended
that this might need to be a minimum, and that in our experience
sustained and comprehensive coverage of such extensive areas would
be difficult to achieve; and,
— In our opinion more could be
achieved in terms of cattle TB control by focusing on measures
other than badger culling, and that a quick reduction in TB herd
incidence could be achieved by focusing on the cattle element.
A copy of a note of this meeting, prepared at
the time by the ISG Secretariat and circulated to ISG members,
is attached for information and clarity (Annex A). However, to
ensure that the proper information release protocols are maintained
and, most importantly, personal security is protected, the names
of the Defra policy officials present have been removed.
On 29 November 2006 I attended a further meeting
with Ben Bradshaw. The main and relevant points I made at that
meeting were:
— Localised culling made things
worse and proactive culling over 100km2 had effectively a zero
impact;
— If a badger culling policy was
to have a positive effect on reducing cattle tuberculosis, such
culling would have to be on a large scale, far larger than in
the RBCT, and done systematically involving professional expertise,
for a long time. Elimination or near elimination of badgers could
maximise the impact of culling;
— The debate with the NFU and
veterinary profession should be shifted away from badger culling
to improved cattle controls; and,
— In response to comments from
Defra officials that there could be a modest gain in tuberculosis
control if a culled area was as large as 300km2, I said there
would be winners and losers, but extrapolation of trial data suggested
that overall there would only be modest positive gains. Further,
I emphasised that if culling was conducted in a patchwork and
inconsistent way it was likely to make matters worse.
A copy of a note of this meeting, prepared at
the time by the ISG Secretariat and circulated to ISG members,
is attached (Annex B). In the near future this will be made available
as a public document, as part of the archiving and public release
of the ISG's papers but, for the same reasons given above, the
names of the Defra policy officials present have been removed
from this copy.
There was one further meeting, held on 1 February
2007 when David Miliband and Ben Bradshaw met Christl Donnelly
and me. This was a private meeting and no formal note was taken
by the ISG. We repeated the discussion previously held with Mr
Bradshaw at the November 2006 meeting, taking the opportunity
to provide an update of research progress. In the main we discussed
two issues: the value and feasibility of a large scale cull over
an area of 300 km2, and the option for cattle measures as the
focus for future bovine TB control.
It is clear that our views and advice on the
impact of badger culling, as conducted in the Randomised Badger
Culling Trial, have been consistent ever since data became available
on the effects of proactive culling. These views consolidated
as more ecological and epidemiological data became available for
analysis and some economic evaluation was undertaken, providing
further insights that allowed extrapolation to alternative forms
of culling. Nevertheless, the foregoing evidence confirms that
at no time since relevant data became available has the ISG changed
its opinion—or the tone of its advice to Ministers—concerning
the impact badger culling would have on bovine TB incidence, and
the role that such culling could play in bovine TB control.
Finally, I remain to be convinced that the comments
about the ISG and their conclusions can be fully and satisfactorily
addressed through correspondence alone. I am therefore grateful
for the opportunity kindly offered to me to attend a further evidence
session on 24 October 2007; this will enable me to publicly refute
the 20 June allegations and to elaborate on the detail in this
written evidence.
Professor John Bourne CBE
July 2007
2 The Independent Scientific Group on Cattle TB was
formally dissolved on 30 June 2007. Back
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