Examination of Witnesses (Questions 351
- 359)
WEDNESDAY 24 OCTOBER 2007
SIR DAVID
KING AND
PROFESSOR MARK
WOOLHOUSE
Q351 Chairman: Thank you, Sir David,
for coming at short notice to talk to us. It was something of
a surprise to us that you were going to produce an additional
blockbuster report to add to the growing mountain of commentary
in this area. Nonetheless, it is an important document. We are
grateful to you for making yourself available so quickly for some
public scrutiny of what you have said. I gather that you wanted
to make a short presentation to the committee on your findings.
In that context, if you are able to do it in five minutes, we
would be grateful if you could condense your work into such a
short time space, but we are up against the clock. If you would
like to give us a summary, that would be a good way to start.
Sir David King: Chairman, I am
going to start by just explaining my role as Chief Scientific
Adviser. It is to provide independent advice to government, particularly
on important issues where science is concerned. It is customary
for members of the Cabinet to contact me for advice on a whole
range of issues, and that is what I have been doing for the last
seven years. I give you one example where I brought in the entire
team who had been working for seven or eight years, and this was
the question of scrapie in sheep and whether or not there was
BSE in those animals. Those people had been deeply involved in
that for seven or eight years. I questioned them for a day and
during that process discovered that no DNA test had been conducted
on the sample they had received. When I sent that out for testing,
we discovered they had been testing the wrong barrel of sheep
brains, and it turned out that they had been testing bovine and
not ovine material. Let me suggest that that was a critically
important outcome of my challenging process. I am just giving
you that one example. Following publication of the ISG report,
I was approached by the Secretary of State and agreed with him
that I would undertake a short objective assessment of the key
scientific issues in relation to the role that badger removal
could play in controlling and reducing levels of TB in cattle
in England. I want to stress that I was asked to make comment
on scientific issues. My brief did not extend to economic or other
practical issues. I invited five experts to help me assess the
relevant scientific evidence. They are all very well respected;
many of them have been working all their lives on TB in animals.
I was confident that I had a good group of people, particularly
covering badger ecology, epidemiology and immunology of TB. Together
we reviewed the evidence. They had the report for some weeks before
we met. We met for a period from 9 a.m. through till the end of
that day. I wanted them to sleep on it, so we met again for two
hours the next morning. Some of the members were present for some
of the time. The Australian member of the committee was 12 hours
out of phase with us and so we lost him around midnight Australian
time, but he was there the next morning. I am very glad that one
of the members of that group, Professor Mark Woolhouse, is here.
He is from the Centre for Infectious Diseases in Edinburgh. He
is an epidemiologist with whom I have worked previously. The main
evidence base to which we referred was of course the ISG final
report and the results from the RBCT proactive trials. This report
was the culmination of nearly 10 years of work by the ISG on cattle
TB. I congratulate John Bourne and the group for producing an
excellent and comprehensive report, which adds enormously to the
scientific evidence about TB in cattle and the role that badgers
play in the spread of the disease. The conclusions in my report
are not very different from those that the ISG reached, particularly
in terms of the scientific content of their report. Let me quote
from a recent publication, The International Journal of Infectious
Diseases that has just appeared but was submitted on 3 April
this year. Three of the authors are sitting behind me, so it is
by John Bourne, Christl Donnelly and others. I quote directly:
"Results confirmed that badger culling is only likely to
be beneficial if conducted systematically over large areas and
sustained over several years." I quote that because I want
to indicate that I agree with the ISG that badgers are a continuing
source of infection for cattle and vice versa. The ISG figures
show that badgers could account for up to 40% of cattle breakdown
in some areas but I do not agree that their data supports a conclusion
that badger culling cannot contribute to the control of TB in
cattle in Britain. As pointed out in the ISG report, culling over
large areas and over a significant period of time would be effective.
I am drawing on the information in that report, Chairman. So the
conclusions that I draw from the data—I say "I draw",
I am naming my science panel but nevertheless I take the responsibility
for the conclusions—is that badger removal alongside cattle
controls would very likely play an important role in controlling
TB in cattle in those areas where there is a consistently high
level of TB in cattle. I realise that I am not going to be able
to give you the body of what I was going to say, but let me leap
to the conclusion. Although the scientific evidence is not as
clear-cut as one would like, I feel that more research would have
added to a reduction in the uncertainties, but with the incidence
of TB in cattle doubling every four and a half years and extending
over the country, now is the time to stop this upward trend. It
has a very important impact on our farming community. Britain's
biggest endemic animal health issue is TB in cattle. In my view,
the data from the ISG report would lead to the clear conclusion
that badger removal alongside cattle measures would make a significant
contribution to the control of cattle TB in those areas where
it is highly persistent. Removal must be done effectively over
large areas and over a sustained period of time. That is the basis,
the meat, of that letter that I have sent to the Secretary of
State.
Q352 Chairman: Just for the record,
when specifically did David Miliband ask you to undertake this
work?
Sir David King: The publication
of the ISG report was 18 June. It was in that week.
Q353 Chairman: Did he write some
formal terms of reference?
Sir David King: The terms of reference
were that I should base my advice on the science.
Q354 Chairman: Did he define the
parameters of your work?
Sir David King: Beyond that, no;
he left it to me to determine how I would operate, so the calling
of that small group of scientists was my normal method of operation
in such a circumstance.
Q355 Chairman: Your work has been
solely, if you like, discussion and paper-based. You have not
actually gone out and looked at any of the reality of what you
are commenting about on the ground?
Sir David King: Our work was a
commentary on a very detailed piece of work. As I say, our conclusions
are based around that piece of work, but I would want to add that
the experts that helped me on this report had all been engaged
over a long period of time on the issue of TB in cattle.
Q356 Mr Drew: You heard my earlier
exchange with the ISG group on paragraph 24, so I will not rehearse
that. Can I take you to paragraph 14 in your report and the last
sentence? Again I am paraphrasing and pick me up if I am in any
way misinterpreting the evidence. What you are basically saying
is that where there is a higher incidence of badgers, you can
map that out in terms of a higher incidence of bovine TB in cattle.
Can you quote scientific evidence to prove that? Can you also
refer to the evidence from the RTA work that has been going on
for a long period of time, which actually was completely confusing
and did not really in any way prove that there were badger hot
spots if you were to take the relationship between the level of
TB in badgers, which was a steady 15 to 17% , compared to the
areas where there is a much higher level of incidence of TB in
cattle? In a sense, this is the scientific rationale on which
you are basing your findings.
Sir David King: I do not think
there is any disagreement on the final part of that sentence that
there is a good indication of a wildlife reservoir of TB infection.
Q357 Mr Drew: That is not the problem.
There is a problem with the densities of badgers because from
my understanding, having been there on a number of occasions,
the Woodchester Project has categorically proven that where there
is a high number of badgers there is no greater incidence of bovine
TB in cattle.
Professor Woolhouse: Could I
comment on that? There clearly is a very complicated relationship
between badger density and the level of infection in badgers.
The Independent Scientific Group's work has been very important
in trying to elucidate that relationship. The fact that that relationship
is complicated and perhaps not a simple linear one as you are
implying certainly does not mean there is not a link or an association
which is very clear here between the level of infection or the
infection of badgers and infection in cattle. Indeed the ISG's
other group in a paper by Rosie Woodroffe published in the PNAS
a few years ago—and she can comment in a few minutes on
that—would support that association. What we have been arguing
about for decades of course is in which direction does the actual
link go. I do not think there is any doubt about the association.
Q358 Mr Drew: You are happy to have
this paper peer reviewed in the due course of time to clarify
some of those issues in terms of the statements you have made?
Professor Woolhouse: Whatever
mechanism is felt appropriate for reviewing that, including of
course a reply from the ISG.
Q359 Mr Williams: You have told us
that having got together your group of experts, you had a meeting
over one day and then another meeting the next morning, and one
of your colleagues was contributing over a phone line. Do you
think that is a satisfactory way of conducting what is a very
important piece of work or should it have been given more opportunity
for consideration?
Sir David King: Let me once again
explain that the members of that group had the ISG report for
at least three weeks before we met and, more importantly, the
members of that group were very much aware of the papers that
had been published from the work that has already been referred
to by John Bourne, the papers that had been published over the
period of the work itself. It is not as if the work of the report
was new to the people who were helping to advise me on this. During
that three-week period, my office received from those experts
their own comments on the ISG report. Prior to the meeting, they
were working on it with my own team to see that we made the best
possible use of that full day. I have to say it was a very full
day. We carried right through over dinner that evening and, as
I say, met again for two hours the next morning. I think that,
given that the Secretary of State had asked me for a brief commentary,
that was probably what was needed.
| 
