Bovine TB. Why not give the needle to someone else?

Question

I understand from discussions a while ago that we do not want to innoculate the "National Herd" against Bovine TB. I think the argument ran "If we innoculate, we admit that the disease is endemic, and the value of British beef on the world market plummets and the farmers are even worse off than before because they would have to pay to get their cattle innoculated as well as taking the hit in the pocket of the reduced selling price".

I can follow that argument, although why its better to lose your cattle to the disease than to accept a reduced price for them is not obvious to me (Not many cattle in Stepney).

But the reason this question is asked follows-Why can't we eradicate Bovine TB by innoculating the badgers? If cattle catch it from badgers,(and this seems like an over-simplification as I'm writing it) why not treat the badgers?

Answer 1

Because of the lack of an effective vaccine against Tb in cattle and the huge losses caused by the disease, control of bovine Tb has been based on identification and slaughter of tuberculous animals. A compulsory national programme to eradicate M. bovis from cattle in the UK was introduced in 1950 following various voluntary programmes. The programme rapidly reduced the incidence of bovine Tb in the UK but final eradication has proved elusive. The establishment of M. bovis in the badger population is generally considered the main reason for the failure to eradicate bovine Tb.

No estimate has been made of the current cost of bovine Tb in Great Britain. The cost of implementing the national Tb control programme in 1998 was £21.82 million (DEFRA). However, this does not include the cost of the control programme to farmers nor the losses caused by bovine Tb in Great Britain.

However, the incidence of bovine TB has been rising in England and Wales recently. As many as 700 herds fail the tuberculin test each year.  We don't know why this is happening, although the re-stocking of farms after the 2001 foot-and-mouth epidemic rapidly increased the spread of bovine TB in cattle, there are also unexplained clusters of cases in the south west of England.  

Although there is no longer a public health risk from milk due to the control measures now in place, farmers are suffering huge financial losses and distress because of infections in their herds.  The cost of the Government's control programme has also rocketed in recent times.

Both the Government and scientists agreed that a new structured research programme was needed to bring the disease under control. But this required a good understanding of what was happening in the environment.

Is the badger the culprit or a victim?

Badgers have been suspected of being a source of infection (reservoir) since the early 1970s. Various surveys have confirmed that they can be infected by M. bovis (see box 1). Some infected badgers develop TB and produce large numbers of bacteria, which can spread to other animals.  Infected badgers have been shown to transmit infection to cattle under experimental conditions, but the relevance of this finding has been questioned. Other wildlife species also are susceptible to M. bovis.  However, apart from the feral ferret, infections in these species are not as common as in badgers and they do not develop serious symptoms or excrete as many bacteria.  

However, the incidence of bovine TB has been rising in England and Wales recently. As many as 700 herds fail the tuberculin test each year.  We don't know why this is happening, although the re-stocking of farms after the 2001 foot-and-mouth epidemic rapidly increased the spread of bovine TB in cattle, there are also unexplained clusters of cases in the south west of England.  

Although there is no longer a public health risk from milk due to the control measures now in place, farmers are suffering huge financial losses and distress because of infections in their herds.  The cost of the Government's control programme has also rocketed in recent times.

Both the Government and scientists agreed that a new structured research programme was needed to bring the disease under control. But this required a good understanding of what was happening in the environment.

Is the badger the culprit or a victim?

Badgers have been suspected of being a source of infection (reservoir) since the early 1970s. Various surveys have confirmed that they can be infected by M. bovis (see box 1). Some infected badgers develop TB and produce large numbers of bacteria, which can spread to other animals.  Infected badgers have been shown to transmit infection to cattle under experimental conditions, but the relevance of this finding has been questioned. Other wildlife species also are susceptible to M. bovis.  However, apart from the feral ferret, infections in these species are not as common as in badgers and they do not develop serious symptoms or excrete as many bacteria.  

Incidence (%) of M. bovis in wild life species:

Mink 0.6

Deer 1.0

Fox 1.0

Mole 1.2

Rat 1.2

Ferret 3.8

Badger 4.0

No infections were found in bats, cats, grey squirrels, hares, harvest mice, hedgehogs, rabbits, shrews, stoats, voles, weasels.  Source: MAFF.

Badgers were culled during the 1970s in areas where bovine TB was a problem. This led to a drop in disease levels in cattle at several sites where there had been intensive gassing of sets.  In the 1980s gassing was replaced by trapping and more humane killing methods. Trapped badgers were only killed if they were shown to be infected. However, this has proved unreliable because of the poor sensitivity of the diagnostic test and despite these measures, the incidence of TB in cattle continued to increase.

Set against this discouraging scene, the Government commissioned a review of the evidence for a link between badgers and bovine TB chaired by Professor John Krebs. This was to include recommendations on future policy. The Review Group concluded that there was convincing evidence that badgers were a source of infection for cattle, but the extent to which they added to problem in cattle (ie what proportion of cases in cattle were due to badgers) could not be calculated.  At the same time it was recommended that a vaccine should be developed against the infection.  In a reversal of previous thinking the Group considered that the prospects of a vaccine for cows was more promising as there had been more progress in understanding the basic immunological responses in cattle.

Answer 2

If British beef has a problem with Bovine TB it may have started from contact with a badger but it is spreading now from cow to cow.  So inoculating the badgers wouldn't help much at this point.  By saying "If we inoculate, we admit that the disease is endemic", is like sticking your head in the sand.  If the problem is there and the government tries to cover it up it's going to cost British farmers a lot more in the long run than taking the hit now and solving the problem.

Answer 3

i think capturing ALL badgers and innoculating  them would be quite the impossible task....

Answer 4

To answer the badger side of it, it would be impossible to treat badgers because of the difficulty in actually catching them in the first place.

Secondly you are absolutely correct that losing your cattle rather than innoculation is worse. Our herd is regularly checked for TB but if innoculation were possible we would jump at the chance.

The Government in this country and their issues regarding farming are a joke, believe me the cattle industry is already in decline and will get worse.

Supermarkets already import a lot of cheap meat from abroad such as South America and Africa and these are both TB infected countries. It has been exposed recently that supermarkets are also labelling this meat as 100% British Beef because it is just packaged in this country and some of it is not even beef, but a cross species breed meat and sold as pure beef (disgusting). The UK has set all these rules on appropriate farming but are shooting themselves in the foot by allowing the opposite to enter this country at a cheaper price. If they were really bothered about the population eating meat that could possibly have come from an animal with TB then they should stop the importation of meat from countries with this risk.

If there was a new regulation that we had to innoculate against TB we would do this if there was a chance of our herd being at risk. Yes Farmers do struggle already and if we had to pay it would make things worse and a lot more would go out of business but at the moment the Government is spending nearly £100million a year investigating and discussing the impact of TB and what could be done about it, plus if cattle are destroyed then the farmer is compensated, usually at market price. I don't know how much it would cost to innoculate cattle but I'd say £100million plus the money given for compensation would be enough to pay for them.

No farmer would want is cattle destroyed for any reason - it about time this Government woke up and looked at the state of British farming because the day will come when there is none and all our meat will be imported at an obscene price from countries where there are no animal welfare regulations, the meat is cheap rubbish probably not even the animal you think you are eating and these are also the countries that passed off BSE in their cattle as Staggers just so they didn't lose money and their animals could go into the food chain.

Sorry so long but this is an issue close to my heart and our livelihood

Answer 5

Bovine TB not only affects cattle but also people. It has been around forever. The US got aggressive with it some time back and has almost eradicated it from the cattle population, and in so doing it helped to control human instances of infection as they went after it in the human population equally as aggressive. Right now it is almost non-existent. Now they carry on the plan to work with buffalo and others, and the states and federal gov. have strict rules about other forms of livestock, especially those from wild sources or unprotected sources, like lamas, deer etc. The foreign demand was not reduced at all, and if anything leaves the importer feeling like they are getting a better product, aggressively cared for in terms of disease but also in regulation. As far as any animal vector for any disease, you can't rule out anything because everything can get TB. I took a look at the research program done in Britain and although they find TB in the badger population (possums in N. Zealand) they can only say that some badgers have it, not who gave it to who. It is thought they may be getting it from the cattle and that would make sense as they are smaller and mingle in the dung piles and mucus which all cattle sneeze up (which they probably love to eat, or surely sniff snot wads, like armadillos and leprosy in American S.West). The point of the question is dealing with badgers. First, there are no guaranteed truly effective immunizations for TB, for people or animals. I can't find anything on animals but the human immunizations are taken from a weakened bovine TB form so that is probably not a good idea to use that to inoculate cattle. For people they work but not 100% and I have seen some research documents that claim only 50%. Some general mycobacteria immunizations are given to people in highest risk areas but they probably are not all that effective. You can not really inoculate a wild population of animals like badgers, hard to catch and you can't get them all and your trying to inoculate them with something ineffective. The only known strategy is to cull and destroy all infected animals. Yup, badgers are protected but something has to be done. The people making the big stink about saving the badger are not the farmers loosing the herd, and the farmer understandably will quietly "dispatch" any badger they see protected or not. It is their livelihood. If I worked in an office in London and found my paperwork had a contagious disease from copy machines I'd put up a fight against it (kill copy machines), it is close to home and my livelihood. There isn't enough education in the public, obviously. For all that, it is important that the farmer needs to be working with the government on all levels, that will only happen when that farmer feels this is protecting their heard and livelihood, their lifes investment. And all people need to be informed of the issue so the people (in a democracy) can maked a knowlegable and informed decision, and not blindly protect an animal (badger) out of ignorance without consideration to the farmer, the one who puts food on their table. They, the farmer,  need financial guarantees without bureaucracy. You can't take a farmers livestock and destroy them without concideration to the farmer, and that means money, and that means help at containment and medical (vet and human) that is thoughtful and aggressive. It means help and support to deal with the vector issue, the badger in this case, protected or not, and the government needs to stop dragging their heals and educate the vocal minority money. As to how the world views the problem, as far as exports, it is important to know that the government stands behind this food, that it is good and the government is on top of it and stands by the policies they implement that guarentees TB free meat. A difficult proposal coming on the heals of mad-cow issues (of which may actually have a TB connection).

It will work itself out in time.

Answer 6

You catch them, we'll inoculate them.

Answer 7

That would be too easy for government and defra to do!!No doubt they would come up with some bull***t why they can't. For some reason common sense and having some balls aren't in their vocabulary.

Apparently it's ok to kill millions of animals(cows) a year but zero badgers.Seems that they only want to tackle the effect and not the cause.