Thoughts from the Middle of Nowhere

Brownfield Network: Need for vigilance although foot and mouth disease outbreak waning

A leading microbiologist in Britain says the Foot and Mouth Disease outbreak might be under control by the end of this week if there are no more cases confirmed, according to Dow Jones. Professor Hugh Pennington tells British newspapers that only until the incubation period is over, up to 14 days, will the meat and livestock industry be considered free from risk of further foot and mouth disease.

Britain’s Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, tells The Daily Telegraph, there are no further suspected cases of the disease, but says “we’re not out of the woods yet.” Anyone who keeps animals is urged to be extremely vigilant.

I've been following the foot and mouth disease outbreak in Britain with interest, does this surprise you, but something is a little wrong here and here with the reporting on this issue. Both of these stories are saying that it is BSE affecting the British herds, not foot and mouth disease. Is it really that hard to check up on this and figure it out a little better? Is this the media's roil in the world to be wrong?

I know it's not but mistakes like this get blown out of proportion and can cause real harm. These media outlets should check their facts a little better.

The latest on Britain's foot and mouth disease is that a third herd is being killed because they suspect, I repeat, suspect that the herd might have the disease. The Government lab is still the best candidate for the source of the outbreak, and outside the suspect area, farmers are now able to move their cattle to slaughter. With the collapse of export markets due to the disease I'm sure cattle prices are dropping in Britain but at least farmers aren't forced to sit on them. There is some interesting pictures here of the area and what is happening.

I keep watching this with interest. Scary stuff.

Everything popular is wrong. Oscar Wilde

More information on Britain's foot and mouth disease problem. The outbreak was likely from a government sponsored lab.

Hopes rose Sunday that a potentially disastrous foot-and-mouth outbreak in Britain could be contained, as scientists grew increasingly suspicious that the disease came from a high-security laboratory near the infected farm.

The agriculture department said late Saturday that the strain of foot-and-mouth disease found on a farm in southern England was identical to one used at a research laboratory a few miles away shared by the government's Institute for Animal Health and a private pharmaceutical company, Merial Animal Health.

The department said the strain had not recently been seen in live animals.

"This is a promising lead - but we do not know for sure," Environment Secretary Hilary Benn told the British Broadcasting Corp. on Sunday.

Just because it comes from a nearby lab there is hope? Does that change the fact that 60 cows have been killed and burned? Does that cause this disease to not spread any further on the wind or on vehicles? Where is the hope here? Hope that they can blame someone else for all the problems? Hope that the whole damn thing will go away? I don't see much hope.

Here we find a little more about the farm where this is taking place.

One of the family's friends leaned, grim-faced, on his front gate and said: "I'm absolutely gobsmacked. Where the hell did it come from? The Prides are a well-known farming family. They have been here years and years, before I got here, and that was 37 years ago."

He added: "It's an organic farm. Absolutely everything is done by the book there. They're not just in it for the money. It's a proper organisation. They really run it well.

"I really feel for them. They don't deserve it. It's devastating. Bloody hell, it's their livelihood we're talking about here… God help us all."

Why was this lab working on a vaccine when nobody seems to want to use it to control foot and mouth disease? What's the sense in that? Doesn't this just sound like Montana's recent brucellosis problem? This dumb cowboy just doesn't understand all this stuff.

Hope springs eternal in the human breast: Man never is, but always To be Blest. Alexander Pope

Foot-and-mouth disease detected in UK

Scientists worked Saturday to trace the source of a foot-and-mouth disease outbreak on an English farm, a development that prompted the European Union to ban livestock imports from Britain, an official said.

In 2001, foot and mouth disease devastated Britain's meat industries and I'm sure everyone there is setting on pins and needles waiting to see what is going to happen now. In a way this is like the recent brucellosis problem in Montana. It is a disease there is a vaccine for and the critters get over it. Why slaughter all of them? I sometimes don't understand these things.

In all reality, foot and mouth disease and what happened in Britain in 2001 is what is really driving any NAIS plan. It scared a lot of farmers and ranchers and they figured they needed a way to track animal movements. The problem I see is that they never established in Britain that is was animal movement that caused all the problems. Anecdotal evidence indicates that foot and mouth disease was spread in Britain by the investigators themselves tracking it to other farms while investigating foot and mouth disease. It is so contagious that people, vehicles and wildlife can cause it to move from farm to farm.

At this point I can't say much about this outbreak. We need to watch and see what happens. It's one of those scenarios that frightens a cattle producer, like brucellosis, but there is not much you can do about it.

What is important is not what someone is but what he is waiting for. Not the events of life but its possibilities. Dorothee Solle

I found an interesting article out of Britain that seems to have lost something in translation.

The emptiness (of Montana) is populated by bison, buffalo and horses that seem to roam wild and look upon their human guests with gentle curiosity.

First off, I though bison and buffalo were the same critter, why are they listed as two separate critters here? Second thing about this statement is the fact that the stock of "wild" bison/buffalo is exceedingly sparse in Montana. That has to do with the Brucellosis issue and keeping Montana free from it. So where did this reporter see all these "wild" bison/buffalo?

Like a traveling circus the governor, his dog and Eric - the bedraggled right hand man - flew us to a place called Judith Gap.

Here in a sweeping valley framed by the Crazy Mountains, 90 giant wind turbines revolved lazily in the robust Montana wind, providing the state with all the electricity it needs - with plenty left over.

Now I know for a fact that my electricity doesn't come from the wind farm at Judith Gap and a little looking around informs me that the wind farm produces 180MW of power which is enough to supply approximately 50,000 households with electricity. Census figures show that there is over 365,000 households in Montana. So where does this reporter get the information that the Judith Gap wind farm is "providing the state with all the electricity it needs - with plenty left over?"

I know the British speak the English language But something was lost in translation here. I don't know where the breakdown was, but it is apparent.

I want my words to survive translation. I know when I write a book now I will have to go and spend three days being intensely interrogated by journalists in Denmark or wherever. Kazuo Ishiguro

UPDATE: I see in todays Billings Gazette that they list the Judith Gap wind farm at 135MW which is even less than I found making it even less likely to power Montana.