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