FMD report heaps criticism on UK government
The UK government’s handling of the ongoing foot and mouth outbreak came under heavy fire last week from the country’s Institute of Directors, which said the average cost for each member organisation affected by the outbreak was £125,000 ($183,000).
It its contribution to a National Audit Office study into the disease, the institute highlighted the delays that occurred in diagnosis, the flaws inherent in the government’s policy of mass destruction and the manner in which carcasses were disposed of.
However, the institute reserved its greatest criticism for the refusal of the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Fisheries - now the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) – to introduce ring vaccination.
Though in the UK ring vaccination has attracted the backing of the Soil Association, the tourism industry, many vets and some farmers, the government has steadfastly refused to adopt it, citing consumer preferences - a concern that shared to a large extent by the National Farmers’ Union. Last month, the government’s own rural advocate, Ewen Cameron, chairman of the Countryside Agency, urged the government to at least begin a pilot programme of testing, before the outbreak ends. Yet still it refuses to alter its position.
An explanation of why the option of ring vaccination was not been used in the UK was echoed in the European Parliament during the week. Speaking during a session on the crisis on Thursday night, Lutz Goepel, a German MEP on the commission’s agricultural committee went so far as to say that the British government should be stripped of its powers. He said the time had now come for the EU to implement an earlier ruling which allows it to take direct control ‘in extreme circumstances’, when a member state was endangering the collective interest.
Ruth Lea, head of policy at the IoD, said: "Our members feel very strongly that the outbreak has been poorly handled by the Ministry of Agriculture and Defra. "Foot and mouth disease has clearly never `gone away' and could now well be endemic in Britain's herds. It is tragic."
Effective though it was in bringing the Netherland’s FMD outbreak under control in March, the Netherlands government’s policy of using a combination of ring vaccination and slaughter itself came under criticism last week (See separate leatherbiz.com story Netherlands calls for an end to EU slaughter/vaccination policy).
