Report heaps criticism UK government’s handling of FMD crisis
Published by Devon County Council, the preliminary report summarises the council’s own five-day public inquiry into the crisis, which was held earlier this month in protest at the government’s failure to hold its own public investigation. Devon was one of the counties to be worst affected by the disease with 173 cases confirmed and 390,000 animals slaughtered.
In the report, the government is accused of ‘carnage by computer’, where "bungled culls" were undertaken by insensitive "and even belligerent" operatives. It is also scathing about the actions of Defra (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs – the recently-renamed Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food) which, it says, used the outbreak as an excuse for overriding the welfare of individuals and communities. During the inquiry, a leading vet said he believed the handling of the foot-and-mouth crisis "seemed medieval", while another said she believed that the burning of carcasses had helped spread of the disease.
Commenting on the report on national TV on Monday morning, David Hill of the National Farmers Union referred to the "very heavy handed, almost jackboot approach" adopted by Defra officials. He also said the report found the government’s handling of the crisis to be both "incompetent and inadequate."
Among the report's main recommendations are:
* The tightening of import controls on meat and livestock products
* Scientific research into vaccination to help contain any future outbreak
* Rapid financial assistance for 4,500 farmers and their families ineligible for compensation, despite being affected by Defra's restrictions on animal movements.
The report also calls for a national contingency plan to deal with any future outbreak which would be reviewed, tested and rehearsed up to every five years.
A new UK government bill on handling livestock, apparently incorporating 'some of the lessons learned' from the FMD epidemic, will also be announced later this week.
Under the Animal Health Bill, the government will be granted new powers to speed up the slaughter and carcass disposal process, should the disease flare up again. According to ministers, appeals by farmers reluctant to have their stock slaughtered and householders opposed to having the carcasses dumped in burial pits may have contributed to the spread of the disease.
Under the new bill, ministers will also be given the authority to slaughter or breed out types of sheep that are suspected of being susceptible to scrapie, a disease similar to BSE. As part of the initiative, genetic resistance to scrapie and to BSE will be bred into the national sheep flock.
