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http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20010417/wl/food_disease_dc_167.html
Tuesday April 17 10:57 AM ET
UK Farmers: Vaccination Could Make Cattle Worthless
LONDON (Reuters) - Cattle herds in England may become
worthless and little more than a countryside attraction if Britain goes ahead
with a vaccination policy in areas worst hit by a foot-and-mouth epidemic,
farmers said on Tuesday.
Farmers have demanded answers over the governments
proposal to vaccinate cattle in two regions of England before the animals are
led out to pasture, saying their support rested on whether the industry would
survive the radical measures.
Robert Forster, head of the National Beef Association,
said livestock buyers could shun immunized cattle which may still carry the
highly infectious livestock disease because injections only mask the clinical
signs of foot-and-mouth.
It could kill off the cattle trade in these areas because
if you buy one of these animals and bring it onto your farm, it could erupt
spontaneously with foot-and-mouth disease and spread it further. And you don’t
want that, he told Reuters.
The political will is certainly to introduce a vaccination
program. There will be fewer carcasses, less slaughter and the place would look
cleaner and the tourists may come back to look at cows. But the industry has to
look at it in terms of lost value, reduced markets and whether it will prolong
the crisis.
Britain is anxious to woo tourists back, embarking on a
publicity blitz to try to reassure the world that the country is a safe holiday
destination despite television footage of blazing funeral pyres piled with the
dead carcasses of farm animals.
But new burial or burning sites have to be found with the
number of confirmed outbreaks reaching 1,341 and more than 1.6 million
livestock either slaughtered or earmarked for slaughter.
Vaccination would mean they would clear up the carcass
backlog, Forster said.
He said the reaction of cattle farmers in the two areas—Cumbria
in northwest England and Devon in southwest England—had been mixed, with some
just wanting to see the end of what has become an almost two month nightmare.
But the National Farmers Union called on the government to
explain its U-turn in policy and address farmers’ concerns.
The government had all but ruled out vaccination, saying
Britain would lose its disease-free status and its export markets for meat and
maybe milk.
The use of vaccination could have long-term damaging
consequences. There is a possibility it could actually spark more outbreaks and
it is highly likely that it will delay the resumption of exports considerably,
NFU President Ben Gill said in a statement.
Farmers are so desperate to save herds and flocks they
want every avenue to be explored. We need firm answers to the questions we have
asked.
Forster said it would be difficult to persuade owners of
pedigree cattle to adopt vaccination, which some UK newspapers suggested would
be decided on by the end of this week, because they would lose valuable export
markets for semen, embryos and sometimes live animals.
Pedigree owners are extremely alarmed because vaccination
would devalue their animals immediately. It would just wipe out all their
effort, he said, adding that the industry was continuing to talk to the
government about the policy.
Beef sales, all but recovered after Britain’s mad cow
crisis, should be unaffected after Britain’s Food Standards Agency assured
farmers that they could get certificates for the meat after meeting various
regulations.
I can see the advantages of a vaccinate-to-live policy for
the cattle economies of Cumbria and Devon, he said.
I just wonder what the price is.
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