FW: Hoof and mouth??????

["Maryanne Stroud Gabbani" <maryanne@ratbusters.net>]

Given the concern over hoof and mouth disease lately, and the fact that no
one in Egypt seemed even slightly concerned, I thought that this article
that was posted on VetMed might be of interest. People that I've questioned
here about it, usually well-educated types who have chosen to live in
agricultural areas, said that it shows up every now and then and that in
general is not a cause for panic.

Maryanne Stroud Gabbani
Cairo, Egypt
maryanne@ratbusters.net
www.ratbusters.net



The Independent (London) March 4, 2001,  Sunday:
THE PLAGUE THAT NEVER WAS: FOOT AND MOUTH SHOULD NOT BE A  CRISIS.
WE HAVE ALL BEEN MISLED BY THE MEN FROM THE MINISTRY  BYLINE:
Geoffrey Lean

As funeral pyres light up the night sky and  barriers go up all over
 Britain's broad acres - farming and the countryside  face their biggest
crisis, and their greatest opportunity, since the  Second World War.
 Yet - despite the draconian measures - foot and mouth is  a mild disease,
from which animals recover naturally and quickly. It has only  been turned
into a disaster by the heedless
 intensification of  agriculture over the past 50 years. By yesterday, 51
 herds had caught the  disease - after the largest rise in cases in a
 single day - and 45,000 cows,  sheep and pigs had been slaughtered to try
tostop
 it spreading. And Britain  had a Keep Out countryside. Every footpath in
 every national park  is closed, as are all but 20 of the National
 Trust's properties, and all  two-and-a-half million acres of the
Forestry Commission's land. Fixtures from  the Wales v Ireland rugby
 match to Crufts have been  cancelled.

 The farming industry, already on its knees, is staring  into the abyss
 and neighbouring nations wait - with fear and fury mixed -  to see how
 they will be affected. The crisis has severely shaken Tony Blair,  and, as
 senior ministers confirmed yesterday, forced him to abandon his plans
 to announce the General Election for 5 April immediately after Wednesday's
 Budget. The disease's escalating effects, the draconian control measures
and  the unanimously sombre tone of commentators, all suggest that the
country  must be facing a devastating killer plague. But we aren't. Foot and
mouth disease only very rarely affects people, and even then only raises a
slight temperature and a few blisters.

 It doesn't even kill animals. As  the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries
 and Food (MAFF) itself admits,  the sheep, pigs and cows being slaughtered
 and burned would shake it off  in two or three weeks if they were allowed
 to live. Vets say that it is no  more serious for animals than a bad cold
 for humans. Instead, it is an  economic disease.

 When animals are sick they produce less milk, and  put on less meat.
 MAFF asserts that cows also milk less well  when they recover, though late
 last week could produce no scientific  evidence to prove it. Yet MAFF
 steadfastly refuses to countenance any  relaxation of its zero
tolerance policy. This contrasts sharply with the  enormous tolerance it
showed BSE, allowing hundreds of thousands  of diseased animals into the
 food chain and permitting controls - when  introduced - to be poorly
 enforced and widely flouted. Yet BSE really is a  terrifying plague
 which has killed 80 people, slowly and horrifically, and  will do the same
to
 thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands, more over  coming decades. MAFF's
reaction to the two diseases shows where its priorities lie. It cares little
for human health. It is not even
 particularly  bothered about sick animals. What gets it exercised, and
 spurs it to  emergency action, is a threat to the profitability of
 agribusiness.

 In a sane world, the economic losses caused by this  mild disease would
 not matter much: farmers would accept and adjust to  them, as to the
 fluctuations of their harvests.

 But the crazy  overintensification of agriculture, with margins pared to
 the bone to produce  cheap food against foreign competition, means it
 simply cannot afford  them.

 Britain pioneered the intensification on this side of  the Atlantic. No
 European country has pursued it so relentlessly, or has  so ruthlessly
 driven small farmers to the wall to benefit richer ones: more  than
 330,000 farms - two -thirds of the total - have been forced out of
business
since 1945. Abigail Woods - a vet who is researching the history  of foot
 and mouth at Manchester University, financed by the Wellcome Trust -
 adds that it was Britain, too, that pioneered the zero tolerance policy to
 foot and mouth, originally to protect a few wealthy stockbreeders,
and was  the first country to ban imports from countries with the
disease.

 Now, hoist  with its own petard, MAFF has no alternative but to continue
 the slaughter to  stop British meat being excluded from export markets
 that have followed  our lead. Intensification may not be to blame for the
 outbreak of the  disease, but it has turned it into a crisis affecting
 the highest in the  land. Mr Blair - who on Tuesday makes his second green
 speech in less than  six months after more than three years of silence -
 told a private Downing  Street meeting of environmentalists and
 businessmen on Thursday that the  floods, the collapse of agriculture and
the latest
 scientific predictions on  the effects of global warming (reported in the
Independent on Sunday last
 month) showed we were now reaping the harvest of past neglect. All this
 may  be providing a catalyst for change. Tony Blair has called for a
 national debate on the future of agriculture. Ministers accept that
policies of
 the past decades have failed and are cautiously moving towards a radical
 shift-  from intensifying agriculture to preserving the environment as the
 basis of  sound farming.

 They want to switch the bulk of the massive  subsidies given to
 agriculture from intensifying production to conserving  and managing the
 countryside. And they say that the foot and mouth emergency  is speeding
 up the process.

 They face two obstacles. The first is  the European Union, which, led by
 France and Germany, has resisted change.  But Germany appointed a new
 Green agriculture minister in the crisis that  followed the discovery of
BSE
 in the country.

 She has indicated  that Germany will join the campaign for reform. If it
 does, ministers believe  they could muster the votes to push it through.
 The second, much more  formidable obstacle is MAFF, which is responsible
 for the mess in  the first place and has lost none of its conservatism
 or obscurantism. It  must be allowed to obstruct no more. When the last
 glows of the burnt  carcasses have died away,ministers must build one more
pyre - for MAFF  itself, and the whole misguided set of entrenched interests
it represents.