Blair ignored confidential report on vaccination

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Thursday 19 April 2001 Warning on vaccination swept aside By David Brown, Agriculture Editor

A CONFIDENTIAL report from the Government's scientific advisers warned Tony Blair a fortnight ago that the foot and mouth vaccinations proposed yesterday could do more harm than good.

It said the programme to vaccinate 180,000 cattle in Cumbria would not be 100 per cent effective and could threaten food exports worth £30 million a week. The Telegraph has obtained a copy of the report, by the Chief Scientific Adviser's Science Group, headed by Prof David King.

It also gives a warning that vaccination could prolong the epidemic and create huge problems in restoring Britain's disease-free status. "The coverage of vaccination [percentage protected] will be low and so the impact on the course of the epidemic will be slight."

The report also says that even if most of the United Kingdom's 60 million cattle, sheep and pigs were vaccinated the virus would simply be masked, ready to strike again at farms within weeks or months. The number of confirmed outbreaks in the United Kingdom rose to 1,385 yesterday, an increase of 19 on the previous day.

The opposition to vaccination grew among farming and food industry leaders yesterday despite a recommendation from Prof King, the Government's chief scientist, and Jim Scudamore, the Government's chief vet, that it should go ahead. No final decision is expected until the weekend.

Farmers and food industry chiefs remained unconvinced by reassurances. Fears grew that the Government wanted vaccination for political, not scientific, reasons, in the run-up to a general election in June. The proposed scheme involves vaccinating beef and dairy cattle in north Cumbria, the area worst hit by the epidemic, before they are released from their winter sheds to their spring pastures.

Some of these pastures may be contaminated with the virus and the cattle may come in contact with diseased sheep, causing a surge in new cases in the run-up to polling day. The Government is anxious to avoid more harrowing television footage of culls and funeral pyres and to expose itself to further accusations of bungling its handling of the crisis.

Prof King claimed yesterday that there would be "clear financial and environmental advantages" to vaccination in Cumbria. But he admitted that the plan would only work if at least 60 per cent of producers supported it. He said: "It is better to have a farmer who agrees to vaccination. It is facilitated better that way.

"We have spent some time discussing this with farmers and we once again have a meeting with farming leaders today. We need the co-operation of the farming community. The position of the National Farmers' Union is that they are very keen to discuss this issue with us."

Prof King said while vaccination would help, culling would remain the basis of the Government's fight against foot and mouth. Mr Scudamore said the Government had never ruled out vaccination as an option. But he conceded that issues being raised by the NFU were "very important ones which deserve answers".

But Ben Gill, the NFU president, was unconvinced after meeting Prof King and his group later in the day. He demanded to know why scientific advice had changed in a fortnight when the nature of the virus had not. Sources in Westminster disclosed that the advisory group members were deeply divided at the meeting.

As the Army reported that the campaign to defeat the epidemic in Cumbria was further advanced than Maff's figures suggested, farmers' leaders there complained that the ministry had ignored an alternative suggestion to keep healthy cattle indoors. But this would entail transporting food from uninfected areas to replace local stocks of winter fodder.

Mr Gill, who will have further talks with Government scientists today, said: "I am still gravely concerned at suggestions that vaccination is the route we should take." He said he wanted to extract the scientific reasoning behind "the Government's U-turn". The Food and Drink Federation is opposed to the Government's vaccination plans.

While accepting that vaccination might be needed "as a last resort," it did not accept the proposal to keep the cattle alive afterwards. All vaccinated cattle must be slaughtered in due course to regain Britain's disease-free status, it said - an option unacceptable to most Cumbrian farmers.

In Scotland, 10 big farming and food organisations, including the Scottish NFU, the Scottish Organic Producers' Association, Robert Wiseman Dairies and the Scottish Beef Council, wrote jointly to Tony Blair opposing vaccination in England. They said the policy would "create new risks of spreading the disease".

Tim Yeo, the shadow agriculture minister, said: "If I was the minister, I would have said to the scientists three weeks ago, will this help to speed up eradication of the disease, will it reduce the number of animals that have to be slaughtered, will it bring forward the date on which we regain our disease-free status?

"If I got two yeses, I would have introduced vaccination then. I don't think the scientists are saying yes to those questions."

Blair ignored confidential report on vaccination

-- (A mind is a terrible thing@2 waste.com), April 19, 2001


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