Cattle movements blamed for Government advisors TB outbreak
The Badger Trust has today (25 April) published evidence that a TB outbreak on the farm of Defra TB Advisory Group member and dairy farmer, Bill Madders, was triggered by the movement of untested, TB-infected cattle to South Staffordshire. Badgers cannot be blamed and there is no evidence to support the accusations against them.
In February 2007, Mr. Madders advised Farmers Guardian that officers of the State Veterinary Service (now Animal Health) had blamed badgers for an outbreak of bovine TB on his farm in the parish of Coppenhall, Staffordshire. The pyramid-shaped parish is bounded to the east and to the west by Castlechurch and Bradley respectively and by the parish of Dunston to the south. Bradley and Dunston hold the majority of herds. Mr. Madders declared his herd to be 'self- contained' and that 'the only way in is through wildlife'.
Using the Freedom of Information Act, the Badger Trust has secured details of herds and bovine TB outbreaks in all four parishes, from 1995 to 2006. The total number of herds registered on VetNet in all four parishes declined from 67 to 49 over that time. The bulk of the decline occurred in the wake of foot and mouth disease (FMD). The Stafford disease control centre dealt with 72 FMD incidents during the outbreak and for some farmers it prompted retirement from the industry.
The data obtained by the Badger Trust reveal that TB was virtually unknown in the four parishes between 1995 and 2002. Only a single herd, in the parish of Bradley, went under TB restriction, and then only from 1998 to 1999. Thereafter, there was no evidence of bovine TB until 2003.
In 2003, in the wake of FMD, three herds went under restriction, one in each of the three parishes surrounding Coppenhall, followed by a fourth in 2004 in Bradley. The number under restriction dropped to three again in 2005 and the outbreak on Mr. Madders' farm took the number back up to four in 2006.
This sudden upsurge in 2003 mirrors that which occurred all over the country in the wake of FMD. This followed Defra's stupendously foolish decision to allow the movement of untested livestock for restocking, which the NFU claimed as a "victory". The buying-in of TB infected cattle led to a huge rise in the distribution of TB infection right across Britain and an explosion of new cases. For thousands of farmers, it proved to be a pyrrhic victory.
"The unavoidable fact is that Mr. Madders' TB outbreak would never have occurred were it not for the movement of untested, TB-infected cattle to South Staffordshire," commented Trevor Lawson. "The disease was virtually unknown in the four parishes for at least eight years. There is no evidence explaining the final route of the disease to Mr. Madders' farm. Officers of Animal Health cannot claim, with any shred of certainty, to know the cause.
"If free-roaming badgers were the TB vector for Mr. Madders' farm, it does not explain why the three other herds in his parish have escaped the disease. Indeed, 92 per cent of the herds in the four parishes are currently TB-free. Infected badgers, surely, would cause a "clumping" of infection and cannot explain this scattered distribution. Officers of Animal Health cannot possibly claim that badgers are the index source of this infection. Clearly, cattle are the index source of this disease. Animal Health should publicly apologise to Mr. Madders for misleading him in this way."
