MORE badgering of ‘scapebrocks’ ?

Any further badger culls or badger vaccinations will be utterly meaningless, because despite oft-repeated farmers' claims, badgers are categorically simply not ‘the main cause of the spread of cattle TB’, for three reasons:- 1. Cattle TB is entirely a respiratory broncho-pneumonia, spread within herds by prolonged close aerosol contact within barns and milking parlours.

So very improbably arising during brief badger visits to barns for a drink and snack of cattle nuts.

2. There is no widespread self-sustaining reservoir of badger TB. Badgers are merely a dead end spillover host, with TB occurring in incredibly tiny micro-pockets at the epicentre of the preceding herd breakdown.

Little or no spread within badger populations, let alone back to cattle.

And TB in badgers, pigs, wild boar, and New Zealand possums dies out when not topped up by spillover from cattle.

A mere 6123 TB badger out of 53, 130 sampled 1972-2005; 3. So all the cattle herd breakdowns allegedly ‘due to badgers’ are embarrassingly simply caused by mis-identified cattle, as regards both new incidents and problem herds:- A. New herd breakdowns supposedly ‘due to badgers’ are in fact simply caused by, and first identified by early skin test reactors, with no confirmatory visible tubercle lung lesions, so-called unconfirmed or OFT-S cases.

Some 245,000 unconfirmeds out of 410, 000 cattle removed since foot and mouth disease 2001.

Culling badgers will not stop the spread of cattle TB, and vaccinating some 569 badgers in 20 sq km on the Killerton Estate did not prevent six herd breakdowns there last year.

The simple solution is pre and post-movement cattle testing out of hotspot areas (as already routinely used in Scotland, as well as pre & post import from Ireland); B. Chronic herds, sadly arose as a legacy of the lack of cattle testing during foot and mouth, some 2000 herds with latent chronic TB under TB movement restriction 10-15 years.

The Irish routinely use a fast late TB antibody blood test, the Chemiluminescent ENFER test, to find the active spreader, skin test negative (anergic) culprit ( qv. Dave Barton, James Griffiths, Meurig Raymond, Gelli Aur, Adam Henson, and even HRH Princess Anne).

More information, see Death of Great Debate, WWW.BADGERSANDTB.COM, http://youtu.be/-Typg5A9zjM.

It will be a costly betrayal of farmers if any more pointless culls go ahead. There will unbelievably be another farcical civil war in England’s green and pleasant land with millions wasted on policing to protect shooters from protestors (or vice versa!?).

As a matter of scientific and moral integrity Natural England should refuse to issue any further licences.

Martin Hancox

MA Oxon ex-government TB panel

Stroud