THE 45 year old "Great Badgers and TB Debate" was finally solved on April 6, with the introduction of tighter cattle movement controls.

Defra's August 28, 2015, three consultations on measures to stop the spread of TB, actually recognised very belatedly, that the early TB cattle skin test reactors without confirmatory Visible Lung Lesions, DO in fact merely have early TB... they are not "perfectly healthy" after all.

So, the majority of these herd breakdowns supposedly "due to badgers", are actually caused by, and first identified by these so-called Unconfirmed reactor cattle.

And the 90 per cent or so of such breakdowns spreading out from annual test hotspot areas are hence simply via local cattle movements.

Some 20 million cattle moves /a, and since foot and mouth 2001, out of c. 450,000 cattle removed, some 260,000 such unconfirmed No Visible Lesion new early TB cases.

The very simple answer, somewhat resented by farmers, who still mistakenly think that "Badgers are the main cause of the spread of TB", is pre- and post-movement cattle testing, which has been working in Scotland since it went "OTF", TB free in 2009, incidentally without culling a single badger!

DEFRA still seems to think Badger Edge Vaccination work but this is simply bonkers, since there are no armies of badgers marching outwards into Edge Areas.

The three pilot badger culls so far have cost towards £30 million, including a disgraceful near £7 million on extra policing to protect shooters from animal rights activists (or vice versa!) – civil war in England's green and pleasant land!

But out of the 3,942 badgers culled, based on the ISG/RBCT cull data, only about 1.6 per cent are likely to have been the 'super-infectious' badgers which might have posed a risk to cattle, ie. a mere 66 from around 450 sq.km – nil effect on cattle TB.

These culls are a spectacular waste of time and money.

Even farmers now recognise that the £5 million Welsh IAA area trial badger vaccination of 4,500 badgers in 288 sq.km. has had nil effect either.

And unbelievably, no-one in 45 years research have actually shown how badgers might give cows a respiratory lung disease in the first place.

So it is to be hoped that Defra/Natural England, as a matter of scientific, intellectual and moral integrity, will refuse to Licence any further utterly meaningless badger culls or badger vaccinations.

Martin Hancox

MA Oxon, ex-government TB Panel Stroud