Bluetongue Secrecy Again.

On Thu, 28 Feb 2008 09:51:01 -0000, "Pat Gardiner"
wrote:

Pat's Note: The one thing you can be sure of is that you will never get the
truth out of Defra's vets.

They are crooks. Which is exactly why Britain has had such terrible animal
health problems for the past 15 years.

The orders to keep this secret must have come from the top, which tells the
government where they have to start the investigations and the sackings. If
they didn't know already, that is.

Open government? It is a bad joke once Britain's corrupt government vets get
involved.

It will be MRSA in Britain's pigs and their deliberate failure to test for
it and the export of vast numbers of live animals, carrying disease, with
false health certificates that will eventually finish them.

When the Waugh incident gets reinvestigated, farmers will learn for sure
what many have suspected: Waugh was not the index case for FMD2001.

The SVS (now renamed Animal health - AH) also have let diseased livestock
into Britain.

http://www.farmersguardian.com/story...torycode=16684

Defra bluetongue error angers farmers
News | 28 February, 2008

By Alistair Driver
DEFRA has admitted it culled the wrong animal after bluetongue was found in
an imported cow on a farm near Middlesbrough, in December.

The mistake resulted in the infected animal remaining on the farm, in the
village of Great Ayton, until mid-January, which, had it not been the midge
free season, could have had serious consequences for local farmers.

However, Defra chose not to make the error public until contacted by Farmers
Guardian this week.

The infected animal originated from within a Protection Zone in Lower
Saxony, Germany, and was detected in mid-December through routine
post-import testing.

A cow Animal Health (AH) officials believed to be the infected animal was
culled 'as it potentially provides a source of infection for the local midge
population, and therefore other animals', Defra said at the time.

But when officials returned for routine re-testing of the herd on January
21, it was discovered that the infected animal was still present in the
herd.

The infected animal was then immediately culled and compensation was offered
for the animal that was erroneously culled, which the farmer has accepted.
The rest of the herd has been tested twice and all animals have been found
to be negative.

A Defra spokeswoman said the mistake was due to an 'administrative error in
recording identification numbers' on the farm by Animal Health officials,
compounded by a failure to carry out the proper checks later by officials at
AH 'headquarters'.

She admitted it was 'lucky' that the error occurred in the vector free
period but said she was not aware of any action being taken to stop it
happening again. "Basically the wrong animal was culled. It is unfortunate
that it happened but it has not happened since," she said.

Local farmers have been angered by the incident and have questioned why it
was not made public. One, who asked not to be named, said farmers were
'incredulous' that it could have happened and that the local response ranged
from 'fury' to 'laughter' at Defra's incompetence.

David Hugill, until recently the chairman of North Riding and Durham NFU,
said: "If this had happened during the peak midge season this could have had
devastating consequences in an area where there is a high concentration of
dairy farms," he said.

He said local farmers were 'disappointed' at the 'secrecy' surrounding the
incident from the start. He said farmers only heard of the initial case via
the local media and were not told officially of its location. They only got
to know the location and of the subsequent identification error
'unofficially' through the farmer himself.

"That created a lot of bad feeling. Many farmers just see this as 'typical
Defra'," he said.

The incident was discussed with the industry bluetongue stakeholder group
but Defra decided not make it public knowledge.

The Defra spokeswoman denied there had been an attempt to cover it up. "It
is just not the kind of thing we would routinely announce," she said.