Bovine TB Blog

February 2010 - Posts

• Moving the line?

  As our readers will know, we have long been critical of Defra's 'maginot' zoning lines on a map. Badgers can't read, and cattle on 3 or 4 year testing regimes may have already been infected. As no testing is required prior to any sale... Posted Feb 28 2010, 12:54 PM by Bovine TB Select Tags... SaveCancel [Edit Tags]

• 'Fluid' data = questionable results.

  After the remains of the ISG (in the shape of the outpourings from Christl Donnelly's computer), further boosted our Minister for (some) Animal's Health in his decision not to cull badgers in TB hotspots, we have patiently attempted to deconstruct... Posted Feb 28 2010, 10:11 AM by Bovine TB [Edit Tags]

• "Doing nothing

  ...... [ ] and allowing TB to spread through the UK badger population, is not necessarily a position of moral superiority". As the thorny question of targeted badger culling refuses (quite rightly) to lie down, Veterinary Times last week published... Posted Feb 27 2010, 11:26 AM by Bovine TB [Edit Tags]

• Policy on the hoof

  We have become used to our department's habit of altering policy on a whim, or making it up as they go along. And that evolutionary process is arguably better than the 'cognitive dissonance' which affected them over FMD. However, not to acknowledge... Posted Feb 20 2010, 10:49 AM by Bovine TB [Edit Tags]

• The money trail

  Today we have 'borrowed' a posting from our co-editor who tells the tale of his own bitter experience in attempting to fly in the face of 'science'. There was a time when scientists chased information, de-constructed that information and... Posted Feb 20 2010, 01:26 AM by Bovine TB [Edit Tags]

• Costs - and Defra costs

  This week saw the publication of a further tranche of material from the ISG's electronic abacus. Professor Christl Donnelly having agreed that when badgers are removed, cattle TB reduces, sometimes significantly - then concluded in this paper that... Posted Feb 13 2010, 12:52 PM by Bovine TB [Edit Tags]

• Update: New bTB leaflet for Camelids

  Defra have updated their advice leaflet on Tuberculosis in Camelids, which may be accessed on this link. They point out that: Transmission can occur between animals, from animals to humans, more rarely from humans to animals and between humans. Transmission... Posted Feb 07 2010, 11:43 AM by Bovine TB [Edit Tags]

• BCG - how it works

  From Dr. Ueli Zellweger we have received the following explanation of how BCG vaccination - the live attenuated strain of Mycobacterium bovis known as Bacillus Calmette-Guérin (BCG) - works. Defra are keen to use this in hotspot areas (where badgers are... Posted Feb 04 2010, 08:29 AM by Bovine TB [Edit Tags]