in

Bovine TB Blog

  • Air brushing

    Four years ago, almost to the day, our co-editor blasted the RSPCA and the badger groups with this posting after their collective 'airbrushing' of the effect of tuberculosis on their chosen species. If you remember, the RSPCA came up with the...
    Posted Mar 03 2010, 09:36 AM by Bovine TB

  • 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

  • '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

  • "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

  • 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

  • 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

  • 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

  • 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

  • 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

  • Sideline?

    For anyone with a thorough knowledge of bTB and the required tea-and-sympathy skills, the NFU are offering three EU funded posts in the SW. Salary: £27,410 - £33,806 Location: Exeter Job Type: Contract - 4 years Source: The European Agricultural Fund...
    Posted Jan 30 2010, 11:39 AM by Bovine TB

  • bTB in Badgers.

    While the debate rages about cattle / badgers and now alpacas and other companion animals and their involvement and exposure to the bacterium known as m.bovis , Dr. Zellweger has looked at the effect of the disease on badgers. In a short communication...
    Posted Jan 19 2010, 10:16 AM by Bovine TB

  • Stats? stuck

    At the Oxford Farming Conference during the first week of January, The Minister of State for (some) Animal's Health, the Right Honourable Hilary Benn MP., responding to criticism of his non-policy on bTB, hinted that unofficial Defra figures are showing...
    Posted Jan 17 2010, 11:59 PM by Bovine TB

  • " DEFRA policy is essentially doing nothing."

    Following our posting summarising the opinions of Dr. Ueli Zellweger on the current one sided bTB non-policy operated with such devastating results by Defra, warmwell.com has received an email from Dr Paul Gillett, M.B, Ch.B, MRCP, FRCPath., which we...
    Posted Jan 10 2010, 11:04 AM by Bovine TB

  • Farmers can't wait ...

    .... says Shadow minister Jim Paice, MP speaking to the Western Morning News at the Oxford Farming Conference this week. Cattle farmers in the Westcountry just don't have the time to wait for a vaccine for bovine tuberculosis, according to shadow...
    Posted Jan 07 2010, 11:18 AM by Bovine TB

  • Badgers v. cattle. Relative contributions to disease transmission.

    After our posting on the relative infectivety of bTB lesions in cattle, badgers and other mammals, a comment alerted us to work done outside the ISG box, which sought to match the attributed cause of a TB breakdown to either cattle or wildlife. The model...
    Posted Jan 05 2010, 04:59 AM by Bovine TB

  • "Eliminate the Cause"

    As another miserable and expensive year of Minister’s non-policy on ‘bovine’ TB has drawn to a close, we have received a sobering overview of the situation from Dr. Ueli Zellweger, a veterinary practitioner of some 30 years experience both in this country...
    Posted Jan 04 2010, 12:12 PM by Bovine TB

  • Wildlife Assessments

    We have mentioned the veterinary / farmer wildlife assessment initiative several times but a comment which has come in today reminded us of another option. "My friend in Cornwall, an Alpaca owner who has already lost many of her Alpacas to TB, has...
    Posted Jan 03 2010, 11:05 AM by Bovine TB

  • 'Eliminate the cause'

    As another miserable and expensive year of our Minister's non-policy on 'bovine' TB draws to a close, we have received a sobering overview of the situation from Dr. Ueli Zellweger, a veterinary practitioner of some 30 years experience both...
    Posted Jan 02 2010, 05:00 AM by Bovine TB

  • Alpacas - TB Awareness meetings.

    In response to the increasing number of alpaca herds (puntas) affected by the inappropriately mis-named 'bovine' TB, the BAS (British Alpaca Society) is hosting a series of meetings during January and February 2010, entitled 'TB Awareness'...
    Posted Dec 19 2009, 10:25 AM by Bovine TB

  • Definition - 'Maintenance'.

    It has become apparent over recent months that a great many misconceptions - some originating in the top echelons of Defra - have been dribbled out to a gullible audience, unchallenged. The description 'maintenance' reservoir for instance, appears...
    Posted Dec 11 2009, 01:19 AM by Bovine TB

  • One man's story .....

    Today, we share the diary of one small alpaca herd, hit by bTB earlier this year. The owner will remain anonymous - for the time being - but his location is within a midlands bTB hotspot, where over half (55 per cent) of badgers captured during BROs in...
    Posted Dec 09 2009, 01:46 AM by Bovine TB

  • We failed ....

    All summer, several contributers to this site have been trying valiantly to collate the figures for the cost to the taxpayer, of testing and removal of bTB positives to the skin test and other assorted toys. While numbers of animals slaughtered are available...
    Posted Dec 08 2009, 12:13 PM by Bovine TB

  • A TB test on 'Countryfile'

    See a reasonable overview of the frustration and waste of the non-policy which passes for bTB eradication in this country, on last weekend's episide of the BBC's COUNTRYFILE. Some beautiful in calf holstein heifers, loaded up for slaughter on...
    Posted Dec 01 2009, 12:20 AM by Bovine TB

  • A parallel?

    We have mentioned PCR (Polymerase Chain Reaction) technology many times and will continue to do so. But reading again correspondence from Dr. Roger Breeze, formerly of the US Plum Island facility and a developer of PCR, rang more than a few bells. The...
    Posted Nov 29 2009, 12:45 AM by Bovine TB

  • 'Our' terrier, becomes official.

    In June we received a sorry tale of a little Patterdale terrier, who was found doing what terriers do and mauling an almost-dead and decidedly manky badger. This resulted in wounds to his nose and his eventual death from 'bovine' Tb. ( Please...
    Posted Nov 25 2009, 12:29 PM by Bovine TB
More Posts Next page »
© RBI 2001-2010
Powered by Community Server (Commercial Edition), by Telligent Systems