More on badgers...

Last week...leaves going going....

Well when this blog entry goes live I'll be deep in a Full Council meeting....this blog is a couple of letters that local campaigner Martin Hancox has written to local press. He asked it he could publish them on this blog - I've covered his views before about badgers and do think they are worth looking at in more detail....this is one of his colourful letters....

I seem to have upset many farmers/vets, by pointing out that the cattle TB Crisis, has nothing to do with Old Brock. Might I reply :

1.  Firstly, NO I  regard it as an insult to call me a scientist. I left the governments CONsultative panel, 1992, when they tried to con us into backing badger culls with a 41 % accurate Brocktest ; less use than tossing a coin, 50 % sensitivity, so, disgusted at whole sorry pseudoscience of Badger TB, I chucked out my assorted degree certificates. I'm a serious NATURALIST!  Completely, as a red herring, I believe i've spotted the first "wild" case ASH DIE back  in a coupla trees on  bend by Mounsey Flat, below Ashwick Manor, nr Dulverton, Exmoor National Park. AND incidentally have worked on farms, wildlife parks, wildfowl trust, and Durrell's Jersey Zoo.

2. I repeat, cattle are not catching TB from badgers .. it is a lung broncho-Pneumonia, caught from PROlonged exposure in poorly ventilated barns, via aerosol droplets (Remember Swine FLU) . One school study showed 130 hours of shared classes needed to pass on the bugs; like sharing an office with someone spluttering flu bugs about. Also just like other cattle pneumonias , whether they be viral : PI3, , RSV, IBR, BVD, .. bacterial  : Pasteurella, Mannheimia, Haemophilus .. or Mycoplasmal, the pleuropneumonias.

Francis 1947 classic on bovine TB, noted they dont get it until they enter the cowshed .. do NOT usually  get it from pasture contaminated with cattle urine & faeces (can have 38 million bacilli in 30 lbs of faeces /day).. unless fresh slurry  is spread without natural biodegradation/composting .
Incidentally cattle finally test clear after entering barns for winter, meet those terrible badgers at spring turnout , are riddled with TB within weeks .. IN FACT, TB caught from cows, takes 6-9 months to reach reactor stage .. so next test in autumn positive.  That is also why the famous perturbation effect is nonsense, not enough time from cull to first cattle test ,
as regards either the reactive or proactive culls.. Charles Godfray , and Prof Kings report too , noted biological implausibility !

3. So, the famous badger urine route .. 99 % drains straight into soil, the rest disinfected by UV in sunlight within 3 days, so a cow cannot possibly drink the necessary 3 cc, (300,000  bacilli /cc) with required  dose BY Ingestion of l million bacilli " ; (l bacilli by aerosol; is different !).

4. YES  Prof Krebs, DID find  overwhelming evidence of "  A LINK " ; BUT , he was very careful to state several times " IT IS NOT KNOWN IF, HOW, OR TO WHAT EXTENT, BADGERS MIGHT REALISTICALLY GIVE COWS TB" !  Prof Bourne, for the ISG, couldnt tell Lord Jeff Rooker how it is supposed to work either :- EFRA Committee  Report 2008.

DISGRACEFULLY BAD PSEUDOSCIENCE, the ISG assumed cows get TB from badgers, so culls might work or make things worse : pure nonsense.

sincerely,  M.Hancox, MA OXON

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Click on read more to see another letter

 BADGERS; ALICE IN WONDERLAND FARCE

DESPITE THE 25th OCTOBER DEBATE IN PARLIAMENT, AND  PANORAMA (   12 NOV. ;ON IPLAYER)..........SEEMS CULLS STILL ON THE AGENDA

DISAPPOINTING, SINCE NO-ONE CAN APPARENTLY "SEE" THE OBVIOUS : -
ANY FURTHER BADGER CULL/VACCINE POLICIES ARE UTTERLY POINTLESS  ,

BADGERS CANNOT POSSIBLY BE THE CAUSE OF CATTLE TB CRISIS; For three simple reasons :-

1. After 42 years research no-one has managed to explain how badgers might realistically give cows a respiratory lung infection. In fact , "New Science SHOCK" , defra's own vets have recently shown cattle TB is 100 % a lung infection, (Liebana, Vet. Journal 176:354), caught from prolonged contact with other cows in barns or milking parlours .You wont catch a cold from a passerby with a sniffle in the street, but will get a bad dose of flu sharing an office with someone coughing and spluttering the bugs around. So CATTLE TB simply cannot be from badgers.

2. Badgers are merely a spillover host, and TB in badgers dies out when not topped up from cattle .
SO; The TRUE hidden reservoir of TB has been cattle all along .. some 2 in 3 cattle and herds are so-called false positive unconfirmed cases , which DO HOWEVER have TB .

AND, WHILST  Farmers and vets continue to blame the cattle TB crisis on badgers, but cannot "see" that the rise from the 1979 low of  of 89 herds and 600 reactors in an area under 1000 sq.km, to now 8000 herds , 40,000 reactors in an area l/4 the size of GB, is simply spread amongst the cattle population, nothing to do with badgers ! And c. 2000 chronic herds under restriction 5-l0 years are due to inadequate disinfection between breakdowns, plus an active spreader non-reactor cow , identifiable by the Enfer Chemiluminescent Multiplex ELISA  antibody test routinely used in Ireland, or a new OIE approved IDEXX M.bovis Ab test... again NIL to do with badgers.

3. The hilariously silly consultation/re. Policy ;  concludes that despite allegedly PERTURBED Brocks, a pilot cull in 150 sq.km, MIGHT, stop just 46 out of 292 herd breakdowns after NINE YEARS ..which is as Prof BOURNE/ISG  POINTS OUT  = NO MEANINGFUL CONTRIBUTION TO CONTROL OF CATTLE  TB, since 7000 breakdowns /a in an area of a quarter of GB; and a 2 km wide ring vaccine would simply be jumped over by local cattle moves ; A WONDERFULLY INSANE SOLUTION TO A NON-EXISTENT PROBLEM !!

sincerely, M Hancox, ex-govmnt TB panel,