TRANSCRIPT
Jim Scudamore
and John Humphrys
John Humphrys:
In the early days of the foot and mouth outbreak it seemed simple enough, kill the infected animals and the disease would be contained. But it's spread anyway. Then they said kill the animals that had been contact with the infection but the disease kept spreading. Then the Government said kill all the animals in the areas surrounding infected farms and at that point people began to say why? Why should perfectly animals be slaughtered, a million or more of them without any guarantee that would stop the disease. Some farmers are saying they won't let it happen. There's a whiff of revolt in the air. The cull was postponed, today the Chief Vet Jim Scudamore is going to Cumbria, the heart of the outbreak to try to persuade vets there that there is a scientific case for doing it. One of the vets he will meet is David Young and he's on the line so is as Anne Young, a sheep farmer near Penrith and so is the Chief Vet himself. I believe I called you David Young, it's David Black of course, I do apologise. Mr Black what's your view of what is proposed?
David Black
The vets in the county and also those working within MAFF and out with MAFF all agree that the highest priority must be to speed the procedures for dealing with the infected cases. We're not getting on top of them and that's why we're not getting on top of this disease. We must have decision-making brought locally faster, we must have a much have a use of more experienced personnel on the ground and logistical help from wherever its required. That's why the foot and mouth disease control is not working. It's because we're doing it fast enough.
John Humphrys:
So in other words you're saying if you or one of your colleagues goes onto a farm and diagnoses it as foot and mouth you should be able to have the animals killed immediately and buried on the farm?
David Black:
These animals should be slaughtered within hours, not within days. We've still got several days' delay between diagnosis and slaughter and then a further delay before disposal.
John Humphrys:
Let me ask Anne Young what she makes that.
Anne Young:
Good morning. I totally agree with Mr Black. I'm standing here watching a farm whose diagnosed eight days ago the animals are still lying. They've not even started the burning yet.
John Humphrys:
They must be rotting by now?
Anne Young:
They are rotting, the smell is horrendous, it's encouraging rats, birds are spreading this disease because they're pecking over the carcasses. I really do believe that Mr Scudamore should get the diseased animals dealt with. Before even thinking of moving onto healthy flocks.
John Humphrys:
Let's put those points and then come back to you both if I may to Mr Scudamore. Something has gone wrong here hasn't it Mr Scudamore?
Jim Scudamore:
I think I'd agree with your two previous speakers that the important thing is to speed up the diagnosis, the slaughter and the move of carcasses.
John Humphrys:
Why hasn't it happened?
Jim Scudamore:
We've had a huge number of cases. Our priority is to diagnose the disease and get the animals killed as quickly as possible.
John Humphrys:
But that hasn't been happening. This is the whole point and what people can't understand is why vets were not given the authority right from the beginning. Look how long we are into this terrible business. Right from the beginning to say this is a case of foot and mouth, let's get these animals killed and let's get them buried.
Jim Scudamore:
That's a very simplistic approach. First of all, when the vets identify the disease on the farm, if they describe the clinical picture it's confirmed immediately. Secondly, killing large numbers of animals - we're not talking of small farms with 30 or 40 animals - we're talking about very large farms with 250 cattle, 5,000 or 6,000 sheep. And first of all we have to get those animals valued, they are the property of the owner and they have to be valued. Secondly, to get large numbers of animals in to kill them requires stockades, it requires getting them in and then we have to kill the animals and finally we have to remove the animals. And there has been a problem with the disposal of carcasses, due to the overwhelming number we've had to deal with. We've had over 300,000 animals now involved in the outbreak. We are speeding up the process. We've got two rendering plants now dealing with animals and a third one's likely to be coming on stream. We're burning the animals, we would bury the animals but there are difficulties with various legislations …
John Humphrys:
Well, European legislation, that's the point isn't it? We can't do what ought to be done because Europe won't let us.
Jim Scudamore:
Europe would let us but there are obviously important environmental controls to be looked at. If you bury animals you have to be quite sure that there's no contamination of water, groundwater or any other water.
John Humphrys:
Yes indeed but again if I may just come in there. Of course you do but then in many cases you will be able to say there isn't a problem, let's bury them. This is what happened in the 1967 outbreak.
Jim Scudamore:
This isn't the same as the 1967 outbreak I'm afraid. As soon as a case is confirmed I agree entirely the ideal option is to bury on farm. We consult with the Environment Agency and other to see whether it's appropriate on that farm, and if it is we'll bury them. If it isn't then we have to consider burning them or removing the carcasses for rendering.
John Humphrys:
Let me put some of those points to David Black because your prognosis as it were is simplistic.
David Black:
My guess is that Mr Scudamore is not aware of how this can be done much faster on the farms, my colleagues around here tell us that animals can be slaughtered now within a few hours not within several days so he clearly hasn't got the true picture of what is happening in Cumbria.
John Humphrys:
He says they have to be stockaded and so on.
David Black:
No we've got experience on the farms, we've got experienced vets on the farms and this job could be done very quickly. These are domestic animals, there's handling facilities available for these animals and really the several day delay is unacceptable and that's why this disease is getting out of control.
John Humphrys:
But he says it can be confirmed within hours.
David Black:
Until recently, until the last couple of days it still had to be confirmed through London and that has taken many hours' delay in some situations, we've got to speed up the whole process. There's lots of bottlenecks in this process and every one of those has to be removed and the whole thing has to be streamlined so we can get on top of this much faster.
John Humphrys:
There you are Mr Scudamore. There's somebody who works on farms all the time. He says you're just not on top of it.
Jim Scudamore:
I don't disagree with what he's saying in terms of …
John Humphrys:
You can't both be right, with great respect, he presented one picture, you've presented a very different one.
Jim Scudamore:
Can I just finish though? I don't disagree with him that we have to speed it up. The bottlenecks are the diagnosis, which we've speeded up, the killing which we're attempting to speed up, the disposal of carcasses where we're putting in place new methods for removing the animals. In addition we're looking whether there's anything we can do about the valuation process.
John Humphrys:
This is a very long way into this crisis Mr Scudamore. Why are we looking at these things now on this particular Monday in March when we could have been looking at them weeks ago.
Jim Scudamore:
We have been looking at them. The crisis has been going for four weeks now and we have been looking at this. When we started we were burning carcasses, we've now got two or three rendering plants with a possibility of others on-stream. We're now removing carcasses for them to be rendered. We're still burning carcasses. We're confirming believe it or not faster but we still have to value the animals and we still have to kill the animals in a safe environment.
John Humphrys:
But you talk about the carcasses. Anne Young was telling us about them sitting on the farm that she's looking at and they've been there for how long Anne Young?
Anne Young:
They've been there for three days now.
John Humphrys:
Well, three days with rotten carcasses. Of course I'm not an expert, but surely rats and animals get into them and spread the virus, that must be the case, mustn't it?
Jim Scudamore:
They can do, but not very widely. We would want to get these carcasses off farm as quickly as possible but it's equally important to get the animals dead because once the animals are dead they won't spread the disease, they won't produce more virus. So obviously we want the animals dead as quickly as we can get them dead and then we have to arrange for them to be removed.
John Humphrys:
Why can't the Army do that?
Jim Scudamore:
We have got Army assistance in logistics, but it's the sheer volume to be burnt and destroyed. We're hoping to bring on more rendering plants so we can remove them for rendering.
John Humphrys:
The picture that's being presented and one hears it from people across the country is of animals that are not diagnosed quickly enough and not killed quickly enough and then their corpses are not removed quickly enough. You must concede surely that it's not a good picture.
Jim Scudamore:
The picture is as I say, we are getting animals diagnosed a lot faster, most of the cases are diagnosed on clinical grounds we don't take samples any more. They are diagnosed purely on clinical grounds. We would want to kill the animals within 24 hours but in some circumstances this isn't possible due to the fact that we have to value them and we have to get them in. Some animals can be killed in 24 hours and indeed the very high risk units which are the pig units, the last pig unit we had the staff worked through the night to get them dead.
John Humphrys:
Can I just be clear about just one other thing finally if I may and that is vaccination. You are not prepared - you've heard the Soil Association have changed their view on this on the basis of their experiences abroad - you're not prepared even to consider creating fire breaks out of vaccinated animals?
Jim Scudamore:
I think we have to keep this strategy under review. And the present strategy is to slaughter and destroy animals but there are vaccines available, but there are implications of using those vaccines which would have a major impact in terms of animals can carry disease even if they're vaccinated. That would have a major impact on the UK's status. We'd be accepting that we'd got the disease in the country permanently and there are a lot of implications of using vaccine.
John Humphrys:
But you've not rejected it entirely?
Jim Scudamore:
No no, I think if one is looking at a strategic plan and dealing with a disease and looking at all the weapons in the armoury but at the moment it is identify, quarantine herds, destroy the herds, and remove by stamping out.
John Humphrys:
Jim Scudamore, Anne Young, David Black …
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Please Note:
This transcript was typed from an on-air broadcast and not copied from an original script. Because of the possibility of mis-hearing and the difficulty, in some cases, of identifying individual speakers, the 91Èȱ¬ cannot vouch for its accuracy.
