Farmers Building up Resistance

The Truth About Foot-and-Mouth Disease

by Daniel Günthert, MD, Zurich	

The foot-and-mouth disease virus (FMD-virus) is an RNS-virus and belongs to the family of the picorna viruses. There are seven serotypes of FMD-virus world-wide with about 50 distinct subtypes. The current outbreak has been caused by the new virulent pan-Asian strain, which was unknown in Europe before. The strain originates from India. The FMD-virus can survive outside its host for long periods of time and can be stored easily since it is resistant against dryness, freezing temperatures or high concentrations of salt. It is susceptible to acidity (pH below 6), to sunlight and temperatures above 50°C. It can survive for weeks in manure, for months in uncooked meat – frozen or in brine – or in raw milk and dairy products from infected animals. The virus itself is highly infectious, i.e. infection between animals occurs very quickly. All body fluids and excrements of infected animals contain the virus; wind can carry respiratory aerosols emitted from infected animals over distances of over 60 miles, especially in a cold and wet climate. People, materials and vehicles that have been contaminated can spread FMD indirectly, just like raw or improperly cooked waste products containing infected meat or dairy products. After an average incubation period of 3-8 days, the disease produces lesions in the mouth and on the feet of infected animals. The virus almost never gets passed on to humans and when it does, after intensive contact with infected animals, a harmless infection with skin irritations takes place.
The disease affects all cloven-hoofed animals, i.e. cattle, sheep, goats, pigs, wild boars, deer, elks, but also zoo animals like hippopotamuses, camels, giraffes and antelopes. Cattle and pigs are especially susceptible to FMD infection, yet it very rarely kills the animals that become infected, death occurs only in 5% of infected animals. Foot-and-mouth is as serious to animals as a bad cold is to human beings. Animals that catch it almost always recover in a couple of weeks, their productivity, however, is reduced by the disease: they produce less milk, they put on less flesh.
Potential symptoms manifested by pigs are sudden paralysis and sudden death as the result of damaged heart muscles; among sheep and goats the disease is usually milder. Once animals have been infected they can become chronic carriers. Cattle can emit the virus over a period of 2 years, sheep 1-2 months, whereas pigs appear not to become carriers.

Diagnostic tests and vaccinations
Diagnosis of a FMD can be carried out using an immunological test (ELIZA), which identifies antibodies against the virus. The presence of the virus itself cannot be confirmed in tests. According to experts in the UK new tests apparently exist which can identify whether antibodies have been formed as the result of an infection or a vaccination.
In 1999 the European Commission’s Scientific Committee on Animal Health declared that existing tests could distinguish between vaccinated and infected animals with 90% accuracy. Rob Moorman of the Dutch Institute for Animal Science and Health in Lelystad developed, for example, a marker vaccine against swine fever. According to German scientists such test procedures are being developed for FMD. This will mean that infected animals can easily be identified, and mass slaughter drastically reduced. Such tests could help to find those among the vaccinated animals which have already been infected but show no signs of the disease. This would allow further sources of the epidemic to be identified. While the U.S. armed forces possess special ‘bio-chips’ capable of identifying numerous biological warfare germs, civilian science is apparently unable to distinguish between two different antibodies!
FMD vaccination is done by means of inoculation, i.e. injection, with inactivated virus. It is an active immunisation producing antibodies against the virus. After about three weeks the vaccinated animal will have developed enough antibodies to be sufficiently protected against the disease. In roughly 90% of cases effective protection is attained which will last for about six to nine months. After this period the vaccination must be renewed. The present vaccines are reliable, which means that there is no more risk of unintentional infection. In the 1980s a certain risk of infection from vaccinations still existed. This is the erroneous argument which is still being circulated by Jim Pearson, head of the scientific department at the World Organisation for Animal Health, and Gareth Davies, former chief epidemiologist of the British Ministry of Agriculture. Gareth Davies was also one of the persons responsible for the 1990 EU-decision to ban vaccination. It may be the case that these gentlemen are unfamiliar with present scientific research. But international virologists regard mass vaccinations as an excellent preventive measure against FMD. Hans-Dieter Klenk, president of the Virological Society, said that from a scientific viewpoint there is no sound evidence against the use of FMD-vaccinations in connection with other established epidemiological measures. (Westfalenblatt, 25 March 2001)
The EU’s decision to ban vaccination completely in all its member states is only one side of the idiocy. But why do all the EU countries so blindly follow this ban as if they were lemmings? Why do they not insist on their sovereignty when confronted with such a problem which is so fundamental to the lives of their people? How much longer are the people of these countries going to accept being held in tutelage by Brussels?
The argument that mass vaccination would be too costly is highly questionable in view of the fact that a single vaccination costs just 30 pence. All the evidence suggests that there is no compelling reason not to vaccinate. The British Government, however, still adheres to its vaccination policy. Why?
The Government’s and MAFF’s ( Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food) claim that there is not enough vaccine available is wrong. According to The Guardian’s investigation (20 March 2001), O-type vaccine doses for 22 million sheep are held at the International Vaccine Bank and the European Vaccine Bank, which are both at Pirbright. But the culling goes on, ruining more and more farmers.
‘The Community’s non-vaccination policy ... is called into question by the development of marker vaccines, and the very high costs associated with the 1997-8 epidemic. The Commission should update its cost-benefit analysis.’ (New Scientist, 31 March 2001)

A simple and efficient treatment against FMD
Tony Cleasby, a British farmer from Penrith in Cumbria, succeeded in keeping his stock healthy by using an everyday cure for pneumonia in the middle of one of the areas worst hit by the disease. The idea for the cure came from a study of an outbreak of foot-and-mouth in Germany in the 1930s, in which thousands of farms were affected, except for one farm which had a saw mill on its grounds. Therefore Mr Cleasby has been using a pneumonia product called Airwave – which is a blend of organic acids, eucalyptus and herbs mimicking the effect that the timber acids had on livestock in the German outbreak. The farm’s barns are subjected to twice daily ‘fogging’ of the pneumonia solution.– Despite this obvious success, it is curious that MAFF did not look into the possibilities of using this treatment on a larger scale.

Mass culling and pyres
Even for an onlooker the images of thousands of burning carcasses and huge burial pits are more than disturbing, yet for the farmers whose very existence is being destroyed by the disease the situation is simply unbearable. Even more so as British farmers are aware that it is mainly healthy animals that are being destroyed senselessly. For epidemiological reasons, the burning of carcasses is simply absurd in the case of a highly infectious disease like foot-and-mouth since it even favours the spread of this highly infectious virus for although the virus is sensitive to heat, there is a risk that the virus is spread with the smoke containing infected particles before the fire has reached its full temperature. In humid and cool weather conditions as are common in England, the virus can be windborne as far as one hundred kilometres and thus contaminate large areas. Proper incineration of the carcasses would have to take place in closed structures as is the case with cement factories. BSE infected cattle are incinerated in such cement factories at very high temperatures. Furthermore, it is unreasonable to expose people to the smell as well as the air pollution caused by the pyres. The alternative current practise of burying the carcasses in burial pits is also wrong because of the danger of contaminating subsoil water. The Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung reported on 5 April 2001 that in one case this has already happened.

Experts demand immediate vaccination
Experts from all over the world unanimously criticise the policy of culling. ‘... a full-scale vaccination programme based on the latest generation of vaccines could bring the crisis under control in weeks.’ (Sunday Telegraph, 1 April 2001). From a scientific point of view there are no arguments against vaccination programmes. The Times of 29 March 2001 quoted Professor Woolhouse and Dr Donaldson as saying that the policy of cull as practised at the moment even contributes to the further spread of the epidemic because there is an interval of several days between diagnosis and slaughter. Fred Brown, professor at Yale University and the US Agricultural Department’s animal disease centre in New York says, ‘that it would be ‘crazy’ for Britain not to use vaccination immediately’.

Consultant and adviser to MAFF is biological weapons expert
Up to now it was common practise to combat FMD with a combination of measures, which include emergency vaccinations. The government, however, has chosen a different way of controlling the epidemic. Obviously, one intends to prevent vaccination. Instead of consulting a competent experts’ commission they enlisted the help of a single consultant to justify the measures they have been taking: Martin Hugh-Jones.
Hugh Jones emigrated from the UK to the United States in 1978 and is now professor of epidemiology at Louisiana State University and co-ordinator of the World Health Organisation (WHO) Working Group on Anthrax Research and Control, and Director of the WHO Collaborating Centre for Remote Sensing and Geographic Information Systems for Public Health. Hugh-Jones is considered an expert in biological warfare, whose speciality is Anthrax, one of the best-known biological weapons. He took part in the investigation of the biological warfare accident in Sverdlovsk in 1979, a role which is usually reserved for active secret service agents. How is it then that this biological warfare expert, who has emigrated to the United States, is now the advisor to the MAFF on matters like foot-and-mouth disease? This man, who evidently works for both American and British intelligence agencies, is the man who says ‘njet’ to inoculations for the whole of Europe.
Other experts were excluded from consideration on this matter. An interdisciplinary commission of experts was not established –although qualified veterinarians offered their help. Sir John Kreb of the Food Standards Agency contacted the ministry on 6 March and offered his assistance as an epidemiologist but still has not received an answer.

Foot-and-mouth virus disappeared from a British military laboratory
On 8 April 2001, the Sunday Express reported that a phial of foot-and-mouth disease virus had disappeared from a top-secret military lab at Porton Down, the biggest and best-known military laboratory in England. According to reports from military authorities, the virus was discovered as missing during a routine check of biological stock. Official sources will not reveal which type of virus was reported missing. In a BBC 4 radio programme broadcast on 14 April, it was reported that it was precisely this type of virus which was reported missing. British Intelligence agen-cies, including M I5, have been given the task to investigate the particular circumstances.
The mysterious disappearance of the phial from the high-security military laboratory raises the question what kinds of security measures are in force there. If experiments are taking place involving such dangerous biological agents, then they have to be conducted with absolute safety guarantees. Otherwise both the military and the government are engaging a criminal endangerment of the lives and limbs of their own citizens. Beyond that, the storage of this sort of biological weapon is a clear violation of the Biological Warfare Treaty of 1972 – a treaty to which England is a signatory.

Earlier foot-and-mouth epidemics in England
The first foot-and-mouth epidemic in England took place in 1839. By 1869 the disease had been brought under control by quarantine, limitations in the transportation of meat, temporary closing of various markets and a ban on the importation of livestock. There were no mass slaughters then. By 1900 Great Britain was considered completely free of foot-and-mouth disease. Yet in 1920 another epidemic broke out in Great Britain, this time arriving there from the continent and South America. This time large numbers of affected animals were slaughtered in order to stop the spread of the disease. After broad discussions among the population, but especially among farmers, it was decided that the goal should be the complete eradication of foot-and-mouth disease. Why then were phials of foot-and-mouth disease virus kept in military laboratories? For which war? Against which people were they supposed to be used?
The biggest outbreak of foot- and-mouth in British history took place in the years 1967-68.
At that point in history, the farmers might have conceded that the infected animals were no longer as productive as before. The economic productivity of the animals was not as important as it is now. The epidemic did not ruin the farmers then. They lived with the disease, which was part of everyday life, like bad weather, bad harvests and the general worries about making a living.
Following on the heels of the great epidemic of ‘67-68, recommendations were proposed on how to avoid new outbreaks of the same disease in the future. Mandatory vacci-nation was one of the main recommendations that was proposed back then. ‘It can be implemented quickly because the farmers themselves can do it. Vaccination creates a barrier of immunity which in turn prevents the further spread of foot-and-mouth disease or at least suppresses the infection. Vaccination also enables the stockpiling of serum, in order to secure the survival of valuable genetic lines. Above all it allows both farmers and vete-rinarians to engage in controlled slaughter later if necessary.’
Experiences gained from earlier epidemics have shown that swift, comprehensive and collective measures such as rapid recognition, immediate isolation of infected animals, culling the infected herd, quarantine and large-scale vaccinations of healthy animals in the immediate vicinity had to be taken in order to gain control over these highly infectious epidemics. Culling and questionable disin-fecting of shoes are certainly not the result of a professionally worked-out approach. So what purpose does this farce serve?

Experiences from other endemic areas
In 1998 a foot-and-mouth epidemic in Albania was brought under control within 12 weeks. A series of measures were introduced: emergency vaccinations, the isolation of infected animals, quarantine, restricted movement of animals and monitoring imports. In 1996 an epidemic in Macedonia was even brought under control within three weeks. In Africa, where FMD is part of daily life, the culling in Great Britain makes no sense at all to the people. In East Africa the disease is kept under control by cordoning off contaminated areas and by large-scale vaccination. In contrast to the Europeans, some farmers routinely vaccinate their animals against FMD. Infected animals are isolated and after a few months business as usual continues, explains agrarian expert Vittorio Cagnola in the Vorarlberger Nachrichten of 6 April 2001.
In 1982 they managed to contain an FMD epidemic in Denmark by taking immediate measures. Just 15 hours lapsed between confirmation of the diagnosis and the destruction of the infected animals, which meant that only 22 animals were affected.
Despite the EU ban on general vaccination the Dutch have won permission for the limited use of vaccination in their current crisis. They argued that they have little room to burn and bury carcasses, so animals earmarked for slaughter are vaccinated instead, prior to slaughter. This means that they are prevented from continuing to be infectious as soon as possible after identification.
In March 1997 a huge epidemic of FMD occurred in Taiwan. The disease was confined to pig-farms. Within two weeks 1,300 farms were infected. Six days (not six weeks that Prime Minister Blair needed) after the first case had occurred, the Taiwanese Ministry of Agriculture made public the outbreak of the epidemic and immediately began taking measures against it. The army was called in to assist. They managed to contain the epidemic within three to four months. The export of pigs was banned without delay, herds that were not yet infected were vaccinated, and all herds with infected pigs were destroyed.

Revolt of farmers
‘We’d rather die than let them kill our flock,’ say Josephine and Brian Weathley, a farming couple from Inglewood in Cumbria, who in an arduous effort have raised their flock of 1200 ewes over the last twenty years. (Daily Telegraph, 17t March 2001) Sheepfarming is their only asset, and they are proud of it. The Weathleys share the fate of many farmers. Their entire life and the work of generations are being destroyed within the space of a few hours. Understandably farmers’ resistance is starting to grow. Everyday life in the country has been further complicated by additional precautionary measures like disinfecting shoes, changing clothes etc. Furthermore, there is the constant worry about which farm will be the next to be affected.
Since the BSE crisis, an average of 22,000 farmers in Britain have given up each year. Since the compensation that farmers are awarded is far from sufficient and because they are also forced to submit to the arbitrary regulations and red tape of the commissioners in Brussels and MAFF, many no longer see a future in their farms. Some try to seek different employment, while others emigrate. The number of suicides has risen. More and more farmers have begun to fight against this arbitrariness.
From the politicians the farmers receive little or no understanding. Instead, the government has used the police to get the farmers to hand over their gun licenses under the pretext of wanting to reduce the rising number of suicide cases among farmers. In reality it seems more like they are keen to ensure that people cannot defend themselves.