Low Risk Area badger culling, yet again shown to be ineffective

Posted on 03/03/2025 by The Badger Crowd

Minister Daniel Zeichner must stop wasting taxpayers money and ruining farm livelihoods immediately

A new addendum update (here) to the dramatic 2023 expose (unheeded by the last Government), “A bovine tuberculosis policy conundrum in 2023” (here) has been released. It has been forwarded to Defra who say they are currently undertaking a review of scientific evidence since 2018. The results of the review will feed into their bovine TB strategy that they also say will be ‘refreshed’ at some point in the future – but when is not clear. It looks like there will be inadequate consultation (or no consultation) with contributing published scientists and nature conservationists.

Defra’s 2014 policy predicted that it would achieve ‘Officially TB Free’ status in the Low Risk Area (LRA) by 2025. Not only has this target not been met, but annual new herd incidents, incidence and prevalence have shown little change since 2014. Current data demonstrates little progress in LRA disease reduction over the past 11 years. Despite this, only weeks after Labour came into power, a new badger control cull licence was granted in Cumbria Area 73 within Hotspot 29. Throwing good money after bad, doing more useless, cruel badger killing and not seeing what is blindingly obvious – that the thinking and methods are completely wrong. So bad, for so long, and brutal to badgers, cows and farmers; the Defra ‘top team’ are wasting £Billions.

Cumbria: Area 32, Hotspot 21

In this hotspot, 100% badger culling and then vaccination of immigrants and survivors has been implemented since 2018. The graph and table below show bTB still persisting, with 4 ongoing incidents. To anyone who understands bTB control, this is an illustration of a complete failure to make progress; it shows that the earlier infections (orange) are persisting due to cattle movements/sales and inadequate testing approaches.

The current Cumbrian situation in general

The table below demonstrates how the county of Cumbria has shown no overall improvement in disease reduction since 2014. High numbers of OTF-S (Officially TB Free Suspended) herds remain, representing either new infections from traded cattle or recrudescence of disease that the SICCT and gamma tests have failed to identify.

Most incidents are disclosed by radial testing which is only instigated once an OTF-W incident is disclosed. This allows a 30 day delay, giving farms time to get rid of any ‘risky’ stock. The incidents disclosed by radial testing are at supposedly Officially Tb Free holdings undergoing 4-yearly testing. These farms could have been trading undetected diseased animals for up to 4 years or longer. When it was suggested to Defra (Personal comms. Ministerial Unit 6/11/2017) that annual testing in the LRA would be appropriate, the response stated: ‘Extending annual testing to all cattle herds in the LRA, which is on track to achieve TB free status by 2018, would significantly increase TB control costs for industry and the general taxpayer with only negligible disease control benefits.’ This approach has fallen on its face, with ‘TB Free’ status in Cumbria as far away as ever. The process has failed badly. The worst thing of all is that those in charge do not appear to recognise it, or are deliberately covering it up, which would be worse. Why on earth are farmers not taking action to stop this travesty? Will the Government now give farmers compensation for the impact of Defra’s flawed policy over the last ten years?

Lincolnshire Hotspot 23

This is the largest of all existing hotspots in the LRA, covering 1550km2. All herds within the hotspot have been subjected to annual whole herd testing since October 2020. Badger culling commenced in Area 54 (the LRA portion of HS23) in September 2020, the cull zone increasing to 122km2 in 2021. In 2023 a further 24km2 was added to the Lincolnshire portion of control area 54, despite it only having one herd (can you believe it?) in that whole area, and that herd was Officially TB Free.

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The data, illustrated above, shows minimal change in number of incidents in the Lincs Cull Area 45; badger culling has had no impact on TB levels in cattle. Enhanced cattle measures are likely to have reduced disease in cattle before badger culling began in 2020.

Low Risk Area in general

Throughout the UK, 45% cattle are traded by direct purchase between farms. The Low Risk Area covers approximately 50% of England, supporting a total of 18,268 herds. Cattle traded within the LRA between OTF farms are only subject to 4 yearly testing (with the exception of Lincolnshire), and do not require pre or post movement testing. Local trade is highly likely to increase the risk of spreading undetected disease within the LRA. The latest figures for which data are available show 637,239 movements within the LRA. As mentioned above, following an OTF-W incident, movement of cattle is permissible in a 30-day window before the introduction of radial testing. This hugely increases the risk of spreading disease to other areas.

Conclusions regarding Low Risk Area badger culling

Four-yearly testing with an imperfect test has resulted in self sustaining disease in cattle, enabling the development of hotspots in the LRA.

Budgetary constraints limit adequate cattle testing, which should be regular in and around breakdown herds and traded animals, including pre and post movement testing.

There is no evidence of disease benefit from the badger culling that has taken place from 2018 to September 2024 in the LRA.

Advice to Zeichner’s that LRA culling is necessary as a ‘last resort’ is both twisted and negligent.

Potential hotspots need to be identified earlier. At the moment they are not ‘declared’ without confirmation of a diseased badger, but this assumes badgers as having a role in the outbreak (without evidence), when official (Or unofficial) cattle movements are most obviously the cause.

BTB infection spreads between cattle herds in the LRA because:

Most LRA herds have only 4-yearly testing with an insufficiently sensitive test.
APHA allows trading of cattle in herds within a 3km radius of an OTF-W herd for 30 days after herd breakdown is notified, before radial testing is imposed. This practice provides opportunity for farmers to sell potentially high risk cattle.

APHA has made the mistake of assuming that a ‘new’ incident is an ‘index’ case, whereas the true source of disease is equally likely to be local farms with undetected disease. APHA is ineffectively ‘chasing’ disease, blaming badgers for infection while the bTB detection and control systems for cattle are wholly and quite obviously defective.

Daniel Zeichner must act immediately to stop what is going on in the LRA right now. There is not a day to lose. He must get a strong grip of the situation.

Please write to Daniel Zeichner and your MP asking for this crazy Low Risk Area badger culling madness to stop. Farmers are being badly treated and having their lives ruined by bad epidemiology from Defra. Its time to take a stand before the disease spreads even further in the north and east of England. Enough is enough.

The full ‘Addendum’ from which this summary is drawn is available here.

‘Science and Politics’ by Ian Boyd

Posted on 22/02/2025 by The Badger Crowd

Hiding in plain sight with the Oxford brigade

Prof. Sir Ian Boyd has a book out: ‘Science and Politics’ (politybooks.com, around £20). In it, he devotes several pages to describing the events that led up to the start of English badger culls. He talks of attempts to reign in early plans to get badger culling implemented, when a simple mess-up down to flawed population estimates led to the cull being postponed for a year. He then provides an ‘after the event’ critique of badger culling. Could this be a bit of re-writing of history with the benefit of hindsight, which has shown the inability of its proponents to demonstrate any benefit from the culls? There is no mention of the repeated failures to get a sufficiently good grasp of the veterinary science at the time, or the failure to call-out weak and questionable Government science at the heart of policy.

On February 15^th Boyd was the guest of Sir Charles Godfray in Oxford for a book promotion, where bovine TB and badgers was the most mentioned topic, but the wider issue was politics distorting the scientific process in general. His main thrust appeared to be to point the finger at the politicians (‘charlatans’ he calls them in the book) and also at the Royal Society for not effectively educating the politicians. Boyd has clearly been frustrated by his seven-year experience as Defra chief scientist advisor (CSA), working for what he said might have been a ‘bad batch’ of Defra Ministers. But could he perhaps just be trying to hide his own wrong moves in plain sight?

Boyd’s cull?

If you had to pick one person whose name is synonymous with making the English badger culls happen on the ground during the last decade, it is arguably Ian Boyd, who was CSA for DEFRA from 2012-2019. Although the culls were not his concept, the job description required him to ensure that the policy was implemented, and that’s exactly what he did. He was put in post when the plans for two small pilot culls were underway, and he drove them through under Caroline Spelman and then Owen Paterson at DEFRA. Notably, at a National Farmers Union presentation in 2014, he gave a detailed PowerPoint presentation, where he said that there was no question – badgers had to be killed in order to deal effectively with bovine disease in their cattle. The effect of this was to cement the loathing of badgers for a generation in the livestock community, green-light vets to promote the badger blame game and make continued culling easier and illegal culling more likely.

By 2015 an Independent Expert Panel on badger culling was deftly bypassed. Emails released to the High Court would later show how Civil Servants were coached on how to get around legal issues to ensure the full badger cull roll-out from 2016.

The book talk entitled ‘Sir Ian Boyd in conversation with Sir Charles Godfray and Dame Helen Ghosh’ was held at the Oxford Martin building in central Oxford on February 15^th. It put Ian Boyd amongst the scientists from the Randomised Badger Culling Trial (RBCT) study that provided the original (2011) policy justification for badger culling. His book, basically an insiders guide to how politicians and scientific advisors rub along together, was live-screened and put online too, (here). The audience, described by Godfray as ‘prestigious’, included a range of government and ex-government employees who had seen Boyd in office. Sir John Krebs (the main architect of the RBCT) was there alongside Christl Donnelly who did the controversial statistics of the RBCT, and the Emeritus Professor statistician Sir Bernard Silverman who has replaced Donnelly on the recently re-convened bovine TB review panel to be run by – your guessed it – Charles Godfray. Gideon Henderson who took over the role of CSA at DEFRA after Boyd, was also there. Helen Ghosh who was Director-General of the National Trust during the Badger Culls, made up the third member of the discussion panel, and the meeting took questions from a select few, with one or two further questions from the floor at the end.

Sir Charles Godfray, Sir Ian Boyd, Dame Helen Ghosh

The ‘scientifical political predicament’

Boyd’s short introduction made it plain that his book was aimed at getting a debate going, and that he was on a ‘good-guy’ mission. When he accepted the Chief Scientific Advisor role at DEFRA, he said that there had been no help to give him insight into what it would be like, and he had to learn very quickly. He felt he was on a learning curve the whole time, and after he had left he felt he had a duty to share his experiences. The first part of his book, his ‘scientifical political predicament’ (the tensions between scientists and politicians) led him to think that by getting involved with politics, scientists actually become ‘corrupted’. It was, he said, a problem that scientists have to try to solve to make the ‘politics factory’ (the people and space where Government happens) more effective. This included the institutions and structures around Government: NGO’s, industry, lobby groups, etc.

Part two of his book takes this further, and is called ‘Science Corrupted’. It was, he said, “really about trying to take the consequences of the processes that science is involved in, with respect to trying to get its voice heard, and understand what effect that has on science. So it’s the scientifical political predicament being played out”. As chair of the UK Research Integrity Office for the last six years, Boyd felt that a lot of the problems that sit with ‘science integrity’ occur at the politics factory interface, and are partly a result of, and partly driven by that process. Within this interface, Boyd described constructs, such as ‘evidence’, ‘what works’, ‘experts’ and ‘normative research’, and with lots of ‘confirmation bias’ sitting in the research. But he did not distinguish between research that was Government funded and done in-house, and that undertaken by independent bodies. He felt ‘confirmation bias’ occurs mostly in areas of post-normal science where there’s high uncertainty, high demand for results and a lot of controversy. He could have been talking about badger culling, (here). In the mid 1990’s, an impatient if not aggressive MAFF, tore up the veterinary research they did not like and demanded decisive action to cull badgers on behalf of cattle farmers.

‘Marking own homework’

The third part of his book, Boyd said, was called ‘taming the beast’, and about how it might be possible to fix the problem. This would be external to the existing ‘executive, legislative and Judiciary structures’ within Government that look in on how science is used, but were prone to ‘marking their own homework’ to some extent. Hence the continuous degradation of quality within the science being used would be avoided. He felt this would need a lot of hard work and determination, particularly from the scientific community and the leaders within the scientific community.

Helen Ghosh said she had been brought up in the old Department of the Environment, and her Secretaries of State in succession were Michael Heseltine, Tom King, Chris Patton and John Gummer, who had dealt with a lot of very tricky scientific issues. She didn’t recognize, or only recognized partially, Boyd’s characterisation. Boyd then praised Michael Gove (2017-2019) and said he (Boyd) had probably worked through a ‘bad batch’ of SoS’s. There had been good times, but not many, he said (note, before Gove they were Caroline Spelman, Owen Paterson, Liz Truss, and Andrea Leadsom). Ghosh mentioned badgers as being a problem that needed looking at on a ‘systemic basis’ (farming) rather than on a ‘topical basis’ (disease control). The ‘elephant in the room’ however was that if the disease control science been understood and implemented properly, the bovine TB epidemic could have been controlled much sooner. Boyd had failed to get his head around the veterinary science. Badgers and bovine TB were mentioned (although not in any detail) now and again, usually with a nervous smile from those present, many of whom still have considerable ‘skin in the game’.

Emergency ‘car crash’ response

Boyd’s view was that the leadership within the scientific community has to be much more attuned to ‘providing’. Making sure that science gets into the system at a much earlier stage than it tends to do at the moment. With it currently being a sort of emergency ‘car crash’ response a lot of the time. “And it really can’t be. It needs to be involved in designing the car and the road system and all the other things that go on.“ he added. Maybe it was a matter of having science advisors within political parties when coming up with their manifestos, he suggested.

Hindsight

Boyd was asked what he would have wanted to know when he walked into DEFRA’s offices in 2012 and what had he learned subsequently? Tellingly, he said that he would have preferred to have had a better view on how to deal with the badger culling situation. As mentioned above, Boyd’s book has what some might call selective reporting on this issue. As mentioned, he now frames himself as reticent towards badger culling. He said badger culling was something of a ‘wonderful example’ of the scientifical political predicament “and it’s still ongoing, you know it’s one of these things that just rolls on and on and on. And Gideon’s there, Gideon [Henderson] will be dealing with it right now, you know and John [Krebs] is here, and John dealt with it a lot.” It will go on and on and on. I don’t think there’s one solution to it. But I wish I’d known a lot more about the technical details when I walked in.” So do the badgers. And the cows and farmers. And the second ‘elephant in the room’ was Boyd (and previously in 2007 David King the Gvt. CSA), failing to check the statistics of badger culling in sufficient depth – King didn’t quite dig deep enough. If either of them had, they would have discovered how weak the association between badgers and bovine TB in cattle truly was. Krebs and Donnelly, sitting in the audience were not going to comment, having created the science that has been used and providing the endorsements politicians needed to set Boyd up to launch mass culls.

Hocus Pocus

Boyd went on to say that he worried about the extent to which there is compromise on the quality of scientific knowledge and argument. He referred to ‘indigenous knowledge’ in the biodiversity and environmental space, and how ‘indigenous peoples’ do know a lot about their environment and actually can bring an immense amount of information to bear on it. This was a bit obscure, but perhaps an oblique attempt at characterising those outside Government/University circles. Some information was ‘Hocus Pocus’ he said, “and we need to be able to identify the difference. We need to identify the good stuff from the bad stuff, or the reliable stuff from the unreliable stuff.” But that was his job wasn’t it?

Boyd bemoaned an ‘awful lot’ of evidence that sits around masquerading as high quality when it is actually quite low quality, but did not give examples. Boyd felt it was “really hard when in a position of having to advise a minister to use this evidence or that evidence, to know what is good and what is bad. “ Hmmm……

He continued “In the end you often have to make a judgment about, well, where does it come from, is it reliable source, those sorts of things, or you know, looking at looking at scientific paper and understanding, particularly the methods, are the other methods reliable or not. But even that actually sometimes masquerades as high quality when it’s actually quite low quality” Was that recognition that there has been an excessive reliance of work from sources with the right ‘pedigree’, without sufficient scrutiny?

This seemed to be as close to a confessional over badger culling as you could get. Boyd had little experience with veterinary science or cattle management in 2012 and as a ‘newbie’ had accepted, without enough scrutiny, the ‘Oxford’ science and submitted to the NFU brow-beating approach. Did he only realise, or accept his lack of understanding once he had left his post? Or has he held his confessional back for a reason or two.

So what was he doing by writing his book? Putting it out to all that he was a victim of a broken system? Hints of contrition? Was this just an elaborate ‘I got it wrong’ moment – a cathartic admission to purge his conscience and temper his legacy in an era that will be named as a defining one in UK environmental demise? The badger culls (and bovine TB muddle) need not ’roll on and on and on’. But Henderson, the new CSA, picked up the torch from Boyd and still no-one in Oxford wants to be the first to admit, or even mention the overwhelming uncertainty around their badger cull science. And, oh yes, Henderson is an Oxford man too…

Standards being stretched

Boyd’s thesis was that there is need for an official authority to be able to say ’this person is reliable’ and ‘this person isn’t reliable’. As President of the Royal Society of Biology, he said there was an authentication process (Chartered Biologist) that he personally does not use, but his view was that it should be used a lot more. There was scepticism from the audience. Gideon Henderson, who had suffered his own banana skin moment over badger culling data (here) wanted to know how corrupted he personally, and others had become? Presumably he had read Boyd’s previous writings on departmental tribalism (here). He wanted more detail, and to understand the nature of the corruption? Awkward.

Fiona Fox from the Science Media Centre made a remark that seemed more like a jibe, and with a distinct sarcastic edge than a question, possibly not understanding the way SMC gets used by civil servants; “…should academic scientists be expected to understand the policy process and understand what hell you are all clearly going through?” Unabashed, Boyd said that he felt ‘his standards’ were being stretched to some extent, and it had taken quite a lot of will, and self-discipline, to make sure that the basic scientific standards that he had been taught and had practiced for a very long time, were sustained and maintained. On corruption he said that people who get involved who are ‘not so wise’, could fall into a trap, which is basically to produce what he called ‘normative science’. Otherwise sometimes referred to as ‘policy-based science’. This is science that is helping to drive policy in a particular direction, and that he confirmed was what he meant by corruption. You could look at plenty of DEFRA agency constructs that fit this bill, but complying with civil service protocol, Boyd was not naming names of anyone still in post. Did Henderson really not realise he just might fall into the category of ‘unwise person’? The polite tensions in the room were palpable and it was not clear who was having dinner with whom afterwards. The wrinkled noses in the audience were those of the civil servants who know about the problems and observe a protocol not to boat-rock once they have left office . At least Boyd deserves credit for speaking out, albeit a bit too late.

Boyd continued “I don’t really mean individuals are making an overt decision to undermine science. I think that there is an invidious underlying process that draws them in, in order to be able to produce the results that somebody else wants rather than the results that actually really are needed. So that’s what I mean by it. So it’s not a personalized criticism.” He unconvincingly wriggled around the tribal fear culture. His ‘tribalism’ thesis was the way in which, as a whistle blower, he was balancing being seen to seek honest reform (within the den of thieves in Parliament) with risking the extensive ‘pissing off’ of those outside Westminster, who might still lean over and damage any future ambitions.

Prof Bernard Silverman (statistician and renounced curate now standing in for recused Christl Donnelly in the Godfray bovine TB review panel) was the Home Office’s Chief Scientific Advisor, overlapping with Boyd’s tenure (here). He asked about the role of the Royal Society, of which he is a Fellow. Boyd went into overdrive: “ The problem is the Royal Society actually. And I’m saying that in a public domain. Where you have the premier organization which has a capacity to really knock on the highest political door in the country. And it does need to do more of a coordinating activity. I have no doubt about that at all. But it doesn’t, and I’ll leave it at that. And I see you nodding.” Boyd thought that science would do well to look at some of the other professions and how they manage quality control within those professions; the scientific community could come up with a new system. But it needed to be valued by the policy profession.

Also present were Claire Moriarty, past permanent secretary in DEFRA during Boyd’s period of office, Claire Craig who was Director of the Government Office for Science, Jim Naismith, Head of The Mathematical, Physical and Life Sciences (MPLS) division at Oxford University and John Beddington (London Zoo).

So what can be taken home from all of this? Basically, there is continuing pressure to produce results to fit a political agenda, mistakes are commonplace, they continue to be made, and the way to prevent the same thing from happening in the future is far from clear. Learned societies need to step-up, but acceptance of the problem is not universal. One thing is certain however; badgers, cows and the livestock industry lost out from the tangle of ‘Science and Politics’ before, during and after Boyd’s time in office, with 2014 targets now missed. Until those responsible take a good look at themselves and the mountain of hindsight now available, disgraceful waste will continue.

Cull review details announced

Posted on 05/02/2025 by The Badger Crowd

Government to review the last six years of bTB science for its ‘refreshed’ bovine TB strategy

On 30^th January 2025, Defra issued Terms of Reference (here) for the ‘comprehensive new bovine TB review’, that was announced last August. This included details of a scientific panel which will be reviewing ‘new’ evidence that has become available since the last review was published in 2018.

How objective will the new review be?

The panel, that last month began reviewing new evidence for the ‘refreshed’ bovine TB strategy, is largely a reprise of those who undertook the last review back in 2018, with one exception. The panel will be chaired, as previously, by Professor Sir Charles Godfray, University of Oxford. He will be familiar with the current scientific views of those whose work has been used to maintain badger culling for the last 12 years. He was personally involved in the statistical audit of the Randomised Badger Culling Trials (RBCT) (1998 – 2005), and so is extremely close to the discussion of issues relating to questionable statistical approaches raised since the last review.

As before, Godfray will be supported by Professor Glyn Hewinson CBE of Aberystwyth University, Professor Michael Winter OBE University of Exeter and Professor James Wood OBE of University of Cambridge. Wood has been vocal on TV and radio in his long-term support for Government publications that have suggested that badger culling might be working.

Professor Sir Bernard Silverman FRS, Emeritus Professor of Statistics at the University of Oxford University has stepped in to replace Christl Donnelly, Professor of Applied Statistics at Oxford University, who requested to be ‘recused’, for reasons that have not been stated, but may relate to recent scientific discussion over statistical elements of the RBCT. As one of the statistical auditors of the RBCT, Charles Godfray made recommendations in 2004 for tighter control of the data and analyses. Donnelly (et al.) statistics from the Randomised Badger Culling Trials (here) have been challenged in a new scientific paper by Torgerson et al. (here). And the debate has continued with Mills et al. (here) and (here) and Torgerson et al. (here). Whilst it is welcome that the ongoing dilemma will be reviewed, is the proper approach to have Oxford academics looking into an Oxford issue? Silverman describes himself on his CV as “Recognised as a world leader through ratings and awards. Wide experience within government, as chair or member of boards and committees and as a departmental chief scientific adviser, with specialist expertise in national security, modern slavery, official statistics, etc.”. Notably, he was on the panel of the Anderson Inquiry into the handling of the Foot and Mouth Epidemic in 2001, so has some experience of epidemiology.

The panel is expected to report their findings by the end June of 2025. Which is unfortunate for all the badgers that will be killed in the culls for which licences will be issued from June 1st (and September 1st) 2025. And for those that are victims of the escalating illegal culling that has been reported since ‘legal’ culling began.

One cannot help but think that if Labour had really wanted an objective review of the science around bovine TB and badger culling, they would have asked an independent set of scientists with less ‘skin in the game’, and perhaps more distanced from Oxford to undertake such a vital review. But once again it seems that it is largely the same set of academics who will be looking at the science in which they personally have a historical interest and potentially, future stake.

Defra have announced a £1.4 million badger vaccination project in Cornwall (here) suggesting that they may have already made their mind up on the science evidence; they are still treating badgers as a central issue in the control of bovine TB, despite the growing doubt. Yet they are still unable to provide any certainty that this is the case. Some are making robust claims about whole genome sequencing and what it can show, whilst others are modelling what they think might be happening using outdated assumptions and unproven associations. Meanwhile, the strongest evidence of inadequate control points to ineffective cattle testing being the crucial driver of bovine TB, and the solution must therefore lie with cattle controls.

Bovine TB jargon explainer

Posted on 28/01/2025 by The Badger Crowd

The TB status of cattle herds – how does that work?

The Animal and Plant Health Agency (APHA) maintain in recent publications (Birch et al. 2024 and APHA epidemiology reports for 2023) that it is the number of ‘OTF-W’ herd breakdowns that is the best headline measure of the change in bovine TB herd incidence in relation to transmission caused by badgers. How credible is this claim and why do they make it? The reality is that OTF-W (Officially TB Withdrawn) and OTF-S (Officially TB Suspended) cattle herds are simply two categories of a positive disease status.

The SICCT test – and the difference between ‘reactors’ and ‘inconclusive reactors’

The most commonly used test for bovine TB in cattle currently is the tuberculin test or SICCT (Single Intradermal Comparative Cervical Tuberculin) test. It is the main test for which farmers receive financial compensation if they receive a ‘positive result’ or ‘reactor’, and cattle are slaughtered prematurely. One big limitation of the tuberculin skin test is its sensitivity. Studies suggest that skin test herd sensitivity in Great Britain averages around 80% at ‘standard interpretation’. In practical terms, this means that on average 20% of TB-infected cattle herds may be missed by one round of skin testing, at ‘standard interpretation’, and it might be more. Even at ‘severe interpretation’ (explained later), many individuals slip through the testing net.

The skin test involves the injection of two different deactivated TB proteins, bovine and avian, in the neck area of each individual animal in a herd, followed 3 days later by a check of the injection sites to measure the extent of any skin thickening reaction (lump).

The SICCT test for bovine tuberculosis (bTB) is read by comparing the size of the skin reaction to bovine tuberculin and avian tuberculin. At ‘standard interpretation’, the test is ‘positive’ when the reaction to bovine tuberculin is greater than the reaction to avian tuberculin by 4 mm or more. Where the reaction to bovine tuberculin is greater than the reaction to avian tuberculin, but by less than 4mm, the result has been considered ‘inconclusive’ (IR) and usually retested after 60 days. Where the reaction to bovine tuberculin is the same as the reaction to avian tuberculin, the test is ‘negative‘.

If the IR subsequently tests clear, it can rejoin the herd. These animals, then known as ‘resolved IRs’, are either isolated, restricted for life to the holding in which they were found, or sent for slaughter according to rules on the risk level at each location. If the second test shows a reaction (tuberculin lump is 4 mm or more than the avian tuberculin lump), individuals are classed as a ‘reactor’ and compulsorily slaughtered. Sometimes herds have to pass two tests 60 days apart after an initial ‘inconclusive‘ test to regain ‘TB Free’ status. Animals with lumps less than 4mm may also be slaughtered as ‘direct contacts’ (DC’s), (individuals that have been in contact with known infected animals).

Research has found that the odds of a ‘resolved IR’ becoming a subsequent ‘reactor’ during study periods were seven and nine times greater than for negative testing cattle in the HRA and Edge Area of England respectively (see May et al. 2019 here). So why create such an important operational, yet subjective division between ‘reactors’ and ‘inconclusives’?

What happens to an animal that is a ‘reactor’?

An animal that is a ‘reactor’ is slaughtered and examined for signs of bTB. It must have either a ‘post-mortem examination’ (PME) undertaken either by an APHA veterinary pathologist, or in the vast majority of cases, an examination at an abattoir where meat inspectors undertake a ‘simple post-mortem meat inspection’ (PMMI). Both processes (PME & PMMI) are looking for ‘visible lesions’. These are physiological changes to organs, glands and other areas caused by the disease. Tissue samples from selected ‘positive’ animals are taken for further testing (bacteriological culture) in one of APHA’s designated diagnostic laboratories to try and grow M. bovis (the bovine TB bacilli) and then identify the specific strain of the bacterium through DNA typing or sequencing. Alternatively, M. bovis may be confirmed via PCR (Polymerase Chain Reaction) analysis. PCR is a laboratory technique for rapidly producing copies of a specific segment of DNA, which can then be studied in greater detail. Evidence of bTB infection by one of these methods results in the ‘confirmed’ status.

It is not always possible to locate ‘visible lesions’ at PMMI, and therefore culture the bacterium from infected animals. This is particularly so if ‘micro-lesions’ are present; these are too small to be detected visually and can only be identified by fine sectioning of tissues. Furthermore, although ‘visible lesions’ of bTB are usually located in the lung tissues and associated lymph nodes, their location can vary depending on the movement of infection around the animal post-primary infection. The size and number of visible lesions (if present) can also vary and are not always correlated with the length of time an animal might have been infected.

How accurate are the abattoir checks for TB lesions – and thus how accurate is the ‘confirmed’ status?

Stating the obvious, abattoir checks are very different to laboratory checks: the proportion of abattoir checks to laboratory checks is unclear. The ‘necropsy’ (autopsy for animals) of the dead animal in an abattoir is a rapid procedure, undertaken in slaughterhouse conditions. The meat inspector doing the procedure has a limited amount of time to look for TB lesions; some have reported as little as 4 minutes per animal. In this time, they have to administer 6 major cuts to the carcass and may take samples in 3 different locations; glands, lungs, gut.

During the conveyor belt nature of rendering, it is quite possible that the animal to whom each set of guts belong is unclear, so in the event of lesions being found, the process has to be stopped, causing delay and cost to try to clarify. In order to avoid faecal contamination of the abattoir, the guts are rarely (if ever) opened. The search for gut lesions is therefore restricted to examination of the outside of the organ only, and is it therefore more likely to miss diseased tissue here than in other locations.

If lesions are found, restrictions start to kick in. The abattoirs must temporarily slow operations and the area must be cleaned, losing working time & efficiency. Extra paperwork must be completed. It is not in the interest of any of those involved to find lesions – the schedule becomes less efficient and less profitable. It has even been suggested that ‘not spotting’ disease can sometimes be encouraged.

How do ‘confirmed reactors’ and ‘unconfirmed reactors’ relate to OTF-S and OTF-W status?

If the animal is registered as a ‘confirmed reactor’, the herd from which it came is registered as ‘OTF-W’ (withdrawn). If no lesions are found, and the checks for M. bovis bacteria are negative, the animal is registered as an ‘unconfirmed reactor’ and the herd is registered or remains as ‘OTF-S’ (suspended). A herd is also considered ‘OTF-S’ when animals are removed/separated due to a skin test finding of ‘inconclusive reactors’ and must be retested to become OTF (Officially TB Free) again.

Is there a clear difference between ‘OTF-W’ and ‘OTF-S’ using the ‘confirmed’ and ‘unconfirmed’ method of disease surveillance?

The division of ‘reactors’ into ‘confirmed’ and ‘unconfirmed’ has created an artificial and unmeasurable division of disease diagnosis and infectiousness. All ‘reactors’ have been exposed to bTB, all have some level of disease, all may be infectious. All should be treated as such. Which is why in Wales, since 01 April 2023, the SICCT test is read at ‘severe interpretation’. This means that the ‘positive’ cut-off point (difference in bump size) is lowered so that some animals previously classified as ‘inconclusive reactors’ (IRs) at the standard interpretation are now classified as full ‘reactors’. Thus Wales now regards the majority of herds with ‘reactors’ of all kinds as ‘OTF-W’ by default.

The reason bovine TB proliferates is because the OTF-S herds that clear their onward tests, but that are in reality still infected, are likely to go on to infect the herds to which they are sold, and the disease can then take years to appear in that new herd. ‘Reactors’ from the new herd may not reveal ‘visible lesions’ at PME, and then the source of disease cannot be traced back. In this situation, ‘environmental’ sources (usually badgers) have often been blamed for the ‘new’ infection.

The current system is based on the outmoded vet and farmer ‘rule of thumb’ that cattle may carry bovine TB in a manner that is low risk to other cows. This is not the case, as any that are truly in remission are always vulnerable to ‘recrudescence’ and becoming infectious, and it is an unpredictable risk. It could happen for a range of reasons such as stress, ill health or use of medication. The kind of long term ‘latency’ seen in human TB has never been demonstrated in cattle.

The result of the current testing regime is to separate positive testing animals into two clearly overlapping categories. The high specificity of the SICCT test (approximately 99.98% at standard interpretation) means that any cow that tests positive is almost certain to carry bovine TB.

So why has APHA chosen to use OTF-W as a measure of disease rather than OTF-S?

The number of OTF-W herds has been coming down in recent years as the later cases / older infections are those that are most likely to be detected by testing. DEFRA are keen to report that their bTB control policy is working, and they largely use data for OTF-W rather than OTF-S which has stayed constant or is slightly rising, to try to show this (see below & recent letter in Vet Record). This is even though common sense says that ‘all reactors’ (both conclusive and inconclusive) are positive for bovine TB, and therefore better reflect ‘new infection’ rate. So OTF-W + OTF-S would be the statistic that best shows overall disease trends. The current (September 2024) bTB Dashboard for England show the total number of New Herd Incidents (NHI’s) at 2464, of which 1042 (42%) are OTF-W, and the higher 1422 (58%) are OTF-S.

And also…

The results of the Randomised Badger Culling Trial (RBCT) are the basis for the government badger cull policy. The RBCT is the science that DEFRA has used to create policy, and in court to defend their decisions to experiment with badger culling from 2013. The RBCT claimed that proactive badger culling can significantly reduce bovine TB in cattle within cull areas; very many subsequent studies are heavily derived from it. The RBCT claimed a 19% benefit from badger culling from analyses that used only OTF-W data. However, when OTF-S + OTF-W data were used, all analyses agreed that there was no measured benefit from badger culling. Badger culling did not have any effect at all.

It is not difficult to see where the oversights have been and are still being made. How is it possible that basic scientific and veterinary evidence is being so badly misrepresented? It is clear that the distraction caused by the claim that badger culling will deliver significant disease benefit has been disastrous. Published science shows that it hasn’t worked (here) and that it was never going to work (here and here). So why don’t DEFRA urgently do something about it?

Bovine TB roundup 2024

Posted on 20/12/2024 by The Badger Crowd

Everything changes but stays the same?

2024 has been a remarkable year, where it seems that better awareness of the bovine TB scandal is emerging. Yet institutional forces struggle to grapple with poor science, the embarrassment of failing policy and the need for decisive steps to overcome decades of oversight, dogma and vested interest.

In February, DEFRA’s Animal and Plant Agency (APHA) published a controversial paper (Birch et al.) in Scientific Reports that the DEFRA Minister Steve Barclay trumpeted immediately as showing that badger culling since 2013 was ‘working’ (see here). The journal and the authors refused to change a misleading abstract that implied this, despite the paper stating twice (on careful reading) that the observed overall reduction in bovine TB over the study period could not be attributed to badger culling. All disease measures implemented, including more frequent cattle testing, were analysed together with no control. Basically the analysis is just a time period study, as pointed out in Prof David Macdonald’s earlier comments on the draft paper (see here) for work already labelled as policy-led science (see here).

DEFRA’s tactics appeared to be to try to justify badger culling in order to reverse the ‘phasing out’ of badger culling by the 2020 ‘Next Steps’ policy. This was perhaps also addressing the High Court’s expectation, stated 5 years previously, that policy should ‘adapt and learn’ from the results of Supplementary Badger Culling. The DEFRA plan, as revealed on 14^th March, was to introduce something called ‘targeted culling‘ (see here), which was in reality a rebranding of epidemiological culling as carried out in the Low Risk Area (‘LRA Culling’) of England since 2018, including in Cumbria, south of Penrith. In this and a further cull area in Lincolnshire, culling of 100% of badgers in a core area and beyond was permitted over three or more years, with some badger vaccination afterwards. DEFRA refused to comment on a detailed report (here) documenting its epidemiological failings and its continuing clumsy approach to investigating sources of infection. Even now new breakdowns are happening in the Cumbria Area 32 due to unwise cattle trading and persistent infection.

The March 2024 DEFRA plan was to allow extensive culling into the future across England at the discretion of the Chief Veterinary Officer, potentially under a general licence, further negating provisions of the Protection of Badgers Act 1992. It looked like Defra were trying to put a policy in place before a General Election, to commence in autumn 2024. The DEFRA plan looked like a normalization of widespread badger culling into the future. Likely to further stimulate illegal badger culling that is now reported to be rife in some bovine TB areas.

Problems for Defra came from two important interventions. A prompt Freedom of Information request to determine Natural England’s reasons for continuing the licensing of Supplementary Badger Culling (extension from 4 to up to 9 years of culling) resulted in disclosure of their weak scientific justification (see here). Secondly, legal complaints that the five week consultation period was too short to evaluate the APHA paper and the government’s somewhat confusing interpretation of it, resulted on 19th April, in an extension by 3 weeks of the consultation period, to 13th May (see here).

A pre-action protocol letter for Judicial Review regarding the March proposals to ‘evolve the badger control policy’ was lodged on 16th May (see here). The legal challenge was to the consultation itself, arguing that it was :

Misleading and provided inadequate information regarding badger culling efficacy
Failed to provide information on potential ecological impacts of the policy
Lacked meaningful information on economic impacts of the policy

Ultimately, the consultation fell victim to the announcement by Prime Minister Rishi Sunak on 22^nd May of a General Election on 4th July. This froze consideration of the consultation responses until after the election. The Labour Party manifesto for the 2024 General Election was published on 13^th June, and stated its intention to end “ineffective” badger culling, as previously pledged during the 2019 general election. Labour had been keeping very quiet about its position on culling in the months leading up to the election. Presumably this was a tactic to placate the farming vote which was needed before Reform UK Party decided to stand. It appeared to have agreed to keep some badger culling going as a part of a back-room deal with the NFU, a fix that was later exposed by reliable sources (see here).

Meanwhile in Wales, Deputy first Minister of Wales Huw Irranca-Davis in a statement in the Senedd on 14th May 2024 (see here) articulated the superior progress on bovine TB being made in Wales without badger culling:

“But just to be clear, from 2012, which is the year before badger control policy in England, to 2023, on the latest published data, the herd incidence in England decreased from 9.8 to 7.3; it was a 26 per cent decrease. In Wales, over the same period, herd incidence decreased from 10 to 6.8. It’s a 31.3 per cent decrease. I simply put that on record—those are Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs figures, by the way—to say that we are doing things differently in Wales, in line with our programme for government, but we’re also succeeding in many ways.”

Labour’s landslide victory on 4^th July heralded a further rollercoaster of events. Within six weeks it announced that the new government did not intend to pursue the policy of ‘targeted’ culling, making the key legal challenge to the consultation unnecessary. Instead it planned to work on a “refreshed bovine TB control badger strategy”.

An important new extensive re-evaluation of the Randomised Badger Culling Trial was published in Nature Scientific Reports by Prof Paul Torgerson with others, on 15^th July, shaking the foundation stone of Government policy since 2011. It provided further and highly extensive evidence that the role of badgers in bovine TB in cattle was fatally misconstrued, and the problems had not been spotted over 20 years ago (see here).

Throughout 2023 and 2024 the Oxfordshire Badger Group (OBG), with support from others, had tried to initiate discussion of the RBCT design and findings with Oxford University, but reported a wall of reluctance or silence. Around 7,000 badgers have been shot in Oxfordshire so far. On 18^th July OBG presented a petition with over 50,000 signatures to Oxford University School of Biology in central Oxford. OBG called on Oxford University to own what it called “Your Bloody Science” and asked them to “Speak out against badger extermination”, (see here). There was apparently no meaningful contribution to the debate from the Oxford RBCT scientists. Also in July, Betty Badger (AKA Mary Barton, a member of the Herts and Middlesex badger Group) marked her marathon 8 years of protesting badger culling outside Defra’s main London office (every Thursday), switching attention towards the broken promises made to her over the previous year that she “wouldn’t be standing there after the election” (see here).

On 21st August two new papers were published by Mills et al. in Royal Society Open Science, largely repeating the analyses in Torgerson et al 2024, but coming to a different conclusion (see here & here). Further concerns by Torgerson et al were preprinted on September 20th in BioRxive (see here) and the matter will continue into 2025.

On 23rd August, the BBC2 documentary ‘Brian May – The Badgers, the Farmers, and Me’ was aired, illustrating how the badger cull policy implemented since 2013 has failed farmers completely (see here).

There followed a tirade of rather ill-founded and rushed accusations and complaints by multiple members of the usually secretive BTB Partnership (see here) on X (formerly Twitter), presumably reflecting the collective tribal response of government hirelings. The documentary showed how, following the cull, rates of bTB infection and consequent numbers of cattle slaughtered are in some areas no better than they were in 2013, and in other areas they are worse than ever. See here and the graph below for Gloucestershire cull area 1 that is central to government (APHA) publications; they tell the story. The real culprit, as exposed by leading cattle vet Dick Sibley, is the limitations of the standard SICCT and Gamma testing procedure and constraints over using newer tests to detect the hidden disease reservoir in herds. The work from the Save Me Trust supported case study farms in England and Wales and all pointed in one direction – the misunderstanding of disease control needs by the Government professionals and contractors in charge. Farmers in south west England were beginning to recognize how far away from real solutions the Government and their representatives have been taking them. Both with the trading of herds not properly freed from bTB infection, and the false narrative around badger transmission. The documentary represents the most decisive moment in bovine TB control since the epidemic was created nearly 25 years ago following a long period with lax testing.

Fact: Badger culling has made no visible difference to the number of annual bTB incidents in the 2013-2021 ‘pilot’ cull area in Gloucestershire. Note 2024 has now reached 26 incidents as of 4th December.

On 30th August, intent to refresh the bovine TB control badger strategy was announced:

“Government to end badger cull with new TB eradication strategy”,

although only in relation to a bit of proposed tinkering around with badgers, as follows:

A new survey starting in December 2024 to try to estimate cull impacts. This will be a sample of signs of sett activity in culled areas and conclude generally that badgers are highly mobile and recolonise quickly, but give no reliable indication of numbers.
Surveillance of the prevalence of bTB in found dead or culled badgers and deer. To show, as expected, and previously shown, that bTB remains in wildlife when the general countryside remains infected by infected cattle trading, and afterwards for several years. This seems to be aimed at somehow informing further misguided culling and vaccination efforts, based on outmoded thinking.
Establish a new Badger Vaccinator Field Force: As Defra fall even further and hopelessly behind its badger vaccination targets of 2023 and now 2024, accelerating potential future costs, this ambition looks as futile as it is a pointless exercise. No one thinks it can work, no one wants to do it, no one wants to pay for it. There is no evidence it can contribute.
Badger vaccination study to rapidly analyse the effect of badger vaccination on the incidence of TB in cattle: There would be nothing rapid about this and for it to have any value would be a long term, hugely expensive exercise, with controls. The flawed anticipation is that it will “give farmers greater confidence that doing so will have a positive effect on their cattle.” This just illustrates how misguided and out of touch the same-old Defra/APHA staff and advisors remain.

This was very disappointing to say the least. And whilst there was a clearly stated intention to stop culling badgers, shockingly that would not now happen before the end of the current Parliament (2029), leaving the door open for culling to continue with the next Government. The plans proposed five more years of badger culling and to everyone’s disbelief, even a new cull area in Cumbria north of Penrith. Where unwise cattle trading has created a small number of breakdowns in a zone called Hotspot 29: around 1,000 mostly healthy badgers are to be shot over a wide area (see here and below), with hundreds shot this autumn. It was almost as if Defra/APHA staff wanted to appease the NFU with a “badger culling business as usual” promise no matter what independent reports or the new politicians said. Such is the grip of vested interest on civil servants.

Hotspot 29. Herd breakdowns 2013-2024. Note in 2020 due to covid restrictions, cattle testing was suspended. This resulted in increased trading of diseased cattle and further infections in subsequent years. In 2022 many new enhanced tests began to address the 2021 increase in the area, with the APHA/CVO epidemiological mistake of blaming it on badgers. It is what the 2018 LRA policy calls a ‘precautionary’ measure, and is the travesty of a failed policy that Labour now perpetuates, despite promising not to. There has been a further breakdown in December 2024 making 8 breakdowns.

And so in September, the badger culling season under a Labour administration got into full swing in the High Risk, Edge and Low Risk Areas of England for a 12^th year, to kill (often in a cruel way) around 15,000 more mostly completely healthy adult and cub badgers. This will bring the total reported killed since 2013 close to the 250,000 mark.

On 24th October APHA’s “Year End Descriptive Epidemiology Reports” for Bovine TB control were published online for the Edge Area counties of Berkshire, Buckinghamshire, Cheshire, Derbyshire, East Sussex, Hampshire, Leicestershire, Northamptonshire, Nottinghamshire, Oxfordshire and Warwickshire. Progress is no longer on target for any of these areas, apparently due to inadequate funding for disease control following Brexit cutbacks (see here and here).

Published on 25^th October, Science and Politics, a book by by Ian Boyd appeared to try to distance the author (Defra Chief Scientific Advisor 2012-2019) from his pivotal role in convincing farmers that badgers needed to be culled (see Boyd’s conceptual model below). His role in encouraging the badger cull roll-out was exposed in court copies of internal Defra emails in 2016. This, despite his self-confession on Civil Service tribalism, having maneuvered in the ‘golden cage’ to deliver ‘Boyd’s cull’ (see here).

Ian Boyd’s Conceptual model on why badger culling is essential

As the year wound down, the Oxfordshire Badger Group supported a scientific seminar, in Oxford, delivered by Prof. Paul Torgerson on 18th November: key RBCT academics together with Defra & APHA officials were invited to discuss the science and statistics but all declined.

Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (Natalie Bennett) hosted a special meeting on Government bovine TB policy at Millbank in Westminster on 19th November, with presentations by Prof Paul Torgerson and veterinarian Dick Sibley. The meeting was well attended from the Lords and Commons, but all Defra and APHA officials and staff invited to attend declined the invitation (see Vet Record: here).

On 28^th November, the Northern Ireland Chief Veterinary Officer Review of Bovine Tuberculosis in Northern Ireland (prepared by cattle breeder Brian Dooher) (see here) was published in advance of publication of a consultation document over policy expected in the spring. This followed the fiasco over the last consultation, where the economic case was not made available and the consultation was determined invalid by the courts thanks to a NI Badger Group/Wild Justice legal challenge. BTB is getting worse in NI and badger blame rhetoric has reached fever pitch, based in part on misuse of the February APHA paper, and DEFRA’s position claiming that badger culling can be shown to work. DAERA and independent advisors will need to be sure to produce an accurate document this time if the previous failure is not to be repeated, as sadly looks increasingly likely.

On 3rd December, Rob Pownall of Protect The Wild launched a parliamentary petition to end the English badger cull. Standing at around 30,000 signatures at the time of writing, the petition calls for “an immediate end to the cull and the implementation of cattle focused measures to control bTB, rather than what we see as scapegoating wildlife.” As the petition points out, research that has been “peer reviewed and published, shows no evidence that culling badgers reduces confirmed bTB in cattle. Over 230,000 badgers — many healthy — have been killed, disrupting ecosystems without solid scientific justification”. Please add your name to this petition here.

On 13th December Tom Langton delivered a presentation entitled “Veterinary Science, Uncertainty and Politics: TB and wildlife” at the Annual Veterinary Public Health Conference held at Vetsuisse Faculty at Zurich University. This looked at the flawed assumptions made back in the 1970’s that led to badgers being wrongly labelled as a ‘self-perpetuating bTB reservoir‘, on to field trials that tried to show a ‘bTB perturbation effect’, and statistics chosen to ‘prove‘ this as a way to stop culling. And the uncertainty, peer pressure, confirmation bias and reputational defence that has followed on as a consequence.

What can be expected in 2025? Difficult to say, but with a Labour government now in charge, we have to hope for at least some meaningful dialogue on the scientific, financial and ethical considerations that have just not been heard over the last 12 years. We are looking for more than the ‘same-old’ broken policy and tired old arguments.

Thanks again to the hundreds of active supporters who have generously helped to fund legal work and provided information, analysis and support in so many ways this year. You have surely contributed towards seeing off widespread targeted culling this year. Next year we will continue to demand rapid change in approach to bovine TB policy, a change that is scientifically evidenced, and that will, at last, start to benefit farmers, cows, badgers and the public. This change must start with meaningful dialogue.

Important New Parliamentary Petition

Posted on 29/11/2024 by The Badger Crowd

A new parliamentary petition has been launched by Protect the Wild. It states:

The Government’s TB Eradication Strategy allows the continued killing of badgers, a protected species, until the end of this Parliament, despite the Labour manifesto calling the cull “ineffective.”

We believe the badger cull is unjustified and must end.

Some research has suggested culling results in a reduction in bovine TB (bTB) in cattle. However, there are concerns about the methodology used. Other research, which has been peer reviewed and published, shows no evidence that culling badgers reduces confirmed bTB in cattle. Over 230,000 badgers — many healthy — have been killed, disrupting ecosystems without solid scientific justification.

We call for an immediate end to the cull and the implementation of cattle focused measures to control bTB, rather than what we see as scapegoating wildlife.

We fully support this petition and would encourage you to add your name. Encourage others who care about badgers, effective disease control and the correct interpretation of science to sign too. Let’s see it reach 100,000 signatures & get a parliamentary debate.

Add your name here.

APHA’s Edge Area Bovine TB Epidemiology Reports for 2023

Posted on 05/11/2024 by The Badger Crowd

How’s it going?

The quotes in the table below are taken from the APHA county epidemiology reports recently released. Progress is clearly not on target. As seen in Oxfordshire (see here), bTB in the Edge Area is not being addressed with sufficient resources or the right approaches. The lack of adequate testing is so glaringly obvious it is beyond belief that this situation is being allowed to continue. The bovine TB eradication policy is in tatters not just in the HRA and LRA but in the Edge Area too.

County	Progress	Going Well?
Berkshire	“Looking at the recent trend, the likelihood of achieving a herd prevalence of less than 1% OTF-W incidents in Berkshire by 2025 is low.”	No
Buckinghamshire	No prediction	?
Cheshire	“..the prevalence (4.4%) in 2023increased marginally compared to 2022. OTF county status will not be achieved by 2025,but with the use of all available tools to identify and to reduce the burden of infection, it might be possible to achieve OTF status by 2038.”	No
Derbyshire	“Based on current information, achieving OTF status is not conceivable for Derbyshire by 2025. Residual infection continues to be a problem in Derbyshire. The reasons for this are unclear, may be multi-factorial, and is likely to include herd type, wildlife populations, farming practices and proximity to the HRA county of Staffordshire.”	No
East Sussex	“The increase of prevalence rate from 2022 in addition to the geographical extension of the endemic area (HRA prior to 1 January 2018) suggests that East Sussex will not be able to achieve OTF status by 2025. The prevalence and incidence will need to have a considerable reduction through the next 10 years to ensure that OTF status in the county could be reached by 2038.”	No
Hampshire	“The likelihood of achieving a herd prevalence of less than 1% OTF-W incidents in the county by 2025 is low.”	No
Leicestershire	“Although the herd incidence declined again in 2023, it is unlikely that Leicestershire will achieve OTF status by 2025.”	No
Northamptonshire	“Despite the declining herd incidence and prevalence trends over the last 3 years in Northamptonshire, it seems unlikely that the county will be eligible for OTF status by 2038.”	No
Nottinghamshire	“Additionally, prevalence in Nottinghamshire at the end of the reporting year was 1.7%. It seems unlikely for Nottinghamshire to become eligible for OTF status by 2025, as set out in the strategy for achieving OTF status for England, published in 2014. However, if the disease trend continues to decline as a result of effective disease control measures it is possible Nottinghamshire will achieve OTF status by 2038.”	No
Warwickshire	“Official-TB-Free status (OTF) for Warwickshire will not be achieved by 2025, as set out in the ‘Strategy for Achieving OTF Status for England’, published in 2014. However, progress is being made and the outlook is positive.”	No

Recurrence

‘Recurrence’ is where bovine TB returns to a herd after a period when it has not been detected by periodic testing. Recurrence is the result of residual infection, ineffective testing and cattle movements, (with the odd unevidenced nod to wildlife). Recurrence is now recorded consistently across the Edge Area and the High Risk Area, and it is the reason why the Edge Area is unlikely to be TB free by 2038. APHA diverted gamma testing in 2021 to herds with a history of recurrence and persistence, at the same time reducing parallel testing of gamma alongside the skin test in OFT-W (Officially TB Free Withdrawn) herds, resulting in early undetected disease remaining in herds throughout the Edge Area.

It’s interesting to note that ‘Overall Recurrence’, ie recurrence during the herd’s lifetime, has been added to the recently published epidemiology reports (see below). Previously, recurrence has only related to the previous 3 years. ‘Overall Recurrence’ reflects the true seriousness of the epidemic.

And alongside the reality of the problem of Recurrence, the APHA are still blaming badgers for significant disease transmission without evidence, and still claiming disease benefit from badger culling without evidence.

APHA’s ‘Edge of Disaster’ Area

Posted on 05/11/2024 by The Badger Crowd

Bovine TB failings in Oxfordshire and beyond in 2023

The “Year End Descriptive Epidemiology Reports” for Bovine TB control were published by APHA online on 24^th October for the Edge Area counties of: Berkshire, Buckinghamshire, Cheshire, Derbyshire, East Sussex, Hampshire, Leicestershire, Northamptonshire, Nottinghamshire, Oxfordshire and Warwickshire.

The report for Oxfordshire is the most extensive of the county reports (see here). What does it tell us about the progress made on bTB control as measured by cattle herds withdrawn (so-called ‘confirmed’ breakdowns) in Oxfordshire? And what does it tell us about APHA’s approach to epidemiological standards? It looks like they are still blaming wildlife by default………….

Ups and Downs

In Oxfordshire, following a continual decrease in OTF-W (Officially TB Free Withdrawn) breakdown incidents since 2018, the number of incidents rose from 31 in 2022 to 41 in 2023, which is similar to the numbers of incidents in 2020 (47 OTF-W). The number of OTF-S (Officially TB Free Suspended) incidents also rose slightly from 25 in 2022 to 28 in 2023. This is the highest number of OTF-S incidents in the last 10 years.

The APHA say that having originated in West Oxfordshire, East Oxfordshire is now the main driver of bTB spread in the county, especially during the last three years, with an increase of OTF-W incidents in 2023. This suggests that TB is actively spreading in East Oxfordshire, despite the initial decrease in the total number of incidents and following use of interferon gamma (IFN-γ) blood testing and increased SICCT testing in 2018.

Unscientific inference

Despite APHA’s consistent inability to scientifically attribute bTB disease benefit to badger culling, they casually state that persistent incidents have decreased due to “implementing control measures such as badger culling since 2019”.

In 2023, additional Defra approved ancillary tests (IFN-Y & IDEXX) for use in Oxfordshire to “remove infection in incidents where the level of reinfection from purchases and wildlife was believed to be low, but where the effect of residual infection was preventing incidents from becoming clear”. It is not clear what exactly leads APHA to believe infection in wildlife is low in this instance, when they consistently say that it is high elsewhere. Perhaps due to removal by shooting of around 2,500 badgers in Oxfordshire’s Cull Area 49 (West Oxfordshire) in an area overlapping with Gloucestershire?

Deer are next in the blame game

Reports of suspicion of TB in wild deer increased in 2023. This is likely due to the creation in 2022 of the Oxfordshire Cluster Project, which offered training to local deer stalkers to identify typical lesions of TB in game carcasses.

Not surprisingly with greater checks, wild deer carcasses with TB lesions were reported to APHA in 2023: two roe deer, one fallow and one muntjac. All were sampled and sent for TB culture and bTB clade B6-62 was confirmed in all of them which is the common clade in Oxfordshire cattle. Whole Genome Sequencing (WGS) was employed by APHA to link “incidents to specific cattle incidents in the same geographical area”, with a claim of ”further evidence of the relationship between cattle and local wildlife in the transmission of TB”, without evidence of the relationship and direction of infection. Inconclusive epidemiology.

The Bird-flu distraction claim

The APHA also claim that an increase in recorded bTB incidence in cattle in 2023 followed an emergency interim action in December 2021, diverting APHA staff to addressing the 2021-2023 highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) outbreaks. Gamma testing was prioritized to the LRA and Edge Area counties on 12-month testing (not 6-monthly) during that time, further reducing the number of tests in Oxfordshire. APHA view this change in gamma policy as likely to have contributed to slowing the decrease in incidence in 2022 and for the increase in 2023, amongst other factors. However, in addition, the reduction of EU finance after Brexit was a driver to reducing disease eradication effort.

APHA in a muddle?

APHA say that licensed intensive badger culling operations started in the west side of Oxfordshire in 2019, while the first large area in Oxfordshire was Cull Area 49 commencing 2020. In 2021 a Cull Area 61 further north was commenced with an additional Cull Area 69 on the East side of the county starting 2022.

Guess-estimated Cull Area boundaries in Oxfordshire with year of start

APHA claim that badger culling has “probably started to have a positive impact in western areas of the county but not yet in the… east of the county where TB is spreading further east.” This is simply more unevidenced guesswork and is completely unacceptable, probably driven by one or two individuals who have over-invested in badger blame and who stands to lose a lot from being wrong about the whole sad process and because they have mislead hundreds of others.

Clusters

APHA claim that “clusters” of bTB breakdowns provide evidence of local spread, and say that where local cattle purchase has not occurred, cattle herd incidents are most likely caused by wildlife. Once again they are speculating – pointing by default to badgers where there is no obvious purchase of cattle to blame; undetected disease in the herd and very many other possibilities are once again ignored.

Clusters were first identified in Oxfordshire in 2017. WGS investigations and ‘phylogenetic trees’ have increased knowledge of the transmission of M. bovis, but APHA say that they ”cannot always” answer the direction of transmission and/or ancestry due to limited numbers of isolates. But in truth this is not possible in any of their investigations – they need to stop pretending and misleading readers of their reports. And the farmers should not put up with these misdescriptions – it is costing them dearly to be given inaccurate advice.

We know that badgers have been tested for bTB in cluster areas but how this work is being done is hidden in secrecy.

Unevidenced ‘risk pathways’ again

APHA list the following main ‘risk pathway’s and key drivers for TB infection within Oxfordshire in 2023 in the following order:

exposure to infected local wildlife
movement of undetected infected cattle
residual infection from previous incidents.

Astonishingly, the APHA still put infected wildlife at the top of their list of risk factors for TB incidents in cattle in 2023. Could this be because they are still using the discredited Disease Report Form (DRF), which blames badgers by default, when there is no clear infection route from cattle? There was an impression in 2023 that the DRF was being phased out but APHA seem trapped in a neglectful poorly functioning system where blaming badgers fills the gap of attribution being uncertain due to inadequate investigation and testing.

These incidents are far more likely to be from undetected disease in cattle. Once again without evidence, APHA still pedal the same old rhetoric that they have still been telling vets and farmers: “most common source of transmission from wildlife identified during on-farm investigations were potentially infected badgers, but the presence of other wildlife species such as wild deer is increasingly reported in some areas”. Adding as some kind of ‘get out of jail if wrong’ statement that there is “high uncertainty as to their [bagders] role in transmitting TB to cattle”. It’s an utter disaster area. They also admit that distinguishing source attribution between badgers and residual cattle infection in recurrent incidents is difficult, but claim it is likely “a combination” of both factors. Muddling cattle movements with unevidenced badger infection somehow suits their old arguments but muddles vet and farmer understanding. Basically, the APHA are still pointing to badgers as an important source of infection, misleading the industry without any evidence. .

Tricking the vets and farmers – residual infection is the key

As now appreciated by the BBC 2 documentary on the work of the Save Me Trust and Dick Sibley in Devon and elsewhere – looking at the APHA reporting of 3 yearly recurrence data and recurrence in the lifetime herd history, you can see that 82% of incidents reported across Oxfordshire were in herds with a history of TB during the herd’s lifetime, including more than 3 years previously. Recurrence of bTB is due to undetected residual infection coupled with cattle movements. It is the result of insensitive tests. This is where the problem lies and with current approaches APHA have no chance of disease control – it is one huge failure.

Whilst APHA do accept residual cattle infection as an important problem and note the tendency of incidents in Oxfordshire to be more chronic and recurrent, they still cling on to badger blame. Why they do so is extraordinary, but relates to a shrinking group of individuals so wedded to it being the case; as a group they dare not change position. The only thing that will make that happen is if farmers and vets stand up to how they are being grossly mislead by those who effectively control them.

Introduction of systematic supplementary Gamma testing since 2018 has increased the overall sensitivity of testing in herds and reduced the likelihood of infection being left in the herd at the end of a TB incident. Good progress was being made but (as above) this supplementary testing has been reduced in the last two years and targeted to a limited number of herds with recurrent and persistent incidents. Absolute madness – why are the livestock farmers not jumping up and down about this slackening off?

Sadly, the picture is the same across other counties. In Cheshire, for example, 86% of incidents reported across the region were in herds with a history of TB in the herds lifetime, including in the three previous years. It’s really not rocket science.

A messy complicated picture

The number of herd incidents of TB per year in Oxfordshire remained high over the last 5 years, with a decreasing trend in 2021 and 2022, before reverting in 2023 to the same levels as seen in 2020. The epidemiological picture has become more complex in recent years with multiple clusters, some of which have only recently become apparent. APHA say that this “does not favour the long-term objective of reducing OTF-W incidence to less than 1% in Oxfordshire by 2038.”

The future look bleak

British farming is staring down the barrel of an even greater bTB disaster. APHA and their badger blame game story are in danger of making a new High Risk Area out of the Edge Area and risk infecting the entire country.

APHA are at least emphasizing the importance of the early detection of infection through more frequent surveillance testing of cattle herds, alongside the use of mandatory gamma testing on all OTF-W incidents. And now alongside other Defra approved ancillary testing by informed case management, recognising lack of sensitivity of current tests (SICCT) as a potential issue. But not with sufficient emphasis and determination to mend the current broken system. Disciplined pre and post movement testing are still approached in an ineffective way, despite their pivotal role in stopping transmission. This has been clearly known and ignored since 2018 when the issue was pointed out to the Godfray Review..

APHA’s continued blaming of badgers for a significant proportion of cattle bTB infections is now a real barrier to disease control that risks pulling the beef and dairy industries further into disaster. The scientific evidence APHA skews to blame badgers is ridiculous and as the 2038 ambition dissolves, the stakes are being raised higher and higher. Who will be the first to realise and take urgent action to prevent the worsening of this national disaster? Those in charge might answer.

Gloucs Pilot Badger Cull Area no. 1: Farms Still Swamped With Bovine TB

Posted on 03/10/2024 by The Badger Crowd

The figures speaks for themselves. Herd BTB breakdowns in the very first cull area in Gloucestershire have changed little since 2013, after nine years of persistent badger culling.

With a downward trend in ‘confirmed’ (OTFW) breakdowns prior to the start of culling, data is consistent with benefits from continued enhanced cattle controls hitting the limits of their effectiveness. But the poor sensitivity of the skin test has retained diseased cattle less responsive to the SICCT and gamma test, and kept the area as diseased as it was at the start. Elsewhere in Gloucestershire it’s a similar story. A humiliating moment for Defra and APHA, who know that badger culling is ineffective and that the BTB testing procedures need a revolution, much as they do in Republic of Ireland. There is a dire need to drill down on the disease, especially in the larger dairy herds. Without this £Millions of taxpayer and farmers money will be wasted each week chasing impossible outcomes.

Area 1-Gloucestershire has seen a large percentage rise in number of cattle (up by 20% or 4,124), despite the number of herds decreasing by 13. It is well known that disease rises as herds get larger, so why are the public being asked to support a process that is making things worse? And who is going to step up to resolve the crisis?

Randomised Badger Culling Trial Unsprung – the uncertainties grow

Posted on 23/09/2024 by The Badger Crowd

The continuing questions over uncertainty in the published outcome of the Randomised Badger Culling Trial (RBCT) have rumbled on over the summer of 2024, and were reported on (here).

Why are the statistical elements of the RBCT so important? Because the government badger cull policy rests all but entirely on them. It was the science that DEFRA has used to create policy and in court to defend their decisions to experiment with badger culling. The RBCT claimed badger culling can reduce bovine TB in cattle; very many subsequent studies are heavily derived from it, to the point that if it is wrong, it will send a wrecking ball through dozens of publications, reports and reviews. The stakes could not be higher.

Disease benefits claimed for badger culling by civil servants and politicians are in reality, far more likely due to implementation of additional cattle measures. But there is continued inference that badger culling is a cause of disease reduction because such benefits might be “predicted” from the results of the RBCT.

The chronology of published and pre-printed science on the statistical analysis of the RBCT as it relates to proactive culling is growing, so here is a summary with clickable links:

16^th February 2006, “Positive and negative effects of widespread badger culling on tuberculosis in cattle” was published in Nature by Donnelly et al..

10^th May 2019, “Badger Culling and Bovine TB in Cattle: A Re Evaluation of Proactive Culling Benefit in the Randomized Badger Culling Trial” was published in the Journal of Dairy and Veterinary Sciences by Langton.

13^th December 2022, “Absence of effects of widespread badger culling on tuberculosis in cattle” was posted as a preprint on Research Square by Torgerson et al. .

12th May 2023. A revised version of “Absence of effects of widespread badger culling on tuberculosis in cattle” was pre-printed in Research Square, and submitted to Nature Scientific Reports by Torgerson et al…

15^th July 2024. The final version of “Absence of effects of widespread badger culling on tuberculosis in cattle” was published in Nature Scientific Reports by Torgerson et al..

18th August 2024. Interim report on the August 2024 pre-publication response to the July 2024 re-evaluation of evidence and analyses of proactive culling (published in 2006), as a part of the Randomised Badger Culling Trial (RBCT), 1998-2005. Independent pre-publication report on the Mills et al papers to be published on 21.08.2024.

21^st August 2024. “An extensive re-evaluation of evidence and analyses of the Randomised Badger Culling Trial (RBCT) I: Within proactive culling areas” and “An extensive re-evaluation of evidence and analyses of the Randomised Badger Culling Trial II: In neighbouring areas” were published in Royal Society Open Science by Mills et al..

16^th September 2024. A ‘Comment’ response to the new Mills et al. 2024 papers was submitted to the Royal Society Open Science: “Randomised Badger Culling Trial lacks evidence for proactive badger culling effect on tuberculosis in cattle: comment on Mills et al. 2024, Parts I & II” by Torgerson et al.. This was pre-printed with bioRxiv on 20th September.

The ‘Comment’ submission to the Royal Society Open Science is an extensive response to the two new Mills et al. (2024) papers which reproduced much of Torgerson et al.’s models, whilst re-interpreting the results.

The abstract of the Torgerson et al. ‘Comment’ is as follows:

Abstract
Re-evaluation of statistical analysis of the Randomised Badger Culling Trial (RBCT) by Torgerson et al. 2024 was rebutted by Mills et al. 2024 Parts I and II. The rebuttal defended the use of count rather than rate when considering bovine tuberculosis herd incidence. The defence makes biologically implausible use of Information Criterion for appraisal diagnostics; overfits data; and has erroneous Bayesian analyses. It favours ‘goodness of fit’ over ‘predictive power’, for a small data set, when the study was to inform application. Importantly, for ‘total’ bTB breakdown: (‘confirmed’ (OTF-W) +‘unconfirmed’ (OTF-S)), where modern interpretation of the main diagnostic bTB test better indicates the incidence rate of herd breakdown, there is no effect in cull and neighbouring areas, across all statistical models. The RBCT was a small, single experiment with unknown factors. With respect to the paradigm of reproducibility and the FAIR principles, the original RBCT analysis and recent efforts to support it are wholly unconvincing. The 2006 conclusion of the RBCT that “badger culling is unlikely to contribute positively to the control of cattle TB in Britain” is supported, but the route to such a position is revised in the light of modern veterinary understanding and statistical reappraisal.

The new Comment, that has not yet been peer-reviewed, highlights what is described as selective reporting, misleading interpretation, implausible model selection and coding anomalies. It will be of interest to Ministers, Civil Servants, scientists and politicians who currently, under the new Labour administration, are ‘refreshing’ the bovine TB strategy, and policy.

The two Mills et al. papers were published just a few days before the Intensive and Supplementary badger cull licences were issued for 2024, providing a rationale for culling to continue.

Chief Vet’s targeted badger cull plans finally scrapped

Posted on 29/08/2024 by The Badger Crowd

The ‘targeted’ badger culling proposals of the last Government are rejected by the new Labour Government but the ‘ineffective’ badger culls still continue, pending a further Review.

Lawyers acting for Secretary of State for Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) Steve Reed, have responded to ecologist Tom Langton’s Judicial Review Application [AC-2024-LON-002292] against a ‘future of badger culling’ Consultation (here) prepared by the previous administration. Specifically, the March 14^th Consultation had proposed a new wave of ‘targeted‘ badger culling across England, killing many thousands of badgers each year, potentially until 2038.

The controversial proposals were promoted by the Chief Veterinary Officer Christine Middlemiss’s disputed beliefs that badgers play a central role in the spread of cattle TB, the science of which Langton, with other veterinary experts has challenged in recent years (here).

Defra have confirmed their decision not to proceed with proposals to introduce and license targeted culling across England. Defra had received multiple objections to the Consultation as well as support for proposals to better identify cattle disease risks that will still go forwards. The response indicates that the Secretary of State will instigate a fresh review of future bovine TB policy.

The welcome news signals a shift from previous policy but is bitter-sweet, with the news that a new badger cull area is being planned: Cumbria’s Eden valley South of Carlisle and to the east of Penrith under a Low Risk Area (LRA) policy licence. Communications have been sent to Tony Juniper at Natural England objecting to the consideration of any new LRA licence, on scientific grounds, but so far there has been no substantive response, with a failure to curtail culling licences that are ongoing from before the general election. It is expected that Natural England will reauthorize licences for over 20 intensive culling areas agreed under previous policy arrangements that many think should also be cancelled. These are in addition to those completing supplementary culls, meaning up to 20,000 badgers will be shot at night over the next twelve weeks with a percentage dying slowly from shot wounds in ways found cruel by a government appointed expert group in 2014.

Concerns remain that despite withdrawing the cull consultation proposals, the Defra’s response leaves some important question unanswered. This includes speculation in a heavily disputed recent Animal and Plant Health Agency report. Further, the Defra response to the economic aspects of culling states that the costs of badger culling may not outweigh the economic benefits, a point of interest in the Government spending rounds in the coming months.

Tom Langton said:

“This is a small but important step towards bringing forwards the abolition of badger culling forever. Labour has previously stated that culling is ineffective and now the Government has scrapped a Consultation that claimed culling worked. But it is shameful that the Labour administration is continuing the badger culls and expanding them in the Low Risk Area, contradicting its manifesto pledge, to appease a vocal minority based upon old scientific rhetoric and dogma.

Bovine tuberculosis is a disease of mammals needing expert measures that have been neglected for reasons demonstrated in the recent BBC documentary LINK charting the work of Brian May and the Save Me Trust with farms in England and Wales.

Badger culling must stop, but most of all a new testing regime for cattle is needed to give farmers the powers to use the right tests at the right time to beat TB in the herd where a hidden reservoir remains. Something that red tape presently prevents and at massive unnecessary cost to the taxpayer. It could be resolved in an afternoon with the right people around the table. I urge Defra to listen to us as they have promised and to meet with my team to help formulate new policy.”

Langton added;

Meanwhile, I would also very much like to thanks my legal team: Lisa Foster and Hannah Norman at Richard Buxton and Richard Turney and Ben Fullbrook at Landmark Chambers and with Dominic Woodfield from Bioscan as expert witness on the ecological impacts issues. And last but not least all of the Badger Trusts, Groups, Charities and generous individuals around Europe who have combined to form the Badger Crowd. With the specific aim of creating a voice for and to bring justice to the fight for truth surrounding badger culling. With a key role played in recent months by Protect the Wild, promoting awareness and fundraising.”

Further information

Defra’s decision was made on 23rd August, the date the BBC documentary of Brian May’s research was first screened (watch here), showing the inadequacies of the current cattle testing system.

The Defra response does not address the ecological impacts issues correctly and does not even seem to understand the challenge relating to protected species away from designated nature areas. Dominic Woodfield comments:

“Defra’s acknowledgement that the scientific, ethical and economic justifications for the extirpation of tens of thousands of badgers annually since 2013 have collapsed, is welcome but long overdue. It is tragic that it has needed the pressure of repeat litigation by Tom and others, the publication of competing science exposing the fallacy of blaming and slaughtering wildlife for a disease rooted in poor livestock management practices and failures of animal husbandry, and a change of the party in Government for them to finally concede the point.

Even now, Defra continue to disregard the wider ecosystem level effects of removing an apex predator from wide swathes of England – we may never now know what impacts this has had (and continues to have) on our native wildlife and declining species. Tom’s and others’ persistence in the face of obduracy, reliance on poor science and the making of decisions based on the political clout of those lobbying for the status quo, is extraordinary and commendable, but it is also fuelled by the long-held conviction that they were fundamentally right. There are a very small and diminishing number of hiding places left for those who’ve pinned their reputations and careers on badger culling as being a rational or effective answer to the bovine TB problem.

More or less? Truth, life and 56%

Posted on 25/08/2024 by The Badger Crowd

August 2024

In life generally people crave the truth, learn from the truth and act on the truth. Truth is the universal source for learning, where trust develops, and where solutions to tackle the myriad of challenges that life throws at us are fostered.

Yet, we all know that absolute truth is a fickle thing. As time passes, new insights evolve, things change. Gradually we may find that what we thought we knew is conditional on certain things, right only some of the time, or even wrong for a clever reason.

So care is needed, especially with the big decisions where large amounts of money, time and effort are employed to address a particular issue or problem.

Take for example the culling of badgers. A Government expert [1] concluded 20 odd years ago that a very small trial study [2] suggested badgers might spread bTB to cattle, especially if frightened away from the setts where they live, and shooting them would help.

Sounds ridiculous? The entire livestock industry eradication policy in GB and Ireland has been based around ‘badger blame’ for the spread of Bovine tuberculosis among cattle herds for two decades. There has been over £2 Billion of subsequent spending and hundreds of thousands of badgers have been culled around a truth that is now uncomfortable to lose, because so many people have enthusiastically believed and embraced it. They own it, and accepting it is wrong messes badly with what they have said and done over the last 20 years.

The matter came into sharp focus in March of 2024, just weeks before the general election was called, with a Government Agency staff academic paper on badger culling effort [3] in England since 2013. This, followed shortly by a DEFRA Public Consultation [4] aimed at extending badger culling for a decade or more, over further huge areas, but with even fewer constraints on when, where and how.

To the general public this is all a mystery. Surveys show that the public largely think that badger culling ended in 2020 when Government said it was ‘phasing it out’, and the new government’s election manifesto view [5] that it has been ‘ineffective’ means it will stop for good. But actually, in the cold night air, from Cornwall to Cumbria, guns with silencers are steadily slaughtering tens of thousands of badgers each autumn. As harvest 2024 is concluding, the culling is now ramping up yet again.

So what about the truth? Well Steve Barclay MP, the old Defra Minister, one of the few seniors to keep his seat during the Labour landslide, had claimed in an ebullient foreword to the March consultation, that a 56% benefit has been gained after four years of culling badgers down to under 30% of their numbers.

So let’s unpack the truth in that. Firstly, the key time marker in all this is 2016 when the first of ten large cull areas were all up and running and followed by around 60 more at a starting rate of around ten a year. Unfortunately for unpicking science and truth, this was also the time that more intensive cattle testing began ramping up. So telling between the effect of culling and testing is not possible, despite what Barclay claimed.

‘Ah’, say the boffins at the Government Agency for badger culling. ‘But without killing badgers, the cattle tests wouldn’t work so well.’

At this point most people switch off….’ I dunno…suppose it’s possible…I’m not that interested actually….’ It’s one of those speculation moments that is only so interesting given that the facts and alternatives are beyond the non-specialist’s reach and require weeks of fact-checking. This is indeed a complex issue, even for interested parties to consider.

So where did Barclay’s view come from? Well, back in 2012 the coalition government encouraged an academic paper in 2013 [6] that was timed to support badger culling, and that printed its truth, as a part of the justification for mass badger culling. The paper said a few things that we now know were right and wrong thanks to good old Captain Hindsight.

Right, was that the old small study had been rendered meaningless by a horrendous Foot and Mouth disease outbreak in 2001 [7] that mucked up the experiment’s need for ‘stable countryside’ to be able to monitor change in three of the ten areas – enough to spoil the results. The hapless NFU encouraged rapid restocking with untested TB infected cattle, firing up the bTB epidemic.

Wrong were the calculations that rested upon a belief that cattle do not give bTB to badgers. It was thought to be TB moving all one-way, from badger to cattle, that Defra believed in those days, something that was always suspicious and that modern studies now show is wrong [8-11].

And questionable too was a theory, to try to make the numbers add up in a way no one has ever explained and that looks implausible. That theoretical infections going from badger to cattle are somehow passed on more rapidly than those originating from cattle. Baffling?

Lost already? Well to make the old small study work, the boffins believed that while around 94% of disease was the result of cattle-cattle infection, around 6% was down to badgers. Unfortunately, wildlife groups have believed and utilized these figures, despite warnings, not realising it is part of a dubious study that blames badgers and the king pin in justifying the badger culls since 2013. The so called ‘onward transfer’ of infection from badger to cattle is akin to a biblical myth with no scientific legs, yet it became the truth that key people in Government believed. It was held up as the science to believe in, forming and promoting the badger cull policy. Most cull objectors had realised this by 2016.

Back to Barclay’s 56% and the boffins new paper in March 2024. Despite elaborate graphics, this was a pretty rough-and-ready analysis, looking at before and after culling and substantial cattle testing improvements in the first few years of application, and attributing the decline in herd TB breakdowns to a combination of badger culling and herd testing. It stated (twice) that it is not possible to say which factor caused the change. Yet in a discussion of the results it also said the results were consistent with effects of badger culling seen during the small study, and studies using the small studies assumptions, and this speculation found itself in the paper summary (abstract) at the front. This now gives an opportunity for apparent disease benefit to masquerade as fact or truth. Hence Barclay and the National Farmers Union ramped up the rhetoric on ‘Badger Culling Works’, and quoted the 56% benefit as a function of badger culling. Not bTB control – the better description of the mix of things being tried. Without evidence. Sunak picked up the mantle and did the same in a shed with farmers shortly before he lost office at the general election.

But the truth, as pointed out by other senior academics observing, is that these public statements were untruthful. Change might or might not have been assisted by badger culling – the very question the small RBCT study 20 odd years ago was supposed to resolve when it came up with a split answer – it possibly does and it possibly doesn’t. Flip a coin. And the real truth is that badger culling could be having some effect or it might all be down to tougher testing and movement control. Saying badger culling helped from 2013 or was pivotal or a catalyst is a bit like any of the innumerable causation arguments that created problems in science before they were recognized for what they were during the 1960’s [12]. Association is not the same as causation. Would anyone propose that Donald Trump being elected as President in 2016 caused bovine TB to start to fall? Well it happened at the same time, and bTB has come down since………..Or was the fall in TB the result of a general switch to tougher testing?

The problem for truth in this case is that Governments need to make decisions, and where there is uncertainty they need to have a plan. But Government scientists presenting their opinions as fact, for politicians and stakeholders to believe and to repeat, is a deception. A dangerous step and something that needs weeding out by journals employing peer-reviewers. And hopefully not by mournful inquiries years later, charged with working out how it all went wrong. The problem here is that there are few people experienced enough to understand and judge boffin science, and so you find your mate reviewing your work, and you review your mates work, and bad habits develop. Bovine TB science is plentiful and this syndrome sees awkward material published quite often; it provides a good exemplar of the issue called the reproducibility crisis [13]. All the Government scientists need to say is we ‘think’ it might be working because…. that is a long way from saying it ‘is’ – think snake oil salesman. It matters, it matters a lot when lots of lives and money are at stake. It matters because lying to the public is undemocratic and wrong.

So if someone asks you about badger culling, you might just say – ‘well its complicated and I don’t know.‘ But if they pick up a gun to shoot a badger, you might just say ‘hang on – I think you might be breaking the law’. Which requires evidence, and sufficient clarity that mass killing badgers to prevent the spread of bovine TB can be justified. And after 20 years there is no truth to suggest it does, only guesswork. However, cattle testing and movement control has worked in England and Wales without badger culling, so using that proven remedy is justified with some confidence and is an honest approach, if truth be told.

References

1. King, D. 2007 Bovine tuberculosis in cattle and badgers. A report by the Chief Scientific Advisor, Sir David King, to the Secretary of State for Defra on 30 July 2007.

2. Donnelly, C. A. et al. Positive and negative effects of widespread badger culling on tuberculosis in cattle. Nature 439, 843–846 (2006).

3. Birch, C. P. D. et al. Difference in differences analysis evaluates the effects of the badger control policy on bovine tuberculosis in England. Sci Rep 14, 4849. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-024-54062-4 (2024).

4. DEFRA 2024 Bovine TB: Consultation on proposals to evolve badger control policy and introduce additional cattle measures. A consultation exercise contributing to the delivery of the government’s strategy for achieving bovine tuberculosis free status in England..

5. Labour Party manifesto https://labour.org.uk/change/

6. Donnelly, C. A. & Nouvellet, P. The contribution of badgers to confirmed tuberculosis in cattle in high-incidence areas in England. PLoS Curr. 10, 5 (2013).

7. Private Eye 2001 Special Report. Not The Foot And Mouth Report. London

8. Biek R, O’Hare A, Wright D, Mallon T, McCormick C, Orton RJ, McDowell S, Trewby H, Skuce RA, Kao RR. Whole genome sequencing reveals local transmission patterns of Mycobacterium bovis in sympatric cattle and badger populations. PLoS Pathog. 2012;8(11):e1003008. doi: 10.1371/journal.ppat.1003008. Epub 2012 Nov 29. PMID: 23209404; PMCID: PMC3510252.

9. Crispell J, Benton CH, Balaz D, De Maio N, Ahkmetova A, Allen A, et al. Combining genomics and epidemiology to analyse bi-directional transmission of Mycobacterium bovis in a multi-host system. Elife. 2019;8

10. Akhmetova, A; Guerrero, J; McAdam, P; Salvador, LC; Crispell, J; Lavery, J; Presho, E; Kao, RR; Biek, R; Menzies, F et al. 2021. Genomic epidemiology of Mycobacterium bovis infection in sympatric badger and cattle populations in Northern Ireland. bioRxiv 2021.03.12.435101; doi: https://doi. org/10.1101/2021.03.12.435101

11. van Tonder AJ, Thornton MJ, Conlan AJK, Jolley KA, Goolding L, Mitchell AP, Dale J, Palkopoulou E, Hogarth PJ, Hewinson RG, Wood JLN, Parkhill J. Inferring Mycobacterium bovis transmission between cattle and badgers using isolates from the Randomised Badger Culling Trial. PLoS Pathog. 2021 Nov 29;17(11):e1010075. doi: 10.1371/journal.ppat.1010075. PMID: 34843579; PMCID: PMC8659364.

12. Hill, Austin Bradford. “The Environment and Disease: Association or Causation?.” Proceedings of the Royal Society of Medicine 58 (1965): 295.

13. Baker, Monya, 2016, “1,500 Scientists Lift the Lid on Reproducibility”, Nature, 533(7604): 452–454. doi:10.1038/533452a