Further evidence against the culling of healthy badgers

A letter published last week in Vet Record (4/11 October) highlights further evidence against the culling of healthy badgers. The letter by Professor Paul Torgerson focuses on the recent scientific take-down of the supposed bovine TB ‘benefit’ from badger culling reported from the Randomised Badger Culling Trials (RBCT). He describes the subsequent attempt to rescue the purported positive effect of badger culling in the recently released “Bovine TB strategy review update” Godfray review. A new preprint (here) outlines the errors in the new statistical models produced. Professor Torgerson concludes that “Had the (original) analysis been done correctly in 2006 then it is almost certain there would have been no badger culling since 2013”.