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2025 News round-up

Posted on 30/12/2025 by The Badger Crowd

January

On 30th January 2025, Defra issued Terms of Reference for a ‘comprehensive new bovine TB review’, as part of a refreshed bTB eradication strategy, first announced in August 2024 (see here). A panel for the new review, was to be chaired, as previously, by Professor Sir Charles Godfray. It was his work (with others) and his advice that was used to help establish and maintain badger culling from 2013. Godfray, rooted at Oxford University, has long been associated with those designing and undertaking aspects of the controversial Randomised Badger Culling Trial (1998 – 2005). Indeed, he chaired its so-called ‘independent’ statistical audit (Godfray et al 2004).

Following discovery of serious statistical irregularities in the key 2006 RBCT proactive badger culling publication in more recent years, lead author Christl Donnelly, Professor of Applied Statistics at Oxford University, recused herself from the panel. But surprisingly, she was replaced by a recently arrived colleague Professor Sir Bernard Silverman FRS, Emeritus Professor of Statistics, also at Oxford University.

Other panel members, of what later in the year became known as the Strategy review ‘refresh’ or ‘update’, were the same as in the 2018 review: Professor Glyn Hewinson CBE of Aberystwyth University, Professor Michael Winter OBE University of Exeter and Professor James Wood OBE of University of Cambridge. So once again, it was largely the same set of academics as appointed in 2017, looking at the science in which they personally have a historical interest and potentially, future stake. With the new findings to be read alongside the earlier review, despite much of the 2018 material being superfluous or out of date.

Defra refused to adequately address multiple protests against the panel appointments for ‘conflict of interest’, simply saying those concerned were ‘esteemed’ and ‘distinguished’; that was enough for Defra. They later said the checking system relied on members own self-referral.

February

On February 15^th, Prof Ian Boyd, past Defra Chief Scientific Advisor (as Badger culling was developed) and major influence in the culling of over 250,000 mostly healthy badgers), was the guest of Sir Charles Godfray in Oxford, for Boyd’s book promotion (Science and Politics). Bovine TB and badgers was the most mentioned topic, but the wider issue was of politics distorting the scientific process in general. Boyd’s main thrust appeared to be to point a finger at politicians (‘charlatans’ he calls them in the book) and also at the Royal Society.

Boyd suggested that 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. He wished he had known more about Bovine TB before taking on his role. You can read more about who said what here.

March-May

Spring 2025 saw new scientific papers on badger vaccination, the Test / Vaccinate / Remove (TVR) approach and even badger contraception. This flurry of papers from government scientists seemed to be looking to satisfy the politicians stated aim to switch from badger culling to non-lethal methods. But with TVR lurking in the background as a potential closet return to culling.

Robertson et al (2025) claimed that “Modelling studies evaluating different strategies for controlling TB in badgers predict that badger vaccination will reduce TB prevalence in badger populations and lead to corresponding reductions in cattle herd disease incidence.” But without direct evidence and yet again stretching and trying to normalize APHA’s efforts to cause-argue policy from equivocal science, dubious assumptions and partisan models. Along exactly the same lines (and almost as if to provide Boyd fresh evidence for his government science take-down), Smith & Budgey (2025) reported that a “combined approach of vaccination and selective culling (TVR) based on test results may give a more robust method of disease management than just vaccination on its own.”

The preprint by Palphramand et al (2025) (to be published in Science Direct Jan 2026) suggests that “co-administration of BCG vaccine and and GonaCon (a contraceptive) enhances the protective effect of the booster vaccination.” This is research work carried out on a small captive population of badgers caught from the wild.

June

Supplementary badger culling was authorized for a further year on June 1^st. Natural England‘s scientific rationale for licensing did not take into account the Torgerson et al (2024) preprint which highlighted serious statistical issues with the Mills et al (I & II) (2024) upon which they relied. In doing so, it continued with its policy of ignoring key stakeholders and relevant evidence and simply obeying Defra’s mandate to carry on culling thousands more badgers, despite mounting evidence against it’s efficacy.

On 11^th June, The Royal Society published Torgerson et al (2025), undermining the RBCT conclusions of a disease benefit from proactive badger culling. This effectively removed any credible scientific rationale for it. Defra did not respond to the new publication. You can read more about this paper & its significance as a watershed moment for British biological sciences here.

On June 12^th, a day later, the BBC reported that “Farmers to get support vaccinating badgers”, confirming that badgers would continue to take substantial blame for bovine TB in cattle. Clearly, Steve Reed, Daniel Zeichner, and the Defra Ministers continue to be misled by their personnel who are unable to admit (due perhaps to responsibility for financial waste and pride / position), that badger culling has been both unnecessary and worthless.

July

On 30^th July, Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle Green received a reply to her written Parliamentary Question:

“To ask His Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the paper by Torgerson and others published in the Royal Society Open Journal on 11 June claiming that other studies of badger culls contain methodological weaknesses; and what plans they have, if any, to ensure that the Cornwall Badger Vaccination Pilot has a peer-reviewed protocol before any work can continue.”

Junior Minister Sue Hayman replied for the government saying “Unlike previous badger culling studies, the Cornwall Badger Project is focused on testing different methods of delivering badger vaccination, rather than evaluating the impact on bovine TB in cattle.”

So all the Cornish badger vaccination project can hope to show is whether Cornish farmers are prepared to engage.

August

In late July/early August it was widely reported that Jeremy Clarkson’s Diddly Squat Farm in Oxfordshire (subject of TV show ‘Clarkson’s Farm’) had gone down with bTB reactors, having bought cattle from sources with relatively recent breakdowns.

Whilst The Daily Telegraph foolishly speculated that “the presenter was unable to stop transmission of the bacteria from badger to cow”, epidemiologist James Wood on Farming Today said “The challenge is with this [testing] system, the controls are imperfect, so that when we clear a farm with TB we know that a proportion that maybe as high as 25 or 50%, a proportion will have one or two animals that are still likely to be infected.” Clarkson expressed doubt about testing and a need for information and then went silent as several of his stock were destroyed. No doubt Defra were nervous of the high profile of the story, and aware of how its flawed bTB testing system could be more widely exposed. See our blog on the story here.

September

In September, the delayed (due in June) Godfray review update was published (see here). Key points:

It confirms (page 75) in a massive ‘wake-up’ finding, that Torgerson et al (2024 & 2025) papers do show that the key 2006 RBCT proactive badger culling paper by Donnelly and others in Nature journal got the modelling hopelessly wrong. This has massive implications for a wide number of papers and official reports that have used that paper’s calculations to build further models and create policy and financial estimates.
Remarkably, it went to the lengths of producing its own new (binomial) model, claiming a culling benefit, but with lower statistical significance (it has gone from P < 0.005 to P < 0.05). However, there were mistakes and multiple issues with this model that were outlined in a new preprint by Prof Paul Torgerson (here), also posted September 2025. There has been no subsequent response from Defra. The authors have made some rudimentary remarks about agreeing to differ and the differences being subtle, which they certainly are not.
The manner in which the new model was checked before publication is subject to close scrutiny due to suspected irregularities.
The “bTB perturbation effect hypothesis” (used to justify culling healthy badgers) became un-evidenced, as it is statistically unsupported by Godfray’s model (as well as Torgerson’s models), undoing the RBCT conclusions even more comprehensively (see here) and triggering calls for retraction of key papers (see here).
It failed to deliberate on the ‘confirmed’ versus ‘unconfirmed’ continuum in the identification of reactors, that was clarified in 2018, but not by the 2018 review. This obfuscates on what is a central issue, both in bTB testing and badger culling science. The panel just feebly recommended further research. This is despite Natural England formally asking the Godfray panel to focus on it.
It inexcusably repeated errors in Birch et al (2024), notably the under-declaration of interferon gamma use (see here and here) which was introduced at the same time as badger culling and makes it impossible to separate the effects of badger culling from cattle measures. It also mistakenly claims it evaluated “before-after differences in treated units with those in untreated units” which is a very worrying mis-reading of the methods. Birch was a time series study, with no comparison of separate culled and unculled areas.
It uses an unpublished report that the panel asked specially to be made available (Robertson et al (2025) to claim that Langton et al (2022) may not have detected a disease benefit had there been one. The unconvincing efforts in this preprint have been addressed here (Langton 2025).

October

On 13^th October, there was a much awaited Westminster Hall debate (view here) on ending badger culling, precipitated by a 100,000 parliamentary petition coordinated by the successful lobbyists and wild animal protection advocates Protect the Wild. Although the two-hour session was a massive improvement on previous dreadful badger cull debates (reflecting the cull of dinosaur politicians lost in the 2024 general election), it remained (perhaps not surprisingly) ‘behind the curve’ on recently published science. Happily, the majority of voices spoke earnestly about a wish to stop badger culling and address TB testing failures and to manage the disease effectively. Minister Angela Eagle reaffirmed Labours commitment to ending the badger cull by the end of this Parliament, with the possibility of all culls ending in 2026 following a review of the last cull area (no. 73) in Cumbria in the New Year. However, it is likely that Defra will do everything in its power to prevent this, via introducing TVR pilots.

Also in October 2025, Prof. Torgerson published a letter in Veterinary Record (see here) reporting his request for a retraction of the Donnelly et al (2006) paper by Nature journal.

November & December

Meanwhile in Northern Ireland, a Parliamentary question by Miss Michelle McIlveen (from the DUP) tabled on November 18^th made it clear that a €6.4m investment for a cross-border pilot regional cooperation programme on tackling bovine TB had been secured, with use of TVR as an experiment. This was leaked by the Ulster Farmers Union who wanted intensive badger culling and exposed DAERA’s attempt to instigate lethal interventions, despite previous undertakings not to do so without consultation.

On 2^nd December Andrew Muir (Minister of DAERA of Northern Ireland), responding to a further Parliamentary Question about this funding replied that “Wildlife Intervention is a key part of that plan, which is why we will consult on wildlife intervention options in the spring of next year.”

So it looks like badger interventions are part of the bTB control plans in Northern Ireland, going forwards with a clumsy attempt to use TVR as a route towards wider culling. This is the approach already shown to be unnecessary by correct use of RBCT data, the post 2013 industry culling in England and long term badger culling and vaccination in the Republic of Ireland.

A letter published 13th December in Vet Record (here) raised questions concerning the continuation of badger blame following criticisms of the recent Godfray review. A response from the Godfray review panel was published alongside, repeating their view that “reasonable people can disagree about the best way to analyse complex data“. They remain, however, like Defra, unwilling to enter into a discussion on any of the analyses.

The Badger Trust / Wild Justice Judicial Review hearing against Natural England (on an incorrect reason for granting 2024 Supplementary badger cull licences) listed to start on 16^th December was postponed due to “a court administrative error”. The case will now be relisted “sometime in 2026”.

And there has been much more going on, bubbling along beneath the surface that is work in progress, and that we will report on when we are able. We had hoped for better in 2025, with the science supporting badger culling now completely undone. But it looks as if it will take a little longer before the fundamental importance of the new publications is understood and accepted.

Thanks go to….

As in previous years, Badger Crowd would like to thank the hundreds of people who have worked together to support this years work to expose and halt the cruel and needless killing of badgers as a part of ineffective livestock disease control. As the mass culling of in the region of 6,000 badgers in 2025/6 is completed at the end of January 2026, there is still no formal recognition from Defra that this has been one of their biggest wildlife blunders.

It is thanks to all of you that we have collectively been able to protest, campaign, lobby, publish and report, and we can only hope that next year finally sees some truth and honesty from those who would seek to cover up the sins of the past. Particular thanks are due to all at Protect The Wild for their relentless public awareness work, especially the successful government petition and Westminster debate, backed by the general public. Also to Betty Badger (aka Mary Barton) and friends who maintained the Thursday vigil outside Defra offices, protesting the injustice (see article in the Spectator). Thanks also to the regular forums of the national ‘Voices for Badgers‘ network, the tireless Oxford Badger Group and so many others who have campaigned, donated and supported. And not to forget those who put endless hours in to protect badgers and their setts from multiple threats in their own areas. A massive shout out too to all those in the field, unblocking illegally infilled badger setts and those opposing snares. New legislation could be on the way – we certainly hope so. Thanks to all for your strength and determination.

It was the combined care and effort of all those taking a stand, no matter how large or small, that is helping bring mass badger culling to an end in England. We must now continue our opposition to culling in Ireland. We must ensure that accurate science now guides policy away from unnecessary, unverifiable and cruel protected species interventions. Badger culling must not be allowed to continue or ever happen again. There is much work still to be done, but the continued determination and energy of so many can prevail.

‘Perturbation Effect Hypothesis’ for badgers and Bovine TB is now unevidenced

Posted on 09/12/2025 by The Badger Crowd

The ‘perturbation effect hypothesis’ is the reported ‘negative’ effect of reactive and proactive badger culling, described in the Donnelly et al (2006) paper “Positive and negative effects of widespread badger culling on bovine tuberculosis in cattle” and also many other publications since 2003. The 2006 paper was one of the key published papers reporting on the findings of the Randomised Badger Culling Trial experiment (RBCT) 1998-2005.

RBCT reporting (Bourne et al 2007) theorized that culling could increase cattle TB incidence in culled and neighbouring (surrounding) areas by disrupting badgers’ territorial organization, resulting in their increased dispersal and theorised spread of disease within badgers and on to cattle. It was the ‘perturbation effect hypothesis’ that grabbed attention and initially delayed the consideration of badger culling, because of the claim that it was why badger culling might make bovine TB cattle herd breakdowns increase.

The RBCT had three sets of trial areas; these were pro-active culling (badger density reduced by average 70%, reactive culling (100% culling around breakdown farms only), and no-cull control areas.

The ‘reactive’ arm of the RBCT culling trial was cancelled early because the experimenters suggested that bovine TB had increased. In reality, and mistakenly, insufficient data had been generated to propose any such result. A review by UK Chief Scientific Adviser Prof David King, suggested later (2007) that mass proactive badger culling could plausibly reduce bTB cattle breakdowns if done over a large enough area (to hard boundaries) and avoiding any perturbation effects if they existed at all (King 2007). This itself was stated without competent statistical checks; it was the perturbation effect hypothesis that drove mass culling of mostly healthy badgers over large areas as opposed to localized culling.

And so that is what has been undertaken since 2013. Instead of using reactive culling at and around known breakdown farms, ‘Intensive Culling’ was, over a period of years, rolled out over much of the High Risk Area and then the Edge Area. Often regardless of the local land use or the disease risk, if the ‘cull zone’ land was in the High Risk Area, the target was to kill 70% of the badger population, although the size of the population was often poorly understood and ‘guesstimated’. The result has been that over the last 13 years, more than 250,000 largely completely healthy badgers have been culled to unknown densities, using mainly a method opposed as causing unnecessary suffering by the British Veterinary Association.

Recent re-evaluation of the RBCT data and modelling has shown that there is an “Absence of effects of widespread badger culling on tuberculosis in cattle”, (Torgerson et al 2024, Torgerson 2025). There are no positive and no negative effects, because that is the true conclusion from normal and credible statistical appraisal and data selection from the RBCT experiment.

While badgers, like deer and other mammals both domestic and wild can be infected with bovine TB, the extent to which they may be responsible for a small proportion of cattle herd infections, especially in intensive livestock systems is unknown. If it occurs, there is no reliable data available that wildlife transmission to cattle can establish, maintain or perpetuate – this falsehood has been normalised by a few authors keen to bolster wrong claims. Indeed the strongest available evidence lacks indication that wildlife controls, such as culling badgers, has an effect on reducing the incidence of tuberculosis in cattle. Failures of the bTB cattle testing system, on the other hand, allowing infection to hide and to be spread via cattle sales is widely understood and accepted.

The binomial analysis of the RBCT proactive cull data in the September 2025 Godfray panel policy review update, claims that there is still a benefit from badger culling, but at a much lower level of significance (P <0.05). However, this model leaves out the data for the all-important variable ‘time at risk’, which was also the downfall of the 2006 Poisson analysis of RBCT data. It provides no support for any effect of badger culling on cattle herd bTB breakdowns when undertaken correctly (see here). But by presenting the model as preferable to that in Donnelly 2006, it effectively removes the analysis that suggested a negative effect – the ‘perturbation effect hypothesis’ is therefore unsupported.

Thirteen years of the ineffective culling of quarter of a million badgers has been scientifically unjustified and why it was ineffective is now plain to see. There are no evidenced effects of badger culling, either positive or negative. Badger interventions of any kind are simply not be justified on the core policy science.

The upcoming Bovine TB control strategy refresh needs to reflect what has happened to the understanding of scientific developments in recent years and months. It is time to remove perceptions and obstacles based upon incorrect analysis and incorrect derivative studies, and to get on with the necessary enhanced cattle testing measures that are known to work but held back by unnecessary red tape. Before more money and resources are wasted, before animal welfare harm perpetuates, and before more rural lives are ruined. At the moment, policy is unsubstantiated, supported by unconvincing advice, based on biased conflicted opinions and uncertain evidence.

2038 Bovine TB targets on the scrap heap, with details of failed policy increasingly exposed

Posted on 19/09/2025 by The Badger Crowd

Why was the use of Gamma interfreon testing, alongside use of the tuberculin test (SICCT), under-declared in APHA’s central bovine TB control evaluation paper (Birch et al 2024) last year, and also in the newly published ‘Godfray’ report?

A letter published today 19^th September, in Veterinary Record, details the amount of supplementary Gamma testing that was introduced in the High Risk and Edge Areas before and during the post 2013 mass badger culls. It shows how Gamma testing was under-emphasised in the Birch et al. analysis on the effect of the poorly labelled ‘Badger Control Policy’, (see here). Considerable disease benefit is being claimed for badger cull in its first two years and beyond, but is far more likely to simply be linked to the increase in cattle testing with Gamma, as recorded publicly by number of gamma test reactors found.

What this shows is that Defra knew well that Gamma could find undisclosed infection, no surprise as it has been used in other countries for decades. They used it to help lower the spread of disease, then purposefully eased off, as badger culling was phasing down in more recent years. Who, you have to ask, was controlling this behaviour? And why?

As Badger Crowd has pointed out before (see here), all disease measures implemented, including extensive testing, were analysed together, with no control areas. There was no comparison of culled and unculled areas as the recent Godfray Review very strangely mis-reported.

Data presented with the Vet Record letter shows how easing off of the use of Gamma testing to supplement SICCT testing in 2022 is likely to have hindered disease control. This reduction in Gamma was said to be due to lack of EU funding, but this was surely predictable. So why were farmers and the public not told that the strategy was being derailed? A freedom of information disclosure in April 2025 concerning the likelihood of
bTB freedom being achievable under present conditions of testing and cattle controls, produced the following response: ‘APHA has not yet produced models suitable for predicting whether TB eradication will be achieved in England by 2038, or when TB eradication will be achieved.’ The 25-year bTB eradication strategy published in 2014, with a 2038 projected target of bTB freedom (elimination or near elimination) now, on current trajectory, has an end point beyond 2060.

As has been pointed out many times before, there is an urgent need for the use of other immune-assay tests and phage testing to be authorised alongside SICCT and Gamma IFN-γ tests, and for farm vets to be provided with extensive new advice and guidance. With freedom to test bTB out from herds – this is mentioned in the Godfray report but it should have been front and centre.

The money raid on central government funds requested in the Godfray review would have been credible with a report triaging essential priorities. But instead, like the 2018 report, the 2025 report is muddled and incoherent. Progress, especially in England, Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland simply will not materialise if Defra continue along his line.

References

Birch et al (2024)
Langton, Griffiths & Griffiths (2025)

Godfray ‘science’ report simply adds to the bovine TB chaos

Posted on 17/09/2025 by The Badger Crowd

Panel Chair: Professor Sir Charles Godfray

The long-awaited ‘Godfray’ report, a review of scientific evidence since 2018 concerning bovine TB in cattle, was published on 4th September. Commissioned by Defra, it is supposed to feed into a ‘comprehensive new bovine TB strategy’ that was announced in August 2024 by the incoming Labour government. It is the science that the new policy should be based on, so it is an important – and needs to be sound. More details will follow on the entirety of the report, but this is what was said about badgers and bovine TB

Panel epidemiologist: Professor James Wood

Chapter 6: The Disease in Wildlife focuses on badgers. The report does not deal head-on with the Royal Society Open Science pre-publication review by Prof Mark Brewer. This claimed that models suggesting ‘badger culling works’ were ‘naïve at best’. Instead, a newcomer to the issue, statistician Prof Bernard Silverman (a colleague of Christl Donnelly at Oxford University) has tried to rescue the situation & restore statistical validity to show some positive disease benefit.

Panel statistician: Professor Sir Bernard Silverman

Silverman presents a new set of models. He confirms (para. 65) in a massive ‘wake-up’ finding that a paper by Prof Torgerson’s study group in June of this year did show that the key 2006 RBCT paper by Donnelly and others, in short, got the modelling wrong. This has massive implications for a wide number of papers that have used that paper’s calculations to build further models. It must cause a tsunami of scientific correction, or the retraction of dozens of publications that have been used to promote badger culling over the last 20 years. This is potentially one of the biggest shake-up’s in biological science, for a generation. The ‘perturbation effect hypothesis’ evaporates, for example.

Instead of the huge significance claimed in 2006 for badger culling, Silverman has tried to produce a model that ‘just about’ finds an effect from badger culling, providing ‘weaker evidence for a positive effect’. But nevertheless, at first glance, it might save Oxford’s blushes. The problem is that he gets to this position in a manner that is both unconvincing, and incorrect.

Firstly, there has been a major howler. Not just from Silverman but the two peer-reviewers asked to check his models, and Defra officials who supervised the process. Annex 4 of the Godfray report outlines the binomial model he has used, but gives the wrong information criteria (ic) outputs. These are standard applications that test how well the model fits the data. He claims to have used what is called Akaike, but instead presents Bayesian outputs. One assumes that this was not intentional, but rather a transcription error.

However, in addition to this, he has failed to address the fact that for binomial models with small sample sizes (the RBCT was an experiment with a small sample size – just ten paired comparisons), his binomal approach should have used a particular type of Akaike information criteria. When applied, results suggest that models showing a benefit from badger culling are those least supported. The best supported models are those that do not include badger culling, indicating badger culling had no effect. Even if he had decided that the Bayesian approach was the correct way to evaluate the models, the small sample size variant should have been used and this too makes badger culling the wrong model to favour from a statistical, hence scientific perspective. A pre-print outling the problems is available here.

So any ‘merit on both sides’ of the current modelling debate, the football equivalent of a score draw, does not apply as he had hoped. Torgerson’s analyses win handsomely on penalties and the RBCT is relegated.

For the benefit of stats geeks wanting to understand more, it is also fair to say that with Poisson regression, it is easy and quite natural (and now accepted by all), to include ‘time at risk’ in the model (as an offset), which is why Poisson regression would be the preferred method for the analysis. With binomial regression, to do this properly you need to have the complementary log-log function in the link. Again, when this is done, there is no effect of culling. Silverman has also not dealt with overfitting – there are too many parameters for the number of data points. He also fails to address the ‘all reactors’ argument that another chapter recommends needs ‘more research’. Could this be because finding in favour of using ‘all reactors’ would be yet another route to showing the data finds badger culling to have had no effect. Saving the RBCT is more important than admitting this essential pointer for cattle management?

The implications of a flawed report to the Minister are huge for Defra and Godfray, who chose Silverman to try to rescue the unsavable. It looks such a crude attempt that the new Minister (Zeichner has now gone) will have some difficult explaining to do. Do farmers get their money back for doing something pointless for the last 12 years, and do wildlife charities get compensation for rightly fighting, at huge cost, a scientifically botched policy? It’s going to be interesting. And if culling doesn’t work, neither will badger vaccination or TVR, which appears to be Defra’s new direction of choice. The second Godfray report could potentially be seen as a back-covering exercise to try to protect Oxford University, but it has not succeeded.

This is grounds for a major inquiry, with standards of scientific integrity and the impartiality of appointments under the spotlight. Badger culling would never have been sanctioned if the RBCT had got its statistics correct back in 2006.

Summer news roundup

Posted on 10/08/2025 by The Badger Crowd

The parliamentary summer recess has begun. There can be no more Parliamentary Questions until the recall in September. Which is more than a shame, because there are questions that still need to be answered about the badger cull and bovine TB policy, by a government that does not engage properly with many stakeholders and the public. Supplementary badger cull (SBC) and Low Risk Area licenses were issued in May, and badger shooting is underway, with more authorisations expected for intensive culling shortly. These last intensive cull licenses will almost certainly be issued later this month to allow even more culling in the autumn. But the science to support this policy has been successfully challenged in the literature, with independent verification and a call for proper investigation – yet we still have silence from a government that just wants to finish its ugly killing spree.

Zeichner visit to Gatcombe Farm

The Minister of State for Food Security and Rural Affairs Daniel Zeichner visited Gatcombe Farm in Devon a few weeks ago. This is the farm at the centre of the ground breaking Save Me Trust BBC documentary last year that was attacked by some of the nastier elements of the bTB world, including Defra-funded bodies. Gatcombe is where an innovative protocol for cattle testing has been investigated over the last ten years or so, using carefully managed, newer and more sensitive tests. Each test can be used to target bTB to better increase chance of detection. Used in combination, in a manner prohibited for general use by current rules, the new protocol has been successful in identifying infection that would previously be left hidden in the herd. Let’s hope Zeichner sees the potential to finally start on changes to policy that were needed many years ago, using the cattle measures that DEFRA staff have fought so hard to resist.

Godfray Review report postponed

The current review of bovine TB science, the first one published back in 2018, was commissioned by the new Labour government last year and was due to report by the end of June. But in June, this was officially changed to ‘from the end of June’. Badger Crowd understands that it will now appear towards the end of the year, but an exact time has not been announced. This could, perhaps, be partly due to the publication on June 11^th of a paper in Royal Society Open Science that confirmed that previous core Government reference science, the RBCT, was in fact based on ‘a basic statistical oversight’, and that more plausible analyses of the results showed no effect of badger culling from the £50 Million experiment.

APHA produces a pre-print to oppose the 2022 appraisal finding no cull benefits

A pre-print has appeared on BioRxiv: ‘Evaluating the effect of badger culling on TB incidence in cattle: a critique of Langton et al. 2022’ authored by DEFRA’s Andy Robertson. Robertson has worked for TBHub, APHA, Natural England and is based at DEFRA. His publications have twice wrongly claimed badgers are a known maintenance host for cattle TB.

The new pre-print, three years in the preparation, claims that if badger culling had ‘worked’, (created disease decline benefit), the Langton et al analysis might not have detected it. As ever with DEFRA bTB publications, computer code for the model and simulations used is not provided, so it is impossible to check that what has been done is correct or plausible. Code was requested from DEFRA on July 21, but there has been no response at all.

Much of the text leans heavily on published studies that have now been shown to be uncertain at best. The Animal and Plant Health Agency (APHA) paper (Birch et al., published March 2024) in particular is misrepresented as evidence of a positive effect of badger culling. Accurate interpretation of that paper shows that there was no attempt in it to see if badger culling contributed to the general decline in bTB in herds under progressively tighter cattle testing methods. The critique glosses-over an important finding in Langton et al. 2022 (that Defra acknowledged at the time), that at the county level, bovine TB incidence stabilised, and started to decline, well before badger culling was rolled out.

Badger Vaccination

The governments new agreement to fund the NFU £1.4 Mn badger vaccination trials in Cornwall has been widely reported since January. It has been in the news again recently, yet there are still scant details available on the scientific and analytical protocol of the work. Aspects follows a similar project in Wales many years ago, that led to it being dropped as a strategic option.

Requests for further information from DEFRA have met the usual wall of silence. DEFRA’s Minister Sue Hayman half-answered a PQ on the project last week saying “Unlike previous badger culling studies, the Cornwall Badger Project is focused on testing different methods of delivering badger vaccination, rather than evaluating the impact on bovine TB in cattle.” So the use of badger vaccination as a tool in cattle TB control is not being measured? This despite NFU saying that is the essential question that needs answering. It all looks so half-baked and ‘un-joined up’ at DEFRA.

Jeremy Clarkson’s herd is OTF-S

As reported here, it was bad news for Jeremy Clarkson recently. Positive and inconclusive tuberculin tests on his cattle mean that Diddly Squat Farm now has the status Officially TB Free-Suspended. With viewing figures of 4-5 million, Clarkson is in a good position to put the disastrous government bovine TB policy into the public consciousness. Costing over £100Mn a year, the result of the policy has been an immense waste of time and resources. With a hidden epidemic that is still not being effectively detected, and 250,000 mostly healthy badgers culled, many cruelly, due to ‘statistical oversights’ and a government mired in its inability to get a proper grip. If Ministers want to do farming a huge favour, they will get the right experts to look at the evidence, and having procrastinated for over a year, instigate immediate radical change. Forget badgers, it is correct cattle testing and movement control procedures that will rapidly bring herds into manageable condition, as it did in the 1960’s.

Will anything new be offered before the intensive badger culling starts again in September? Probably not. The lack of urgency on this issue is incredibly disappointing. Whatever Labour’s manifesto intentions were, it seems that the civil servants have the whip hand here, holding on to their dogma and their wrong advice and roles, resisting rather than following the new science. It is the public purse, the farmers, cows and badgers who are paying the price of ineffective government.

Why were you Wicked to Badgers?

Posted on 17/05/2022 by The Badger Crowd

Book Review: A History of Uncertainty – Bovine Tuberculosis in Britain 1850 to the Present, Peter J Atkins, 2016, Winchester University Press
(Link to the online chapters of this book (free subscription required) here.)

By Tom Langton

Back in 2016, having just begun a detailed examination of the Randomised Badger Culling Trial (RBCT) (1), this book escaped my attention. Now with a tatty ex-library copy from ebay, its value and place is clearer. As with the 2019 review by Angela Cassidy (2), it is I believe a substantial contribution to the understanding of the English bovine TB (bTB) epidemic and control policy in the period since ‘badger blame’ emerged in the 1970s.

Peter Atkins, has been a prolific food and drink geographer and historian at Durham University, including inevitably, the disease-related issues. Much of the book is a detailed account of the technical and political context surrounding livestock management and milk production, including pasteurization since 1850, as a threat to human health. This is a compelling blend of what happened and why, regarding the once extremely debilitating and widely lethal bovine TB threat to human health in the UK.

Atkins book was published before the announcement of the 2016 badger cull roll out, which Atkins misjudged as unlikely to happen. Despite this, insight generally seems well evidenced and often convincing, and the book is especially worth reading in terms of what has unfolded since 2016.

Don’t be put off by the cover of the book, that shows nose to nose proximity between a tame badger and a cow, in an unlikely day-time event. This is, according to research done before and since publication, a rare event even at night, which is when badgers are most active above ground. In fact, it is one of a group of photos that has unintentionally proliferated misunderstanding of the transmission of bovine TB from badger to cattle.

Although bovine TB and badgers occupies only the last quarter of the book (chapters 12-15), it manages to get through a good amount of epidemiological practicalities at pace, and provides bouts of eloquent summary. There is a useful collection of around 800 author-indexed references at the back of the book, several of them obscure, with handy library reference numbers too.

Spat between the ISG’s John Bourne and CSA David King

Chapter 12 on epidemiological understanding provides some useful detail on factors such as cattle herd density changes over time, government expenditure on disease control and potential infection pathways. Its thoroughness extends, at least to some extent, to referencing international examples and molecular consideration of spoligotype distribution. Chapter 13 is a rapid road trip from the period where bTB was found in badgers in 1971 in Gloucestershire, through the uncertainties of the badger-cattle disease relationship and infection of badgers by cattle. There is good descriptive summary, albeit with historical account of certain research findings as fact, rather than placed in any measured scientific context of the strength of findings. This is not a criticism as this was not a scientific appraisal.

There is a short history of badger culling from 1971, a rapid summary of the RBCT and the Independent Scientific Group 2007 report and of David King: the government chief scientific advisor’s critique of it. Plus, the spat between the Independent Scientific Groups’s John Bourne and King, that followed. Of some interest is the report that in 2007, it was the Labour government, under Gordon Brown and the MAFF-centric Lord Rooker, that laid the foundations for mass badger culling, even if there followed a delay by Hilary Benn until Labour lost the election to the coalition government in May 2010. There is some basic material on badger cull opposition and the period leading up to the culls starting, but nothing comprehensive. The threats from uncertainty and risk, the focus of the book, are well measured at appropriate points in the narrative. While several of the uncertainties are better understood due to research in recent years, the text for the most part stands the test of time well and is a good general foundation for the student.

Civil Service prone to massive policy mistakes and blundering?

Chapter 14 is likewise an admirable summary for the time of bTB testing protocols, and test accuracy. Examining what is termed the ‘recrudescence’ of the disease in England and Wales since its near eradication in the 1960s, it touches on important disease eradication cost-benefit issues and a more condensed history of disease administration, with even a brief sortie into cattle and badger vaccination.

But perhaps what is most interesting of all, is saved to the final chapter 15: ‘Is uncertainty the future?’. As the writer puts it, ‘what are the lessons the historical geography of bTB has for us?’ There then follows, as a warmup, a look at complexities of some of the spatial questions in bTB epidemiology, raised earlier in Atkins and Robinson (2013) (3) and more recently reinforced by findings from Whole Genome Sequencing. There is an amount of conjecture over ‘scenarios’ that to the historian may seem like useful wondering, but to the scientist perhaps are rather speculative. Maybe a bit of original conjecture is okay, but it stands out a bit in contrast to the bulk of careful documentary.

Then, for me the book turns even more compelling. It addresses the question of why the bTB response has been so sluggish and ineffective, and what is framed as the ‘grotesque cost’ of dealing with diseases of the intensive cattle industry: BSE, Foot and Mouth and bovine TB over the last decades. It looks at the punitive demise of MAFF after Foot and Mouth, and how the British Civil Service seems somehow prone to massive policy mistakes and blunders. Should, asks Atkins, bTB handling by Westminster be added to the ‘hall of infamy’ of policy disasters? But then ‘no’ comes the answer, with a slightly unconvincing defence. His forgiveness is founded on his perception of complexity and uncertainty in the science.

Bang on cue, a sub-section is set up, that chimes with recent discussions over England’s covid-19 early response management entitled ‘A rule of experts?’. The building of policy-lead science (4) to address difficult questions is laid out, leading to the introduction of the concept of dealing with complex and politically tangled issues, framed as ‘wicked’. Based partly on the fact that the problem is dire, unforgiving, labelled as unsolvable and hence apparently justifying unconventional resolution. So ‘Yes Minster’ style consequentialism – where the ‘ends justify the means’: your often ‘tribal’ (5) bad behaviour is excused, and where whatever you decide, you become blameless. Does this government approach sound familiar?

Wickedness unveiled

The last few pages of the book, ‘Bovine TB: a wicked problem?’ may both delight and annoy. They delve into the philosophy of addressing problems that are rated so unbalanced, complex, and frustrated, that the strategy is to manage them, based on continued uncertainty over long periods of time. So bTB is allocated to ‘wicked’ philosophy (6), something that the very senior government officials and scientists may have latched on to at the start of culling as interest in its use began to grow (7). Meaning, that the uncertain outcome of badger culling wasn’t an important issue; it didn’t have to ‘work’ if it induced the livestock industry to accept tougher disease eradication measures that they were resisting. Such approaches are also nicely framed as a ‘clumsy solutions’. All government scientists and vets had to do, whether in the know or not, was roughly comply with a top-down ‘yes, it is the badgers’, undertake a bit of low inference analysis, then maintain ‘you will never actually know directly how much badger culling has contributed to disease control’ and ‘we are going to use every tool in the box’. This of course nullifies a range of professional and ethical pledges, and may be unlawful. But hey, this is a ‘wicked’ problem, these are different times and so anything goes? Those who have said badger culling is criminal may actually have a point?

One must ask who was ‘in’ on the badger cull wickedness, who fixed it, made it happen and who drove the car? It is getting easier to see now. Anecdotally, government staff will apparently not deny it in private. This has been clear from multiple sources since Atkins book. But outwardly, in-post, their job comes first and they will follow the tribal line. This helps explain why Defra have reacted so ferociously (and clumsily) to the now emerging data on the badger culls (8) that shows them for what they are; ineffective. The problem must and needs long-term to remain ‘wicked’ for the emperor’s clothes to remain visible. But Environment Secretary Minister George Eustice has lost cull architects Ian Boyd and Nigel Gibbens, and those replacing them may not have been told and thus have greater exposure.

Atkins almost spoils it at the last, as Angela Cassidy did in her book in 2019. He had already come up with his own esoteric home-brew idea that badgers pose more of a risk at certain densities. He points at uncertainty in the epidemiology and the pathogenesis, but not to any deficit in ‘formal sector expertise’, which is a bit over-simplified. He denies ‘selfish individual motives or special interests’ which also looks a tad naïve, given the strength of influence of commerce in the mix. Atkins suggests no one is to blame, or that the blame is evenly spread, which is the diplomatic nice story, but one cannot help feeling that in doing so, like Cassidy he drops into the ‘sticky trap’ of badgers and bTB (9).

Of course, scientific evaluation is not Atkins forte, and there is failure to balance scientific findings according to their limitations. BTB is a scientific problem and you can see as he cites and runs through much of the key relevant literature, that he is not pausing on the uncertainty and hindsight problems within them.

Despite this, Atkins logically foresees the time of effective use of cattle measures that were starting to bite in the High Risk Area as he finished this book, and that they need further tightening with better testing and/or cattle vaccination, to finish the job. Such disease control achievement however, is not the consequence of any ‘wicked’ approach. It is simply what would have happened with strong leadership and without badger culling. And, with all due credit, Atkins also rightly concludes that badgers are likely to be seen as a distraction to the bTB problem when all is said and done in years to come. Again, this book was published before the announcement of the 2016 badger cull roll-out and his last page makes salutary reading, as he was unaware of the mass butchering of largely completely healthy badgers that would immediately follow, and that should hopefully soon be abandoned.

This is a great ending if you are concerned by the repeating car wrecks of government veterinary epidemiology when addressing livestock disease control in England. And how the manipulation of logic and science for expedient high risk approaches, can be endorsed and nurtured in the tribal institutions in public service, given a few wicked people pulling the strings.

A link to the online chapters of this book (free subscription required) is available here.