bovine tb – Page 5 – The Badger Crowd

The DEFRA Bovine TB Partnership: Shambles or Scandal?

Posted on 07/03/2024 by The Badger Crowd

Dick Sibley removed from the Governments BTB Partnership

According to TB HuB, (1) The Bovine TB Partnership comprises members with “extensive experience and expertise in the farming industry, private veterinary profession, non-government organisations, academia, local authorities, and government.” It is managed by Defra and has ‘Member organisations’ including the Animal and Plant Health Agency, National Farmers Union, the British Cattle Veterinary Association, the British Veterinary Association and Natural England.

In recent weeks vet Dick Sibley and others have left the partnership (2), frustrated at lack of progress, and suggesting that anything not central to DEFRA’s agenda is not welcome.

The terms of reference for the partnership in 2021 (3) suggest that it was established in response to Professor Charles Godfray’s 2018 review of the bTB Strategy: the Government was committed to co-design with industry and other stakeholders ‘a new bTB Partnership’ to encourage shared ownership, coordination and decision-making’ and ‘a driving force for further progress with disease eradication, absorbing the advisory function currently performed by the bTB Eradication Advisory Group for England (TBEAG) to become a senior-level and high impact government and stakeholder group for bTB control.’

Dick Sibley is well known as arguably the foremost English ‘coalface’ veterinary worker on bovine tuberculosis management, in Devon and beyond. He qualified as a vet from Bristol University Veterinary School in 1977 and has been in veterinary practice ever since, and he runs West Ridge Veterinary Practice based in Witheridge, in Mid Devon.

His X/Twitter biography describes him as “Veterinary surgeon working with cattle and other farm animals, hoping to make their lives better & healthier so that they can make our lives better & healthier”.

Dick is dedicated to the care of cattle, with particular expertise in the management of infectious diseases such as BVD, Johne’s and Tuberculosis, as well as delivering whole herd health plans for large dairies to predict and prevent disease and health issues. His credential speak for themselves. He has an Honorary Fellowship, awarded for his work with BSE (bovine spongiform encephalopathy), Foot and Mouth disease and Tuberculosis, he is National Secretary and President of the British Cattle Veterinary Association. He has a range of awards; RABDF Princess Anne Dairy Award, the RASE Bledisloe Cup, Honorary Life Membership BCVA, and Dairy Industry Award 2006 for veterinary services to the cattle industry.

Until recently, he was a member of the government’s ‘Bovine Tuberculosis Partnership’. Towards the end of February 2024 however, it was reported in the farming press that Dick Sibley, and another member had been removed from the partnership, and a third quietly resigned. Although it was originally envisaged in 2021 that the partnership would produce useful summaries of their work and make them publicly available, no insight into the thinking of the group has been forthcoming. It has been a closed shop. For the public and interested parties, there has been no insight at all, a huge disappointment considering its role and potential pivotal importance. In short, the BTB partnership has been a failure. There are even gagging clauses on partnership members speaking publicly without approval.

Shortly after he left the Bovine TB Partnership Dick Sibley started posting on X about his experiences and his posts offer interesting insight both into the problems faced and workings of the so called partnership. By way of introduction to his long social media thread, Sibley pointed out:

“The 3 counties of Cornwall, Devon and Dorset have 7,989 cattle herds and generate 33% of new herd incidents of bovine TB in England. At the end of September 2023. these 3 counties had 652 herds not officially TB free. (Down from 1011 in 2018, but up from 627 in 2021). I repeatedly mentioned this to the partnership. And got sacked. I guess if you don’t like the message, shoot the messenger.”

So, does Dick Sibley think that the current bTB policy is working well? He says:

“To get the country OTF by 2038 as pledged by DEFRA, I understand we need to get 99.9% of herds tb free for 6 years. In the 3 counties with current herds, that’s just 8 herds still non OTF by 2032. I don’t think that is possible doing what we are currently doing.”

The answer then, is no, he does not think Defra will achieve OTF (officially tb-free) status by 2038. The reason behind this is that the current testing system largely based on SICCT and gamma testing obviously leaves many infected animals in the herd that could only be found with a wider suite of tests, with local management of each unique farm circumstance needed to finish the job. For that reason, the current system is doomed to failure as amply demonstrated in painful slow-motion across the Republic of Ireland over decades. Testing needs to be constant and not confined to the current routine. Additional/supporting PCR/qPCR tests in particular. Use of Actiphage for pre-movement herd testing is the single essential action that would curtail disease spread rapidly, even if triggering a new national herd management strategy for diseased herds.

Why would Defra not want to look too closely at embedded infection? Perhaps too many reactors means too much compensation (too much money) seems the most likely explanation. It appears financially uneconomic, and more politically expedient to sit on?.

Does Sibley think that the bTB partnership of which he has been a member is a helpful and functioning working group, producing & collating useful and relevant science? He says:

“.. for the past 3 years I have sat dutifully listening to unrealistic ideas on how we are going to replace badger culling with vaccination, BCG the cows and keep testing and killing. Short, truncated discussions on the pros and cons. That’s not a partnership, it’s an audience.”

Again, it looks like the answer is no. It sounds as if there was little engagement with the specialist expertise invited to attend. What does Sibley say about whether he believes badgers are an important source of cattle infection? He says:

“We have tried really hard here in the South West: started culling badgers in 2016 and peaked in 2018: 90% of the area of the 3 counties culling by 2021. More testing, more gamma, more killing, more restrictions and yet 892 herds lost their OTF status last year. Is that success? Of those 892 new herd incidents, most of them weren’t new. They were recurrences of established infections. We used to blame the badgers, but we have now killed most of them. So, as many of us suspected, they are more likely due to undetected residual infections within the herd.”

So, Dick Sibley is concluding that repeat infections are most likely due to undetected cattle infections. Sibley has usefully drawn attention to one of the more irrational of Defra’s many rules and restrictions; you can only test cattle for bTB if they are OTF. He says:

“Trouble is that the permission to test can only be given to herds that are not OTF! As soon as they go clear with a couple of clear skin tests, we can’t use any additional testing. Not even an extra skin test between the six-monthly routines. Endemic infection resurfaces. Nuts.”

There is a more in Sibley threads: how Michael Gove became engaged in the issue, how that led to the Godfray Review (of the bTB policy), how DEFRA’s responded to set up the TB Partnership. But the partnership does not get a good account from Sibley:

“We listened, no decisions. Three quarters of the time taken up with presentations, then truncated discussions through lack of time. The rooms got smaller and smaller and tech more dysfunctional. Covid didn’t help. Frustrating”.

Frustration seems perhaps to be the overriding outcome of the partnership. Sibley writes frankly:

“I asked for targets, objectives, Key Performance Indicators. What was success? Could we have some radical thinking? Ok, maybe I was a bit mouthy. We were told about current policy and plans: phasing out of culling, phasing in of vaccination. But what about the big gap between the two? How could this work?

Task and finish groups did some great work: I co-chaired one on improving testing sensitivity. Brave of them to ask me! Our good group put in hours of constructive discussion and research to produce a detailed report. Radical but realistic. Where is it now? Wasted.

That report even led to a full day workshop held at the APHA site at Weybridge. I really thought that this would do some good and make a difference. A good day of real discussion and proper time spent on difficult issues. Nothing came of it.”

Dick Sibley goes on to cite an interesting case study:

“A small organic herd of red Devon beef sucklers: set up about 10 years ago. Before stocking the 200 acres of rolling Devon grassland, constructs 7km of badger and deer proof fencing. 2” mesh buried 40cm into the ground and going to 6ft+. Even Steve McQueen couldn’t get out.

The herd went down with Tb in 2019, 3 years after being established in its colditz. I got involved in 2021 and started enhanced testing to see what was going on. We SICCt every 60 days in accordance with rules, and then privately gamma, Idexx and phage 3 or 4 times yearly.

Of the 101 cattle that we have tested in the last 3 years, 42 have left the herd as reactors (either SICCT or gamma) and 40 have been designated high risk due to a positive result on another test type. 7 more were gamma positive last week. There is significant age clustering.

We have got 4 day old calves testing positive for antibody! They didn’t make that themselves, they got it from the colostrum. But mothers tested negative. The offspring of some test negative cows (but designated high risk) have all gone as reactors. We suspect mother – calf”.

So despite cattle being reliably isolated from potential wildlife infection, the embedded cattle infection persists.

Sibley’s thread finishes with:

“For those hunting the tb solution, be patient and manage your expectations. There is no simple solution. And for those campaigning for [badger] culling, just take a quick look at iTB map. My patch is the squares with 61 and 59 in. That’s after 5 years of [badger] culling. Disappointing.”

For those with more than an interest, it is worth reading SIbley’s thread in its entirety. If nothing else, it may be the only window into the workings of the bTB partnership that those not actually in it will ever get. DEFRA and APHA’s secret world of policy failure. Not so much a partnership as a captive audience of those who need Defra’s support in many ways and will not contradict them for personal and organisations reasons. Gagged to the outside world. It really stinks.

What does the BTB Partnership actually achieve – let’s take a quick look, according to its published role:

The Partnership has a number of responsibilities:

1. Contribute to setting strategic direction of the bovine TB disease eradication programme, helping to identify priorities, and address specific opportunities, risks and issues, as an integral part of the bovine TB Programme’s governance

Does it do this? Apparently not very well. It looks slow to investigate advice that does not fit with its past and future plans.

2. Help set standards, monitor progress, and identify where new approaches might be needed

Does it do this? Apparently not very well. DEFRA/APHA seem reluctant to move outside the constraints of its own thinking and to recognise past limitations, oversights, failures and new direction.

3. Co-design potential new policies and communications

Does it do this? Apparently not – most members are there as an audience to offer approval but not to come up with any substantial changes.

4. Identify new evidence sources/requirements and ideas and captures wider views to inform discussion as needed

Does it do this? Absolutely not. Resists new evidence and fails to engage in external communications.

5. Engage widely to advocate agreed bovine TB policy to a range of stakeholders

Does it do this? Not much. Occasional conference for conference goers. NGO’s are outside the tent. There is little or no reporting – the shortfall is huge.

6. Encourage the formation of and work closely with local groups and creates opportunities for stakeholders/local groups to work together. Regularly reviews how to improve local engagement and maximise the value of local groups

Does it do this? No, the reversion to local groups tacking disease locally has been sidelined, despite its obvious potential.

7. Engage with developments in wider domestic agriculture policy (aware of and linked to sector wide initiatives that impact bovine TB control) – helping to build understanding of the potential implications for future disease control and helping to influence the design of future policy to benefit the goals of the bovine TB Strategy

Does it do this? Apparently not at all.

Chairman James Cross, a farmer, might be asked:

Where are the results of the specific ‘task and-finish’ groups?
Where is the ‘new evidence sources/requirements and ideas and captured wider views to inform discussion’?
How have you engaged ‘widely to advocate agreed bTB policy to a range of stakeholders?’
How have you worked ‘closely with local groups and created opportunities for stakeholders/local groups to work together’?
Where are the ‘Regular reviews on how to improve local engagement and maximise the value of local groups’?

References

BTB decline – has cause & effect been shown?

Posted on 20/02/2024 by The Badger Crowd

Cattle testing, and not badger culling, is helping control bovine TB in England

Published, peer-reviewed science on the efficacy of badger culling has failed to find an association between intensive badger culling and either the incidence or prevalence of bovine TB in cattle herds (here). In plain English, data on levels of bTB show that badger culling has had no effect on the level of disease in cattle. This is the only published peer-reviewed science on post-2017 data from the ton of bTB statisitics produced by farmers and vets across England over many years. Ask yourself why that is, and also why the government claims it has worked but refuse to discuss it.

The pro-cull response to anyone publicly questioning badger culling efficacy has been (not surprisingly) to follow government rhetoric, and claim that it has caused a 56% reduction of bTB in cattle to-date. Such comments are repeated by those associated with the secretive bTB Partnership of farmers and cattle vets: ‘just look at this graph showing bTB falling over the period of the culls’. The phoney mantra that accompanies various homemade graphs is often an emphatic and self-confident ’look how well badger culling is working’, or ‘you can’t possibly argue with this huge decline in disease’, and ‘bTB is lower than it’s been for years’.

These summaries of the last 11 years of bTB control are simply unsubstantiated however. They repeatedly overlook the scientific necessity to show the relationship between cause and effect. Something that the Zuckerman, Dunnet and Krebs reviews also failed to establish using basic science principles. Put simply, cause and effect is the relationship between two things, when one thing makes something else happen. Ie. Can it really be claimed that it is badger culling that has brought about the decline in disease?

For the answer to that to be yes, it would be necessary to show that levels of disease were affected only by badger culling and nothing else. Levels of disease are clearly affected by a number of variables other than badger culling. As bTB is primarily a cattle disease, with most (if not all) infection arising from other cattle, the type & frequency of cattle testing will have a huge effect on detectable disease.

So has cattle testing on farms within the badger cull zones changed? Yes it has. Testing has tightened hugely, albeit painfully slowly, as can be seen in the graphic below. It has increased in frequency, and additional testing methods have been introduced too.

In reality, data point to increased and improved cattle testing being the cause of gradual bTB decline in cattle. The graph below illustrates that the decline in bTB across the south west counties of the High Risk Area (HRA) began on average around 2015, 5 years after annual cattle testing began, but before the roll-out of badger culling (coloured arrows indicate point at which badger culling began). It was earlier in other HRA counties. Cattle testing was having an effect well before badger culling could have.

Here (below) is a fresh set of HRA data from abattoir surveillance, detecting disease from previously undetected but infected herds. It also records the response to annual tuberculin testing peaking around 2012.

Published government data for Bovine TB cattle herd breakdown (OTF-W) incidence for the years 2021 and 2022 can now be added to the county-based reference series published in 2022 (1). This shows continued synchronised decline across the High Risk Area counties at similar constant rates, following establishment of annual SICCT testing from 2010 (Figures 1 and 2).

Similar, but slower decline in BTB epidemic in the Republic of Ireland since 1999 (2), has reduced incidence there to 4.4%, but it has been effectively static or rising since 2018 (3). In England, more frequent SICCT testing, with some use of interferon gamma IFN-y and additional tests, have similarly reduced cattle-to-cattle transmission. If levelling off in England is now anticipated, increased and routine use of the more sensitive live bacteria (bacteriophage) blood tests, (as validated for human health checks), for pre-movement cattle testing is needed. There could be need for recourse to cattle vaccination, with bacteriophage, a reliable blood test option for divergence (DIVA infected vs vaccinated) testing too.

Comparison of cattle TB in areas that have undergone culling with those that have not, further suggests cattle measures are by far the most likely cause of disease decline since 2010. In the 2022 paper (1), multiple statistical models checked the data on herd breakdowns over time and failed to find any association between badger culling and either the incidence or prevalence of bovine TB in cattle herds. The models that most accurately fitted the data were those that did not include badger culling as a parameter, suggesting that factors other than culling (cattle testing) were more likely to be the cause of the reduction in disease in cattle.

So it really is not scientifically credible for anyone to claim that the reduction in bovine TB is the result of badger culling. Or to keep up with the tired and fake claims of a need to use ‘all the tools in the box’. The evidence strongly suggests otherwise. The introduction of numerous cattle measures and increased sensitivity of testing has brought about disease benefit as it has done in previous epidemics.

The problem that remains is that notwithstanding the slaughterhouse pattern (above), while OTF-W* incidence is falling, OTF-S* is not. Beyond a few false positives, this suggests that the rate of detection of early infections may not be as fast as that of later infections. If badger culling was working, OTF-W* and OTF-S* should both be falling as new infections are prevented. It is not. As in Republic of Ireland, where badgers have been mass killed for decades, undetected infection is embedded in the herds and being spread by cattle movements within wrongly labelled ‘clear’ herds. As it was from the pockets of bTB remaining in the 1960s and 1970s in England. This is the challenge, and this is what needs addressing. False claims from those who wish to keep blaming badgers are unhelpful and are not ‘following the science’, just trying to manipulate it. Opposing badger culling is not a ‘political position’ as the NFU claim, it is simply following good science.

*Note:
OTF-W = Officially TB-free status Withdrawn
OTF-S = Officially TB-free status Suspended

References

1 Langton TES, Jones MW, McGill I. Analysis of the impact of badger culling on bovine tuberculosis in cattle in the high-risk area of England, 2009–2020. Vet Rec 2022; doi:10.1002/vetr.1384

2 More SJ, Houtsma E, Doyle L, McGrath G, Clegg TA, de la Rua-Domenech R, Duignan A, Blissitt MJ, Dunlop M, Schroeder PG, Pike R, Upton P. Further description of bovine tuberculosis trends in the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland, 2003-2015. Vet Rec. 2018 Dec 15;183(23):717. doi: 10.1136/vr.104718. Epub 2018 Nov 28. PMID: 30487295; PMCID: PMC6312888.

3 Gov.ie 2023. National Bovine TB Statistics, Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine.

Has APHA finally seen the TB light?

Posted on 23/11/2023 by The Badger Crowd

A shift of emphasis

Was it the damning April report on the failed Cumbria badger culls that has led to the clear change in the way that APHA’s is now attributing source of bTB infection in cattle? Have the crazy proposals for the so-called ‘epidemiological culling’ policy been recognised for the epidemiological nonsense that they are?

Or is it simply that the raft of Whole Genome Sequencing (WGS) results clearly indicate cattle movements as the main distributor of bovine TB? Either way, the new epidemiology report for England published this November shows a dramatic shift of emphasis in the attribution of source of infection.

While previous APHA reports have laboured to claim that around half of cattle bTB infections are attributed to badgers, the analysis for 2022 of the results of ‘bovine tuberculosis epidemiology and surveillance in England and Great Britain‘, published earlier this week (20^th November) (read here) tells a different story.

Outrageous attribution

It looks like the death knell for the perpetually dodgy and unscientific ‘Risk Pathways’ approach that was so heavily slated in the April report by independent scientists earlier this year. Risk Pathways was introduced in 2017, as evidence to cull badgers across the whole of west England and more. Every APHA ‘epi’ annual report since 2017 has contained a table with the consequence of condemning badgers to more culling.

Now, with the speculative nature of the approach well exposed, APHA have no choice but to do what they should have done before badger culling began – shift emphasis to the necessary cattle testing and herd management. These are the only measures that will actually move bovine tuberculosis in cattle towards elimination using the right cattle tests from the cattle testing toolbox.

See below in the 2021 analysis: the first column claims outrageously high attribution of source of infection to badgers, at over 50%.

In this years table for 2022 (see below), the column has gone, and the switch to uncertainty is complete.

Compare the pies

Compare also, the pie chart of disease sources from 2021 (below) with that for 2022 (below that). Where once badgers were getting 52% of the blame, 56% is now shown ‘blank’ – effectively showing as uncertain.

What is concluded from this welcome, but far too late in the day revision? The ridiculous blaming of badgers was just too unevidenced, too ridiculous. APHA can no longer deny that evidence now points to the source of bTB infection being all but totally from livestock and livestock infected pastures. And it can only be addressed by livestock measures.

APHA’s hopeless Disease Report Form (DRF) to coax vets into naming badgers as a cause of new cattle infections was heavily criticised by a Derbyshire Wildlife Trust veterinary report in 2019. In their supplementary file, also recently released, APHA now say:

“A new Disease Report Form (DRF), for recording cattle TB incident investigations, is under development. This aims to enhance data capture and review the methodology around how we assess source attribution to improve understanding of TB transmission pathways and the evidence base for biosecurity advice.”

Whole Genome sequencing can now be used to better understand transmission routes. There is no excuse for anything but bringing all badger culling to an immediate and permanent stop.

Setting out the truth about badgers in black and white

Posted on 23/11/2023 by The Badger Crowd

The Northern Ireland Badger Group together with the USPCA has published a new factsheet on dispelling the myths on the role badgers play in the spread of Bovine TB (bTB). This follows a recent court outcome which has stopped a proposed badger cull in Northern Ireland.

Last month, both organisations welcomed the ruling from a judge that a badger cull proposed by the Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs (DAERA) as part of its drive to tackle bovine TB, would now not proceed.

This new factsheet provides dispels the myths on the role badgers play in the spread of Bovine TB. It adds to a growing evidence base that culling badgers is not the answer to bTB.

Nora Smith, Chief Executive of the USPCA said:

“Last month, we welcomed the court’s decision as a positive step in protecting Northern Ireland’s diverse wildlife and badger population. The unnecessary killing of helpless badgers by free shooting will do nothing to address the problem we have faced for years with bovine TB.

“We have full sympathy for our farming community who have been devastated by the impact of bovine TB on their herds and who have been led to believe a cull of badgers will play a leading role in solving the problem. It will not.

“The latest evidence reaffirms the highest rate of transmission is cow to cow. There must be a new conversation around how we eradicate bovine TB and the focus must be on cattle movements, testing and biosecurity. In Wales, which has a more robust strategy to protecting both cattle and badgers, they have seen a marked reduction in bTB, while their badger population remains intact.

Mike Rendle, Northern Ireland Badger Group commented:

“The recent court ruling has forestalled the pointless killing of large numbers of badgers in Northern Ireland. It is now beyond any doubt that cattle to cattle infection is driving bovine TB in herds. There is no credible evidence that badgers play a significant role in disease spread.

“The problem lies with the reservoir of undetected infection in cattle. The current skin test, which may detect as few as half of the infected animals in a herd, is not fit for purpose. Farmers and cattle deserve better.

“I hope that by dispelling misconceptions about badgers and instead following the latest scientific evidence, we can all work together to develop an effective evidence-led policy to deal with the disease while protecting farmers’ livelihoods as well as our badgers.”

Read the new factsheet here.

What next for Northern Ireland’s bovine TB strategy?

Posted on 14/11/2023 by The Badger Crowd

As Northern Ireland’s Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs (DAERA) considers the fallout from the recent court judgement quashing their plan to shoot badgers in Northern Ireland, what does the future now hold for their bovine TB strategy?

DAERA’s current policy carried forward the main elements of the strategy proposed in 2016 by the government-appointed TB Strategy Partnership Group (TBSPG). The TBSPG was a government-industry partnership which included senior industry figures and former civil servants. Notably, no member of the group had any expertise or background in badgers or wildlife.

Soon after its appointment, the TBSPG met with stakeholders to ‘seek their views’. Even at that early stage, the TBSPG made it clear that they thought a badger cull was necessary. There was a clear impression that they had already decided on a badger cull before any evidence-gathering or engagement, meaningful or otherwise, had taken place.

The TBSPG was succeeded in 2018 by another industry-led group, the TB Eradication Partnership (TBEP), under the same TBSPG Chairman. Similarly, the TBEP exhibited equal enthusiasm for a badger cull, with apparent little regard for the views of the badger/wildlife side. You can read about the TBEP membership in this Protect the Wild blog.

Following the recent successful Judicial Review taken by Wild Justice and the Northern Ireland Badger Group, any further attempt by DAERA to progress a badger intervention will require a new public consultation. Given the shambolic nature of the last consultation, any new proposal will require root and branch revision to have any chance of succeeding.

Meanwhile, two major pieces of significant and highly relevant new research have emerged.

Firstly, a comprehensive analysis of bovine TB data by Langton et al. failed to identify a meaningful effect of badger culling on bovine TB in English cattle herds. Instead, reductions in cattle TB incidence and prevalence showed a strong correlation with the introduction of cattle-based disease control measures.

Secondly, a study carried out by scientists at the Northern Ireland Agri-Food and Biosciences Institute (AFBI) found that cattle-to-cattle transmission was by far the most common form of disease spread. Cattle-to-badger transmission was considerably more common than badger-to-cattle transmission, and no badger-to-badger transmission was detected.

The science makes it increasingly clear that ineffective herd testing and the two million cattle movements annually are driving the persistence and spread of bovine TB in Northern Ireland, not badgers. As the body of evidence exonerating badgers builds, DAERA will surely struggle to justify any new badger removal proposal.

As it turned out, DAERA’s (now defeated) decision to implement an indiscriminate and cruellest possible badger cull was a spectacular own goal and a decisive setback to their bovine TB strategy. The responsibility for this debacle lies squarely with the architects of the strategy and those in the industry who supported and enabled it.

Perhaps predictably, the decision to inflict unacceptable suffering on large numbers of healthy badgers served to galvanise the conservation and animal protection sectors in opposition to the plan.

For its part, the badger side has seen its good faith and willingness to engage thrown back in its face. Confidence and trust in the process have been seriously undermined. The government has squandered yet another opportunity to make meaningful progress.

This is a watershed moment for DAERA and the industry. They can choose to embrace the science and tackle the reservoir of undetected infection in cattle, or they can continue to scapegoat badgers and face further legal challenges and delays.

Post-Normal Science – Fact, Fantasy and the BBC (again)

Posted on 01/08/2023 by The Badger Crowd

*A quick look at the BBC farming media and sociology, touching on ‘tribalism’, the BTB Partnership and ‘avoiding the facts’. The result: a perfect storm to confuse bovine tuberculosis control.***

In 2022 DEFRA took steps, but failed, to try to stop published peer-reviewed science being published in the Veterinary Record (here, here, here and here), disgracefully interfering in the scientific process. Fourteen months later, DEFRA are still unable to produce data or analyses to substantiate their claim that badger culling has resulted in any disease benefit, or indeed has not failed completely. The Minister Therese Coffey now talks about badger culling continuing ‘if the science is good‘ (see here). Last year, the Chief Veterinary Officer Christine Middlemiss on Radio 4s Farming Today, blamed others in DEFRA for the withholding of data on badger culling (listen here). If such data were released, it would quickly allow the use of a wide variety of analyses to check for the efficacy of badger culling. Surely the BBC’s influential Radio 4 flagship farming programme Farming Today, with its one million listeners, would wish to be first to get to the bottom of what is really happening in the badger cull, which is after all, such an important subject. But recent events suggest that they are perhaps, more than hesitant, and might even prefer confusion over clarity?

This month, following enquiries to Farming Today about a misleading story on badger culling by David Gregory Kumar (a BBC reporter from the West Midlands), a follow-up piece was promised by the BBC’s Dimitri Houtart, their ‘Environment, Food, Rural Affairs & Natural History Executive Editor & BBC Rural Affairs Champion’. He said: ‘I have asked my Farming Today team to ensure we mention your complaint and highlight your main points’ On the offending programme on 4^th July, Gregory Kumar had played a clip where James Griffiths, a livestock farmer from the Gloucestershire Pilot 1 badger cull area had said ’badger culling has undoubtably made a difference, no one can deny it.’ With Gregory-Kumar then adding, ‘the latest data seems to support this.’ Which it does not. The latest data shows bTB falling generally as it has since around 2015, but the role of badger culling, unseparated from the increased use of better disease tests, is not known. The only published science, checked by a large raft of independent experts, suggests that it has not worked (read here).

Oddly, Gregory Kumar had mentioned the apparent inability of Defra to show badger culling works in an online article that day (see here), reporting a Defra line that analysis of the cull data was not possible due to a lack of comparison sites. This is misinformation because there are many ways to compare Defra’s secret data inside and outside cull areas each year since 2016 to give valid comparison analyses. Is it that Defra don’t get the results they want, or is it that for some reason they are incapable of doing the statistics in question? At least the Secretary of State is referring to ‘if’ the science is good. But the apparent delay in producing good scientific evidence of the benefits of culling is curious. Meanwhile, the government tries once again to bundle a further raft of badger killings through in August to perpetuate the miserable fiasco. Thousands and thousands of completely healthy adult and cub badgers will be killed for no good reason while farmers and the public are misinformed.

Sadly, in this recent episode of media confusion, history was repeating itself, with Gregory Kumar grossly overstating the case for the badger cull working and providing misleading information in the same way on a BBC outlet. Back in 2014 the BBC Editorial Complaints Unit (ECU) partly upheld a complaint against an article that Gregory Kumar wrote on BBC NEWS online, as follows: here is a part of the ruling on Gregory Kumars work:

The committee began by looking at what data there was to support the belief that a badger cull had led to a reduction in TB in cattle.

Given that both the statistics and scientific studies about the link between badger culling and bovine TB levels were inconclusive, the Committee examined whether the article had used clear and precise language to make this apparent to the audience. In doing so, it observed that the badger cull had become a highly divisive issue with those for and against the cull using the findings of different trials to bolster their respective causes and so it was essential that the BBC provided the greatest clarity possible on the subject.

In this context, the Committee believed that the language used in the article had not been sufficiently precise as it suggested that the badger cull might be a factor in helping control the disease when this was scientifically unproven. It considered that, while the data did show a decline in the number of cattle infected with TB in Ireland, there was no conclusive evidence to show that the badger cull had been categorically responsible for any of this decline and so it was inaccurate to say that, along with other measures, it can help control the disease.

On July 4^th 2023, misleading information was again given out suggesting that badger culling had worked in Gloucestershire and England, with bTB policy in Wales (without culling) not working so well. However, the epidemiology reports (here) show an influx of diseased cattle into north Wales from Shropshire and Cheshire, providing a simple explanation for this. Local trading is still around 50% of cattle movements in Wales.

Here is the data from Gloucestershire where James Griffiths farms:

There has been an increase from 22 incidents in 2013 when badger culling began to 28 incidents in 2022. It is not hard to spot that badger culling shows no sign of working.

So, Defra persist in withholding data that could tell us if badger culling is working, and continue to allow exaggerated claims for efficacy to be made. And what did Farming Today do to clarify the situation? They got in touch with DEFRA, and on 17 July played bits of an interview with a member of its secretive BTB partnership, Professor Gareth Enticott of the Human Geography Department at Cardiff University.

The bTB Partnership Group was set up in 2021, with the aim ‘to encourage shared ownership, coordination, and decision-making surrounding England’s 25-year bovine TB eradication programme’. In 2022, its chairman John Cross (who has just been given an OBE) when asked its view on a new scientific analysis, said that the group does not have the capacity to consider scientific evidence. This was a surprise as it counts a professor of epidemiology amongst its membership. Other members of the group are largely farmers and vets who believe that badgers should be culled. Wildlife and nature conservation experts are not well represented.

Disappointingly, rather than addressing the point of contention in the previous Farming Today, i.e. whether or not the latest bTB data support the thesis that badger culling is reducing disease in cattle, Prof Enticott introduced the concept of ’post-normal science’. This did not really feel like an appropriate response to a factual and statistical matter concerning real data and the withholding of it for simple analyses. Enticott contended that Farmers may not be keen to wait for data to show that badger culling is effective – was that deemed acceptable? He said words to the effect:

“ …science is never definitive on anything, and that’s how science progresses, that there’s always debate about what works and what doesn’t work. In terms of the badger cull and TB policy as a whole, what you’ve got really is a debate about values which are in contest with each other, so the evidence which has been collected around badger culling reflects a set of different values about what constitutes appropriate evidence, and those values represent or are reflective of the times in which the evidence was collected.

So if we go back 20 – 25 years, you know there was a real hope that the randomized badger culling trial, very scientific approach – that form of evidence seemed to be the kind of the highest level of scientific evidence would provide the answer, and would also convert people into believing that badger culling would work. Now it turns out that that wasn’t actually the case and it wasn’t the case because they’re always these kinds of uncertainties around badger culling. But you can look at that in a number of different ways and always challenge it. So there’s never really going to be a definitive answer.”

This is simply misleading. The RBCT, as a scientific exercise, was aimed at finding out it culling could provide any disease benefit, rather than trying to ‘convert people into believing that badger culling would work’. The recent learning curve from better understanding of testing efficacy is that the ‘all-reactor’ set of results should be used in the analyses; these show no relationship between badger culling and herd breakdown. These comments reduce the conversation to confusion with a jaded view of the science process. Enticott went on:

“The answer really is what kind of science do you want to have. So, in other another environmental controversies people talk about the need for what’s called kind of post-normal science. You often have an issue where the facts are uncertain, values are disputed, the stakes are high, but people need to make a decision quite quickly. Waiting for the evidence of the randomized control trial or whatever, is not going to be appropriate.”

Firstly, the facts are not uncertain (although the interpretation certainly is), and the normal science process is open for business, it is just Defra don’t want to let go of data, talk about analytical procedure or publish results because they just want to carry on killing badgers. There never was any hurry, everyone knew that bTB was spread long distance in lorries and the skin test was not clearing herds properly. The reality was a conscious policy choice to carry on ‘trading dirty’ rather than lock down, while blaming the badgers. Enticott continued:

“You need to develop different ways of collecting information and doing science, and people refer to that as post-normal science. Now one of the ways in which you might do that is by kind of accepting that you know different forms of evidence are limited and there are problems with them.”

Well, anyone interested in post-normal science is welcome to Google it. It looks like a bit of a neo-liberal mandate to make it up as you go along. Promoted by an ‘International Society for Ecological Economics’…… While it can be appreciated as a kick-back on the current trend to twist data with dubious modelling, it looks like the kind of rationale that could be used to help reduce the planet to dust. You must wonder if Farming Today’s million listeners were given a clear insight into the concept and its application to bovine TB control.

This must be an example of the BBC at its worst and you have to wonder what Gregory-Kumar and Dimitri Houtart are up to. Do they know what they are doing or are they just two more of John Krebs sticky people (see here)?

Gareth Enticott articulated that farmers hold their own views on the effects of badgers on biodiversity and would be keen to take control of badger numbers for that reason, which is very revealing but not very helpful. Any move towards farmer-led/informed manipulation of the ecosystem remains illegal because of the barbaric treatment of wild and domestic animals by a range of sadistic people. The legal protection of badgers was a move that reflected the wishes of the public in the 1970’s who had witnessed decades of sickening abuse. Animal welfare, like science, progresses by careful process. It marks out some measure of human progress and humility. The role of badgers in the ecosystem would be much better understood if Natural England and DEFRA had done what they promised a High Court Judge they would do in 2018 and monitor the ecological consequences of removing hundreds of thousands of them. But that has been strongly resisted, and substituted with feeble ‘rule of thumb‘ assumptions.

The effectiveness of badger culling as a disease control measure remains unproven, and this is what needs to be communicated to the farming community effectively. Then they can stop wasting their own, as well as public money on a badger culling policy that is expensive, and ultimately has not had, and never will have, any measurable or actual impact on bTB in cattle.

Back in 2012, ‘Bourne’s carrot’ was the phrase developed from the rumoured whisper in a Westminster corridor, to John Bourne, who ran the RBCT. The metaphorical carrot offered killing badgers to help incentivise farmers to test and remove infected cows. We have had a long era of Fake News and ‘winner takes all’ mentality. Can the truth prevail? Not with post-normal science one suspects.

Since 2011, there have been books exposing government incompetence in livestock disease management (1) and the jumping to conclusions by social analysts on the advice of vested interests (2). There has been the cautioning by an exiting Chief Scientist on ‘tribalism’ and its drug-like ability to bring civil servants into conformity (here). The farming and veterinary sectors, alongside vested academia still struggle to come to terms with the reality that badgers are not implicated in any significant spread of Bovine TB in cattle herds. Which players will be the first to accept the wickedness (here) of the situation, and will the media finally spot what is ultimately in the best interest of farmers, cows and badgers? Has post-normal science been hiding in plain site since 2011 – it looks decidedly possible. Will BBC Farming Today and other farming media be able to cope? Probably not on current form – we will see.

A full transcript of the Farming Today piece from 17th July is available here.

(1) Why were you Wicked to Badgers?, May 2022.
Book Review: A History of Uncertainty – Bovine Tuberculosis in Britain 1850 to the Present, Peter J Atkins, 2016, Winchester University Press
(2) Book Review: Vermin, Victims and Disease. April 2020. British Debates over Bovine Tuberculosis and Badgers, by Angela Cassidy

BBC misleading again on badger culling?

Posted on 05/07/2023 by The Badger Crowd

10 years on and the BBC repeats acknowledged errors, misleading the public on badger culling

On 13^th May 2013, the BBC posted an article entitled “How did the Irish badger cull play out?”.

On 1^st June 2013, this report was produced on the impact of the badger cull in Ireland.

Both of these pieces were by BBC Journalist David Gregory-Kumar (DGK). Both these stories, and others beside support the controversial government view that badgers play a significant role in bovine TB control in cattle. Complaints to the BBC by ecologist Tom Langton eventually led to the following BBC ruling:

In this context, the Committee believed that the language used in the article had not been sufficiently precise as it suggested that the badger cull might be a factor in helping control the disease when this was scientifically unproven. It considered that, while the data did show a decline in the number of cattle infected with TB in Ireland, there was no conclusive evidence to show that the badger cull had been categorically responsible for any of this decline and so it was inaccurate to say that, along with other measures, it can help control the disease.

Exactly the same error was repeated by the same journalist in a piece on BBC’s Farming Today on July 4th 2023, 10 years later, this time regarding the English culls. DGK plays a clip in which farmer James Griffiths says “badger culling has undoubtedly made a difference, no one can deny it” DGK follows this by saying “the latest data seems to support this.” The latest data does not support this. The latest data shows bTB falling generally because of cattle measures but the role of badger culling, if any, is not known. Why is DGK doing this we wonder?

DGK forgot to mention that there were more bTB breakdowns in Gloucetreshire pilot 1 area in 2022 than in 2013 when badger culling began.

And again, in ‘Has a decade of badger culling worked?’ published on the same day, the bias continues.

There is no mention of the peer-reviewed paper published last year by Vet Record, “Analysis of the impact of badger culling on bovine tuberculosis in cattle in the high-risk area of England, 2009–2020” by Tom Langton, Mark W. Jones, and Iain McGill. This examination of government data obtained over a wide area and a long time period failed to identify a meaningful effect of badger culling on bTB in English cattle herds.

Defra has failed to publish any analysis that shows that badger culling has produced any disease benefits since its much caveated publication in 2017, which was based on limited data over a limited period of time. DGK says that to show that badger culling is working you would need to “compare areas with a cull to those without and we can’t do that because the culls are now everywhere.” This is not the case. Defra holds all the data for all farms, culled and unculled, and it would be a relatively simple job to extract data from culled farms and compare them with unculled farms using a range of available techniques. They may have already done this. If not why not?

Overall, the bTB disease figures from Wales (where there is virtually no culling) and England (where 210,555+ badgers have been culled) have been very closely aligned. This is, perhaps, the best evidence that badger culling plays no role in bTB control.

Incidentally, Jeff Sim at Staffs Wildlife Trust who was interviewed said that he was vaccinating badgers to reduce bTB in cattle. But in fact such a relationship is not known and is purely speculative. Wales gave up on vaccinating badgers a long time ago.

Finally DGK’s idea that badger cull benefit lasts 4 years is not solid science. The confidence intervals on that old data indicate nothing scientifically significant. The late statistician David Cox who was involved with the RBCT is reported to have said at a conference later that he wished they had presented it as trends rather than as significant as the RBCT confidence intervals were also mostly very large.

The real story is that 6-monthly cattle testing in the High Risk and Edge Area are now starting to work.

Bovine TB and Badgers: a weakened link

Posted on 18/05/2023 by The Badger Crowd

A new article in the May issue of British Wildlife magazine provides an overview of the current state of affairs with badger culling in England, and a welcome update on the science surrounding the issue.

It looks at new work that questions the role that badgers play in bovine TB in cattle, and what the most likely reasons behind the perpetuation of the disease are.

It also looks at the problems that badger culling is likely to be causing to the ecosystem in general, and whether or not this is being adequately monitored or mitigated.

There is a potted history of legal challenges to the badger cull, and a view on the insight and benefits that this difficult work has provided.

It looks at where the current government intends to take the badger culling policy next, and what ‘epidemiological culling’ could mean for our badgers in the future.

You can access a copy of the article here, for a charge of 99p.

“A culture of flawed government veterinary beliefs”

Posted on 10/05/2023 by The Badger Crowd

Independent Report Exposes Unsafe Procedures in Bovine TB Control in English Cattle

A new report on the possible future use of so called ‘epidemiological badger culling’ is being released to MPs and Parliament on 11^th May 2023. Compiled over the last year by a group of independent experts, it looks closely at one specific element of the government’s bovine TB control policy proposals for English cattle herds; that regarding the role of badgers in bTB disease hotspots as they develop.

The report can be accessed HERE.

Government Policy in 2020 had suggested a move away from intensive mass badger culling, that by 2022 killed over 210,000 mostly healthy badgers in England since 2013. This huge programme of wildlife intervention has produced no demonstrable benefit to disease control in cattle, with the government silent on results since 2017.

Authored by experienced and independent researchers, veterinarians, and epidemiologists, it addresses DEFRA’s handling of the disease crisis, and why the 2020 “Next Steps” policy is likely to fail because of incorrect decision making and exaggerated claims made on the back of equivocal research results.

The report claims that the Animal and Plant Health Agency (APHA) and DEFRA, are failing in their duty to provide proper scientific approaches to vital aspects of the heavily publicly funded, long running bovineTB control crisis in England.

Specifically, it exposes the poor rationale behind aspects of the proposal which aims to implement systematic localized elimination in an area of all (100%) of badgers, an approach termed by DEFRA as ‘epidemiological badger culling’. This back-door approach to systematic removal of badgers from farmland where cattle have bTB, is already being trialed in a small number of counties and appears to be planned in more. But it is founded on evidence and beliefs that are not fit for purpose.

The 55 page report with 2 page summary, provides a catalogue of evidence on issues that the authors say have been consistently misrepresented by APHA and the Chief Veterinary Officer. It calls for an immediate rethink, scientifically robust planning and an end to supporting an ill-conceived policy with uncertain science and procedures.

The report is prepared in advance of an anticipated government consultation over its future policy to phase out badger culling.

Report Citation:
Griffiths, L., Griffiths, M., Jones, B., Jones, M., Langton, T.E.S., Rendle, M., Torgerson, P. 2023. A bovine tuberculosis policy conundrum in 2023. On the scientific evidence relating to the Animal and Plant Health Agency/DEFRA policy concept for ‘Epidemiological’ badger culling. An Independent report by researchers and veterinarians to DEFRA and the UK Parliament. APRIL 2023.

Badger cull science failure, denials and confusion

Posted on 14/12/2022 by The Badger Crowd

Since mid-March 2022, Defra has persisted with its claims regarding an independent scientific paper (1) that extensively analysed government data on herd bTB incidence and prevalence in the High Risk Area of England since 2010. The paper compares areas subject to badger culling with those that were not culled in each year of the controversial mass badger culls from 2013-2019.The paper concludes that badger culling has had no measurable benefit in bovine TB disease reduction, and Defra continue to claim that the paper is flawed.

Defra’s and Natural England’s position on this new analysis, including apparently that of the Defra chief scientist (CSA), Gideon Henderson and chief vet (CVO) Christine Middlemiss, seems to be based on their dislike of the statistical approach of the new paper, which differs from Defra’s traditional approach to badger cull evaluation.

Defra/APHA prefer to try to mimic the analytical methods of the Randomised Badger Culling Trial (RBCT). They take cull areas and compare them with different unculled areas, adjusting the data considerably to try to take account of the subtle or sometimes profound differences between compared areas. The new study took a different approach. This study looked at the same (or 97% of) herds over the years of study, so spatial differences were minimized. The analysis used data from herds when they were in unculled areas, and then again when they were in culled areas following their transition from one to the other. This simple approach, dictated by Defra secrecy over cull area locations, brings different strengths and requires less interference with the data. The approach enabled all the data available to be used, not just selected parts of it that might lead to skewed, inaccurate results and conclusions. Just look, for example, at the tangled caveats in the Downs paper from 2019 of just three culled areas and multiple unculled areas.

But Defra are very bold in their criticism : “the analysis was scientifically flawed. It manipulated data in a way that makes it impossible to see the actual effects of badger culling and therefore its conclusions are wrong.” Confident claims, but do they have merit?

Defra’s ‘inappropriate grouping’ claim

Defra’s main objection surrounds the issue of what they call ‘inappropriate grouping’ of data. This is the key point in the letter that they pressed the Veterinary Record journal to publish alongside the shortened printed version of the paper on 18^th March. This was reported on in more detail here.

The problem in Defra’s claim goes beyond the calculation mistakes in their 18 March Vet Record graph, that they subsequently (in May) apologised for, retracted & replaced with results more similar to those in the new paper. Defra’s presented data shows the herd bTB incidence reducing dramatically in the first and second years from cull commencement. This is the same data as used in the new paper, so this is no surprise. But the point is, Defra say that you cannot group data from years one and two of culling with that from the third and later years because the level of decline in years one and two are too small, and this will remove all signs of effect. However, the Defra graphs do not show that the level of decline in years one and two in cull areas is small, and this is the contradiction that they refuse to talk about.

Similarly, the analysis presented by APHA staffer Colin Birch at the IVSEE16 conference in Nova Scotia, Canada earlier this month, (2) Figure 1, does not show that the level of decline in years one and two is small either. It showed sustained decline over 4 years, with a similar level of decline each year right from the start. Yet it provided no comparison of data from the 25% of the HRA that remains unculled. To the audience’s complaint, here, he quite wrongly tried to attribute these declines to badger culling.

*Figure 1. Marginal effects on confirmed bTB incidence rate associated with duration of badger control. Error bars indicate 95% confidence intervals.* From Birch abstract ISVEE 2022

So where did the ‘inappropriate grouping’ comment come from? Well, it is likely that Defra have fallen back on RBCT advice and the 2006 and 2007 (3,4) papers that presented the findings of 10 treatment-control area comparisons of small cull areas. These papers showed large variation in the estimated levels of decline in bTB herd incidence in culling areas, so much so that the confidence intervals (CI) on the presented graph figure 2A (Figure 2.) passed through 0 in most years.

Figure 2. Fig 2 (A) from Donnelly et al. 2007

Estimated average declines were 3.5% in year 1 and 12.8 % in year 2, with 39% in year 3. So, you can see that by using the RBCT as a prior reference source (this the point of reference used in Defra/APHA documents), there could be an expectation that there isn’t much disease reduction in years 1 and 2. However, while the drop may not have been projected to show significance until year 3, the decline trend should be present and visible by the end of year 2.

So looking again at Figure 1 (Birch 2022 abstract), government is now turning this on its head and claiming, in contradiction, that bTB incidence among cattle herds reduced by around 15% per year in each of the first two years of badger culling.

Defra’s unsupported point was also made by Cambridge vet James Wood on Radio 4 Farming Today on 19^th March 2022, but it simply doesn’t stack up. Even if there was just a modest (say 8% average) annual benefit in years 1 and 2, it would still have shown up in the new paper analysis in comparison with unculled areas when using such a huge amount of data, as is possible using the 2016 onwards rolled-out HRA badger culls.

Ridiculously, Defra have previously claimed substantial benefit in years 1 and 2 from the post-2013 cull data, and used this as a basis for claiming badger culling was working. They did this spectacularly in 2017 with the APHA Brunton et al. paper (5) that suggested benefit 32% in Somerset, and 58% benefit in Gloucestershire in the first two years, and again in 2019 with the notorious and heavily caveated Downs et al. paper using data to-2017 (6), that was undone by the 2018 results (7), also published in the veterinary literature, with slightly more claimed benefit (Table 1 below).

Pilot cull Area 2013-2017	Brunton et al. 2017	Downs et al. 2019	Percent est. in Yrs 1 and 2
Gloucestershire 1	58%	66%	88%
Somerset 1	32%	37%	86%

Table 1. Claimed benefit from badger culling in Brunton et al (5) and Downs et al (6).

The Defra Minister and MP’s were told that badger culling was working based on this claimed year 1 and 2 benefit. They told parliament and the public in no uncertain terms that badger culling was working, so they can’t really go back on it now without losing face. James Wood also told Countryfile views that he thought the data showed badger culling was working based on the first two-years of pilot data. So, who is talking in riddles now?

The problem that Defra have, and it is why they have clammed up to the scientists and media, is that if Defra/the CSA/CVO were to communicate beyond the bold claims made in March in Vet Record and on the Defra media blog, they would lose the argument. Defra have written to the first author saying they are not prepared to discuss the matter. Caught, it seems, between their scientific advisors’ comments, legal undertakings to monitor efficacy and policy-mania to keep on badger culling in the face of failure. Even Natural England have gone as far as saying that the situation is unclear “Because these different control measures are being implemented simultaneously, it is difficult to determine the relative contribution each of them is making to disease reduction.”

Insufficient data points?

One argument Government have used to dismiss the validity of the new paper is that it has insufficient data points. While the new study does has few data points, each data point summarises a huge amount of data representing hundreds or thousands of herds, helping to obviate the kind of problems caused by the smaller data sets of APHA studies. The approach is equally or more valid. It did, after all, pass rigorous peer-review (4 reviewers including at least two epidemiological statistical specialists) in a leading veterinary journal.

Basically, Defra lost both arguments, rebutting the paper in short measure, and it is astonishing that CSA Henderson CVO Middlemiss were given this position to hold, let alone to defend. No wonder Middlemiss got muddled on Farming Today over it on 25 May. This problem is now many months old and Defra and Natural England have carried their unsubstantiated criticisms along to justify the licensing of further supplementary culling licences in May and intensive culling licenses from August. This means the killing of tens of thousands more largely healthy badgers over the next four years to add to the roughly 200,000 that have been slaughtered to date. This flies in the face of peer-reviewed science, against which Defra have failed to produce anything credible or comprehensive that is peer-reviewed.

At the Birdfair State of the Earth panel debate on 15th July of this year, the retired badger cull architect Prof Ian Boyd: Chief Scientific Adviser at Defra (2012-2019) commented: “Well, if badger culling isn’t working it shouldn’t be done, that’s absolutely clear. I think there is still an ‘if’ there, but I suspect that the evidence is suggesting it doesn’t work.”

And Prof David Macdonald at Oxford, who chaired the Natural England Scientific Advisory Committee for many years, and who called the Pilot culls an ‘epic fail’ has commented in Chapter 16 of his new Oxford University Press book ‘The Badgers of Wytham Woods’: “ it is hard to see how Middlemiss and Henderson land a knock-out punch on Langton et al’s analysis..”

There is nothing very dramatic or complicated here in Defra’s last stand. Defra has lost the scientific argument. They must surely now face abandoning the failed badger culling policy altogether. They really should talk openly about it.

References

1. Langton TES, Jones MW, McGill I. Analysis of the impact of badger culling on bovine tuberculosis in cattle in the high-risk area of England, 2009–2020. Vet Rec 2022; doi:10.1002/vetr.1384.

2. Birch, C. Prosser, A. and Downs S. An analysis of the impact of badger control on bovine tuberculosis in England. Abstract oral presentation to ISVEE16, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada. 2022.

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

4. Donnelly CA, Wei G, Johnston WT, Cox DR, Woodroffe R, Bourne FJ, Cheeseman CL, Clifton-Hadley RS, Gettinby G, Gilks P, Jenkins HE, Le Fevre AM, McInerney JP, Morrison WI. Impacts of widespread badger culling on cattle tuberculosis: concluding analyses from a large-scale field trial. Int J Infect Dis. 2007 Jul;11(4):300-8. doi: 10.1016/j.ijid.2007.04.001. Epub 2007 Jun 12. PMID: 17566777.

5. Brunton LA, et al. Assessing the effects of the first 2 years of industry-led badger culling in England on the incidence of bovine tuberculosis in cattle in 2013–2015. Ecol Evol. 2017;7:7213–7230. doi: 10.1002/ece3.3254. – DOI – PMC – PubMed.

6. Downs S H, Prosser A, Ashton A, Ashfield S, Brunton L A, Brouwer A, et al. Assessing effects from four years of industry-led badger culling in England on the incidence of bovine tuberculosis in cattle, 2013–2017. 2019. Sci Rep. 2019; 9:14666.
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-019-49957-6. Accessed 16 June 2021

7. Mcgill I, Jones M. Cattle infectivity is driving the bTB epidemic. Vet Record. 2019; 185(22), 699 – 700.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31806839/.

Why Defra’s Badger Vaccination Proposals Risk Perpetuating Further Culling

Posted on 26/05/2022 by The Badger Crowd

Today, the Government has released its plans for a new and simplified licencing system to facilitate badger vaccination. While on the face of it these plans appear to be helpful for those who wish to see an end to the culling of badgers, wildlife campaigners are concerned that they will be used as a smokescreen, to perpetuate further ‘reactive’ culling, and to prevent those who wish to protect badgers from speaking out against the culls.

Indications are that the government aims to allow vaccination in 2 of around 60 areas where badgers will be killed in 2022, with any further areas covering but a small proportion of the designated High Risk Area for bovine TB in cattle in the west of England. There are concerns that there may be restrictions, such as vaccination being promoted only once badger numbers have been decimated, and ‘gagging orders’ placed upon those who sign up to government funding – including that badger protectors would no longer be able to speak out against the badger cull.

The Government’s announcement claims that its badger vaccination plans form part of its long-term strategy to eradicate bovine TB in England by 2038. However, the strategy relies on the assumption that badger culling is working to reduce bovine TB, when current peer-reviewed scientific evidence suggests otherwise.

Government also claims that badger culling is being phased out. The reality is that it continues to be expanded, with 29 supplementary culls authorised yesterday, 25th May. A further ten new intensive badger culling zones are expected to be announced later in the year. The expected kill figure over the next 4 years is up to another 100,000 badgers. The Government wishes to retain the option to continue killing badgers in perpetuity under its proposals for ‘epidemiological culling’ which has, as anticipated also so far failed to reduce bTB herd breakdowns.

There are several reasons why vaccinating badgers might be desirable – principally to prevent bovine TB spilling over from cattle into healthy badger populations and to protect individual badgers from disease. However, there is little evidence to suggest that vaccinating badgers will prevent or reduce bovine TB among cattle – just as with culling, the move to promote the vaccination of badgers is based on the false assumption that badgers are a significant source of TB for cattle, and that badger intervention is necessary to control cattle TB, when the evidence suggests tighter cattle measures are the answer.

There are also good reasons why vaccination of badger populations previously subjected to culling is unlikely to be successful. Badger culling will reduce a population, but there is some evidence that it may increase the prevalence of TB among surviving badgers. Also, surviving badgers may be trap shy making them much more difficult to trap and vaccinate.

Ecologist Tom Langton, one of the authors of a new peer-reviewed study, With vets Mark Jones and Iain McGill has been closely monitoring & challenging government bTB strategy failures, said:

“It is depressing to see the smokescreen approach to Defra’s badger cull policy continuing. There is no evidence that vaccinating badgers, particularly after culling has massacred the population, can hold any benefit to bTB disease eradication in cattle and this was confirmed by the Godfray Review in 2018. Government is trying to normalise badger culling long-term, by initially claiming to the public that it is being phased out, when the plan is to perpetuate the so-called ‘epi-culling’ – the failed reactive culling of old.

“Failed government tactics could see the killing of thousands of badgers per year to 2038 and beyond. It is a disgusting, unethical slaughter of wildlife. It circumnavigates the legal protection of badgers under The Protection of Badgers Act 1992 and does nothing for farmers or cattle. Badger vaccinators should not be induced to mislead farmers into thinking that badger vaccination is known or expected to help control bovine TB in cattle. This is particularly unwelcome as our recently published, extensively peer-reviewed paper using government data* shows how badger culling intervention has failed to influence bovine TB herd breakdowns during the last decade, with the Chief Vet and Scientific Advisor putting out botched data and flawed argument to try to cover their trail.”

Veterinary surgeon Dr Mark Jones, another author of the recent science paper, said:

“From the lockdowns we have all suffered since 2020, we are all only too aware of the movement restrictions, accurate testing and vaccination that were necessary to control Covid 19. These kinds of measures need to be rigorously applied to cattle if bovine TB is to be successfully brought under control. Our recent peer-reviewed research clearly demonstrates that culling badgers is not reducing bovine TB among cattle herds, and while there may be good reasons to vaccinate badgers, it’s highly unlikely that badger vaccination will help control TB in cattle, and the promotion of badger vaccination continues to frame badgers as the culprit. This badger blame game needs to end.”

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Is DIVA bovine TB test a breakthrough?

Posted on 09/09/2020 by The Badger Crowd

Is Defra serious about vaccinating cattle against bTB? If they were, they would need a DIVA test to distinguish between infected & vaccinated animals.

Over £20 million has been invested in research to find an accurate DIVA test over the last 20 years. So is the latest Defra hype about their new specific peptide antigen in a skin-test (called DST) going be the solution to the elimination of bTb, or not? Read the new article by Tom Langton in The Ecologist to find out more.