The respected journal Veterinary Record included two short News and Reports articles on government bovine TB news last Friday 15th March, just a day after their consultation to ‘evolve badger cull policy’ was announced.
The first covered a story we have written about in our blog (here) regarding the downsizing of the government bTB partnership. Member Dick Sibley was effectively sacked from the partnership, and VR comments:
“Sibley said he had been sacked after challenging Defra on the effectiveness of its testing and eradication programme, particularly the south west of England where he is based. He said the downsizing of the partnership would result in a decrease in challenge and debate.”
Another member who was removed from the partnership commented “They don’t want the partnership to come up with its own ideas, they want Defra’s ideas to be rubber-stamped by the partnership.”
The short article ends with the usual Defra quote about what a serious disease bovine TB is and what a difficult and intractable animal health challenge. It concludes “…… we are now able to move on to the next phase, including wider badger vaccination, alongside improved cattle testing, and work towards deployment of a cattle vaccine.” There is no mention of badger culling in the statement by Defra’s spokesman. This is despite the fact that is was published a day after the consultation was launched, a consultation in which Defra’s outlines its intention to continue an adapted, unrestricted, and less controlled form of intensive culling. They fail to mention it at all.
The second article “APHA study looks at the effect of badger culling on bTB”, is a short report on the newly published paper by APHA staff member Colin Birch and colleagues. The claims of the paper are reported, but notably, James Wood was quoted as saying “the badger control programme has been associated with increased use of more stringent cattle controls, including the use of gamma interferon assay in infected herds and promotion of biosecurity, which means that the attribution of the full effect to a single intervention is not possible.”
In fact that should be, the attribution of any effect to a single intervention is not possible. The reality is that Birch et al 2024 on which the consultation rests heavily, fails to prove any benefit attribution to badger culling at all. The Defra Minister Lord Douglas-Miller and Secretary of State Steve Barclay have, as a result of APHA’s failings, misled the public. They need to withdraw the consultation immediately.