Further Aspects of VPH

Has state-sponsored badger-culling caused very widespread increases in Tb in cattle in GB and Ireland?

I have read that, during a certain ten-year period - and one in large measure overlapping, I believe, the ISG's ten-triplicate, badger-culling trial - the incidence of bovine tuberculosis in Great Britain increased seven-fold.

I have also read that, following the "getting underway" of nation-wide badger-culling in the Republic of Ireland in "1997-98," a 54% increase in the number of tuberculin-reactors slaughtered in Ireland was recorded in 1998 as compared with the 1997 figure, which had been not much different from the figures recorded annually from 1993. This increased level was sustained in 1999, according to my source, the offical figures given me by DAFF, the Irish department of agriculture, when the increase was approximately 55% above the 1997 level. After that, there was some apparent tailing off, but there has meanwhile also been a steady decline in the Irish national herd since about then, too, so that the absolute decline in reactor numbers may conceal a real increase of some 15-20% in the incidence of reactors from 1998 to 2006, for instance.

I have many reasons to suspect a causal link in both cases above - that much of these increases followed as a direct result of the culling operations, the effects of which have been far more widespread than officially/publicly explored, investigated, suspected or acknowledged.

I would be very keen to read others' opinions on this matter, please.

Tom Kelly, MVB, MRCVS, "Inatosha," 965, Luna Vista Drive, Escondido, California 92025, USA. tomkellyvet@gmail.com ph: 001 760 291 70 66