January 16 - 22 2005 ~ Sir David King is still trying to justify " the scientific rationale for the ruthless culling of livestock" and saying that " Britain had no choice but to kill and burn or bury thousands (sic) of animals"
Independent
"... Sir David provided the scientific rationale for the ruthless culling of livestock on affected farms and ones with common boundaries. It was, and still is, a deeply unpopular decision, especially when some commentators were calling for vaccination rather than slaughter. Even today there are those who say the Government should have used vaccines rather than culling, a strategy vehemently defended by Sir David who insists many people still do not understand why Britain had no choice but to kill and burn or bury thousands of animals. "The option to vaccinate but not to subsequently kill the animals was actually not with us," Sir David says. "The Dutch government used vaccination and we did not; as a result the Dutch government had to slaughter vaccinated animals subsequently before they could begin exporting again."This is both misleading and wrong.
The Dutch government chose to slaughter its vaccinates - against the wishes of the farmers and of the population who protested in their thousands. On the 23 March they were granted suppressive vaccination (where slaughter would follow) in a 2 km area round confirmed outbreaks. But on 3 April they obtained permission for protective vaccination in addition. The farmers, many of them dairy farmers, were led to believe their animals would be allowed to live and thus agreed to the protective vaccination area being much wider than was truly necessary for control of the disease. After vaccination was completed, their Government changed its mind and insisted on slaughtering the animals in a bid to qualify for normal trading after three months. Dr Frits Pluimers CVO of the Netherlands made an impassioned speech at the Brussels conference of 2001, stating that he could not in the future ignore the will of the Dutch people - and that protective vaccination would certainly be used should they be unfortunate enough to have another outbreak; they would never again follow a policy that slaughtered vaccinated animals, proved by tests to be uninfected. ( See also this transcript of an interview in 2001 in which Prof King told the Today Programme " what I was happy to achieve in the FMD outbreak was showing that science in real time could provide a sound basis for policy advice" )
The late Fred Brown called Britain's handling of the disease "a disgrace to humanity". Magnus Linklater spoke for many when he agreed.
