Another (short) NYT article on latest foot-and-mouth stuff.
March 14, 2001
Foot-and-Mouth's Harsh Approach
By DONALD G. McNEIL Jr.
PARIS, March 13 — Western European
countries have chosen to deal with
foot-and-mouth disease largely by
slaughter and cremation during rare outbreaks
rather than by inoculating animals against it, as
have many other countries, including some in Eastern Europe.
Most of the time, Western Europe, like the United States, remains disease free by
monitoring imports of animals and meat products. None are allowed from countries that
cannot be certified as disease free. The disadvantage of inoculations is that standard
antibody tests cannot distinguish between the antibodies created in a diseased animal and
antibodies created in an inoculated one. Newer tests can, but they have not been widely
distributed.
Under the authorized approach for an outbreak in Western Europe in the last decade, all
infected animals and others that might have come in contact with them must be killed
and their carcasses burned, veterinary officials say. In a Europe-wide outbreak, the
slaughter would run into hundreds of thousands of animals. Already more than 200,000
have been killed in Britain and France.
The alternative is that Europe's herds of cattle, sheep and pigs — tens of millions of
animals — would become useless commercially. The disease kills young animals and
causes adult ones to lose their appetites, drop weight, give less milk and abort
spontaneously. It is considered unlikely that consumers would buy the meat, even if it is
declared safe.
Some British scientists have argued that killing huge numbers of animals is senseless
because between 80 and 95 percent will survive the disease. Some argue for returning to
the pre-1991 practice in some places in Europe of inoculating herds around quarantined
ones.
Asked about this, Jean Glavany, France's agriculture minister, said recently that French
farming was "so fragile that we cannot take the risk of exposing it to an extra epidemic."
The measures taken, he said, "may seem draconian, but they follow the principle of
prevention." Vaccinations, he said, "are a last step we sadly haven't excluded, but we're
not there yet."
Copyright 2001 The New York Times Company |
