Britain - Thousands of TB cows sold as food by government.

The 'Sunday Times' lead today exposes more scandal at Britain's infamous corrupt agricultural ministry, once called MAFF now called Defra.

Parliament can't say they were not warned. We told Westminster, and OLAF the serious fraud squad of the EU, of civil sevice faking during another epidemic.

As a result, we have been persecuted, defamed, threatened and stalked for the past 13 years.

Quite aside from the human health risks, if they continue operating like this, Defra will destroy British livestock farming.

The full text is available from their site here

June 30th. 2013

THOUSANDS OF TB COWS SOLD AS FOOD

Jonathan Leake

Science Editor

TENS of thousands of diseased cattle…are being sold for human consumption by Defra…

…The raw meat, from around 28,000 diseased animals is banned by most supermarkets…

…However, it is being sold to some caterers and food processors, and finding its way into schools, hospitals and the military, or being processed into products such as pies and pasties…

… Defra, which makes about £10m a year from selling the infected carcasses, says the risk of infection is "extremely low".   It sells the meat without anything to warn processors or consumers that it comes from bTB-infected cattle.

Defra's reassurances contrast with recent warnings by experts…

Antibiotic use on farms a threat to humans?

The Guardian is well on trail of the most serious scandal of the twenty-first century, so far.

DNA will, of course, expose the criminals killing the kids.

They did not expect that. They thought that PR and intimidation of critics and witnesses to Parliament  would protect them.

Guardian article in full  here.

Is the rise in antibiotic use on farms a threat to humans?

Experts and campaigners worry about the use of veterinary antibiotics, but officials say there is little cause for concern.

The use of some of the most potent antibiotics available has surged among British farmers in the last decade, stoking fears that the burgeoning number of factory farms could greatly increase the risk ofantibiotic-resistant strains of bacteria escaping and infecting people.

Medicines to treat meningitis, pneumonia and other serious diseases, called third and fourth generation cephalosporins, increased threefold from 2003-11, while drugs called fluoroquinolones – used for tuberculosis, C difficile, HIV-related infections and others – are up by 50% in the same period.

These antibiotics have been flagged by the World Health Organisation as some of the most important in human medicine, because they are our last line of defence against serious diseases, and are under threat from bacterial strains that are growing more resistant to them.

Their rapidly rising use on farms is a threat to people, experts told the Guardian. Christopher Thomas, professor of molecular genetics at Birmingham University, said: "There a lot of worry about whether we should be using the same antibiotics on a farm as we do in [human] clinics, as the resistance developed on farms could spread to humans. However good your hygiene [on farms], it is inevitable that resistant bacteria bred on the farm will get to humans."

The government does not track the use of veterinary antibiotics in detail – unlike their human counterparts – so it is impossible to tell how manyanimals are being treated, for what diseases, and whether the medicines are being used as a prophylactic or to treat diseases already present. The only data available is the total annual tonnage of antibiotics sold foragriculture, some of which could be left unused, and the dosage of which could vary widely.

Green campaigners are also unhappy that vets are allowed to profit by selling farmers the antibiotics they prescribe, a practice banned in many other countries because of conflicts of interest. The government confirmed there were no plans to change this practice...

Britain urges G8 clamp down on antibiotic resistance

The net is closing fast now.

Classic British veterinary "Blame someone else, preferably innocent."

However, the odd shaft of light shines through the veterinary darkness and associated crime wave.

Britain's corrupt government veterinarians are not going to get away with blaming the Americans.

The Americans are not that daft. DNA tracing will bring the culprits down.

Full Guardian article here


Tuesday 11 June 2013 19.33 BST

UK to urge global clampdown on antibiotics amid public health fears

Ian Sample, Fiona Harvey and Denis Campbell

Britain is to urge the G8 to take action against the spread of drug-resistant microbes as medical and veterinary experts warn that co-ordinated international action is needed to prevent soaring rates of potentially lethal infections turning into a public health catastrophe.

"...Meanwhile, other experts are warning that increasing use of the drugs on farms poses a threat to people.

Recent studies have shown that the overuse of antibiotics in intensive livestock farming could lead to the evolution of strains of dangerous bacteria, including MRSA, E coli and salmonella, that are resistant to some of the strongest antibiotics. An increasing body of evidence shows they can spread from farms to farm workers and their families as well as to consumers through affected meat.

Farms in the UK are not supposed to use antibiotics on routinely, as happens in many non-EU countries, but the Guardian has uncovered clear problems with this regime as the current monitoring of usage does not give government regulators enough information to decide how the drugs are used in practice.

Antibiotics are routinely dumped into animal feed in the US – where 80% of antibiotics are used for animals – and Latin America and other regions because they help animals put on weight faster."

MRSA CC398 (st398) in Pig Farm Households: A Pilot Study

Nothing unexpected here. Keep the children away from pigs!

Sad, isn't it, especially when the presence of MRSA st398 in British pigs has been hidden up for a decade?

Nobody thought it their job to protect the kids.

“…By restricting access to the stables and exposure to pigs, MRSA acquisition by household members could be greatly reduced."

Abstract and full paper here

Dynamic of Livestock-Associated Methicillin-Resistant Staphylococcus aureus CC398 in Pig Farm Households: A Pilot Study Source: Garcia-Graells C et al PLoS One. 2013 May 31;8(5):e65512. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0065512. Print 2013.  Organisation: Laboratoire de Reference MRSA-Staphylocoques, Department of Microbiology, Erasme Hospital-Universite Libre de Bruxelles, Brussels, Belgium.

The aim of this study was to determine the long-term carriage rates and transmission dynamics of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) in pig farmers and their household members. During a 6-month period in 2009-2010, 4 pig farms in Denmark, Belgium, and the Netherlands, respectively, were studied for the presence of MRSA. The proportion of persistent carriers was significantly higher among farmers than among household members (87% vs. 11%) and significantly higher in household members from Belgium compared to those from Denmark and the Netherlands (29% vs. 0% vs. 6%). Determinant analysis of MRSA carriage revealed that pig contact was the most important determinant for MRSA carriage among household members and that the increased MRSA carriage rate observed among household members from Belgium is linked to country-specific differences in pig exposure. These findings demonstrated that even in pig farms with very high carriage rates of MRSA both in livestock and farmers, the risk for household members to acquire MRSA is limited and still depends strongly on pig exposure. By restricting access to the stables and exposure to pigs, MRSA acquisition by household members could be greatly reduced

103 American pig farms confirmed as infected with PEDV

We get that sense of déjà vu.

Perhaps PEDV did originate in China, although it was first identified in England, but that does not say it came from China to the USA.   We have seen nothing firm in any of the many reports and it is a lot more convenient for America's government and trade veterinarians to introduce China in addition to Canada.

Have they DNA'ed the European stain, how similar is that strain?

They do not explain how it got from China to the USA, either. That will be next week's fabrication: something that has nothing to do with veterinarians or live imports.

Canada is the obvious immediate source. Whether it was or not, it still means someone was slack in the USA, it also means someone was slack in Canada. We know they were slack. They did not test.

So, following British standard practice, they will implicate China or seagulls or imaginary illegally imported infected meat, and the protection of the prairies will take second place to veterinary convenience.

"Blame someone else, preferably innocent."

Germplasm, that's live beasts, semen and embryos, carrying disease will continue to flood across international borders on recklessly issued health certificates to the enrichment of those engaged in the trade.

There was no testing done for the trade in germplasm shipped from Europe, where PEDV exists, to Canada or the USA.

The Canadians don't even know if they have PEDV in their herds. They say they haven't, but have not tested for PEDV. They don't know, do they?

The loophole, this time, is obvious and a few thousand miles long.

But we get the usual flood of veterinary PR puff: misleading and intended to glorify and provide an alibi for the shabby, greedy, pompous and incompetent chiefs of the once prestigious profession, inadequately kept in check by lax government and sloppy international agreements.

And the world starts to lose the food basket of the Prairies.

Then one day it will be a zoonotic disease that does kill kids in large numbers, and we will know veterinary reform came too late.

Full porknetwork report here.

PEDV - Collaborative effort will help us find answers

JoAnn Alumbaugh, Editor, Pork Network  |  Updated: 06/05/2013

The hot topic at World Pork Expo this year is Porcine Epidemic Diarrhea Virus (PEDV), a virus that was first identified in a 2400-sow unit on May 29. So far, we haven't heard any concrete numbers on death loss, but we do know 103 sites are confirmed to have the virus, as of today. The breakout by state is as follows: Colorado - 7; Illinois - 2; Michigan - 1; Missouri - 2; Iowa - 62; Indiana - 7; Minnesota - 15; Nebraska - 1; Ohio - 4; Oklahoma - 1; and South Dakota - 1.

... "The complete sequence was 99.6 homologous with the virus in China, so we know that's where it originally came from."

How it got here or how it spread remain a mystery, however ..."

Is swill safe for Pig feed?

An interesting campaign. We are quite convinced that neither the Classical Swine Fever (CSF) in  2000 nor the Foot and Mouth (FMD) 2001 epidemics in Britain came from swill, either from home or imported ingredients despite what was repeatedly claimed.

Too many lobbyists were about fabricating stories that it was the source to believe that. All of those stories were seriously flawed and many of those telling that tale had long records of deception.

Live imports, semen or embryos were never even mentioned publicly, despite that being the most obvious source.

With that in mind, swill should be perfectly safe, but there has been so much veterinary deception it is hard to be absolutely sure, and new diseases that can be carried in food emerge on a regular basis.

It's a shame that an age old practice was banned to protect corrupt veterinarians, but that's what you get when the politicians are afraid to stand up to errant civil servants and their cronies.

Full Huffington Post story here.

Pigs Should Be Fed Leftovers To Cut Waste, Say Campaigners

PA  |  Posted: 05/06/2013 07:32 BST  |  Updated: 05/06/2013 07:32 BST

Leftovers should be put back on the menu for pigs to conserve food supplies, cut waste and farming costs and protect the environment, campaigners are urging.

The Pig Idea campaign wants to bring back the age-old practice of feeding waste food to pigs and aims to encourage more use of legally-allowed food, such as unsold bread, dairy, fruit and vegetables that are unfit for humans, as pig feed.

Feeding food waste to pigs was outlawed in the UK after the foot and mouth crisis of 2001.

Campaigners also want a change to European law to allow food leftovers to be fed to pigs, backed by the introduction of a robust legal framework for its safe processing and use to avoid spreading animal diseases.

Using waste from catering and homes as pig "swill" was banned in the UK in 2001 in the wake of the foot and mouth crisis due to concerns the disease originated on a farm illegally feeding pigs unprocessed restaurant waste. The ban was then extended across Europe...

...But a spokeswoman for the Environment Department said: "Feeding farm animals catering waste, kitchen scraps or meat is prohibited to prevent introduction and spread of diseases, such as foot and mouth,
swine fever and avian flu."

India - Pigs - Double outbreak - Classical Swine Fever and PRRS

An interesting report from India mirroring the situation in Britain in 2000.

We now know that Classical Swine Fever (CSF )was not the only virus circulating at the same time, just as is the case in Mizoram today. CSF took the headlines, but other diseases were present.

Porcine Circovirus was certainly present in 2000, probably PRRS too, and also Foot and Mouth (FMD) if the frequent reports, of it being in Britain much earlier than officially reported. are to be believed.

At the time, we did not believe those reports of FMD being in Britain in 2000 and before the disastrous epidemic in 2001. We do now.

The pigs in Britain were sick from multiple diseases in 2000: they are still sick and under producing.

Mizon News Report here

Classical Swine Fever in Mizoram carries PRRS

By MIZONEWS.NET     |     June 5, 2013     |
 
Aizawl (Mizonews.Net): The Classical Swine Fever spreading in Mizoram in March and April this year was accompanied by Porcine Reproductive and Respiratory Syndrome (PRRS).

According to AH & Vety Department sources the blood sample sent to ICAR Research Complex in Barapani and Selesih College of Veterinary Science proved that Porcine Reproductive and Respiratory Syndrome was also seen in the blood samples.

The department also said the virus Artery-virus was first diagnosed in USA in 1987 and it spread later to South Asian countries including Myanmar.

The department also informed the people that ban on import of pigs and piglets from Myanmar will be necessary for prevention of spread of the disease.

Are farm animals to blame for the rise of superbugs?

The 'Daily Mail' is lighter reading than much, but we don't all want to read only heavy articles in a fast moving world, and the people that read it have votes.

Someone emailed to prompt us to read this.

We wondered what prompted the article, aside from the specific case, until we saw this, in the closing lines.

"But the budget of Britain's industry regulator, the Veterinary Medicines Directorate, for monitoring resistance is being cut heavily."

When caught out, as they will be, the excuse of Britain's veterinary establishment will be, "we did not have enough money…"

You do not pay people failing to do their job - you progressively cut their budget and get someone else to do the work.

The budget cut has not happened yet, but the neglect of duty and monitoring, has been going on for at least thirteen years. They have had thirteen years pay, maybe there will be cause to claw some back following a Royal Commission of Enquiry into veterinary civil service neglect, test faking and attempted witness intimidation.

Full 'Daily Mail' article here:

Are farm animals to blame for the rise of superbugs?

By JEROME BURNE
PUBLISHED: 00:03, 4 June 2013 | UPDATED: 07:46, 4 June 2013

Lettie Head is only 19, but has nearly died twice in the past two years from blood poisoning caused by an anti-biotic-resistant bug she picked up in hospital...