We believe that the majority of recent
animal disease outbreaks in Britain resulted from the reckless legal importation of
infected germplasm, ie live beasts, semen or embryos.
Reuters has just
delivered some pretty compelling material on the likelihood that the outbreaks
of PEDV in the USA came from, allegedly PEDV clean, Canada.
PEDV is a nasty economically damaging pig virus, in full: Porcine Epidemic Diarrhea Virus or (Diarrhoea)
If it was not from
Canada, from where did it come?
It's all there: the increasing numbers of live movements
over borders, the lack of testing, the mention of BSE, Swine Flu, even the
original discovery of PEDV in Britain.
Now a bad situation is developing quickly and the frantic
search for the source under way.
Many will remember the writer's dash to the USA to warn them of the gathering
storm and his allegations to the House of Commons and OLAF, the serious Fraud
Squad of the EU, over test faking in Britain by senior veterinary civil
servants during the Classical Swine Fever epidemic and the massive cover-up.
The USA, and others, have problems too, but it was Britain's
pompous unchecked veterinary incompetents that led the race to the bottom.
Anyway, much of the story, and a thirteen year campaign for
veterinary reform has been faithfully tracked on here on this blog and on the newsgroup
uk.business.agriculture.
Here is a brilliant Reuters report on the latest veterinary
disaster.
Find Reuter's report here