Foot and Mouth Disease - Paranoid Times - UK - 2007
* Supposition only *
Read previous articles from 2001
New page currently updating... 12 th September 2007
The following is what was sent to the BBC in 2001 after failing to get any answers from MAFF regarding livestock imports and the pet trade:
The simple fact remains that Foot and Mouth Disease is now rife in the UK and apparently spreading its wings into Ireland and Europe. Alloting blame to one single source in the northeast of England is simply not good enough. For a start, if the UK was supposedly FMD free prior to this outbreak then how did it reach that one farm in the first place?
Farmers cannot be held responsible - the government should be taking responsibility for it's inability to control the black market economies, smuggling, drug running, live imports and the worldwide pet trade. The disease arrived here somehow - possibly even related to the tourist or food industries - it didn't just magically appear.
The possibility also exists that we have not, as previously led to believe, been an FMD free nation. Cases could have been passing through the system undetected or even worse, unreported. Not everyone is as honest as we would like to believe and this might possibly be a prime example of 'seek and ye shall find'.
The media should also be 'treading carefully' as those reporters out there roaming all over the country could pose a potential risk. Why sensationalise the devastating effects of mass culling and loss of livelihoods when we are all fully aware of the devastation, loss of business and the manic aftermath of such an event? Where will the media be then? They'll have moved onto their next story and those indirectly affected will be all but forgotten.
If the government and ministry can't solve this alleged 'mystery' then let the investigative powers of the media lead the way and provide facts that haven't been spun. And personally, I'd start by looking at livestock entering our country from those areas particularly prone to FMD.