THE BLOODY COST IN DUMFRIES & GALLOWAY

Report By Nick Green, 26^th April 2002

Part of the report in todays Press & Journal, Scotland:-

The 22-strong special committee on foot and mouth, who visited the disease hotspots in Cumbria, Northumberland and Dumfries and Galloway last week, also praised Scottish officials for devolving control to help speed up eradication.

At what cost however? The bullying of farmers and rural dwellers in Dumfries & Galloway exceeded even Cumbria! The massacre of healthy animals, whilst not reaching Cumbrian proportions was staggering. Elaine Murray, Scottish MP, waxed lyrical on what she said was a very efficient performance conducted in the area. Tweety Pie, as Murray is known, also stated that there was no suitable vaccine available last year! She was shot down in flames by veteran vet, Roger Windsor and the Northern Connection who by this stage of proceedings had had enough of the plethora of garbage being emitted from the experts at the recent Gretna EU Meeting!

I will now reproduce the real statistics for Dumfries & Galloway.

Infected Premises

176 Sampled 157 Negative 56 Positive 101 % Pos. 57%

DC Contig.

132 Sampled 1 Negative 1 Positive 0 % Pos. 0%

DC Non-Contig.

1109 Sampled 16 Negative 16 Positive 0 % Pos. 0%

SOS

22 Sampled 22 Negative 22 Positive 0 % Pos. 0%

TOTALS

1439 Sampled 196 Negative 95 Positive 101 % Pos. 7%

So, under the very efficient Dumfries & Galloway FMD Policy, not ONE contiguous/SOS farm tested positive!

Also worth noting, this policy killed out 7.17 farms per. I/P! Oh, nearly forgot, 56 I/P`s were negative! Lets re-calculate!

REAL I/P`s = 101. Contig./SOS/DC = 1319.

Therefore a staggering 13.05 healthy farms were killed per. I/P!

As we now know, this policy was illegal under EU and UK law! We now also know that it was completely ineffectual!

Well then Ms. Murray, or is it Tweety Pie? Lets hear it just one more time for D&G!

Sorry speak up!

Not that impressive really, was it? In fact an absolute Bloody Disaster!