- The familiar sight of slaughter pyres scattered throughout
the British countryside may be harbouring a more sinister threat than just
an offensive stink, warn environmentalists.
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- The Green Party's foot-and-mouth campaign co-ordinator,
Dr Richard Lawson, has cautioned that the cull-and-burn policy could cause
a surge in the spread of BSE and variant Creuzfeldt-Jakob disease (vCJD).
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- Dr Lawson criticised MAFF's recent paper on animal disposal
practices, saying, "The paper used data from incinerators and extrapolated
to pyres. This was wrong. It also neglected to examine the risks to key
groups such as nearby residents and people working on the pyres."
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- He said the robust prions that cause "mad cow disease"
are not destroyed when the animal carcasses are burned. He estimated that
between 1 and 14 million lethal doses of the prions could be released into
areas surrounding the pyres. While there has been criticism about the threat
to rare animal breeds posed by the blanket slaughter policy, there has
been little focus on the long-term consequences on human health.
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- The warning comes at a time when the government is under
mounting pressure to implement a vaccination programme for livestock. A
spokesperson for MAFF said that vaccination was still regarded as a contingency
policy that is ready for delivery but has not yet been authorised.
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- The Green Party has published a set of recommendations
calling for the immediate testing of pyre smoke, soil and vegetation for
the presence of foot-and-mouth and BSE infection, and an end to the burning
policy. It says that while burial is marginally preferable to incineration,
the threat to underground water supplies means that both should be abandoned
in favour of vaccination.
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- Dr David Mackay, a veterinary medicine director for MAFF,
said that the risk of contamination was being blown out of proportion.
He said, "Livestock produce a lot more virus than carcasses put on
a pyre. The virus goes into every tissue but by the time the bone marrow
is broken open in the heat of the pyre, the risk of spread of the virus
is very, very slight."
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- He added that while un-ruptured blisters may present
a risk, there is no conclusive evidence that the mass cremations are a
major source for spreading the virus.
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- The latest figures show that the total number of foot-and-mouth
cases has reached 1,134, with 29 new cases confirmed yesterday (08/04/01).
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