Member News
Skin tests on cattle for bovine tuberculosis (TB) "are not working", a Conservative peer has said.
During oral questions, Lord Dixon-Smith, a shadow environment minister in opposition and farm owner, said that current measures are "not satisfactory" as a although tests can detect TB within a herd, they do not correctly identify all of the infected animals.
He told peers: "The existing regime is not satisfactory and there are managerial consequences for biosecurity on the farm.
"Although this programme was very successful half a century ago, it is not working now. We are effectively burning pound notes."
For the government, environment minister Lord Henley said that although using the current test "some cattle are missed", it is currently "the best one to use".
Lord Livsey of Talgarth asked the government if "blood testing" could be used as an alternative to skin testing.
He asked: "Will he consider a Defra policy of blood testing as well as skin testing in bovine TB hot spots, particularly where the badger population is considerable?"
Lord Henley responded that he "shall certainly look at whether it is possible to use that test solely, but, as I said earlier, for the moment, we believe that the comparative tests that we are using are possibly the best."
Shadow environment minister Baroness Quin called for assurance that the department will continue to strong support vaccination and the farmers who wish to use it, given that defra had "shelved its own vaccination project".
The minister replied that the government will "continue to work on vaccine development and encourage others to do so as well".
Article Comments
Where there is no wildlife reservoir the comparative skin test is the best available to eradicate the disease.
Where there is a wildlife reservoir and there is continuing risk of re-infection, repeated skin testing of cattle works best to pick up the disease over time so that they can be identified and removed.
The gamma interferon blood test is more sensitive and in conjunction with the skin test can help identify more infected animals. But it also results in more false positive results and therefore the slaughter of a proportion of healthy uninfected animals.
British Veterinary Association
23rd Jul 2010 at 2:05 pm
Have your say...
Please enter your comments below.