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Foot and mouth (comment and pics) (1)

Dan Anchorman | 01.04.2001 19:04

Picture of a ewe on her way to being slaughtered in Cumbria.

Foot and mouth (comment and pics) (1)
Foot and mouth (comment and pics) (1)


This poor animal is on her way to being slaughtered - she isn't actually infected but lives within an area deemed to be contagious. So, what would have happened if she had F&M? She would have taken a few weeks to recover from what vets describe as "animal flu" and that's the end of it.

BBC radio 4 recently stated that the main animals directly effected by the illness are pigs - they have a 5% fatality rate and this is the worst rate among all livestock.

The two key factors poutlined for the mass killing were that fact that allowing animals to convelesce would make the animals "economically unproductive" while also removing the UK's current 'disease free' status (try telling someone with CJD that).

Yes, apparently the UK has a massive live stud export industry with pigs being one of the most lucrative breeding animals for export.

What has been interestingly absent from every layer of debate - with the exception of a few columnists in some of the more 'enlightened' broadsheets - has been the failure to look at what role industrialisation of agriculture has played in all this.

Localised production, sales and consumption of farm-produce makes sense at various levels and allows disease to be isolated more effectively and quickly. But ... are we really going to get organic, localised, open-minded farming methods while big corporations run the show? Not likely! Revolution may be a solution.

Peace, y'all

Dan Anchorman

Comments

Hide the following 5 comments

Satan's litttle helpers

02.04.2001 11:56

There’s not a lot more to say about this , but whatever is the main focus in the media spotlight, IS the preconceived agenda of the ‘Secret Hand’ to further the aims of the NWO. This becomes blatantly obvious whenever Prince Charles sticks his oar in, to cover his Masonic tracks.


Dan Rathernot


I don't get it

02.04.2001 15:12

What I cannot fathom is where the animal rights protesters are. No one, from the RSPCA to the ALF has even moved a finger to stop this. Although, i had heard a rumour the ALF was involved in importing the disease, not to mention the fact it is known to be held and has been manipulated in 2 military bases in the uk....

but even so i would have thought at least one animal lib movement might have bothered to look in a vetinary dictionary to discover the disease is no plague, its comparable to flu in animals and only produces a mild infection in humans. (its transmitted through milk btw, which i notice hasn't been banned. it cannot be transmitted through meat, according to MAFFs own scientific studies)

Although the govt. are saying this is a new strain, never seen before (except by secret military scientists i suppose)
and is from asia. Naturally the disease wasn't caught from globetrotting UK sheep regularly mingling with asian sheep.

No, apparently a chinese restuarant gave some infected leftovers to some pigs in pigswill. since the govt. are always right, they naturally didn't think it would be the slops from the local army base, who happened also to be giving leftovers to the same farmer. and the fact that the meat was from argentina where they have got, oh, what a surprise, foot and mouth.

a lot of this could be as much hearsay and rumour as the govts own line, but ultimately it boils down to 2 things

either: this is a total overreaction, through nievety or stupidity

or: our animals have picked up a *really* bad virus probably linked to the fact they've been to more countries than the average british holidaymaker

either way, the whole thing stinks.

townie
mail e-mail: cant_cope@hotmail.com


to 'townie' (really!)

02.04.2001 17:55

Yes, that's exactly wht I was wondering! WHERE ARE the animal rights protesters when they really need to act ? Ive never been that much of an animal rights type, but the scale of the massacre is a nightmare !

Vince Eremos


FMD & ANIMAL RIGHTS

05.04.2001 21:03

Why haven't animal rights people been demonstrating at the FMD-caused slaughter of livestock? In the first place, the media don't give AR demos much space unless there is some ugly drama going on. In the second place, where AR people HAVE demonstrated (but not at that time against livestock killing)they have been surrounded left right and centre by police in cars with police dogs,EGUs, helicopters . . . and theARs were told they couldn't stand here, or go down that path, or that road, or even stand on one side of the road, due, as the police said, to 'foot&mouthdisease'; this was even though the police themselves were marching and trampling about all over the very places they told ARs not to enter; neither did those same police ever wash their vehicles, dogs or boots in disinfectant. In the third place, having seen how animals are killed in slaughterhouses, many ARs may think that for an animal to 'merely' get shot in the head in a rural shed (no transport trauma, no market trauma, no slaughterhouse trauma) is a relatively heavenly way for an animal to go, if it has to - and all this livestock has to, this year, next year . . . In the fourth place, many of these animals were destined for long cruel horrendous transport overseas (Greece, Italy, Middle East . . .), to be barbarically killed; they've missed that 'delight'. In the fifth place, organisations like Compassion in World Farming and Animal Aid, organic farmers and other individuals, have been bombarding MAFF and Tony Blair yet again (as they have done for at least 30 years) for the umpteenth time entreating MAFF, the government, the NFU and farmers directly, and the public, to urge a ban on intensive farming. There have been some remarkable fast positive responses to these pleas on the continent of Europe, (after BSE and repeated swine fever bouts), hence some countries there have a higher number of kinder organic farms than we in the UK. Our government, and particularly MAFF, have been strong on words, but zilch on action. If they do nothing this time round because they fear the agribusinesses, then we may expect more livestock and human diseases. Don't forget, food poisoning levels are rising year on year - E coli, salmonella, listeria; we have the inertia of governments, the public (who will apparently will eat anything so long as it's cheap and fried, and don't care where the food comes from or how it's produced?)and the farmers and agribusinesses themselves, who can't be bothered to change the way the animals they eat are treated.
ARs have demonstrated time and time again outside the NFU & MAFF for years against intensive farming, slaughterhouse procecure, and live animal export. Outside MAFF there has been an AR vigil every single week for at least 3 years.

ZoeViva
mail e-mail: zoeviva@carn-age.org.uk
- Homepage: http://www.carn-age.org.uk