Tomorrow, our MPs will have the opportunity to vote in an Opposition Day debate on government plans for a badger cull. It is almost unheard of for the government to lose an opposition day motion, the last one being on settlement rights for veteran Gurkhas in 2009 – the first time since 1978. I have it on good authority that our parliamentary party has made up its mind that badgers are to be culled in the UK.
I would like to make a few things clear before I get into the meat of this post. Firstly, I’m not an ‘animal lover’ and I’ve never seen a badger. I rarely go for country walks and generally I prefer a city break when I go away on holiday. I have never campaigned for animal rights. I am, however, a scientist and a fan of evidenced-based policy. It is from this angle that I have followed the debate over the last five or six years on the question of how best to tackle bovine TB (bTB). To cull or not to cull.
The debate was first brought to my attention when a similar question was being asked in Wales. My local councillor in my home town of Swansea, Peter Black – also one of our Liberal Democrat Welsh Assembly Members – is a prolific (and very good) blogger. The question of whether or not culling badgers should be used in Wales to tackle bTB was a hot topic on Peter’s blog, with one of his frustrations related to both farmers and politicians refusing to look at the evidence when calling for a cull. This interested me due to my keenness on evidenced based policy and my role on the executive committee of ALDES, the Association of Lib Dem Engineers and Scientists. The Welsh Assembly, by the way, opted NOT to cull but to concentrate more on cattle control measures and to hold back for the development of a TB vaccine for badgers which is currently in development.
Following the announcement that the government was to consult on (and pursue) a badger cull in England, there has been a very public debate about the proposals with a lot of talk about the science behind culling and, with the greatest emphasis on how culling is a bad idea. The pro-cull lobby, however, also provides scientific evidence to support its position. Both sides accuse the other of cherry picking evidence. I decided to try and take an unbiased look at the evidence on both sides of the argument to see if I could figure out on which side of the debate I would land, reporting my findings back to the ALDES committee.
Following my reading, I wrote an article for the ALDES website which I will recommend you read here. To summarise the key points of my article, badgers do increase the spread of bTB and culling badgers does reduce bTB rates – by a relatively small amount – under certain strict geographical conditions. However, these conditions are almost impossible to replicate across the country and, due to perturbation effects, culling will increase rates of bTB if used in most areas. In conclusion, culling of badgers doesn’t make sense as a general policy and any results of the badger cull about to start in some English counties cannot be replicated in the rest of the country. The trial as proposed is unscientific, unlike previous experiments in the UK which showed culling worsens bTB rate.
I joined the party just before the last general election, largely due to some of the great things Evan Harris said about the Liberal Democrats and evidence based policy. In fact, our official party position on the cull is to use an evidence based approach. The position, however, seems to ignore the large body of evidence in place, justifying the cull on the basis of collecting further evidence.
I hope that at least some of our parliamentarians vote against a cull tomorrow. I don’t hold much hope that the cull will be prevented by this motion, however, and I am disappointed that once again our parliamentary party has failed to properly assess the evidence and vote accordingly.
On that note, I would like to offer the services of ALDES to our parliamentarians and politicians at all levels in the party. ALDES is an amazing resource, drawing on a massive wealth of scientific and engineering expertise from the party membership. There are experts in the association from almost every discipline – from medicine and biological science, through to energy, natural resources and even space! Do get in touch via our website if you have any questions and we can put you in touch with a relevant expert.
* Dr Craig Brown is a member of the executive committee of ALDES, the Association of Liberal Democrat Engineers and Scientists and a Lib Dem activist in Haringey, North London.
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14 Comments
Well said.
I recommend listening to the recent Radio 4 interview with Lord John Krebs – it is available on iPlayer: http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b01sj1sp/The_Life_Scientific_Lord_John_Krebs/
In a few well chosen and hard evidence based sentences, he drives a horse and cart through the ‘benefits’ the trial supporters are claiming.
Small correction: there is a vaccine for badgers available now. It is being administered to badgers in Pembrokeshire now by capturing them and injecting them. There is also a vaccine available for cows as well by the way but requires a change of European rules before it can be used. What is under development is a digestible vaccine that will be easier and cheaper to administer.
Cheers for the update, Peter!
The top prize is an oral vaccine for badgers which to my knowledge is still under development. The assessment carried out by DEFRA said that it was uneconomical to trap and manually vaccinate badgers which is why they have opted for the shoot-on-sight method instead. Once the oral vaccine is available they will have to reassess this. Hopefully it’s just around the corner.
Thanks for the link to the Krebbs interview, too, Roland. Look forward to listening to it.
How nice it is to read such a well presented view. I think we should take up the offer of ALDES with grateful thanks. Whatever policy decisions are eventually made, it would be nice to know that evidence was at least considered. Thanks Craig.
Thanks for the article. Thanks specially Roland for the radio clip … this should be mandatory listening for all our MPs. How can they vote for such a cruel, wasteful and ultimately highly cost-ineffective policy (budget culling in trial areas)?
Thanks for the comment John. To a certain extent, it comes down to a lack of scientific literacy on the part of parliamentarians and having to go with advice from third parties who as we know will often have an agenda. There are reams of documents using science justifying a cull. The DEFRA report in response to the consultation cherry picks statements from publications to support a cull when the final conclusions of the very same journal articles state clearly that a cull should not form part of a sensible bTB strategy. Parliamentarians – our whips in particular – trust such reports to provide them with correct information on which to base their judgement.
Firstly, it would be great to have more scientific parliamentarians who can spot the difference between scientific evidence and cherry picked evidence (a la Julian Huppert). Secondly, where our MPs do not have such skills themselves, it would be great if they would use a resource such as ALDES to provide such information. Our Lib Dem MPs can be confident that they will get a view from ALDES which is primarily expert and scientific but also Liberal Democrat.
Great update on the badger cull evidence, Craig, and thanks for the Krebs link Roland: for other readers, the discussion of bTB begins just before the 20 minute mark.
Let me also reiterate Craig’s invitation to interested Lib Dems to join Aldes: we are currently at the start of a process of discussing science and engineering contributions to the 2015 party manifesto and are keen to hear the views of the party on these subjects. Membership is open to all Lib Dems with an interest in science and engineering, not just those with a formal academic or professional background and you can join online via our website at aldes.org.uk.
Ed Long
Online Editor, aldes.org.uk
As I understand it, the badger culls in the currently approved two areas of England are only designed to examine the efficiency and welfare issues related to the cull itself, and not to any effect on the incidence of bovine TB in the cattle herds in those areas. This seems a wasted opportunity. Furthermore, the badger is not the only potential resevoir for bTB – for example, in the US deer carry this disease (Schmitt et al, Annals NY Acad Sci vol 969 pp262-268 [2002]). Is there any evidence that bTB spread by deer is a significant factor in the UK? It seems to me that more research needs to be done into the spread of the disease before embarking on an expensive and, the Krebs trial evidence suggests, only marginally effective badger cull.
It is good to see sensible evidence based ideas being supported. I thought we had been through the age of enlightenment already.
Comments on the scientific understanding of many parliamentarians are worrying. I am more concerned that they are unable to do a good job scrutinising legislation than the fuss about cash for questions and expenses. Allow disasterous national policies will cost far more than the dodgy expenses they have claimed!
The expertise within ALDES should be a great asset to the party. Eyecare is my area of specialist knowledge.
In a recent article published in the Independent, the UK’s Chief Vet warned that without badger culling, there could be a serious threat to human health by increasing levels of human tuberculosis caused by the bacteria causing bovine tuberculosis. This statement is not supported by the evidence. Whilst bovine tuberculosis is a zoonosis (a disease that can be transmitted from animals to man), the way in which it is transmitted is virtually entirely food borne through milk. Providing milk is pasteurized before consumption there is a very low risk of transmission to humans, regardless of the amount of disease in cattle, wildlife or indeed cats and dogs. This is well recognised which is why there are no restrictions placed on infected farms in supplying (pasteurized) milk. Infected cattle which are slaughtered are not condemned as unfit for human consumption and indeed enter the human food chain. Even in the 1930s when perhaps 2000 or more people were dying each year of bovine tuberculosis, the primary lesion in humans was nearly always associated with the gastrointestinal tract due to the consumption of raw milk. Infection by other means was extremely rare. This was when perhaps 40% of British dairy cattle were infected with bovine tuberculosis. The high incidence of disease in humans was the original motivation for the control of tuberculosis in cattle, but the near universal pasteurization of milk has solved the public health problem. The latest figures in the UK indicate 8314 cases of human tuberculosis in 2011, of which just 37 were caused by bovine tuberculosis Even with the massive epidemic in cattle, virtually all human cases of bovine tuberculosis are either in old people, who were infected when young before universal pasteurization of milk, or in immigrants. And the diagnostic test used for surveillance in cattle only detects approximately 80% of cases. Thus there are many thousands of infected cattle in the UK, not being detected, but clearly not infecting humans.
Due partly to the inability to eliminate this disease from cattle in the UK and EU legislation that demands an elimination programme, the original aims of the programme have been lost. Effectively, the UK tax payer is spending £100 million per year on an animal health issue. This compares to approximately £40 million per year the NHS spends on treating the 8000 cases of human tuberculosis. Whilst farmers are rightly concerned about the impact of bovine tuberculosis on their enterprises, it is not the direct costs of the disease that are causing the problem (i.e. reduced productivity due to diseased animals), but the legal obligation of having a bovine tuberculosis control programme. As it is the programme, not the disease that is the root cause of the problem it is essentially a man made issue. DEFRA’s Chief Scientific Officer asks those that oppose the cull to suggest an alternative. The UK Government should negotiate with their EU partners to obtain a derogation allowing a different approach that does not entail the unnecessary slaughter tens of thousands of cattle, farming enterprises being severely restricted and the pointless destruction of British wildlife. Vaccination of cattle, presently illegal, has an efficacy of approximately 60% whilst badger culling has an estimated efficacy of just 16%.
Quick update on the vote this afternoon.
The badger cull WILL go ahead as expected but the vote was very close.
299 to 250 > just a 49 majority.
Very unfortunate result.
Shocked at so many Lib Dem MPs backing this barbaric and unscientific slaughter. I voted Lib Dem at every election since I could vote, partly because they based their policies on evidence. If my Lib Dem MP voted for this I will be appalled. What on earth is going on?
Very good article and as a chemical engineer I am delighted that a group like the Association of Lib Dem Engineers & Scientists exists to inform debate in the party.
On the subject of badger culling and scientific evidence, Ben Goldacre has an excellent piece: http://www.badscience.net/2013/06/badger-badger-badger-badger-cull-badger-badger-badger-trial/.
Also, for fans of badgers, Flash Gordon, Queen and Brian Blessed, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EllYgcWmcAY is brilliant and is the reason why I can’t stop humming, “Badger badger badger …” this afternoon.