IT always struck me that those who support the badger cull usually bring forward evidence to support their arguments whilst those who oppose the badger cull (Cull of badgers a “huge sham” 30/10/13) use infantilisation and anthropomorphic representation of animals that might tug on the heart strings but never on the science strings.
For a vaccine to be effective in arresting and preventing infection, you need about 95% to 99% of the population in question to be actively immune to whatever you’re vaccinating against. When the herd immunity level drops below this, you start to see mini-epidemics occurring. This was visible last year in the human population of South Wales, where the MMR scandal had reduced the measles vaccination rate to below 90%.
DEFRA recently did some research on BCG vaccine effectiveness in wild badgers. Their methodology was catch wild badgers, test for already-present TB infection and kill those already infected.
Then they BCG vaccinated all the remaining badgers, and gave them time to develop some immunity.
When challenged with wild-type bovine TB, all these vaccinated badgers were infected. All the BCG vaccine did was slow down the infection spread in about half the vaccinated badgers; it didn't stop them catching the disease except for a very few animals.
That is truly rubbish vaccine. Utterly, completely useless, even if you do catch every last badger in the population, you are not going to achieve the 95% herd immunity needed to stop the TB epidemic. You're not even going to slow it down.
MIKE FRY, Moorland Crescent, Upton, Poole
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