Ministers and Maff spokespersons maintain that immunisation is not possible as one can no longer distinguish between animals which have acquired their immunity from exposure to the disease or via vaccination. This defies rational interpretation. Does this imply that children should no longer get measles jabs, since we can't distinguish between immunity acquired due to disease or injection? Or that since measles has a moderate fatality rate, we should shoot all measles victims and produce a 100% fatality? Where is the science here?
Other science tells us that foot and mouth causes a 40% reduction in production. For how long do these declines persist? How would we know? No animal since 1927 has survived in the UK after infection. We have no information on the response of modern UK breeds to this illness. Nor are there data from the US, since the last outbreak there was in 1929. Where does this information come from, and how relevant is it to the UK?
Without eradication, our tourist industry would suffer. Really? I see little impact on tourism in Greece or Turkey, where the disease is still endemic. The impact on tourism with the current controls is, however, catastrophic.
As a scientist concerned with issues of conservation and animal welfare, I find the government's response hard to interpret as science; rather it appears to be historical, political and economic. Let the debate focus more clearly on the origins of the policy of culling rather than on poorly presented scientific justifications. The "science" itself has not been subject to scrutiny or debate - it is simply the misapplication of science at the speed of a bullet.
Reader in behavioural biology
University of Cambridge
You rightly suggest we should be tough with this outbreak of foot and mouth but the other method of producing a firebreak to stop disease spreading, vaccination, appears not to have been considered by Maff. The sheep in the areas surrounding the Cumbrian, Welsh, Scottish and south-west outbreaks could all be vaccinated for the relevant strain of FMD. This method has been used in European outbreaks and was endorsed in a 1999 EU report by the scientific committee on animals health and welfare. This would mean a mass vaccination of sheep in the areas affected and the continuation of restrictions for 30 days after vaccination. Animals could then be blood-tested to see if they had suffered from foot and mouth before being safely moved for slaughter in the normal way.
Emma Nicholson's livestock e-mart proposal (An online lifeline, March 17) is not a new concept, having operated for a number of years from a mart in Inverurie, north-east Scotland. Although it goes some way to reducing disease transfer risks by addressing the issue of mass contamination at marts, it does not address the huge distances livestock will continue to travel. Only comprehensive plans to re-establish local links from farm gate to consumers' plates will reinvigorate our local food economies and reduce the impact of diseases such as foot and mouth.