Foot & Mouth

Foot & Mouth

Alternative Veterinary Medicine Centre

Foot and Mouth Disease

FMD

This is a notifiable disease and, therefore, the AVMC does not provide treatment or prevention for FMD, unless special dispensation were to be offered by DEFRA. [N.B.: If/when there is a Foot & Mouth Disease outbreak, the AVMC will have certain restrictions on visits to farm premises, wherever there are cloven-hoofed animals. Check for details pertaining at the time.]

A highly infectious disease of cloven-hoofed species, e.g. cattle, sheep, pigs, goats, camelids (llamas, alpacas etc.), buffalo, reindeer and deer. Affected sheep are less easy to spot. The UK still has a policy of slaughter, rather than vaccination, for control of outbreaks. In 2001, this was a disaster for the countryside, for farming and for welfare and decency. In the much more localised (self-inflicted*) outbreaks of 2007, the slaughter policy easily confined and controlled the outbreaks.

We at the AVMC have repeatedly offered to DEFRA (and MAFF before it), at our own expense, help with clinical research and treatment of Foot and Mouth Disease (FMD), using homeopathy/homeoprophylaxis. A clinical trial would very rapidly show whether homeopathy could be effective. If effective, homeopathy would annihilate the disadvantages of both slaughter and vaccination policies. It would also be incredibly cheap and easy to administer. As yet, polite acknowledgement in 2007 (and complete cold shoulder in 2001) is the only response we have received.

I was planning to write up the disease and the history of the infamous 2001 outbreak, at some point soon. However, the affairs of August 2007 took over, temporarily. ~~Happily, that outbreak now appears to be over, as of the end of August.~~ Apparently, controls were relaxed too soon (hindsight is a marvellous thing) and we underwent a new outbreak, with renewed controls, in September 2007. That secondary outbreak was successfully contained and now appears to be over, and restrictions have been relaxed again (December 2007).

Clinical signs of Foot & Mouth Disease are well detailed at: http://www.defra.gov.uk/footandmouth/about/clinical.htm

Comment at: http://www.squidoo.com/footandmouth

DEFRA updates can be read at: http://www.defra.gov.uk/footandmouth/latest-situation/index.htm

A slaughterman's horrors of 2001 recalled: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/talking_point/6931324.stm

* A bio-security leak at Pirbright laboratories was the source of the outbreak.

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Last modified: September 26, 2009