[Andrew K Fletcher (OP)]

Hi Paul

This topic is about how weather affects animal and human physiology, by lowering body temperature, slowing down circulation and leaving both animals and humans susceptible to disease. It’s not about one specific disease. If you would like to add a thread about a specific disease, please feel free to do so.

My research by the way was taken into consideration in the Devon Foot and Mouth Inquiry. MAFF asked me not to pester them during the outbreak saying they found the connection interesting but it was the wrong time to bring it up. (presumably because they were involved in destroying lives along with livestock rather than stopping and listening to what others were saying. Well we saw the destruction these clever people caused to all concerned.

The thread makes a prediction that following the recent floods in certain areas there will be a knock on effect with the onset of virus. Hand foot and mouth disease is something I have studied for a while in that it also appears to follow a similar pattern relating to weather events in other countries.

Ironically it arrives in Wales where some of the worst flooding has occurred. Not London where the two largest airports are and where more people from countries with this virus are likely to arrive, but in Wales where they have a small airport which obviously reduces the risk of imported virus. Yet in Wales we see a boom in Blue Tongue where the whole of Wales is infected and now the arrival of another disease.
Again read the first thread, it predicts this too. Maybe not the exact disease but certainly the arrival of new diseases and if we get more flooding in areas and more very damp humid conditions in the valleys, we should see this virus spreading rapidly.

BC it is obvious where your loyalties are.

[Bored chemist]

"MAFF asked me not to pester them during the outbreak"
Have they got back to you since?
My gues in no for 2 reasons. Firstly they were replaced bt DEFRA in about 2001; they do'n exist. Secondly DEFRA are very capable of doing their own statistcal analysis of the effects of the weather.
Wales is a very agricultural area; London isn't.
You would need to be madder than our cows to think there was going to be an outbreak of FMD in London.


"BC it is obvious where your loyalties are."
I'm glad to hear it.
My loyalties lie with evidence based science. A look at the posts I have made in the past will show that I am not one to leave a non-evinced idea unchallenged, so once again I'm asking you to provide evidence that there is FMD in the UK.

[Bored chemist]

"MAFF asked me not to pester them during the outbreak"
Have they got back to you since?
My guess is "no" for 2 reasons. Firstly they were replaced bt DEFRA in about 2001; they dont exist. Secondly DEFRA are very capable of doing their own statistical analysis of the effects of the weather.
Wales is a very agricultural area; London isn't.
You would need to be madder than our cows to think there was going to be an outbreak of FMD in London.


"BC it is obvious where your loyalties are."
I'm glad to hear it.
My loyalties lie with evidence based science. A look at the posts I have made in the past will show that I am not one to leave a non-evinced idea unchallenged, so once again I'm asking you to provide evidence that there is FMD in the UK.

[Andrew K Fletcher (OP)]

LOL they weren't replaced they just changed the name so the next screw up wouldn't sound so bad.
MAFF DEFRA = same And no, their analysis of the weather relates to which way the wind is blowing,and how the virus might be blown from one area to another. Hardly the same. And definately not what the effect of the weather has on animal physiology.
My post was refering to Hand Foot And Mouth disease in Wales rather than London if you re-read it sorry for confusion.

No they didn't get back to me! What does that have to do with anything?

[Andrew K Fletcher (OP)]

Received reply after 13 Months waiting, from Adrian Sanders MP relating to my paper on foot and mouth disease. Although the reply is concise it does state that DEFRA found it very interesting. Furthermore Adrian has said in a letter that he is willing to help in any way that he can.


DEFRA
Department for Environment,
Food & Rural Affairs
Monday, 13 August 2001

Dear Minister

Thank you for your reply to my paper on the recent and past outbreaks of foot and mouth disease virus.

In your letter dated 3rd of August addressed from Bradley Bates  Private Secretary Your refer to the OIE statistics on FMD outbreaks in Egypt, Israel, Kuwait and Namibia, which as you say were referenced in my paper on page 7. And recommend that my paper may need to be refined to account for these references.

In reply to this I would like to add:

Points relating to your letter:

1.   Cattle and sheep cannot survive the hot dry harsh conditions of a desert anymore than we can, without an ample supply of water! Only a few nomadic tribes manage to exist in such conditions and are able to do so because they have obtained a source of water for themselves and any livestock.

2.   Therefore any intensive livestock programme would undoubtedly require a substantial amount of water. Be it from a river, aquifers or intensive irrigation project utilising desalinated water!

3.   When irrigation takes place in a hot area such as a desert or semi-desert, the huge amount of evaporation, which inevitably arises from the land substantially, increases the localised humidity. It is a well established scientific fact that warm air holds more water than cold air and this is particularly important when applied to the respiratory tract and skin as it is the warmth in our own bodies that facilitates the expiration of evaporated water from the lungs and skin! As is also the case with sheep, cattle, Etc.

4.   Egypt's irrigation programmes are inevitably tied with the supply of water from the River Nile! Which also produces the rich soils used, by the farming community! The Nile as is the case with most rivers is situated in a low-lying area because of the nature of water. Therefore, where river water is used for irrigation, common sense tells us that any such areas would be in close proximity with the main source of water. This is important, because it means that cattle and sheep would be living in high humidity areas! I.E. River valley areas. (you will find reference to river valley areas and the work of Leslie Munro, who conducted extensive statistical analysis of the high incidences of cot-deaths, occurring in river valley areas. His work is now included in the Open Universities Statistics collection, shown on BBC's Open Universities Programmes.)

5.   Where Livestock farming is applied in housed / sheltered areas the problem of localised humidity becomes as paradoxically important as the above mentioned problems with irrigation. Confining large numbers of animals in a building with free access to water would undoubtedly substantially increase the localised humidity, given the evaporation from these animals and the evaporation from urine and excrement. This is precisely why moving animals from open areas to enclosed areas will not resolve the foot and mouth disease problem! Furthermore, in hot climates the problems of increased localised humidity in enclosed conditions would only serve to increase localised humidity. 

6.   It was interesting to read, in the reports from previous and recent outbreaks in the UK, the investigations into whether anglers could be spreading the disease downstream, indicating a possible known rout of infection following river flow. No virus was detected in the rivers, yet the link is there. Could it be that the route the virus takes is directly linked to the location of high humidity in river valley areas? And that the path the virus takes in spreading from one location to another runs juxtapose to the river? As does the rainfall in such areas! For example: Warm humid air is heavier than warm dry air and therefore must follow the familiar distribution/flow of water. This is precisely why mist flows from the sea up through the estuaries and into the river valley's  and vice-versa. And why mist rolls down from the mountains into the valleys.

7.   I would be interested to learn if any epidemiological studies have been conducted to determine a link between the locations of known past and recent confirmed outbreaks of foot and mouth disease virus?  I put it to you that there would be a link between animals grazed in river valley areas and low lying inland and coastal areas!  I will gladly work with DEFRA to see if there is a link here!

8.   How does the culling policy hope to address the fact that all wildlife such as Hibernating hedgehogs, foxes, birds, dear, etc (which are all known carriers), will make sure that all attempts to eradicate foot and mouth disease by culling are futile! You simply cannot send men out into the field and expect them to shoot every single virus dead, anymore than you can expect men to go out in the field and shoot all of the wildlife dead!

9.   What will become clear in the report of the next enquiry is that Britain has not been disease free since the last major outbreaks of the 60's and that there have been many so called contained outbreaks, which have not yet realised publicity! With this in mind, what is the point of the culling policy? Surely it cannot be to maintain Britain's disease free status when reports have already confirmed that Britain has undoubtedly been affected by foot and mouth disease since the 1960's.

The weather in the UK over the summer has been unusually humid, particularly in the coastal areas. Should the weather during the Autumn and Winter Months reflect the weather of the last Autumn and Winter Months, we will see a significant return of the disease! As I stated in my paper, the virus is here to stay! High humidity and damp environmental and meteorological conditions lower the animal's resistance's to infection and this gives rise to outbreaks of foot and mouth disease virus and many other viruses. 
I hope that this addresses your concerns about the link with humidity. Should you require further elaboration on any part of this reply please do let me know.

I have requested a meeting with MAFF in order to discus my findings. As yet, I have not been invited. I now put it to DEFRA that we should meet as soon as possible so that you can fully understand the implications of my research. I will gladly work alongside DEFRA in order to resolve this situation. What do you have to lose by listening to a man who claims to have some answers and wants to help his country to resolve a current and The pending crisis's?


I await your reply with interest and again thank you for responding to my paper on Foot and Mouth Disease.

Respectfully yours

Andrew K Fletcher

[Bored chemist]

Presumably he has noticed
1 a wet Summer
2 No outbreak
 and come to the conclusion that wet Summer =/= FMD.

He may also have seen the results of direct testing of various wild animals for various diseases which the governement undertakes as a regular precaution which show the virus isn't here. Perhaps he just checked that we export meat to the EU. They wouldn't take it if it failed the tests for FMD.
Anyway, I'm sure we are all still waiting for your evidence that there is FMD in the UK but we haven't noticed.

[Andrew K Fletcher (OP)]

Indeed we will have to wait for the right climatic conditions and observe whether F&M is evident. Til then we can look for other indicative links to pathogens and weather. And as this is not related to the UK but related to weather and disease we can look to other countries for the evidence needed.

[Bored chemist]

"And as this is not related to the UK "
Have you read the title you gave this thread?
Anyway- still no evidence then. Any reasonable refutation of the evidence for its absense?
Let us know if this changes.

[Andrew K Fletcher (OP)]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/earthcomment/3460606/Cattle-not-badgers-are-reservoir-of-bovine-TB.html
Cattle, not badgers, are reservoir of bovine TB
Bovine TB is not a threat to the health of Britain's badgers but farming unions are, says Trevor Lawson from the Badger Trust.
 

Last Updated: 6:36PM GMT 14 Nov 2008
Badger - Cattle, not badgers, are reservoir of bovine TB
Badger: bovine TB is a growing problem in Britain Photo: JANE MINGAY

Of the 10,000 badgers killed in TB hotspots during the recent badger culling trial, less than two per cent were significantly lesioned with bovine TB.

But the trial discovered something more significant.

When TB testing was suspended during foot and mouth disease, the disease spread within and between herds. Then, it increased in badgers. When TB testing in cattle was resumed, TB declined in badgers a few months later.

The implication is clear: cattle, not badgers, are the reservoir of bovine TB.

The leading scientists who studied the disease concluded that badger culling could make "no meaningful contribution" to bovine TB control. Their work was published in the world's leading scientific journals.

But this was rather embarrassing for Britain's cattle vets. For 30 years, they had staked their professional reputations on blaming badgers.

[Bored chemist]

So, still wrong about FMD then?

[Bored chemist]

Well, after a fairly wet Summer, Autumn and Winter, we have now reached Spring.
Either Andrew is wrong about the effect of the weather or he was wrong about the virus being present in the UK.

To be fair, unlike some stuff on this site, at least Andrew's point was scientific; it was easy to test it. You just had to wait till Summer was over and see if there was an outbreak of FMD.
For those of you who have forgotten this was his prediction "I predict that Foot and Mouth Disease will plague the farming industry once again due to this unusually wet summer.".
It has now been tested and found not to be true.

[simonm]

Hi

With regard to one of the points dealing with the disposal of the carcasses, The land where 250,000 of the animals that were disposed off is being monitored see: newbielink:http://www.cl-voelcker.com/case%20study/tow%20law.asp [nonactive].

I wonder how long this monitoring will be necessary?

[Bored chemist]

Probably not very long. Viruses don't generally last well in the environment.
Incidentally, it's just gone midsummer and we still seem not to have a plague of F+M. This sugests that ther established science was correct and Andrew was mistaken.

Edit
Summer's gone.

[Bored chemist]

Probably not very long. Viruses don't generally last well in the environment.
Incidentally, it's just gone midsummer and we still seem not to have a plague of F+M. This sugests that ther established science was correct and Andrew was mistaken.

Edit
Summer's gone.

My word, it has been a long time now hasn't it.
And not a sign of Andrew's predicted F+M outbreak.

[CliffordK]

BC...
And, I thought you were the one who would complain about resurrecting old long dead threads!!!!!

Anyway, I would agree that elimination of diseases requires the elimination of the reservoirs.  That is why hoof & mouth disease is treated so aggressively. 

If there is no reservoir, there is no disease.

Diseases with ground or wild animal reservoirs are much harder to eliminate.  Likewise, a disease like chickenpox may take a century to wipe out even with aggressive vaccinations due to its long dormant phase.

[Andrew K Fletcher (OP)]

I have to concede that the foot and mouth disease virus is not present in the UK in either wildlife or farm stock. Had it have been we should have seen evidence given the constant deluge we have had over the year.