Earth
Changes TV
www.earthchangestv.com
|
Your One Daily Source
for Earth Change News
|
|
To
print: Click
here or
Select File and then Print from your browser's menu
Translate this page automatically. 
| Month
Day,2003 |
|
Army
'Caused Original Foot and Mouth Infection'
|
By
Joe Murphy, Political Editor
Electronic Telegraph
THE
army was last night accused of being the source of the foot and mouth epidemic
after it admitted supplying untreated waste food to the pig farm where the disease
broke out.
In an astonishing development in the search for the epidemic's
origin, The Telegraph has learnt that slops - including waste meat imported from
countries where the disease is rife - were supplied to the farmers at the centre
of the outbreak. The food was taken from the kitchens of Whitburn Training Camp,
near Sunderland, and fed to pigs at Bobby and Ronnie Waugh's farm in Heddon-on-the-Wall,
Northumberland.
A spokesman for the Ministry of Agriculture said last night:
"We cannot comment on the investigation into the source of the outbreak, because
it might prejudice further actions that may have to be taken, including prosecutions."
The
link to the Waughs' farm was admitted by Baroness Symons, the defence minister,
who came under pressure from the Liberal Democrat peer, Lady Miller of Clithorne
Domer. "For more than 25 years, an unwritten agreement has existed between local
Army commanders and the Waugh brothers to dispose of a minimal amount of wet food
waste on an occasional basis," she said in a written answer to Lady Miller last
week.
Bobby Waugh yesterday said that he last collected a lorryload of
wet food slops from Whitburn camp in December. The disease was identified at the
farm on February 22, but was thought by Maff vets to have been present among the
600 pigs for several weeks. Mr Waugh, who is licensed by Maff to process waste
into swill, added: "I collected waste food from Whitburn around 10 times a year."
He claimed that it was processed into swill at a neighbour's farm.
MPs
demanded an immediate inquiry into the affair and accused Maff of smearing the
Chinese restaurant trade to cover up the link to the Army. At the start of the
foot and mouth crisis there had been a furious row when a Maff official alleged
that illegal meat used in Chinese restaurants was probably to blame.
Some
restaurants suffered a 40 per cent drop in trade as a result and demonstrators
marched on the ministry headquarters in London.
The Ministry of Defence
faced calls to stop buying cheap meat for soldiers from countries where foot and
mouth is endemic. More than half of the meat served to soldiers is imported, some
from Brazil and Uruguay where the serotype O strain of foot and mouth - the one
that is ravaging Britain - is endemic.
The admission that imported Army
meat went to the farm at Heddon-on-the-Wall is the first time that a potential
path of infection has been identified, although the MoD claimed yesterday that
its imported meat came from farms free of the disease. Last month, when Maff said
that swill was believed to be the source, it did not disclose the existence of
the contract between the Army and the Waugh brothers. Whitburn camp is a rifle
range used by the Territoral Army and the cadet force for four months a year.
Tim
Yeo, the Tory agriculture spokesman, yesterday described the disclosure of the
Army supplies as "a very serious matter". He added: "I never believed that the
smear against the Chinese restaurants had any foundation and it now appears to
have been an attempt to divert attention away from the real culprit.
This
must be investigated immediately and it cannot wait for the wider inquiry that
will be held after the epidemic has been defeated. We Conservatives were arguing
long before this outbreak that it was wrong for the Ministry of Defence to be
importing so much cheap meat from countries that do not meet the same standards
of farming as the UK."
Lady Miller, the Liberal Democrat agriculture spokesman,
urged the Army to stop importing meat from foot and mouth countries. "The slur
on the Chinese restaurant trade was utterly unfair. We need a stronger regime
of quality checks."
Yesterday, the MoD said it was "sure" that its imports
were not the source of foot and mouth. A spokesman said: "There is no reason to
suspect any MoD establishment. Some meat is imported from Brazil and Uruguay,
but it is from foot and mouth-free regions of those countries and conforms with
British and European regulations."
Fears that humans had become infected
with the foot-and-mouth virus diminished yesterday after a further five people
were cleared by medical tests.
|
|
|