BOVINE TB TESTS
3 May 2008
What would you do if you had been given two tests for the same disease, and one had shown that you were ill while the other showed that you were well?
I bet you would go and get some more tests, to see which of the two was right and which was wrong.
But this is not, it seems, the view taken by our friends in DEFRA (the much loved ministry for agriculture).
In DEFRA, if you had two contradictory test results on your health, you would not conduct a third test. Instead, you would assume immediately that the test that showed you were ill was right.
Surely, I hear you say, some mistake? Can this really be what a DEFRA official would do under these circumstances?
Oh yes.
I know this because that is exactly what this glorious ministry is doing when it comes to cows and bovine TB.
In case you don't believe me, I should just explain that there are two different kinds of tests currently used to determine whether cows are suffering from bovine TB. One is a skin test. The other is called a "gamma-interferon" test.
I certainly cannot pretend to know what the science is behind either of these two tests, and I have even less idea how accurate either of them really is.
But, even without any such scientific knowledge, I can absolutely confidently tell you that one or other of them is definitely wrong - at least sometimes.
For years, farmers in West Dorset have been discovering that the skin test is far from perfect. But we are now faced with much more dramatic proof that somebody has got something wrong - because there are examples of these two different tests being applied to the same herd of cows. In some cases, one of the tests (the so-called "gamma-interferon" test) diagnoses fifty times as many of the cows as having TB than the other (skin) test.
You must admit that this is a fairly significant difference. I mean, if one thermometer showed that fifty times as many people were suffering from a deadly temperature than another thermometer, you really would want to know, wouldn't you, which one of the two was inaccurate?
But no. Not if you were DEFRA. This great department of state now intends to slaughter all the cows which are diagnosed as having TB by the test which is fifty times more sensitive - and is steadfastly refusing, after court action, to carry out another test.
What will make you sick as a duck, dear reader, is that our dearly beloved friends at the ministry are also going to spend just over £1,000 per cow of your money and mine on compensating the farmers who own the cows. And, just in case that isn't enough, the farmers also stand to lose rather more than £500 per cow because the compensation doesn't equal the cost of buying a new cow and doesn't cover the cost of lost milk.
I am currently talking to the minister about this, in the hope that I can persuade him to ask his splendid department what on earth they are up to. I am not holding my breath for a sensible reply.
I bet you would go and get some more tests, to see which of the two was right and which was wrong.
But this is not, it seems, the view taken by our friends in DEFRA (the much loved ministry for agriculture).
In DEFRA, if you had two contradictory test results on your health, you would not conduct a third test. Instead, you would assume immediately that the test that showed you were ill was right.
Surely, I hear you say, some mistake? Can this really be what a DEFRA official would do under these circumstances?
Oh yes.
I know this because that is exactly what this glorious ministry is doing when it comes to cows and bovine TB.
In case you don't believe me, I should just explain that there are two different kinds of tests currently used to determine whether cows are suffering from bovine TB. One is a skin test. The other is called a "gamma-interferon" test.
I certainly cannot pretend to know what the science is behind either of these two tests, and I have even less idea how accurate either of them really is.
But, even without any such scientific knowledge, I can absolutely confidently tell you that one or other of them is definitely wrong - at least sometimes.
For years, farmers in West Dorset have been discovering that the skin test is far from perfect. But we are now faced with much more dramatic proof that somebody has got something wrong - because there are examples of these two different tests being applied to the same herd of cows. In some cases, one of the tests (the so-called "gamma-interferon" test) diagnoses fifty times as many of the cows as having TB than the other (skin) test.
You must admit that this is a fairly significant difference. I mean, if one thermometer showed that fifty times as many people were suffering from a deadly temperature than another thermometer, you really would want to know, wouldn't you, which one of the two was inaccurate?
But no. Not if you were DEFRA. This great department of state now intends to slaughter all the cows which are diagnosed as having TB by the test which is fifty times more sensitive - and is steadfastly refusing, after court action, to carry out another test.
What will make you sick as a duck, dear reader, is that our dearly beloved friends at the ministry are also going to spend just over £1,000 per cow of your money and mine on compensating the farmers who own the cows. And, just in case that isn't enough, the farmers also stand to lose rather more than £500 per cow because the compensation doesn't equal the cost of buying a new cow and doesn't cover the cost of lost milk.
I am currently talking to the minister about this, in the hope that I can persuade him to ask his splendid department what on earth they are up to. I am not holding my breath for a sensible reply.
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