Incautious Optimism?
2001.04.04

The "cautious optimism" on food and mouth disease, expressed by Professor David King, the government's chief scientist, is entirely misplaced. It is based on the over-interpretation of figures on the incidence of the disease, which are at best unreliable and, at worst, positively misleading. To rely on their analyses as sufficient justification for "avoiding" vaccination is irresponsible. 

There are many important reasons why the figures could be unreliable. For instance: 

The starting date of the epidemic:
if the disease started earlier than the official date, some initial case reports may be "bunched" giving a steeper "lift-off" curve than is actually the case. Yet it is against this initial curve that the subsequent activity is being measured.

The resources applied to tracing:
initially there were only 217 vets working on the epidemic, with only a limited number actually on case finding. Currently, there are over 1400. Therefore, the case (outbreak) reports could be a reflection on the resources allocated to finding them and not the actual incidence of the disease.

Changing pattern of the reports:
initially the bulk of reports came from tracing operations. A greater proportion now appear to be "farmer reported", which means that efforts to trace cases is diminished, notwithstanding increased overall resources. 

The healthy animal cull:
although treated for statistical purposes as "healthy" animals, an unknown proportion of these animals are likely to be infected. Since these animals are not being tested - and the infection in sheep is often inapparent - the overall outbreak figures are likely to be under-reported. 

Delayed tracing, recovered cases:
the disease has now been in progress long enough for there to have been infected flocks infected early in the epidemic which have been missed and have since recovered sufficiently for signs of disease to be no longer apparent. These, by definition, will not be included in the figures. 

Lack of random testing, particularly of wildlife:
detection activities has been confined largely to contact tracing and farmer reports. There has been no significant (or any) programme of testing animals at random, to see how far the infection has spread. 

Disincentives to reporting the disease:
inclusion of neighbours' animals in "voluntary" cull and the prohibition on restocking for six months. · Diversion of veterinary resources into the "welfare slaughter scheme" and the "healthy" animal cull, making (recently) fewer vets available for disease tracing. 

Any of these factors, singly, could make an important difference to the accuracy and validity of the figures. Taken in combination, they could have introduced massive distortions. 

In the first instance, the epidemic almost certainly started earlier than has been accepted which means that there was much more disease in the animal (mainly sheep) population than has been acknowledged. Therefore, the key determinant in the early stages was not the incidence of disease but the number of available. Therefore, the early part of the growth curve could measure not the growth of the disease - which could be substantially greater than indicated - but the progressive increase in resources available to track it. 

However, this possible distorting effect is unlikely to be uniform throughout the curve. As more "farmer reported" cases start to come in, veterinary resources will be (and in fact are being) progressively diverted to that - rather than contact tracing. With veterinary resources also diverted to the welfare scheme and the healthy animal cull, these factors could account wholly for the apparent flattening of the report curve. In other words, the apparent "flattening" could be an artifact of the reporting system, its organisation and its changing priorities. When the possible (recent) under-reporting is factored in, we could be seeing (in fact) a substantial increase in cases without the system being aware of it. 

Necessarily, this is a theoretical position, but then epidemiology is a theoretical science. The information adduced from data cannot be better that the quality of the input and there are serious reservations as to its quality. 

Any responsible scientist - behaving as a scientist - would have discussed the quality of the input data before discussing the results based on those data, and would have issued a "health warning", especially as there have already been some concerns expressed about the adequacy of MAFF record-keeping, even without addressing its accuracy or interpretation. 

Professor King, however, has not issued a health warning. He is happy to be "cautiously optimistic". If he has good grounds for so being, they are not apparent from the evident and theoretical problems associated with the data upon which he relies. In this context, Prof. King appears to be acting more like a politician than a scientist. And when scientists act as politicians, count the silver. 

Without good data, King is gambling on the epidemic declining. In so doing, he is putting at the entire livestock industry at risk. Is he, as a supposedly objective government advisor, entitled to take that risk? 

Dr. Richard North PhD. - UKIP
ends. 

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