Good badger, bad cow – is it that simple? by Andrew Ash, Director of Grove Lodge

Why is bovine TB such a problem? It’s a slowly developing bacterial disease of animals and man. In man, the disease may kill up to 50% of those infected and occurs most commonly in immuno-suppressed people. In 2009, 25,000 cattle were slaughtered in the UK to control TB at a cost of £63million to the tax payer.

It has been scientifically proven that badgers spread TB to cattle and cattle to badgers (Krebs 1997). It has also been shown that culling reduces the level of infection.

Why don’t we vaccinate either the cattle, the badgers or both?

There is no licensed cattle vaccine in the UK and vaccination is currently forbidden under EU law largely because it is impossible to distinguish between a vaccinated animal and an infected one. We could trap and vaccinate badgers, but the problem with this is vaccinating an infected badger won’t stop the infection developing or stop the badger transmitting the virus. So to use vaccination in an area where a high proportion of the population have the infection isn’t going to help. However, vaccination could be used to stop the spread from a high incidence area to a low one.

This is a really difficult area for vets: killing one animal to save another. Ignoring the economic arguments hardly seems a 21st Century answer to disease control. We do  need to to do something and provided the badgers are killed humanely and the results are studied, analysed and acted upon, then we should support these pilot projects.