Badgers & Bovine Tuberculosis

So reading this, the only way to test a Badger for bovine tuberculosis is when it’s dead?

Badgers

Mr Bain: To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs what assessment she has made of the likely trends in the prevalence of infection in badgers inside the specified culling areas in the first year of the operation of the new arrangements. [68432]

Mr Paice: Our objective is to bring down the incidence of bovine TB in cattle throughout England from its current unacceptable level.

Currently there is no reliable diagnostic field test for bovine TB in live badgers so it would not be possible to know the prevalence of TB in badgers in an area before culling. Therefore the effect of culling on prevalence in the first year could not be seen.

© Parliamentary material is reproduced with the permission of the Controller of HMSO on behalf of Parliament. Licence No: P2011000006

Author: petermount1

Prolific Open Source developer who also works in the online gaming industry during the day. Develops in Java, Go, Python & any other language as necessary. Still develops on retro machines like BBC Micro & Amiga A1200 View all posts by petermount1