Summary
Riting in the Western Morning News earlier this month, NFU communications director Anthony Gibson dismissed the possibility of a link between factory farming and the devastating outbreak of bird flu in Suffolk earlier this month - and even accuses those who have raised the question (including myself and the respected medical journal The Lancet) of being "bizarre" (has Defra forgotten the lessons learned in bird flu outbreak?).
This does the farming industry a disservice: it is in all our interests to discover the truth about how the H5N1 virus develops and spreads. As a member of the European Parliament's Committee of Inquiry into the handling of the 2001 foot and mouth outbreak, I saw at first-hand the human and economic costs of the government's mishandling of it.See the full content of this document
Extract
Tighten Rules to Stop Spread of Avian Flu
That's why I agree absolutely with Mr Gibson's broader argument: that we must ensure Defra doesn't repeat the shameful mistakes made in 2001, which cost the farming industry millions, shut down the British countryside for months, and saw the completely unnecessary slaughter of 11 m...
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