Flames and fear on the farms: controlling foot and mouth disease in Britain, 18922001*

O Controlling riginal Article foot and mouth disease in Britain, 18922001 Blackwell Oxford, Historical HISR 0950-3471 November 4 77 2004 UK Institute Research Publishing, 2004 of Ltd. Historical Research

Abigail Woods
Wellcome Centre for the History of Medicine, Centre for the History of Science, Technology and Medicine, University of Manchester

Abstract

For over a century, the British government has pursued a policy of national freedom from foot and mouth disease (F.M.D.), a highly contagious disease of cloven-footed animals. One of the cornerstones of this policy was the slaughter of infected animals. However, on several occasions most notably in 2001 slaughter struggled to contain F.M.D., and provoked widespread criticism and calls for policy change. Drawing upon a range of previously unexamined sources, this article examines the history of F.M.D. in Britain, in an attempt to explain the twenty-first-century persistence of a Victorian disease control policy.

The 2001 British epidemic of foot and mouth disease (F.M.D.) was one of the most devastating on record. Lasting seven and a half months, it led to the death of approximately ten million animals.1 Normal farming practices and exports of livestock and agricultural produce were severely curtailed for nearly a year, and rural businesses suffered major losses as a result of government advice to stay away from the infected countryside. In total, the epidemic cost the British economy 8 billion, although its adverse effect upon the social lives and psychological well-being of rural inhabitants is impossible to quantify. Responsibility for managing F.M.D. lay with the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (M.A.F.F.), which was reconstituted during the epidemic as the Department of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs ( D.E.F.R.A.). On learning of the appearance of F.M.D., M.A.F.F. officials
* The author is grateful to the Wellcome Trust for generously funding the work that led to this article, and to Professor John Pickstone, for his invaluable input. Versions of this article were presented at the Contemporary British History seminar, Institute of Historical Research, at the Wellcome Trust Centre for the History of Medicine, University College London and at the Centre for the History of Science, Technology and Medicine, University of Manchester, and in all cases the author received valuable advice. The article was runner up in the IHRs Pollard Prize for the Autumn term 20012. 1 This figure includes animals slaughtered under the governments welfare scheme, which was intended to relieve the suffering of animals trapped in unsuitable accommodation by livestock movement restrictions (10 million animals were slaughtered in FMD cull, Daily Telegraph, 23 Jan. 2002 <http://www.telegraph.co.uk> (5 March 2004) ).
Institute of Historical Research 2004. Historical Research, vol. 77, no. 198 (November 2004) Published by Blackwell Publishing Ltd., 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford, OX4 2DQ, UK and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA.

Controlling foot and mouth disease in Britain, 18922001

521

ordered the slaughter of diseased animals and their healthy contacts, and banned the movement and marketing of livestock. These measures failed to restrict the spread of the virus, and as the crisis deepened, the government began to consider an alternative control policy, vaccination. It eventually rejected this move, citing fears over the reliability of vaccination and the international trading penalties associated with its use. Instead, it adopted a contiguous cull policy, proposed by epidemiologists, which required the slaughter of all susceptible animals within a three kilometre radius of a confirmed case. This policy, and the coercive methods employed by M.A.F.F. employees, prompted an outcry, and the debate still rages over whether it was in fact responsible for the epidemics decline.2 The events of 2001 spawned numerous enquiries at local, national and European Union level, all of which proved critical of M.A.F.F./D.E.F.R.A.s handling of the epidemic.3 They also attracted the scrutiny of academics from a range of different fields. Several authors evaluated and rejected the governments key claims that an intensified slaughter policy represented the cheapest method of controlling F.M.D., and that vaccination was a scientifically unreliable method of control.4 Others highlighted the need to consider the cultural and ethical characteristics of F.M.D. control and its social and psychological impacts.5 While extremely valuable, these studies have not considered one important dimension of M.A.F.F./ D.E.F.R.A.s approach to F.M.D. control: its historical basis. The policy of controlling F.M.D. by means of slaughter and trade restrictions dated from the late nineteenth century, and received frequent application during the first two-thirds of the twentieth century whenever F.M.D. invaded Britain.6 When the disease reappeared in 2001, after thirty-five years in which Britain had suffered only one outbreak (on the Isle of Wight in 1981), farmers and M.A.F.F. officials still accepted without question the need to slaughter infected and potentially infected livestock.
I. Anderson, FMD 2001: Lessons to be Learned Enquiry Report (2002). Anderson; National Audit Office, Report upon the 2001 FMD Outbreak (2002); The Cumbria FMD Inquiry Report (Carlisle, 2002); Crisis and Opportunity: Devon Foot and Mouth Inquiry 2001 (Tiverton, 2002); Royal Society, Infectious Diseases in Livestock (2002); European Parliament, Report on Measures to Control Foot and Mouth Disease in the European Union in 2001 (2002) <http://www2.europarl.eu.int/ omk/sipade2?L=EN&OBJID=9904&LEVEL=3&MODE=SIP&NAV=X&LSTDOC=N> (4 March 2004). 4 P. Midmore, The 2001 foot and mouth outbreak: economic arguments against an extended cull (2001) <http://www.efrc.com/fmd/fmdtext/fmdecon.pdf > (4 March 2004); D. Campbell and R. Lee, Carnage by computer: the blackboard economics of the 2001 foot and mouth epidemic, Social and Legal Studies, xii (2003), 42559; P. Sutmoller and others, Control and eradication of foot-and-mouth disease, Virus Research, xci (2003), 10144. 5 B. Mepham, Foot and mouth disease and British agriculture: ethics in a crisis, Jour. Agricultural and Environmental Ethics, xiv (2001), 3423; M. Mort and others, The health and social consequences of the 2001 foot and mouth epidemic in north Cumbria (2003) <www.europarl.eu.int/comparl/tempcom/fiap/contributions/other_evidence/lancaster_study_en.pdf> (4 March 2004). 6 Animal Health, a Centenary, 18651965 (Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food: Animal Health Division, 1965) (hereafter Animal Health), pp. 13451.
3 2

Institute of Historical Research 2004.

522

Controlling foot and mouth disease in Britain, 18922001

It is unusual, in the history of infectious disease control, for a single policy to have endured for over a century. Twentieth-century historians of F.M.D. felt that the longevity of the governments policy required little explanation: it represented the natural and self-evident response to a scientifically defined disease problem, and it worked far better than the available alternatives.7 However, this authors recent work upon the emergence of late-nineteenth-century F.M.D. control policy sheds doubt upon this conclusion, revealing that legislative measures were not obvious, necessary or scientific, and were for many years the subject of widespread controversy.8 The recent findings of medical historians also raise questions over the twenty-first-century persistence of a Victorian disease control policy. Authors have argued that responses to disease are historically contingent and can only be fully understood in relation to their social, economic, political, cultural, professional and geographical contexts.9 Why, therefore, did dramatic twentieth-century shifts in the structure, practices and politics of agriculture, in the role and status of the veterinary profession, in the nature of the international meat and livestock trade, and in the methods available for F.M.D. control, not inspire a movement away from the traditional policy? This article examines how and why the British policy of F.M.D. control by slaughter endured throughout the twentieth century, and reveals that F.M.D. historians are mistaken in assuming that it always worked and was therefore accepted by all but the ignorant and self-interested. For while this measure often stamped out F.M.D. outbreaks quickly and cheaply, on occasions it struggled to contain the disease and provoked justified criticism. The survival of the policy is attributed here to the activities of the British agricultural authorities and their supporters, who remained committed to an ideal of national freedom from F.M.D. and believed that the cheapest, most effective route to this goal lay in stamping out germs. Repeatedly, throughout the first two-thirds of the twentieth century, M.A.F.F. (and its predecessor M.A.F.)10 scrutinized and adjusted the traditional policy to take account of changing circumstances. This article
Animal Health; F. Floud, The Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries (1927), pp. 64 75; FMD, Veterinary Record, 4 March 1976, pp. 1845. 8 A. Woods, The construction of an animal plague: foot and mouth disease in 19th-century Britain, Social History of Medicine, xvii (2004), 2339. 9 Examples include C. E. Rosenberg, Framing disease and Explaining epidemics, in C. E. Rosenberg, Explaining Epidemics and Other Studies in the History of Medicine (Cambridge, 1992), pp. 293318; A. Hardy, The Epidemic Streets: Infectious Disease and the Rise of Preventive Medicine, 1856 1900 (Oxford, 1993); P. Baldwin, Contagion and the State in Europe, 1830 1930 (Cambridge, 1999); L. Bryder, We shall not find salvation in inoculation: BCG vaccination in Scandinavia, Britain and the USA, 192160, Social Science and Medicine, xlix (1999), 1157 67; G. Mooney, Public health versus private practice: the contested development of compulsory infectious disease notification in late-19th century Britain, Bull. Hist. Medicine, lxxiii (1999), 238 67. 10 The Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries (formerly the Board of Agriculture and Fisheries) was formed in 1919. In 1955, it merged with the Ministry of Food to become M.A.F.F.
Institute of Historical Research 2004.
7

Controlling foot and mouth disease in Britain, 18922001

523

contends that, as a result of its actions, slaughter remained a rational although not the only or the obvious response to F.M.D. But during the late twentieth century, officials failed to take account of shifting trading and farming practices that offered new opportunities for F.M.D. reinvasion and spread, to consider new scientific advances that made F.M.D. vaccination an increasingly feasible control method, or to realize how F.M.D. would impact upon the burgeoning tourist industry. Consequently, its traditional control policy quickly became outdated, and by 2001 had ceased to make sense, with devastating consequences for the nation.11 Modern veterinary texts describe foot and mouth disease as a highly contagious, acute viral disease of cloven-footed animals. Symptoms include lameness, excessive salivation, a decline in appetite and reduced milk production. The severity of symptoms varies according to the species, breed and age of animal affected and the strain of infecting virus. Fatalities are generally rare, except in young and ailing livestock. However, on recovery, animals commonly exhibit costly, long-term reductions in productivity. F.M.D. is also one of the most infectious diseases known. It may spread directly between infected and susceptible animals, and also indirectly by many different routes.12 It has been described elsewhere how this low-mortality animal disease which posed no threat to the publics health came to be regarded as one of the worlds worst animal plagues.13 In brief, following its 1839 appearance in Britain, F.M.D. spread rapidly and soon became endemic. For many years, farmers and the state paid little attention to the disease. However, following the 18657 epidemic of cattle plague, a highly contagious and fatal ailment which was eventually stamped out by means of slaughter and livestock movement restrictions, the government assumed increasing responsibility for the control of other contagious animal diseases. In 1869, parliament passed a new law restricting the movement and marketing of F.M.D.-infected animals, and this was extended the following decade to include all livestock within the vicinity of F.M.D. outbreaks. Meanwhile, increasingly stringent controls were placed upon the importation of livestock from F.M.D.-infected nations. This legislation proved extremely controversial. Its supporters argued that F.M.D. was a costly, dangerous disease, and that in the absence of controls it would continue to cause intermittent epidemics which damaged British meat and milk production. Opponents claimed that F.M.D. was only a mild disease a not unfounded assertion given the variable symptoms shown
11 Much of this article is drawn from A. Woods, Foot and mouth disease in 20th century Britain: science, policy and the veterinary profession (unpublished University of Manchester Ph.D. thesis, 2001). 12 O. Radostits and others, Veterinary Medicine: a Textbook of the Diseases of Cattle, Sheep, Pigs, Goats and Horses (8th edn., 1994), pp. 965 71. 13 Woods, Construction of an animal plague.

Institute of Historical Research 2004.

524

Controlling foot and mouth disease in Britain, 18922001

by different types of stock and that in disrupting trade, control measures would prove more costly than the disease itself. In time, however, they too began to fear the appearance of F.M.D. and to call for more effective controls, largely because existing measures interfered considerably with their daily lives and businesses while failing to prevent infection. In 1884, parliament banned all livestock imports from F.M.D.-infected nations. Two years later, the disease disappeared from Britain for the first time since 1839. This celebrated event proved that F.M.D. could be eliminated under a universal, compulsory set of measures imposed by central government. However, sporadic outbreaks continued in subsequent years as imported goods carried the F.M.D. virus into Britain. Maintaining national freedom from F.M.D. became a major preoccupation of the British agricultural authorities, and officials devoted considerable time and resources to eliminating outbreaks and discovering the routes by which the virus entered Britain. It was within this context that leading aristocratic agriculturalists proposed the slaughter of infected stock. This measure, they claimed, would stamp out F.M.D. more quickly than the existing policy of isolation, as it prevented animals from manufacturing and spreading the virus. Although not widely supported, slaughter first became a policy option in 1892, and was applied initially on a case-by-case basis at the discretion of the chief veterinary officer (C.V.O.). However, as relatively F.M.D.-free nations such as Australia, New Zealand and the U.S.A. followed Britains example in restricting the importation of livestock from infected countries, wealthy British exporters of pedigree livestock began to press for its more frequent application. Under Stuart Stockman, C.V.O. 1905 26, slaughter became a policy of choice. Few challenged its application during the nineteen-hundreds and nineteen-tens, when infrequent F.M.D. outbreaks were rapidly eliminated. However, attitudes changed considerably during 1922, when the policy received its first real test. In spring 1922, a substantial F.M.D. epidemic took hold in England and Scotland. Like its 2001 counterpart, it resulted from the rapid movement of infected animals through markets, and was already widespread by the time of its discovery. From the outset, M.A.F.s short-staffed, poorly equipped veterinary department struggled to contain the infection, and there were lengthy delays in the diagnosis, slaughter and disposal of infected stock. The epidemic lasted eight months and comprised 1,140 separate F.M.D. outbreaks, which led to the slaughter of an unprecedented 56,000 livestock at a cost of 1.25 million in compensation. After only twelve months respite, F.M.D. flared up again. This time, delays in the execution of the control policy were even more marked. During the nine-month 19234 epidemic, there were 3,100 F.M.D. outbreaks, the highest number recorded in any British epidemic. Nearly 300,000 livestock were slaughtered, and the compensation bill reached 3.3 million. Cheshire, with 1,385 outbreaks, bore the brunt of the disease: 50,000 dairy cattle
Institute of Historical Research 2004.

Controlling foot and mouth disease in Britain, 18922001

525

were culled, amounting to one-third of the entire Cheshire herd. In the worst affected areas up to sixty per cent of farms were emptied of livestock.14 Throughout the 19224 epidemics, Stockman remained convinced that slaughter was the only method capable of restoring Britain to the desired state of F.M.D.-freedom. He agreed to exempt several hundred valuable pedigree animals on account of their national value, but ordered all other infected animals to be slaughtered and burned or buried.15 His policy attracted considerable criticism as disease incidence rose and thousands of farmers from all over Britain found themselves confined to empty farms, their lifes work destroyed. Some claimed that slaughter was barbaric, costly and also unnecessary, as infected animals would soon recover from F.M.D. Others saw slaughter as a good thing in principle, but became increasingly uneasy at its failure to work in practice. As it had never been applied before to the control of a raging epidemic, even advocates of the slaughter could not be confident of its success. Critics therefore occupied extremely strong ground: as the crises deepened, many called for a return to the older policy of isolating sick animals, which had contributed to the elimination of endemic F.M.D. during the mid eighteen-eighties. 16 Stockman realized that his preferred policy could not succeed without the support of farmers, as it required them to comply with trade restrictions, to report early disease symptoms, to refrain from mingling with their peers and to minimize movements on and off the farm. 17 He therefore waged a public relations campaign to convince farmers of its merits. In statements to the press and speeches at farmers meetings, he and his M.A.F. colleagues emphasized the benefits of national freedom from F.M.D. and claimed that slaughter was the fastest and cheapest means of achieving this goal. Although few infected animals died naturally from F.M.D., they manufactured large quantities of the highly contagious F.M.D. virus, and on recovery suffered costly, long-term problems such as lameness, infertility and mastitis. These features meant that, in the absence of a slaughter policy, F.M.D. would spread rapidly throughout the nation and inflict enormous losses upon national meat and milk production. It would also impede exports of pedigree stock to F.M.D.-free nations, worth around 700,000 a year. While isolation had worked in past years, it was no longer viable, because recent increases in the scale and frequency of livestock movements offered new opportunities for the disease to spread. Any return to isolation would
Annual Report of Proceedings under the Diseases of Animals Acts, 1922, 1923 and 1924 (19235). The National Archives of the U.K.: Public Record Office, MAF 35/162, 167, Stockman evidence to 1922 and 1924 committees of enquiry into F.M.D. 16 T.N.A.: P.R.O., MAF 35/159, 160, 162, 165, witness evidence to 1922 and 1924 committees of enquiry into F.M.D; Cheshire Observer and Crewe Chronicle, Dec. 1923Jan. 1924, passim. 17 T.N.A.: P.R.O., MAF 35/164, M.A.F. leaflet, Advice to farmers, 31 Dec. 1923.
15 14

Institute of Historical Research 2004.

526

Controlling foot and mouth disease in Britain, 18922001

lengthen the course of the epidemic and also prove costly to farmers, who would not receive compensation for isolated stock.18 Stockman went on to claim that in the years since slaughter had been introduced, the nation had experienced an annual average of only seventeen disease outbreaks, whereas in the later nineteenth century, annual outbreaks numbered 1,730. He compared the British F.M.D. situation favourably to that of France, Holland and Belgium, where disease was endemic and an isolation policy in force. He held farmers and dealers responsible for F.M.D. spread. Some had deliberately concealed the appearance of infection; others had failed to assist M.A.F. veterinarians charged with tracing the spread of disease. Many more had refused to take rudimentary precautions against the virus, for example those farmers who had insisted upon attending public meetings to denounce the slaughter policy. Stockman reminded farmers that in ridding Britain of F.M.D., slaughter was fulfilling a national good and that it was their duty to comply. He later alleged that in forcing him to defend his actions, critics of the slaughter had diverted him from his true line of work, the elimination of disease. 19 Stockman received valuable support from sympathetic leaders of several agricultural organizations: the upper-class Royal Agricultural Society ( R.A.S.), the politically active Chambers of Agriculture, and the National Farmers Union (N.F.U.), a comparatively young body made up of tenant farmers.20 All acted at least partly out of self-interest. Pedigree breeders and exporters were particularly well represented in the Chambers and the R.A.S., and encouraged the slaughter of ordinary stock so that their animals might escape infection and embark upon lucrative journeys overseas. The N.F.U. consisted of tenant farmers who lacked parliamentary influence. Its leaders sought to enhance its profile by aiding M.A.F. directly, a strategy that came to full fruition during and after the Second World War, when it gained the right to regular consultation over agricultural subsidy levels. 21 While many farmers were undoubtedly convinced by Stockmans rhetoric, complaints about the slaughter policy continued at grass-roots level. Many critics blamed the failure of the slaughter policy upon the incompetence of M.A.F. veterinarians who had misdiagnosed F.M.D.,
18 M.A.F. statements in The Times, 30 Jan. 1922, p. 10, 22 Feb. 1922, p. 9 and 5 Nov. 1923, p. 21; Warning to stock owners, The Times, 29 Sept. 1923, p. 7; FMD: visit of Sir Stuart Stockman, Crewe Chronicle, 10 Nov. 1923, p. 7. 19 T.N.A.: P.R.O., MAF 35/160, official evidence to 1922 committee of enquiry; T.N.A.: P.R.O., MAF 35/164, 165, Stockman evidence to 1924 committee of enquiry. 20 Slaughter: Central and Associated Chambers of Agriculture, The Times, 1 Feb. 1922, p. 7; NFU support, The Times, 6 Feb. 1922, p. 7; NFU resolutions, The Times, 10 Jan. 1924, p. 14; University of Reading, Rural History Centre, Royal Agricultural Society council minutes, 12 Dec. 1923. 21 For details of the N.F.U.s historical relationship with M.A.F.(F.), see P. Self and H. Storing, The State and the Farmer ( Berkeley, Calif., 1963); G. Cox, P. Lowe and M. Winter, The origins and early development of the NFU, Agricultural History Rev., xxxix (1991), 30 47; M. Smith, The Politics of Agricultural Support in Britain (Aldershot, 1990).

Institute of Historical Research 2004.

Controlling foot and mouth disease in Britain, 18922001

527

conveyed the virus between farms and delayed in the diagnosis, slaughter and disposal of infected animals. Several livestock owners whose animals had practically recovered by the time the slaughter team arrived claimed that in their experience F.M.D. was only a mild disease and that slaughter inflicted more harm than good.22 Cheshire victims of the disease organized in resistance to the slaughter policy and held numerous meetings which called for a return to isolation. Their persistence forced Stockman to the negotiating table, and for a time, the future of the slaughter policy in Cheshire hung in balance. However, local spokesmen proved no match for Stockmans strategic political manoeuvrings and achieved only a minor concession the exemption of several dairy stock from slaughter. 23 Elsewhere in the country, farming critics made little headway. They had neither economic power nor political weight, and were ignored and marginalized by their leaders.24 Once F.M.D. incidence began to fall, many who had wavered in their support for slaughter became convinced of its merits and the controversy slowly died away. The policy received an additional boost from two departmental committees of enquiry into the epidemics, which were headed by landowner and cattle breeder Captain Ernest Pretyman. Like Stockman, committee members assumed the necessity of returning Britain to a state of F.M.D.-freedom. They believed that only slaughter could achieve this goal, and attributed the problems encountered in 19224 to the inefficient manner in which it had been executed. Consequently, they paid little heed to witnesses claims that in certain cases, isolation would have proved a more appropriate response, and focused their efforts upon improving the implementation of the existing policy, most notably by increasing its central and compulsory nature.25 Their reports seemingly vindicated Stockmans stand, and deprived critics of any authority. They also set the seal on the three-year transformation of slaughter from novel, untested control method to familiar and successful policy. In the years that followed, F.M.D. incidence remained high, although there was no repeat of the 19224 epidemics or of the controversy that had surrounded them. M.A.F. turned to slaughter each time the disease appeared, and policy execution increased in efficiency as staff became more practised and the Pretyman committees recommendations entered law. At intervals, elderly farmers complained that F.M.D. was but a mild
22 T.N.A.: P.R.O., MAF 35/159, 160, 162, 165, witness evidence to 1922 and 1924 committees of enquiry into F.M.D. 23 Cheshire Observer and Crewe Chronicle, Dec. 1923Jan. 1924, passim. 24 At the height of the 19234 epidemic, Harry German, president of the N.F.U. livestock committee reportedly told branches not to send up resolutions to HQ advocating that the government should be asked to stop their policy of slaughtering (Daily Mail, 17 Dec. 1923, p. 9). 25 T.N.A.: P.R.O., MAF 35/162, pp. 98, 148, verbatim report of 1922 committee; T.N.A.: P.R.O., MAF 35/165, day 2, pp. 8 9, Stockman evidence to 1924 committee of enquiry into F.M.D.; Report of the 1922 Departmental Committee on F.M.D. [Cmd. 1784], H.C. (1923), ii. 579; Report of the 1924 Departmental Committee on F.M.D. [Cmd. 2350], H.C. (19245), xiii. 225.

Institute of Historical Research 2004.

528

Controlling foot and mouth disease in Britain, 18922001

disease, and that isolation, not slaughter should form the basis of government policy. However, for the most part, official spokesmen and farmers organizations forestalled such criticisms by advertizing repeatedly the merits of slaughter. Moreover, to a new generation of livestock owners who had never known endemic F.M.D., and only ever equated its appearance with slaughter, such sentiments seemed incredible and failed to garner widespread support.26 On the continent, where F.M.D. was endemic, a British-style slaughter policy appeared costly and also futile, since it was practically impossible to prevent infection re-invading across land borders.27 Consequently, governments pursued F.M.D. control rather than F.M.D.-freedom. They viewed immunization as the most promising means of achieving this goal, and directed scientists to initiate relevant enquiries. During the first decade of the twentieth century, German bacteriologist, Friederich Loeffler, discovered how to produce F.M.D. serum. Other scientists subsequently elaborated upon his method of production, and by the nineteen-twenties it was used widely in the field. Although it produced only short-lived resistance to infection, serum minimized the severity of disease symptoms and so reduced the associated losses in productivity. 28 In Britain, however, M.A.F.s faith in slaughter and import restrictions caused it to dismiss outright the prospect of F.M.D. immunization. Its attitude had a significant impact upon the early course of F.M.D. research in Britain. Before the nineteen-twenties, scientific enquiries into F.M.D. were short-lived and unsuccessful, largely because M.A.F. refused to allow research on mainland Britain.29 However, as the slaughter policy fell into disrepute during the 19224 epidemics, critics increasingly pressed Stockman to sponsor more substantial investigations into the disease. Prominent among them was Walter Morley Fletcher, the secretary of the Medical Research Council (M.R.C.), a government-funded body that was extremely influential in the development of medical science. Like many of his medical peers, Fletcher was optimistic that laboratory research into
26 Slaughter: NFU statement, The Times, 15 Apr. 1926, p. 16; Responsibility of the stock owner, The Times, 9 Jan. 1928, p. 20; NFU notice, The Times, 5 Nov. 1928, p. 12; Stanley Baldwin speech, The Times, 24 May 1929, p. 8; Report, Agricultural Ministry, The Times, 1 Aug. 1930, p. 6; Vindication of Britains slaughter measures, Daily Mail, 9 Nov. 1937, p. 20; Mr T Williams, speech, The Times, 12 Mar. 1941, p. 2. 27 Baldwin discusses the influence of geography upon disease control policies. 28 Pirbright, Animal Virus Research Institute ( hereafter A.V.R.I.), F.M.D. research committee paper 411, 1939/40, H. Skinner, Passive immunisation against FMD; H. P. Schmiedebach, The Prussian state and microbiological research, in 100 Years of Virology: the Birth and Growth of a Discipline, ed. C. Calisher and M. Horzineck (Austria, 1999), pp. 9 24; W. Wittmann, The legacy of Friedrich Loeffler, in Calisher and Horzineck, pp. 2542. 29 Report of the Departmental Committee appointed to inquire into FMD [Cd. 7270], H. C. (1914), xii. 139; A.V.R.I., F.M.D. research committee paper 2, 1924, Report on the 1920 FMD committee.

Institute of Historical Research 2004.

Controlling foot and mouth disease in Britain, 18922001

529

F.M.D. would give rise to a vaccine or serum with which to control the disease.30 Stockman refused to submit to such pressure. He argued that the highly contagious F.M.D. could easily escape from the laboratory, and that even if contained successfully, its presence within Britain would cause F.M.D.free nations to reject British livestock exports. Research was not only dangerous and injurious to trade, it was also unnecessary, as there already existed an effective method of control slaughter which could eliminate disease completely. By contrast, serum treatment and vaccination could only limit viral spread, and as vaccines usually worked by inducing a mild case of infection, they might actually encourage F.M.D. dissemination. Nor could research help to uncover the routes by which FMD entered Britain; such information was best drawn from the experiments [that] have been going on before our eyes, in nature.31 Opinions similar to Stockmans held sway in other F.M.D.-free nations such as the U.S.A., Canada and Australia. As these countries rarely if ever experienced F.M.D., the contention that research costs outweighed the likely benefits proved uncontroversial.32 In Britain, however, the 19224 epidemics stimulated a reassessment of the matter. The livestock death toll and rising compensation levels caused the Cabinet to seek medical advice about the desirability of F.M.D. research. At Fletchers suggestion, it approached Sir William Leishmann, director-general of the Army Medical Services, who argued that only laboratory investigations could provide definite information upon which to base future control policy. On the basis of his recommendations, M.A.F. formed, in the spring of 1924, a F.M.D. research committee made up of eminent doctors and veterinarians. It charged this body with discovering ways of making FMD less harmful to Britain. Research began at a number of sites, including the M.R.C.s National Institute of Medical Research, the Lister Institute and a newlyconverted field station at Pirbright.33

30 T.N.A.: P.R.O., FD 1/4364, Fletcher correspondence, Jan. 1922; FMD, British Medical Jour., 19 Jan. 1924, p. 121; Editorial, Investigation into FMD, The Lancet, 8 March 1924, pp. 5045; letter of Drs. Peyton, Grace and Young, The Times, 7 Jan. 1924, p. 18; Obituary, Sir W. M. Fletcher, 18731933, Royal Society Obituary Notices of Fellows, i (19325), 153 63. 31 T.N.A.: P.R.O., MAF 35/165, Stockman evidence to 1924 committee of enquiry into F.M.D.; T.N.A.: P.R.O., MAF 35/217, Stockman correspondence with Sir W. Leishman, 7 Jan., 8 Feb. 1924. 32 The U.S.A. did not begin F.M.D. research until 1954, when a specialist laboratory opened on Plum Island. This move followed F.M.D. outbreaks in neighbouring Canada and Mexico. Another likely motivating factor was the threat of hostile nations employing F.M.D. as a biological weapon (M. Machado, Aftosa: a Historical Survey of Foot and Mouth Disease and InterAmerican Relations (Albany, N.J., 1969) ). In Australia, there was little interest in F.M.D. research until the later 20th century (P. Scott, Levers and counterweights: a laboratory that failed to raise the world, Social Studies of Science, xxi (1991), 7 35). 33 T.N.A.: P.R.O., MAF 35/217, Cabinet committee minutes and Sir W. Leishmans report, 19234; FMD, The Times, 29 Feb. 1924, p. 7.

Institute of Historical Research 2004.

530

Controlling foot and mouth disease in Britain, 18922001

Despite Stockmans defeat, senior M.A.F. officials managed to gain a considerable degree of control over the direction, methods and goals of F.M.D. research in Britain. They helped to select the members of the research committee and ensured that the C.V.O. had a permanent seat. They reserved the right to request specific investigations, stationed officials at Pirbright to ensure the adequacy of viral containment measures and, citing fears of viral escape from the laboratory, caused the committee to reject all independent requests to carry out F.M.D. research.34 From this position of power, M.A.F. ensured that scientists activities intersected with its ideal of national F.M.D.-freedom and its principle of F.M.D. control by slaughter. Under M.A.F.s direction scientists looked not for new methods of F.M.D. control but for ways of improving the existing control policy. One important focus was the discovery of routes by which F.M.D. invaded Britain. Scientists findings had direct relevance to F.M.D. control policy and could, in assisting the fight against disease invasion, render the debate upon internal F.M.D. controls superfluous.35 Another significant research topic was F.M.D. serum. While on the continent, serum formed a first line of defence against F.M.D., to C.V.O. John Kelland it was merely an additional weapon in the armoury of the states warfare.36 He hoped that serum could protect at-risk animals located near to infected farms, 37 and also reduce F.M.D. importation, as the disease undoubtedly comes here from abroad, and if . . . results could be put into operation abroad, this country would reap the benefit.38 Unfortunately, field trials during the early nineteen-thirties gave unreliable results and were abandoned. 39 In comparison to these two lines of research, F.M.D. vaccination received little attention. The existence of the slaughter policy meant that M.A.F. attached little urgency to vaccine discovery, and so when early experiments ran into technical difficulties, scientists abandoned the field.40 By contrast, on the continent, where serum had reduced the cost but not the frequency of F.M.D. outbreaks, vaccine research proceeded apace. While for M.A.F. making FMD less harmful meant using science to prevent the virus invading Britain, members of the general public held very different expectations. From their understanding of medical research into human diseases, many assumed that researchers sought a vaccine with which to replace slaughter. To discourage this line of thinking, M.A.F.
A.V.R.I., minutes of F.M.D. research committee meetings, 1924 6. Annual Report of Proceedings under the Diseases of Animals Acts: Report of the CVO, 1925 (1926), p. 17; Report of the CVO, 1928 (1929), p. 17; Report of the CVO, 1932 (1933), pp. 34 5; 1st-5th Progress Reports of the FMD Research Committee (192537). 36 Serum treatment in connection with FMD, Veterinary Record, 6 Dec. 1930, p. 1126. 37 Annual Report of Proceedings under the Diseases of Animals Acts: Report of the CVO, 1931 (1932), p. 26. 38 T.N.A.: P.R.O., MAF 35/226, Kelland to H. Dale, Dec. 1932. 39 A.V.R.I., F.M.D. research committee meeting 56 61 (2 Feb. 193121 July 1931); T.N.A.: P.R.O., MAF 35/226, serum treatment: correspondence and memos, 1930 3. 40 A.V.R.I., F.M.D. research committee meeting 1587 (8 Dec. 19258 May 1934).
35 34

Institute of Historical Research 2004.

Controlling foot and mouth disease in Britain, 18922001

531

officials manipulated the release of scientific information into the public domain. One F.M.D. scientist, H. Skinner, later explained:
The word vaccine, you had to be very careful not to use it too much because the fear was that if the public knew there was a vaccine available thered be a clamour for abandoning the stamping out policy, and the Ministry really wouldnt stand for that. They knew that stamping out was the only thing, to stamp it out. Couldnt have people vaccinating animals against it.

M.A.F. forbade scientists to discuss their work or to publish results without the permission of the Minister of Agriculture, a restriction which Skinner viewed as necessary . . . to avoid false interpretation by those who lobbied against the slaughter policy.41 Instead, results were presented in F.M.D. research committee progress reports, released in 1925, 1927, 1928, 1931 and 1937. These official publications emphasized repeatedly the many difficulties involved in vaccine research and the poor prospects of success.42 M.A.F.s attitude towards F.M.D. vaccination changed dramatically in 1938, on learning that German researchers had developed the first workable F.M.D. vaccine.43 Two years earlier, as part of the contingency planning for war, the British governments committee of imperial defence had examined the probability of Germanys engaging in biological warfare and concluded that F.M.D. was a likely weapon.44 The C.V.O., Daniel Cabot, had dismissed such suggestions, believing it impossible for German scientists to develop the quantities of F.M.D. virus required for an attack without accidentally infecting their own livestock. Now, however, with the discovery of a F.M.D. vaccine, Germany could protect its animals against such an eventuality, and presented a new and dangerous threat to British agriculture.45 It fell to Cabot to plan the protection of British livestock. He realized that any attack would probably result in a widespread F.M.D. epidemic too large to control by slaughter alone. F.M.D. would quickly become endemic and British meat and milk production would fall. This was not simply an economic issue, as during wartime it would prove impossible to import replacement supplies. The resulting drop in domestic consumption would seriously impact upon the health, morale and fighting ability of the British people. It was essential, therefore, to devise alternative methods of F.M.D. control. In effect, the biological warfare threat placed Britain in the same position as most European nations, in that a lack of control over viral invasion made the pursuit of national F.M.D.-freedom impossible. Rather
A.V.R.I., H. Skinner, A note on the reporting of findings in the early years of FMD research (1994, unpublished); interview given by H. Skinner, 7 March 2000. 42 1st-5th Progress Reports of the F.M.D. Research Committee (192537). 43 A.V.R.I., F.M.D. research committee paper 351 (2 June 1938) and 355 (30 June 1938). 44 T.N.A.: P.R.O., MAF 35/231, report of sub-committee on biological warfare, March 1937. 45 T.N.A.: P.R.O., MAF 35/231, Cabot memorandum, Apr. 1937, note by market division, May 1937; T.N.A.: P.R.O., MAF 250/126, Cabot paper, 13 Nov. 1939.
Institute of Historical Research 2004.
41

532

Controlling foot and mouth disease in Britain, 18922001

than stamping out F.M.D., Cabot sought to control its spread and to limit its clinical severity. This new goal led to the reorientation of British F.M.D. research along the lines of that pursued on the continent. Cabot directed scientific resources to the production of serum, which was cheap and easy to prepare, and focused attention upon vaccine research for the first time in British history.46 However, he had no intention of suspending the use of slaughter in outbreaks unconnected with biological warfare. His policy shift was simply an in extremis response to potential crisis. In the event, Germany did not use biological weapons and Cabots plans to defend the nation were not put into practice.47 But British fears of germ warfare did not end with Germanys defeat. The descending iron curtain around Soviet-controlled countries in 1947, the 1950 Korean War and the signing of the Warsaw Pact by Eastern Bloc European nations in 1955 all marked the rise of a new and hostile power that was allegedly capable of employing biological weapons against the West. Believing that the nation should be ready to defend itself against attack and to retaliate with similar weapons, the post-war British government allocated large resources to both defensive and offensive biological weapons research. 48 It regarded F.M.D. research as a priority, and allocated huge sums for the extension of defensive and possibly offensive research into the disease at the Pirbright field station, where all scientists were now based.49 Vaccine research intensified and gave rise to numerous technical advances. 50 Nevertheless, M.A.F. remained convinced that vaccines were suitable only for use in an emergency. Although European nations increasingly turned to strategic vaccination to reduce F.M.D. invasion across land borders, to protect valuable stock, to limit the spread of outbreaks and to dampen down the volume of infection,51 slaughter remained the crux of British F.M.D. control policy.

46 T.N.A.: P.R.O., MAF 35/231, Cabot correspondence, May 1939; T.N.A., P.R.O., MAF 250/126, memorandum, FMD: preparation of serum; A.V.R.I., F.M.D. research committee meeting 134 (31 Oct. 1939). 47 German sources suggest that the secret service was indeed planning to attack Britain with the F.M.D. virus (The Times, 12 March 2001, p. 6). 48 M. Dando, Biological Warfare in the 21st Century: Biotechnology and the Proliferation of Biological Weapons (1994), p. 80; B. Balmer, The drift of biological weapons policy in the UK, 1945 65, Jour. Strategic Studies, xx (1997), 11545, at pp. 11718; G. Carter and B. Balmer, Chemical and biological warfare and defence, 1945 90, in Cold War Hot Science: Applied Research in Britains Defence Laboratories, 194590, ed. R. Bud and P. Gummett (Amsterdam, 1999), pp. 31118. 49 T.N.A.: P.R.O., DEFE 10/30, research on F.M.D., DRP/P (51) 62, 23 Aug. 1951; T.N.A.: P.R.O., WO 195/12458, research on F.M.D., 1951; T.N.A.: P.R.O., MAF 250/163, F.M.D. research committee, proposals for special virus research, 19512. 50 A.V.R.I., I. Galloway, Draft report on research progress, 193752; Sir W. Henderson, A Personal History of the Testing of FMD Vaccines in Cattle (Coventry, 1985). 51 Report of the Departmental Committee on FMD, 1952 4 [Cmd. 9214], pp. 135 9, H.C. (19534), xiii. 561.

Institute of Historical Research 2004.

Controlling foot and mouth disease in Britain, 18922001

533

During the Second World War and the Cold War, the Ministry of Defence kept secret from the general public its fears of biological warfare, while M.A.F. continued to conceal progress in vaccine research and to claim that there was no alternative to the slaughter policy. Consequently, few questioned the need for stamping out the disease until 1951, when F.M.D. spread across the continent and invaded England. A total of 600 outbreaks occurred during a twelve-month period, and led to the slaughter of 85,000 livestock, at a cost of 3 million in compensation. 52 This was an exceptionally long epidemic, and for many months, slaughter seemed to make little progress against F.M.D. Simultaneously, the British press published its first accounts of continental F.M.D. vaccination, thus advertizing the availability of an alternative and reportedly successful control policy.53 These circumstances left M.A.F.s policy of secrecy in shreds and gave rise to the public clamour for vaccination that officials had long feared British proponents of F.M.D. vaccination included practising veterinarians, journalists, members of the general public and farmers. Some had always objected to the slaughter policy; others had only tolerated it in the mistaken belief that British scientists were striving to discover a vaccine with which to replace it. They viewed slaughter as a barbaric and medieval policy, a deplorable and abject confession of defeat. It is Medicine Man stuff, a survival from the unscientific past.54 Vaccines, on the other hand, seemed modern, scientific and humane. These parties felt that under a vaccination policy, farmers would cease to suffer the periodic loss of thousands of animals and the cost of F.M.D. control would diminish. Influential upper-class livestock breeders, whose valuable pedigree animals had been exempt from the slaughter prior to 1924, hoped to vaccinate at will, thereby wresting control of F.M.D. from an undiscerning centralized government department and its one-size-fits-all policy. As in 19224, M.A.F. officials feared that if not convinced of the merits of slaughter, farmers would cease to comply. They therefore formulated and publicized new arguments in its defence. First, they declared vaccination more expensive than slaughter: to maintain complete national immunity to F.M.D., veterinarians would have to inoculate all susceptible animals every four months, at an annual cost of 13 million. By comparison, over the previous twenty-five years slaughter had cost the government an average of 176,000 a year in compensation. Second, they portrayed vaccination as a dangerous and ineffective technology. It
Animal Health Services Report, 1952 (1953). Letter from Montevideo, Daily Telegraph, March 1952; Report from Denmark, Daily Telegraph, 30 June 1952; W. D. Thomas, Danish cattle policy, Daily Telegraph, June 1952 (all from A.V.R.I., H. Skinner collection of newspaper clippings). Letter of J. T. Davies, The Times, 5 May 1952, p. 7; FMD: France, The Times, 5 Sept. 1952, p. 5; T.N.A.: P.R.O., CAB 124/ 1562, Chapman Pincher, FMD, Daily Express, 13 Nov. 1952. 54 A.V.R.I., H. Skinner collection, Sunday Express, 15 June 1952.
53 52

Institute of Historical Research 2004.

534

Controlling foot and mouth disease in Britain, 18922001

was useless in young animals, largely unsuccessful in pigs and sheep, and caused immunity to only one of the three types of virus responsible for disease. Vaccinated livestock took fourteen days to develop resistance to F.M.D. During that period, and when resistance was declining, they could potentially contract F.M.D. but show only mild clinical signs. This phenomenon of masking allowed F.M.D. to spread unnoticed, and could also cause animals to become dangerous carriers of the virus. The attainment of national F.M.D.-freedom a state essential for the maintenance of livestock exports was therefore impossible under a policy of vaccination. Finally, by reference to international statistics of F.M.D. incidence, M.A.F. officials claimed that Britain was far in advance of vaccinating nations, and that its achievements were attributable to the use of slaughter. Veterinary and farming leaders, scientists connected with F.M.D. research and members of the funding body, the Agricultural Research Council, backed M.A.F.s claims and provided valuable, authoritative support against critics of the slaughter. However, calls for vaccination continued. The nineteen-fifties were a time of unprecedented optimism and faith in science, and vaccines were widely celebrated as one of its most important achievements. To advocates, F.M.D. vaccination was a modern, progressive and certain method of disease control, which would put an end to the social, economic and psychological hardships inflicted by the oldfashioned, outdated slaughter policy. They refused to accept M.A.F.s scientific arguments against vaccination, and found ridiculous its claims that vaccinating nations were inferior to Britain. They continued to press for a change in policy until it became apparent that slaughter had finally brought the epidemic under control.55 While M.A.F.s arguments took little account of the cultural and psychological aspects of F.M.D. control, on scientific and economic grounds they were well-founded. The difference in F.M.D. incidence in Britain and Europe naturally gave rise to different demands concerning vaccine safety and efficacy. Where F.M.D. was endemic, it was of little consequence if vaccines caused an occasional case of disease, whereas in Britain, this could precipitate a devastating epidemic.56 Also, because Britains livestock export trade was oriented towards the F.M.D.-free Dominions and the U.S.A., which refused to accept vaccinated animals for fear of masking, vaccination would prove more costly than in European nations which had no such outlets for trade. However, several of M.A.F.s claims went beyond the known facts, suggesting that officials intentionally painted an overly-bleak picture of
Above three paragraphs drawn from A.V.R.I., H. Skinner collection. A.V.R.I., Progress report, 19445; A.V.R.I., F.M.D. research committee meeting (25 March 1946); A.V.R.I., I. Galloway, Draft report on research progress, 193752; A.V.R.I., H. Skinner, The British contribution to research on FMD prior to 1950, sect. 10.
56 55

Institute of Historical Research 2004.

Controlling foot and mouth disease in Britain, 18922001

535

vaccination in order to rally support for slaughter.57 The director of Pirbright, Ian Galloway, wrote privately to M.A.F. upon this matter, complaining,
Many of the arguments put up against vaccination are not sound or based on scientific evidence. This has no doubt given the impression that any sort of argument is good enough to use against vaccination as a policy, and above all, to prevent any suggestions that the slaughter policy should be abandoned.58

The M.A.F.-appointed departmental committee of enquiry into the 19512 F.M.D. epidemic thought similarly. After learning from foreign F.M.D. scientists that expert opinion was divided upon the efficacy of vaccines in different species, the duration of immunity and the risks of masking, it concluded that M.A.F. had overstated the dangers involved. 59 Unlike M.A.F., committee members assumed that vaccination was the ultimate tool in F.M.D. control.60 Although they conceded that, at present, slaughter was the only method suitable for use in Britain, their report contained a detailed discussion of possible vaccination strategies. It advised that, subject to future technical advances, M.A.F. should apply ring vaccination in conjunction with slaughter during major F.M.D. epidemics.61 Officials were unimpressed by the committees conclusions. Secretary W. Tame complained,
The CVOs view is that circumstances would have to be much worse than anything so far experienced this century before he could agree to vaccinate. The committees recommendations may, however, mean that if we get another epidemic like that of 1951/52 there will be strong pressure on the Ministry from certain quarters to agree to vaccination.62

In fact, the committees detailed review of vaccination attracted little attention. This was partly because M.A.F.s press release skirted around the vaccination issue while emphasizing the committees conclusion that slaughter was currently the best method of F.M.D. control. Also, the report did not appear until 1954, by which time F.M.D. incidence was extremely low and public interest in the earlier epidemic had died away. 63 The British governments F.M.D. control policy next came under serious scrutiny in 1967, during one of the most devastating epidemics of the
57 T.N.A.: P.R.O., MAF 35/866, George Villiers, The case for inoculation as an aid to the fight against FMD, 1952. 58 T.N.A.: P.R.O., MAF 35/866, Galloway correspondence, 26 June 1952. 59 T.N.A.: P.R.O., MAF 387/18, Gowers committee, 17th meeting, 4 Feb. 1953; T.N.A.: P.RO., MAF 387/28, Gowers committee, 26th and 27th meetings, Sept. 1953; Report of the Departmental Committee on FMD, 1952 4, pp. 2135, 51. 60 Report of the Departmental Committee on FMD, 1952 4, p. 41. 61 Report of the Departmental Committee on FMD, 1952 4, pp. 2135, 4157, 135 9. 62 T.N.A.: P.R.O., MAF 35/872, submission to the minister, 14 March 1955. 63 M.A.F. press release, The Times, 29 July 1954, p. 4; Animal Health Services Report, 1953 and 1954 (1954, 1955).

Institute of Historical Research 2004.

536

Controlling foot and mouth disease in Britain, 18922001

twentieth century. Between October 1967 and June 1968, there were 2,228 F.M.D. outbreaks, of which ninety-four per cent occurred in the north-west Midlands and north Wales. At the peak of the epidemic, M.A.F.F. veterinarians diagnosed up to eighty new cases each day. The slaughter tally and the cost of disease elimination were unprecedented. In all, 450,000 livestock were killed, among them one-third of the cows in Cheshire. Compensation cost 27 million, with total losses estimated at between 70 and 150 million.64 Although F.M.D. spread far more quickly and extensively than in the 19512 epidemic, the worsening disease situation did not provoke the same outcry against the slaughter policy. This was partly the result of an improvement in the F.M.D. situation, which seemed to vindicate the use of slaughter. F.M.D. incidence had dropped during the later nineteenfifties. Following a minor resurgence in 1960, it disappeared for nearly three years, the longest period of national F.M.D.-freedom since the nineteen-hundreds.65 In addition, by 1967, commentators no longer expected as they had in 1952 that vaccination would automatically replace slaughter. Throughout the intervening years, M.A.F.F. had used the national press to reiterate its case against vaccination until, by force of repetition, it reshaped public opinion. Paying little heed to recent scientific and technological advances, which had significantly reduced the risks and costs of vaccination, officials and their supporters consistently portrayed it as an expensive and dangerous technology.66 They maintained this stance when F.M.D. broke out in 1967: vaccination was a national calamity, a last resort, a second line of defence or a fall back, which would ruin Britains role as a producer of disease-free livestock, and was tantamount to resigning our proud freedom from disease.67 Consequently, there was little public or political support for this measure. However, within M.A.F.F.s Animal Health Division (A.H.D.), vaccination assumed unprecedented importance as the disease situation worsened. Staff gradually lost faith in the capacity of slaughter to eliminate F.M.D., and eventually drew up plans for ring vaccination within Cheshire and the north-west Midlands.68 This was a momentous decision. Never before, except under threat of biological attack, had M.A.F.F. conceded a role to F.M.D. vaccines in Britain. When he heard the news, Dr. Noel
64 Animal Health Services Report, 1967 and 1968 (1968, 1969). For more information on the 19678 epidemic, see H. Hughes and J. Jones, Plague on the Cheshire Plain (1969); R. Whitlock, The Great Cattle Plague: an Account of the Foot-and-Mouth Epidemic of 1967 8 (1969). 65 Animal Health Services Report, 19615 (1962 6 ). 66 FMD notes, The Times, 17 Sept. 1956, p. 2; Slaughter control of FMD, The Times, 12 Dec. 1960, p. 5; Vaccination wrong for Britain, The Times, 3 Feb. 1961, p. 6; Disease threat to Europes farms, The Times, 17 July 1962, p. 10; F&M poses imports problem, The Times, 21 Feb 1966, p. 6. 67 Examples drawn from Hansard, Parliamentary Debates, 5th ser., Commons, dccliii-dcclvi, passim; and Daily Telegraph, Daily Mail, Chester Chronicle, 20 Nov.23 Dec. 1967, passim. 68 T.N.A.: P.R.O., MAF 287/492, minutes of Northumberland committee, 5 June 1968.

Institute of Historical Research 2004.

Controlling foot and mouth disease in Britain, 18922001

537

Mowat, a scientist based at Pirbright, told a colleague, We are living in history, the Ministry are going to vaccinate!69 However, in his public announcements, Minister of Agriculture Fred Peart played down the move. He claimed that plans were purely a precaution, reaffirmed his faith in slaughter and denied rumours that vaccination was about to begin.70 During the first week of December, M.A.F.F.s veterinary department purchased several million doses of F.M.D. vaccine from abroad and drew up a detailed strategy for its application.71 But at the same time, F.M.D. incidence began to fall and plans were abandoned. Once again, M.A.F.F. maintained its record of non-vaccination against F.M.D., but this time, official confidence in the slaughter policy had been severely shaken. George Amos, M.A.F.F. regional controller for the north-west later noted, I wonder whether the disease might have got away completely. Was it a damned near thing? What are the risks nowadays of an epidemic of a comparable or even larger scale happening again?72 The Northumberland committee of enquiry into the epidemic concluded that the risks were high, since the intensification of farming offered new opportunities for F.M.D. to spread more rapidly, and to infect more animals than ever before. It therefore recommended that M.A.F.F. should devise contingency plans for ring vaccination in all future outbreaks.73 M.A.F.F. immediately adopted this recommendation, although without enthusiasm. C.V.O. John Reid told a colleague,
I have no heart for being the CVO who first pressed the button to push FMD vaccine into British stock but against this I would not let my reluctance outweigh my judgment if circumstances arise which might light a fire that could not be put out without using every known defensive method of control. It would be irresponsible following our experience in 196768 not to use vaccine and to use it quickly if one saw a potentially dangerous situation.74

Memoranda subsequently drawn up by M.A.F.F.s A.H.D. stated that vaccination should remain a reserve measure for use in emergencies, and that it should be adopted only on the basis of veterinary advice, without reference to interest groups outside the ministry. The first-ever decision to vaccinate would be an historic affair, with emotional undercurrents,
Wellcome Witnesses to 20th Century Medicine, xviii: Foot and Mouth Disease the 1967 Outbreak and its Aftermath, ed. D. Christie, L. Reynolds and E. Tansey (2003), p. 52. 70 Farm plague battle is stepped up, Daily Mail, 27 Nov. 1967, p. 1; Peart written answer to parliamentary question, Hansard, 5, Commons, dcclv (28 Nov. 1967), cols. 70 1; Ministry has no plans to vaccinate, Guardian, 3 Dec. 1967, p. 14. 71 T.N.A.: P.R.O., MAF 287/461, Memo: To RVOs, DVOs and DEOs concerned, Dec. 1967; T.N.A.: P.R.O., MAF 287/479/1, F.M.D. area vaccination scheme, Dec. 1967. 72 T.N.A.: P.R.O., MAF 287/505/1, G. Amos, Personal views for oral hearing of the Northumberland committee, 9 Apr. 1968. 73 Report of the Committee of Inquiry into FMD (Northumberland Committee): Part One [Cmd. 3999], H.C. (1968 9), xxx. 867. 74 T.N.A.: P.R.O., MAF 287/479/1, Reid to Carnochan, 3 Oct. 1969.
Institute of Historical Research 2004.
69

538

Controlling foot and mouth disease in Britain, 18922001

which could be the subject of controversy for at least a decade, and as such it would tend to be of a political/technical character. Subsequent decisions which, being based on actual experience and with the farming and general public acclimatized, might well be taken with less difficulty (and perhaps more quickly) and might come to be viewed primarily as a technical exercise.75 When consulted on these plans, most farming groups expressed firm resistance, having adopted over the years many of M.A.F.F.s own arguments against vaccination. Various representatives argued that it would hinder livestock exports, convey to the world that F.M.D. is endemic in Great Britain and change the standing of this country which, in the past, we have been proud to call the stud farm of the world. Moreover, for fear of acquiring carriers of the F.M.D. virus, farmers would not want to buy vaccinated stock. M.A.F.F. reassured farmers that slaughter would remain its main policy, but pointed out that in order to avoid future criticism, it had to consider vaccination. It added a clause to the 1970 Agricultural Bill to enable it to enforce vaccination where necessary, maintained a vaccine bank of 1.5 million doses, and instituted staff training exercises. The bank remained in existence until 1985, when for cost reasons it was replaced with an international vaccine bank.76 This article has demonstrated that, while the traditional policy of slaughtering F.M.D.-infected animals and their contacts survived intact throughout the period 18921968, its application was on occasions highly problematic. Most members of the public were prepared to accept slaughter when it appeared to be working, but its temporary failure to control widespread epidemics, and the social, psychological and financial hardships which resulted, inspired legitimate criticism and calls for policy change. It is simplistic, therefore, to assume that the merits of slaughter were self-evident. Rather, M.A.F.(F.) had to marshal considerable resources in order to convince a doubtful public to support this policy: it employed a characteristic brand of rhetoric which exaggerated the benefits of slaughter and the deficiencies of alternative policies; it withheld news of vaccine development from the public domain; and it relied heavily upon the support of sympathetic farmers leaders. M.A.F.(F.)s actions were inspired by the conviction that F.M.D. was an extremely costly, dangerous disease which, for the sake of domestic agriculture and the international livestock trade, had to be eliminated from Britain. The development of first serum and later vaccination failed to dislodge its late-nineteenth-century belief that slaughter offered the cheapest and quickest route to national freedom from F.M.D. However,
T.N.A.: P.R.O., MAF 287/479/2, FMD ring vaccination contingency plan, Oct. 1969. T.N.A.: P.R.O., MAF 287/479/1, 2, correspondence and memoranda, 1969 70; Christie, Reynolds and Tansey, pp. 678.
76 75

Institute of Historical Research 2004.

Controlling foot and mouth disease in Britain, 18922001

539

officials were well aware of the policys limitations and worked hard to overcome them. Knowing that compliance was crucial to the success of slaughter, they endeavoured to convince livestock owners of its benefits. Realizing that however beneficial in theory, slaughter had to work in practice, they instituted successive enquiries with the aim of discovering and correcting weaknesses in policy implementation. During the Second World War and the Cold War, they recognized that slaughter would not succeed if Britain was subject to biological attack, and made alternative arrangements for the nations defence; and during the 19678 epidemic, they realized that modern farming conditions facilitated F.M.D. spread to such an extent that ring vaccination might be required as a supplement to slaughter. These repeated reassessments of, and adjustments to, F.M.D. control policy ensured that as agricultural, political and economic circumstances changed, slaughter remained a rational response, although as the continental experience illustrates, it was by no means the obvious or the only policy option. In the thirty-three years following the 19678 epidemic, maintaining the nations defences against F.M.D. invasion and spread ceased to be a policy priority. F.M.D. disappeared, rendering superfluous M.A.F.F.s recommendations on control by ring vaccination. As the years passed, officials grew confident that F.M.D. was finally beaten, and as new and more pressing disease problems emerged, they ceased to review existing methods for its control. They failed to realize that the increasing scale and volume of international livestock movements and the growing intensification of agriculture would facilitate F.M.D. spread. Nor did they appreciate that the expansion in tourism would cause the traditional policy to impact far beyond the agricultural sector; and they neglected to take note of new scientific advances which considerably increased the safety and efficacy of F.M.D. vaccines. M.A.F.F.s failure to reconsider F.M.D. control partly resulted from a swing in international opinion away from vaccination and towards slaughter. This movement was itself M.A.F.F.-inspired. During the mid nineteen-fifties, officials had led moves to found a European Commission on Foot and Mouth Disease (E.U.F.M.D.), and persuaded it to adopt a F.M.D. control strategy that reflected British policy goals: member nations could use vaccination initially, but in the long-term they should aim to eradicate F.M.D. by means of slaughter.77 By the late twentieth century, most members were still vaccinating, and had succeeded in reducing European F.M.D. incidence to a handful of annual outbreaks. Vaccinated meat and livestock circulated freely between vaccinating nations, but were not permitted to enter F.M.D.-free nations such as Britain, Ireland and Denmark. The planned formation of a European Union in 1992 focused attention on this disparity in policy. The Council of Ministers
77

T.N.A.: P.R.O., MAF 35/868, 35/869, 252/48.

Institute of Historical Research 2004.

540

Controlling foot and mouth disease in Britain, 18922001

decided despite the opposition of several members that slaughter was the more economic method of F.M.D. control. Prospective E.U. members should therefore stop vaccinating and prohibit the importation of vaccinated livestock. Although ring vaccination would remain an option during disease outbreaks, nations wishing to take this step would have to apply for E.U. permission. The international animal disease control body, the Office Internationale Epizooties (O.I.E.), then established new trade barriers against vaccinating nations, which forced countries wishing to export to the E.U. to follow suit and pursue national F.M.D.-freedom by means of slaughter.78 In this manner, M.A.F.F.s long standing F.M.D. control policy became fixed in international law, served to expand the F.M.D.-free bloc of countries, and reoriented international trading patterns to the detriment of vaccinating nations. Towards the end of the nineteen-nineties, international F.M.D. experts began to warn of the likely reappearance of F.M.D. in Europe. Y. Leforban of the E.U.F.M.D. advised governments to plan for the worst case scenario and to prepare contingency plans for vaccination.79 In March 1999, the European Commissions scientific committee on animal health and animal welfare issued a Strategy for emergency vaccination against F.M.D., which portrayed vaccination as an increasingly viable supplement to F.M.D. control by slaughter.80 M.A.F.F., however, did not update its 1993 contingency plan, which envisaged a worse case scenario of ten outbreaks, to be tackled by slaughter alone.81 Its ongoing failure to review and adjust existing policy in the light of thirty-five years of social, economic, agricultural and scientific change meant that when F.M.D. reappeared in February 2001, M.A.F.F. no longer possessed a rational, workable method of controlling the disease. Moreover, officials were wholly unprepared for F.M.D. They had lost their former familiarity with the traditional control policy and no longer recognized its limitations. They simply assumed that because slaughter had worked before, so it would again; instead of learning from history, they repeated it. The consequences for the nation were devastating. By the time M.A.F.F. learned of the presence of F.M.D., in February 2001, infection had already spread far and wide as a result of frequent, extensive livestock movements. F.M.D.-free nations immediately banned imports of British
78 W. H. Rees, Foot and mouth disease: its control and eradication, the European story (unpublished MS., date unknown); Report from the Commission on the Control of FMD (Brussels, 1989); OIE official disease-free status <http://www.oie.int/eng/info/en_statut.htm> (5 March 2004); Europe awaits crucial findings, Guardian, 1 March 2001, p. 8. 79 Y. Leborban, Prevention measures against FMD in Europe in recent years, Vaccine, xvii (1999), 1758 9. 80 Report of the Scientific Committee on Animal Health and Animal Welfare, Strategy for Emergency Vaccination against Foot and Mouth Disease (1999) <http://europa.eu.int/comm/food/fs/sc/scah/ out22_en.html> (5 March 2004). 81 Anderson, pp. 324.

Institute of Historical Research 2004.

Controlling foot and mouth disease in Britain, 18922001

541

meat and livestock exports, and under M.A.F.F.s instructions, all livestock movements in Britain ceased. Veterinary staff began to trace the spread of disease and stamp out outbreaks, while spokesmen assured the public that the disease was under control. However, to those suffering fear and flames on the farms,82 M.A.F.F.s efforts were clearly failing. F.M.D. invaded Ireland, France and the Netherlands (which employed F.M.D. vaccination), and ran riot in Dumfries and Galloway, Cumbria and Devon. As disease notifications flooded in, M.A.F.F.s resources became increasingly stretched. Infected animals remained alive for days before slaughter, and piles of rotting carcasses littered farms, awaiting cremation. The prime minister postponed the general election; smoke from funeral pyres filled the countryside; and many businesses ground to a halt as the public followed M.A.F.F.s strict instructions to keep away from rural areas. Media reporting of the situation escalated, and criticisms of M.A.F.F.s actions grew alongside disease incidence. Mid-epidemic, M.A.F.F. was replaced by the Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (D.E.F.R.A.). As the crisis deepened, this body began to consider F.M.D. vaccination. However, 100 years of history, the enshrinement of slaughter in international law and the lobbying power of farmers groups (who had the most to lose, financially, by vaccination) all impeded policy change. When groups of epidemiologists with little or no experience of F.M.D. suggested a firebreak cull of all livestock within three kilometres of an infected farm, proposals to vaccinate fell by the wayside. In the months that followed, animals died in their millions. A minority had contracted F.M.D.; some were culled because they displayed symptoms that bore a passing resemblance to F.M.D.; but the vast majority were healthy, and died by dint of their geography. In total, 2,026 F.M.D. outbreaks were recorded in 2001, compared to 2,228 in 19678, yet the death toll exceeded twenty-fold that of the earlier epidemic.83 Nevertheless, the principle of slaughter survived intact, and Britain maintained its record of never having vaccinated against F.M.D. The future, however, is uncertain. The various enquiries into the 2001 epidemic all concluded that while national F.M.D.-freedom was desirable, the benefits of controlling F.M.D. by slaughter alone were far outweighed by its social, psychological and economic costs. They therefore recommended that vaccination play a considerable role in the control of future outbreaks.84 In reflection of this new state of affairs, the O.I.E. relaxed its trading penalties upon vaccinating nations. However, D.E.F.R.A.s 2003 contingency plan contained no detailed plans for emergency vaccination, and maintained intensive culling as a control
82 83 84

Daily Telegraph, 26 Feb. 2001, p. 1. Anderson, passim. See above, n. 3.

Institute of Historical Research 2004.

542

Controlling foot and mouth disease in Britain, 18922001

option.85 Consequently, it is difficult to gauge the extent to which policy has changed as a result of the 2001 epidemic. Only when F.M.D. returns will this matter become clear. Will D.E.F.R.A. finally turn to F.M.D. vaccination? Or will it insist upon the authority of a century-old slaughter policy?

85 Department of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, Foot and Mouth Disease Contingency Plan (2003) <http://www.defra.gov.uk/footandmouth/contingency/contplan.pdf > (5 March 2004); National Foot and Mouth Group, Response to DEFRAs contingency plan (2003) <www.warmwell.com/nfmgresponseconting.html> (5 March 2004) 85 D.Campbell and R. Lee, The power to panic: the Animal Health Act 2002, Public Law, (2003), 382 96, at p. 383.

Institute of Historical Research 2004.