I was pleased to hear that you, members of the Agriculture Committee, are looking into the bovine TB problem as you will be able to consider aspects not covered by the Krebs Review Group—research left undone, pressure groups, public relations etc, all beyond the remit of previous scientific investigations. Having been involved from the beginning I have seen the story revolve without progress, but a recital is useful only to warn against the same mistakes again.

  There was pressure from farmers to do something about TB in badgers in the 1970s, before enough was known to make an informed decision. Badger post-mortems from infected farms found some highly infectious animals but many more with no signs of disease, though TB bacilli recovered from them could infect guinea-pigs (later they were called culture-positives). MAFF interpreted this, by analogy with cattle, as the beginning of a badger epidemic and decided to gas them to protect the cattle. I thought it matched the human pattern better, in which most people can successfully enclose the bacilli, though these may sometimes emerge and cause disease later, particularly under stress. Lord Zuckerman ignored the suggestion that, for this reason, culling might prove counter-productive.

  Recently the same vets have reported (Role of Infected, Non-diseased Badgers in the Pathogenesis of Tuberculosis in Badgers (J Gallagher et al), Vet Record, 27 June 1998) that badgers, like humans, can resolve the disease, so not many of the positives are actually infectious, but MAFF seems not to have thought through the implications. The culled positives are mostly the resistant animals and the elaborate precautions farmers are urged to take to keep cattle and badgers apart are a nonsense, considering the small risk. It is likely that there are not enough infectious badgers about to account for the breakdowns attributed to them (though badgers are certainly part of the problem) and a situation so complex is unlikely to be resolved by simplistic badger-killing. Farmers, having been told since the beginning that all positives are infectious, or soon will be, naturally demand just that—the 1970s again.

  We are no nearer knowing what to do now because MAFF assumed its guess was right (that badgers are highly susceptible is now received wisdom) and built the whole superstructure of control on it, with little thought for other possibilities or contributory factors. Apart from some of the work at Woodchester, funding was concentrated on finding how badgers infect cattle, but no definite answer after 20 years suggests this was the wrong question. With this bias in research past scientific reports have necessarily been unbalanced. Once committed to a course of action MAFF would find a change of policy which might imply a mistake almost impossible to implement for fear of horrendous claims for consequential losses.

  A question never addressed is why some parishes, once the herds were attested, have remained clear of TB while others have had repeated breakdowns—guesses once again taken as facts. A chance was missed when the checking of road-casualty badgers across the country was ended for lack of funds. They must once have been infected by the cattle—are they now clear or are the cattle there less susceptible? In either case the immune system will be involved, and very much more is known now about this, and the effects of stress are more widely recognised, than was the case 20 years ago. The suggested trace-element imbalance could affect immune responses, but farmers do not take kindly to suggestions implying their husbandry is at fault—omitting mineral supplements or putting their beasts under stress. Changing farming practices, which also affect wildlife, will be playing a part, particularly where the disease is spreading, but the link is obscure. Perhaps the herbs, now called weeds, traditionally used as tonics and remedies, can no longer be selected from pasture as needed. Deer—susceptible but largely unchecked—are spreading. Only detailed comparisons may find an answer we can make use of—expensive research, but less so than the vast Krebs experimental culling, an impractical computer-simulation dream that can tell us nothing not already known.

  Another possibility is that soil micro-organisms, only recently being recognised as a major component of the biodiversity and ecological balance we are urged to preserve, have been killed or changed by the widespread use of agricultural chemicals. In particular, it is known that some (but not yet which) free-living mycobacteria related to the TB bacillus can boost the immune system, switching the response from open infection to closed lesions, the reverse effect to stress. A killed vaccine from one of them, M. vaccae, has been developed at the Middlesex Hospital and is undergoing promising medical trials, but MAFF, for what seems totally inadequate reasons, has turned its back on this approach. Maybe incompatible personalities are to blame, but this should not be allowed to hinder further investigation into what could become a useful tool in disease control, ready long before MAFF's own vaccine.

  The polarisation of opinion on whether badgers are or are not the cause of TB in cattle (the wrong question again) is contributing to the perceived town-country split. Though many farmers are now sceptical of MAFF's policy, the vocal organised majority portray themselves as the intentional exterminators of a popular wild animal. Badgers are being freed from traps by those concerned for their welfare, but they are afraid (because they will get the blame) that the Animal Activists will take up the cause if culling becomes more widespread, making a bad situation infinitely worse. This alone—release in culling areas and killing by farmers in control areas—makes any valid conclusion from the experiment impossible, however long it runs.

  MAFF's culling policy, built on assumptions, has failed and the attempt to buy time until the vaccine is ready has succeeded only in antagonising both farmers and conservationists. What has not been tried is leaving badgers alone, though we asked in the beginning for scientific control areas to be left unculled. This was successful previously in the rest of England as it was not known at that time that they could become infected. Indoctrinated farmers would now need to be paid to tolerate setts on their land (licences to close setts in the wrong places continuing) but in problem areas, at a level to make it worth their while, payment should still be cheaper than culling. Total costs and number of setts from the first "badger-free area" should now be available. They would see it as more overprotection but, to balance, if badgers could be taken from anywhere for research purposes (but eliminating no social groups) badger-lovers would also face the loss of their favourite animals. This course of action could allow the situation to settle down for a few years until opinions relax, research is completed and we know enough about the complexities to formulate a successful disease control policy, whether or not badgers are involved.