Sludge Watch ==> UK - Foot and Mouth Disease came from soil sold from the Pirbright Lab

[Maureen Reilly]

Sludgewatch Admin:

The reports below outline studies that indicate that a second Foot-and-Mouth 
disease outbreak was caused when soil contaminated by the the Pirbright 
Animal Laboratory wastewater effluent was sold as topsoil to local farmers 
instead of going to a hazmat landfill.

This reminds me of the time in Ottawa Canada when the Federal Animal 
Laboratory failed to disinfect scrapie tissue adequately and put them into 
the Ottawa sewage treatment plant and from there they were spread on 
farmlands. (The farmers were never told about it).

Greed to get paid for dangerous wastes and a failure to adequately regulate 
sludges, fertililzers, composts, and top soil is behind this on going story. 
  Note the efforts at coverup.  Note, too, that the DEFRA (Department for 
Environment, Food and Rural Affairs) has now been stripped of its role as 
regulator of animal disease laboratories.

Remember too that when Toronto had two outbreaks of SARS - the infectious 
fecal waste from SARS patients was not autoclaved - it was put into the 
toilets at the hospitals - and then went to farm lands around Southern 
Ontario.
.....................

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article3042953.ece
December 13, 2007

Contractors ‘sold top soil contaminated with foot-and-mouth virus’

Valerie Elliott, Countryside Editor
The second wave of the foot-and-mouth outbreak in Surrey is likely to have 
been caused by contaminated soil from the Government’s Pirbright scientific 
research laboratory, an official inquiry has been told.

It is alleged that contractors working on the £121 million modernisation 
programme at the laboratory collected soil contaminated with live virus at 
the site and sold it as top soil.

Some of this was spread on land next to a farm where animals were later 
identified with the disease.

A review of the 2007 Surrey outbreak conducted by Iain Anderson – who headed 
the inquiry into lessons learnt after the world’s worst foot-and-mouth 
epidemic, in Britain in 2001 – has heard evidence from a number of people, 
including private veterinary surgeons, who are convinced that this was the 
reason for the disease’s resurgence.

A spokesman for the inquiry confirmed last night that a number of people 
living locally had given evidence to this effect during interviews.

The allegations, if proven, will bring new embarrassment to the Department 
for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. Under government guidelines, waste 
from any site dealing with live disease viruses requires a disposal licence 
from the Environment Agency, but Defra, which took charge of the 
modernisation works at the laboratory, appears to have overlooked the need 
for such a licence in this case.

The name of the contractors has not been disclosed for security reasons. 
Firms that have contracts with scientific research centres have frequently 
become targets for animal rights extremists.

Dr Anderson’s inquiry, however, was told that contractors used the soil as 
“a cash crop” rather than paying for its disposal in a landfill site.

Top soil is sold for £10 a cubic yard and a lorryload would be enough for 20 
cu yards or £200. The cost of dumping in a landfill site would be £2 per cu 
yard for inert soil or £40 for 20 cu yards.

But given that the Pirbright laboratory was handling live virus and there 
was potential for hazardous waste, the landfill charge should have been at 
least £24/cu yard or £480 for 20 cu yards.

A full investigation into the disease trail from the foot-and-mouth outbreak 
in Surrey is being conducted by veterinary epidemiologists, and the latest 
claims are part of the new inquiry.

It is being alleged that infected top soil caused the resurgence of the 
foot-and-mouth outbreak in September four days after Debby Reynolds, the 
former Chief Veterinary Officer, declared Britain free of the disease and 
the August outbreak over.

The pattern of cases suggests that this last outbreak in Surrey, on the 
20-acre farm known as the Klondyke, at Virginia Water, owned by John and 
Sally Hepplethwaite, was linked to infected top soil spread on land adjacent 
to their holding.

Lesions on their animals were ten to fourteen days older than disease first 
spotted in an earlier wave of the outbreak. The alarm over the last outbreak 
in September was in cattle owned by Robert Lawrence, of Lyne, Chertsey.

Defra has come in for more criticism from a separate review of the licensing 
arrangements at Pirbright by Sir William Callaghan, a former chairman of the 
Health and Safety Commission. Today he will recommend stripping Defra of its 
inspection role at the laboratory and others which deal in dangerous animal 
pathogens.

Instead the Health and Safety Executive, which already has responsibility 
for establishments handling deadly human pathogens, will take on the 
inspection of these sites, in a move approved by Hilary Benn, the 
Environment Secretary. Defra was criticised in initial findings about the 
state of facilities at Pirbright. There was no comment from Defra last 
night.

A spokesman for Surrey County Council trading standards, which is the 
enforcement authority for breaches of health and safety at the site, said 
that its inquiries were continuing and a decision on any prosecution would 
be made in the new year.


..................................................................

Foot-and-mouth 'wasn't contained'
By Pallab Ghosh
Science Correspondent, BBC News

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7143260.stm

Controls were in operation during the outbreaks
Environment department Defra failed to contain the first foot-and-mouth 
outbreak this summer despite declaring the nation virus-free, a study says.

The first outbreak in August was traced to the Pirbright lab site in Surrey.

A second outbreak - 11 miles (17km) away in September - was thought to have 
been caused by separate contamination.

But the Institute of Animal Health research concluded the two outbreaks came 
from the same source, suggesting the first was not fully eradicated.

Transmission sequence

Its scientists studied the genetic fingerprints of the virus recovered from 
the different infected premises in the 2007 outbreak.

After analysing the evidence they have been able to determine the probable 
sequence of transmission between infected premises.

An independent expert peer review process has accepted the study's 
conclusions that the second phase of the outbreak originated from the first 
phase and was not from a separate release.

It suggests that the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs 
(Defra) failed to identify premises that had continued to be infected 
throughout August.

Defra, however, says it was not a failure on their part, "This infected 
premises was located outside of the original 10km surveillance zone and 
therefore could not have been picked up by the extensive surveillance and 
sampling we carried out according to internationally recognised standards."

The second outbreak in September came as a surprise and embarrassment to the 
government.

It had taken credit for successfully containing the virus leak from the 
Pirbright site in Surrey, which houses both the IAH's Pirbright Laboratory 
and the vaccine company Merial.

But according to the IAH investigation, the virus was somehow transported 
17km from the first infected premises in Normandy to another farm in the 
Virginia Water area.

Conflict of interest

This raises the possibility that Defra supervised disinfection of the 
original Pirbright premises and disposal of infected animals, but did not 
eradicate the virus.

The research was made public by the scientists to refute newspaper claims 
that there was a second breach in biosecurity at the site.

The IAH scientists' decision to publish their findings came as the 
government announced Defra was to be stripped of its role as regulator for 
laboratories which handle animal viruses.

The decision was triggered after a review found there was a conflict of 
interest in Defra being both a major recipient of research carried out at 
Pirbright, and the site's regulator.