Focus 580; The Impact of Livestock Disease in Europe

Good morning welcome to focus 580 This is our telephone talk program. My name is David Ensor. Glad to have you with us in the first hour of the program today. We'll be talking about foot and mouth disease for more than a month now. Britain has been struggling with an outbreak of this disease. It is extremely infectious and has spread very quickly from just one swine operation to over 750 farms and upwards of seven hundred sixty four thousand animals and that has happened in less than six weeks. It has been extremely expensive and will continue to be a spokesman for the Prime Minister Tony Blair has said so far the direct cost of dealing with the foot and mouth outbreak has been 600 million pounds. That's eight hundred fifty nine million dollars and it has been estimated that eventually the cost could be over four billion dollars. Foot in Mouth has also spread to Europe and Netherlands has 15 confirmed cases. France too and Ireland one.

The disease has not been seen in the United States since nineteen twenty nine. But there seems to be growing concern here in this country that there is a possibility that foot and mouth might be spread some by some means from Europe to this country and so. Officials of the Agriculture Department things people who are concerned with making sure the diseases plan of animal diseases don't come from other countries to this country have increased their level of vigilance and yet as I say some people clearly are worried about the possibility of foot in mouth coming back to the United States. We thought this morning on the program we would talk a little bit about just what foot and mouth disease is what causes it how it spread and some of the measures that have been taken to try to make sure that it doesn't gain foothold again here in this country and also talk about some of the economic aspects of this outbreak. We have two guests joining us this morning they're both from Purdue University one to talk with us about the disease

angle and what about the economic angle. Our guests are Marshall Martin. He is associate head of the Department of Agricultural Economics and he's also director of the Center for Agricultural Policy and Technology Assessment. Our other guest is a Chilean Thacker. He is professor of veterinary path ology. He's also director of the animal disease diagnostic lab. And they're joining us this morning by telephone as we talk with our two guests. Questions are certainly welcome. The number if you're here in Champaign-Urbana where we are 3 3 3 9 4 5 5. Also though we do have a toll free line and that means it would be a long distance call for you will pay for the call. And that is 800 to 2 2 9 4 5 5 3 3 3 wy L.L. and toll free 800 to 2 2 W while 0. Well Professor Thacker Hello. Good morning. And Professor Martin good morning. Thanks to both of you for talking with us. But first I think I'd like to ask some very basic

questions and probably direct them to Professor Thacker although as we go along by the way if if one of the other of you wants to comment on something please feel free to you know go ahead and pass back and forth. But first we in Britain they tend to call this foot and mouth. And I know that some people in this country would rather refer to it as huff and mouth because that tells you a little bit more about the animals that are effected. More specifically cloven hoofed animals. So let's start with this question Fessor Thacker. What animals are susceptible. Just to give you the name of some of the species swine of course as you mention in your introduction that's entered into England flying high on the list of susceptibility to sheep cattle in this country deer elk and among the wild species that could be a factor in

spreading it should it get to this country. It's also a disease that affects elephants. There has been a recent report that this has gotten to a large sanctuary of elephants in India and that's very unfortunate. It also affects camel ads which would include camels. Pocket is llamas but the camel and species are are no less susceptible than some of the others. Now there are also species that can become infected with this and carry it but not. For the most part develop the disease. And that would include hedgehogs which are a small kind of warm fuzzy animals from England. That's been one of the reason people can't bring hedgehogs out of England over the years because they can carry this disease. It's also been carried in my ranch so it affects a wide variety of species but fortunately people are not one of those one point where I've been looking for used in what I have

looked at can since horses can horses get. Horses could physically carry it just like it could be carried on use farm machinery which is one of the things that was of concern a few weeks ago in the US but they do not become infected with the disease. So it's just a it's the issue there with horses is that not that they could get it but that they could they could be an agent of transmission that's right. Let me ask a question that I had from a reporter yesterday Leon and I could not answer the question was if a person was traveling in Europe consumed a meat product that might have been infected with the virus and then came back to us could that be carried through the body of the person if they consumed the food. It's. Not likely mainly because the virus is quite susceptible to low pH and obviously when it went through mana gastric animal's stomach it's going to be subjected to quite a low pH.

And so that would likely inactivated but we couldn't say for sure that if it were to pass through the that yes to tract of a person or another animal particularly a horse and not be subjected to be ational enough to activate the virus than it potentially could be infected. You mentioned the president just a moment ago just to make sure that the people heard this and if there was any sort of concern that human beings cannot get open mouth. It's my understanding though that apparently in Britain there this is has further contributed to the decline in meat consumption. Of course for now some time people there have been concerned about BSE about what so called Mad Cow disease but apparently this is just further leading people away from eating meat and maybe again here we ought to underscore the fact that as far as I have seen even if an individual ate

meat from an animal that was infected this is not going to cause any particular problem for the person. That's correct it's not considered to me as a one not a disease and I think you're exactly right that part of the. Confusion here and probably probably part of the reason of influencing people's eating habits is the fact that foot and mouth. Disease and are quote mad cow disease which is a bad name to put on and I'm frightened but it's quite descriptive and. But anyway I think a number of the public have confused because they both come from England. For the most part rather recently even though it it appears as though BSE the bovine spongiform encephalopathy which I would prefer to refer to mad cow as BSE or BSE it appears a rose in England foot in mouth disease Admin. a disease that we've known for many many many years and it's doubtful that it arose in England it's just

that it had an outbreak there. As you said earlier I think about six weeks ago it's important to keep in mind that we've had outbreaks of a mouth disease or in Latin American Spanish has gone optos has been in Argentina and other South American countries off and on for a number of years. It's also been a problem in parts of Africa and Asia. So this has been a problem in a number of countries around the world periodically for for a long time. Apparently again according to what I read the only consonants on the planet where you don't see it are North America Australia and Antarctica. I have that right. That's right. And. It has been here. I mean it was yes as you sat here it was last seen in the U.S. in 1909. But it has been a male North American continent many years ago. Well the British as as we do we had in place a system to try to monitor and prevent the spread of foot and mouth and obviously in that case for them it was not

successful and we saw how quickly over a period of weeks this managed to spread. What how do you think or does anybody know how this got started in Britain and how it took hold there. Well it's my understanding that in England they did not have a law on their books that required it. Food and materials that would be coming say from the restaurant or whatever. But to be cooked before they could be fed. Swine. We've had that as a federal law many many years in this country. I mean if you're going to if you're going to go get restaurant waste and feed it to pigs in this country you can do that but you cannot do it unless you cook that in England that that law was not in effect. And so if someone came from one of these countries that Dr. Martin had mention and it appears as though this is an Asiatic strange I think

it's a strain. Oh that's they're having problems with now. If someone came from a country where that was. Present in any population and matter of fact if they had taken sausage from a pig that had died with this disease that Flesher of that meat would have contain virus that could have been discarded into restaurant waste and fed to a pig and when that when it got into that pig than it takes off as a virus infection. Now I've seen it estimated by some of our ologists in this country. It's been estimated that foot and mouth disease gets in this country every day. It's just that it doesn't get hooked up with a susceptible species to take off as a. Epidemic so to speak as they are experiencing and that's in it. It surprises me in a way to hear that there would be no restriction like that in Britain

given the kind of difficulties they've had over the past few years with these transmissible spongiform encephalopathy. Right. Why. And I suppose that this will be a question for the parliament I guess you know during question time they would stand up and say why is it that we haven't done something about this. But it doesn't surprise me that's not something they've tried to address. I understand that it's in effect now. Now it might be useful if we have a brief discussion about one of the symptoms of the disease and how it's expressed in the animal. Sure. Well I guess maybe again Fessor Thacker would you want to talk about it. I can only give you what I've read I'm not I'm not men I'm not saying this obviously I'm not I wasn't quite a veterinarian 1029 not quite general but what I have seen. Oh well all right. So I've treated. Go ahead. Comment either of you are there or both can comment. Yeah my understanding is that different species show this to different degrees

and this is my understanding and this partly is has come from reports we've gotten back from veterinarians who are in England now and in fact we do have an an Ariens and have been called from England from our state but an Ariens office and one from our Indiana area veterinarian charge office have been assigned to go there to spend a month. But some of the feedback that they've given us and also some of the reading we've done suggests that sheep do not show the lesions as classically or they don't show the lesions as severe as perhaps cattle or swine show this. By that I mean that classically we look for vessels on foot. And the reason we call it on the foot instead of the hoofs of the Earth is actually kind of like our fingernails. And so it doesn't ulcerated get blisters. I mean you can imagine if you look at your fingernail you're not going to get a blister on your fingernail. So you don't get blisters on the hoofs but you can get

it on the foot. And so that's why it's called foot and mouth instead of hoof and mouth. And so the blisters form there will be blisters on the mouth and maybe on the foot. They may have in a lactating animal that may be on the teats and that's just a predilection site for this virus. It shows a predilection to attack the empathy in in these various sites. Sheep do not show. Lesions as severely or well developed blisters that we may see on the snout or the mouth of Pigs or see it on the mouth of cattle. I've seen a number of these on cattle where it wouldn't undermine the. Specially the lining of the time. So that whining when someone would were to pull that tongue out of the cow's mouth that it essentially would slide off their hands. I might add further that when I was working in Bolivia 35 years ago and was managing

an operation a school training program and we had to get into our our dairy operation in our cattle and as he said they were having trouble walking because of the lesions in the hoof Andor and the foot and then also these Bush in the mouth and so basically they were not able to go out on pasture comfortably to eat. They were not wanted to eat because of the you know the pain in the mouth from the alterations and so maybe they just weren't eating. We're going to quickly affect their health status and their ability to produce milk. The locals there had old practices like treating the ooze with copper sulphate and one of the local remedies was to use grapefruit to try to get some acid sort of treatment on the leaves in the mouth that was the local home remedy that I ran into and in Latin America 35 years ago. And as you suggested. Apparently this does not necessarily kill the animal outright but the problem is that then if the animals are eating they're not going to produce whatever it is that you want them to produce milk or wool or meat and

that that would mean even though the animal might not die that essentially as far as the producer is concerned the animals are worthless and in addition to the fact that it can then spread the disease to the two other animals. Exactly right that's right. The mortality or that death loss from this. I'm seeing. A number of different figures published but in adult animals 5 percent is not as high as I've ever seen and I've seen it more often. Published is about 2 percent so that there are other diseases that are much more deadly when an animals get bars. Being a fatal infection in a cow that it will cause death and a higher percent than that in very young animals or very own animals but in and of itself. Many of these animals will recover but it takes a long time and it will definitely knock down their production of either meat or milk. It puts them in a very painful state for quite some period of time.

Maybe up to just real quickly here introduce the two guests if someone has just tuned in we're speaking with Leon Thacker He's professor of veterinary path ology and Mark. MARTIN He's an agricultural economist. He's also director of the Center for Agricultural Policy and Technology Assessment both of them at Purdue University and we're talking about foot and mouth disease and if you have questions they're certainly welcome here in Champaign Urbana 3 3 3 9 4 5 5. We also have toll free line that's good anywhere you can hear us 800 to 2 2 9 4 5 5. I want to ask a question that goes to the issue of what we're doing to try to make sure that we don't have problem with this in the United States and get it. I'm reminded of this because of Professor Factor's comment about how you weren't around in nine hundred twenty nine. The United States Animal Health Association which is an independent group that's led by state Vets says they're kind of concerned about what would happen if there were. An outbreak of the disease currently in a report that they put out in one thousand ninety eight. They suggested that the first cases might be mis

diagnosed because because producers haven't seen it before is there do you think that that's actually a problem that it might go unnoticed because as as there are not that many people around or maybe there isn't anybody around who would have not really people had seen it before. On the one hand yes there would be. There would be very few people as Dr. Martin said and he had seen this that there would not be a very high percent I don't think of people involved with animal agriculture in this country who would have direct experience with it. But I think just like this program we're putting on right now I mean to heighten awareness of this amongst producers and but an Ariens that this is a possibility and to emphasize the importance that as soon as it can be diagnosed if it does get to this country the less the economic can.

Animal agriculture impact. That will be there in through quarantine and isolation procedures that that would be put in effect immediately. One of the concerns that I have is we have a lot of people that are traveling normally to Europe and they may not even be on a farm they may be in rural areas or visiting zoos or other places there might be animals or potential contamination with the virus and so I certainly would hope that all of the listeners who are traveling are content in traveling to any of these countries Europe or Africa or Argentina or elsewhere that they follow all the recommended procedures when they come back into the country that their clothing has been washed that they've showered that they checked the box been on a farm on the form they fell in they come through immigration that they you know may need to disinfect their feet through a bath and come through and they fully comply with all of these preventative measures that are part of our regulatory procedures so we don't run a risk of bringing it back into the country

inadvertently. I fully agree with admin and if anything I would say go beyond what those suggestions are because I think some of the suggestions that I've read on this say that you should stay away from a farm for five days. Well it's been shown that from from the hair of someone who had been in. Contact with an infected animal they can isolate this virus in the hair of an individual for 30 days afterwards. And so if if you had the preference of staying off of the farm I wouldn't be in favor of requesting an individual not come in contact with those susceptible species for a period well beyond five days if at all possible. And I just know the number of people who maybe students on our campuses will be doing study abroad this summer or other people as tourist traveling will just be very careful and and that's one important thing. I think our other government officials are being very cautious about not importing animals or processed meat or our

livestock products but it's important for just the casual traveler tourist to fully comply because I know it's sometimes easy to get cavalier and you know not check the right box. You know be in a rush to go through customs and immigration and and we just don't want to bring this back in. Well we have a caller and we'd certainly welcome others if folks have questions. 3 3 3 9 4 5 5 toll free 800. 2 2 2 9 4 5 5. Our caller here is in Urbana line 1. Hello. Hello. Yes you have been discussing my question precautions for travelers. We've had a trip planned to England since January and didn't anticipate the problem over there and we decided not to cancel specific question has to do with the fact that I have a horse. He's a single guy in a barn back yard horse. I do all the stable care our family's going to be taking care of him for three weeks while we're away and I know when we return they will be happy for me to resume the barn chores.

What is my problem you say horses can be carriers but not show signs of the disease. My horse really doesn't go anywhere so I assume taking the precautions you're describing would take care of it now we're going to Oxford shyer and glass to share every morning I look on the Guardian then I can get a list of every farm in England that has sick animals and I know we can't go rambling about but. We will be in the town but we will be there. My concern is do I need to stay away from my horse for a month. Well no not not unless you are going to take your horse to somewhere that that horse would be coming in contact with with Ace. A member of a susceptible species if if your orse was going to be in contact with a pig or a calf or a sheep through exhibition or

whatever means that they might physically carry some of that virus. That would be a possibility but otherwise you're already not going to be affected with this virus at all. If you carry it back hopefully you're going to be cognisant and fairly launder and dry clean your clothing when you return. I think it's a good idea. And if you are in these places I think it's good to use a disinfectant solution that's recommended no five tablespoons of household bleach per gallon of water will have five to a gallon. Yes. And use that to wash off any of the footwear that you may have that would be in contact with potentially infective soil or whatever. And while you're in England. All right I appreciate this and it's reassuring and we will follow the instructions. Thank you thank you. OK. Just to add I don't want to be

labor this point too much but I know that it does concern people and particularly Even people have heard about the fact that the virus that causes the disease can actually be spread on the wind. Maybe now you're not. If you're walking down the high streets of London you're not going to come across it. But if you're in a rural area is it possible that you might encounter the virus or do you really have to be in a fairly deliberate way. Go to a farm get close to the places where animals are raised. The research was done as was done back in 1970 and they had four individuals who were in the presence of swine heads and the reason that was used is that swine is one of the species that sheds the virus in very very high numbers may be higher than almost any other. So they had four individuals who were in the presence of slaughter facility or actually probably any crops if only where they had contact with the heads of these pigs that

had the disease. That was much more exposure than you expect to find outside in the open air from the can from the virus. It was found that these individuals for 28 hours after they were in presens these pigs heads just breathing naturally as you and I are here in the present that virus they could pick up enough of that virus on the MI coast. There respire Tory epithelium that after that 28 hours after that one of the individuals. As it's described in the article. That was published they sneezed and coughed and whatever other means of trying to give an aerosol to KFC after having been in the presence of the pigs as much as twenty eight

hours after that when they caught in a face of a calf. One out of four of those kids picked up the virus and let it out. Saying it is very contagious yet can be can be moved so I think the answer your question is that if you are walking on the streets or out in you know more rural areas but not actually on a farm that I think the same precautions we just talked about should be taken. Well we have other callers let's go to Clark County this is our next persons on our line number four. Hello good morning. Yes. I have not heard anything about foot and mouth disease in China. In July I will be going to China for two weeks and I will. It's an agriculture mission so I'll be spending most of that time on farms. What kind of precautions are necessary they're going architected I'm sure the disease is there and so exactly what we're talking about coming back from England should be exposed or practiced in a return from China.

And there are other diseases that are also effect present in China and not least of which is classical swine fever or what we knew for years is how cholera. So the. The cautions that we're talking about from England should be expressed practiced I'm sure upon our return from China in particular if you're going to be coming contact with farm animals. We will definitely be coming in contact the farm again and my recommendation to be as follow all the procedures of washing your clothes and disinfecting your shoes and and following all the precautions as you come back from that trip. OK and staying away from from farm animals when you upon your return for at least five days you know as I said earlier I'd recommend it be a little longer than that if possible. Oh I live on a farm and although we are not producing livestock from a commercial standpoint we have farm animals on our

farm. If you could get someone else to do the chore during that period time it probably be a good safeguard. Well that might be another advantage of going on the path. Thanks very much. Thank you. Let's go to Windsor another call here line 1. Hello. Yes good morning. Yeah I have a cup twofold question here. Number one why is this disease the same thing to animals the cloven hoofed. And number two could genetic modification be alternative to eliminating this problem forever. Dr. Tucker go ahead. If it's not it's not a good answer but it's as good as I've got as to why it's in cloven hoofed animals and not others. God just made it that way I guess I don't have a better better suggestion for that. It's just that. They are these animals are susceptible and I.

Birds horses a number of these species are just not susceptible. Now as far as as genetics. There probably is one of the reasons as Dr. Martin said earlier there are a number of places in the world where this disease a sense really ends a lot of gain that it occurs there in animal population almost every year. One of those is Saudi Arabia. In some of the Mideast countries they have they have this essentially every year now one of the reasons it doesn't it isn't expressed as severely there is it is say in England is that you have a completely naive population in England. We have animals there that have not experienced this virus before so they have no immunity to it and so they're going to pick it up and when they become infected they're going to shed very high members of the virus. As far as as genetically engineering animals that would be resistant to it

that would potentially be a possibility. One of the things I know that's being worked on with this is to develop a vaccine whereby we could tell the difference in a test between antibodies that are produced to the vaccine and antibodies that are produced by the natural virus. You know is that vaccine is not available at this point in time. Essentially all the vaccine that is available or that is used around the world is killed vaccine and that's one of the reasons. One of the big reasons against using the vaccine is that it kills our exports for at least a year after that last vaccinated animal is killed in whatever country the vaccine is used in. You might also add I think either about seven different strains that go difficult to have the right vaccine ranter seven major strains of the virus and in are several sub strains to that and one strain if we have resistance to one strain of the

virus and an animal that's resistant to one strain of the virus may be susceptible to any one of the others. So it does not cross protect. So there that suggest there that the difficulty some people might say or they might have heard about the fact that there is a vaccine they might say well why not just vaccinate all the animals. The answer is Well you can't just give one shot that will protect against all forms. And then there's this this additional issue that once you have vaccinated the animal then that animal is going to test positive for FMD and if you want your animals to be certified you're all of the animals from your country certified FMD free what you can't do that just as a. As a matter of blanket policy even if you had a vaccine you could get all the animals you probably would want to do it unless you felt like you really had to. That's right and this is one of the reasons that this decision of using the vaccine is such a matter of high concern right now and one that is being looked at from all angles conceivable

by people in England there. So I would add that has significant economic consequences. Right and that's why I think kind of a cost benefit sense the decision been made so far in places such as the United Kingdom to identify and destroy those animals to try to bring the disease under control rather than to go into a vaccination regime. Yeah we just we have talked a little bit perhaps about the economic angle of this and maybe just for a moment we should do that. The figure that I'd seen I think I mentioned the beginning of the program is that somebody has estimated that by the time this is all over the costs to the government of Britain could be over four billion dollars. And not only does that is that a result of the of the difficulties that farmers face but it also has to do with people who are going to go to Britain canceling their trips so it's loss of money from tourism do you think. Professor Martin that that's that that figure is accurate could it really be more than four billion dollars the cost of this for the British.

I don't know what the exact number is but the studies I've seen suggest it. Well yes indeed. The farm level costs are significant and rising that probably the bigger cost to the economy in the U.K. and maybe in some other European countries is the other non farm but related activities tourism being the main one and sort of extended people cancel their trips or don't travel or walk or hike or bike in the countryside. That has an impact on restaurants and hotels and various tourist activities and that that cost could be much greater even then the the cost of having to identify and destroy the animals. So so it could be quite large. Has this had an impact on livestock prices around the world. Yes. Home prices have been up in part I think in this country because of some concerns about the disease outbreak in Europe. I suppose you know one wouldn't want to wish ill of producers elsewhere but is this BEEN can one actually say for four producers in this country this has been good

because it means the possibility that they can see a little bit higher price and maybe possibility of exporting some product that that otherwise they wouldn't. I think that's quite possible. And I mean it's kind of a perverse sort of way to work. Yeah. Reston but I think that's true I mean to the extent that the Europeans may be limited in some exportation of meat products then that may be some opportunity for us to export into markets where they otherwise would would serve and I do think that we've had two factors help increase hog price and in recent weeks in this country part that the hogs in picture point to came out some weeks back suggest not quite as many animals as we initially thought there might be as well as its international issues so. So prices have improved some for our producers. Well we have a couple of other costs let's get back to the phones here too. Urbana That's next person in line on line number two. Hello. Hello. Yes. I wanted to ask in regards to the mass slaughter and quarantine policy that is being practiced in Europe and I guess I heard of one

instance in this country in Vermont given that the disease does not seem to affect humans and doesn't even for the most part kill the livestock involved. And it gets mentioned it did seem to be present in China and I think Saudi Arabia and it's not being dealt with that way there. Why isn't it a possibility even seem to be being discussed of just letting the disease. Play of course and I guess maybe developing some kind of more general immunity to it. Well the thing that keeps livestock prices up in our country are export markets. And if we were to adopt the fact that we're going to live with foot and mouth disease it would shut down the majority of export markets that we have and perhaps Dr. Martin would.

Expand on it more mint. The the thing that makes this disease so devastating is not necessarily the number man with an iPhone but by the fact that when it enters a population the number of animals become affected with it become approaches 100 percent. It is it is so an infective. I don't know of any. Human diseases that I mean we talk about the influenza outbreak that happen in this country back in early 1900s I guess that approach says but as far as animal population goes we know of no other virus that is as infected as this one. When it gets into the population it just effects essentially every animal in the group. And that is what makes it so devastating and makes it so undesirable for a country to have it in their animal population. And as we said before that when those animals become infected they cannot eat properly. They they're not they're not growing properly they're not producing the Malkins that has significant economic impacts both in terms of the cost to treat it as well as the loss of production

or productivity. And so that can be a serious economic problem for not only farmers but for the society. And you think it's clear that say in Britain if they hadn't done a mass slaughter and all these measures that caused the four billion losses that you just mentioned that they lost would have been greater. You may be using vaccination along with letting the disease play out of course and some business is still being looked at by the government. In England it's not completely up to this time. Obviously they have elected to follow the policy of trying to stamp the disease out with with the elimination of affected animals. But I know from some of the conversation that we've seen going here that that it's still being considered.

To initiate use of a vaccination in England I might add and I thank you may want to comment on this at this. We've followed a similar policy in this country and other diseases for example hog collar as a case where we no longer vaccinate we've been able to eradicate it and not have to vaccinate so the amounts of these not the only case we followed a policy of trying to destroy infected animals and not vaccinate to control a disease is that not correct. Right there minute number of diseases that we don't have in this country and it was eliminated on the basis of elimination of animals affected with it. But when contagious blurr pneumonia we are essentially free in this country of brucellosis. In Indiana we are free from tuberculosis in animals. These are all diseases that can affect people that have been eliminated from our animal population by getting rid of the animals that are affected. Now cholera is one that's been and eliminated from the United States and it is not a disease that that is transmissible to

people. Pseudo rabies we as right now said rabies Minal emanated from Indiana swine within the last year. It took quite a number of years to do that. But the reason that this was done was not only that it that swine herds that do not have super rabies are more profitable but it also allows us to compete in an in an export situation as a state. Because if we sat here essentially the only state in the U.S. or amongst a number of states as the only one that had sued a right nice we wouldn't other other states would not want to import our pigs. Thank you that's all the pot I want to make is that this this approach is one has been used for diseases in animals other than just right in the open mouth disease and the calculations typically been it's more cost effective in the long run to try to eradicate the disease than let it run its course or to try to vaccinate for it.

OK thank you. Let's go to. Champagne for another color here lie number one. Hello. Yes I have actually a question then a comment coming up from the last question. My question first and I apologize if you've answered this already anyway because I didn't hear the entire hour. We have friends coming to visit soon from Holland and I was wondering if they're going to be facing any particular unusual treatment at the airport you know like having to be fumigated or something like that coming from a country where there where there is an outbreak even though not an enormous one and an area where there are you know it's a country where animals kind of throughout it be kind of hard to be sure that people hadn't been in contact. That's my first question everything was just a comment that it I gather that it's been a mandatory extermination of the infected animals in England right. And I was just wondering why they haven't been picking up in the last the caller's question left it to the discretion of the owner to

decide whether it's economically and whether that person judges it to be preferable for economic grounds or other grounds to exterminate it could perhaps just have a quarantine if the people chose not to. Anyway those are things I want to ask about dark about. Let me take the second question and you might want to answer the first one on the second one. This is what the economists would call an externality sort of issue as we've already discussed this morning it gets spread so quickly so easily that it can go from one farm to the next you cannot leave it up to an individual farmer to make the decision because the the ramifications the negative economic impacts affect everyone in the community or in the country. So you can't let each farmer decide you have to work together as a as a country or a region to bring it under control. I think that's why it has to be mandatory to make to make it work to be effective. Right now I don't understand it if they were all going to die from it but as the last caller said the fact that they can survive it but I understand it's because of the expensive. Yeah well they survive but they continue to

spread the disease. Yeah one farmer said Well I don't want mine killed the animals are sick. It's not like you know let your kids go to school when they're sick it's better to let him get better before you have everybody in the classroom flute killing it and it's a lot more extreme than you know letting go to school. Yes well understand but I was yeah and I see the point of my animals that if they're not brought up to control that. OK. I want to talk about the precautions again coming into this country with her. Yes coming from the Netherlands and getting back to this spread. Each one of these infected animals that we see is like a little virus factory. So if you can think of one of the sheep batten that or a or a pig if we see it on and on the TV that is that a foot in mouth disease affected individual. That's a little virus factory. And the only way we can get rid of the disease by stamping it out is to is to take away each one of those factors. Because as long as that as an animal is affected and if you see cattle with a ropey saliva coming out of their mouth all of that saliva is very infected

the milk that's produced by one of these animals that's affected is infected. The meat that counts one of these animals is infective So the only way we can get rid of it is to get rid of those little virus that whether or not it's a little like as if it's a thousand pound cat. But to get rid of those virus factories is the only way we can. We can take care of that. One of the concerns that I have is that one of my friends was I had a dinner recently with a couple who the day before had had dinner in a farmhouse in England that was right across the road from where. Foot in mouth disease affected farm was located and they were telling us about how little precautions had been taken either in airports in England or in airport in Miami Florida when they got to this country to try to ensure that they weren't carrying something in here.

Let me add to that I've had several My colleagues been over in France or in Europe in the last month over spring break. And I travel a lot internationally just have not been out of the country the last few weeks and they're telling me the same thing that that they're not being as careful. They thought and as people came into airports as maybe they should be concerned that maybe we don't have enough personnel in the airports to handle all the people coming in to follow all the proper procedures. That's why I made the earlier comment on the area that everyone is traveling should you know personally take some precaution of laundering their clothes and disinfecting their shoes and doing well and not not be in contact with animals once they get back. Because I'm not sure airports are being as strict as maybe they ought to be. And what you would favor would be for the airports for example to you know they always have a question that would have been a fireman if he had people checked off. Yes and they said have them on. But remove our clothes and change the closeness to cases or something like that and throw away the old ones are our put in plastic bags. What kind of thing would you favor a double bag these.

And yet if you could put these in a plastic bag if you were to go to a farm say in England and recommend that you take the clothing that you wore when you got back to the hotel or wherever you're staying. But those put those clothes into a plastic bag and probably put that plastic bag inside another one of your double plastic bagging these and bring those back to this country if if it's not convenient to launder our dry clean those while you're in England to bring them if you're bringing them here. Then to get them and get them laundered as soon as you return before year. Put them on to wear them again. What about says shoes should be washed off with this solution that would be made with five tablespoons of chlorine bleach like you would use just regular household we put five tablespoons of that in a gallon of water and use it to scrub off the soles and in any any soil that might be on your shoes. OK thanks.

All right well I think we're both at the bar we're going to have to stop and I have a couple people I'm sorry that I can't take but we're just going to have to leave it at that I do however want to thank both of our guests. Marshall Martin director of the Center for Agricultural Policy at Technology Assessment at Purdue press Martin thank you very much. And the actor he's Professor veterinary path ology press with AKER Thank you. Thank you.