It would take a stubbs to do this one justice....

Urgent call from a neighbour this morning.... we are trying to retrieve
our cattle from some private woodland... can you help?

Oh well, taking the roof of a barn will wait. So off we went. This was
around 10.30am. I finally staggered home at 8.30pm.

12 month old claimed to be Canadian Abbey/dairy crosses. Judging by the
way they went through or over fences there must be a lot of Limousin in
the Canadian Abbey or someone forged their passports!
Fresh bunch, all off the same farm and just vaccinated against Blue
Tongue.

There were said to be 6 in the bunch we were tracking (brambles nettles
trees etc. Fortuitously 5 decided to cross a field of Barley and exit
via the footpath (we don't need gates or stiles where cattle are not
grazed) across a busy B road. I said fortuitously because they then
followed the by-way back to my place where we were able to turn them
into a fenced haycrop.

Pat's Note:

I had always thought that American lawyers fighting Class Actions
would restore some sanity to those protecting Britain's corrupt
government vets.

Whilst I'm still sure that the big legal battalians and claims will
arive from North America, it is pleasing to see Scottish lawyers
persuing MRSA cases hard.

The NHS will have to respond by trying to prove a source of MRSA in
the community.

...and Britain's bent government vets still think they can keep the
MRSA status of Britain's pigs secret?

I think not.This is going to get worse. Much worse. The lawyers will
take effective control of animal health in Britain, at least as far as
zoonotic disease is concerned.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/health/article3934992.ece

...According to court papers lodged on her behalf: “If the hospital's
hand hygiene policy had been implemented, enforced and adhered to, Mrs
Miller would not have become infected with MRSA.”

Pat's Note: I wonder what all this is about?

What needs updating?

If a vet misbehaves, and that includes government vets, the police
should be involved.

People like this should not be left in charge of discipline anyone.
Self regulation does not work.

The RCVS did not discipline a single vet during FMD despite many
complaints.

When they do strike someone off, there is a nod and a wink to reapply
a year later. They should get a criminal record not help to reoffend.

There have been too many animal livestock epidemics in Britain, far
too many. There are also too many vets. A few thrown out would do the
world of good. Stanbdards would rise immediately.

Anyway when the public find that MRSA has been hidden up in pigs, they
won't be allowed to regulate themselves.

So this is all nonsense.

http://www.farmersguardian.com/story.asp?sectioncode=1&storycode=18477

VetsÂ’ legislation left in a mess
News | 14 May, 2008

Pat's Note: I'm not saying that pigs are implicated in these
outbreaks, but the areas do co-incide with epidemics of PMWS in pigs
and the dates seem logical.

Pigs do harbour C.Diff and the pigs in this part of Canada were very
sick with Circovirus.

It is a long report. I have just given the highlights

http://www.thespec.com/News/Local/article/368665

An explosion of C. diff deaths

May 14, 2008
Joan Walters

The Hamilton Spectator
(May 14, 2008)

At least 125 patients have died of C. difficile in outbreaks that
swept through five Ontario hospitals in 20 months, infecting nearly
600 mostly elderly patients....

The highly infectious bacterium hits elderly people hardest.

A strain of the bacterium -- which killed 2,000 in Quebec -- is
implicated in all five outbreaks.

Are the current prices a blip?

Is this a bounce from last year's F&M standstill?

I can see that prices are bound to rise a little along with added costs but
most lamb has relatively little bought-in input compared with other meats.

Cheerio,

--

Pat's Note: There is lots here on uk.business.agriculture to interest
the lawyers on both sides.

http://ukpress.google.com/article/ALeqM5ie2R89GX1VQkF-3h7b2b5pvNXi7A

Gran has right to sue NHS over MRSA
26 minutes ago

A grandmother has said she was "overjoyed" that her court bid to win
damages from the NHS after she caught the superbug MRSA in a Glasgow
hospital can go ahead.

Elizabeth Miller, from Kilsyth, North Lanarkshire, was diagnosed with
MRSA in 2001 when she was recovering from a heart operation at
Glasgow's Royal Infirmary. She was admitted on October 18 for an
aortic valve replacement operation, and nine days later she was
diagnosed with a suspected wound infection and placed on antibiotics.

The infection was later identified as being MRSA.

Pat's Note: This is the shape of things to come.

The hospitals, especially those in Britain, Ireland and Canada are
going to be looking for external sources to blame.

You notice that although the case was in the Republic, the expert
opinions were coming from the UK - a sign of the internationalisation
of the information flow.,

If British (and Irish) pigs do have MRSA and government vets have been
hiding it up, or failing to test for it, the **** is going to hit the
fan.

Many health care workers have associations with pigs. Some even farm
them.

uk.business.agriculture will get the publicity they crave. You can't
have people like this advising on zoonotic disease.

I notice nobody has the courage to make a clear statement that British
or Irish pigs do not have MRSA, stating their qualifications to do so.

Britain's bent government vets have bolted and nobody is there to take
up the responsibility. The politicians are more interested in
by-elections.

It will have to be the lawyers.

Pat's Note: It will be interesting to see if anyone does ban either
live pigs or pork from Germany following the admission that they have
MRSA in pigs.

I don't know of anyone that has done so, so far, for that reason.

The American COOL regulations if implemented as expected will amount
to a de facto ban on Canadian pigs and pork except at very reduced
prices.

It is a weird situation, not helped by Britain's strange stance.

http://www.monstersandcritics.com/news/business/news/article_1405164.php/Japanes...

Japanese ban on German pork imports to end, Berlin predicts

May 13, 2008, 16:22 GMT

Berlin - German trade officials have been assured a Japanese ban on
imports of German pork is to end soon, Gerd Mueller, a state secretary
at the German Agriculture Ministry, said in Berlin Tuesday.

Mueller said the Germans were told at talks in Tokyo that Japan would
also open its borders to German poultry and poultry products.

If you are traveling and do go into a hotel after four o' clock, IF
there is a room availiable you probably would get a better deal, but I
have done this and it landed up I was driving along the highway
getting off at every exit ramp just to be told that they were all
booked this lasted for about 30 miles, it was between 9 and 10:30 at
night raining cats and dogs, when I finally did find an availiable
room, well let's just say "the cockroach hotel" is what we landed up
getting and I still slept in the car that night.

However if you are travel during the off season, in the US that's
usually after September 7, you can find great rates. We got 150 a
night hotel for 75 a night.

If you would like to check out different hotels worldwide, their
prices, anemities and ratings by consumers, you can go to
http://travel-vacationpackages.com

The reason the newsgroup, uk.business.agriculture, has suddenly died
has nothing to do with there being a lack of interesting things to
discuss about farming,

It has nothing to do with the apparent domination of two posters, who
amiably disagree about almost everything but free speech.

Most of the other regular posters, usually collectively known as the
politburo, have claimed sufficient skills with their kill files to
avoid reading anything that pricks their rawhide consciences.

The real problem in pig health and MRSA.

Nobody here seriously believes that Defra's claim that they have no
evidence to justify testing British pigs and pork for MRSA, actually
does justify not testing British pigs and pork for MRSA, especially
when we know that they have been testing British pigs and pork for
MRSA.

The whole business is a logical absurdity. British pigs and pork
obviously do have MRSA and Britain's corrupt and dangerous government
veterinarians are scared witless.

They are right to be terrified.