Merial animal health?

Question

seeing as they appear to be the cause of the latest foot & mouth outbreak, should they provide the vacine they produce FOC to all uk farms...

would the farmers trust them?

Answer 1

Yes I think they supply the vaccines free of charge and compensate the other farmers who have lost livestock.
I think they should also have to refund all farmers for loss of income since the outbreak...

Answer 2

Seven main types of Foot and Mouth Virus are believed to exist. Like other viruses, the FMD virus continually evolves and mutates thus one of the difficulties in vaccinating against FMD is the huge variation between and even within serotypes. There is no cross-protection between serotypes (meaning that a vaccine for one serotype won't protect against any others) and in addition, two strains within a given serotype may have nucleotide sequences that differ by as much as 30% for a given gene. This means that FMD vaccines must be highly specific to the strain involved. Vaccination only provides temporary immunity that lasts from months to years.
On 4 August the strain of the virus was identified as an "01 BFS67-like" virus, one linked to vaccines and not normally found in animals, and isolated in the 1967 outbreak. The same strain was used at the nearby Institute for Animal Health and Merial Animal Health Ltd at Pirbright, 2½ miles (4 km) away which was identified as a possible source of infection.

Answer 3

Before you point the finger, I think it would be best to wait for the outcome of investigations. At the moment, there's no proof that Merial is the cause of the outbreak.

For people that don't know, Merial is one of two agencies based at Pirbright that do research into animal welfare ... either of which could be the culprit. Besides, it may even be a visitor to either of these sites that is the guilty party as the outbreak can be transported via the air, clothing, footwear, vehicles, etc. Having said that, there should be more stringent methods of containing such research facilities.