THE word vaccine comes from vacca, the Latin for cow. I learned this the other day from an article in the current National Trust magazine. Its subject is a history of milkmaids. The first smallpox vaccine was developed from the scabs on dairymaids who had contracted cowpox, which was known to give immunity to smallpox.

All that is by-the-by. But, as the foot-and-mouth scourge continues, is it not the bitterest irony that the very name of the ignored proper solution - vaccination - comes from the cows that have gone to a needless slaughter, culminating in those grotesque funeral pyres and pits?

As some of my readers know, and a few appreciate, I have urged vaccination from Day One. Well, not quite Day One. For it was not until about Day Seven or Eight that the option of vaccination became clear. Neither the Government nor the NFU mentioned it at the start. Regardless of foot-and-mouth issues, the official news management of the crisis is an exercise in public brainwashing that should disturb everyone who values democracy.

Even now myths persist. One of the biggest against vaccination, is that vaccinated animals can pass on the disease. Wrong. Though vaccinated animals can be carriers, the evidence that they do not transmit the disease is overwhelming.

In 1952, when a serious outbreak occurred in the Netherlands, all three million cattle were vaccinated, the first general vaccination in Europe. The disease disappeared. Uruguay and Argentina, where the disease was rife in the 1980s, have had the same experience. Lab tests, including at Britain's Pirbright Institute of Animal Health, have confirmed that vaccinated carriers pose no risk.

So how did the belief arise that they do? Dr Simon Barteling, the Dutch virologist who oversaw Europe's switch, at Britain's behest, from vaccination to culling in 1991, says: "When in the 1960s vaccinated carriers were detected - first in the Netherlands - the evidence that these animals do not cause disease was not taken into account. The US, the UK, Japan, and other countries with a non-vaccination policy banned the import of livestock and meat from countries where FMD was controlled by vaccination. After that, the carrier story started its own life, and now vaccinated animals are, by definition, suspected of being a potential danger.''

Britain sought the abolition of vaccination to save its farming industry a cost that was seen as unnecessary since the disease hadn't appeared here since 1967. It successfully argued that the cheaper culling method was as effective as vaccines. With the cost of the outbreak now put by the CBI at £20bn, that is now shown to have been a fatal misjudgement.

On March 21, Dr Barteling wrote prophetically: "If stamping out is carried out to the bitter end, a long-lasting struggle can be foreseen at the cost of billions of pounds and a lot of human grief, sorrow and social damage.'' Could it be the big hole blown in public finances by FMD that is making Tony Blair desperate to involve the private sector in public services?

We have now slaughtered six million animals, two million more than the Government's figure, which ignores lambs, calves and piglets (more news manipulation). The Government's chief vet, Jim Scudamore, will not rule out the slaughter of a further six million.

Dr Barteling says: "Every case is one too many. Modern FMD vaccines induce within a week sufficient immunity to protect against disease. Vaccination stops the disease and life can take its course again.''

Our ever-widening cull, and the propaganda that has convinced the public it is inevitable, form one of the greatest scandals of our time.

Published: 13/06/2001