THE National Beef Association wants the government to show more discrimination in its choice of scientific advisers when it is next faced with an animal disease crisis, writes Mikes Bridgen.

It claims Downing Street was seduced by a misguided model forecast put forward by Imperial College when the foot-and-mouth storm was at its height.

But for that forecast, tens of thousands of cattle would not have been taken out in the contiguous cull and hundreds of farms would still have their herds intact.

According to the NBA only about 25pc of the 425,000 cattle killed so far were on infected premises and the over-enthusiasm for wider controls turned the culling programme into mass slaughter.

"The irony is that only a minority of these additional deaths will have done anything to slow down the spread of the disease because it had reached its peak when the already discredited contiguous cull was implemented," said Mr Robert Forster, association chief executive.

"The decision to introduce it was too hurried because it was made against a background of political excitement and, as a result, real veterinary science, which has since been shown to have been successful in bringing the epidemic under control, was pushed rudely away.

"We stand by the view that the clampdown on animal movement on February 23, the vigilance of farmers who have reported twice as many false alarms as they have foot-and-mouth cases, and the immediate slaughter of infected animals have been the real drivers in the reduction of the disease.

"And we are dismayed that there is so much acceptance in veterinary circles that the information fed into the models that dazzled the government and were used by non-veterinary advisers to justify the contiguous cull were flawed."