Veterinary Medicine kills Badgers as a Treatment for Bovine TB. How sensible is this?

How effective is veterinary medicine? Well, consider this; Badgers are being culled in order to reduce the incidence of Bovine TB.

So clearly veterinary medicine believes the mass slaughter of Badgers is an effective medical treatment for cows with tuberculosis.

Care 2 Petitions have a petition "The UK just declared open season on tens of thousands of badgers after it promised to stop the killing". Whether you wish to sign it, or not, depends on how sensible/rational you think this 'medical' response is the the problem of bovine TB. This is their message.

               "Culling, or the mass slaughter, of badgers has been practised in the UK for a bloody 7 years. The government says it's the only way to stop the spread of bovine-TB, for which badgers are vectors. But the government is lying. A ten year long study prior to the cull's beginning concluded that "badger culling can make no meaningful contribution to cattle TB control in Britain." Since the beginning of the cull, the number of cows per year that contracted bovine TB rose by nearly 8,000.

The bloody badger cull is as ineffective as it is inhumane, thus the government vowed to phase the practice out in favor of vaccinations as well as improving farm biosecurity. 

               "But now, in a horrifying U-turn, the government is doubling down on its previous murder crusade: they just announced that 11 more areas of the UK will be included in the badger cull, adding another 60,000 badger lives to the kill list. 60,000 more badgers that can now be gunned down, left to bleed out for minutes or even hours of suffering. This is senseless cruelty.

Alarming. yet this is a simplistic view of the government's culling policy which fails to recognise the reason for the policy, namely the failure of conventional veterinary medicine. In other words, the root of the problem is that vets have not effective treatment for bovine TB. This creates the problem. 

• Government pay out £millions every year to compensate farmers for the loss of their cows. They quite understandably want to reduce this outlay.
• Farmers are devastated by the loss of their herds, they seek medical help - but there is no veterinary help available. Instead, they have to make do with government compensation.
• The veterinary profession then feels under pressure. They have two alternatives - to admit they have no treatment (which is embarrassing, and undermines their competence) - or come up with desperate and crazy measures to cover up their failure be seen as doing 'something'.

In other words both farmers and government are relying on the advice of a grossly incompetent and failing medical system. Similarly, the crazy and desperate measures that have been put in place for 'treating' the coronavirus COVID-19 pandemic have the same roots - and incompetent medical system that (on its own admission) has no available treatment.

So alternative, natural strategies are not considered. Industrial farming practices, in which cows are kept indoors, artificially inseminated, kept in a permanent state of pregnancy / lactation, and then fed on food they do not normally eat, might be seen as a cause of the problem. Yet this is rarely discussed, and if it is it is usually ridiculed and dismissed out-of-hand. In much the same way, conventional medicine has rejected the natural immune system, supporting and strengthening it, as a more effective alternative to washing hands, social distance, lockdown, destroying jobs and social relationships, undermining education, the justice system, and the economy generally.

So alternative, natural strategies are not being considered. So the nonsense endures. It is badgers that cause the problem, and they pay the price. Animal husbandry has nothing to offer in terms of an explanation for the problem, or suggesting more effective alternative treatment.

Homeopathy is also rejected, both by government and veterinary medicine, despite having had success for many years in the treatment of tuberculosis. However, there are an increasing number of farmers, perhaps those who understand that both government and veterinary medicine is incompetent, are moving to homeopathy. Many more farmers should consider doing the same. 

The organisation 'Homeopathy at Wellie Level' has been organising and running homeopathy courses for farmers and smallholders for many years. Homeopathy provides a rational and sensible way of dealing with all the livestock illness currently experienced on the farm. And homeopathy is safer, more effective, and cheaper than conventional veterinary medicine.

Culling Badgers and TB

Domestic cows are contracting TB (tuberculosis). Responsibility for this has been attributed to the gentle badger, which carries the disease, and they are charged with the responsibility for passing it on to cattle.

• The cows that contract TB are slaughtered. This, it is said, is the best way to eradicate the disease!
• And farmers have been given permission to cull badgers in two areas of England, something that is already happening in several other parts of Europe.

Will this lethal medical strategy work? This is currently the subject of a lively political debate.

Farmers, who insist on feeding cows on grain rather than grass, keeping them confined indoors rather than in fields, and milking them to sheer exhaustion in the interests of productivity, think it will.

Those opposing the cull believe that the evidence, including the science, does not support the cull as an effective stratetgy. They claim that vaccination is the way forward. This position might, at best, be considered a triumph of hope over experience, given the damage conventional vaccines have had on us. I have visions of inattentive, wandering cows with Autism; and their young calves dying of 'sudden calf-death-syndrome'.

The government supports the cull, as usual supporting the views of the largest vested-interest involved in the debate. Scientists say the evidence suggests that culling will not work. And so all is confusion!

So please excuse me if I deviate somewhat from the political argument, and introduce a new topic to the general discussion on badger culling.

What sort of medical system advocates a policy of killing rather than a policy of treatment when an animal contracts a disease?

The answer is a failing system, and system of medicine that whilst claiming great competence, delivers little in the way of effective treatment of serious (and less serious) diseases. Conventional medical practice has a history of doing so. The most notable, perhaps, was the Foot and Mouth epidemic of 2001, during which conventional medicine slaughtered millions of cows - as a treatment!

Now they acquiesce to the slaughter of badgers - because they have nothing else to offer. The conventional medical establishment tells us, so regularly and frequently, that ‘nothing else can be done’. Although what this actually means is that conventional medicine can do nothing more, for any other medical therapy to suggest that it can leads to them being lampooned, attacked, ridiculed and threatened by the ConMed Establishment, and even by the law, for doing so.

Not even humans are safe from butchery. Faced with the possibility of breast cancer, some women are now choosing to have their breasts removed, rather than face the prospect of relying on conventional medical treatment, in which many women, quite clearly, now have little confidence. And perhaps it is with some justification that, faced with a terminal illness, many people are now seeking legalisation to allow voluntary, or assisted euthanasia.

So let’s invite some lampooning from the supporters of Big Pharma drugs and vaccines! 

How exactly would a Homeopath, or an Alternative Therapist, approach the problem of TB (tuberculosis) in badgers. I see a classic homeopathic consultation, that starts from lifestyle factors, and moves on to treatment!

Alternative Therapist (AT). Are you eating a good, healthy, species-friendly diet?

Cow. No, I am being fed on corn, and I have little opportunity to eat grass

AT. Do you get adequate exercise?

Cow. No, I am kept in a confined space, and not allowed to wander far.

AT. Are you living in a healthy, natural environment?

Cow. No, I rarely if ever see a field. I have to live with many other cows. We are usually indoors now, but this is not a natural environment for us cattle.

AT. Are you under stress? Are you able to relax?

Cow. No. I am expected to provide ever increasing amounts of milk, and I am kept constantly in this state.

AT. Are you getting plenty of Vitamin D (several studies have shown that this is a preventative measure for TB).

Cow. No, it has never been suggested to me. I thought the best source of Vitamin D is sunshine, and I rarely see the sun now, of course.

AT. Has Homeopathic treatment, or any other treatment, ever been mentioned?

Cow. No.

AT. Have you ever been given any Homeopathic remedies, like Phosphorus been given to you?

Cow. Not to my knowledge, the farmer and his vet do not believe in such things, but he is always complaining about badgers.

So it's a precarious life being a cow, living increasingly unnatural lives, and relying as they do on conventional medical treatment. If they get ill, because of the life-style they are expected to endure, they are slaughtered!

And it is a precarious life for badgers too. Whether they carry TB or not, and whether they are troubled by it or not, they are accused of passing the disease to cows, and as a consequence, run the risk of being shot.

But then, as we see so often on this  blog, it is a precarious life being a human, contracting diseases that are often caused by conventional medical treatment, and treated by drugs and vaccines that are usually ineffective and dangerous to our future health. There is nothing we can do, we are told. Just keep taking the medicine.

Indeed, it’s a badgers life!