Oh who cares about TB, big deal
Joan Smith considers the Shambo question.
The temple has been served with a notice insisting that he be put down, prompting outrage among representatives of the country’s Hindus, who consider cattle sacred and claim that slaughtering the infected animal would be an affront to their religion. “It strikes at the very core of our beliefs,” said Ramesh Kallidai, the secretary general of the Hindu Forum of Britain…[I]n 1935, when a voluntary testing scheme was introduced for cattle, 50,000 new cases of human TB were recorded annually in this country and 2,500 people died from a form of the disease passed on through cow’s milk. That’s why testing was made compulsory in 1950, along with a raft of other measures designed to prevent transmission between cattle and humans. The low incidence of the disease in recent years is in large part due to the measures adopted in the past century.
So there you have it: ‘the very core of our beliefs’ versus the public health. The public health should trump the beliefs.
One of the myths promulgated by believers – a sacred cow, if I might use that term – is that there is no conflict between science and religion. Nothing could be further from the truth, as this sorry tale demonstrates, and I’m beginning to wonder whether there are any limits at all on the demands by different faith groups for special treatment.
I can answer that. No, there are no such limits. Fasten your seat belts.
This issue raises so many questions. How did these Hindus decide that this particular bull is sacred? And why don’t they realize that they erred when they chose a bull that was susceptible to TB? Or is the bacteria infecting this animal also sacred? And does that mean that the bacteria won’t hurt another creature, or are the deaths it may cause somehow sanctified? I’m so confused. Really. Just what are these people thinking? Anybody have a clue?
I wonder if this falls into that special category of ‘number of deaths is not big enough to worry about’. You know – 2,500 a year? That’s nothing compared with the number of people who die in car crashed, therefore this isn’t important. I always wonder what the upper limit on bodycount if, vis a vis car crashes, AIDS, malaria etc.
Hehe, wonderful to see the thugs of the Hindu Forum finally garnering some of the attention that hitherto had been monopolised by their muslim brethren! Anil Bhanot now withers on CIF and kallidai has finally found himself in the midst of a ‘bloody struggle’.
It is strange how cow-worship suddenly forms a core-belief of Hinduism when these jokers’ ancestors were sacrifing and feasting on cattle as noted in the Rig Veda. Where were these British Hindus when cows were culled during the mad cow disease crisis? The consistencies of religious belief!
Ok, I have a mean streak but watching the Brits deal with this is oh so delicious! I wonder how many hindu boys are going to be traumatised and radicalised by the inevitable put-down and go on the rampage? Will this lead to why-do-they-hate-us soul searching by the guardianistas?
Er, I have a hindu mother and as a child I was dispatched to the only dairy farm in S’pore to buy fresh cow urine for hindu rituals. I took along an empty coca-cola bottle and lots of hankies as the filled bottle always arrived overflowing and wet and hot. Ok I didn’t love my mum very much as I made my way home gingerly holding onto the precious substance but I now realise that it could have been much, much, infinitely much worse- she never made any of us bathe in it or drink it! Phew!
http://www.sepiamutiny.com/sepia/archives/001132.html
A mate of mine always reckoned the turban-on-a-motorbike ruling [The Motor Cycle Crash Helmet (Religious Exemptions) Act 1976] was where many of these issues started…as soon as that was allowed, all the other faiths/sects/creeds/gullible adherents of irrationality really sat up and took notice…
Wonder if anyone’s ever done any impact safety testing on turbans cf. helmets?
:-)
This area (the collision between secular and religious interests) is what I’m most worried about with Gordon Brown’s proposed British constitution…
mirax, not sure where you’re based but I’m in multi-culti UK midlands, and the really grim side of this is going to be repeats of the Bezhti thuggery. One lad on BBC News at that time proclaimed that he was really “looking forward to the Luton and London breddren getting up to Birmingham to support the Hindu crew.” It was mindless, confrontational street-gang talk, sod-all to do with faith, and that’s where all this b@llshit is leading us. Social atomisation. Black gangs. Asian-Hindus. Asian Muslems. African criminal gangs. White supremacist idiots. East-European n@zi gangs. Fighting over ‘turf’ while Thought for The Day has items on shiny new interfaith programmes that Tony Blair’s organisation are developing now he’s ex-PM. Great. Wicked, man.
“Interfaith”?
As in: “My invisible friend’s bigger than your invisible friend?”
WHAT IS TB?
Tuberculosis, known as TB for short, is an infection caused by a bacterium, Mycobacterium tuberculosis. It is one of the oldest diseases known to man, and was once so common that every adult was thought to have experienced a bout of TB infection during their lives.
TB is contagious, and is caught by inhaling microscopic droplets containing the bacterium, which are produced when an infected person coughs or sneezes. The illness usually affects the lungs, but sometimes can spread to other organs. It gets its name from the tubercles, or hard lumps that form on the lungs to contain the TB bacteria.
TB in the past could be a serious illness. Consumption, as TB used to be called, claimed the lives of up to a quarter of all adults in Britain during the 19th century. TB remains very common in other parts of the world, especially Africa and South-East Asia. Over 80% of India’s adult population have had the disease at least once. It is estimated that a third of the world’s population could be infected with TB, and over three million may die from it this year.
TB is now much less common in developed countries, such as Ireland. In European countries, the disease is found in deprived city areas, among the homeless, alcoholics, older people, those who are HIV positive and among people who come into close contact with those suffering from TB.
The most common form of TB is pulmonary, but there are also forms which attack the nervous system and the lymphatic system.
BCG is short for Bacille Calmette-Guerin, and was developed in France in the first decades of the 20th century.
The World Health Organisation says:
Someone in the world is newly infected with TB bacilli every second.
Overall, one-third of the world’s population is currently infected with the TB bacillus.
5-10% of people who are infected with TB bacilli (but who are not infected with HIV) become sick or infectious at some time during their life. People with HIV and TB infection are much more likely to develop TB.
An estimated 1.6 million people worldwide died from TB in 2005. However the incidence around the world is falling.
GT – it’s all the rage. New industry.
Mind you, this isn’t the first time the Hindu breddren have been prodded here. There was the California textbook thing, and the Asia House thing, to name two. There are the articles by Meera Nanda and the article by Latha Menon, in Articles. There’s stuff about the Gujarat massacre. There was the riot at and trashing of the Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute – in fact there is a whole In Focus called ‘Hindutva on the Attack’ which has been on B&W’s front page for many months if not years.
I’m glad to hear Comment is Free is catching up!
“A mate of mine always reckoned the turban-on-a-motorbike ruling [The Motor Cycle Crash Helmet (Religious Exemptions) Act 1976] was where many of these issues started”
I have to say, I’m with the Sikhs on that one. It really isn’t the government’s business what kind of hat you should wear and when.
John M, agreed with that one. Freedom of choice and all that.
As long as you carry a card that says ‘I agree not to be treated at public expense for any injuries caused by my not wearing a helmet’…
Or a big sign saying ‘ORGAN DONOR. HIT ME NOW.’
Dave, that’s just mean ! In terms of saving NHS money, surely better to refuse treatment to smokers or binge drinkers or big fat tubbies, no ? And conservatives of course.
It’s not mean. There are (at least) conflicting rights here. Freedom of choice is a good thing, but some choices carry risks; if others have to bear the costs of those risks, there is (at least) something to discuss. It’s not enough simply to say it’s not the government’s business and leave it at that. There is (at least) an argument that it is indeed the government’s business.
Yeah, fair comment but still I reckon I could flip a coin on it.
Yeah. But coin flip is quite different from simplistic ‘there is one obvious right answer’ assertions like John M’s above.
“Yeah. But coin flip is quite different from simplistic ‘there is one obvious right answer’ assertions like John M’s above.”
Hang on, I didn’t say ‘there was one right answer’, I just expressed a view (‘Im with the Sikhs on this one’ kind of implies there is an alternative position). Doesn’t the evidence show that the helmet law increaes deaths by road accident anyhow, like the seatbelt wearing law?
Anyway, if we did go down the route of denying medical care where the victim had placed him or herself at risk, it would be a dark day for AIDS sufferers. I’m not so sure nive liberal minded people would be so priggish about that.
‘”Interfaith”?
As in: “My invisible friend’s bigger than your invisible friend?”‘
More like “All religions are paths to the same truth. (Which happens to be my religion.)”
Well, you said that plus “It really isn’t the government’s business what kind of hat you should wear and when.” That’s pretty much a one right answer kind of assertion.
Don’t be so strict OB, it was clear in context that that was my opinion. I think you would have to squint pretty hard to read that as suggesting that that was ‘obviously right’ andor that there were no possible alterntives that merit discussion.
I do hold the view fairly strongly, though. I’d be very cross if the government mde it law that I had to wear a woolly hat to protect me from head colds. I don’t think it is the governments business what hat I wear or when (although I fully accept that there are possible alternative points of view and that I do not have any sort of privileged or infallible insight into the issue).
‘…it would be a dark day for AIDS sufferers.’
And rugby players, ski-ers, mountaineers, urban cyclists …
Me, I’d cut road deaths by encasing the outside of all vehicles in pink foam padding, limiting them to 30mph…
And putting a big metal spike where the driver’s airbag used to be….
Gosh, it’s lucky I’m not ‘the government’ isn’t it?
Yeah well it’s not as if there is nothing to say about mountaineers and ski-ers and such. It’s not as if they represent a reductio ad absurdum. There are whole groups of people who put their lives at risk in rescuing other people who have put their lives at risk for fun (of a kind). It’s not self-evident to me that people have a ‘right’ to do that. And no that is not to say there should be a law against it; it’s merely to say there is something to say about it.
John M, I’m ‘strict’ in replying to you because you usually do drop unargued assertions like that.
Ophelia,
I know there is much to be said on this point. That’s why I mentioned it. I wasn’t reducing to absurdity, I was raising it as a relevant consideration.
Don, I know (I think I know, I think I got that), I was generalizing further. Or maybe I was just babbling; it was one of those.
I’ve been reading too much Steve Fuller. It makes everything kind of work itself loose.
Folks,
The Hindu Forum of Britain is a fundamentalist group with strong ideological ties to the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) in India. For an analysis of the bull issue, see
http://sanghsamachar.wordpress.com/2007/05/10/a-lot-of-bull-to-save-a-bull/
In “The myth of the holy cow”, historian DN Jha has convincingly argued against the historical sanctity of the cow/bull in India. For excerpts, see http://sanghsamachar.wordpress.com/2007/05/11/the-myth-of-the-holy-cow-part/
I’d vote for you Dave.
“There are whole groups of people who put their lives at risk in rescuing other people who have put their lives at risk for fun (of a kind). “
What is often left out from this kind of discussion is whethjer the rescuers would be better off in another less risky occupation or if they would prefer such an occuopation. I know some lifeboat men personally and while they are pretty scathing about idiots who don’t know what they are doing, they love their lifeboat work and its danger, which is why they volunteer for it rather than something else.
We do know that bovine TB (Mycobacterium bovis) isn’t the same as human TB (Mycobacterium tuberculosis), right? M. bovis in humans is relatively rare, even in the developing world (say 1% of TB cases), and people rarely get it in the West because of pasteurisation of milk (the main vector). So it is really an agricultural issue.
John M second that (again), being partly Cornish descent I know some proper loons down around Penzance who are of course, heroes cometh the day.
Nick, I wouldn’t, but thanks anyway!
On lifeboats, etc, I guess that ‘grumpy bastard who risks his life rescuing people and then bitches about it’ is several rungs up the ladder of MMMManhood from ‘nice quiet guy who…ditto, but never complains’. Not quite sure why, though. Or if it’s a Good Thing….
“We do know that bovine TB (Mycobacterium bovis) isn’t the same as human TB (Mycobacterium tuberculosis), right?”
Thanks for that – I did not know.
In the past in Ireland GENERATIONS OF FARMING STOCK milked and drank non -pasteurised milk directly from the cows. Even up to a couple of years ago.
I AM LEFT WONDERING WOULD THEY HAVE CONTACTED THE BOVINE TB TYPE.
Some years ago, the Irish Agricultural authorities forced my cousins [and other farmers of their ilk] into investing in a state of the art Milking Parlour. They were left- by it – with no other option – as EU rules and quota allotments that came into being – was the driven cause. Competition in IRISH FARMING HAS BECOME VERY FIERCE,
Old style farming has effectively gone out the window. Many poor Irish farmers left the farming business because they could not keep up with the monetary demands that the EU Agricultural officials put on of them due to stringent rules in place.
I also remember yonks ago, going daily to a nearby Dairy Swiss farm, near Lucerne with a special can in hand to collect the milk. It was thick hot and creamy – and to die for. I always temptingly dipped into the luscious contents Thankfully I DID NOT CONTACT BOVINE TB.
On a technical human TB note taken from: http://www.hpaorg.uk
“soniazid resistant tuberculosis outbreak in North London the Regional Epidemiology Unit in London has now received reports of 300 cases involved in this on-going outbreak, of which 258 were diagnosed in London. The outbreak began eight years ago when four young men were diagnosed with isoniazid mono-resistant tuberculosis. Since then, it has become one of the largest documented tuberculosis outbreaks in Europe. Recently there has been some indication that the outbreak may be slowing. Cases are initially identified through MIRU-VNTR typing and then confirmed by RFLP typing. The outbreak is centred in North London with little sign of any substantial spread to other areas. Over half of all cases reside in one of four London Boroughs: Hackney, Haringey, Enfield and Islington. The outbreak has been difficult to control and is unusual for several reasons. Cases are twice as likely to be infectious (pulmonary and sputum smear positive) as other tuberculosis cases in London, and they are more likely to be male, and white or black Caribbean. More than half were born in the UK, and an additional 13% were born in either Ireland or Jamaica. There are a high number of cases with other social problems including homelessness (17%), prison history (33%), and drug use (40%). Incentives such as bus passes and cash payments have been used with some success to encourage attendance for Directly Observed Treatment (DOT). Despite the use of incentives and some use of detention orders under public health legislation, at least 10%of the cases have been lost to follow up before completion of the recommended 9-12 months of treatment”
…and the great thing about living in the UK is that the BCG actually works (at least while you’re young) so you have a good chance of being resistant to TB (or you would have had, they’ve discontinued it for all but ‘at risk’ groups now; unfortunately the BCG doesn’t work well nearer the equator for unclear reasons, perhaps to do with soil organisms), and most cases of TB are in the unvaccinised (older people, immigrants) and the immunocompromised (alcoholics, HIV infection), with some risk for those travelling to endemic areas or healthcare workers.
It’s the multidrug resistant TB that’s gonna start killing large numbers of people in the next few years. The problem with TB is, as your quote suggests, that treatment takes 6-9 months but people feel better much earlier and don’t finish the course of drugs.
“…and the great thing about living in the UK is that the BCG actually works (at least while you’re young) so you have a good chance of being resistant to TB”
Yeah, I have three big BCG scars on the top of arm. I know that I WOULD
HAVE BEEN A NATURAL CANDIDATE for TB DUE TO FAMILIAL REASONS.
Conversely, though I was unlucky IN ANOTHER RESPECT. At five years old I contacted a severe dose of PERTUSSIS, which nearly left me for dead. I was for some while in an isolation ward and was by all accounts very lucky – [DEFINITELY NOT FROM MY PERSPECTIVE] to have recovered. I have a nasty memory of this time
“It’s the multidrug resistant TB that’s gonna start killing large numbers of people in the next few years”.
The same will apply to the HIV Superbug! Where is the good Lord in all of this? Will those who have the misfortune to be infected be at the Mercy of such like Orthodox Mountainy Ethiopean priests – as those – that OB recently mentioned in her comment article.
Thanks for those links, Ravi; I’ll look them up.
It’s interesting (and unfortunate) that the BBC articles on this subject cite the Hindu Forum of Britain without mentioning its fundamentalism and ties to the RSS – in fact, much the way media in general used to refer to the MCB as if it were a self-evidently natural grouping of Muslims in general as opposed to a very conservative one. The BBC doesn’t do that with, say, Opus Dei; why does it do it with, as it were, exotic religions?
Um, could the cow not simply be treated?
It’s not like it’s going into the food chain or anything, so a course of rifampicin could be just the thing, that way everyone’s a winner (especially the cow)
I shouldn’t think so, or they would be doing that. Perhaps it’s a resistant strain? I don’t know – but if that were going to work, obviously that would be the preferred course of action, since farmers are not generally overjoyed at having to get rid of their livestock.
One of the great by-products of overuse of antibiotics is the rise of resistant strains of TB. TB is a horrible, horrible disease.
Yajnavalkya (fl. ca. BCE 500)
Revered Vedic sage
Some people do not eat cow meat. I do so, provided it’s tender.
— Yajnavalkya, confessing to a particular weakness for beef, contrary to the what the ruling Hindu party, the Bharatiya Janata Party, would have the public believe, from Dwijendra Narayan Jha, The Myth of the Holy Cow (2002), a book that is causing furor similar to that caused by Salman Rushdie’s The Satanic Verses, quoted from Emily Eakin, “Holy Cow a Myth? An Indian Finds the Kick Is Real” (The New York Times: August 17, 2002) ‡‡
Shambo apparently is looking healthy, but acccording to the USDA:
Bovine TB is a chronic disease, seldom becoming apparent until it has reached an advanced stage in cattle, captive cervids, and swine. Some infected livestock seem to be in prime condition, showing no evidence of infection until they are slaughtered, yet they may be found so seriously infected during slaughter inspection that their carcasses must be condemned.
The Skanda Vela temple says that Shambo has been isolated from other bovines and from contact with the public, but the risk of transmission still seems significant. According to the USDA:
Bovine TB can be transmitted from animals to humans and vice versa. Although young animals and humans can contract the disease by drinking raw milk from infected dams, the most common means of transmission is through respiration. Invisible droplets (aerosols) containing TB bacteria may be exhaled or coughed out by infected animals and then inhaled by susceptible animals or humans. The risk of exposure is greatest in enclosed areas, such as barns. Inhalation of aerosols is the most common route of infection for farm and ranch workers and veterinarians who work with diseased livestock.
Perhaps realizing that science cannot (or, can it?) be deployed to make a winning case for Shambo, the temple has resorted to mythmaking:
It’d take months of expensive anti-TB medication (and I think bovine TB is at least partially drug resistant) and the animal would potentially be infective for a lot of that time (which is why current strategies, like with rabies and foot and mouth, depend on slaughter).
Perhaps these people should have thought about the potential for bovine TB, and how they’d deal with the legal requirement for destruction, before they raised a big herd of cows in Wales (M. bovis hotspot).
It is interesting that nobody here seems to have raised the issue of the animal’s right (or not) to life. Perhaps the lack of such a right is something taken for granted. I don’t know. I think we’re a little too willing to just dispense with animal life when it becomes inconvenient. Nobody would suggest euthanizing a human with a potential case of infectious TB. The thought would seem barbaric; at least to most people. I don’t see why treatment or some kind of quarantine can’t be rigorously pursued before they just off the cow.
RA:
I’m a vegetarian, and I get pretty queasy about the killing of the higher vertebrates, but let’s face it. As long as thousands of cattle are slaughtered every day for food, what’s the death of one bull, killed (presumably instantly) to protect the lives of other animals (including humans)?
Doug:
I am also a vegetarian and become very depressed when I contemplate the mass slaughter of billions of cows, pigs, and chickens yearly. I understand the feeling that, in the face of bigger problems, why bother over this diseased little cow? Still, I don’t think it’s the worst idea to evaluate the cow as a (gasp!) individual and consider that it might live a normal, pleasant life, which we can probably all agree is preferable to death, after a course of antibiotics.
Funnily enough I’m vegetarian too, but if you’ve seen any of the footage of the foot and mouth epidemic you’ll see why suggesting drug control of bovine TB is a pipe dream.
“It is interesting that nobody here seems to have raised the issue of the animal’s right (or not) to life”.
From an animal rights speciesism perspective should we not first start with the Chimpanzee as… “[F]rom a biological point of view, Dr. Pedro A. Ynterian from the International GAP Project wrote “Between the two of us we could even have a 0.5% difference in our DNA. The difference between a Chimpanzee and us is only 1.23%. Human blood and Chimpanzee blood, with compatible blood groups, can be exchanged through transfusion. Neither our nor the chimps blood can be exchanged with any other species. We are closer genetically to a chimp than a mouse is to a rat.”
As for human rights. We really need to get our house in order.
I see Ophelia that you have linked to a couple of articles on Ravi’s blog- which itself is a fantastic effort to expose the HFB. It is probably true that the hindu cow fetish is unmitigated nonsense but it is nonsense that’s been in circulation for so long, that few of the believers are going to be swayed by the arguments , even if the arguments come from their own scriptures. It’s just like the argument – by a minority of muslims- that the hijab is not mandatory dress; the argument itself provokes greater defensiveness from the majority that have been led to believe otherwise. Both are not winnable discussions for now. You know that of course and that’s not the reason you highlight the saner dissenting minority opinions – I just wish more western media outlets would have the balls to do the same! It is so irritating to find uncritical regurgitating of any old religious bullshit that is spouted by various ‘spokesmen’ of faith. Excepting scientogists of course!
“if you’ve seen any of the footage of the foot and mouth epidemic you’ll see why suggesting drug control of bovine TB is a pipe dream”
WIKI SOURCED
“The epidemic saw 2,000 cases of the disease in farms in most of the British countryside. Around seven million sheep and cattle were killed in an eventually successful attempt to halt the disease”.
The use of a vaccine to halt the spread of the disease was repeatedly considered during the outbreak, but the government never decided to use it after pressure from the National Farmers Union. Although the vaccine was believed to be effective, export rules would prevent the export of British livestock in the future, and it was decided that this was too great a price to pay, although this was controversial because the value of the export industry (£592 million per year; MAFF figures reported by the Guardian [2]) was small compared to losses to tourism resulting from the measures taken.
Following the outbreak, the law was changed to allow vaccinations rather than just culling
“I just wish more western media outlets would have the balls to do the same!”
Ooops! someone is crossing the B&W Sacred Cow divided line?
:~)
A shut “bulls”…a… mouth catches no flies?
Marie-Therese, the relevant point there is that they were willing to slaughter 7 million animals for commercial reasons, since animals treated for TB would be unlikely to be allowed for human consumption (and it would not be cost effective to do so) the current strategy exists, and that involves skin-testing and slaughter – humane concerns hardly enter into programmes with the levels of mortality we’re talking about.
But I suppose the more germaine point is how they’re going to prevent bovine TB spread from the animal to other animals/humans. In human TB (I don’t know about bovine TB) you normally get 10 people exposed to the bacterium, and 1 person infected for every person that develops it (that’s even with treatment). Although I suppose if this animal is only skin-test positive it may well not be infective.
“The relevant point there is that they were willing to slaughter 7 million animals for commercial reasons…
[h]umane concerns hardly enter into programmes with the levels of mortality we’re talking about”
Yes, PM.
There was also a downside to all of this for the British Government. The seven million animals or so that were in 2001 slaughtered because of Foot/Mouth/other diseases crisis was estimated to have cost Britain £8bn ($15bn.
Re: BSE
the embargo on export from the UK (including Northern Ireland) of live cattle and products derived from cattle slaughtered in the UK was in 2006 lifted. It caused to all and sundry in the farming sector [both sides of the border] more than a few headaches. There will be a number of implications though for the cattle slaughtering and processing sector in the Republic and for the procedures and official controls carried out by the Department official’s and procedures for the importation of bovine animals for immediate slaughter from the United Kingdom including Northern Ireland
The Irish Department of Agriculture is very strict. Rogue Farmers have been, by the DOA taken to court for illegally fattening their cattle before taking them to the mart.
Tillage.
What exhaustively annoys me is the way some tillage farmers are each year growing their crops for no raison d’être. IT PURELY GOES TO WASTE. With all the undernourishment in the world, it just does not make sense. Farmers are as well dependent on the SUBSIDY cheque that comes in the post and are also SLOWLY becoming, merely, caretakers – of their land
Certification of beef transiting UK is also no longer required.
Re: Ravi’s blog.
“The Vedic gods had no marked dietary preferences. Milk, butter, barley, oxen, goats and sheep were their usual food, though some of them seem to have had their special preferences. Indra had a special liking for bulls. Agni was not a tippler like Indra, but was fond of the flesh of horses, bulls and cows”.
It is sheer hypocrisy and insincerity by virtue of pretending to have qualities or beliefs that they do not really have The unrighteousness, fulsomeness; oiliness; oleaginousness; smarminess; unctuousness; sanctimoniousness; lip service they pay is an expression of agreement that is not supported by real conviction
Shambo, what rambling Shameful shamble s[ham]bo worshipping sham.
Mycobacterium bovis is generally not the cause of pneumonic TB, it does cause TB in the stomach and digestive system, transmitted by infected milk. It is a very serious disease, any TB is, and even the non-resistant strains can take up to six months of multiple antibiotics to treat. Sadly there are resistant strains which are almost impossible to treat and thus mostly fatal. If the initial infection is not succesfully treated the diease may lie dormant for decades. One effect of the disease can be boen destruction. I have seen evidence of this in not only the spine (Pott’s disease) but also destruction of bones of the heal. Unless this is a magic bull, milk shouldn’t be a problem. However, mycobacterium bovis can be transmitted by other vectors so the sad but inevitable consequence is that Sambo should go off to that great paddock in the sky (or where-ever).
I was curious about Shambo – so here is the latest update.
Shambo the bull gets a reprieve
Thursday 17th May, 2007
The National Assembly of Wales, that had issued a slaughter notice on a tuberculosis-infected sacred bull in a Hindu temple, has deferred its implementation amidst widening interest and support for Shambo, the bull.
The Welsh Authorities have no doubt “deferred” his fate till all the furore over him dies down.