WORDS STRUCTURE REALITY.

It's Tuberculosis. Full stop. Consumption.

These old English cows were grazing alongside the River Severn at Shrewsbury one summer when I visited that place.

Once again FARMING TODAY reveals the real reality of life as we are living it. BBC radio 4 5.45am.

The title BOVINE TB. It's something that only affects Cows. And they catch it from Badgers. That's what the media have been telling us for at least two decades. So it's some sort of disease that twangs between cows and badgers. An animal disease. Nothing to do with us. So WORDS construct our reality. It's NOT. It's the disease called Tuberculosis about which I know very little and don't want to know except that back in the Victorian era everyone got it and all those beautiful heroines of novels and operas died of it,but beautifully. John Keats died of it,and being medically trained he knew the first signs. In the first half of the 20th century people with it were often treated in outdoor hospitals. It sounds incredible and potentially rather wonderful,wards with no walls so the fresh air could sweep through and blow the illness away. Those who could afford it went to Switzerland or places in the French Alps. A lot of people died and some survived. It was called CONSUMPTION for centuries because it consumed your lungs. I think that effectively you drowned in the end with fluid in your lungs.

So to call this disease BOVINE TB is a decision of our successive political administrations to deceive us. And because we are an urban nation even if we live “in the countryside” we don't know any different. We love Badgers. They are attractive animals and so elusive that to see one is so special for us it's magical. There are badgers in the area of the city where I live but unlike foxes who one may see now and again,the badgers are much more secretive. I've only twice seen a live badger but sadly a dead one is evidence of their presence.

If you are a food faddist you can go on all you want about raw milk,untreated milk but tuberculosis is transferable to humans via milk from infected cows and that is how people often got it, especially after normal home living conditions were vastly improved and many people no longer lived in squalor. The comedy writer Frank Muir had to have one testicle removed,as back in the day,that was all too often the part of the male human body it struck. I don't know if that was how it was for Hitler! Frank Muir made a joke of it and often declared it on meeting new people, and he didn't invade Poland either.

So cows being vulnerable to picking up the Tuberculosis bug from their environment IS a genuine health concern. Their environment is THE COUNTRYSIDE and green fields with cows grazing in them is one of the beautiful sights that we love in The Countryside,just don't walk through their field. The idea that cows are placid comes from long ago but is still in our psyche,that same traditional old idea that fuels that comedy show Escape to the Country. The countryside (at the heart of the English psyche) is a place of bucolic innocence where all is pure and vice free. Imagine the horror of many a drug addict hoping to escape the clutches of the demon by getting to green Somerset only to find it's available in that remote village of thatched cottages and rose abundant gardens! The innocence and purity of the Countryside has always been an English myth,much loved and false. In England at least,getting to live ‘in the countryside” is a marker of STATUS.

But,as usual I am rambling. TB the current test for it in cows is very questionable and many farmers have doubts about it. It all depends on lumps and the vet has to decide by eye and measuring with a ruler if the lump is significant or - just a lump. There are also false positives and false negatives. It's about as effective in reality as an Old Wives Remedy. Now APHA that's the political administration sponsored agency based at Weybridge in Surrey is working with PRIVATE COMPANIES in particular AJ Vaccines to supply a vaccine,it can be used on cows,badgers or humans (because we are all mammals and it's the same bloody disease) as usual they've thought up a daft name for it to let us know they think we're bloody stupid. It's DIVA. What's a DIVA? That stands for Detect Infected among Vaccinated Animals. They have applied for a Marketing Authorisation. And the “scientist” doing the spiel says in a friendly Dad voice,it's not 100% accurate…..STOP. If it's not 100% accurate,it's NOT ACCURATE. It's a pile of Shiny Shit. See I told you they think we is stupid. But as APHA ,the animal and plant health agency works with “stakeholders” and that ain't you and me,no doubt the STAKEHOLDERS are rubbing their hands and pre-counting the money.

The EU won't allow in milk or meat products from vaccinated animals because they very sensibly care about food and don't see it as fuel you buy as cheaply as possible and stuff down your gob. The English way. Or a certain kind of English way. You know what I mean .You know who I mean. So that's why very few farmers have taken up vaccination. But how about vaccinating badgers and this is where the uncomfortable truth THEY DONT TELL YOU comes in. Badgers are just one reservoir of TB. They pick it up from areas where cows have been grazing when they eat worms,yes badgers eat worms,that have come to the surface among the grass clumps. Then the badgers leave specks of it in their saliva at another grass clumps and next day a cow grazing there picks it up. It's a carousel. But the uncomfortable fact is ALL wildlife spreads TB. Deer too pick up and put down the TB germ. In the same fashion. Foxes, stoats,weasels carry it on their paws. Starlings marching around in fields spread it around. Maybe even ramblers pick it up on their boots and take it to the next field. To have a surgically clean TB free environment in which to produce BOVINE products you would need to eliminate all wildlife. Which is probably on their agenda anyway.

But if the project talked up on today's Farming Today is put into practice then all British cows will be vaccinated so what's in that (non-effective but sounds good) vaccine that will come through to us via milk and meat. Will some farmers be able to opt out in order to produce that raw milk that faddist foodies love? Yet another licensing system? Fees? More regulations?