Did FMD disinfectant do more harm than good?
Scientists say maybe... but that's scientists for you.
Posted: 22 November 2002
by OUTDOORSmagic
You probably don’t even want to think about last year’s disinfectant-soaked
Axminsters, but a report in today’s Farmer's Guardian says that the chemical
spraying designed to control the disease might have actually contributed to
its spread.
Farmers cleaned potentially contaminated agricultural machinery with a weak
solution of citric acid in a high pressure jet to halt Foot and Mouth.
However, scientists from Newcastle University say that this could have
generated an airborne cloud of infective viral material – a kind of Foot and
Mouth spritz – spreading the disease through the air (rather than on the
boots and inside the nostrils of passing walkers and their dogs, as
originally suspected...).
A scientific red herring? Maybe, but perhaps this will lead to some
alternatives to months of indiscriminate footpath closures in the event of
another outbreak. Particularly as, unlike farmers, many outdoor- and
tourism-related businesses have yet to see a bean of compensation.
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