In message <[log in to unmask]>, Mary <[log in to unmask]> writes >Isn't it also kind of an attempt to scare people off of meat?? > >They are cancelling events left and right in the UK and IReland, all the >parades are getting cancelled. > >If you dare to go there you are "disinfected" the moment you get there. > >Also, I sniff a vaccine in the making??Scare everyone to death and then >roll out the vaccine for FMD?? I'm in the UK and I think the culling and precautions are totally justified. This is why; In the Spring of 1919, the strain of influenza ('flu') was a normal "nothing to worry about" bug. By the following Winter it had mutated into a killer which wiped out 40 million people across Europe. It has been shown that humans can catch "foot & mouth", albeit mildly. So we cannot take the risk that a large animal-disease 'pool' could eventually throw up a deadlier human-infecting mutation.