question for the Brits (nac)

[Jim Haseltine]

----- Original Message -----
From: "Steve Addy" <steveaddy at earthlink.net>

> Any substance to the rumour that the 2001 Isle of Man TT will be
"suspended"
> due to the foot and mouth outbreak?

I don't think that motor bikes catch F&M, its only cloven-hoofed animals
that suffer.
:-)

Seriously, there are all sorts of F&M rumours doing the rounds here at the
moment, IMO the best this week was one about cancelling the Chelsea Flower
Show. If I hear anything official I'll let you know.

<rant>
The situation has been blown up by the mass media and handled as normal by
MAFF. At the start they didn't act fast enough and now they're over-reacting
big time by distroying thousands of perfectly healthy animals. To add to the
general confusion, sometimes their press releases are wrong. On Wednesday
they announced a confirmed case of F&M at a village in West Yorkshire (an
area previously unaffected) when it was actually at a village of a similar
name in a completely different part of the country.

The report from MAFFs own enquiry into the 1967 F&M outbreak contained a
number of recommendations, one of which was that carcasses of infected
animals should be buried rather than burned as the virus could be spread in
the smoke.
So what are they doing?
Burning them.
</rant>

Regards,

Jim Haseltine