Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2002-12-17-Speech-2-026"
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"en.20021217.1.2-026"2
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"Mr President, foot and mouth disease was not created by human error, as was the mad cow disease BSE, but is a long familiar natural phenomenon. It used to be considered normal for every cow to be affected by it occasionally, thereby building up immunity. Later people attempted to eradicate once and for all that disease that was infectious, expensive, dirty and painful for livestock by means of vaccination. Without extreme globalisation and the world market the disease and the way in which people believe they can combat it would never have attracted so much attention.
The rich American market does not want meat from animals that have been sick. Simply because, without marker vaccine, we cannot easily distinguish such animals from vaccinated livestock, people became confident that the disease would gradually be eliminated entirely. Just as people believed this of human tuberculosis. Export interests have replaced animal welfare and human ingenuity. Unfortunately the mistake was made not only by a number of companies or whole Member States but also by the European Union as a whole.
For ten years Member States and our farmers have been pressured from above into collaborating in something that is neither sensible nor acceptable. Virtually no one had expected that during the latest outbreak in the United Kingdom and the Netherlands extensive mass slaughter of healthy livestock would be necessary in order to ensure that nowhere in the immediate vicinity could any animals be found that might be infected. Even rare and exotic breeds or the pet animals of country children were compulsorily killed. Quite rightly many people declared authorities that compel such behaviour insane and withdrew their confidence. Thus far Ministers of Agriculture and the European Commission may have admitted that things may change in the distant future but they have not yet changed course entirely. Vaccinations are seen at most as an emergency measure for healthy livestock that cannot be destroyed quickly enough. As is often the case government power is more stupid than human society as a whole. So many people are protesting. It is the task of Parliament to put an end once and for all to the misguided policy of preventive culling and not rule out once and for all the option of prophylactic vaccination. Thank you."@en1
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