TB Or Not TB
‘COWS are people, too. So goes the legend on the badges we at Anorak are now sporting to show our support for five-month-old Mousles Fern.
For those of you keen to show your support for this noble cause, the Mirror produces a badge-sized photo of the Dexter bull calf.
We implore you to cut out the picture and stick it on top of your old badges, the ones that proclaim Donkeys are people too (save Blackie the donkey), Hounds are people too (save the fox hunt) and Celebrities are people too (save Anthea Turner).
Over in the Mail (I wont let the men from the ministry kill my calf), theres a picture of both young Mousles and his owner, 63-year-old farmer Sheilagh Kremers.
Leaning on the gate and looking every inch the angry land worker, Kremers is appalled that the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs wants to off her young charger.
Mousles might appear healthy, but hes showed signs of having been exposed to bovine tuberculosis. And, as a Defra spokesman tells the Mail, the law states that any cattle is such a situation must be shot dead.
Mrs Kremers is having none of it. She maintains that being diagnosed as a TB reactor means the calf has just a 20 per cent chance of carrying TB.
The only way to really know if Mousles is carrying the disease is to shoot him and then run a thorough check of his steaks and ribs.
To Mr Kremerss mind this is insane. As she tells the Mirror: Its like a doctor telling me I must die and then theyll test to see whether or not I have cancer.
She makes a fair point. And while the Health Service mulls over that idea, Kremer says that she will do whatever it takes to prevent the men in shiny boots from killing her calf.
She says shes prepared to go to jail. I will stop them coming in whatever it takes, with blockades if necessary, says she.
To say nothing of a badge…’
Posted: 4th, January 2006 | In: Tabloids Comment | TrackBack | Permalink
