Brian wrote this piece in the Mail on Sunday. A similar item appears on his Soapbox.
[url=http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2220734/This-cruel-badger-cull-pointless--I-prove-says-Queen-guitarist-Brian-May.html?ito=feeds-newsxml]http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2220734/This-cruel-badger-cull-pointless--I-prove-says-Queen-guitarist-Brian-May.html?ito=feeds-newsxml[/url]
It is based on his account of a meeting in Brussels with the European Commission regarding the vaccination of cattle. Two days after the article was published the EC office in the UK issued a press release indicating they were "disappointed" with the article and that some of Brian's quotes were out of context or inaccurate and therefore misleading.
[url=http://ec.europa.eu/unitedkingdom/press/press_releases/2012/pr1245_en.htm]http://ec.europa.eu/unitedkingdom/press/press_releases/2012/pr1245_en.htm[/url]
I certainly may have missed it being well out of town so to speak, but try as I did I couldn't find any reference to this on any mainstream online news outlet beyond a couple of small trade publications relating to farming and the government transcripts of the parliamentary debate where it appears to have been raised at least twice. It has as of now not yet been acknowledged on the Soapbox despite an entry yesterday focused on Brian's day in Parliament. I found several articles that summarized the debate, but none that mentioned this fact, perhaps most glaringly omitted from a live blog in the Guardian by a chap certainly aware of Brian's involvement in the issue because he started the live blog with a reference to Brian's role in securing the debate:
[i]"Today sees the first ever debate in the House of Commons on the controversial badger cull in England, giving MPs their first chance to vote on the policy. The debate was won by the public after over 150,000 signed a government e-petition started by musician Brian May. " [/i]
Later though, as he summarizes the exchange that in fact mentions the EC rebuke, apparently for a least the second time according to the transcript, he writes only:
[i] "Minister Heath is sounding exasperated as he tries to explain how complicated getting a cattle vaccine into use, given EU restrictions. [/i]
[i] Zac Goldsmith (Conservative, Richmond) says can't the government take a more robust approach in Europe. "I wish it was that easy. I wish we could ignore all the regulations" on vaccine development, he says. [/i]
[i] He calls Brian May's Mail on Sunday article on this topic "nonsense". [/i]
[i] "Wishful thinking is not going to get rid of bovine TB in this country. I am utterly convinced" badger culling is needed."[/i]
thus somewhat flippantly characterizing the "nonsense" without referencing the fact that the very people Brian quoted had themselves officially rejected Brian's statements.
Also of note on this topic of vaccinating cattle is a guy down in the comments who has been trying to disseminate information he gleaned from a FOI request relating to a small cattle vaccination study conducted in England, a rarity as field trials of cattle vaccine are illegal there at this time. I've seen him around the mainstream press and the Farmer's Guardian website. It was a small study and as such not statistically reliable but the results were rather arresting and certainly grounds for further research . The gist was that for one year 39 TB infected cattle were housed in groups with 60 uninfected cattle organized in pens roughly consisting of 4 and 6 infected and uninfected animals respectively. The uninfected animals were divided into three groups with 20 vaccinated, 20 vaccinated and then boosted at 9 months, and 20 unvaccinated. At the end of the year study 8 of the 60 uninfected animals had been newly infected with bTB. Two from the unvaccinated group, two from the vaccinated and boosted group and four(!) from the vaccinated group. Larger field trials in other countries have determined that the cattle vaccine has an efficacy of between 50% and 70% in reducing bTB in vaccinated animals but it was always noted that it would need to be proven in the UK environment. Clearly more study and more transparency is needed. What should be the role of the press is instead apparently downloaded to individual citizens who pry information via FOI and hope to have it noticed buried in the comment sections of major news outlets. Just today the BBC did a story that mentioned cattle vaccination and noted only trials in other countries and the fact that they were illegal in the UK without mentioning this study in their own backyard. The results of the commenter's FOI request follow:
[url=http://www.bovinetb.info/docs/results-of-bovine-tb-se3227-cattle-vaccination-study-completed-in-2012.pdf]http://www.bovinetb.info/docs/results-of-bovine-tb-se3227-cattle-vaccination-study-completed-in-2012.pdf[/url]
This is just a tiny shapshot of two days in public discourse on a small slice of the overall debate and there are many explanations, including the fact that Brian May may have not in fact mischaracterized the meeting he attended at all, but that is a difficult judgement for the public to make when they are not even really given the information to assess. On the other hand the danger of institutionalized arrogance and recklessness is clear if the public face of a campaign is not held to account if that is indeed what is appropriate here. Either way the fact is for months I've seen these broad themes in the press recur. Facts are overstated or understated or omitted all together. Language is subtly chosen to devalue some ideas while supporting others while having the appearance of objectivity that is often not really there. Clearly I would never assume to know what's right for the UK on this issue and am only as informed as a lot of reading from afar allows and don't know the badger issue in context, but this behaviour of the press and public I know very well from a similar dynamic here in Canada on a very different topic I won't bore you with. I can tell you without reservation that it is an insidious and damaging process as relates to the issue in focus from which my society at least did not come back. The majority eventually swallows and shouts down the minority irrespective of the facts and it's ugly and it's unfair. The debris field here in Canada on a similarly niche issue is wide, with fallout in legislation, misuse of press and government power, public bullying of private citizens and in one case I know even a gouge out of academic freedom.
What stands right now is Brian's Sunday article, complete with pictures of a smiling Brian, a negative picture of Owen Paterson, a pair of big breasts in a tight shirt, a cute badger in a field and a bunch of people in badger costumes dancing the grass. Oh and misinformation. And a bTB epidemic of animals not in costumes. The net effect is farmers in the position of hopelessly shouting through water just trying to have a fair debate. They may be wrong, but in this environment it is impossible to tell. Science is supposed to bring daylight but here it is used in part as a club to halt both discussion and further knowledge. It seems to me that the not necessarily adequately informed personal feelings of journalists and public expectation have crept in and as a result the press has had had their thumb on the scale on this issue for months if not years. None of it feels right and it has that sense of a really bad information situation where emotion and political expedience have overrun the truth, perhaps on both sides. My perception may be skewed and I probably care too much about this issue that really has nothing to do with me but as it is I despair that so few people seem to care enough about the very real possibility that farmers are getting railroaded by emotion and inadequate public information and populism that they might be inspired to dig under and find a
GratefulFan