Farmers
and butchers are furious over the colour photography of a piglet,
on the cover of the current Radio Times, with the caption "meat
and poultry may seriously affect your health.
The photograph advertises the BBC-2 programme
Brass Tacks, tonight devoted to the increasing use of drugs in agriculture,
particularly on factory farms, and the increasing incidence of salmonella
food poisoning in Britain.
The National Farmers' Union, which considered
taking out an injunction against the Radio Times and promised to
send "hot missiles" to the BBC's chairman and director-general,
is now urging farmers to bombard local and regional radio stations
during the phone in debate that will follow the programme.
Mr Roger Laughton, the programme's editor, said
yesterday it was time that the implications for public health arising
out of modern farming methods, including the administration of drugs
- and hormones and antibiotics in particular - should be debated
publicly. Farmers, the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons and
the Ministry of Agriculture had all been consulted.
The programme points to the difficulties in policing
effectively the sale and use of animal drugs - something the Ministry
of Agriculture itself acknowledges. |
Under pressure from salesmen, some farmers buy
cheap antibiotics, sometimes abusing official approval schemes recommended
- and since accepted by Whitehall - in a 1969 inquiry chaired by
Sir Michael Swann, now the BBC's chairman.
A spokesman for the Pharmaceutical Society says
in the film that there is a a substantial black market involving
at least £500,000 worth of antibiotics, compared with the
estimated £20 millions worth used by farmers each year. The
programme says that 60 percent of vets' incomes comes from the sale
of drugs though there is no evidence that vets are involved in malpractice.
Mr Laughton said yesterday that official statistics
on salmonella poisoning are unreliable and that British abattoirs
do not compare well with international standards - about 10 per
cent meet EEC regulations. Also there is growing evidence that animals
are developing resistance to drugs.
An article in the Radio Times on organic farming
says that "the danger of tinkering about with nature"
was shown by a police warning last August after the theft of 100
chickens at Peterborough. The police said that if eaten the carcasses,
which had been treated with a hormone drug, could prove harmful.
|
