Geronimo the alpaca vs the UK government

Orphia Nay

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Orphia Nay
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"Right now, a CCTV camera inside the pen of an English farm is broadcasting a live feed, its owner determined to capture the fate of the UK's most controversial farm animal — Geronimo the alpaca.

"Time is running out for Geronimo, who has twice tested positive for the potentially devastating bovine tuberculosis, and who authorities have ordered must be euthanased.

"But supporters of his owner, Helen MacDonald, say the odds have been unfairly stacked against the eight-year-old alpaca.

"Here's how the case went from a farm in South Gloucestershire to the UK's High Court.":

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-08-20/geronimo-the-alpaca-fight-dividing-the-uk/100393336


Is this Schrodinger's alpaca? Does it or does it not have bovine tuberculosis?
 
Geronimo's owner claims that the two tests were false positives.

Experts have said that this is unlikely

Despite suggestions to the contrary, the chances of a false positive using the Enferplex test – the test requested by the owner in August 2017 and has been promoted by the British Alpaca Society over other TB antibody tests – are less than one percent. Geronimo has been tested twice to this test and was positive on both occasions.
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https://deframedia.blog.gov.uk/2021/08/09/geronimo-the-alpaca/

I get that people are very attached to their pets and I would fight tooth and nail to prevent my pet from being euthanised but it seems overwhelmingly likely that Geronimo has bovine tuberculosis.

I'm sure that the UK government is glad of this story for grabbing public attention at a time when it's bungling Covid, Brexit and now the response to the humanitarian crisis emerging in Afghanistan. :tinfoil
 
Based on previous examples the TB test is unreliable (it's not actually that great in cattle) and the Alpaca may or may not have BTB. However that's not going to save it given the vehemence of the farming lobby and it's insistence on their current, ineffective,methods of dealing with the disease.
 
A clear case of more money than sense, get a warrant and get the job done. Although this line is confusing;

"the warning from the manufacturer of the tests taken by Geronimo that the results were not consistent with the presence of a progressive disease and "should be treated with great caution"
 
bluesjnr said:
A clear case of more money than sense, get a warrant and get the job done. Although this line is confusing;

"the warning from the manufacturer of the tests taken by Geronimo that the results were not consistent with the presence of a progressive disease and "should be treated with great caution"
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The tests used were not designed for camelids and are demonstrably unreliable in that family.
There are two common BTB tests. The 'skin test' involves two injections and human evaluation of the relative sizes of the swellings produced. It's highly subjective and has never been tested on camelids (or indeed badgers) for reliability and specificity,
The antibody test (the Enferplex test was, I believe, used in this case) is more reliable. However this alpaca was subjected to an augmentation procedure (an injection of bovine TB proteins some time prior to the antibody test) as well as multiple prior skin tests. There is concern that the cumulative effects of several injections of TB proteins (used in the skin tests) may have been amplified by the preparations for the antibody test and led to a false positive.
DEFRA deny this; the test's manufacturers and other experts are less sanguine. This situation is also complicated by many previous animals, which tested positive for BTB, being found to be TB free after being euthanised and necropsied.

DEFRA is running scared as it's being squeezed by the farming lobby who really don't want attention drawn to the UK's [excluding Scotland which has bee BTB free for over a decade] terrible record on bovine TB and the ineffective management of the disease.
The test manufacturers are also concerned about possible legal action if a healthy animal is euthanised on the basis of their test.
 
catsmate said:
The tests used were not designed for camelids and are demonstrably unreliable in that family.
There are two common BTB tests. The 'skin test' involves two injections and human evaluation of the relative sizes of the swellings produced. It's highly subjective and has never been tested on camelids (or indeed badgers) for reliability and specificity,
The antibody test (the Enferplex test was, I believe, used in this case) is more reliable. However this alpaca was subjected to an augmentation procedure (an injection of bovine TB proteins some time prior to the antibody test) as well as multiple prior skin tests. There is concern that the cumulative effects of several injections of TB proteins (used in the skin tests) may have been amplified by the preparations for the antibody test and led to a false positive.
DEFRA deny this; the test's manufacturers and other experts are less sanguine. This situation is also complicated by many previous animals, which tested positive for BTB, being found to be TB free after being euthanised and necropsied.

DEFRA is running scared as it's being squeezed by the farming lobby who really don't want attention drawn to the UK's [excluding Scotland which has bee BTB free for over a decade] terrible record on bovine TB and the ineffective management of the disease.
The test manufacturers are also concerned about possible legal action if a healthy animal is euthanised on the basis of their test.
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Thanks for taking the time to explain things in more detail. Much appreciated.
 
DEFRA should leave poor Geronimo alone. He is a sentient being enjoying chomping the grass of life. He is isolated and not likely to infect any other animal. Look at that adorable smile.
 
bluesjnr said:
Thanks for taking the time to explain things in more detail. Much appreciated.
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Not at all.

Vixen said:
DEFRA should leave poor Geronimo alone. He is a sentient being enjoying chomping the grass of life. He is isolated and not likely to infect any other animal. Look at that adorable smile.
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Have you some evidence for the consciousness of alpacas? However I do agree that DEFRA are unmitigated idiots, but then pretty much anyone who's interacted with them would have that opinion.
Of course BTB had lead to the slaughter of around 30,000 animals in the last couple of years in the UK.
 
Vixen said:
Look at that adorable smile.
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Sentimentalizing animals is questionable, but anthropomorphizing them is ridiculous. To interpret the positioning of an animal's mouth as meaning the same thing as that positioning in a human's...how many faces have been ripped off by baboons because they thought those bared teeth were a smile? Nature don't care about your feelings, even when you're feeling all soppy about Nature. Nature gonna rip your face off and spit TB germs on your exposed and screaming skull. Nature don't play.
 
TragicMonkey said:
Sentimentalizing animals is questionable, but anthropomorphizing them is ridiculous. To interpret the positioning of an animal's mouth as meaning the same thing as that positioning in a human's...how many faces have been ripped off by baboons because they thought those bared teeth were a smile? Nature don't care about your feelings, even when you're feeling all soppy about Nature. Nature gonna rip your face off and spit TB germs on your exposed and screaming skull. Nature don't play.
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I've often struggled to, effectively, explain this to people but now I think I've found the right words.
 
TragicMonkey said:
Sentimentalizing animals is questionable, but anthropomorphizing them is ridiculous. To interpret the positioning of an animal's mouth as meaning the same thing as that positioning in a human's...how many faces have been ripped off by baboons because they thought those bared teeth were a smile? Nature don't care about your feelings, even when you're feeling all soppy about Nature. Nature gonna rip your face off and spit TB germs on your exposed and screaming skull. Nature don't play.
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I don't know, but going by your avatar, that's clearly a two-way street.
 
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TragicMonkey said:
Sentimentalizing animals is questionable, but anthropomorphizing them is ridiculous. To interpret the positioning of an animal's mouth as meaning the same thing as that positioning in a human's...how many faces have been ripped off by baboons because they thought those bared teeth were a smile? Nature don't care about your feelings, even when you're feeling all soppy about Nature. Nature gonna rip your face off and spit TB germs on your exposed and screaming skull. Nature don't play.
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"Nature will kill you and then make new things from you." - Welcome to Night Vale.
 
The Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons has weighed in and they're not supporting DEFRA (quelle surprise :rolleyes:). Amongst others Professor Ranald Munroe (former head of pathology for DEFRA's Veterinary Laboratories) and Dr. Iain McGill have called on the government not to go ahead with the planned slaughter of Geronimo citing substantial doubt about the accuracy of the tests.

And I have heard that there's an unofficial refusal of vets to become involved in the euthanasia proceedings.
:)
 
catsmate said:
The Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons has weighed in and they're not supporting DEFRA (quelle surprise :rolleyes:). Amongst others Professor Ranald Munroe (former head of pathology for DEFRA's Veterinary Laboratories) and Dr. Iain McGill have called on the government not to go ahead with the planned slaughter of Geronimo citing substantial doubt about the accuracy of the tests.

And I have heard that there's an unofficial refusal of vets to become involved in the euthanasia proceedings.
:)
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Ah yes, I see.

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-bristol-58309557
 
If there is a better test, then why doesn't the owner get that testing done so they can show there is a negative result to combat the positive ones? Just ignore if this has been done, I just haven't seen any other results given in the stories I have seen.
 
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