AS a former member of the government panel on badgers and bovine (cattle) TB, I'm totally gobsmacked that the Welsh Assembly recently voted for a mass badger cull supposedly to control the current cattle TB crisis.

DEFRA are still considering their response to the cull consultation, and will probably announce their verdict at 5pm, on Friday when Parliament ends in July, when they've seen how the Badger Trust/RSPCA respond, with another judicial review – politics based on perverted pseudo-science going way beyond the point of absurdity !

It is completely unbelievable that no one can see the blindingly obvious fact that the current crisis is simply due to an explosion of infectious cattle TB among the cattle population, as explained in a simplified overview in the Badgers and Bovine TB Debate website.

Cattle TB is 90 to 99 per cent a respiratory lung infection just like human consumption, caught from prolonged contact over-wintering in barns and yards by breathing in the bugs, just like colds and flu. It is very hard to see how it might be from badgers .. and the favoured idea that badger urine on pasture might be the route is just daft since 99 per cent disappears into the soil. The drying residue is disinfected by UV in sunlight within days, so a cow couldn't possibly drink the minimum three cc dose containing around 1 million bacilli to catch TB from badgers.

By contrast, cows can shed 38 million bacilli in 30lbs of faeces per day, so Old Brock turning over cow pats is bound to catch TB as a 'spillover' host from cattle. There were just 46 TB badgers out of 2,363 sampled in Wales from 1972 to 96. The badger is an innocent bystander victim, not a villain ! Any cull or badger vaccine strategy is a wonderfully insane solution to a non-existent problem.

Martin Hancox

Tiverton