No country has eradicated TB without...

You'll hear this line often: "No country has successfully tackled bovine Tuberculosis without tackling the disease in the wildlife".

I could link to thousands of times this gets used by Defra's communications people and in speeches by Jim Paice.

The fact is that bTB has only ever been eradicated in modern times from one country - Australia. You can read about what it took to eradicate in this book - Beating the Odds in A Big Country. Perhaps the title of the book shows how difficult it was - and not simply about shooting some wild buffalo. The other country that is close to eradication is of course New Zealand.

Is it wise to generalise from two cases? Is it wise to generalise from two cases with completely different attitudes to wildlife and reasons for eradication than ourselves? If so, maybe there are some other catchy lines that Defra should be trotting out as regularly as the "no eradication without wildlife controls" line. Here are some:

- bTB has only been successfully eradicated in countries where the wildlife reservoir is (universally) perceived as a pest
- bTB has only been successfully eradicated when greater regulations have been placed upon farmers
- bTB has only been successfully eradicated when systems of risk based trading / incentives for responsible trading have been introduced
- bTB has only been successfully eradicated when the agricultural industry have paid for it
- bTB has not been successfully eradicated without farmers going out of business because of regulatory controls
- bTB has only been successfully eradicated when the farming industry are part of the governance of bTB
- bTB has not been successfully eradicated without spending a lot of money, not reducing the amount spent
- bTB has only been successfully eradicated when all stakeholders are in agreement
- bTB has only been successfully eradicated when there has been a clear and coherent plan in place
- bTB has only been successfully eradicated when politicians have been sidelined

I could probably think up some more, but you get the message. Maybe you could tweet me your own to @garethenticott