Vet: Minister is lying about the science... and should be sacked
GERONIMO’S vet last night accused minister George Eustice of ‘lying about the science’ to justify the alpaca’s execution and called for him to be sacked.
Dr Iain McGill criticised comments made by the Environment Secretary in which he explained why the positive bovine tuberculosis (bTB) tests were reliable.
‘George Eustice has blatantly lied here about the tests used on Geronimo,’ he said. ‘It is despicable to attempt to manufacture consent for the slaughter of Geronimo with entirely false information. George Eustice must now resign. If he doesn’t, the Prime Minister should sack him.’
In an article in The Mail on Sunday, Mr Eustice claimed the ‘Enferplex’ blood test, used twice on Geronimo, was validated by the British Alpaca Society, was 99 per cent accurate and produced a ‘false positive’ in only 0.34 per cent of cases.
However, Dr McGill said Mr Eustice had failed to take into account the fact that Geronimo was ‘primed’ or injected with a protein called tuberculin to increase sensitivity to the test, on the orders of the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra). Experts and Geronimo’s owner, veterinary nurse Helen Macdonald, are convinced that the tuberculin produced false positive results.
Dr McGill, an ex-Government adviser and bTB expert, also said Mr Eustice had shown a ‘total misunderstanding’ of the science by claiming Enferplex tests detect the bug itself, rather than an immune response to it. Dr McGill said Mr Eustice was confusing Enferplex with the ‘Actiphage’ test, which detects live bTB bacteria. Defra has refused to use this test. Last night, Defra rejected Dr McGill’s claims that Mr Eustice had lied and misinterpreted the science.
A spokesman said unique antigens, or proteins, secreted by bTB bacteria were detected by the two Enferplex tests.
The spokesman also stood by the test accuracy rate, saying a survey used to assess accuracy did include primed alpacas, and added that Actiphage test results were difficult to interpret.