REVEALED: Dossier that shows ministers must think again on Geronimo
Nine slaughtered alpacas and llamas ‘had no TB in post-mortem’
AT least nine other alpacas and llamas have been killed in circumstances similar to doomed Geronimo’s before post-mortem analysis showed they did not have bovine tuberculosis, a bombshell dossier claims.
The document seen by the Daily Mail details a string of cases in which tests on the living animals came back positive for bTB.
But in every case the animals were shown to have no presence of the disease after they were slaughtered.
The camelids – five llamas and four alpacas – were found to have tested positive on Enferplex blood tests, the same used by the Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) on Geronimo. The document shows the camelids had been repeatedly dosed with tuberculin, a primer for bTB tests.
Campaigners claim the use of the primer boosts antibodies to produce a false positive result. The dossier casts further doubt on the accuracy of Defra’s system of testing alpacas for bTB and piles fur
‘The diagnosis is unsafe’
ther pressure on officials to reverse their decision to slaughter Geronimo.
It was compiled from data sent to SureFarm, the Enferplex test’s developer, and includes cases dating back as far as 2014. In each case the document shows the levels of the antibodies detected in the camelids. A separate note next to each case provides a damning verdict – each was marked for slaughter and then received a post-mortem examination which found no evidence of disease.
Samples were taken to try and grow cultures of bTB in a laboratory. In every case this was impossible.
The animals had all received multiple doses of tuberculin, with some receiving two doses in the space of three months.
The document does not contain the case of Karlie, highlighted in the Daily Mail yesterday.
The 11-year-old alpaca was put down after a false positive in 2018, raising fears the nine are just the tip of the iceberg.
Geronimo’s case has sparked a furious row after he was marked for slaughter after twice testing positive for bTB.
His owner Helen Macdonald, 50, from Wickwar, Gloucestershire, lost a High Court battle last week to prevent officials killing eightyear-old Geronimo.
She said last night: ‘Mr Eustice has repeatedly refused to listen when it comes to Geronimo.
‘The data shows it’s not just me who has had their animal suffer a false positive test.
‘There’s at least nine others who have been needlessly slaughtered only for post-mortems to find no evidence of the disease. What the data does show is animals are being dosed with tuberculin unnecessarily leading to positive test results which should never have occurred in the first place.’
Dr Iain McGill, Geronimo’s vet, added that Defra was trying to ‘kill its way out of trouble’.
He said: ‘This document clearly shows the diagnosis of Geronimo is unsafe and that of the others [camelids slaughtered] were unsafe. People’s lives are being broken by this.
‘They are falsely inflating it with priming – there’s some really poor testing going on. There needs to be a root and branch review of bTB testing in this country.
‘They need to get experts and farmers around a table with government officials and come to some kind of consensus.’ Supporters formed a ‘human shield’ at Miss Macdonald’s farm yesterday. Dozens of friends, family and animal rights activists posted outside the farm to prevent Defra officials from getting near Geronimo.
A professional security operation was set up with checkpoints to prevent infiltration of the farm. Geronimo had been repeatedly primed with tuberculin for skin tests in New Zealand before he was exported to the UK in 2017.
Further tests conducted in the UK saw Geronimo dosed again with tuberculin, which Miss Macdonald argues produced the false positive. Defra officials now have 30 days to come and kill Geronimo, which Miss Macdonald vowed would be ‘over my dead body’.
Environment Secretary George Eustice has been accused of ‘lying’ over the incident and having ‘misunderstood’ the tests used to condemn Geronimo to death.
In London around 30 people, including fellow alpaca farmers who had travelled from as far afield as Scotland, gathered outside Defra offices in Westminster.
Among them was Bridget TibbsHamilton, the owner of Karlie. Some carried banners reading We stand with Geronimo and Retest, not Death. Veteran animal rights campaigner Dominic Dyer said: ‘Why would you allow this animal to be killed when you know there is a good test that could be used to show it is not positive? It doesn’t add up.’
Chief Veterinary Officer Christine Middlemiss said: ‘I know the devastation that TB can cause farmers, their communities and their animals.
‘The tests used on Geronimo were developed for use on alpacas and are highly specific. The chances of a false positive are significantly less than one percent and we have tested him twice. Not just for the benefit of our farming industry, but to avoid more TB cases in humans our disease control measures must be applied.’
‘People’s lives are being broken’