Whenever the foot-and-mouth crisis is over, EU countries will have to consider preventive vaccination against the disease, Dr Bernard Dixon, the European editor for the American Society for Microbiology, has warned.
Britain pressurised other EU countries into adopting a novaccination policy in the early 1990s which had led to the kind of disaster scenario we now saw in Britain, said Dr Dixon, a prominent microbiologist.
His views are especially pertinent, as the British Agriculture Secretary, Mr Nick Brown, conceded at the weekend that he had not ruled out vaccination against the disease.
Only Britain, Ireland and Denmark of EU countries never vaccinated against the disease. "As a microbiologist I believe we should always consider infectious diseases in an ecological perspective. We should have considered preventive vaccination (known as prophylactic vaccination) as a routine measure. We considered it and rejected it." In the context of possible biological warfare between countries or the possibility of deliberately introduced disease, vaccination was the only protection. And he said the cost of vaccines had gone down considerably, as a result of simplification of their manufacture. A no-vaccination policy, coupled with an agriculture industry which allowed livestock to be transported all over the country, had led to the situation where "the most infectious disease known to man" could take hold in the national herd. There is no comparison with the outbreak in 1967, he said. "What we have done is to create the very scenario for this sort of tragedy to happen."
Dr Dixon added: "I think we ought to see the back of this outbreak using the present policies and then we should reassess prophylactic vaccination. Considering the astonishing scale of this tragedy, I think rightly we ought to reopen the question which was addressed some years ago."
The decision to slaughter animals in the event of an outbreak rather than vaccinate was based on a cost/benefit analysis, he pointed out.
"By not using vaccine you will leave huge herds of livestock completely vulnerable to what is one of the most infectious viruses known to man. I think the whole of Europe ought to readdress the question of using routine vaccination."
And he poses the question: "Have we just been very lucky since the last outbreak?"
There are three ways to go after this crisis, he suggested. A policy of no vaccination, vaccination of all animals or ring vaccination; in other words, creating a firebreak when there is an outbreak in one area.
The downside of vaccination, however, is that after the epidemic is over all animals which have been vaccinated will have to be slaughtered. "If you have a policy of trying to maintain a foot-and-mouth-free country, you must not have any immunised animals," he explained.
Dr Dixon said he respected the views of Irish veterinary experts who were totally opposed to vaccination. There was honest professional disagreement when this was debated 10 years ago. "It was not black or white. I respected the arguments on the other side. We took a calculated risk."
He said there were several reasons to re-examine that policy. We should ask, after 10 years, whether the policy had been effective. All vaccines had been improved and, with improving technology, vaccines gave longer-lasting immunity. "The thing nobody wants to talk about is this question of deliberate introduction."
Dr Dixon said deliberate introduction has to be addressed as it was a possibility - not, he thinks, in the case of the current outbreak - but a number of major studies on the dangers of biological warfare have been carried out in the US on such occurrences.
"I am not suggesting this outbreak was caused deliberately but it's a real possibility to be considered. I think in all likelihood this outbreak was accidently caused by human food which got into the pigswill."