Sir, - In an attempt to belittle the potential for airborne transmission of the foot-and-mouth virus, Kevin Myers (An Irishman's Diary, March 27th) asks us to imagine spreading talcum powder on a field in Wales and consider how likely we would be to hit a herd of a Friesians in Louth. He has news for us, he says: "viruses are not smart-bombs" and don't have "laser thermal imaging to target sheep in Wicklow from their base near Hollyhead". Using some obscure logic to parallel the current foot-and-mouth risk, he goes on to suggest that the AIDS scare 10 years ago was some sort of establishment conspiracy: "We were told a big lie," he says, "that we were all at risk".
Mr Myers is abusing the public podium of The Irish Times to scoff at the efforts currently in place to prevent the spread of this disease. Comparing a virus with a grain of talcum powder is like comparing a one-tonne boulder with a grain of sand. Viruses don't need thermal imaging to find their target; they achieve that by virtue of the sheer numbers shed from infected animals.
If there is any doubt about the potential for airborne infection to cross the Irish sea, the sceptic should consider the fact that radioactive fall-out from Chernobyl arrived in Donegal, and it is not unusual for sand from the Sahara to cover cars in Dublin. It would take approximately two hours for contaminated air to cross the Irish sea from Anglesey in a reasonably stiff easterly breeze.
Consider this also: the current practice of burning infected carcasses in the UK could conceivably contribute to the spread of the disease. There is an invalid assumption that complete incineration is achieved in the process and that all the infective material is destroyed by the fire. I consider this unlikely.
Around any large fire there is a massive updraft of air from the surrounding area. In the preparation of these fires there is concentrated handling of infected carcasses, dragging, lifting and dropping of dead animals, in addition to the movement of machinery and people in the immediate vicinity, all of which will ensure that the surrounding ground is heavily contaminated. Heat from the burning fire will suck air across the ground carrying with it droplets of infected material. There is no reason to believe that all of these droplets will enter the fire. Many will be dispersed many miles downwind in the plumes of smoke and returned to otherwise uncontaminated ground as the air cools.
The apocalyptic scenes of burning slaughtered animals in the UK is a sad reflection on a society that panders to urban self-righteousness by banning fox-hunting, while failing miserably to react in a timely fashion to an epidemic among its farm animals. Let us hope it never happens here. The Irish Department of Agriculture is reacting in a suitably rigorous fashion and trying at least to undertake the necessary cull with some degree of respect for the slaughtered animals; it behoves us all to support these efforts. - Yours, etc.,
Mike Folan, C.Biol., M.I.Biol., MSc., Lough Eske, Donegal Town.