[NYTr] British Foot & Mouth Disease Inquiry focuses on French Vaccine

[All the News That Doesn't Fit]

sent by marcus (activ-l)

Financial Times (UK) - Aug 5, 2007
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/042f09fc-438c-11dc-a065-0000779fd2ac.html

Inquiry focuses on vaccines producer

By Fiona Harvey, Environment Correspondent

The investigative spotlight fixed firmly on Sunday on Merial, a
pharmaceuticals company, as the possible source of the weekends foot
and mouth outbreak.

The company defended its hygiene practices, however, and said it was
co-operating fully with government inspectors.

Merial, a US-French venture, produced vaccines for foot-and-mouth
disease, not sold in the UK, at a site in Pirbright, a few miles from
the farm where the virus was found. Some of these were made using the
strain of virus found on the affected farm, which is very close to the
strain isolated from the 1967 outbreak, according to the Institute for
Animal Health.

But the company said it had no idea how any foot-and-mouth virus could
have spread from its facility and said it was too early in the
investigation to say whether any had done so. Other transmission routes
for the virus were also possible, the company said.

It halted vaccine production at the plant on Friday.

Merial said: Our centre operates to the very highest international
standards and we insist on stringent adherence to processes and
procedures for health, safety and environmental protection, quality
control, quality assurance and regulatory compliance.

Bert Burns, a spokesman, said the company had never before experienced
a virus outbreak arising from one of its facilities. In 39 years I have
never known an outbreak anywhere in the world from a plant, he said.

The Institute for Animal Health, which also has laboratories at the
Pirbright site where suspected cases of foot-and-mouth disease are
analysed, is also being investigated. The IAH, a government-backed
research laboratory, said: IAH operates under strict biosecurity
procedures. We have no evidence that these have been breached at the
IAH laboratory.

Martin Shirley, its director, rebuffed the suggestion that the IAHs
facilities were in a poor state of repair, as suggested by a report in
2002. He said the site was in the process of being rebuilt.

An interim report from the Health and Safety Executive on the source of
the outbreak is expected within two days.

Merial is jointly owned by the pharmaceuticals companies Merck and
Sanofi- Aventis, having been formed in 1997. The company is one of the
biggest in animal health, with a 14 per cent global market share.
Merials turnover last year was $2.2bn and the company employs about
5,000 people globally.

Sales of its foot-and-mouth vaccine made up 5 per cent of its global
turnover, the company said.

Merials UK managing director, David Biland, arrived in Britain on
Sunday after cutting short his holiday and travelled to Pirbright to
talk to investigators. A spokesman said the companys board had
discussed the foot-and-mouth investigation.

A spokesman for the National Farmers Union said farmers would be
frustrated and angry if it turned out that Merial was the source of the
outbreak. If it is confirmed, we will want to have reassurances that
this could never happen again, he said.

But he urged farmers not to jump to conclusions: Its still too early to
know exactly what happened. The NFU added it would be looking for
compensation for its members if the virus were found to have spread
from a production facility.

Sean Rickard, a senior lecturer at the Cranfield School of Management
and former chief economist for the NFU, said the government should
learn from the 2001 outbreak by not shutting down the whole
countryside, as rural businesses such as tourism were harder hit than
farming.