Sir, - Six weeks ago, at the Green Party's conference, we unanimously supported emergency motions to adopt a vaccination policy in response to the foot-and-mouth outbreak.

Many other groups and individual small farmers now take the same view. But still MAFF, representing as always the big global trade interests, and the NFU, speaking for the big farmers, have been resolute in opposing it.

And why? Has anybody offered any explanation other than the early restoration of the UK's FMD-free status so that meat can eventually be exported again?

It just doesn't stand up to reason. We are net importers of every kind of meat you care to mention. Those imports almost certainly included the microscopic virus that has triggered this pointless sacrifice, while the transport of animals for export contributed to its rapid spread.

Every tonne of meat the UK sells abroad in this prized export market must be matched by another tonne of meat imported. Not only that, the exported tonne relies on feed from all over the world, often from countries where labour is cheap and land is used for export cash crops, to meet debt repayments, instead of feeding local communities.

Is it really to protect this disgusting system that so many animals are being slaughtered, while the disposal of their carcases is escalating the spread of disease?

Even now, with permission to vaccinate, the government remains wedded to wholesale slaughter. Incredibly, both the NFU and the government justify this choice by pretending that no one will want to buy vaccinated meat. Surely they know that we've always bought vaccinated meat? Why are those who ritually play down any food scare suddenly creating one?

Let's get rational. Stop the slaughter. Vaccinate. Sell meat locally in a sustainable market instead of this ludicrous and self-defeating obsession with global trade above all else.

PETER GOODWIN

Teesside Green Party

Marske-by-the-Sea.

Whose dithering?

Sir, - According to Magnus Linklater's article in the London Times "Why didn't ministers turn to the real expert?" ( April 26), it would appear that MAFF did not carefully weigh all the pros and cons of how to deal with FMD as E M Whittaker suggests (D&S letters, April 27).

As reported in the article, Prof Fred Brown,OBE, the world's leading expert on the disease, offered to supply a quick (within two hours) system for on-the-spot-analysis to determine the status of, as yet, healthy herds, some four days before the MAFF decision on slaughter on contiguous farms, rather than vaccination. Apparently vaccinated animals are perfectly safe for human consumption - their meat was consumed for 40 years will no ill-effects before the ban in the early 1990s.

If, as Prof Brown suggests, resistance from farmers' unions and the food industry to vaccination is based on outdated science, then why has MAFF not kept itself, and everyone else, up-to-date on the latest scientific developments?

Maybe William Hague wasn't "dithering" when he called for vaccination to be reintroduced, and for the Army to be called in to assist long before they were? Maybe he was extremely enlightened and if so, just maybe the catastrophic consequences of this government's entire FMD policy could have been avoided?

JEAN DALGLISH

Boltby,

Thirsk.

On the hoof

Sir, - A correspondent last week referred to MAFF (in the FMD outbreak) as "thinking, deliberating and carefully weighing the pros and cons of all decisions".

All appearances are, rather, that under successive governments no research has been carried out since the last outbreak over 30 years ago, no lessons learned, no heed taken of warnings from other countries that the UK could in future expect a further outbreak (in view of FMD's endemic hold in so many countries) and absolutely no contingency plan prepared.

If there was any careful weighing of pros and cons in this outbreak, all the signs are that it was done "on the hoof".

Dr W A FORSTER

Wellington Mews,

Ripon.

All of a dither

Sir, - Regarding Mr Whittaker's uncertainty as to the meaning of the word dither (D&S letters, April 27), the Readers' Digest dictionary states: "dither, 1, chiefly British. A state of nervous indecision or uncertainty. 2, A state of agitation, excitement or confusion. Dithering: to be in a dither. To quiver or tremble, as with excitement."

Take your pick, Mr Whittaker.

Mrs M ELLIOTT

Ingleton.