Letter: Crazy quota system fails farmers

Sir: I can help Tim Edwards, who like many other dairy farmers is suffering from the Government's unscientific and therefore futile, destructive and even immoral BSE culling policy.

He and his farming colleagues must persuade the Ministry of Agriculture (Maff) to collaborate with Dr Narang of Newcastle, the only person to have devised a simple urine test to reveal the outwardly healthy animals which are incubating BSE. His test works on sheep with scrapie and it was positive in eight out of eight humans who subsequently died of proved CJD. He has been offering to help Maff with tests for BSE since 1988. But our chief vet and his staff have persistently refused his offers.

Indentifying the infected animals would enable the slaughter to be restricted to them and BSE would vanish. Farmers would then stop committing suicide, our economy would be saved the billions of pounds it is set to lose and the BSE saga would be history.

Dr H C GRANT

London NW3