BCG - Priorities?

matthew · Dec 22, 2014

For several years now, the great and the good at FERA have been playing with BCG vaccinations, both injection and oral, for badgers. It has been rolled out as an alternative to culling the infectious ones, on the grounds that they will die off in a short while, leaving a healthy population of no risk to cattle or anything else.

Defra would like to use it too, if only to 'pump prime' us into accepting the concept.

http://bovinetb.blogspot.co.uk/2013/08/all-clear-in-5-years.html

But from the Mail on Sunday, comes a rather different slant on this drug (BCG)
It is in very short supply, and a couple of years ago, the US and Canadian news reports were speaking of shortages for their cancer patients.

Yesterday, it was reported here.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/a...ospitals-running-perilously-low-supplies.html

The dose used for vaccinating GB badgers, unscreened for their current disease status, is 10x the human one (used for tuberculosis.)

Nice to know we have our priorities right.

Jackson4 · Dec 22, 2014

how humane is it to let badgers slowly die of TB? If an activist took one to a vet surely they would expect it to be put down. How will they know when to stop vaccinating badgers? If they miss one young badger in the set each year then the problem is still there, and the vaccine only works 50% of the time if at all?
Since the badgers wont be like most dales folk, inbred, the young must go looking for a mate each year, so they will be moving from vaccinated areas to non vaccinated areas... whole thing seems an idea that will struggle to work in practice. Misery for farmers, 100s of thousands of cows and calves killed all because anti mainstream activists dont want to shoot a few thousand badgers. Crazy

jade35 · Dec 22, 2014

Wow, makes you wonder how they found that BCG worked for bladder cancer

http://www.nhs.uk/Conditions/Cancer-of-the-bladder/Pages/Treatment.aspx

Bacillus Calmette-Guérin (BCG) treatment
After surgery, you may also be treated with a variant of the BCG vaccine. This is used to help prevent recurrence of bladder cancer when there is a high risk of it returning.

The BCG vaccine was originally used to treat tuberculosis (TB), but it has also proved to be an effective treatment against bladder cancer. Exactly how the BCG vaccine works is still unclear.

The BCG vaccine is given in the same way as intravesical chemotherapy. The vaccine is passed into your bladder through a catheter and left in your bladder for two hours before being drained away.

As with intravesical chemotherapy, you should take precautions such as sitting down while urinating to ensure that urine does not get onto your skin or the toilet seat.

Most people require weekly treatments over a six-week period. Depending on your circumstances, maintenance therapy may also be recommended. This involves receiving further doses of the BCG once a week for three weeks, with six month intervals. Maintenance therapy usually lasts for three years.

Chemotherapy is usually preferred to BCG treatment because the side effects are less severe. Common side effects of BCG can include:

a frequent need to urinate
pain when urinating
blood in your urine (haematuria)
flu-like symptoms, such as tiredness, fever and aching
urinary tract infections

@matthew have you seen this website?
http://emedicine.medscape.com/article/1950803-overview#aw2aab6b3

llamedos · Dec 22, 2014

http://www.ashp.org/menu/DrugShortages/CurrentShortages/Bulletin.aspx?id=915

http://www.ekavet.com/veterinary-medications/187-badgerbcg

matthew · Dec 22, 2014

@jade35 - No I hadn't seen the link. We have had reports of a shortage of BCG both for human TB use and for bladder cancer treatments for a couple of years now. US and Canada report shortages and delays too.

@llamedos What the VMD sheet does not say, is that this drug was trialled on badgers prescreeened for TB. And of 844 trapped, only 262 were able to be used for the 'elf and safety ' trial. The infection rate was 43 per cent, with the balance either dead or not volunteering for a second shot.
Limited Marketing Authority means that no efficacy data was submitted, and that this is the responsibility of the end user.

Bruce Almighty · Dec 23, 2014

@matthew excuse my laziness, but how can lots of us turn this into copy & paste to Facebook to spread the word to our non farming friends ?

matthew · Dec 23, 2014

Bruce Almighty said:
@matthew excuse my laziness, but how can lots of us turn this into copy & paste to Facebook to spread the word to our non farming friends ?

Scroll over the piece you want to 'copy' to highlight it and click Ctrl + C (Or go to the Edit button and click Copy)
When you want to Paste, click Ctrl + V (Or go back to Edit and click Paste)

Is that what you meant? This a cut/paste of the Mail strapline, which reports 12,000 patients could be affected.

Bladder cancer crisis as thousands are left without crucial drug because British hospitals are running perilously low on supplies

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/a...ng-perilously-low-supplies.html#ixzz3Mi1KMfuZ
Follow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook

I understand that these products are a type of 'alphabet soup' - a witches brew of raw product which is then directed either at the BCG wash infusion for bladder cancer, which is spoken of here, or vaccinations for tuberculosis which we are more familiar with. The manufacturing process is very slow. And the fact remains that the medical profession is struggling to obtain enough supplies to treat cancer patients while FERA play with it, jabbing badgers, whether already infected with TB or not and knowing that the efficacy of the drug and the long term success of the process is doubtful (that's being kind)

Bruce Almighty · Dec 23, 2014

Thanks @matthew I've spread the word

BCG - Priorities?

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SFI - What % were you taking out of production?

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