Cassidy, A. ‘BADGER-HUMAN CONFLICT: An Overlooked Historical Context for Bovine TB Debates in the UK’ Ch.4 in Understanding Conflicts About Wildlife: A Biosocial Approach Edited by Catherine M. Hill, Amanda D. Webber and Nancy E.C. Priston. In press, Berghan, 2017: http://www.berghahnbooks.com/title/HillUnderstanding Final version as sent to publisher. Chapter 4 BADGER- HUMAN CONFLICT An Overlooked Historical Context for Bovine TB Debates in the UK Angela Cassidy Department of Politics, University of Exeter Email:
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[email protected] Since the early 1970s, the question of whether to cull wild badgers (Meles meles) in order to control the spread of bovine tuberculosis (bTB) infection in British cattle herds has been the source of public controversy. Bovine TB is caused by Mycobacterium bovis, a microorganism that can in principle infect any mammalian species including humans, although its main host is the domestic cow. In the United Kingdom M. bovis was a major cause of tuberculosis in humans until well into the twentieth century, as it can be transmitted zoonotically via infected meat and milk in particular. The gradual recognition of this link by scientists, veterinarians and public health authorities led to the establishment of many modern systems for regulating food risks, including the pasteurization of milk, meat inspection and routine TB testing of cattle herds (Atkins 2000; Waddington 2006). Due to the success of these systems, in many countries bTB no longer poses a serious public health threat; however, on a global scale it still contributes to human disease, particularly in several African countries, and in specific populations worldwide (Müller et al.