Check the latest situation at the sites below. While a child could have foreseen environmental problems with this approach, it's only now that public and official concern is growing. But we aren't. Foot and mouth disease only very rarely affects people, and even then only raises a slight temperature and a few blisters. It doesn't even kill animals.
Vets say that it is no more serious for animals than a bad cold for humans.
Instead, it is an economic disease. When animals are sick they produce less milk, and put on less meat. MAFF asserts that cows also milk less well when they recover, though late last week could produce no scientific evidence to prove it. Yet MAFF steadfastly refuses to countenance any relaxation of its zero tolerance policy. Yet BSE really is a terrifying plague which has killed 80 people, slowly and horrifically, and will do the same to thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands, more over coming decades.