Post-Mortem report confirms Geronimo did NOT have TB

So sorry words fail me ……..

Just dreadful! However, it doesn't surprise me at all sadly.

The number of false and misleading statements made about this matter are unbelievable. The fact is that the animal may have had TB.
^ Chief Veterinary Officer Dr Christine Middlemiss said that the initial post-mortem examination of Geronimo found a 'number of TB-like lesions'.^
These are now undergoing further investigation, with tests including the developing of bacteriological cultures (growths) from tissue samples.
This normally takes several months, and experts expect to complete the full process by the end of this year.
A lesion is an area of tissue that has been damaged through disease - and in some cases, the microscopic lesions of TB in the affected organs can take a very long time to progress to larger, visible lesions, if at all.
Mycobacterium bovis can be grown in the laboratory from clinical samples, usually from tissue samples collected post-mortem. The culture process takes a long time because the bacterium grows slowly.
This process can only be carried out in specialist laboratories, and it is not always successful even in lab conditions. It is only after growth in the laboratory that the species of Mycobacterium can be identified.
So actualy no one can say for certain that the animal did not have TB until the culture tests are completed.

I wonder why there is so much fuss over one animal when farmers have been losing cattle for years, and yes they do care just as much as this owner did.

It's time an alternative - like a vaccine that isn't unsafe if humans eat the meat - was found instead of culling.

execution warrant ?

This poor creature was a 'cash cow' making money for its owner. I'm sorry if it was put down unnecessarily but it was not executed.

The fact is that the animal may have had TB. Chief Veterinary Officer Dr Christine Middlemiss said that the initial post-mortem examination of Geronimo found a 'number of TB-like lesions'.^

That was a while back, Trisher. If you read the OP it says the lesions have been tested and no TB to be found.

But the OP is just referring to an article in the Daily Mail where the owner restates her opinion that the animal didn’t have BTB.

There’s no new definitive evidence for or against and won’t be till the samples have been cultured.

Fake news and a misleading head line in fact. Whether on purpose or just carried along by the Daily Mail I don’t know.

Where did you get your information OP?

It appears to be from the ‘Geronimo’ Facebook page. So totally legit then.

Geronimo's death would have been less traumatic if the owner had bowed to the inevitable and let him be quietly put down at home.

Certainly far more work needs to be done on Bovine TB. Farms and zoos lose valuable animals, not to mention the badger culls. We need a better way of dealing with it.

Totally agree Deedaa The owner had a lot to answer for the animal had already spent four years in solitary ‘confinement’ in case poor thing

As well as being shipped nearly 12,000 miles so Helen McDonald could make money from breeding him.

She wasn’t so concerned about his distress then. Nobody can convince me she ever cared anything about him except as a money making project.

And she’s succeeding ?

How sad and dreadful.

To put this in perspective, 10s of 1000s of badgers are being killed currently that do NOT have TB. And it seems much more likely that badgers get TB from cattle, not the other way round.

Zoejory

*The fact is that the animal may have had TB. Chief Veterinary Officer Dr Christine Middlemiss said that the initial post-mortem examination of Geronimo found a 'number of TB-like lesions'.^*

That was a while back, Trisher. If you read the OP it says the lesions have been tested and no TB to be found.

If you read the piece that isn't possible until the cultures have been grown and that could take until the end of the year. You might not find TB active in the lesions that doesn't mean the bacterium isn't present and active TB could result.

midgey

I wonder why there is so much fuss over one animal when farmers have been losing cattle for years, and yes they do care just as much as this owner did.

Exactly.
And now crowd funding!
As trisher says it’s not over yet and the animal may well have had TB.

The reason why the poor animal had a ‘brutal death’ was as a result of the owners actions.

Don’t blame the owner. Blame the intransigence of DEFRA and their one size fits all policy. They aren’t interested in animal welfare remotely. They are interested in protecting the income of industrialised meat production. Squash as many animals in together as possible as they are literally cash cows. This animal wasn’t going to be eaten or mix with other farm animals. The owner was trying to protect it and prove beyond reasonable doubt that it had this preventable illness. But computer said no and wouldn’t allow independent tests. Disgusting

It's absolutely obvious why they don't allow independent tests because stupid results will be drawn from them like this thread.

Once the decision to euthanise the animal (rightly or wrongly) was made the owner could have ensured Geronimo was euthanised in its own surroundings and so avoided trauma for the animal. The owner in my view is definitely to blame in this instance and caused the animal suffering. I am an animal lover and would not have put an animal of mine through this awful experience just to gain publicity.

I agree with Gwyneth. There didn’t need to have been such a pantomime when he was taken away to be euthanised. It was the owner’s fault.

The more fuss the more donations she gets.

Nobody who cares tuppence for an animal would have it shipped 12,000 miles just to make money.

He was terrified getting into the truck? Think of the days of terror being loaded into a truck on the New Zealand farm, into the hold of a ship or plane, confined in a cage, unloaded and loaded again. And then isolated from the herd for years.

She wasn’t so concerned about his distress then. What a hypocrite.

Follow the money?

Wow what a lot of condemnation for this woman. I have no idea whether she cared for Geronimo or what the scientific basis is for the tests he was given, but I do know the whole TB strategy is flawed and there is disgraceful cruelty involved in culling badgers, cattle and other animals with no scientific evidence that it works. As for shipping him across the world, this happens all the time to animals destined for slaughter, as well as to the highest value animals in the world, all in the name of money. I don’t think we can assume that Olympic horsemen and women don’t care about their animals just because they allow them to be transported across the globe.

Trisher
The statement by Dr Christine Middlemiss is old news. Did you read what Dr. Bob Broadbent wrote? Have you read the full post-mortem report?
As Dr. Iain McGill said: 'Put another way, if Geronimo had died naturally, and this post-mortem had been carried out and yielded these same results, ANY Veterinary Surgeon or pathologist would state that there is no evidence of bTB at all.'

Midgey,
Thank you for your comment.
Yes, far too many farmers have been deeply upset and traumatized by the loss of their animals. This is exactly why Helen Mcdonald is persevering with her case, to try and stand up for all those who may be affected in the future by a flawed bTB testing system.
She does not want other people and animals to suffer as she and Geronimo have.
She loved Geronimo very much and is devastated by his loss.