Sneaker
Sores
The United Kingdom is becoming to Europe and the rest of the world less
desirable than a leper colony. Leprosy, after all, can be cured but mad cow
and foot-and-mouth diseases might as well be the Black Plague. Indeed the
evening television footage of incinerated cows, sheep, and pigs seems
positively medieval. It is hardly surprising than thousands of battered
souls are making pilgrimages to Canterbury and other shrines to pray for a
relief that modern medicine is unable to deliver. Churches from Lands’ End
to John o’ Groats are filled to capacities not seen since the Battle of
Britain.
Though lumped together by an avaricious media, mad cow disease and foot and
mouth diseases have little in common. Mad cow disease, a degenerative
brain disease, has killed less than 100 people in the UK and Europe.
Because it is a silent disease with a long incubation period, the real toll
from the disease might not be known for 15-20 years. Foot-and-mouth-disease
is much more obvious and, though harmless to humans, can devastate
livestock. Equally important, it can kill the export market as is
increasingly the case for European Union shipments to the United States.
The US no longer imports meat, used farm equipment, old farm boots,
previously-used slaughterhouse machines, and experts who have spent more
than five years studying Wordsworth’s poetry in the Yorkshire dales.
Everything with a British accent is suspect.
Some experts think it will be necessary to cull, kill, and incinerate at
least 50% of all livestock in Europe to completely eradicate the disease.
Moreover, there is increasing pressure from the US, Canada, Argentina and
Brazil to quarantine people who have in any way been associated with
carriers of foot-and-mouth disease. There is unofficial talk in some
capitols that these people should have this association stamped on their
passports or forearms to keep other blood lines clean and healthy. At the
very least countries in the Americas wanted visitors from infected nations
to take supervised disinfectant baths at passport control. Under the
proposed policies, even Queen Elizabeth II and Tony Blair, because they
have country houses in suspect regions of Britain, would have to take
disinfectant baths if they wanted to enter the US.
Though some experts consider foot-and-mouth disease the equivalent of a
human getting the flu, the consequences are far greater. Since animals eat,
sleep and defecate together, the disease is spread very rapidly.
Furthermore, foot-and-mouth can be broadcast up to 30 kilometers by the
wind, rain or an untidy remark. There is some evidence that even harboring
wicked thoughts by those in a suspect zone could make matters worse.
Cultural psychologists are speculating that Britain, one of the most
repressed nations on earth, is causing foot-and-mouth to spread just by
being itself. Apparently the only people making money off this disease are
psychologists.
Severe as the repercussions are for foot-and-mouth, there is a great deal
of symbolism associated with the disease. The fact is, in some areas of
China, including Hong Kong, foot-and-mouth disease occurs regularly in pigs
but nothing is done because the disease doesn’t harm humans. So there is
something of a cultural divide. Westerners have a penchant for being
bacteria-free and want the animals they consume to be exactly the same way.
Harsh criticism has been leveled at British politicians who suggested
foot-and-mouth animals be sent to North Korea and Ethiopia where the need
for protein is great. The British government has vetoed this suggestion on
moral grounds which usually means there would be public relations problems.
So much attention has been given to the woes of the British farmer, little
attention has been given to how foot-and-mouth found its way into Britain.
This disease, after all, has always been with us, and regularly shows its
face in Asia and the Near East where far less fuss is made. John J, Neal,
MD, an animal researcher at Middlesex County Hospital in North London has
startled the medical community by announcing that this recent outbreak of
foot-and-mouth started with a pair of Nike trainers and ham sandwiches.
Tabloid newspapers could hardly contain their glee, charging that Dr. Neal
had been infected by his research and had planted his foot firmly in his
mouth. Perhaps so but Dr. Neal’s analysis, while anecdotal, is nonetheless
interesting,.
On a whim Dr. Neal put an ad in the Times of London asking to hear from
people who had recently been in areas that are well-known hotbeds of
foot-and-mouth (Burma, South Yemen, Mongolia, Thailand, etc.). He heard
from 2,000 people and screened out the vegetarians, cheese eaters, and
orthodox Jews. Weary of listening to people tell him what they did on their
summer holidays, the doctor was ready to admit he was on a fool’s errand.
Then he heard from 33 Leeds United soccer fans who went to Thailand for
sightseeing and cheap sex. Since they went on a low cost charter
airline--100 British pounds round trip--the men brought along their own
inflight meals which largely consisted of ham sandwiches purchased at Leeds
International airport and hidden in Nike trainers, twice-worn socks, and
athletic supporters to escape customs.
As Dr. Neal learned, this crowd of soccer louts got so interested in
drinking beer during he flight they forgot all about the ham sandwiches
which were discovered and confiscated by customs in Thailand. After a 12
hour flight the sandwiches smelled like the inside of running shoes after
a 26-mile marathon. The men were strip-searched, fined, chastised and then
sent on their way. But the story doesn’t end.
Dr. Neal learned that the Nike-scented ham sandwiches were made into a kind
of swill by airport workers, mixed with other leftover food from
international flights, and sold to a freighter captain as commercial pig
swill for an undisclosed amount. The freighter apparently collected swill
from airports, hotels, and liners in the regions and sold it commercially
to the highest bidder, The freighter, the SS Humana, next docked in a small
village off the Horn of Africa. selling the swill to a pig farmer who fed
his pigs with it. When slaughtered the meat from the pigs was sold in a
local store. One purchaser, a Pakistani, purchased a supply of meat and
took it with him to Birmingham, England. Discarded meat found its way into
a local British swill which was fed to pigs and thus begins foot-and-mouth
disease in the UK.
Dr. Neal’s sleuthing has not met with widespread approval from the British
medical community who scoff at the inference that athlete’s feet and jock
itch might have something to do with foot-and-mouth. Dr. Neal stands his
ground, claiming that the ham sandwiches purchased by the Leeds United fans
went through many hands and permutations and could have picked up the virus
along the way. He firmly believe that the free unlicensed trade in swill,
the by product of a heavy meat diet in the West, is somehow the culprit.
The British public, looking for a cure, is less skeptical than the medical
community. Accordingly, the public is inundating Dr. Neal with running
shoes, old athletic shorts, and ham sandwiches in various states of decay.
While Dr. Neal is grateful for the support, he pleads with the British
public to refrain from sending him any more research items. This includes
ketchup bottles filled with swill.
When asked about Dr. Neal’s research, the British Minister of Health said
the Leeds United fans are giving British football a bad name.
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