Beef about TB

WE NEED not look any further than our love for burgers to find the cause of Scotland’s largest outbreak of bovine tuberculosis (“TB source still a mystery”, your report, 25 April).

The process of raising, killing and consuming animals enables potentially fatal pathogens, including TB, to multiply, spread and cause infection.

Hans-Gerhard Wagner, a senior officer with the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organisation, has called the industrial farming of livestock an “opportunity for emerging disease”. The spread of TB itself has been conclusively linked to the movement and intensive rearing of cattle in the meat and dairy industries, which also ignore the fact that these sensitive, intelligent animals are subjected to exhaustion, pain, boredom, loneliness and fear.

The best way to stop the spread of disease epidemics and infectious illnesses as well as the suffering of animals is to adopt a vegan diet.

Ben Williamson

PETA

Southwark Street

London