Lab breaches 'led to' foot and mouth

At least five bio security breaches at these animal testing labs - led to the foot and mouth outbreak. That's the stark conclusion of the official report today, which said the disease was almost certainly spread by a broken pipe and failures in the monitoring of people and vehicles.

But according to the Health and Safety Executive, the responsibility for these breaches is still in dispute. Even before the report was published - blame was being passed from one organisation to another.

But one thing is clear government inspectors from DEFRA repeatedly missed this security breaches.

The company Merial shares the complex with the Institute for Animal Health. But the whole site is owned by the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC). According to the report: a cracked and leaking pipe was found linking Merial labs with a treatment centre run by the IAH. It over-flowed during flooding on the 20th July.

And vehicles are thought to have carried the disease out of the complex and close to the infected farm.

According to the BBSRC this morning - they're not to blame because legally the "user takes responsibility" for bio security. But Merial was allowed by protocol - to flush untreated water into internal pipes at the complex.

The National Union of Farmers has said it may sue whoever was responsible for the outbreak. Their lawyers are now examining this report. Some farmers have lost hundreds of cattle because of precautionary measures enforced by the outbreak.

The report also highlights a serious conflict of interest for DEFRA. The government department is at one time client, inspector and regulator - of the labs. So that system is now likely to be replaced with an independent inspector for every animal testing centre in Britain.

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