APPEAL: HOW DID THE IRISH BADGER CULL PLAY OUT?

, BBC NEWS ONLINE Background The article How did the Irish badger cull play out? was published on the BBC News Website on 31 May 2013. The piece sought to analyse the success or not of badger culling in the Republic of Ireland in helping to control bovine TB. In the article, the following was written: When I talk to local farmers about bovine TB, so many of them point out that culling badgers in the Republic of Ireland has helped control the disease. The data does seem to back that up, with the numbers of infected cattle falling in Ireland and slowly rising in England. The article also ended with this sentence: Long term, an affordable vaccine is the way forward. But, the lesson from the Republic of Ireland is that a badger cull, along with other measures, can help control the disease until then. The complaint The complainant said the BBC was inaccurate and misleading in saying that data seemed to back up the claim that culling badgers in the Republic of Ireland had led to a reduction in TB in cattle. He said that the Irish government had been misleading in its use of statistics about the cull and that the BBC should have realised this. Stages 1 & 2 The complainant received a reply to his complaint from the BBC at Stage 1 and the issues raised by the complainant were not upheld by the Editorial Complaints Unit (ECU) at Stage 2 of the complaints process. Appeal to the Trust The complainants appeal correspondence raised the following points in relation to the accuracy of the piece: He believed that that the article had been wrong to say that data seemed to back up the claim that culling badgers in the Republic of Ireland had led to a reduction in TB in cattle. He said the piece should have exposed the lack of a relationship between badger culling and bovine TB levels.

He said the piece had been misleading by failing to point out that the Irish government used cull data from 2000 rather than 1984 when he said the cull started. He said that there was no significant trend between badgers killed and bovine TB levels between 1984 and the present while there was a spike in TB numbers from 1999. He said that to start from the 1999 figure was what he described as corrupt science and that the BBC should have spotted this.

Applicable Editorial Guidelines The sections of the BBC Editorial Guidelines relating to Accuracy are applicable to this case. The full guidelines are at www.bbc.co.uk/editorialguidelines The Committees Decision The Committee considered the complaint against the relevant editorial standards, as set out in the BBCs Editorial Guidelines. The guidelines are a statement of the BBCs values and standards. In reaching its decisions the Committee took full account of all of the available evidence, including (but not limited to) the Editorial Advisers report, and subsequent submission from the complainant. The committee began by looking at what data there was to support the belief that a badger cull had led to a reduction in TB in cattle. It noted that the Irish governments statistics on the number of cattle in the Republic of Ireland diagnosed with TB showed 30,188 infected in 1984, when the cull started, 39,847 in 2000 and 18,476 in 2012. While noting this drop in infected cattle since 2,000, the Committee considered that it was unclear what could be attributed to the culling of badgers as it noted that the current programme to curb bovine TB in Ireland contained a wide range of measures, such as a mandatory registration system for herds, a comprehensive programme of disease surveillance as well as disease and hygiene controls. In addition, the Committee noted that other factors besides the measures to curb bovine TB needed to be considered when assessing the Irish governments figures on cattle diagnosed with TB. These included the relative size of the national herd in Ireland and the number of animals tested for TB. The committee then looked at the scientific research on badger culling. It noted that a scientific study in Ireland conducted from 1997 to 2002, known as the Four Areas Trial, had found that proactive culling of badgers reduced the incidence of bovine TB in cattle by between 51 and 68 per cent compared with the levels observed in the chosen areas in the five years before the trial. However, it also observed that a randomised badger culling trial carried out between 1998 and 2007 for the UK government by the Independent Scientific Group on Cattle TB had

generated very different results. The Committee noted that the Independent Scientific Group had concluded that: The overall benefits of proactive culling were modest (representing an estimated 14 breakdowns after culling 1,000 km2 for five years), and were realised only after coordinated and sustained effort. While many other approaches to culling can be considered, available data suggest that none is likely to generate benefits substantially greater than those recorded in the randomised badger culling trial, and many are likely to cause detrimental effects. Given its high costs and low benefits we therefore conclude that badger culling is unlikely to contribute usefully to the control of cattle TB in Britain, and recommend that TB control efforts focus on measure other than badger culling. Given that both the statistics and scientific studies about the link between badger culling and bovine TB levels were inconclusive, the Committee examined whether the article had used clear and precise language to make this apparent to the audience. In doing so, it observed that the badger cull had become a highly divisive issue with those for and against the cull using the findings of different trials to bolster their respective causes and so it was essential that the BBC provided the greatest clarity possible on the subject. In this context, the Committee believed that the language used in the article had not been sufficiently precise as it suggested that the badger cull might be a factor in helping control the disease when this was scientifically unproven. It considered that, while the data did show a decline in the number of cattle infected with TB in Ireland, there was no conclusive evidence to show that the badger cull had been categorically responsible for any of this decline and so it was inaccurate to say that, along with other measures, it can help control the disease. The Committee then considered the complainants allegation that the article had been misleading. It noted that while the article had said that the data seemed to back up the claim that culling badgers had led to a reduction in TB in cattle in the Republic of Ireland, it had not specified any particular statistics or dates when doing so. The Committee also noted that the statistics showed that levels of bovine TB in Ireland were at historically low levels, although it again observed that a wide range of factors could have influenced this data apart from the badger cull. Given that the data did show a decline, and given the use of the word seemed the Committee believed that the BBC had not distorted the information available in presenting the data and had not knowingly sought to mislead its audience. Finding: Partially upheld