BOVINE TUBERCULOSIS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 20 September 1939, Page 3

BOVINE TUBERCULOSIS

COMPULSORY TESTING. ♦ FAVOURED BY DAIRYMEN. A system of compulsory testing of all dairy cows for tuberculosis was favoured by shareholders at the annual meeting of the Rimu Co-operative Dairy Factory Co., Ltd. The chairman (Mr A. C. Carswell) gave instances where infection had allegedly been transferred to human beings in various districts through the consumption of milk. The meeting passed a motion favouring the testing of all cows. The matter came before the meeting on receipt of a remit which had been forwarded to the Southland Provincial Executive of the Farmers’ Union. The executive, in forwarding the remit for an expression of opinion, stated that it was not prepared to take definite steps in the meantime, but was seeking further information and had decided to circularise dairy factories. The remit was as follows: “That the Government be approached for an alteration to the present Stock Diseases Act as it applies to the tuberculin testing of dairy cattle, such alteration to make compulsory the testing of all first-cal-ving heifers and yearlings, with a fol-low-up system annually, thereby making possible the gradual elimination of bovine T.B. from the dairy herds of this Dominion.”