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More information on Britain's foot and mouth disease problem. The outbreak was likely from a <a href="http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/B/BRITAIN_FOOT_AND_MOUTH?SITE=MTBIL&SECTION=INTERNATIONAL&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT">government sponsored lab</a>.<br />n<br />n<blockquote>Hopes rose Sunday that a potentially disastrous foot-and-mouth outbreak in Britain could be contained, as scientists grew increasingly suspicious that the disease came from a high-security laboratory near the infected farm.<br />n<br />nThe agriculture department said late Saturday that the strain of foot-and-mouth disease found on a farm in southern England was identical to one used at a research laboratory a few miles away shared by the government's Institute for Animal Health and a private pharmaceutical company, Merial Animal Health.<br />n<br />nThe department said the strain had not recently been seen in live animals.<br />n<br />n"This is a promising lead – but we do not know for sure," Environment Secretary Hilary Benn told the British Broadcasting Corp. on Sunday.</blockquote><br />n<br />nJust because it comes from a nearby lab there is hope? Does that change the fact that 60 cows have been killed and burned? Does that cause this disease to not spread any further on the wind or on vehicles? Where is the hope here? Hope that they can blame someone else for all the problems? Hope that the whole damn thing will go away? I don't see much hope.<br />n<br />n<a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/08/05/nfandm205.xml">Here</a> we find a little more about the farm where this is taking place.<br />n<br />n<blockquote>One of the family's friends leaned, grim-faced, on his front gate and said: "I'm absolutely gobsmacked. Where the hell did it come from? The Prides are a well-known farming family. They have been here years and years, before I got here, and that was 37 years ago."<br />n<br />nHe added: "It's an organic farm. Absolutely everything is done by the book there. They're not just in it for the money. It's a proper organisation. They really run it well.<br />n<br />n"I really feel for them. They don't deserve it. It's devastating. Bloody hell, it's their livelihood we're talking about here… God help us all."</blockquote><br />n<br />nWhy was this lab working on a vaccine when nobody seems to want to use it to control foot and mouth disease? What's the sense in that? Doesn't this just sound like Montana's recent brucellosis problem? This dumb cowboy just doesn't understand all this stuff.<br />n<br />n<strong>Hope springs eternal in the human breast: Man never is, but always To be Blest. Alexander Pope</strong>