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The U.S., which wiped out foot-and-mouth disease in the 1920s by a massive extermination program, has stayed clean since then by prohibiting imports of meat and livestock from all diseased areas. Only 14 other countries, including Australia, New Zealand, Canada and a few islands, are also free of the infection. The Soviet Union is now also undergoing a plague of foot-and-mouth disease, which Eastern Europeans fear may spread to their flocks. Some other countries, notably France and Germany, have kept the disease within bearable limits by vaccination.
The British refuse to vaccinate their herds on the grounds that the vaccine is not 100% effective and in rare instances causes mild cases of the disease. They feel that regular vaccination would scare off U.S. and Commonwealth cattle buyers, who spend millions annually to buy pedigreed British stock. The current epidemic makes the argument seem outdated. The government already owes British farmers $35 million—only a fraction of the real value—for the slaughtered herds.