Canterbury Horse Rescue Lousy Charity's Ragwort Nonsense!

In my honest opinion Canterbury Horse Rescue is an absolutely lousy charity. They have let an abusive, ignorant, arrogant and dim-witted individual to tweet on their behalf. This is clearly a clueless ignoramus who spreads environmentally damaging scare stories.

When someone is challenging you and provides links, then you need to examine the evidence. If you don’t understand it then don’t challenge it.

I’ll post the twitter thread below. This happened some time ago but I have recently been researching the central fact at issue, that there cannot be a  general definitive diagnosis of ragwort poisoning. This is because mouldy food such as hay can contain aflatoxins which have the same effect at an atomic level and therefore produce damage that is, "indistinguishable from ragwort”. That quote comes from a paper in one of the world’s finest scientific journals Nature. It was printed there only a few years after the paper which announced to the world that the structure of DNA had been discovered, leading to the Nobel Prize for its authors.

First of all Canterbury Horse Rescue posted a quote tweet replying to some one who had seen “introduced Silver Ragwort” growing wild somewhere as it occasionally does. This is Jacobaea maritima. This is a different species to the native (Common) Ragwort (Jacobaea vulgaris) so there are no laws mentioning it anyway! However the information they provided to their followers was nonsense even when applied to (Common) Ragwort.

First of all Canterbury Horse Rescue falsely claimed that the council had a duty to clear. No such duty to control for councils exists in the law for any species of ragwort. It also implies the plant is scary and dangerous because such a law is needed. This is misleading.

Then they said you must wear gloves when handling it. This is a repetition of a well-known scare story and myth. It was looked at by some Dutch scientists some years ago who concluded it was nonsense. This is also misleading.

Then they said it was dangerous to pets. There is a standard veterinary text book on plants toxic to cats and dogs. Ragwort isn’t even mentioned! So this is a misleading scare story yet again!

In general the rule is that if an equine organisation says anything negative about ragwort then it will be misleading in some way or another, but Canterbury Horse Rescue really take the biscuit!

Despite being provided by Friends of the Earth’s briefing with detailed information and proper scientific references, this ignoramus ignored the evidence, which includes telling them that there is no reliable test for ragwort poisoning, and carried on arguing.

There are very clear rules placed on registered charities by the Charities Commission which have been utterly ignored by Canterbury Horse Rescue. They did not properly examine the evidence given to them.

Let’s look at their claims regarding Defra hat they said, and it's false by the way, that ragwort is our top killer.. The first thing to realise is as I have proved many times over the years Defra haven’t a clue about the subject. Just to give one example of their bungling ignorance. They once told everyone that ragwort, which is an ecologically important native plant, was on a list of dangerous foreign invaders!

As for using Defra as a source, the bungling ignoramus from Canterbury Horse Rescue had already been told via the Friends of the Earth briefing that there was no reliable test for ragwort poisoning so they needed evidence to show that was wrong. Argument from Authority is one of the biggest errors you can make in thinking.

As the famous American scientist Carl Sagan wrote in his book. The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark

"Mistrust arguments from authority....  Too many such arguments have proved too painfully wrong. Authorities must prove their contentions like everybody else."

Defra are often rather slow and reluctant in replying to Freedom of Information Requests and often don’t actually have the information that you’d expect them have to make some of their claims. They cannot prove their contentions.

Canterbury Horse Rescue probably didn’t ask, and certainly didn’t ask for proof when they’d already being given the requisite information by Friends of the Earth.

Defra are also currently lying about the law to people, with regards to ragwort. It is very easy to prove this as the law is written down in black and white and their information clearly misrepresents it. They claim if you follow their very badly researched advice you will avoid fines when what they fail to tell you is, a lie by omission that the law requires them first to tell you in a specific legal order to control it and then and you can only be fined if a court finds that you unreasonably refused to follow that order,

Some people do form their opinions on the basis of tradition and authority but it is important to know what the research says about such people, on average clinical tests show they are less intelligent!

The basis of the Canterbury Horse Rescue ignoramus's argument was not only wrong but possible evidence of a clinical mental issue!

Here is the actual thread of this discussion on twitter. The bad language used brings them into disrepute and wasn't justified.

The frustration here is it does indeed seem to be a demon haunted world and too many equine charities are talking nonsense on the basis of false information,

Here is my latest information proving there is no reliable test for ragwort poisoning, complete with references, including one to the Nature paper I mention above.

Ragwort poisoning no test can confirm ragwort poisoning 100% (ragwortfacts.com)

Pembroke Council Ragwort bungling from an officer.

 One of the most important rules of logical thinking is, “don’t listen to authority look at the evidence.” Indeed there is abundant evidence in the medical literature that authoritarian behaviour is linked to poor ability and intelligence.

This is a classic example of a phenomenon I have noticed many times. Bureaucrats in local and even central government often don’t know their subjects well.

It  is a case from about a decade ago from Pembroke Council in Wales but it is still relevant today as the same issues happen. These are some quotes from an email concerning a developer who wanted, quite properly, to include ragwort in a nature area.

This starts with a falsehood.

2. The Council’s Landscape Officer comments: “It is strange to go to special levels to include Ragwort into the proposals when it is a notifiable weed elsewhere,

I don’t know what is precisely meant by “elsewhere,” but there has never, ever been such a thing as a notifiable weed in Wales or in the rest of Great Britain. There is no legal requirement for anyone to notify any authority of the presence of any plant.

Then there is more incorrect information!

and an offense [sic] to allow it to spread. So whilst the developer can include it, he will be obliged to remove it before it comes into seed.

This is nonsense! The law most emphatically, does not say that. You may be given a rare order to control ragwort but in the absence of an order there is no requirement to do anything at all.

I would suggest that we are aiming to set something up that is realistically impractical and may cause legal challenge if left un-managed. The Cinabar [sic] Moth is not a protected species but is an LBAP species and hence its suggested inclusion in the scheme.

The main issue with ragwort hysteria isn’t the Cinnabar Moth but all the other wildlife and the impact on the environment of the agricultural intensification created by the problem

There is more nonsense

However it is relatively common, and the plant itself is poisonous to humans although large quantities would have to be consumed to be lethal. However, inclusion in the scheme might lead to concern from more informed parents and I therefore question the overall wisdom of its inclusion in the play area.

Remember this is coming from a landscape officer someone who you might expect to know something about plants. Surely you would expect them to know that toxic plants are common in gardening, things like daffodils and bluebells. This is what truly informed parents should know. Yes there is a problem with ignoramuses and ragwort but that should be dealt with by educating them.

This sort of ignorance is by no means unusual from council officers. I actually started all this work when decades ago a council officer was determined that ragwort should be treated as an invasive species even though I impressed upon her that it was an ecologically important native. It got written into an official document afterwards that it was a foreign invader. It had to be complained about!

Another issue occurred years ago, when I was trying to conserve one of the best butterfly sites in the UK. A small 20 acre site in Wales with as many butterfly species as the entire English county of Essex! One of the tactics was to protect the trees. A council Tree Officer visited and tried to impress me with scientific names, only they were the wrong ones! Also he made one of the most ignorant statements I’ve ever heard from someone who should have understanding of ecology!

“If it were to be ploughed up everything would come back because the seeds would still be in the ground.”

The moral of this story is don’t listen to officials, find out the rules for yourself and be particularly sceptical of council officers and their claims.

Cornwall Council's ragwort balderdash.

During a conversation on twitter some ill-informed person held up Cornwall Council as a useful source of information on ragwort.

Nothing could be further from the truth as evidence by this piece of ignorant balderdash in their Highway Maintenance Manual

C.8 Specialist inspection of noxious and invasive Weeds

The control of injurious and noxious weeds is a statutory responsibility for

authorities under the Weeds Act 1959 and the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981.

The primary objective of the specialist inspection is therefore to identify

areas of prescribed weeds that may be hazardous to users of the highway.

The prescribed weeds are:

Ragwort

Broad leaved dock

Curled dock

Creeping thistle

Spear thistle

First of all neither piece of legislation creates ANY statutory responsibility on local authorities. Then we get the nonsense that there has to be inspection to removed weed that may be hazardous to users of the highway. You can imagine it dock leaves causing car crashes by their mere presence on a verge! What utter nonsense! I suspect it is because they don't understand that Injurious weeds means harmful to the agriculture we had in 1920 when they were first written into the legislation governing Great Britain. They seem to  think that the term, "injurious weeds"  means that edible dock leaves are a danger to people and cause injury which is not the correct use of the word  injurious in this context.

Then there is the fact that none of these native plants is mentioned in the Wildlife and Countryside Act at all! The list there is of problematic foreign plants which are a problem and while there is a brief mention of Japanese Knotweed later on they don't cover these!

Some years ago Cornwall council was spending £100,000 a year on this kind of environmentally damaging control, which is a matter for concern and no doubt writing this sort of rubbish in documents helps the highway's department justify this.

The main message here is that local council officers very rarely know what they are talking about with regards to weeds so don't rely on them to inform yourselves!

 .

British Horse Society, Defra, Prof Derek knottenbelt laughing stock to scientists.

I recently returned from attending a scientific symposium in the English language in the Netherlands. It was a very very enjoyable experience. I was primarily there to listen and learn. There is always more to learn about this subject even after more than two decades of detailed study and it was fascinating

However, being British there were a few things I could help with during discussions. At one point one of the scientists put up on the screen a newspaper article in Dutch mentioning the old false story, from the British Horse Society, that 6,500 horses were dying a year in the UK of ragwort poisoning. As I have mentioned before I am learning Dutch and I have a bit knack for languages so I could read at least some of it.

During the question session after that talk I explained how this figure was calculated. They contacted many many equine vets, they didn't check to see if more than one vet in a practice responded so there may have been duplicate cases, they talked about confirmed cases when there isn't a test that can confirm them, and they got a tiny number of responses, just a handful in percentage terms without looking it up I think it was 4%..  Then they multiplied that figure as if everyone had answered! 

Of course I got a laugh! Professional scientists know how to treat data and this is obvious fakery. Yet this crooked and fraudulent science has informed public and political opinion.

There was a discussion session at the end and DEFRA the government department  that covers part of the UK came up. So I explained, "DEFRA get their risk statistics from the man who said it (ragwort) is poisoning the Cinnabar Moth."

It got another laugh! Of course, it is nonsense but the man who said it has been influencing government.

Ragwort is the main foodplant of the moth and as we had been told earlier in a fascinating talk it needs the alkaloids in the plant for the adult moth to find the plant and lay its eggs and for the caterpillars to be stimulated to eat! 

As I have said before Professor Derek Knottenbelt is the person behind this story and it is beyond ludicrous. It is nuttier than squirrel droppings!. Here is the quote from a horse care book.

`I would not normally advocate the eradication of any species, but this one has nothing to offer. I don't accept that eradicating ragwort would eradicate the Cinnabar Moth, which feeds on it. Ragwort is burgeoning and the Cinnabar is declining. In fact, I believe it is being poisoned. The moth was common throughout the years that ragwort was rare and now that ragwort is widespread, Cinnabar Moths are difficult to find. If we care about the moth, we have to find out why its population is declining in the face of an ad lib supply of "feed'.

I have an entire section of my ragwort facts website devoted to this man's strange beliefs. I would direct people to start with this article  There are no fewer than SEVENTEEN false or suspect claims there. Yet he has been promoted by the anti-ragwort brigade as a world leading expert. 

https://www.ragwortfacts.com/professor-derek-knottenbelt-country-illustrated.html

What if a vet tells you its ragwort poisoning?

 I am entering my third decade of studying ragwort this year so I thought to make a new posting illustrating why I believe that people should not necessarily believe that a veterinary diagnosis of ragwort poisoning is a correct one and why I can prove that hysteria exists and that it plays a part in some of the poor diagnoses that we do see.

I have over 1200 followers on twitter and a number of them are academics working in ecological areas. There are several professors there. These are not people who have been fooled by poor science. The ragwort issue is bedevilled by falsehoods and even made up nonsense. I can and have solidly proved it. People with the requisite level of education can see this and listen to me as a result.

The first thing I would say is that nobody, no vet , nobody can be sure of ragwort poisoning.

I am prompted to write my honest opinions here, as I often am, by something that someone said on twitter about a vet being sure that a ragwort poisoning was likely.

No one can be sure after the poisoning has occurred unless they poisoned the animal themselves.  This is because there is no test that can distinguish it from poisonings by other substances. most notably toxins from invisible moulds in feed like hay.

The first point to make about this is that it isn't me who says this. It comes from several veterinary textbooks written by world renowned veterinary professors, who have said this on the basis of the evidence. It is vital to remember in science that it is the evidence that counts not who says it.  but I think we can be pretty sure that modern university level veterinary textbooks will be correct.

 I have gone further than this of course. I am not going to baffle the readers of this blog with a complex explanation of what the biochemistry says, but in essence, it says that the compounds concerned have the same effect because they react with DNA molecules in the same way causing the same effects at a submicroscopic level. We know this to be true not from the authority of experts but from the much better authority of the biochemical evidence. 

You can read more on my website here, https://www.ragwortfacts.com/ragwort-poisoning-no-test-can-confirm-ragwort-poisoning.html

I have actually gathered more sources and more information, which I have yet to add to that page.

The other interesting point is that I didn't discover this initially for myself, My first port of call all that time ago was of course veterinary text books. I didn't discover this because in wasn't in the text books that I read at that time. It may be this that stops vets taking it into account as it seems they weren't trained to look for it. It is we know a more modern discovery. It was the case that at one time that  it was believed that Pyrrolizidine Alkaloids the toxic chemicals present in ragwort had a definitive microscopic test but  even this was only first published in the literature in the 1950s. I found out about this because a colleague attended a meeting where a researcher and veterinary professor was speaking and asked him if there was anything else which produced those signs and was told there was.. I then gathered information from the scientific literature to explain this.

I don't blog often but it is worth reading my previous entry here from last summer where I go into a bit more detail about this and describe an encounter with an equine vet who just did not know the subject thoroughly at all and is likely as a result misdiagnosing cases. Equine vet gets it wrong on ragwort. 

I will however restate a quote I made there from the latest scientific research which shows that ragwort poisoning is not as common as has been believed.

"Outbreaks of hepatic disease are common and once often were suspected to be caused by pyrrolizidine alkaloid (PA) toxicosis,  although more recent evidence suggests that PA toxicity is far less common than generally suspected."

Ragwort is often said to to be the cause without proper investigation anyway, even before investigation was possible.

One of the people who helps me with my research sent me an article from 1947 before we had the idea of microscopic examination confirming things, which subsequently was proved to be false anyway. It was  in an Irish newspaper. One farmer was suing another who had sold him a horse saying it was in good health when it wasn't. It died shortly afterwards from what the article calls "Cirhosis of the Liver", which is a reasonable description I suppose.

The vet who had made the diagnosis was asked by the judge. "What is the predisposing cause?"

and the vet was reported as responding.

"In some places it is put down to ragwort poisoning. Mouldy hay often cases it. Ragwort is usually put down for it."

This is still happening. There are all sorts of cases being reported in the media. One Equine charity started using four letter insults to me on Twitter when I told them you cannot diagnose ragwort poisoning from blood tests. It is pretty obvious that this abusive and ignorant person had been led to believe that falsehood by a vet as they insisted they had veterinary reports.

Equine charities have played a part in this as I document frequently here. I am going to be blunt and honest about it, but my opinions are based on a detailed study of the evidence.  The British Horse Society published an inflammatory article scaring people with a false story about a vet turning up and diagnosing ragwort poisoning on the spot without tests! What is more they used it to persuade people to fill in one of their infamous surveys. I'll say it clearly this is another example where the British Horse Society have used crooked methods to rig surveys or present their arguments in a false way.

If you want to survey people honestly you must not make leading statements which will bias the results. So giving people false information which overstated the risk from ragwort biased the results. The first question in the survey also made a false exaggerated claim of toxicity of the plant.

I keep saying this I know but this blog entry is going to new people I hope. The video below is from the excellent BBC comedy, Yes Prime Minister where  the infamously scheming Sir Humphrey Appleby explains exactly how you rig a survey using leading questions. 

This is exactly what the British Horse Society did! Of course it is a different subject but they rigged it in exactly the same way, with leading questions that shape the opinions of the person answering.

There is also a problem with  Defra who are claiming on their website that following advice will help you avoid fines under the Weeds Act, whilst lying by omission. The omission is that you cannot just be fined for not following their advice. You have to be ordered to something by a rare legal order and only then can you be fined and only then can you be fined if you don't comply.

The you have their Code of Practice declared, "out of date" and withdrawn legally some years ago  but still offered as advice . It is based on a bizarre and crazy use of risk statistics from a notorious source who claims that an animal that uses ragwort as its near exclusive food source is being poisoned by it and that animals won't  be affected by having their habitat destroyed!  See https://ragwortfacts.com/defra-ragwort-code-of-practice.html