LEWIS: VET BANNED FOR TAKING SHORT CUTS ON BOVINE TB TESTS
A vet has been banned from work for five months after failing to properly check a herd of cattle for bovine tuberculosis.
Wyn Lewis tested 95 per cent of the animals without using the callipers required by official guidelines.
After returning for a follow-up inspection three days later, the 56-year-old failed to check up to a fifth of the cows at Plas Pantsaeson, Moylegrove, Wales.
His inspections took place in April 2009, with Lewis working on behalf of the government agency Animal Health.
Lewis, from Felinwynt, near Cardigan, had claimed that the agency accepted that experienced vets could check some animals visually.
Animal Health initially ordered the checks on the 104-strong herd after a cow from the farm tested positive for bovine TB in December 2008.
The bovine TB test requires vets to use callipers to measure skin folds in cattle to the nearest millimetre and then inject them with harmless extracts of the bacteria.
Three days later the procedure is repeated in order to find out if any of the herd have developed swellings – a sign they are already infected.
Professor Sheila Crispin, chair of the panel of the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons, said Lewis had ‘taken short cuts to save time.’
She added: ‘Mr Lewis did not have an adequate opportunity to assess the presence or absence of a reaction in a number of the animals.
‘As an official veterinarian Mr Lewis was acting on behalf of Animal Health in a position of trust and responsibility which he failed adequately to discharge.
‘Even allowing for the flexibility in the way that Animal Health required the tests to be conducted, the actions of Mr Lewis fell far short of the standard expected of the veterinary profession.’
Lewis was spared a lifetime ban from working as a vet after the panel ruled that he was ‘an experienced veterinary surgeon who is highly thought of in his local area’.
‘We do not believe that there is any likelihood that he will repeat his previous conduct,’ said Prof Crispin.
Lewis, who works for Priory Veterinary in Cardigan and Aberaeron, qualified as a vet in 1978 at the Royal Veterinary College, London.
He denied the charges but was suspended for five months after being found guilty of failing to measure skin folds on both visits and certifying results that he ought to have known were inaccurate.
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