Britain is all atwitter over the latest foot and mouth disease outbreak, and while I'd like to think that they're worried about a recurrence of the 2001 outbreak which was contained by killing 7 million animals, it's probably more the 17 billion dollar hit to the economy that's on farmers' and politicians' minds.

So far about 170 animals have been slaughtered in an attempt to stop the spread of the disease, and potentially the net animal losses might be minimized through import and export restrictions which could reduce demand in the short term.

While foot and mouth disease can be fatal in younger animals, the biggest impact is that it reduces milk and meat production by making the animals sick but not dead. The disease causes painful blistering on the mouths and tongues of infected animals, which reduces the animals' desire to eat and drink, and thus grow, and this cuts into the farmer's bottom line. The next time someone talks about how they give the very best care for their animals, remember the hidden end to the sentence: as long as they're generating a profit. Animal farming is a business, after all, and that business is in the trade of dead animals, no matter what that old MacDonald guy from the song tries to tell you.