Fence Defense

In the coastal jungle of Vera Cruz state, bulldozers chewed their way last week through rain forests and matted vines. They were clearing a path across the waist of Mexico for an 800-mile-long fence. Its purpose: to check the northward spread of aftosa (foot-&-mouth disease), which had already infected about one-sixth of Mexico's 13 million head of cattle and brought nightmares to Texas ranchers.

Other U.S.-aided attempts to wipe out aftosa by killing all infected and exposed cattle had bogged down against the iron-hard resistance of the Mexican campesinos (TIME, Dec. 8). So slaughter was replaced by quarantine and vaccination; a part of the substitute plan is the fence now abuilding. From a starting point on the Gulf of Mexico, it will run across the states of San Luis Potosi and Zacatecas, then southwest to the Pacific at Puerto Vallarta. North of the line, which is guarded by more than 15,000 Mexican soldiers, 1,000 Mexican and U.S. technicians, there is no aftosa.

South of the fence line, in the infected area extending all the way to the Isthmus of Tehuantepec (where another, shorter fence will be built), veterinarians are experimenting with aftosa vaccines shipped from The Netherlands and Argentina. If they work against the Mexican virus, and if the government can persuade skeptical campesinos of the necessity of sticking a needle into their animals every six months, Mexico hopes at least to control aftosa. U.S. experts are bearish, point out that the quarantine-vaccination method has failed in Europe. Like most U.S. cattlemen, they believe that the only cure for aftosa is wholesale slaughter.

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