clutching at straws or real hope?

Last night I was with a local NFU group which is in the centre of one of the Government's badger vaccination areas. To try and reduce TB in cattle there is a project to inject badgers against TB to try and stop the spread of the disease in cattle.
It's going to be a slow process and a long time before anyone knows if it will do any good.

• between now and next May Defra are going to recruit landowners in the target areas and survey where the badger sets are, and train contractors in how to inject badgers.
  
• between July and November next year their contractors will vaccinate some of the badgers
• between October next year and May the year after Defra are going to recruit some more landowners in the target areas and survey more badger sets
• from May 2011 to November the contractors will vaccinate
• and repeat vaccinations next year....
  

Badgers typically live 5 years and because the programme doesn't remove any infected badgers it will take that time before there is a reduction in disease in badgers - always assuming that the vaccination programme works. It's not guaranteed!

So a long wait for an uncertain benefit