Dangerous Cattle Virus On U.S. Mainland?

Bush Administration Likely To Build New Foot And Mouth Research Facility Near Farms

(AP)  The Bush administration is likely to move its research on one of the most contagious animal diseases from an isolated island laboratory off Long Island to the U.S. mainland near herds of livestock, raising concerns about a catastrophic outbreak.

Skeptical Democrats in Congress are demanding to see internal documents they believe highlight the risks and consequences of the decision. An epidemic of the disease, foot and mouth, which only affects animals, could devastate the livestock industry.

One such government report, produced last year and already turned over to lawmakers by the Homeland Security Department, combined commercial satellite images and federal farm data to show the proximity to livestock herds of locations that have been considered for the new lab. "Would an accidental laboratory release at these locations have the potential to affect nearby livestock?" asked the nine-page document. It did not directly answer the question.

A simulated outbreak of the disease - part of an earlier U.S. government exercise called "Crimson Sky" - ended with fictional riots in the streets after the simulation's National Guardsmen were ordered to kill tens of millions of farm animals, so many that troops ran out of bullets. In the exercise, the government said it would have been forced to dig a ditch in Kansas 25 miles long to bury carcasses. In the simulation, protests broke out in some cities amid food shortages.

"It was a mess," said Sen. Pat Roberts, R-Kan., who portrayed the president in the 2002 exercise. Now, like other lawmakers from the states under consideration, Roberts supports moving the government's new lab to his state. Manhattan, Kan., is one of five mainland locations under consideration. "It will mean jobs" and spur research and development, he says.

The other possible locations for the new National Bio-and Agro-Defense Facility are Athens, Ga.; Butner, N.C.; San Antonio; and Flora, Miss. The new site could be selected later this year, and the lab would open by 2014. The numbers of livestock in the counties and surrounding areas of the finalists range from 542,507 in Kansas to 132,900 in Georgia, according to the Homeland Security study.

Foot-and-mouth virus can be carried on a worker's breath or clothes, or vehicles leaving a lab, and is so contagious it has been confined to Plum Island, off Long Island's northeastern tip, for more than a half-century - far from commercial livestock. The lab can be seen at left in an undated aerial photo provided by the Department of Agriculture.

The existing lab is 100 miles northeast of New York City in Long Island Sound, accessible only by ferry or helicopter. Researchers there who work with the live virus are not permitted to own animals at home that would be susceptible, and they must wait at least a week before attending outside events where such animals might perform, such as a circus.

The White House says modern safety rules at labs are sufficient to avoid any outbreak. But incidents in Britain have demonstrated that the foot-and-mouth virus can cause remarkable economic havoc - and that the virus can escape from a facility.

An epidemic in 2001 devastated Britain's livestock industry, as the government slaughtered 6 million sheep, cows and pigs. Last year, in a less serious outbreak, Britain's health and safety agency concluded the virus probably escaped from a site shared by a government research center and a vaccine maker. Other outbreaks have occurred in Taiwan in 1997 and China last year and in 2006.

If even a single cow signals an outbreak in the U.S., emergency plans permit the government to shut down all exports and movement of livestock. Herds would be quarantined, and a controlled slaughter could be started to stop the disease from spreading.

Infected animals weaken and lose weight. Milk cows don't produce milk. They remain highly infectious, even if they survive the virus.

The Homeland Security Department is convinced it can safely operate the lab on the mainland, saying containment procedures at high-security labs have improved. The livestock industry is divided. Some experts, including the former director at the aging Plum Island Animal Disease Center, say research ought to be kept away from cattle populations - and, ideally, placed where the public already has accepted dangerous research.

The former director, Dr. Roger Breeze, suggested the facility could be safely located at the Atlanta campus of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, or at Fort Detrick in Frederick, Md., home of The United States Army Medical Research Institute for infectious diseases.

Another possibility, Breeze said, is on Long Island, where there is no commercial livestock industry. That would allow retention of most of the current Plum Island employees.

Asked about the administration's finalist sites located near livestock, Breeze said: "It seems a little odd. It goes against the ... safety program of the last 50 years."

The former head of the U.S. Agriculture Department's Agricultural Research Service said Americans are not prepared for a foot-and-mouth outbreak that has been avoided on the mainland since 1929.

"The horrific prospect of exterminating potentially millions of animals is not something this country's ready for," said Dr. Floyd Horn.

The Agriculture Department ran the Plum Island lab until 2003. It was turned over to the Homeland Security Department because preventing an outbreak is now part of the nation's biological defense program.

Plum Island researchers work on detection of the disease, strategies to control epidemics including vaccines and drugs, tests of imported animals to ensure they are free of the virus and training of professionals.

The new facility will add research on diseases that can be transferred from animals to humans. The Plum Island facility is not secure enough to handle that higher-level research.

Leaders of the House Energy and Commerce Committee also are worried about the lab's likely move to the mainland. The chairman, Rep. John Dingell, D-Mich., and the head of the investigations subcommittee, Rep. Bart Stupak, D-Mich., are threatening to subpoena records they say Homeland Security is withholding from Congress. Those records include reports about "Crimson Sky," an internal review about a publicized 1978 accidental release of foot-and-mouth disease on Plum Island and reports about any previously undisclosed virus releases on the island during the past half century.

The lawmakers set a deadline of Friday for the administration to turn over reports they requested. Otherwise, they warned in a letter to Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, they will arrange a vote next week to issue a congressional subpoena.

A new facility at Plum Island is technically a possibility. Signs point to a mainland site, however, after the administration spent considerable time and money scouting new locations. Also, there are financial concerns about operating from a location accessible only by ferry or helicopter.

The Homeland Security Department says laboratory animals would not be corralled outside the new facility, and they would not come into contact with local livestock. All work with the virus and lab waste would be handled securely and any material leaving would be treated and monitored to ensure it was sterilized.

"Containment technology has improved dramatically since foot-and-mouth disease prohibitions were put in place in 1948," Homeland Security spokeswoman Amy Kudwa said.

Cattle farmers and residents are divided over the proposal to move the lab to the mainland.

"I would like to believe we could build a facility, with the knowledge and technology we have available, that would be basically safe from a bio-security standpoint," said John Stuedemann, a cattle farmer near Athens, Ga., and a former scientist at the Agriculture Department.

Nearby, community activist Grady Thrasher in Athens is worried about an outbreak from a research lab. Thrasher, a former securities lawyer, has started a petition drive against moving the lab to Georgia, saying the risks are too great.

"There's no way you can balance that equation by putting this in the middle of a community where it will do the most harm," Thrasher said. "The community is now aroused, so I think we have a majority against this."

In North Carolina, commissioners in Granville County originally endorsed moving the lab to their area but later withdrew support. Officials from Homeland Security ultimately met with residents for more than four hours, but the commissioners have taken no further action to back the facility.

"Accidents are going to happen 50 years down the road or one year down the road," said Bill McKellar, a pharmacist in Butner, N.C., who leads an opposition group that has formed a research committee of lawyers and doctors.

[rosemari2]

This is the worst, the very worse idea this nutty Administration has come up with yet:-( Putting in any of those States is INSANE.

I''m old enough to remember the pictures in the Farm papers of people standing on the rim of large pits, shooting peoples dairy cows--------I never, ever forgot them, some one ought to send this grop of nuts those old pictures. My Dad would not talk about it, it was so awful to him.

The Southern States mentioned, have low wage workers, hate Unions and are full of illegals willing to do anything.

Kansas, with some of the largests herds of cattle and feedlots in America, is a nightmare choice for anything like this. Robertson should be ReCalled and tanked.

Peta is probably behind this, or the HSUS, who are against meat animals and even pets. How they would LOVE it if every animal in the whole USA was put to death.

The entire Administration in America is nuts.

[newsterl]

A simulated outbreak of the disease - part of an earlier U.S. government exercise called "Crimson Sky" - ended with fictional riots in the streets after the simulation''s National Guardsmen were ordered to kill tens of millions of farm animals, so many that troops ran out of bullets. In the simulation, protests broke out in some cities amid food shortages.

LOL one problem is most of our military is NOT HERE, the other is people dont need meat! we waste 9 pounds of edible grain for ONE pound of meat, we stuff livestock full of grain and feed that PEOPLE can eat. Meat production is one of the worst wastes of food and resources and causes horrendous amounts of ecoli infected waste that winds up in rivers, streams and waters.

If the cattle industry went away tomorrow Id rejoyce, thanks to CBS for telling the terrorists how they can decimate the entire industry with some hoof and mouth disease spread into key areas.

[galahawk]

Sorry there have already been three documented accidents on Plum Island.

The big problem is that the US government is not in control of disease prevention a Global Organization is just like in the UK. That is why the FMD was such a fiasco in 2001. source: http://www.warmwell.com/footmoutheye.html

[galahawk]

Sorry there have already been three documented accidents on Plum Island.

The big problem is that the US government is not in control of disease prevention a Global Organization is just like in the UK. That is why the FMD was such a fiasco in 2001. source: http://www.warmwell.com/footmoutheye.html

[galahawk]

Sorry there have already been three documented accidents on Plum Island.

The big problem is that the US government is not in control of disease prevention a Global Organization is just like in the UK. That is why the FMD was such a fiasco in 2001. source: http://www.warmwell.com/footmoutheye.html

[galahawk]

Sorry there have already been three documented accidents on Plum Island.

The big problem is that the US government is not in control of disease prevention a Global Organization is just like in the UK. That is why the FMD was such a fiasco in 2001. source: http://www.warmwell.com/footmoutheye.html

[galahawk]

Sorry there have already been three documented accidents on Plum Island.

The big problem is that the US government is not in control of disease prevention a Global Organization is just like in the UK. That is why the FMD was such a fiasco in 2001. source: http://www.warmwell.com/footmoutheye.html

[galahawk]

Sorry there have already been three documented accidents on Plum Island.

The big problem is that the US government is not in control of disease prevention a Global Organization is just like in the UK. That is why the FMD was such a fiasco in 2001. source: http://www.warmwell.com/footmoutheye.html

[galahawk]

Sorry there have already been three documented accidents on Plum Island.

The big problem is that the US government is not in control of disease prevention a Global Organization is just like in the UK. That is why the FMD was such a fiasco in 2001. source: http://www.warmwell.com/footmoutheye.html

[galahawk]

Sorry there have already been three documented accidents on Plum Island.

The big problem is that the US government is not in control of disease prevention a Global Organization is just like in the UK. That is why the FMD was such a fiasco in 2001. source: http://www.warmwell.com/footmoutheye.html

[galahawk]

Sorry there have already been three documented accidents on plum island.

The big problem is that the US government is not in control a Global Organization is just like in the UK. That is why the FMD was such a fiasco in 2001. source: http://www.warmwell.com/footmoutheye.html

[Marie Zarankevich]

Ah, the fresh breeze of enlightened rhetoric. -- What a delicious treat! -- The thing to do in this case is to remember ''Murphy''s Law''. -- ''If Anything Can Go Wrong, It Will''. -- THAT is the answer to all of our issues and problems, especially the delicate, scientific ones.

[memerider]

Bush doesn''t believe in science. Period. Whether it''s s-e-x, evolution, using stem cells to potentially cure life-threatening disease, or highly contagious biological agents, this guy hasn''t got a clue. His policies have destroyed our economy for the forseeable future, he gives ever more tax dollars to religious extremists, and now he seems hell-bent on starving us, too.

If I wasn''t witnessing it with my own eyes, I wouldn''t believe this could happen in America. Wake up, We the People!

[wiwfarm]

Who needs foreign terrorists? The USDA will do the job of infecting the herds and destroying the American economy. Is there no one in government with the common sense they were born with?

[michellem99-2009]

What animals are ye talking about name them.

[itgranny]

They act like this is just a cattle disease. Foot and mouth affects all cloven hooved animals that can be thought up. Pigs, sheep and goats are also affected. They''re would be people hunting down deer in your back yard. this is a really stupid idea and the couple hundred jobs (if even that many) will be nothing compared to if this stuff gets out.

[slim1h2o]

Bush Administration Likely To Build New Foot And Mouth Research Facility Near Farms

What the hell is wrong wth this fu(fing idiot! Is he out of his mind. Does he not have young kids that will never have his Grandchildren? Some day? Apparently so.

For whatever reason he is trying to ruin this counrty, if you are unhappy Bushit, do the honorable thing,,step down, take Cheney, and the others with you.

America does not, nor need your *** anymore!!

[b-easy63]

You''''re full of sht b-easy63 - the only reason you spew this stuff that you know nothing about is to make yourself feel good. This administration and the one to follow are being confronted by the most complicated and insidious problems ever faced in the World. The vast majority of decisions made everyday are made by career employees. YOU like to say that it''''s Bush the boogieman *** everything up, but you''''re full of sht. I don''''t trust the gov''''t that much, but I trust maniacs and mobsters like you and the rest of the aholes that barely made it through high school EVEN LESS. YOU buy the dmn gasoline, then scream it''''s BUSH the boogieman that made you buy it. Idiot.

Posted by matter77 at 11:18 AM : Apr 11, 2008


Bush shill? Troll? Or just a gullible loser who judges everyone by himself--I''ll leave it to other posters to decide--this one is obviously an emotional masturbator--that is an activity best done ALONE. Buh by matter77--we''re sure you do wish that you matter--but you cannot--BECAUSE YOU ARE THE WEAKEST LINK. rotflmao

[b-easy63]

Building a foolproof laboratory seems like a rather complex undertaking. Compound that with the political pressure that will be applied to this project to build an extra, extra foolproof lab and you can see that the probability of success diminishes to zero. Any one here using MS VISTA for example.

Posted by drjhigg at 10:45 AM : Apr 12, 2008


there is no such thing as a fool proof viral containment facility. since any system, room, ductwork, people and equipment can house up to 10,000 viruses or more on the HEAD OF A PIN and that viruses can be so small that they can slip through the any fiber or clothing...there is NO such thing as fool proof...and until the human element is removed (which would mean a 100% dedicated facility to one organism with NO human contact, no new equipment contact, not even to clean the room--then the risk of viral contamination or escape might go down--but even then it would never be 100%. The reason why (besides the fact that even Class 1 facilities have human interaction and outside equipment) is that raw material must come from outside to culture and test the animal cultures (like media, SPF eggs, or TCO products) and humans would still be involved and could still inadvertently through one misstep or another--take the virus out of the facility with them.

[drjhigg]

Building a foolproof laboratory seems like a rather complex undertaking. Compound that with the political pressure that will be applied to this project to build an extra, extra foolproof lab and you can see that the probability of success diminishes to zero. Any one here using MS VISTA for example.