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Homeland Security Focus Areas Agri-terrorism From the "Congressional Quarterly Homeland Security Daily," 14 July: House Panel Shoots Down Agriculture Plan for Terror Research A House appropriations subcommittee last week rejected a $1.4 million request from the Department of Agriculture to research agro-terrorism. Noting that the new Department of Homeland Security is set to receive plenty of money for that type of research, the agriculture subcommittee said in a July 9 report on the agency’s fiscal year 2004 spending bill that it wants Agriculture and DHS to fill gaps in the research rather than create yet another example of redundant federal programs. Even more firmly, the subcommittee turned down a $6.2 million request for “physical and operational security,” noting that the department has yet to spend even half of the $328 million it received in April by way of the 2003 wartime supplemental spending bill, including $31 million for security needs. - Jim McGee July 8, 2003 USDA Plans Livestock Tracking System WASHINGTON (AP) - Cattle, sheep and other livestock would be tagged
at birth under a planned network that could help contain a mad cow scare. Farming community feels the effects of terrorist threats http://www.jewishworldreview.com | (KRT) Travis Moser cannot afford to put up a steel fence to keep terrorists off his 330-acre dairy business in western Montgomery County, Pa. But he has dogs that bark. Duane Hershey does not have an alarm system to monitor the perimeter of his farm in Chester County, Pa. That is what his neighbors are for. And Phoebe Bitler cannot protect all of her farm in Berks County, Pa., but she will be watching closely if you decide to walk your dog across her field. When the nation went back to Orange Alert last month, a special message went out to farmers in a letter from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, reminding them that the terrorist threat goes far beyond buildings, bridges and airplanes. "You are on the front line of defense for protecting America's food and agriculture," begins the list of tips at www.usda.gov/homelandsecurity. Worried about terrorists trying to cripple the country's economy by attacking its $200 billion agricultural economy USDA Homeland Security officials are asking farmers to help. The USDA warns farmers to watch for suspicious activity around their farms and feedlots; lock up their chemicals and fertilizers; conduct background checks on their farmhands; watch for strange diseases in their animals or crops; and cut back on access to the farms, even for school groups. "You don't just get out of your car and go walking into the plant," said Bruce Schmucker, chief of the regulations and compliance division of Pennsylvania's Bureau of Animal Health and Diagnostic Services. "Maybe (farmers) won't have the Brownie troop over to watch the sheep being shorn." Though the concept of agricultural terrorism, or "agroterrorism," has become a buzzword at the USDA and Department of Homeland Security, farmers and industry officials say their defenses were already raised against what they see as a greater threat - the accidental introduction of disease that could destroy them. Since an outbreak of foot and mouth disease in Great Britain in early 2001 wiped out more than 10 million animals, farmers have taken measures to prevent becoming the ground zero of a similar contagion here. Farmers need only look to California, where the USDA has slaughtered 3.5 million birds to try to contain an outbreak of exotic Newcastle disease. Or to Canada, where a whole country is watching anxiously, hoping that the discovery of bovine spongiform encephalopathy - the notorious mad cow disease - in a single cow does not spread. "We've pretty much been encouraging biosecurity measures for years," said Mike Fournier, the Pennsylvania State Cooperative Extension agent for Bucks County. Farmers say they do not have the means to completely control their environment. To anyone driving down into the Mosers' Spring Valley Farm, the point is evident. The public road is bordered by an aging wood-rail fence that barely keeps the cows in, let alone humans out. A government official "who was way too high up to know anything" suggested putting a chain-link fence around the 330-acre farm, Moser said. "We did find that hilarious," said Moser, 28, who oversees a herd of 300 cows with his father, Gordon Moser , in a valley between the communities of Congo and Niantic in western Montgomery County. For the farming community, the focus is on stopping the spread of disease, whether it arrives intentionally or accidentally. "If somebody really wants to come along and do something to those animals, how are you going to stop it?" Fournier asked. "I don't think you're going to hire a security system and put someone out to watch the cows." Before there was an Orange Alert, farmers were putting up "No Trespassing" signs around their farms; restricting visitors at their barns and feedlots; asking visitors to don plastic boots or wash their shoes in disinfectant; making sure they know whom they buy their livestock, feed and supplies from; and planning what to do and whom to call in case of a variety of disease outbreaks. "Biosecurity is always on our front burner," Schmucker said. Agroterrorism has provided a hook for the disaster-preparedness that Schmucker and others have been engaged in since well before Sept. 11, 2001. Traveling around the state, they have developed phone lists for people and resources. The private sector is also preparing itself. The Mid-Atlantic Dairy Association, based in Philadelphia, has trained farmers in public speaking, hoping the farmers themselves can go to the news media to explain things and soothe fears in case of a disease outbreak. Nancy Halpern, director of the Division of Animal Health for the New Jersey Department of Agriculture, said the state's many hobby farmers - who keep sheep, goats and llamas - need a reminder about biosecurity during times of heightened alert. "Somebody who is doing this for a living and basing their livelihood on it is practicing biosecurity," she said. No livestock industry controls its environs more thoroughly than swine producers, who have gradually tightened their biosecurity practices since farmers moved hogs inside starting in the late 1970s. Hog farms also strictly limit access to facilities and provide boots and coveralls to all visitors. "It really has been fairly easy to just continue our vigilance as we have done in the past," said Bob Ruth, president of Pleasant Valley Foods, which controls 1 million pigs, most of which will end up at Hatfield Quality Meats in Montgomery County. "Before it became a buzzword, we have been concerned with access and vigilance and those kinds of things." At the meat-processing end, the concern for terrorism directed at the food supply is somewhat higher. At Hatfield Quality Meats, managers have advised drivers to follow federal transportation department recommendations to keep their trucks locked and not to leave them unattended, said Dave Kolesky, vice president of human resources. Without being specific, Kolesky said the company has stepped up security and the checking of vehicles coming to and going from the plant. The threat of foreign terrorism does not occupy a large place in Duane Hershey's consciousness. He has 380 milking cows to worry about at his Ar-Joy Farm in Cochranville, Pa. He has workers practically around the clock. And he knows his neighbors will call him if they spot a strange car on the road. "I don't think about that too much," he said. "We're always very aware of what's going on." At the same time, his livelihood centers on keeping his cows healthy - from dipping their udders in iodine before and after milking to monitoring their milk output each day. New Jersey's Halpern said farmers worry as much about domestic terrorists as foreign attacks. Hershey agreed, saying extremists in the animal-rights movement concerned him more than al Qaeda. For Phoebe Bitler, a Berks County dairy farmer who acts as a speaker for the Mid-Atlantic Dairy Association, Orange Alert means she is a little more wary. "We have some land close to housing developments. They walk dogs across our fields," she said. "Now I look at somebody, and I wonder: What are they doing?" U.S. DHS Press Releases New DHS and USDA Partnership for Plum Island Animal Disease Center Boosts Nation's Agroterrorism Defense The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) today announced a partnership agreement to transfer management of the Plum Island Animal Disease Center. This agreement provides an added layer of protection to our nation's agricultural system while also meeting the mandates set out by the Homeland Security Act. "We look forward to working closely with our USDA colleagues on a focused research and development program and management plan that will help us prevent, respond to, and recover from agroterrorism attacks," said Dr. Charles McQueary, Under Secretary for Science and Technology. "Our commitment to making a safer and more secure environment for our nation and our agricultural community is a top priority." Under the agreement, DHS and USDA have launched a joint management program to oversee a four-month transition period. DHS has named Marc Hollander, Deputy Director of Facilities and Infrastructure for the Office of Research and Development, as Acting Center Director. Hollander expects to meet with community and business leaders and citizens throughout his tenure at Plum Island, with meetings to begin this month. USDA will continue to perform agricultural animal health research and foreign animal disease diagnostics programs at Plum Island. "Plum Island will remain a key part of the U.S. animal health research and diagnostic infrastructure, which is vital to protect the nation's livestock and poultry from introductions of foreign animal diseases," said Dr. Joseph Jen, USDA's Under Secretary for Research, Education and Economics. Plum Island researchers will lend their expertise to the Department's biological countermeasures efforts, which will include the prevention, detection, and response to high-consequence threats to U.S. agriculture, such as foot-and-mouth disease. Plum Island is the only place in the United States where foot-and-mouth disease is currently studied. "Plum Island is a unique laboratory where scientists can safely and securely study foreign animal diseases," said Dr. Maureen McCarthy, Acting Director of the DHS Office of Research and Development. "Plum Island will remain an important national asset in which veterinary and animal disease research scientists from both DHS and USDA will work to protect the health of livestock." For more information on the Plum Island Animal Disease Center, go to www.ars.usda.gov/plum. June 10, 2003 Officials fear terrorist attack on U.S. food supply By Katherine McIntire Peters When members of the al Qaeda terrorist network abandoned their caves and safe houses in Afghanistan after being routed by U.S. troops in the months after the Sept. 11 attacks, they left behind many clues to their aspirations. Besides the supplies and cell phones, ammunition and assorted weaponry one might expect to find with any modern paramilitary organization were thousands of documents and computer records. Among this mother lode of information were hundreds of pages of U.S. agricultural documents that had been translated into Arabic. Al Qaeda's interest in American agriculture was more than academic, according to government officials. A significant part of the group's training manual is reportedly devoted to agricultural terrorism-the destruction of crops, livestock and food processing operations. It shouldn't be surprising that a determined enemy like al Qaeda would consider ways to disrupt U.S. food supplies. The history of warfare is full of examples of burned crops, poisoned wells and slaughtered herds. Agriculture is an obvious target for terrorists: infecting plants or animals with deadly disease is easier, cheaper and less risky than infecting humans directly; the economic consequences of a widespread attack would be enormous; and the panic and fear such an attack might reap could lead to wide-scale social disruption. Over the past 18 months, state and federal agencies have beefed up security and increased inspections of food and agricultural facilities across the country. But in an industry as complex and varied as agriculture, security is an elusive concept. From sprawling farms to feed lots, from state fairs to food processing plants, there are countless points at which terrorists could access the food supply system with relative ease. Defense Department officials are so concerned about the prospect of an attack that twice over the past several months, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's Strategic Policy Forum has conducted classified crisis simulation exercises for members of Congress and federal officials across government to plan potential responses to an incident. The fact that the United States has not experienced a major agricultural or food-related disaster in recent memory is more a function of luck than design, says Peter Chalk, a policy analyst with RAND, a nonprofit research organization. "There is little real appreciation for either the threat or the potential consequences," Chalk says. In an article for RAND Review last summer, Chalk wrote that the farming and food industries are highly vulnerable to both deliberate and accidental disruption for several reasons: The routine use of antibiotics and growth stimulants in animal diets has heightened the susceptibility of animals to disease; infectious animal diseases can spread rapidly across the country because of the highly concentrated nature of U.S. farming; and the huge number of food processing facilities-most of which have highly transient unscreened workforces, minimal security and inadequate procedures for recalling products-are ideal sites for the deliberate introduction of toxins into the food supply. Critical Infrastructure According to the Agriculture Department, one out of eight Americans works in an occupation directly supported by food production, making the food and agricultural sector the nation's largest employer. The farm sector alone, with agricultural exports exceeding $50 billion a year, is the largest positive contributor to the U.S. trade balance. By any reasonable measure, agriculture is not just a vital component of the national economy, but of the global economy as well. Exports of American agricultural products account for 15 percent of all global agricultural exports. The United States in 1998 produced nearly half the world's soybeans, more than 40 percent of its corn, 20 percent of its cotton, 12 percent of its wheat and 16 percent of its meat. In a report issued by the National Defense University last March, Henry Parker, a researcher at USDA's Agricultural Research Service, wrote that there are five potential targets of agricultural bioterrorism: field crops; farm animals; food items in the processing or distribution chain; market-ready foods at the wholesale or retail level; and agricultural facilities, including processing plants, storage facilities, wholesale and retail food outlets, elements of the transportation infrastructure, and research laboratories. In the report, Parker said that "America is exceedingly vulnerable to agricultural bioterrorism. The reasons for the situation are numerous. To begin, there is limited appreciation for the economic and social importance of agriculture in the industrialized [world]. Abundant, affordable and safe food supplies are largely taken for granted. . . . It is hard for American citizens to imagine a world where the availability of food radically changes for the worse." Yet it's not hard for terrorism analysts to imagine the impact of a major attack. RAND officials estimate that no major U.S. city has more than a seven-day supply of food. The consequences of a major attack on food sources, especially animals, would be felt almost immediately by consumers. Such an attack could easily spread fear and panic and quickly undermine public confidence in government. According to Parker, the size and complexity of U.S. agribusiness makes it a tempting target, and the industry's widespread vertical integration, where a single company controls much of the commodity production, processing and distribution system, makes it easier for pathogens to spread quickly over a wide area. State and federal agencies have taken a number of steps to improve security. Twenty states have passed or are considering legislation related to agricultural terrorism, according to data compiled by the Council of State Governments, and many have hired more farm and food inspectors, developed guidelines or requirements for improving physical security at agricultural facilities, and are building more effective disease surveillance networks. At the federal level, responsibility for ensuring food safety is for the most part spread across three departments: At the Agriculture Department, the Food Safety and Inspection Service monitors meat and poultry products and plans for responding to outbreaks of food-borne illness, while a division of the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service is responsible for protecting agricultural crops and plants from disease. At the Department of Health and Human Services, the Food and Drug Administration is responsible for ensuring the safety of seafood, plant and dairy foods and beverages and other food products. The Homeland Security Department has taken over the inspection of food and agricultural products entering the United States, formerly a function of APHIS' Agricultural Quarantine Inspection program. Close coordination among these various agencies and their state counterparts is vital to effectively securing the food supply. Over the last 18 months, agencies have taken steps to boost their inspection and analysis capabilities. USDA has hired 20 new "import surveillance liaison" inspectors, who will reinspect imported meat and poultry products at various locations across the country. The agency is increasing the identification and diagnostic capacities at federal and state laboratories-a critical need, because responding quickly to an outbreak will be key to reducing the health and economic consequences of an attack. Also, as a result of the 2002 Public Health Security and Bioterrorism Preparedness and Response Act, the Food and Drug Administration is tightening food safety regulations in several ways: requiring food processing facilities to register with the agency, mandating that companies provide advance notice of imported food shipments, and maintaining better records to make it easier to trace tainted food to its source. All these steps are welcome, but terrorism experts say much more is needed. Chalk believes federal and state agencies remain woefully unprepared to respond to an agricultural or food-related disaster. He suggests giving a single federal agency the authority to standardize and rationalize food and agricultural safety procedures across a wide spectrum of jurisdictions: "Such an agency could help weave together the patchwork of largely uncoordinated food safety initiatives that currently exist in the United States." Silent Prairie Many agricultural experts believe the greatest threat to U.S. agriculture would be the deliberate or accidental introduction of foot-and-mouth disease, the highly contagious viral disease that attacks cloven-footed animals, including cattle, swine, sheep, deer and elk. While humans cannot contract the disease from animals, its effect on animals is so swift and debilitating that milk and meat production could be severely cut nationwide. With thousands of animals being transported across state lines every day, an outbreak could spread within days, before animal health officials would even be able to provide a definitive diagnosis. Even rumors of an outbreak can have economic consequences. At a Holstein market in Kansas one afternoon in March, a veterinarian discovered sores in the mouths of some of the cattle. He didn't believe the problem was foot-and-mouth disease, but following procedures, he notified the state animal heath department. By 5 p.m., a state veterinarian, who had studied the devastating 2001 outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease in the United Kingdom, arrived at the market to test the animals. He also believed the problem was something other than foot-and-mouth disease. Nevertheless, the next morning, even before the appearance of news reports citing the discovery of a potential problem with the cattle, the national cattle futures market plummeted. "There were six people who witnessed [the veterinarian inspecting the cattle] at the market," says Maj. Gen. Gregory Gardner, adjutant general and director of emergency management for the state of Kansas. "That's how powerful rumors can be." It turned out the cattle had eaten hay containing thorns, which caused the sores. According to Parker, more than 70 different strains of foot-and-mouth disease exist. It is the most infectious virus known, capable of spreading in wind-driven aerosol form more than 170 miles from its source. In Taiwan in March 1997, after the disease was confirmed in pigs there, it spread throughout the island within six weeks, forcing authorities to slaughter more than 8 million pigs and halt pork exports. "The origin of the disease was reportedly traced to a single pig from Hong Kong, and China was suspected of deliberately introducing the disease into Taiwan," Parker wrote. "The disease is still affecting Taiwan, and the ultimate costs to that nation are estimated to be at least $19 billion-$4 billion to diagnose and eradicate the disease and another $15 billion in indirect losses from trade embargoes. Was this an act of biowarfare or bioterrorism? The answer may never be known, but it is a plausible hypothesis that it indeed was." No cases of foot-and-mouth disease have been diagnosed in the United States since 1929, but with more than 100 million head of cattle, 70 million pigs, 10 million sheep and more than 40 million wild cloven-footed animals, the country remains at great risk for the disease, Parker says, estimating that even a limited outbreak affecting no more than 10 farms could have a $2 billion economic impact. Containing the disease to a small number of farms would be enormously difficult, he says. Responding to an epidemic of foot-and-mouth disease also would involve the coordinated efforts of thousands of local, state and federal officials, and likely require the deployment of National Guard troops-and perhaps even federal troops-to help enforce quarantines and help destroy infected animals. The two classified agro-terrorism response exercises sponsored by the Defense Department, both called "Silent Prairie," involved the spread of foot-and-mouth disease at a time when the military was engaged in overseas missions. Air Force Col. Jim Haas, the exercise coordinator and an analyst at the National Defense University, says the exercise was designed to enlighten officials about the complex decisions they would have to make in the event of a major disease outbreak, as well as the "second- and third-order effects" on things such as agricultural exports and trade agreements. The 40 participants in the most recent exercise in February, including several members of Congress, Defense's Rumsfeld, Agriculture Secretary Ann Veneman and personnel from state and federal agencies, were not role-playing from a predetermined script, Haas says. "Everyone's expertise is what they walked in the door with. That's what makes these exercises especially valuable and informative." 'A Big Bull's-Eye' Foot-and-mouth is only one of many diseases that could have devastating consequences for the U.S. economy. An attack on crops would have even greater consequences, according to Parker. Crops make up more than half the total value of American farm commodities and contribute more to exports, Parker wrote in his study. "More important," he noted, "crops comprise the major components of prepared feeds for livestock, poultry and farm-raised fish. Finally, deliberate contamination of processed foods by terrorists could have devastating consequences, not only in terms of human health, but also because of economic impact and loss of consumer confidence in the safety of the nation's food supplies." States are not waiting for the federal government to figure out solutions, but they're also realistic about their own ability to protect the food supply. A December report by the Council of State Governments' Midwestern Office found that risk management is critical. Only by focusing efforts on key vulnerabilities can officials hope to reduce the likelihood of an attack as well as the severity of damage. "Complete surveillance of U.S. agricultural holdings is not a realistic, cost-effective option. With more than 500,000 farms and 57,000 processors in the United States, and more than 350,000 acres of farmland in the Midwest alone, no inspection regime could fully guarantee safety and security," the report found. Dr. Thomas McGinn, assistant state veterinarian at the North Carolina Department of Agriculture, told an agro-terrorism panel convened by the National Governors Association in February that people need to start thinking of animal health as part of public health. North Carolina, he says, is in the process of creating a multi-hazard threat database that links the two. Displaying a U.S. map that shows the distribution of poultry and cloven-footed livestock across the country-a blur of dots that illustrates just how dispersed the agricultural animal population is-McGinn says, "This looks like a big bull's-eye to me." "We have food safety. We've got to get ourselves to a place where
we have food security as well," he says. FDA announces streamlining of bioterror act requirements The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the Department of Homeland Security Bureau of Customs and Border Protection (CBP) announced on 30 May that they would "streamline the implementation of the prior notice requirements of the Bioterrorism Act by allowing food importers to provide required information on food imports to both agencies using an integrated process." The Bioterrorism Act requires food importers to provide the FDA with information on food coming into the U.S. as a means to "reducing the ability of international terrorists to carry out terrorist attacks in the U.S. by contaminating imported foods." Importers "will soon be required to provide "prior notice" about the content of their food imports...starting no later than December 12, 2003." The FDA and CBP "have worked together to find ways to modify CBP's Automated Commercial System" to allow the importers "to provide the required information to FDA using this existing system, making it easier for them to comply with the new law." ANALYSIS: A statement from the FDA said streamlining the prior notice requirement "will allow FDA and CBP to target import inspections more effectively and help protect the nation's food supply against terrorist acts." Under the proposed prior notice requirements, "importers would have to supply detailed information about the shipments origin, including names of producers, processors and lot numbers," the Journal of Commerce reported. The announcement may be partly in response to industry objections to the proposed rule. Industry groups "blasted the proposed rules as unworkable and out-of-step with other security regulations, particularly Customs' 24-hour rule for advance reporting of cargo manifest data before a shipment leaves a foreign port," JoC reported. Importers "also objected to an independent FDA reporting system that would complicate the import process." The final rules are expected to be issued in the coming months. From the "Congressional Quarterly Homeland Security Daily," 30 May: Vols Offer Classes for Emergency Officials The University of Tennessee is offering homeland security-related training next fall for its state’s first responders and local officials. The initiative will be run by the school’s new Homeland Security Center, part of its Institute for Public Service, at its flagship campus in Knoxville, although training programs also will be offered at the Chattanooga, Martin and Memphis branches. Funding for the program comes from a $1 million grant earmarked in the fiscal 2003 omnibus appropriations bill . A major focus will be put on planning. “We think you need to assess where you are vulnerable before an incident even happens,” Mary Taylor, assistant vice president of the university’s Institute for Public Service, told the Chattanooga Times Free Press in Thursday’s editions. The center also plans to focus on agriculture and livestock terrorism issues. “Agriculture is something that hasn't been addressed very well,” Bob Linnabary, coordinator of the state's animal disease response team, told the paper. -David Clarke 'Agroterrorism' poses devastating threat WASHINGTON -- The federal government has recently classified several
scientific studies that show that the U.S. food supply is highly vulnerable
to potentially devastating terrorist attack, experts said yesterday at
the annual meeting of the American Society for Microbiology. From the "Congressional Quarterly Homeland Security Daily," 23 May: Academic Labs, Researchers Using Dangerous Biological Agents Will Get FBI Scrutiny In the normal course of business, approximately 20,000 universities, manufacturers and researchers in the United States keep deadly biological agents or toxins on hand, according to government estimates. Possession of the agents is legal, but when Congress passed the Public Health Security and Bioterrorism Preparedness and Response Act last year, it required the owners or users of the biotoxins to register with the Secretary of Agriculture or Secretary of Health and Human Resources. But a little-noted provision of the law also requires the attorney general to determine whether any of the registered owners “is reasonably suspected by any Federal law enforcement or intelligence agency of committing a Federal crime of terrorism, or having knowing involvement with an organization that engages in domestic or international terrorism” according to an announcement in the May 22 Federal Register. To that end, the notice said, the FBI will be vetting the registered names for any hints of a risk. - Jim McGee FDA proposes food-tracking regs The Food and Drug Administration has proposed regulations requiring companies that transport, distribute or import food to establish and maintain records of the transactions. The regulations, announced May 6, are part of the FDA's plans for a food tracking and identification system, which is intended to speed the response to a food contamination incident. The system, one of several provisions mandated by last year's Bioterrorism Act, would allow officials to know where food has been and where it is going. The regulations apply to companies that manufacture, pack, process, transport, hold or import food in the United States, as well as to foreign businesses that pack, hold or process food in the United States. Companies must maintain records on perishable foods for one year and keep all other food records for two years. The regulations also require that these records be made available within four hours of an FDA request during normal business hours, and within 8 hours at night and on weekends. Companies will have six months from the date the final rule is published to be in compliance with the rules. Small businesses will have 12 months to comply. FDA issues proposed food security rules On 6 May, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced the last two proposed food security regulations mandated under the Public Health Security and Bioterrorism Preparedness and Response Act of 2002. The proposed rules are "two of four proposals that the Act calls upon FDA to develop regarding food safety. The other two proposals, concerning the registration of food facilities and prior notice of imported foods, were published in January 2003." One proposed rule concerns "establishing and maintaining records among food firms," and is designed "to help FDA track foods implicated in future emergencies, such as terrorism-related contamination." Specifically, "manufacturers, processors, packers, distributors, receivers, holders, and importers of food would be required to keep records identifying the immediate source from which they received the food, as well as the immediate subsequent recipient, to whom they sent it." The second proposed rule "implements FDA's new authority to detain any article of food for which there is credible evidence that the article poses a threat or serious adverse health consequences or death." ANALYSIS: The proposed rules are directed at "about 1.23 million facilities owned by 960,000 U.S. and foreign companies," and are expected to cost at least $140 million per year to implement, Reuters reported. That cost is justified, according to Deputy FDA Commissioner Lester Crawford, because "there are many experts that think the probability is great that the next terrorist attack will be a food-related event." The final rules are expected to be issued by 12 December 2003. Bioterror Measures Aim to Keep Food Safe The FDA will force companies to keep records of where food comes from, and may seize items suspected of being a danger. By Amanda Gardner TUESDAY, May 6 (HealthScoutNews) -- Federal officials are finalizing
plans to safeguard the nation's food supply in the event of a terrorist
attack. April 15, 2003 - 9:15 p.m. Veterinarians Saddle Up to Fight Farm Terror By Caitlin Harrington, CQ Staff Writer With images of millions of animals being slaughtered during Britain's struggle against mad cow and foot-and-mouth diseases fresh in their minds, U.S. veterinarians are organizing a frontline defense to detect animal disease outbreaks, whether they occur naturally or as a result of terrorism, before they reach epidemic proportions. Since most state veterinary boards have less than a dozen members, they say they would be overwhelmed if there were a large-scale outbreak of something as contagious as foot-and-mouth disease. As a result, they're recruiting volunteer veterinarians from private practice to form a corps of doctors trained to recognize and treat outbreaks of exotic diseases. The volunteer vets have begun spending two weeks at the USDA's Plum Island Animal Disease Center, off the tip of Long Island, where they are being taught to recognize foreign diseases in livestock. "These guys are trained to recognize a bad situation with several foreign diseases," said Mark Teachman, the senior staff veterinarian in the Veterinary Services' emergency program at the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, or APHIS, which is now part of the Department of Homeland Security. The USDA is picking up the tab for the training program, plus expenses for participants using $14 million provided last summer through the fiscal 2002 supplemental appropriation act (PL 107-206). The money is also being made available to states to hire additional staff or to purchase the high-tech equipment volunteer vets will carry into the field to make quick diagnoses. USDA is distributing the money based on the size of the state's animal population. Texas topped the scales with $4.6 million. And because the livestock industry differs from state to state, each state's effort to prepare for a possible disease outbreak is different. SWAT Teams In Oklahoma, for example, officials used the USDA funding to establish the nation's first veterinarian SWAT team, which will take the lead in responding to an animal-related bioterrorism attack. The state also has rewritten its emergency response guidelines to take into account potential animal-disease outbreaks. South Dakota's Animal Industry Board, meanwhile, received $587,000 from the Agriculture Department and has launched a "Reserve Veterinarian Medical Officer Corps." Each member of the corps has been issued a foreign animal disease diagnostic kit which contains vials, syringes, and tools to restrain animals. Several other states, including Missouri, Minnesota, Indiana and North Dakota, plan to hire additional staff to focus on emergency planning. Many states are planning to use the federal assistance to buy global positioning satellite equipment their vets can use to pinpoint the longitude and latitude of a vet at an outbreak site. Armed with laptop computers, vets responding to a possible disease outbreak can plug their coordinates into a database, allowing veterinarians around the state, and across the country, to map its occurrence. Close to Ground Vets also would be able to provide other information, such as soil conditions and weather information, to help experts predict how the outbreak will spread. "It's very possible if a disease like foot-and-mouth or classical swine fever entered the country, we would be faced with multiple outbreaks in a number of states in a matter of hours or days," said Dr. Sam Holland, chief of South Dakota's Animal Industry Board. In an emergency, APHIS officials always will make the final determination about whether a foreign disease has entered the U.S., Teachman said, but vets on the scene could get the ball rolling early to minimize the effects of a possible outbreak. "For foot-and-mouth-like diseases, every state will have already started responding before they get confirmation," Teachman said. "They'll begin tracing [the outbreak] and potentially putting the animals down depending on the number of animals involved." The impact of a highly contagious foreign disease such as classical swine fever or foot-and-mouth spreading to the U.S. could be devastating - particularly if it were specially designed and intentionally carried across the border. "We've got a naive population of livestock in this country to those diseases because we've eradicated them and we don't vaccinate for them, so it's a very susceptible population of animals," Holland said. Agencies Move to Prevent Food Supply Contamination by Terrorists
LOS ANGELES - The war in Iraq and the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks have sparked a widespread movement by federal agencies, farmers and grocers to upgrade security 'from the stable to the table' to reduce the prospect of sabotage of the U.S. food supply. This is an unprecedented campaign, and these changes go well beyond the tamperproof medicine containers that became standard after the Tylenol cyanide poisonings of the early 1980s that killed seven people in the Chicago area. Many farmers are installing cameras on their property and seeking tougher laws to discourage trespassers. Food processing plants are conducting background checks on employees. Transportation businesses are installing seals on trucks to better protect their cargoes. And some grocery stores are hiring more security guards to monitor salad bars and ventilation systems. Nevertheless, concerns that al-Qaida and Iraq might be stashing biological agents, including the toxin that causes botulism, illustrate how vulnerable the food supply remains. Health officials in California are preparing an anti-toxin for botulism, reacting to fears by some federal officials that the substance might be used by terrorists to poison food. Only a few grams of botulinum toxin, readily found in soil, could kill a million people. While meat inspectors routinely check for biological and chemical agents, experts say there are enough holes in the food chain for something to slip through. For instance, government inspectors at the border conducted 27,500 visual examinations on the 4.9 million shipments of imported meat last year. 'In recent months we've been in discussion with the federal government about the availability of an antidote in the event of a bioterrorist attack,' said Diana Bonta, director of the California Department of Health Services, the nation's sole producer of the antidote. 'We are asking the FDA to expedite the approval process, given the escalation of world events,' she added. In the aftermath of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the federal Food and Drug Administration have introduced voluntary guidelines addressing security at the thousands of food manufacturing and processing operations across the country. Among the guidelines, the government wants people in the food industry to devise plans to correct their weaknesses and restrict public access to areas where food is being prepared. Some experts question whether these voluntary measures should be made mandatory, as is the case with the highly regulated food safety field that addresses sanitary standards aimed at preventing the spread of disease. The government 'has no authority to enforce the guidelines, that's the problem,' said Maria Cristina Gobin, assistant director of the General Accounting Office's natural resources and environment issues division. The GAO, which in February issued a 45-page report outlining the problem, recommends that the federal government study whether the guidelines should become mandatory. Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, is pressing Congress to give the agencies more regulatory authority - particularly for recalls. Currently, the agencies can request that food companies recall their products only when a problem is detected. Harkin plans to reintroduce a bill that would require the FDA and USDA to recall food if botulinum toxin and other dangerous substances are discovered. 'When you identify a toxin in the food supply it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out you need to get the food out of circulation right away,' said Harkin spokesman Bill Burton. Officials from the agencies and the food industry say they think most businesses are complying with the voluntary guidelines and that it would be difficult to design regulations to fit the many types of processing operations. 'Industry has an incentive to (act) - they want to stay in business,' said Joe Levitt, director of the FDA's Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition. The 'stable to table' security system involves farms and ranches, trucks, food processing operations, food manufacturing companies and grocery stores. With an increase in theft of agricultural chemicals by methamphetamine dealers, farmers and ranchers already were beefing up security with cameras and extra lighting. Now, fearing that a terrorist might try to introduce an infectious disease into their livestock and crops, farmers are forming neighborhood watches and seeking tougher penalties against trespassers. Farmers, citing increased food imports, are calling for the nation to shift more to locally grown and raised goods. Even though more than 600 new federal meat inspectors were hired after Sept. 11, 2001, government officials acknowledge that only a handful of imported and domestic goods are checked. 'It's impossible to verify (imported food) as being safe, and it is vulnerable to terrorist activity,' said John Bunting, a dairy farmer in Delaware County, N.Y. Last June, President Bush signed the Bioterrorism Act, which among other provisions requires the 400,000 domestic and foreign food processing operations supplying products to the United States to register with the government. The aim is to establish a network that would enable authorities to strengthen links susceptible to terrorist infiltration. Food Screening In The Field April 7, 2003 FARMINGTON -- Long before anthrax-laced mail killed five Americans in 2001, a cult in Oregon used salmonella bacteria to contaminate restaurant salad dressing and coffee creamers in 1984 and sickened more than 700 people. Scientists and government authorities concerned about the possibility of bioterrorism attacks say a person with minimal microbiology training could easily get enough of another pathogen, E. coli O157:H7, from animal waste in a barn, and grow it in a laboratory for use as a food-borne weapon. This type of bacterium has tainted beef, unpasteurized milk and apple juice and has sickened hundreds of people. But it has not been used in a bioterrorism attack. "Simple microbiology could do this," said Jay Glasel, a biochemist at the University of Connecticut Health Center in Farmington. "That's the problem with all these food-borne pathogens." Glasel and other scientists at the health center, using a $3.1 million grant that a Maine company won from the federal government, are trying to develop a portable instrument to detect pathogens in food to warn of potential terrorism. Such detection work now has to be done in a laboratory or with the use of a cumbersome instrument, so food samples often have to be brought to fixed locations for testing. If the screening could be done cheaply where food is processed, handled, sold and eaten, the cause of fighting potential threats to the food supply could be given a major boost, experts say. After the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, government agencies dealing with domestic security asked industry to submit ideas for addressing terrorist threats, including the possible use of pathogens in food. The project Glasel and his colleagues are working on in Farmington is one of 40 projects that have been financed by government grants. The projects were picked from among 14,000 proposals. The work at the health center is funded by Sensor Research Development Corp. of Orono, Maine, which received the grant from the government's Interagency Technical Support Working Group to develop leading-edge technologies to help combat terrorism. The company, with 44 employees, develops sensors for chemical-warfare agents. At the health center, the Maine company has three scientists working on the project in leased laboratory space available through UConn's small business incubator program. "Our grant is for two years," said Glasel, a professor emeritus of biochemistry. "The intention is to develop a prototype detector at the end of that time." The first buyers of the device would be the U.S. military and federal Homeland Security Department. The military is interested in having such a device, especially for use overseas, where it buys food locally and infiltration is a concern. The device also would be developed for commercial use. Detection devices for food-borne pathogens have been cumbersome and expensive because they rely on the use of antibodies, organic substances that can be degraded by light or heat. The team at the health center is trying to develop polymers, or plastics, that could be used to detect pathogens that are inexpensive to produce and less apt to be degraded by environmental conditions. Glasel said the team will focus initially on a single pathogen, but they hope to produce a device that could detect different pathogens. "The strip could be placed in packages of food and would give off a signal when the package was passed under the detector," he said. The first pathogen Glasel and his colleagues will try to develop a detection device for is E. coli O157:H7. This type of E. coli bacterium is found naturally in cows but is not harmful to them. It's an extremely hardy pathogen, and it's particularly dangerous to infants and young children whose immune systems are not fully developed. In the 1984 incident in Oregon, members of a cult that numbered 10,000 people used salmonella to contaminate food in 10 restaurants and salad bars in the town of Dalles. Their apparent goal was to sicken voters and affect the outcome of an election for county commissioner. They didn't succeed, but at least 750 people got sick. The attack made clear that bioterrorism through a food-borne pathogen is possible. The attackers, according to experts, had no special training. Data Show Aerosol Anthrax Attack Technically Feasible Data related to the 1999 aerial spraying of a bacteria-based insecticide in Victoria, Canada, "refutes arguments asserting that there are technological barriers that would prevent all but the major military programs from using B. anthracis (anthrax) as an aerosol disseminated bioweapon," according to a study in the 1 April issue of BIOSECURITY AND BIOTERRORISM: Biodefense Strategy, Practice, and Science. The researchers, from University of Victoria, said their study of the spraying suggests that anthrax "could be produced and deployed effectively by terrorist groups without the support of a nation-state." The report notes that spraying anthrax from a crop duster in liquid form would likely form droplets small enough to penetrate buildings and enter people's lungs, and would not "create 'globs' which would harmlessly fall to the ground rather than staying suspended in the air." ANALYSIS: The researchers said that because there are "no known un-classified data on human exposure to large-scale aerosol releases of biological weapons," the insecticide spraying, and others like it, could serve as a useful proxy. "Biological agents are used routinely in forestry and agriculture, and they are often used near densely populated areas," the report notes. Defense Department funds development of biological agent sensor MicroFluidic Systems Inc. announced on 20 March that it had secured $1.5 million in funding from the Defense Advanced Research Project Agency (DARPA) for development of a "fully integrated, autonomous, continuously-operating, airborne pathogen detection and identification system." The funding, provided "as part of a collaboration with Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL)," is in addition to about $1 million received by the company in 2002. The system under development, known as Rapid, Autonomous, Integrated DNA/RNA Detection System (RAIDDS), is to be "capable of simultaneously identifying over 10 different pathogens in an automated fashion without the use of robotics or human intervention." MicroFluidic's "sample processing systems have been shown to provide a unique capability to process complex samples in minutes and in an automated and continuously operating fashion, which is critical to biodefense, and industrial, hospital, government, and homeland security applications," the company said. ANALYSIS: Dr. M. Allen Northrup, CEO and President of Microfluidic Systems, said "we continue to be highly committed to the US biodefense effort and have our eye on the significant commercial potential for these systems as well." As part of its Biological Defense Homeland Security Support Program, the Defense Department hopes to "develop and deploy two prototype urban monitoring systems" that will include biological agent sensors "by June 200 and to demonstrate a potential model for a national capability." GAO issues report on food security An 18 March report by the Government Accounting found that the security status at US food-processing facilities is largely unknown. That is because federal agencies have little authority to mandate security and have not trained inspectors on the voluntary security guidelines issued to these facilities. The report said that while both the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) have "broad authority to regulate the safety of the US food supply," these agencies are not specifically authorized to "impose security requirements at food-processing facilities" by federal food safety rules. Both agencies told GAO investigators that they could mandate the adoption of some security measures, if these measures overlapped in purpose with food safety, but, as the FDA has stated, there is "little overlap between security and safety." FDA and USDA have "issued voluntary security guidelines to help food processors identify measures to protect or mitigate the risk of deliberate contamination," but the GAO report indicated that "because these guidelines are voluntary, neither agency enforces, monitors, or documents their implementation." Also, the GAO found that neither the USDA nor FDA had adequately trained staff and inspectors on recommended security guidelines. ANALYSIS: The General Accounting Office recommended that "the Secretaries of the Departments of Health and Human Services and Agriculture study their agencies' existing statutes to identify what additional authorities they may need relating to security measures at food-processing facilities to reduce the risk of deliberate contamination of the food supply...[and] on the basis of these studies' results...should seek additional authority from the Congress, as needed." The report also recommended "training for all food inspection personnel to enhance their awareness and ability to discuss security measures with plant personnel." Both the USDA and the FDA have additional issued voluntary security guidelines for the food-processing industry as part of the newly initiated Operation Liberty Shield. March 14, 2003 - 7:34 p.m. When President Bush created the White House Office of Homeland Security
18 months ago, he included food as part of the nation's critical infrastructure
that had to be protected. Farm State Inquiries Resistance to Regulation Army, EPA Plan to Test Biological/Chemical Agent Detection Capabilities of Radar Systems Testing to determine whether two state-of-the-art radar systems operated by the Federal Aviation Administration and the National Weather Service in Oklahoma could track aerial releases of mock chemical and biological agents was postponed due to local residents' concern over the tests. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the Army had planned to conduct the tests beginning in late February that involved several releases of mock agents from a low-flying crop duster over three regions in Oklahoma that would be tracked by the radar systems. Analysis of the data from the tests will help the EPA and the Army decide whether the radar systems could be of use in predicting dispersal during an actual terrorist attack. The agencies had initially intended to release "powdered egg white, powdered clay, a neutralized pesticide called bacillus thuringiensis, grain alcohol and polyethylene glycol, a food and cosmetics additive," from the aircraft, according to the Oklahoma Gazette,. However, the agencies have decided to remove the egg white and pesticide from the test because local residents raised concerns over possible allergic reactions and crop damage. ANALYSIS: The Army and the EPA most recently tested the biological and chemical agent detection capabilities of radar systems in April 2002 during a four-day series of releases over the waters near Key West, Florida. During those tests, Major Vince Johnson, product manager for the Army's Nuclear, Biological and Chemical Point Detection Systems, told the Miami Herald that the ultimate goal of the testing was to "provide the country with a chemical and biological detection umbrella across the US It will provide early warning not only for the military, but for civilian sectors across the country." Group Says Bioterror Response Would Benefit From Increased Microbial Forensic Capability The American Society for Microbiology (ASM) issued a report on 19 February that examined "the systems, methods, and technologies required for the successful analysis and investigation of biocrimes," including bioterrorism. "Developing systems and methods to detect and track bioattacks will lead to greater safety and security for our nation against international terrorists," the report says. The ASM reports aims to improve the "ability to provide forensic evidence for criminal prosecution that can be used to identify the sources of the microorganisms used as a weapon, and, more importantly, the perpetrator of the crime." The "difficulty identifying those responsible and gathering evidence suitable for a criminal prosecution" was illustrated during the investigation of the 2001 anthrax attacks in the U.S., the report argues. ANALYSIS: The report makes a number of recommendations in the areas of
"evidence gathering; identification of biocrime organisms; tracing
sources of organisms; investigative techniques; and education, training
and communication issues." ASM suggests: establishing training programs
for first responders and other officials to ensure proper handling of
bioattack evidence, setting up "a permanent team of microbiological
experts as consultants to law enforcement," creating a national bioattack
surveillance network, more comprehensive genetic mapping of biological
agents, and the standardization of testing and monitoring equipment. No cases have been discovered in Kansas, but geraniums at 26 greenhouses are being examined 1:17 a.m. The Associated Press WICHITA -- About 150 greenhouses across the country, including 26 in Kansas, are holding geraniums in isolation after the detection in three states of a bacterium that federal officials consider an agricultural bioterrorism threat, regulators said Thursday. All indications are that the bacterium was unintentionally introduced from geranium cuttings taken in Kenya, said Meghan Thomas, a spokeswoman for the USDA's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service. Greenhouses who received geraniums from Goldsmith Plants Inc., of Gilroy, Calif., were notified last week the cuttings may be infected with the bacterium Ralstonia solanacearum, said Lisa Taylor, a spokeswoman with the Kansas Agriculture Department. The bacterium is detrimental to plants, such as tomatoes and potatoes, that are in the nightshade family but doesn't affect people or animals, Taylor said. No cases of the bacterium have been found in Kansas so far, but it has been detected in greenhouses in Illinois, Indiana and Wisconsin, Thomas said. The bacterium is one of nine biological agents listed in the U.S. Agricultural Bioterrorism Protection Act of 2002 as "potentially posing a severe threat to plant health or plant products." "The bioterrorism list came out in 2002 -- as far as I am aware we are the first in the horticulture industry that have had to deal with this," said Richard Goldsmith, president of Goldsmith Plants. "(The act) was put in place to control laboratory use of the bacterium and it should not be construed that the infection on a geranium plant has anything to do with anyone being a bioterrorist." Goldsmith said his company notified USDA of the problem. Fewer than 20 cases have been confirmed in the United States so far, and at this time of the year, all the plants have been confined in greenhouses, making it easier to control the disease, Goldsmith said. Although about 150 greenhouses received the suspect cuttings, the USDA is widening its inspections to several hundred greenhouses nationwide as a precaution, Thomas said. "None of our customers should be pointed out as being terrorists in any way," Goldsmith said. "It is not good for the industry or good for the nation to try to take an incident like this, when USDA is trying to do something right in protecting our nation, and turn it around." Thomas praised the company's cooperation, saying it has worked closely with the USDA to trace greenhouses where potentially infected cuttings may have been shipped. USDA also has ordered a halt to the import of geraniums from Kenya, Thomas said. The bacterium was last found in greenhouses in the United States in 1999 and was eradicated in this country at that time.
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