Dangerous Animal Virus on US Mainland?

Dangerous Animal Virus on US Mainland?

ap.google.com

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

(visit the link for the full news article)


Related News Links:
www.startribune.com
www.npr.org
www.newsweek.com
abcnews.go.com

Related AboveTopSecret.com Discussion Threads:
www.iht.com...
www.pr-inside.com...
www.counterpunch.org...

This story hit the news about an hour ago.. 02:45 CST, and has since spread like crazy. The weird thing is that Yahoo pulled this story immediately! They still had the headline but the link would not work.

The related threads below are the first news sources I could find. The actual story broke March 26th, 2008 on the the CounterPunch.org website. The author is Stan Cox.

www.counterpunch.org...

ap.google.com
(visit the link for the full news article)

Well Yahoo has it now anyway - news.yahoo.com....

If this is anything like it was in britain, you guys are gonna be in for a hard time.

Infact, i can't think of a worse possible time for this to happen.

I fear, as many I'm sure, this is just getting one more piece of the puzzle into place before all these "accidents" and other events start to occur.

I posted the same one a few minutes earlier..ho ho

trying to get us scared as usual....oh well

Why don't we just pack some lunch pales for the terrorists, give them some spending money to buy souvenirs, buy them a plane ticket and hand them a manual for EXACTLY how to cripple the U.S. in the best ways possible.

News like this does nothing more than panic the general public and give new ideas to terrorist brain-stormers.

This is alot like CNN reporting by the minute where exactly troops were during the Iraq/Kuwait war. Sadam Hussein was quite open in saying that Iraq kept up with U.S. troop movements by watching the news.

Way to go MSM. Is any thought given on whether to run a story or not these days?

Again, my only question regarding this. Why have the d@mn thing in labs so close to the US to begin with? All the "experimental labs" should be relocated to an island far away from everyone. If there is an outbreak on an islan far away, then it could be contained to just that island. Come on people! It's like putting a canister of nitroglycerin in an elementary school's playground. Eventually, some one is going to set it off, by accident, choice, curiousity, or terrorist.

Hey government,

Don't put dangerous things near that which you do not want destroyed or hurt!

There are unfortunatly many "experimental" labs all across this nation. Many in close proximity to neighborhoods. There is no telling what they are testing or cooking up at these labs.

[edit on 4/11/2008 by Amaxium]

I could see it now, a malfunctioning computer will cause the "real-world" situation to play out instead of the simulation, of which they can blame the "computer" for. There's just no good reason to have such a thing so close to the real thing. This sounds intentional.

Right now the lab that deals with this virus is on an island off of New York...

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, N.Y., for more than a half-century — far from commercial livestock. The existing lab is 100 miles northeast of New York City in the 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.

They have already run a scenario to see what would happen if it hit America...

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.

This virus has escaped before.... www.counterpunch.org...

Plum Island suffered a long string of potentially disastrous accidents, including the escape of the foot-and-mouth pathogen from containment areas in 1978.

That fiasco led to the slaughter of all livestock on the island. Carroll's stomach-churning account of the killing, dismemberment, and incineration of hundreds of goats, sheep, horses, and pigs -- nonstop through an entire bloody weekend -- provides a preview of what might be necessary if pathogens escape from a heartland NBAF. (And with an urban lab, human quarantine could well follow.) Carroll added the astonishing revelation that researchers took the risk of saving 60 sheep from the slaughter during the "kill weekend", so that they could be inoculated in the open air with the Rift Valley fever virus -- a germ far more dangerous to humans than is foot-and-mouth.

I can not believe that there are 5 states bidding to host this facility! I think we should leave it on Plum Island.

It is almost as though they are TRYING to destroy the livestock industry, and disrupt our food supply.

National Bio-and Agro-Defense Facility

see, it has an official name, guys. Nothing to worry about, what's the worst that could happen anyways? (other than famine, disease, and serious health risks that is...)

I think the MOST dangerous animal is the guy in the picture!

[edit on 11-4-2008 by yankeerose]

Sorry to say - the reason it has to be moved is because you cant sneak up on Plum Island, and if an infected animal breaks out - it can't go anywhere.

Also, since they recent decision to forbid the mega-fuel distribution point barge in the middle of Long Island sound, there is a woeful lack of terrorist targets in our area (not).

How can you manufacture a food-source crisis that way? I'm sure Monsanto will be knee-deep in this.... after all - they will be the ones to 'save' us.

Check this out. www.nationalaglawcenter.org...

First paragraph on the third page:

If a FMD outbreak occurred in the United States other agricultural sectors related to livestock and dairy would likely feel the impact. For example, according to livestock industry officials, every other bushel of U.S. grain goes to animal feed. A significant drop in demand for feed (caused by extensive cattle and swine herd depopulation) could further depress grain prices, now at historically low levels.

In 2001 we didn't have political leaders who had put all of this nation's eggs into the ethanol/biofeul basket. It was largely thanks to the historically low price of corn that ethanol production was touted as being our future solution to the oil situation, likewise for soybeans and biodiesel. Maybe someone in Washington didn't do their homework back then and they didn't forsee the extreme and dramatic skyrocketing of grain prices caused by the additional demand these alternate feuls create and they're now trying to figure out a way to bring those prices back down so their pet project doesn't become a lame duck when farmers & the public start demanding a scaling back from biofeul production to protect livestock feed and bring meat & dairy prices back down to reasonable levels.

Why would anyone want to do something like this?! I know nothing about foot and mouth disease other than what I've randomly picked up and read here and nothing about the agencies that would host such a facility and even I know that this is one of the worst ideas ever! Are they trying to kill our animals, aka food supplies, off to make us more docile or something insanely evil like that, or are they just straight-up STUPID??

This just has a very sinister feel to it. I simply can't understand the logic of this move if it isn't for sinister purposes.

If Prez Bushenstien really wanted people to 'stop listening to conspiracy theories' maybe he should stop conspiring.

This is a upper-tier driven activity. If there was anything more immediate to national security than bio-terrorism what would it be? Shampoo on airplanes?

If it waddles like a duck, quacks like a duck and has a stencil on it's back that reads "duck" guess what - it IS a duck. This move places the entire North American food chain at risk. WILL SOMEONE PLEASE SLAP THIS JERK UPSIDE HIS HEAD AND WAKE HIM UP!?

Sinister - reckless - and very nearly treasonous for its disregard to the safety of the people of the US.

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 detecting the disease, controlling epidemics using vaccines and drugs, testing imported animals and training 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.

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.

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 for more than a half-century, far from commercial livestock. The existing lab is 100 miles northeast of New York City in the Long Island Sound. 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 one week after work before attending outside events where such animals might perform, such as a circus.

So it seems they want to expand it to diseases that can be transferred from animals to humans. And they don't want to isolate the facility in a way that its accessible only by ferry or helicopter. Even though its so contagious it 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 for more than a half-century. They even have to wait at least one week after work before being around animals.