[url] http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080411/ap_on_go_pr_wh/animal_disease[/url]


[B]Government and AP Disinformation about New Bioterror Lab[/B]

The AP article:

WASHINGTON - 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.

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, 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.

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.

**********************************************

Plum Island is one of many vivisection and bioterror centers of the US governmenet.
[url] http://www.ars.usda.gov/plum[/url]

[quote] From the AP article:
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.[/quote]


Since Hoof and Mouth Disease ostensibly does not harm humans,
it is more likely that the governmentt feels it will not be able
to contain the information of widespread Mad Cow, Mad Chicken,
Mad Pig, Mad Deer, Mad Turkey, etc.

In addition it is alarming to see the unelected regime's
unelected Homeland Security head, Michael Chertoff, once again grabbing
for illegitimate power.
.

[quote]
10,000 LINKS ON THE EMERGING MAD COW STORY

Because many are ignorant that spongiform encephalopathy
can jump species, please for the sake of the health of your friends
and the prevention of animal agony disseminate this list


Mad Cow [url] http://www.mad-cow.org[/url]
Mad Pig Disease Porcine Spongiform Encephalopathy [url] http://www.organicconsumers.org/madcow/hoghhell22404.cfm[/url]
Mad Sheep Disease: 58 Year Coverup
[url] http://www.mad-cow.org/boeuf.html#DMSO[/url]
Mad Deer [url] http://www.maddeer.org[/url] cervine spongiform encephalopathy
Mad Mink [url] http://www.drday.com/madcow.htm[/url] a 20 year Wisconsin coverup
Mad Goat Disease [url] http://www.mad-cow.org/mad_goat.html[/url]
Mad Chicken Disease
Irish Food Safety Authority finds chicken prions from being fed pig or cow prions. [url] http://www.fsai.ie[/url]
Mad Cat Disease [url] http://www.madcowboy.com[/url]
Mad Dog Disease
[url] http://www.madcowboy.com[/url]
Mad Elk Disease [url] http://www.maddeer.org[/url]
Mad Squirrel Disease
[url] http://www.people.virginia.edu/~rjh9u/sqbrain.html[/url]
Mad Fish, Mad Turkey, Mad Horse, Mad Camel etc
Mad Blood Disease [url] http://www.mad-cow.org/00/feb01_news_mid.html#bbb[/url]
Mad Ash Disease
[url] http://www.billingsgazette.com/index.php?id=1&display=rednews/2005/03/14/build/state/35-wasting-disease.inc[/url]
Mad Lipstick Disease: [url] http://www.mad-cow.org/00/feb01_news_mid.html[/url]


[url] http://www.rense.com/health/madcowdata.html[/url] over 100 links re BSE
ORGANIC CONSUMERS [url] http://www.organicconsumers.org/madcow.htm[/url] many
articles
MAD COW COMIN HOME
[url] http://whyfiles.org/193prion/[/url]
HOWARD LYMAN DISCUSSION GROUP
[url] http://www.egroups.com/messages/mad_cowboy[/url]





7000 Mad Cow articles.. lately coopted by meat industry.... good
archives [url] http://www.mad-cow.org[/url]

Mad Cow [url] http://www.mad-cow.org[/url]
Mad Pig Disease Porcine Spongiform Encephalopathy [url] http://www.organicconsumers.org/madcow/hoghhell22404.cfm[/url]
Mad Sheep Disease: 58 Year Coverup
[url] http://www.mad-cow.org/boeuf.html#DMSO[/url]
Mad Deer [url] http://www.maddeer.org[/url] cervine spongiform encephalopathy
Mad Mink [url] http://www.drday.com/madcow.htm[/url] a 20 year Wisconsin coverup
Mad Goat Disease [url] http://www.mad-cow.org/mad_goat.html[/url]

Howard Lyman's monthly newsletter [url] http://www.madcowboy.com[/url]
[url] http://www.egroups.com/messages/mad_cowboy[/url]

American Jnl of Epidemiology on gelcap Mad Cow lawsuits
[url] http://www.rense.com/health/gelcaps.htm[/url]

Montana Lab Kills Primates in Mad Cow research

[url] http://engforum.pravda.ru/showthrea...?threadid=61657[/url]



USDA: don't ask don't tell (re Mad Cow) [url] http://www.vegsource.com[/url]

MANGANESE BONDS WITH PRIONS TO FORM BOVINE SPONGIFORM ENCEPHALOPATHY
[url] http://www.rense.com/general6/bse.htm[/url]

UPI: USDA refused to release Mad Cow records and cannot document
that 20,000 cows were tested stevemitchell@s...
[url] http://www.upi.com[/url]
[url] http://www.upi.com/print.cfm?StoryI...21-102924-4786r[/url]
(Lyman and Oprah Winfrey won a lawsuit against Amarillo cattlemen)
[url] http://www.maddeer.org[/url] [url] http://www.pcrm.org[/url]
Nobel Laureate prion discoverer warns about continuing Mad Cow
[url] http://www.nytimes.com/2003/12/25/national/25WARN.html?[/url]
Test Cows Now [url] http://www.testcowsnow.com[/url]
Join & Post Articles [url] http://www.egroups.com/messages/madcow1[/url]
Mad Pig PSE Porcine Spongiform Encephalopathy mad scientists
have created Mad Pig in labs [url] http://www.thepigsite.com[/url]
Mad Milk: the book Mad Cow and Milkgate
[url] http://k0swi.microlnk.com/4SALE/INV...0COW%20DISEASE%[/url]
20BOOK.htm
How Mad Cow becomes Mad Milk
[url] http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/s...,351415,00.html[/url]
[url] http://www.notmilk.com[/url] [url] http://www.milksucks.com[/url]
7000 VEGAN MD'S SAY AVOID ANIMAL PRODUCTS [url] http://www.pcrm.org[/url]
PONIES AND HORSES VICTIMIZED BY MAD COW PROFITEERS
[url] http://www.rense.com/general6/bsee.htm[/url]
BRITISH PHYSICIANS ASKED TO MUZZLE TRUTH ABOUT MAD COW IN BLOOD
SUPPLY
[url] http://www.rense.com/general5/cjconcerns.htm[/url]
MANURE CAN SPREAD MAD COW
[url] http://www.rense.com/general/mdcwfg.htm[/url] [url] http://www.punch.co.uk[/url]
BONE MEAL ON FLOWERS CAN SPREAD MAD COW
The British Horticultural Soc published that several rose fanciers
using bone meal on their blooms contracted BSE, Mad Cow.
MEAT RECALLS A SMALL FRACTION OF THOSE WHICH SHOULD HAVE BEEN
[url] http://www.fsis.usda.gov/OA/recalls/rec_intr.htm[/url]
BONE MEAL IN COMMERCIAL PET FOODS CAN CAUSE MAD COW
[url] http://www.pcrm.org[/url] [url] http://www.vegancats.com[/url]
VACCINES CONTAINING MAD COW PRIONS
[url] http://whyfiles.org/012mad_cow/[/url]
COSMETICS.. AVOIDING MAD COW
[url] http://www.egroups.com/messages/vegan_cosmetics[/url]
THE PIG SITE [url] http://www.thepigsite.com[/url] listed research
on labs (such as in Edinburgh) where infected sheep brains are
kept and transmitted by needle and food to captive animals.
BLOOD FED TO CALVES
[url] http://www.organicconsumers.org/madcow/GregerBSE.cfm[/url]
KIRO on feeding downer cows to other cows
[url] http://www.kirotv.com/station/2249324/detail.html[/url]
pagewanted=print&position=
FDA on blood supply dangers

[url] http://www.fda.gov/bbs/topics/NEWS/2001/NEW00768.html[/url]
UDDER DENIAL MAD COW IN THE FRIDGE
[url] http://www.home.earthlink.net/~astrology/udder.htm[/url]

COULD ORGANOPHOSPHATES PLAY A ROLE IN MAD COW?



[url] http://www.rense.com/general7/disea.htm[/url]



TOXIC ATKINS DIET [url] http://groups.msn.com/toxicatkins/1.msnw[/url]
TOXINS IN ALL FLESH.. SANE COWS OR MAD PIGS

[url] http://www.egroups.com/messages/bloodsweatandtears/57[/url]
MUSLIM VEGETARIANS
[url] http://www.network54.com/Forum/291522/thread/1130527540/last-1130527540/Muslim+Vegetarians[/url]

CORRELATION BETWEEN ANIMAL ABUSE AND VIOLENCE

[url] http://www.egroups.com/messages/teachnonviolence/270[/url]
_________________
[url] http://www.worldanimalnet.org[/url]

ORGANIC LINKS
[url] http://www.localharvest.org/[/url]
[url] http://www.allorganiclinks.com/[/url]
ORGANIC VEGETARIAN RESTAURANTS
UK
[url] http://www.manna-veg.com/[/url] world class... London
[url] http://www.thegate.tv/[/url]
[url] http://www.marlborough-house.net/[/url] One of the most
beautiful restaurant structures in the world
[url] http://thephoenixorganic.com/[/url] another sweet setting
[url] http://www.freshorganics.biz/[/url] Vegan pastries.. not sure if a veg.rest.
[url] http://www.theorganicjuiceco.co.uk/[/url] Juice Bar
US
[url] http://www.lunahsea.com/[/url] Geneseo NY.. near the no mammal
eating Trappist monastery

THE MANY NAMES OF MAD COW

When doctors give a cause of death for Mad Cow
or Mad Deer, Mad Fish, Mad Pig, Mad Chicken, Mad Lamb,
Mad Owl, Mad Pig in the United States
they give it many names..
.. encephalitis
.. leukemia
.. West Nile Virus
.. meningitis
.. brain tumor
.. food poisoning
.. Jakob Creutzfeldt Disease
_________________
[url] http://www.worldanimalnet.org[/url]
[/quote]