WASHINGTON – The only U.S. facility allowed to research the highly contagious foot-and-mouth disease experienced several accidents with the feared virus, the Bush administration acknowledged yesterday.
A 1978 release of the virus into cattle holding pens on Plum Island, N.Y., triggered new safety procedures. Although that incident was previously known, the Homeland Security Department told a House committee there were other accidents inside the government's laboratory.
The accidents are significant because the administration is likely to move foot-and-mouth research from the remote island to one of five sites on the U.S. mainland near livestock herds. That has raised concerns about the risks of a catastrophic outbreak of the disease, which doesn't sicken humans but can devastate livestock.
Skeptical Democratic leaders of the House Energy and Commerce Committee demanded to see internal documents from the administration that they believe highlight the risks and consequences of moving the research. The live virus has been confined to Plum Island for more than a half-century to keep it far from livestock.
The 1978 release “resulted in the FMD virus in some of the cattle in holding pens outside the laboratory facility,” Jay Cohen, a senior Homeland Security official, wrote in response to the committee. Precautions were taken to prevent the spread of the disease, and “new procedures were introduced,” Cohen wrote.
Cohen said there also have been “in-laboratory incidents” – contamination of the foot-and-mouth virus within the facility but not outside it – at Plum Island since 1954. That was the year the Agriculture Department acquired the land and started the Plum Island Animal Disease Center.
A government report produced last year and given to lawmakers by the Homeland Security Department combined satellite images and 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?” the nine-page document asked. It did not directly answer the question.
A simulated outbreak of the disease in 2002 – part of an earlier government exercise called “Crimson Sky” – ended with fictional riots 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.
Manhattan, Kan., is one of five mainland locations under consideration. 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.
