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A Safer Home on the Range |
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by Kelley Vlahos
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Saturday, 01 March 2008 |
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Page 1 of 4
People have to eat—and the livestock and poultry that feed them are as subject to biohazards, terrorism and pandemics as their human owners. Is enough being done to protect them?
 Highly pathogenic avian influenza in Israel, foot-and-mouth disease in Laos, swine fever in Africa and Newcastle disease in Italy—these were just a few threats to the world’s food supply at the beginning of 2008, according to recent alerts by the World Organization for Animal Health. For a terrorist to take a sample of just one of those diseases and introduce it to animals on US farms might be catastrophic, but not difficult.
Though pandemic preparedness and biodefense measures have concentrated on the human population since Sept. 11, 2001, the nation’s estimated 170 million livestock and 10.2 billion poultry remain seriously vulnerable to both natural and manmade biological threats.
That’s why government officials who have made agricultural health their life’s work—and lawmakers who after 9/11 pushed for agricultural protection—are doubly worried that the White House might support major cuts to fiscal year 2009’s homeland security budget. This, when so many of the federal government’s goals in this area are so far unfulfilled—including the National Veterinary Vaccine Stockpile, established nearly four years ago. The name has since been changed to the National Veterinary Stockpile (NVS) to de-emphasize its vaccine element.
“There is a huge need, and I can’t imagine they have been able to fill that need yet, given the funding level,” Jim Roth, director of the Center for Food Safety and Public Health at Iowa State University, told HSToday. “If it’s a terrorist, an intentional introduction [of disease into the food supply], most people believe they would introduce it in multiple locations, and it would quickly undermine our ability to control it.”
Two key events shifted the nation’s focus onto food security over the last decade: 9/11 and the 2001 outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease in the United Kingdom, which resulted in the slaughter of 10 million cattle, sheep and swine and dealt an estimated $20 billion blow to the economy. The US cattle inventory is 100 million—much greater than that in the United Kingdom at the time—with a total livestock inventory closer to 200 million animals. A similar outbreak and response here could result in upwards of $33 billion in losses, according to some estimates.
Since 2001, extensive protocols have been put into place from the farm and distribution level on up to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) and other food- and health-related agencies, to try to prevent a naturally occurring outbreak or a case of agroterrorism.
Experts in the field of veterinary sciences and emergency response believe surveillance and rapid diagnosis and—if it does happen—quick containment and elimination of the threat, can help avoid the anxiety and mass slaughter of animals—or depopulation—seen in the United Kingdom. But some worry that Washington’s interest in seeing that through is waning, and gaps in the system are being addressed too slowly.
“It was better for a while; a lot more attention was being paid to this a few years ago, but it just seems to have vanished,” remarked Roger Breeze, who left the USDA Agricultural Research Service in 2004 and is now head of the Centaur Science Group, a Washington, DC-based consulting firm specializing in infectious diseases. For Breeze, the tune is familiar. More than two years ago he told HSToday, “The government should be totally embarrassed” for not having enough animal vaccines stockpiled and ready to deploy in case of a major outbreak. (See “Food Without Fear”.)
Today, he is no more confident, despite a presidential directive in 2004 that the USDA’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) create a vaccine stockpile and have the capability to deliver vaccines within 24 hours of an outbreak of any one of the major animal diseases.
“There is really a need for Congress to allocate more money to get the stockpile in shape,” said Roth. “We’ve had a stockpile of foot-and-mouth vaccine for many years, but it’s not a finished vaccine. If we need a million doses in a hurry, I’m sure we don‘t have that.
The vaccine challenge
Glen Garris, director of the NVS, came on board in April 2006. He readily acknowledges the challenges. As in most cases, research is still being done to develop vaccines for the most dangerous diseases. Beyond that, the program cannot ensure that tens of millions of vaccine doses would be accessible for rapid deployment in the event of an outbreak.
“The biggest issue is getting the vaccines prepared and pushed,” said Garris.
As recently as mid-2007, Garris shared his program goals with his colleagues at APHIS and the USDA regarding Homeland Security Presidential Directive 9 (HSPD-9), which required the federal government to augment local and state resources by deploying “sufficient amounts of animal vaccine, antiviral and therapeutic products to appropriately respond to the most damaging animal diseases affecting human health and the economy.”
But given that National Veterinary Associates, a private owner of numerous veterinary hospitals nationwide, has defined 17 major disease threats facing the country today, realizing HSPD-9 could prove more challenging than its drafters envisioned.
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