Operation crimson sky 11: tax monies hard at work

[TheAmazon]

foot and mouth disease, coming to your favorite slice of beef near you?

oh and, don't let the article mislead you, they also study human bacterial and viral warfare techniques at this facility.



(article)
http://parallelnormal.com/2008/04/11/crimson-sky-ii/

Bush administration to introduce a devastating livestock virus to the U.S. mainland

Plum Island, the US Department of Agriculture boasted in 1995, “was the only place in the United States where (foot-and-mouth disease) can be studied.”

The USDA called the 840-acre Plum Island, home to its disease research center, “Alcatraz for Animal Disease,” due to the 1.5 miles of choppy water between it and densely populated areas in two states.

Now Homeland Security, which took over Plum Island from the USDA post-9/11, wants to bring foot-and-mouth to the mainland.

The risk of an accidental release of the livestock illness–which would devastate the U.S. food supply–is substantial.

And US military forces are apparently unprepared to contain one, the AP reports (paraphrased by me):

Dangerous Animal Virus on US Mainland

“It was a mess,” said a Kansas senator, speaking of a 2002 contain exercise, Crimson Sky, in which the National Guard ran out of bullets.

Even so, the Kansas senator, Pat Roberts, wants the lab in his state. “It will mean jobs” and spur research and development, he says in the AP piece.

Homeland Security’s National Bio and Agro-Defense Facility will go to Kansas, or Georgia, or North Carolina, or Mississippi. That decision will come as early as next year.

Just designing the place will cost $45 million. It is expect to open in 2015.




another larger article mark linked too

http://www.physorg.com/news127128392.html


Accidents at Disease Lab Acknowledged (Update)
By LARRY MARGASAK, Associated Press Writer

Plum Island Animal Disease Center Building 257, closed in 1995, sits fenced and boarded up on Plum Island off of the east coast of New York's Long Island, in this Feb. 16, 2004 file photo. The Bush administration plans to move its research on one of the most feared animal diseases from an isolated island laboratory to a new facility on the U.S. mainland near herds of livestock, raising concerns about the possibility of an economically catastrophic outbreak. (AP Photo/Ed Betz)Plum Island Animal Disease Center Building 257, closed in 1995, sits fenced and boarded up on Plum Island off of the east coast of New York's Long Island, in this Feb. 16, 2004 file photo. The Bush administration plans to move its research on one of the most feared animal diseases from an isolated island laboratory to a new facility on the U.S. mainland near herds of livestock, raising concerns about the possibility of an economically catastrophic outbreak. (AP Photo/Ed Betz)

A 1978 release of the virus into cattle holding pens on Plum Island, N.Y., triggered new safety procedures. While 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. This has raised concerns about the risks of a catastrophic outbreak of the disease, which does not sicken humans but can devastate the livestock industry.

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 accidental 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.

"Detailed precautions were taken immediately to prevent the spread of the disease from Plum Island, and new precautionary procedures were introduced."

Cohen, undersecretary for science and technology, said there also have been "in-laboratory incidents" - contamination of 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.

One government report, produced last year and already provided 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 in 2002 - 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.

..(had to cut it out, to long..but more if you go to the link)

[PETA]

so what does all that crap say?


DHS wants a mainland facility to study this virus?


BFD... CDC facilities on the mainland study much nastier stuff than a bug that'll kill a few cows already.

[Nyteshade]

Sounds like we should be blaming Pat Roberts for trying to move the lab into his state, NOT the Bush admin.

[PETA]

C'mon, you know Bush just wants to kill everyone else's cows so he can corner the market with Crawford beef.

[Ash]

when the first line of the article is

"Bush administration to introduce a devastating livestock virus to the U.S. mainland"

I'm out.