on Plum Island and Kansas

[aineotter]

There have been plans afoot for some time now to move the Plum Island animal disease lab to Kansas, a move which some folk have questioned, given the fact that this is the center of livestock farming country, a hub for animal travel, and lacks the helpful isolation of a large body of water around the facility. Not to mention being in tornado alley

Comments

[cheez_ball]

Part of the problem with this facility, imho, is overlapping regulatory agencies. FMD is currently regulated by the USDA in their specific select agent program while most of the other "bad bugs" are in the CDC select agent program. If they would just consolidate the lists and authority they could streamline things like regulation, enforcement and inspections. And, imo, they'd also have much tighter security in the end

[aineotter]

I'd heard talk as well that Plum Island is too small, and they want a larger facility, but it seems to me like an island is a good thing for isolation. Right now there's a period of time, I think a number of weeks, after visiting Plum island during which you aren't supposed to go on a farm or contact livestock, because some bugs can be harbored in our lungs for awhile; how will that work once it's in the middle of livestock country?

[singingnettle]

Oh, good lord. The stupid, it proliferates.

[aineotter]

There are a couple reasons: one, there are several strains of FMD, and they aren't cross protective so they'd need a different vaccine for each strain (in an outbreak you'd vaccinate for the strain involved), two, the vaccine protects against clinical disease, but does not prevent the animal from being infected or shedding virus, so vaccinated animals can spread it to unvaccinated ones, and thus, importantly, countries that vaccinate can't keep FMD free status, and lose out big in international trade. Which is why it's such a big deal in the final analysis, and why Britian and Japan depopulated so many animals, rather than just start vaccinating.

[ranunculus]

More like who got paid off to move it. Sigh.