FARMERS in the UK are hoping that the country has escaped a nightmare repeat of the foot and mouth epidemic of 2001 that led to the slaughter of between 6.5 and 10 million cattle. This time around, early diagnosis of an infected cow in Surrey and rapid intervention by government veterinarians to extinguish the outbreak by killing around 500 cows at five farms appeared to have . However, reports of a suspected outbreak in Kent as 快猫短视频 went to press indicate the all-clear will be some time coming.
Whatever the outcome, the revelation that the virus escaped from a world-renowned research lab should ring alarm bells everywhere. Other countries can learn important lessons from the UK鈥檚 recent experience, especially the US, where the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is planning the world鈥檚 largest laboratory for studying animal diseases. The US government sees the $500 million National Bio and Agro-Defense Facility (NBAF) as an essential component of its plan to protect agriculture from bioterror, and has just narrowed down the facility鈥檚 prospective sites to a shortlist of five. Next week, the DHS will begin a series of to inform and consult the American public about the new lab.
Before the DHS starts digging foundations, Washington should take a good look at what just happened in Surrey. Investigators have established that the offending strain, called O1/BFS67, originated either from the Institute for Animal Health, the world鈥檚 premier reference lab for diagnosing and monitoring foot and mouth, or from Merial Animal Health, the world鈥檚 largest manufacturer of foot and mouth vaccines. Disturbingly, a has concluded that rather than escaping through drains or vents, the virus was carried out by a person, either accidentally or deliberately. The most vulnerable link in the chain, it seems, is human error or transgression.
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Can the 350 or so staff who will work at the NBAF be expected to stick to the biosafety rules? Indications from the plethora of other US biodefence labs that have sprung up since 9/11 are not good. Ed Hammond of the in Austin, Texas, which monitors biosafety, has catalogued numerous safety lapses and accidents in recent years. The latest happened last year at Texas A&M University in College Station, where a lab worker became ill with flu-like brucellosis after cleaning out a bio-containment chamber used to infect mice with Brucella bacteria. At least three others at Texas A&M turned out to have been exposed to the bacterium that causes Q fever. The Council for Responsible Genetics in Cambridge, Massachusetts, has also catalogued .
Hammond believes that accidents are far more common than labs admit, and accuses them of a 鈥渃ulture of denial鈥�. Because biodefence labs have multiplied tenfold since 9/11, he says, many more researchers than before are handling dangerous microbes, and many of them may not have been properly trained to do so. near the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California, one of the sites turned down for the NBAF, said the thing they feared above all was the accidental release of pathogens.
鈥淟ocals near one of the proposed sites said the thing they feared above all was the accidental release of pathogens鈥�
How badly does the US need the new facility? Its backers say it must be built because the 50-year-old National Animal Disease Center on Plum Island, New York, is too small, old and ill-equipped. The new lab will enable researchers to experiment with large live animals, such as pigs, sheep and cattle, in the most secure lab environments attainable. James Roth, who studies animal diseases at Iowa State University in Ames, points out that this would be much safer than studying them at a network of smaller labs.
These are all valid points, but two safeguards remain vital. First, the DHS must be transparent about the kind of projects it does at the NBAF and its reasons for undertaking them. A DHS spokesman did promise 快猫短视频: 鈥淲e want to be totally open. There鈥檚 nothing to conceal or hide.鈥� Second, it must enforce a strong safety culture among staff. Without that, no amount of biosafety technology will prevent a repeat of what happened earlier this month in the UK 鈥� and given the kind of pathogens the lab will be studying, the consequences could be far more disastrous.