49 Investigation: Terror attack in Kansas could be more disastrous than 9/11
Losses from agro-terrorism attack could reach $1 billion
10:45 p.m. Thursday, November 1, 2007
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A terrorist attack in Northeast Kansas, some experts say they’re surprised it hasn’t already happened.
It's not traditional terrorism that worries some state leaders and researchers, but an attack on our state’s agriculture. With more than 6.5 million cows in Kansas, experts say our state is a huge target.
“Is it going to be the big one? Is it going to be something that kills a lot of people? Is it going to be something that would have a dramatic impact on our agricultural infrastructure? I would say, 'yeah.' I think we are going to have one,” said Jerry Jaax, who has studied agro-terrorism at K-State and for the military for more than 20 years.
It would be simple for a terrorist to introduce a disease, like foot-and-mouth, into the food supply, Jaax said. It’s one of the most contagious viruses in the world that kills livestock and affects their ability to make milk and reproduce.
The disease has been found in 17 countries in the last couple of years, K-State economist Schroeder said.
Since the livestock business takes cows all over the country for feeding and slaughtering, if a terrorist infected just one Kansas cow, foot-and-mouth disease would spread quickly to livestock around the country.
Schroeder said it would mean immediate devastation, even greater than September 11th.
“It could be in some ways worse, because it would affect everyone on an active, daily basis,” he said. “It’s somewhat limitless in terms of what the potential impact can be.”
In a worse case scenario, as many as 1.7 million cattle in Kansas and 48 million cattle in the nation would be infected. Beef would be yanked from store shelves, animals would be quarantined, our borders would be shut down and millions of animals would have to be killed.
Schroeder said the losses would quickly reach $1 billion in Kansas.
And there’s no vaccine, no way to stop such an attack. Plus no one’s warning all the livestock producers in Kansas, who are at the front lines of preventing it from spreading in the first place.
Only one in 11 cattlemen are likely to know about foot-and-mouth disease, said state livestock commissioner George Teagarden, who’s responsible for educating producers about foreign animal disease.
“I don’t think it’s a huge problem, but it’s a problem,” Teagarden said. “You can always educate and educate and educate, and I think sometimes you have to think about the efficiency and the effectiveness of your efforts.”
Teagarden said the state doesn’t keep track of the 31,000 cattle farmers in Kansas, so there’s no way to notify everyone about the dangers.
“I guess I couldn’t make a judgment, whether we’ve done enough,” Teagarden said. “We can always do more; whether we’ve done enough, who knows?
While state officials cross their fingers a terrorist won’t strike, K-State is studying the effects of an animal identification system. It would allow the state to keep track of livestock producers and help control an outbreak more quickly.
Also, there’s been a lot of talk about building the nation’s new bio- and agro-terrorism defense facility in Manhattan. Jaax said that would be huge. If there were an animal disease outbreak in Kansas, the facility would provide investigators an immediate way to research the disease. It would also raise awareness about a terrorist attack in Kansas.
Comments
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Nov. 2, 2007 at 6:17 a.m. (Suggest removal)jrigutto (anonymous)
If terrorism is such a big issue, why are we planning on tracking all animal movements but not the movements and associations of all persons working on or visiting farms? I don't think a heifer is going to run willy nilly about the country spreading foot and mouth disease. But a human terrorist could very easily. And as to the statement that there is no vaccine, that is actually an outright lie. Vaccination for FMD is commonplace in Brazil and other countries around the world. There is no vaccine approved for use in the USA because vaccination for FMD is illegal in the USA, just as it is illegal in the UK, which is why a FMD outbreak has so much potential to cause harm. It doesn't have anything to do with animal health or human health it's all about money. It costs the farmers too much to treat an infected animal, it's easier and cheaper to kill 'em. FMD vaccination is effective but it's illegal in this country because of our trade policies, and for no other reason.
Nov. 4, 2007 at 1:32 p.m. (Suggest removal)marycritchley (anonymous)
A terrorist attack is possible precisely because of such non-vaccination policies as that described in this extraordinarily ignorant article.
The vaccines against foot and mouth are excellent and have been so for a decade. Modern technology can detect the strain very quickly and adequate doses of potent effective vaccine, perfectly matched to the virus strain, rapidly produced.
Even when the strain is new - as in Turkey this year - the 1967 O type vaccine, produced at Merial in the UK in July, has been used and is still being used to vaccinate against the newest strain of type 'O' To suggest that "there’s no vaccine" suggests either ignorance or a deliberate attempt to mislead.
During the past 25 years most outbreaks of Foot and Mouth in the world have been controlled by vaccination rather than by stamping-out; hundreds of millions of cattle have been vaccinated; in all these cases, where the vaccine has been properly and consistently applied, the outbreaks were brought rapidly under control, sometimes within one week. Vaccination, done by farmers themselves, brought FMD under control in Uruguay in 2001 at the very time that the UK was suffering from its ill-judged non-vaccination policy.
Large scale stamping out causes massive chaos, financial loss, trauma and misery - so of course such an outcome would appeal to a terrorist group.
But with the modern vaccines we now have and the portable on-site diagnostic kits (used now extensively by the US military and by its veterinary experts in the old Eastern Bloc countries) an outbreak does not have to be like that.
When virus escaped from the IAH lab in August we in England knew the strain, we had the vaccine available and we had all the expertise to hand. There was no suggestion from the authorities that there was no vaccine nor that it would not work. But, because the government clung to the trading advantage that the status of "FMD free without vaccination" confers (as it does in the US), they delayed vaccinating - a decision that resulted in more outbreaks a month later and all the consequent misery for the entire country.
And all this is because of a trade protectionism that stamps out animals and stamps on the vast majority of farmers. They are the ones who pay the price of a non-vaccination policy.
The trading world should wake up and favour vaccination for FMD as it now has to do for Bluetongue. The throwing out of outmoded trading regulations is long overdue. Both your own great country and Europe are being denied the blessings of modern science in order to protect the trading interests of the few. Many of us in Europe, now alerted to this, feel such a deep revulsion that change is at last looking possible.
Nov. 4, 2007 at 2:12 p.m. (Suggest removal)Henwhisperer (anonymous)
What I cannot understand for the life of me is why the government thinks it can stamp out disease. Bacteria is a fact of nature, they serve a purpose, good and bad, and what would the world be without them?
The consumers don't seem to mind eating genetically modified foods nor do the majority of them mind that store bought cows milk is loaded with antibiotics and growth hormones. It has already been proven that vaccinations do not affect the meat. So what is the problem?
It is the trade (industry) protectionism that keeps sensible farming practices from being fostered. Rather than take care of the animals and soil as they should, Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs) are the real vectors for disease but they won't address that, will they?
The government held real time FMD training exercises a few weeks ago in Washington state. Dr. Steve Van Wie has been flouncing around the country putting on "How to Survive an Agricultural Bio-disaster" seminars for conventional dairy farmers where he never does actually tell a farmer how to survive aside from "you better hope you are the index farm because you will get the most money".
The logic of killing/culling/depopulation does not stand. In the UK during the 2001 outbreak some of the vets couldn't tell the difference between FMD and foot rot. Any system is only as good as the people who are running it.
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