Plum island Mistake not to be repeated on Mainland?????

http://www.kctv5.com/news/20036798/detail.html

headline:

Sen. Says He Stopped Kan. Disease Center
Montana Sen. Tester Said Animal Center Too Risky

POSTED: 8:36 am CDT July 13, 2009
UPDATED: 8:40 am CDT July 13, 2009


BILLINGS, Mont. -- U.S. Sen. Jon Tester said the Senate has passed an
amendment he offered to halt construction of a disease research center
in Kansas over safety concerns.

The Montana Democrat said the National Bio and Agro-defense Facility
needs more study. It would house research labs for animal and
livestock diseases including highly contagious foot-and-mouth.

That research is currently conducted on Plum Island, which is off the
east end of Long Island in New York. Tester said moving it off the
island and into an agricultural area could be dangerous.

The 2010 Homeland Security Appropriations Bill includes money for the
new Kansas facility.

http://scienceblogs.com/grrlscientist/2007/08/lab_257.php

headline:

Lab 257: the Disturbing Story of the Government's Secret Plum Island
Germ Laboratory
Topic Categories: Book Review • Medicine • Microbiology
Posted on: August 30, 2007 5:14 PM, by "GrrlScientist"

tags: Lab 257, Plum Island,animal disease research, USDA, West Nile
virus, Lyme disease, Dutch duck plague



After the recent outbreak of foot and mouth disease in the UK was
shown to be the result this virus's escape from one of two nearby
research labs, I thought it was timely to review a book that
investigates this same occurrence in the United States. Lab 257: the
Disturbing Story of the Government's Secret Plum Island Germ
Laboratory (NYC: William Morrow; 2004) by Michael Christopher Carroll,
is the riveting story of an animal disease research lab located on an
840-acre island that is only two miles from Long Island, New York, and
Olde Lyme, Connecticut, and a mere 85 miles from Manhattan. This book
tells the frightening story about this government lab's spotted
history and also reveals that Plum Island Animal Disease Research
Laboratory, which is home to many of the deadliest germs known to man,
is about as safe as the average high school biology lab.

African swine fever, Rift Valley fever, anthrax, mad cow disease, foot-
and-mouth disease, West Nile virus ... this lab is home to all these
deadly microbes and more. The reason? One of the primary targets for
terrorists is to infect a nation's livestock with dangerous microbes
so they can cause widespread famine and panic. Thus, since the end of
World War II, our government has been busily researching the bacteria
and viruses that can be used to accomplish this goal. To that end,
Plum Island's two research labs, Lab 101 and Lab 257, were designed
and established by two men: William Hagan, a veterinarian and former
dean of Cornell University's veterinary school who developed the first
weapons-grade strain of anthrax known as Strain 99; and Erich Traub, a
Nazi germ warfare expert who worked for Heinrich Himmler and who was
allegedly smuggled into the United States in 1949 to work with the
CIA, Army, Navy and the USDA. ... (contt)


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