Disaster Novel Comes to Life for US Author
[author:Heather Larson Public time:Aug 6, 2007] |
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Hartley, Ia. -- Aug. 5, 2007 -- When the ringing phone woke author Kate Iola Sunday morning, she heard a horrific scene from her agroterrorism novel: "It's back, Kate, it's back. It's FMD, an FMD outbreak."
An FMD outbreak was confirmed Saturday in the UK, where the most recent outbreak, in 2001, lasted a year and cost over $15 billion.
In the US, the contagious FMD virus would devastate agriculture and rock the commodities markets. With no FMD outbreak in the US since 1929, no preventative vaccine, and little public awareness about the need for extreme control measures-including quarantines, export bans, and mass livestock slaughter-the US is much more vulnerable than the UK. FMD is considered the most contagious virus known; it has been proven to travel 35 miles or more by wind, and can survive a month in mud or manure. It is produced by every fluid of an infected animal, and could survive an international plane ride on wet muddy boots.
FMD is officially major bad news: It is illegal to have the FMD virus, classified as a Weapon of Mass Destruction, anywhere in the US other than Plum Island Animal Disease Center, on a mile-square island off the shores of Long Island, New York.
"It's an economic virus," says Iola. "It's about disruption of a major US economic engine. Our ag economy is ten times the size of that in the UK. And we have a record wild deer population that could become a permanent host for the FMD virus."
The UK outbreak was only four miles from the UK national FMD laboratory, Pirbright. The strain of highly-infectious FMD virus found at the infected sites hadn't been seen in the wild for years, but had been used at Pirbright and a nearby vaccine plant within the month.
"There's a reason we put our FMD lab on a remote island 50 years ago," says Iola. "The Plum Island lab leaked once, in 1978, and nothing got off the island. I bet the UK wishes Pirbright and the vaccine plant were on an island. It'll be interesting to see what kind of liability issues come up now, as well."
Early this year, DHS announced they were taking bids to move the facility to the mainland. The new facility, the NBAF, or National Bio- and Agrodefense Facility, would be the new national FMD lab, and host other disease work as well.
Universities and economic development groups around the country jumped at the chance to host the federal facility. The list of NBAF contenders was narrowed recently to five. All five sites are in major livestock production areas. However, no economic risk assessment is planned as part of the NBAF site selection process.
When dealing with explosively contagious FMD, the risks are high.
"It may not be a huge security breach," says a UK microbiologist in one news story about the UK FMD leak. "It may just be one incident which let a puff of virus out."
For full press release, media notes & references, please visit http://www.kateiola.com/pressrelease.asp?id=169.
Otherinfo:Hammersmark Books
PO Box 4
Hartley, IA 51346
www.kateiola.com
712-363-1917
Printed From:http://www.free-press-release.com/news/200708/1186418459.html
Source:Free Press Release
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