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High Security Animal Disease Lab Faces Uncertain Future
Dupple writes in with a story about the uncertain future of a proposed bio lab in the heart of cattle country. "Plans to build one of the world's most secure laboratories in the heart of rural America have run into difficulties. The National Bio and Agro defense facility (NBAF) would be the first US lab able to research diseases like foot and mouth in large animals. But reviews have raised worries about virus escapes in the middle of cattle country. For over fifty years the United States has carried out research on dangerous animal diseases at Plum Island, just off the coast of New York. However after 9/11 the Department of Homeland Security raised concerns about the suitability of the location and its vulnerability to terrorist attack."
I know people that work on plum island. They say that the place will be open till at least 2021. The decision to move it was purely political. At the time the local governments did not want a level 4 facility on the island, Once it was announced that the research would be moved to Kansas they recanted. There has also been much discussion about the wisdom of moving it to the middle of tornado alley and cattle country. Terrorism has had little effect on the decision, an island makes it very easy to control who comes and goes as compared to a facility reachable by foot. It would not surprise me to see them upgrade Plum island and cancel the project in Kansas, on the other hand it is up to the usual political backroom deals.
The Lunatick, Carpe Corpus!
The scientists owe it to the people there to reduce the risk of an escaped pathogen by as much as they can. Once they do that, there really shouldn't be anything to complain about--it would just be pure, irrational fear from what I can see.
Arguably, siting the lab in the middle of a giant supply of natural hosts for the pathogens being studied is a massive failure of risk reduction, no matter how many sci-fi airlocks they pencil in...
I'm sure that security is better where God and the County Sheriff are packing.
Even a rather large virus will spatter like an overripe melon if hit with a mere .000012 caliber round. The real trick is in the aiming...