Skip to main content
CNN.com International
The Web    CNN.com      Powered by
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
ON TV
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Science & Space

'Agroterror' a new threat to the economy

Veterinarians play key role in case of disease outbreak

By Marsha Walton
CNN


story.martabano.jpg
Dr. Amanda Martabano prepares Sky, a teaching horse, for an endoscopy.
YOUR E-MAIL ALERTS
Bioterrorism
Animal Science
Department of Agriculture
Livestock Farming

ATHENS, Georgia (CNN) -- A ranch or a family farm might not immediately come to mind when thinking of terrorist targets. But an attack on U.S. agriculture could cause enormous damage to the economy. And that is the aim of "agroterror."

"Agroterror is the intentional use of any chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear, or explosive device that would harm our resources in agriculture," said Dr. Corrie Brown, veterinary pathologist at the University of Georgia.

"From the birth of an animal through to slaughter, the animal can cross many state lines and can be in contact with many other animals, so the probability of a disease spreading far and wide in short order is very high," Brown said.

Because the damage from an accidental outbreak of diseases like mad cow or foot and mouth would be equally devastating, there is not much difference in getting prepared for either an accidental or a deliberate spread of a livestock disease.

"I actually think Mother Nature is the most serious terrorist out there," said Brown. "If you look at some of the diseases that have emerged, certainly the recent highly pathogenic avian influenza, which can now infect humans: what we're doing with globalization and with moving animals, people, products all over the world, we are creating a landscape that is just rife with possibilities for new disease emergence," she said.

The University of Georgia College of Veterinary Medicine is on the front lines of preparing for such an outbreak.

Two members of the "staff" at the college are Norman, a healthy young Jersey steer, and Sky, a teaching horse used for evaluations and as a blood donor. Professors at the veterinary college say it's important for students to know how a normal farm animal looks and acts so they can detect when something is not right.

"The image of a cow with mad cow disease is [an animal] staggering around. But to a person who knows how a cow normally acts, they may appear to be looking off into space or may just be having behavior signs that just are not quite right for a cow. Sometimes they will vocalize repeatedly, or sometimes they do that when they're hungry. So it's important to understand and to know a little bit about what the 'normal' is to be able to pick up the 'abnormal' signs with a disease like mad cow disease," said Dr. Amelia Woolums, a veterinary microbiologist at the college's department of large animal medicine.

While the vast majority of veterinary students go into companion animal care, not large animal medicine, every student has some required classes in treating large animals at the University of Georgia. That knowledge could be critical in the event of an animal disease outbreak.

"The amount of economic damage that we'll suffer is directly proportional to the time it takes to make the first diagnosis," said Brown.

Veterinarians and the U.S. Department of Agriculture would be the first to confirm a disease diagnosis.

Foot and mouth disease is usually at the top of the list of harmful contagious diseases, because it affects cattle, swine, sheep, goats and wildlife. As was evidenced in Britain in 2001, an outbreak can be devastating: Trade is shut down immediately. In the case of the British outbreak, millions of sheep and cattle were killed to prevent spread of the disease; economic losses were in the billions of dollars.

Norman, the calf, somewhat grudgingly lets Dr. Woolums examine him.

"He's not too crazy about this; we have to look at his tongue and see if we see any blisters, or any ulcers. The other thing you will see you don't even have to open the mouth to notice this, would be long strings of saliva. You can imagine that if your mouth was full of blisters and sores you might not want to swallow, it's very irritating. One of the hallmarks of a foot and mouth disease outbreak would be a bunch of animals with long strings of saliva. It's important to note there are many other more benign things that can cause that too," said Woolums.

Norman is pronounced in excellent health.

Who might be behind an incident of agroterror?

"It's estimated that a third of the scientists working in the former Soviet program on biological weapons were focusing on agricultural issues. We don't know where a lot of those scientists are today," Brown said.

While Brown says the U.S. State Department and the Department of Agriculture have tried to find and recruit those scientists to help them work in peacetime programs, she says it would not take a formally trained scientist to trigger an animal disease outbreak.

story.brain.box.jpg
Eight labs across the United States test cattle brains for mad cow disease. The lab at the University of Georgia examines about 150 specimens a day.

"It could be anyone, it could be the nut next door," Brown said.

She has traveled the globe working with other experts to prepare for any form of a disease outbreak. And she believes knowledge is among the most important tools in that preparation.

"I don't think there is any point in being hushed about it because the people who might want to perpetrate this have all the information already," she said.

In another part of the university, scientists work six days a week to detect evidence of mad cow disease. Since June 2004, eight facilities across the United States have been conducting hundreds of tests a day on cow brains from slaughterhouses.

"If we do find a positive, we have to send the tissues off to the National Veterinary Services Lab in Ames, Iowa, for confirmation," said virologist Wayne Roberts.

"All the labs do the same thing, we are under the same protocol," he said.

So far, none of the thousands of tissues tested at this facility has turned up positive.

While less than one percent of all cows are tested for mad cow disease, Brown said more than 50 percent of animals considered "high risk" because of age or signs of nervous disorder are tested.

Agroterror is not a new weapon. It was used at least four times in the 20th century during wars.

"The Germans used anthrax and glanders [a bacterial disease ] against Allied livestock including horses, cattle and reindeer," said Brown.

She says there were also two incidents in Africa. In Kenya, the native Kenyan people used a plant toxin to poison British cattle. In the former Rhodesia, anthrax was used to kill some of the native cattle. And as late as the 1980s, the Soviets used glanders against horses during the war with Afghanistan.

Brown says protecting the food supply is not a mission that can begin or end at any country's borders.

"I believe that because of globalization we are now reaching out to many other countries in the world and we are developing a much stronger network of veterinarians," said Brown.

"The career opportunities in the future will be in biological security, herd health, population medicine, public health, food safety, the whole global food supply. All of these issues are global and will require the profession to work together in a concerted manner," she said.


Story Tools
Click Here to try 4 Free Trial Issues of Time! cover
Top Stories
Quake jitters hit California
Top Stories
EU 'crisis' after summit failure

CNN US
On CNN TV E-mail Services CNN Mobile CNN AvantGo CNNtext Ad info Preferences
SEARCH
   The Web    CNN.com     
Powered by
© 2005 Cable News Network LP, LLLP.
A Time Warner Company. All Rights Reserved.
Terms under which this service is provided to you.
Read our privacy guidelines. Contact us.
external link
All external sites will open in a new browser.
CNN.com does not endorse external sites.
 Premium content icon Denotes premium content.