Safe Food_ Bacteria, Biotechnology, and Bioterrorism - Marion Nestle [153]
The cause of foot-and-mouth disease is a virus with several particularly dread-inspiring attributes. It spreads rapidly in air and water and over long distances, is highly contagious by inhalation or contact, and can be transmitted through shoes, clothing, automobile tires, pets, and wild animals. It affects cattle, sheep, goats, pigs, and deer, but people only rarely. It makes animals very sick; they eventually recover from the symptoms—fever and blistered mouths and hooves—but never catch up in growth, weight, or vitality. Animals infected with this disease become useless as meat. The United States takes precautions against foot-and-mouth disease and has not experienced an outbreak since 1929. The last previous British epidemic occurred in the late 1960s. Since early 2000, however, the disease has been reported in Russia, five countries in Asia, seven in Africa, and five in South America. Once started, it is not easy to contain.19 Thus, countries go to a great deal of trouble to eradicate foot-and-mouth disease and prevent its entry, and this disease is one of the main reasons why U.S. customs officials ask travelers whether they have recently visited farms.
A vaccine exists but poses its own international problems of trade and politics. Vaccinated animals could be carrying the virus but display no symptoms, and no country wants to import an infected animal or its products. Most countries refuse entry to meat or milk from vaccinated animals, and the rules of the European Union (EU) do not allow vaccination. Six weeks into the outbreak, however, the EU granted a waiver and allowed Britain to vaccinate animals against the disease. The British government chose not to do so, however. The Nestlé corporation, which controls much of the milk processing in the affected region, strongly opposed vaccination because it might have “potential massive negative impact on export of products to other countries.”20 Under pressure from this company and a food trade association, the government instead decided to follow standard procedures for dealing with foot-and-mouth disease outbreaks.
These procedures require officials to take three prompt actions: (1) destroy sick animals, (2) destroy healthy animals that might have come in contact with sick animals, and (3) quarantine people living in the vicinity of affected animals. Some countries confine farm families with animals that have the disease—or might have it—to what is effectively a war zone. In Holland, for example, officials did not permit members of such families to leave their property even to go to school, church, or the doctor. They permitted the besieged families to pick up supplies only at checkpoint barriers.21
Given the extent of this virus’s contagion and its ability to disrupt the food supply and the lives of citizens, it is not difficult to imagine foot-and-mouth disease as an instrument of terror. Scientists may argue about whether it is better to vaccinate animals or destroy them promptly, but this disease can destroy food supplies, communities, and international trade as well as the confidence of a population in its government. The foot-and-mouth epidemic also pointed out gaps in food safety oversight. While it was in progress, the United States banned import of meat from the European Union. Nevertheless, at least 750,000 pounds of prohibited meat entered U.S. warehouses after the ban, in part because of the inadequate inspection capability of federal agencies.22
Anthrax: A Bacterial Instrument of Terror?
Before a possible bioterrorist mailed letters laced with anthrax spores, biologists knew this microbe best as a prototype for Koch’s Postulates, the rules developed in 1884 by Robert Koch, a German scientist, to prove that