Expert: More Needed for Animal Diseases

DES MOINES, Iowa – The federal government needs to do more to protect Americans from dangerous animal diseases, an Iowa State University expert told a Senate subcommittee.

James Roth, director of Iowa State’s Center for Food Security and Public Health told Congress on Wednesday that vaccines should be stockpiled and high-security labs should be built to give scientists a place to work, The Des Moines Register reported from its Washington bureau.

“U.S. agriculture is highly vulnerable to the accidental or intentional introduction of foreign and emerging animal diseases,” Roth said.

But diseases such as avian influenza, a poultry disease, and Nipah virus, a disease carried by pigs, are spread more easily and pose a greater risk to humans, experts say.

That risk is heightened because of increased international travel and trade.

The government should develop animal vaccines that could be deployed within 24 hours of an animal disease, Roth told the Senate Agriculture Committee.

“Animal vaccines can be developed for a small fraction of the cost of developing human vaccines, and can be approved for use much quicker and with less risk than human vaccines,” Roth said.

The USDA is preparing vaccines to fight avian influenza. The department awarded a five-year contract to Fort Dodge Animal Health to produce up to 10 million doses.

Roth is coordinating the development of a vaccine for Nipah virus, which is found in Malaysia. The virus, usually limited to bats, spread to pigs and humans in 1998 and 1999. Forty percent of the people who were hospitalized with symptoms of the disease died.

Roth said the U.S. needs a high-security lab that is rated Biosafety Level 4, where scientists can work with animal disease that can be contagious to humans. Several such labs for human diseases exist, but the only one for animal diseases in North America is in Manitoba, Canada.

Labs at the National Animal Disease Center in Ames are rated Biosafety Level 3 with no plans to build a Level 4 lab in Ames, Roth said.

Administration officials told the Senate committee the country is better prepared to prevent or respond to a bioterrorism attack.

The FBI is developing a national network that would allow people in agriculture to share information with each other and law enforcement through a secure Internet site.

John Lewis, the FBI’s deputy assistant director, said an attack on the food supply “could be devastating.”

But he said the threat on agriculture appears “minimal, based on what we know today.”

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Information from: The Des Moines Register, http://www.desmoinesregister.com