LJWorld.com / Biodefense lab draws high level of support

Archive for Wednesday, August 29, 2007

Many at meeting say K-State perfect fit for federal facility

August 29, 2007

Audio Clips

James Johnson talks about the process of selecting Bio- and Agro-Defense facility site
Jerry Jaax, Associate VP for research compliance at KSU, talks about the proposed Bio- and Agro-Defense facility

Manhattan — More than 250 people gathered Tuesday at a public hearing on a proposed $450 million Homeland Security biodefense laboratory that could be built in Kansas.

Most expressed support for the project, while some opposed it and others sought more information.

"No matter where it is built, it will be safe and secure," said James Johnson, Homeland Security's program manager of the proposed National Bio- and Agro-Defense Laboratory, or NBAF.

But Sylvia Beeman, a resident of Manhattan for 30 years, raised questions about the safety of transporting viruses to the lab, while others wondered whether the lab would make Manhattan a target for terrorists. Johnson said the lab would not raise the threat of terrorism in the area.

"You're asking us to take everything on faith," Beeman said. She noted that the federal government told the residents of New Orleans that their levees were safe prior to the devastation from Hurricane Katrina.

But many spoke in support of the lab as necessary for national defense, and that Kansas State University would be a perfect spot for it.

"There really is broad support for your proposal," said Lt. Gov. Mark Parkinson, who led a procession of Democratic and Republican officials speaking in favor of the proposal.

The public hearing was conducted by Homeland Security as part of that agency's assessment of the K-State location, which is one of six proposed sites across the nation.

The other sites still in the running are San Antonio; Madison County, Miss.; Athens, Ga.; and Granville County, N.C. Plum Island, N.Y., which is home to the current Homeland Security lab, is also considered an alternative, officials said, although it would have to be upgraded.

For an hour before the hearing, Homeland Security officials, scientists and consultants met one-on-one with those attending the hearing to answer questions and provide information.

The lab will be a top-security facility where scientists will conduct research on plant and animal diseases, including those that could affect humans.

K-State has offered Homeland Security the use of its new bioresearch lab while the federal government build the 500,000-square-foot NBAF.

Jerry Stack, director of the new bio lab at K-State, said NBAF was needed to help combat potential biological threats.

In today's global society, "The opportunity for new pathogens is great and the rate at which they can travel is frightening," Stack said.

Discussion

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29 August 2007
at 6:49 a.m.

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logrithmic (Anonymous) says…

This is such military BS. This lab, nicknamed the “Alcatraz for animal disease,” will house diseases that could ravage Kansas if they ever escaped the confines of the lab.

Remember, this is the same Homeland Security department that brought you the response to Katrina, collapsed bridges and levees, and no response to flooding in Kansas and throughout the heartland of America. It is this Homeland Security department that is run by Michael Chertoff, a lawyer who represented Saudi Arabia against the families of the victims of 9-11. While Bush considers this Chertoff a potential candidate to run the Department of Justice, he has a checkered past detailed here:

http://www.democracynow.org/article.p…

You should also recall that this is the same federal government that stood down on 9-11 and claimed it had never considered the idea that planes commandered by terrorists might fly into the World Trade Center, this despite conducting exercises for at least 10 years or more prior to 9-11 planning for just that contingency had . Can you imagine this government in charge of this lab in the center of Kansas?

Yet they want to bring these diseases to the heart of the Midwest, the center for agriculture in this country. There will be no room for error. And quite frankly, it will make us more likely for a terrorist “attack,” resulting probably from a breach of security that would allow some of these pathogens to escape. Wake up people!

MSNBC had an article about this facility:

“A federal laboratory off Long Island, known as the “Alcatraz for animal disease,” may move to the U.S. mainland as part of a new $450 million research center.

Plans for the next-generation National Bio and Agro-Defense Facility, slated to go online by 2013, include biosafety labs where scientists, clad in outfits resembling spacesuits and tethered to air supplies, would research diseases that can spread to people from

Woody, 840-acre (340-hectare) Plum Island, two miles off the eastern tip of Long Island, is sometimes called the Alcatraz for animal disease because research on foot and mouth disease, one of the most feared livestock diseases in the world, is exiled on the island, similar to the way criminals were sent to the now-closed Alcatraz island penitentiary in San Francisco Bay.

Plum Island houses a vaccine bank for foot and mouth disease, too, and its scientists play a role in diagnosis of other foreign animal diseases, such as hog cholera. They also work on rinderpest and vesticular stomatitus.”

The complete article can be found here: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20476859/

Enjoy the fruits of your labor….
29 August 2007
at 7:59 a.m.

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logrithmic (Anonymous) says…

One motive for the move…. labor unrest:

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/27/nyr…
29 August 2007
at 8:02 a.m.

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logrithmic (Anonymous) says…

More interesting news about this facility: According to the Suffolk Times: “The BSL-4 rating means the new facility, which carries a price tag of $451 million, would be equipped to handle toxins fatal to humans, like Ebola virus and anthrax.” These are incredibly dangerous to human life. Please write your officials and say no!

http://www2.timesreview.com/ST/index/…
29 August 2007
at 8:12 a.m.

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logrithmic (Anonymous) says…

The New York Times had a recent article on this National Bio- and Agro-Defense Laboratory on Plum Island, and it admits that accidents do happen even in the most careful of environments:

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage…

Highlights from the article:

“In anticipation of such criticism, the seldom-visited laboratory invited local officials and members of the news media for a tour earlier this month to learn more about the 840-acre island fortress, which is ringed with signs warning away intruders. Even before arriving on one of the laboratory's boats, from Orient Point or Old Saybrook, Conn., the visitors had been told they had to be prepared to strip naked before entering a realm of inner-sanctum labs and animal pens, to shower thoroughly upon exiting and to sign an oath promising to avoid all animals except domestic dogs and cats for five days.”

And:

“Group by group, the press contingent made the rounds through rooms and corridors that few outsiders ever see.

Among the most jarring were the pens where horses, hogs and sheep that arrived disease-free on the island are infected with viruses to study the result. A forlorn pig foraged behind a thick glass window in one of the sealed pens.

The animal supervisor, Jeff Babcock, ushered visitors into an empty pen with a floor drain. The metal door opened with a hiss as an air gasket sealing it deflated, revealing a barren, perfectly spotless cement room. A pair of ear plugs on a table told of conditions when the pen was occupied. About 250 large animals are brought to the lab each year. None leave.

Mr. Babcock said the animals met a common end: Death by a pistol bullet or drug overdose. Carcasses, dung and bedding are burned, and the ashes burned again, in specially designed double-chamber incinerators that vent, ultimately, to the atmosphere after extensive filtering.”

And:

“The lab has its own drinking wells, oil storage tanks and sewer treatment plant. Under a state permit, it can dump 60,000 gallons of effluent into Long Island Sound each day. Now the lab is planning to build a five-megawatt power plant to rid itself of dependence on mainland power and its backup generators.”
29 August 2007
at 8:16 a.m.

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logrithmic (Anonymous) says…

The New York Times article above also details how the pathogens would be transported to the facility. As can be inferred from the quotes below, the pathogens will most likely fly into KCI and probably be flown by private plane to Manhattan where they will be transported by vehicle to the facility:

“On the tour Carmen Farrugia, a lab employee involved with shipping and receiving, demonstrated how viruses are shipped. First, a small amount of virus contained in a small vial was placed in a slightly larger vial with absorbent material, which in turn was placed in another container with more absorbent material.

The container was then packed in a box with a hard plastic liner, and capped with a spongelike material and often with dry ice. The box, she said, was designed to withstand a fall of 27 feet. The boxes, which bear labels warning of an infectious substance inside, are shipped by air.

''This gets shipped like cargo, like you were sending a package to grandma or something,'' Ms. Farrugia said.

In this way, viruses collected from other parts of the world were transported to Kennedy International Airport, where they are met by couriers with cell phones, decontamination kits and training in cleanup. The couriers then drove east on the Long Island Expressway ''except when there are traffic jams,'' Ms. Farrugia said, eventually taking Route 25 down the North Fork to Orient Point; the packages then traveled by boat to Plum Island.

Dr. Michael Kiley, the Animal Research Service safety officer at the lab, said the packages were designed to withstand a plane crash. Dr. Kiley also said that other government agencies, including the Federal Bureau of Investigation, would be involved in assuring shipment and lab security if Plum Island was upgraded to a level four center. ”
29 August 2007
at 8:33 a.m.

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logrithmic (Anonymous) says…

Another article from the Fort Worth Star Telegram on the emerging “bio-defense industry” that is exploring these pathogens, either to defend the U.S. or to make biological weapons (it's all blurred together anymore):

http://www.star-telegram.com/news/sto…

The Fort Worth, TX newspaper states that there have been accidents at Texas A&M, but don't let that deter you from having a facility like this come to good old Kansas!

From the article:

“In July, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention temporarily suspended work at Texas A&M's Level 3 biosafety lab for failing to report two separate incidents in which workers became ill working with infectious agents. Probing by the Sunshine Project brought the violations to light.

Three lab workers were infected with Q fever and one other with the agent Brucella. None of the cases was fatal, and none of those infected spread the diseases.

The CDC investigation has since found other violations of federal regulations at the College Station lab, and, early this month, the vice president who oversees biodefense research at A&M stepped down. The university chancellor has repudiated the lab's actions.

The revelations created a public relations nightmare for biodefense advocates.

'We're not at all pleased to learn that this happened,' said Stanley Lemon, principal investigator for the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston, which has a BSL-4 lab, dealing with the highest-risk agents such as Ebola, for which there are no treatments or preventives.

'We try to be as faithful as possible to the laws. It is complicated because different agencies are involved, but I'm very comfortable with the level of security here.'”

We TRY to be as faithful as possible to the laws? What about being absolutely faithful to public safety?????
29 August 2007
at 8:52 a.m.

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logrithmic (Anonymous) says…

Security flaws at Plum Island: According to the New York Times:

“Officials at the Plum Island Animal Disease Center have failed to safeguard pathogens that could be adapted to become weapons of germ warfare, including an agent potentially ''as threatening as smallpox,'' a federal report says.

Safety concerns at the island, off the North Fork of eastern Long Island, have long focused on the pathogens of diseases generally confined to animals, like foot-and-mouth disease and swine fever. But the report, excerpts of which were provided by a government official concerned about safety at the island, sounded a rare alarm about the potential of hazards to people.

The General Accounting Office, which issued the report, cited a host of failings: door sensors and alarms that did not work, weak outside lighting, the presence of armed guards but no permission for them to use their weapons. Some of the report's conclusions were first reported in Newsday yesterday.

More worrisome, the report said, was the way in which dangerous pathogens in a biocontainment center were protected. Foreign students who take courses at the center do not undergo background checks, some government scientists employed there had not had background checks updated in more than a decade, and recently, eight foreign scientists were given free rein in the biocontainment area without adequate checks, the report said.”

Complete article here: http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage…
29 August 2007
at 9:02 a.m.

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logrithmic (Anonymous) says…

Here's the actual government report on the security flaws at Plum Island, the same facility that Kansas legislators want to welcome onto Kansas soil with open arms:

http://govtsecurity.securitysolutions…
29 August 2007
at 9:11 a.m.

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dirkleisure (Anonymous) says…

I am all for it, mainly just to get under logrithmic's skin.

Maybe logrithmic can post some more and try to convince me?
29 August 2007
at 9:13 a.m.

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logrithmic (Anonymous) says…

Hey, I'll bet it gets under your skin too… literally.
29 August 2007
at 9:27 a.m.

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madmike (Anonymous) says…

Ah, the good ol' days, when we used to post out military siruation maps with the title of utabag, (Up Their Ass, with Bugs and Gas).

I'm sure that it is really, a cancer research facility, three stories up, and thirty stories down!
29 August 2007
at 9:33 a.m.

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logrithmic (Anonymous) says…

I really like the idea of them flushing their waste in the ocean.

If it moves to Kansas, will the Kaw be the dumping ground?
29 August 2007
at 10:34 a.m.

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mick (Anonymous) says…

“It will be safe and secure.” Like the lab in England that let hoof and mouth disease out earlier this month?
29 August 2007
at 11:56 a.m.

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logrithmic (Anonymous) says…

Exactly my point. There has yet to be a “safe and secure” nuclear waste facility or bio-hazard facility. All of these are subject to human failings or breeches of security. Kansas agriculture and its population could be at severe risk if this facility relocates to Manhattan.
29 August 2007
at 12:14 p.m.

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Confrontation (Anonymous) says…

Doesn't ManCrappin have more important things to worry about? Such as: cowboys wearing jeans that are too tight and football fans who lack basic knowledge of physics
29 August 2007
at 12:24 p.m.

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not_dolph (Anonymous) says…

So you are in favor of the Manhattan location, logrithmic?
29 August 2007
at 12:24 p.m.

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oldgoof (Anonymous) says…

Eight consecutive posts from a single user, like Logarithmics here, should be prohibited. Give him and others (you know who you are) space on a server and let him publish their lengthy papers and link them here. And it would make the forum much more readable.
29 August 2007
at 12:31 p.m.

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logrithmic (Anonymous) says…

I agree old goof. But no one was posting about this serious development. I was hoping some farmers might enter the fray. None so far.
29 August 2007
at 12:34 p.m.

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logrithmic (Anonymous) says…

BTW, this is the first time I've used this method to gain more exposure for the story, but I felt the story warranted notice.
29 August 2007
at 1:35 p.m.

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not_dolph (Anonymous) says…

log said - “But no one was posting about this serious development.”

You are correct, this is a serious development and I thought Rothschild did a pretty good job on this. This “serious development” means more jobs (think construction, technical support, high-end researchers), major investment in Kansas infrastructure, benefits to KU, KU Med, Hutch CC, Colby CC, just to name a few.

log further stated - “I was hoping some farmers might enter the fray.”

Considering the Kansas Livestock Association and the Kansas Farm Bureau - two major groups who speak for most of the ag community in Kansas are huge supporters of this initative, I don't think you will see them opposing. Farmers know that this is a good thing for them as well…unless you mean the “Douglas County Type” of farmer…then we may be talking about a whole different pot - so to speak.
29 August 2007
at 1:54 p.m.

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clyde_never_barks (Anonymous) says…

I might suggest that you really can't compare a 50 year old facility (Plum Island) to a new state of the art facility (wherever it will be) with respect to containment, safety, disposal, etc. No one was thinking about those things, nor did they have a reason to half-a-century ago.

I am not afraid. Besides, we have a good example just to south of us anyhow with Wolf Creek. Similar discussion, different poison.
29 August 2007
at 2:39 p.m.

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logrithmic (Anonymous) says…

Not Dolph:

Just because a couple of trade associations voice support doesn't mean the membership does. Farmers have everything to loose if some of these diseases get out of the box. Their livestock would be decimated and their crops destroyed.

And every Kansan life would be in jeapordy. That to me means a bit more than stupid money. But like Al Gore said in “An Inconvenient Truth,” money or the earth. That's the choice. Seems you've chosen money.
29 August 2007
at 3:37 p.m.

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madmike (Anonymous) says…

If Al gore told me it was going to be daylight at dawn, I would still call the weather bureau rather than believe him!
29 August 2007
at 4:07 p.m.

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logrithmic (Anonymous) says…

Well that may be true, but money or profit is no excuse for bringing this bio-hazard into our good state.
29 August 2007
at 9:13 p.m.

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riverdrifter (Anonymous) says…

Dime to a dog turd sez it goes to Texas.

See.
29 August 2007
at 9:38 p.m.

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not_dolph (Anonymous) says…

Drifter - I think you may be correct.

Log - clearly you have never worked with those two groups.
30 August 2007
at 3:06 a.m.

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oldgoof (Anonymous) says…

Log says he was “hoping for some farmers to enter the fray.” He then quickly dismisses the positions of the Kansas Farm Bureau, and the Kansas Livestock Association, both organizations notorious for highly member-driven agendas as “a couple of trade associations.”
…
I am laughing so hard I might have to call the ambulance.

I stand by my earlier statement that Log and posters like him clutter up these forums so much and they should have a throttle applied to them by some LJW forum rules. Give them some internet etch-a-sketch space on the internet, or a box to stand on at 8th and Massachusetts to propound from.