Bush wants to bring deadly livestock virus to heart of livestock country

[PeaceNikki]

:o

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080411/ap_on_go_ot/animal_disease;

WASHINGTON - The Bush administration is likely to move its research on one of the most contagious animal diseases from an isolated island laboratory to the U.S. mainland near herds of livestock, raising concerns about a catastrophic outbreak.

Skeptical Democrats in Congress are demanding to see internal documents they believe highlight the risks and consequences of the decision. An epidemic of the disease, foot and mouth, which only affects animals, could devastate the livestock industry.

One such government report, produced last year and already turned over to lawmakers by the Homeland Security Department, combined commercial satellite images and federal farm data to show the proximity to livestock herds of locations that have been considered for the new lab. "Would an accidental laboratory release at these locations have the potential to affect nearby livestock?" asked the nine-page document. It did not directly answer the question.

A simulated outbreak of the disease — part of an earlier U.S. government exercise called "Crimson Sky" — ended with fictional riots in the streets after the simulation's National Guardsmen were ordered to kill tens of millions of farm animals, so many that troops ran out of bullets. In the exercise, the government said it would have been forced to dig a ditch in Kansas 25 miles long to bury carcasses. In the simulation, protests broke out in some cities amid food shortages.

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More at link

[PeaceNikki]

1. AND... Homeland Security is withholding records from Congress

Leaders of the House Energy and Commerce Committee also are worried about the lab's likely move to the mainland. The chairman, Rep. John Dingell, D-Mich., and the head of the investigations subcommittee, Rep. Bart Stupak, D-Mich., are threatening to subpoena records they say Homeland Security is withholding from Congress. Those records include reports about "Crimson Sky," an internal review about a publicized 1978 accidental release of foot-and-mouth disease on Plum Island and reports about any previously undisclosed virus releases on the island during the past half century.

[MiniMe]

2. And what else will they be growing there that they will release and call

"bird flu" or a pandemic?

[QueenOfCalifornia]

3. He's just trying to keep it real

SCARY!!!!!!

He is such a total idiot....

But then,
You knew that.

[PeaceNikki]

4. I'd be interested in following the money trail on this.

WTF could they be thinking?

[QueenOfCalifornia]

5. I know

he had a huge bunch of money given to him by the Texas Beef Association - It has to be a lobbying kind of move.

He is so Chimptastic.