Where will the new lab go...why not build a new lab on the island...why move such a lab to the mainland? BD
Plum Island Animal Disease Center Building 257, closed in 1995, sits fenced and boarded up on Plum Island off of the east coast of New York's Long Island, in this Feb. 16, 2004 file photo. The Bush administration plans to move its research on one of the most feared animal diseases from an isolated island laboratory to a new facility on the U.S. mainland near herds of livestock, raising concerns about the possibility of an economically catastrophic outbreak.
The White House says modern safety rules at labs are sufficient to avoid any outbreak. But incidents in Britain have demonstrated that the foot-and-mouth virus can cause remarkable economic havoc - and that the virus can escape from a facility.
An epidemic in 2001 devastated Britain's livestock industry, as the government slaughtered 6 million sheep, cows and pigs. Last year, in a less serious outbreak, Britain's health and safety agency concluded the virus probably escaped from a site shared by a government research center and a vaccine maker. Other outbreaks have occurred in Taiwan in 1997 and China last year and in 2006.
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