Still a Good Place to Study Horrors
 United States Department of Homeland Security Maps
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(6/26/2008) A Department of Homeland Security report examining Plum Island’s suitability for advanced study of diseases potentially harmful to humans has concluded that if an accidental release of pathogens occurred there it would cause the least harm, as compared to five other sites being considered for a new facility.
Still, Representative Tim Bishop remains confident that Plum Island will not be chosen. “The findings of this draft environmental impact statement do not alter my position that Plum Island should remain as a Biosafety Level 3 facility and not be converted to a Biosafety Level 4 facility,” he said this week. “With Senator Clinton and other leaders, I have repeatedly advocated this position to the Department of Homeland Security and I will continue to hold the officials at D.H.S. to their assurances that Plum Island will not become a Level 4 facility.”
The Plum Island Animal Disease Center is being examined along with proposed sites in Georgia, Kansas, Mississippi, North Carolina, and Texas for a facility that would not study notorious Level 4 diseases such as anthrax and Ebola, but rather would examine those already at Plum Island, including foot-and-mouth disease and swine fever. It would add other Biosafety Level 3 diseases to the list of those studied, such as African swine fever, Rift Valley fever, contagious bovine pleuropneumonia, and Japanese encephalitis. Of those, Rift Valley fever and Japanese encephalitis could affect humans.
Although the labs that would study the most harmful and contagious diseases would be fully contained structures within other buildings, the report noted that even under the best of circumstances, systems fail.
It cited three recent failures, including the infection of workers with brucella bacteria at one of Texas A&M University’s Biosafety Level 3 laboratories in 2006. Last year, a one-hour power outage at the new Biosafety Level 4 facility of the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta, which occurred before it began working with pathogens, caused both the main and backup power systems to fail and the negative air-pressure system, a major component of pathogen biocontainment, to shut down. In 2007 there was also a release of foot-and-mouth disease in England as the result of a damaged and leaking drainage system.
The federal government’s report is an environmental assessment of all the locations. The island setting of the existing site is a key factor in its favor. Initially, Plum Island was dismissed because the cost of adapting its facilities was considered much higher than building a completely new facility at another site. And Plum Island’s operations could be disrupted by the construction.
But the Department of Homeland Security continued to consider it. The idea was to have an entirely new building put there near the existing facility. That is the option that the department is now evaluating. Plum Island is classified as a “reasonable alternative” to the five other sites.
For the past year, however, federal officials have visited Southold and New London, Conn., to discuss the possibility of using Plum Island as an alternative location should the five other sites prove infeasible.
Plum Island, which is 1.5 miles off Orient Point, has studied foot-and-mouth disease, the most contagious animal disease known, for 50 years. With 7 types and 80 subtypes, it affects cloven-hoofed animals such as cattle, deer, pigs, and sheep. Not only is the research conducted off the mainland, it is also in an area with very small populations of livestock.
According to the report, foot-and-mouth disease “is not a threat to human populations except as a laboratory-acquired infection. There have been 40 human cases noted since 1921.” The disease, which can be carried by humans in their lungs, does not transmit from human to human. In contrast, millions of animals have contracted the disease internationally in various outbreaks and have had to be destroyed. If an outbreak occurred in the United States, the losses could be in the billions of dollars.
The new facility would conduct further research in Biosafety Level 3-rated diseases as well as life-threatening diseases that can be transferred to humans and for which no cure is known. These have a Biosafety Level 4 rating and include the Nipah and Hendra viruses, which require more precautions, such as restricting access and placing labs in a strictly controlled area within an isolated building.
In its analysis, the Department of Homeland Security looked at the consequences of a release of three diseases: foot-and-mouth disease, Rift Valley fever, and the Nipah virus. According to the report, “The diseases caused by these three pathogens sufficiently cover the spectrum of outcomes likely to occur if any of the pathogens to be studied at the proposed [National Bio and Agro Defense Facility] were to release to the surrounding areas and infect animal and human populations.”
For the same reasons that Plum Island is a favored location to study foot-and-mouth disease, it is also considered a good location to prevent the spread of the other viruses should they escape the facility. “With all of the sites except Plum Island, New York, there is a potential for viral pathogens to be transported significant distances by the wind,” the report said. “The results of the modeling indicate that this pathway is not limited, as was the case for Plum Island. It is considered likely that deer could act to spread disease over long distances. In addition, common vectors such as mosquitoes can be transported long distances.”
In fact, while each of the other sites was given an overall risk assessment classified as “moderate,” Plum Island’s was considered “low to none.” In previous meetings, Plum Island and Homeland Security officials have noted that the prevailing winds around the island are directed away from the mainland.