Iowa’s state veterinarian is aware that while future attacks on America may be biological, they’re as likely to be aimed at animals as people, if terrorists target the nation’s food supply. Dr. Russ Currier says the weapon
might be as simple as the British epidemic of foot-and-mouth infection we worried about earlier this year. Dr. Currier says the new term being used is “agri-terrorism,” which could include plant as well as animal diseases like
foot-and-mouth which could “cripple the livestock industry.” Currier says not just any disease germ will do for a bio-attack. He says we’re immunized against measles, T-B takes long exposure, but you could send out mosquito-borne virus, hemmorhagic fever (that’s ebola) or bubonic plague. Iowa livestock producers are warned to be on-guard for strangers and sick animals. Currier says in the case of sickness that’s been reported among Afghan refugees, it’s less likely to be germ warfare than the typical problems of
such troubled groups. With lots of people there’s more likelihood of typhoid, plague, hantaviruses. Dr Currier says it wouldn’t even take a fatal germ to put an enemy out of commission. He points out a flu epidemic fills every hospital bed in town, so you can’t get a routine gall-bladder operation. And the state’s top veterinarian says while there are plenty of ways to stage a bio-attack, it’s less likely. To “weaponize” biological weapons is hard, and terrorists don’t like hard things, explosives work fine. Dr Currier confirms some precautions put in place during last spring’s foot-and-mouth disease scare in Great Britain could actually protect livestock producers against “agri-terrorism.”
