Governor wants tighter restrictions to prevent hoof-and-mouth from getting into U-S

Iowa’s Governor is urging federal officials to impose stricter rules for European travelers to keep “Hoof and Mouth” disease off our continent.Governor Tom Vilsack has heard from Iowans who’ve come back from Europe and were troubled by the lack of adequate safeguards at airports in New York and D-C.Vilsack has sent President Bush and the U-S Ag Secretary a letter, urging action.”Hoof and Mouth” disease only affects cloven animals — that means animals like cows, sheep and goats that have a hoof for a foot. Cloven animals from Europe have been kept out of the U-S for a few years. Vilsack says it’s time to prevent the import of other European animals, just to be safe. He says collie dogs trained to deal with livestock have been imported. Vilsack says these dogs need to be check for the disease.Vilsack met last week with Iowa’s Ag Secretary and the head of the Emergency Management division, but the Governor refuses to discuss the details of any emergency response plan. Fears over foot-and-mouth entering the U-S subsided a little with news out of North Carolina. Agricultural officials there say all of the hogs that were suspected of having foot-and-mouth disease have tested negative. Dr. Steve Wells, the Tar Heel State’s chief meat and poultry inspector, says 28 hogs have been tested in the past few days at two North Carolina sites.Wells says the disease looked like foot-and-mouth disease but was actually some sort of systemic bacterial infection, not the disease that’s led to the slaughter of huge numbers of livestock overseas. Wells says they’re trying to become ever more vigilant for foot-and-mouth disease.North Carolina is the nation’s number-two hog-producing state, behind Iowa. Wells says he’s very happy the results turned out the way they did.He says this bacterial infection is “part of the cost of doing business” as it’s normal for hogs to periodically come down with a problem caused by stress during transport from the farm to the slaughterhouse.Ellen Reinhardt, North Carolina News Network