- Plum Island's future is "up in the air" and
it is looking as though its days are numbered. Feds realize the facility
is outdated.
-
- I can thank each and every person who publicized the
Plum's lack of safety, poor management and safety violations as well as
the news of the two year strike and numerous "incidents" and
accidents.
-
- Let us pray that a new facility will come with new management
and a dedication to safety. There is a need to research animal and zoonotic
illnesses but a need to do so as safely as possible with respect for the
workers. The current Plum Island is not that facility.
-
- Patricia Doyle
-
-
- Plum Island's Future Up In The Air
By Bill Bleyer
Newsday Staff Writer
8-28-5
-
- Feds set 2011 date to replace Plum Island facility or
relocate to a higher-level research facility elsewhere
-
- Saying the 50-year-old Plum Island Animal Disease Center
is becoming obsolete, the federal government is beginning to look at whether
the lab should be rebuilt on the island or replaced by new facilities elsewhere.
-
- The U.S. Department of Homeland Security announced this
week that it plans to replace the existing laboratory off the end of the
North Fork with one or more new facilities by the end of 2011. The lab
is the only place in the country that studies foreign animal diseases such
as foot-and-mouth disease and African swine fever and develops vaccines
for them.
-
- "The Plum Island facility was built in the 1950s
and is nearing the end of its life cycle," the statement said.
-
- The proposed 2006 federal budget contains $23 million
to develop plans for a new National Bio and Agro-defense Facility and to
decide where it should be constructed. Department officials have told Congress
the facility could cost more than $450 million.
-
- One of the most crucial questions the study will look
at is whether the new lab should study more dangerous diseases than Plum
Island does now. The new lab might do Bio-safety Level 4 research on the
most dangerous pathogens for which there are no antidotes or vaccines,
something not done now on the island.
-
- Politicians and community groups reacted with alarm yesterday
to the possibility of the lab closing. They said they hoped the government
would build a new Level 3 lab on the island, but most reiterated their
opposition to a Level 4 lab so close to a population center. Officials
and environmental groups have fought for years against any upgrade of the
lab to handle BSL-4 research, and Homeland Security has promised that it
would not be done on the island. Agency spokesman Donald Tighe said yesterday
that "this does nothing to change any prior commitments."
-
- Department officials privately concede this means that
if the agency decides it must have a BSL-4 lab, it is unlikely to be on
Plum Island. Local officials worry about the economic impact of losing
the 200 research and support jobs at the island.
-
- While federal officials have been upgrading the equipment
on the island and talked of the need to do something about a building opened
a half century ago, the announcement of the study -- made in an e-mail
-- caught public officials and community leaders off-guard.
-
- Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) and Rep. Tim Bishop
(D-Southampton), whose district includes Plum Island, wrote yesterday to
Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff to ask for a meeting, saying
the agency had promised to keep them apprised of any proposed changes to
the lab. They said they "agree wholeheartedly that either the promised
infrastructure improvements must be made or a new facility must be built."
But, they added, "we strongly question the idea of relocating this
facility from Plum Island."
-
- Suffolk County Executive Steve Levy called for a meeting
of federal and local officials.
-
- After Sept. 11, Plum Island was shifted from the Department
of Agriculture to Homeland Security to protect it from possible terrorist
attack and shift the emphasis to protecting against an attack on agricultural
industry.
-
- Despite ongoing upgrades of equipment, the lab "is
becoming increasingly more costly to maintain," the announcement said.
"The laboratory and test space in the current facility is insufficient
to support the increasing levels of research and development needed to
meet the growing concerns about accidental or intentional introduction
of foreign animal diseases into this country, and it is not appropriate
for zoonotic disease research."
-
- Zoonotic diseases can be transmitted from animals to
humans and include anthrax, West Nile virus and spongiform encephalopathy
or "mad cow disease." These are not studied on the island now.
-
- The announcement pointed out that a presidential directive
issued last year stipulates that "the secretaries of Agriculture and
Homeland Security will develop a plan to provide safe, secure and state-of-the-art
agriculture biocontainment laboratories that research and develop diagnostic
capabilities for foreign animal and zoonotic diseases."
-
- State Sen. Michael Balboni (R-East Williston), co-chair
of the National Conference of State Legislators Executive Task Force on
Homeland Security, said he toured Plum Island last year and was surprised
the facility was so outdated. Balboni said federal officials should put
a Level 4 facility upstate in Rome.
-
- Staff writer Deborah Barfield Berry contributed to this
story.
-
- http://www.newsday.com/news/
local/longisland/ny-liplum0825,0,
2037564.story?coll=ny-homepage-bigpix2005
-
-
- Patricia A. Doyle, PhD
- Please visit my "Emerging
Diseases" message board.
- Zhan le Devlesa tai sastimasa
- Go with God and in Good Health
|
