Experts: Food System Vulnerable to Attack

Nov. 19, 2003
By JESSE J. HOLLAND

WASHINGTON (AP) - A simple handkerchief wielded by a resourceful terrorist could cause billions of dollars of damage to America's food system and untold terror in the nation's kitchens, senators were told Wednesday.

Since the 2001 terrorist attacks, government officials have secured cities, airports, harbors, government buildings and tourist sites, but food experts say more attention should be focused on the country's food supply.

"We have become a nation concerned about receiving anthrax in our mailboxes," said Dr. Tom McGinn of North Carolina Department of Agriculture. "Imagine what it would be like to be a nation concerned about opening our refrigerators and anthrax being in our refrigerators as well."

A terrorist could put germs for foot and mouth disease - which affected 2,000 farms in Britain in 2001 - on a handkerchief, enter the country and visit any of the state fairs that show off prize livestock, officials said.

"If you exposed livestock before they were being shipped back to the farm from a state fair, you would have dispersed the disease across the state, frankly, in a saddeningly efficient way," said Sen. Richard Durbin, D-Ill.

Those and other nightmare scenarios show why government officials should pay more attention to the vulnerabilities of America's agriculture system, officials said. And using bioterrorism to attack the nation's food supply could be very attractive to terrorists, said Senate Government Affairs Chairwoman Susan Collins, R-Maine.

"For example, someone who is dealing with anthrax has to worry about contaminating himself," Collins said. "By contrast, someone who is seeking to create an outbreak of foot and mouth disease does not have to worry about 'catching' the disease."

Such an attack would have a devastating effect on the American economy, with food production accounting for about 10 percent of the U.S. gross domestic product and generating cash receipts in excess of $991 billion in 2001, said Peter Chalk, a Rand Corp. analyst.

In addition to financial stress, an agricultural attack with a disease that can jump from animals to people could cause panic.

"It could have severe repercussions in terms of galvanizing a mass public scare throughout the country, particularly if human deaths actually occurred," Chalk said. "Terrorists could use this to their advantage, allowing them to create a general atmosphere of fear and anxiety without actually having to carry out indiscriminate civilian-oriented attacks."

While the agricultural system is vulnerable and should be improved, America's "food supply is the safest, most abundant and affordable food supply in the world," said Sen. Jim Talent, R-Mo.

"That was true before Sept. 11 and that is true today," said Talent, chairman of the Senate Agriculture subcommittee for marketing, inspection and promotion. "I am confident in our government's ability to work with industry and our research institutions to protect the commodities that our farmers and ranchers produce."

Since 1912, only 12 documented cases exist of bioterrorism with livestock or contaminated related produce and only two can be considered terrorism: the 1984 Rajneeshee salmonella food poisoning in Oregon and the 1952 Mau Mau plant toxin incident in Kenya, Chalk said.

http://apnews.excite.com/article/20031119/D7UTUJV01.html