Addressing Foodborne Threats to Health Policies, Practices, and Global Coordination: Workshop Summary (2006) / Chapter Skim
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4 Bioterrorism and the Food Supply
4 Bioterrorism and the Food Supply
Pages 141-176
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From page 141... ...
"Disclosure of information that can be used to harm people needs to be limited except when necessary," he argues, extending the definition of "harm" to include the needless scaring of consumers who might stop buying milk. Indeed, Detlefsen asserts, the dairy industry has been aware for years of the threats described by Wein and has been working with the U.S.
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From page 142... ...
food supply from attack in this chapter's final paper. Acheson explains how the agency uses risk management and vulnerability assessment tools to determine which food/ agent combinations present the greatest threats to U.S.
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From page 143... ...
Being discrete about it is par for the course when dealing with a public safety or national security issue. Secrecy or discretion is called for in these matters for fundamental reasons.
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From page 144... ...
The attack on it began in February 1989 when 60 Minutes reporter Ed Bradley called it "the most potent cancer-causing agent in our food supply." Bradley's main source was the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) , which had decided to scapegoat a single substance to illustrate the horrors of all manmade chemicals.
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From page 145... ...
. Last summer, the dairy industry found itself in the middle of a media flurry over a paper that paints a terrorist scenario about botulinum toxin in milk.
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From page 146... ...
and others have been successful in delivering the facts to government officials -- many of whom we have built relationships with since the events of 9-11. To be clear, the dairy industry welcomes scientific research that is aimed at helping our nation secure its vital systems, including the food supply.
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From page 147... ...
A thorough government analysis of possible threats to the food and dairy supply was completed fairly soon after 9-11. Based on that analysis, the dairy industry has worked diligently, without fanfare, to implement a wide range of measures to secure facilities and the milk supply.
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From page 148... ...
Surprisingly, the most draconian and potentially deleterious remedies to the open science dilemma, to date, come from the scientific community. As of January 2003, over 20 scientific journals adopted a policy calling for the censorship of articles that present unjustifiable risks (Journal Editors and Authors Group, 2003)
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From page 149... ...
The DPVS also provides temporary safe harbor for sensitive research by consensus rather than unilateral classification imposed by the government. In the rare occasion when the government needs to classify a research article absent consensus, the government will have notice of the article before it reaches the presses and the scientific community will have ample opportunity to be heard through a fair hearing on the matter if desired.
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From page 150... ...
food supply. The more significant of these was the event in 1984 in The Dalles, Oregon, in which a prepared culture of Salmonella was placed on food in a salad bar, resulting in 751 recorded cases of illness (Carus, 2000)
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From page 151... ...
1999. Food Safety: Agencies Should Further Test Plans for Responding to Deliberate Contamination.
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From page 152... ...
The entries for 8 of them need corrections of varying degree: · Egypt: The claim that Egypt has a dedicated antianimal biological weapons (BW) program is based on a paper that is unreliable and unsubstantiated.
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From page 153... ...
A laboratory in a safe house of the Red Army Faction in Paris, France, was found to have made quantities of botulinum toxin; it is believed that none was used (Caudle, 1997) .8 Allegedly, an Erlenmeyer flask containing the substance had been found in an apartment bathtub.
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1999. Aum Shinrikyo's efforts to produce biological weapons: A case study in the serial propagation of misinformation.
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From page 155... ...
: · "Reports that national governments and terrorist groups have stockpiled botulism toxin." However, no "terrorist group" is known to have "stockpiled botulism toxin" to date. · "As many as 17 countries are suspected of either including or developing biological agents in their offensive weapons program; botulism toxin is frequently 10 The sources given in Arnon et al.
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From page 156... ...
, January 31, 1997, stated that "The Aum had failed to isolate Clostridium botulinum."11 In February 1998, the Chief Toxicologist of Chiba Prefecture, adjacent to Tokyo, told this author that "The group had not been sufficiently competent to succeed [in their effort] to produce biological agents," a statement that referred to their efforts regarding both botulinum toxin and anthrax (personal communication, Chiba Prefecture, February 1998)
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But Endo FAILED [in] isolating Clostridium botulinum.
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offensive biological weapons program stretching from 1943 to 1969, hundreds of isolates of C botulinum were tested for toxin production.
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Milk Supply On May 25, 2005, the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) announced that it would publish a paper that presented a mathematical model of the possible consequences of deliberate botulinum toxin contamination of the U.S.
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. His New York Times article postulated that a single "terrorist" could achieve such levels of toxin production.
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1965. Sporulation of Clostridium botulinum type E in different culture media.
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Even if accurate, the claim could not be expected to reflect an achievement level that a terrorist group might reach. The Iraqi biological weapons program was a national program with access to unlimited resources.
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Secretary of the Navy, which includes the single sentence saying that there are such advanced methods. Of course there are advanced methods for botulinum toxin production; the question is whether they are within the capabilities of terrorists.
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From page 164... ...
On April 15, 1999, the Egyptian-born physician, Dr. Ayman al Zawahiri, deputy to Osama bin Laden, wrote in a message to one of his colleagues: We only became aware of them [biological weapons]
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From page 165... ...
Any scientist that includes information concerning the record of terrorist interest and experience with biological agents in his papers is responsible to apply the same standards for accuracy to such passages as he does in reporting his own research work. Much of that same information continues to grossly exaggerate, to misinform, and by suggesting the relative ease and feasibility of producing biological weapon agents, provokes interest among potential actors, state and nonstate, to investigate BW, which they might not otherwise have considered.
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From page 166... ...
. As mentioned these kinds of poisons are of the Clostridium botulinum type.
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From page 167... ...
The microbe grows well in regular laboratory cultures under intense anaerobic conditions (meaning its worth as a lethal biological weapon could double.) The ideal temperature for growth is 25 degrees Celsius, but it can grow in temperatures between 20 and 30 degrees Celsius.
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It includes increasing the awareness of the food industry and other stakeholders to critical opportunities for safeguarding the U.S. food supply, developing prevention strategies and building capacity to implement them, and planning for response to and recovery from an intentional food contamination event.
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From page 169... ...
This knowledge has also contributed to shaping the agency's considerations of preventive measures, its emergency response planning, and the setting of its research priorities. Because the FDA does not have authority to regulate the security or defense of the food supply, we use this information as we work cooperatively with state and local regulatory officials, the food industry, and other stakeholders in food defense.
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From page 170... ...
By being locally based these assessments not only address a specific food commodity but also facilitate local interactions between the very federal, state, and local officials that would have to deal with a deliberate attack on the food supply. Deliberate Contamination of Milk with Botulinum Toxin Vulnerability assessments such as the ORM and CARVER + Shock methods discussed above indicate certain foods of higher concern.
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From page 171... ...
There are multiple points along the farm-to-table continuum where food may be vulnerable, and it is critical that the approach to this problem be multifaceted. To this end, the FDA has produced a series of guidance documents, one of which is targeted at the dairy industry and outlines an array of possible steps that can be taken to minimize the chance of a deliberate attack on the food supply (CFSAN, 2003)
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From page 172... ...
At the end of the day, the most important message regarding mitigation strategies is not to rely on a single strategy alone to produce adequate protection. Rather put in place as many different strategies at different points on the farm-totable continuum that will, overall, minimize the chances of a successful attack on the food supply.
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From page 173... ...
. The FSSA was designed to test the FDA's ability to respond to a threat to the food supply, and as such FDA inspectors entered the premises of domestic firms that produced certain foods to discuss food security and food defense issues with their managers.
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A deliberate attack on the food supply is plausible and potentially catastrophic both economically as well as in loss of life. However, foodborne illness due to unintentional events is an ongoing and real everyday event resulting in sickness and death.
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From page 175... ...
. Dairy Farms, Bulk Milk Transporters, Bulk Milk Transfer Stations and Fluid Milk Processors Food Security Preventive Measures Guidance.
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From page 176... ...
2002. Threat of a biological terrorist attack on the US food supply: The CDC perspective.
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