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Plum Island: Diseases' inner sanctum
An inside look at the controversial research facility where exotic animal maladies are studied amid renewed emphasis on security

Plum Island Animal Disease Center (Newsday Photo / David L. Pokress)
Apr 26, 2004

BY BILL BLEYER
STAFF WRITER

April 26, 2004

The Plum Island Animal Disease Center has been the subject of considerable controversy during the past two years, fueled by a bitter strike by maintenance workers, disclosures of safety lapses, brief blackouts that raised fears of viruses spreading off the island, and by a highly publicized book that calls the laboratory a "biological timebomb." All of that has left environmentalists and officials from Washington to Southold Town Hall with lingering concerns about whether Plum Island is a danger to the public.

Newsday requested and received what government officials describe as unprecedented access to observe and describe a day in the life of the Plum Island Animal Disease Center so long as details related to national security were not revealed. I

It's breakfast time, and the auditorium at the Plum Island Animal Disease Center is filled with about 30 veterinarians visiting from across the country.

At the podium, a scientist from Texas is lecturing about viruses that cause horrific damage to African livestock as the vets munch on eggs and biscuits without any loss of appetite.

These vets are no strangers to gory animal diseases. But they have no hands-on experience with foreign animal viruses such as foot-and-mouth disease, rinderpest and classical swine fever.

That's why they put their names on a long waiting list for a coveted invitation to one of Plum Island's quarterly Foreign Animal Disease Diagnostician training classes. They've come for two weeks of schooling on more than two dozen diseases, observing 10 of them in infected animals, to learn to detect the viruses in the field so they will be able to take quick action to prevent the spread of disease.

They start their day listening to Dr. Linda Logan from Texas A&M University, who has spent time in Africa studying exotic diseases such as theileriosis, East Coast fever and heartwater.

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http://www.nynewsday.com/news/health/ny-plum-lede,0,6408747.story?coll=ny-health-big-pix

another snippet from this story....

Since the Department of Homeland Security took over the island last summer from the Department of Agriculture, the mission has broadened to include preventing terrorists from using animal diseases as weapons.