The New York Times
Signs of foot-and-mouth disease were found on cattle in Guildford.
Posted on 08/05/2007 6:04:37 PM PDT by neverdem
LONDON, Aug. 5 – British health inspectors combed two veterinary laboratories in southern England today after it was discovered that the strain of foot and mouth disease at a farm four miles away was the same as used in the production of vaccine at the facilities.
The Environment Secretary Hilary Benn said the facilities, which house the government’s Institute of Animal Health and a private pharmaceutical company, Merial Animal Health, were a “possible” source of the virus, but a definitive conclusion had not been reached.
Inspectors would concentrate on security at the facilities during their search for a possible leak of the virus, the secretary said.
He appealed to farmers to continue monitoring their livestock for symptoms of the disease, and said a protection zone around the affected farm had been extended to embrace the laboratories.
The Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs said the strain of the virus was used in a vaccine batch manufactured last month by Merial Animal Health.
The company is an arm of Merial Ltd. that is jointly owned by the American drug maker Merck & Co and the French Sanofi-Aventis. Merial Animal Health announced it was suspending production of the vaccine.
In its statement, the department for the environment said the strain used at the laboratories for vaccine production is “not one currently known to be recently found in animals.”
It added: “The present indications are that this strain is a 01 BFS67 like virus, isolated in the 1967 foot-and-mouth disease outbreak in Great Britain.”
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
micro ping
Or one of the researchers there got his Ph.D. from Pakistan.
Virtual reality helps GIs deal with PTSD
FReepmail me if you want on or off my health and science ping list.
bump
British health inspectors combed two veterinary laboratories in southern England today after it was discovered that the strain of foot and mouth disease at a farm four miles away was the same as used in the production of vaccine at the facilities.An inconvenient coincidence. That's all.
Foot and Mouth ping...(Thanks, neverdem!)
That could help them head off other possible outbreaks as well.
Scary thought that the health of not only feed animals, but the entire world may depend on a maintenance person getting the seals on a filter right, and a situation which might provide opportunity for a terrorist as well.
Any connection with foot-in-mouth disease, something politicians are extremely likely to get?
In the last outbreak, I was working with a guy from Ireland.
He had recently been in England, and said that the piles of culled animals being burned had left a smoky haze over the landscape (I forget where he was at the time) and all the farmers were very forlorn.
The latest hypothesis being pursued here is a connection with last month’s floods. There was some flooding of the Pirbright lab site, apparently, which may have affected the storage tanks in which infected waste material is held prior to sterilisation.
I think foot in mouth is related to head in butt, both of which are commonplace among politicians and DUers.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.