Because responsibility for the lab has been transferred from the USDA to Homeland Security.
The Keystone Cops and Tiny Car Clowns in “Homeland Security” know nothing about infectious diseases, FMD in particular, and they’re more concerned about saving money by not having to ship staff/materials/etc to/from Plum Island via helo or ferry than with the net:net results.
The lab is currently located on Plum Island, which is off the northeast coast of Long Island, NY.
This is what happens when you take issues away from people know know something about the subject and give them to the idiots in “law enforcement.” They don’t want to understand the issue, they just want to know who they can arrest.
The Bush Administration ran a simulated exercise (”Crimson Sky”) to model what would be the outcome of having to perform mass livestock exterminations. The exercise resulted in the National Guard having to shoot animals, quell riots and running out of ammunition in the process.
There was, of course, no mention made of the financial outcome to farmers and ranchers in this exercise. And there’s no mention made of the costs to the US consumer, either. That’s the way with these gooberment “law enforcement” idiots. They’re just looking for who to arrest.
So if an FMD outbreak happens, stock up on ammo quickly. There’s gonna be some “civil unrest” — and not among inner city people who just whine about when the government is going to serve them a hot meal. There’s going to be some feces hitting the fan blades, because the gooberment idiots are going to find out that country folks a) own guns, b) can shoot better than the gooberment flatfoots.
Nice post.
If one compares what the British did to the vast cattle herds in the UK back when Madcow was just starting out...to what they might do in the US...there might be some shocked farmers. If someone were to draw a 400 miles circle in Alabama and Mississippi, and order all cattle to be killed in the interest of a federal order....the locals wouldn’t stand for it...nor would they accept a cash distribution for each animal killed. You would be talking about an entire lifetime of livestock gone. The American public has no idea what the federal government is capable of...and if they knew...they’d be firing senators and congressmen in a hurry.