Free Republic

Bioterrorism threat said real Oct 17, 2002 12:00 PM, Harry Cline There are 7,000 unaccounted for former Soviet Union biological warfare scientists and technicians in the world today. Before 9/11/01, that fact would be filed away under "So what...just left over Cold War paranoia." Now, though, that fact is cause for considerable concern to Americans, and a panel of experts on bioterrorism and radical environmental groups speaking at the recent California Plant Health Association and CropLife America joint annual convention in Palm Desert, Calif., only served to heighten that concern when they addressed biological warfare issues facing America today. According...

A combination of avian flu and foot and mouth disease risk destroying the protein supply, eroding public trust, and further destabilizing the Arab world's most populous country. Lost in the recent political jockeying and protest violence leading up to Egypt's May 23 presidential elections is the unfolding public health disaster there. Avian flu and foot and mouth disease are running rampant, killing people and livestock as well as inflating the price of food. It's a serious health and economic issue, but it has potentially much larger implications for Egypt, and this little-discussed crisis is beginning to resemble those that occur...

The deliberate release of viral material, possibly in an act of sabotage, may have caused the foot-and-mouth disease outbreak, officials said last night. The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) said in a report ordered by the Prime Minister that “release by human movement [of the FMD virus] must be considered a real possibility”. Inspectors all but discounted theories that the virus escaped by air or water from the laboratory complex close to where the outbreak started, although they are continuing to investigate the possibility of equipment failure or a security breach.

LONDON (Reuters) - Foot and mouth disease has been found in cattle on a British farm, the government said on Friday as it banned livestock movements to prevent a repeat of a 2001 outbreak that blighted farming and rural tourism. Infected livestock were found on a farm near Guildford, close to London, and all cattle on the farm were being culled, the agriculture department Defra said. Officials immediately halted movements of pigs and ruminant animals such as cows and sheep across the United Kingdom to stop the spread of the disease and set up a 10-km (six-mile) surveillance zone around...

NEW YORK -- Campaigning for re-election in an unquestionably liberal city, Mayor Michael Bloomberg has broken with fellow Republicans, saying he opposes President Bush's pick for Chief Justice of the United States.

June 09, 2003Disease DustupDust clouds may carry infectious organisms across oceans By Otto Pohl> Image: ORBITAL IMAGING CORPORATION Photo Researchers, Inc. SANDSTORM blows particulates out from the Sahara Desert in Africa (landmass at right) over the Canary Islands in the Atlantic Ocean. The storm occurred in February 2001. On February 11, 2001, an enormous cloud of dust whipped out of the Sahara Desert and moved north across the Atlantic, reaching the U.K. two days later. A few days afterward, counties across the island began reporting simultaneous outbreaks of foot-and-mouth disease, a viral sickness of livestock (sometimes confused with mad cow...