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Veterinary colleges
train for bioterror threat
JACKSON, Miss. (AP)--When American troops unearthed Al Qaida bioterrorism manuals in Afghanistan caves a couple of years ago, U.S. veterinarians were suddenly pulled into the war on terrorism.
The documents explored how terrorists could infect American livestock and domesticated animals with bubonic plague, anthrax and tuberculosis. They showed how viruses could be distilled into powders and added to dirt where animals gather: horse shows, livestock auctions, county fairs.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the U.S. Department of Agriculture warned colleges that veterinarians would be the front line in detecting terrorist-engineered epidemics. Veterinary students must now learn to spot medieval terrors like bubonic plague--whether the symptoms erupt in pigs, cattle, horses, poultry, parrots, puppies or kittens.
There are 28 vet colleges in the United States and those that are located in Southern states--Alabama, Georgia, Texas, North Carolina, Mississippi, Arkansas--all now offer bioterrorism programs, said Dr. Gary Beard, assistant dean of continuing studies at Auburn University's College of Veterinary Medicine.
The threat forced the colleges to confront a manpower crisis. More students prefer treating cuddly pets to trudging through muddy pens and cowpie-splattered fields to deal with larger animals.
"Fewer students come from rural backgrounds, so the number of vets treating food animals is quite small," Beard said. "It's an urgent problem."
Auburn got a $37,000 grant to cross-train future pet doctors to diagnose and treat livestock diseases. Auburn teaches students which government agencies to alert first if they suspect an epidemic is actually bioterrorism.
Some Auburn alumni are now helping design sensors to implant in bulls and cows. It's the bovine equivalent of the airplane's black box.
"The sensor will record every temperature change and trauma inflicted on every part of the cow," Beard said. "It's a record to show if someone tampered with the cow. A lot of the research funding comes from the cattle industry."
Starting this fall, Mississippi State University will require all sophomore veterinary students to take its anti-bioterrorism course.
"If a puppy with bubonic plague-swollen lymph nodes sneezed on its owner, the person could get plague," said Mississippi State's Dr. Carla Huston.
But refining bubonic plague virus requires a high-tech lab. Huston thinks animal-only viruses would be likelier weapons for terrorists working out of a basement.
"You don't need a specialized lab to distill foot-and-mouth disease into a powder to spread it," Huston said. "The virus can be transmitted on cloth, boots, truck tires, even borne on the wind."
The disease covers an animal's feet and throat with blisters, crippling, then starving them. Huston went to Great Britain to help contain a foot-and-mouth epidemic. "It was so financially catastrophic, 11 farmers committed suicide," he said.
That April 2001 epidemic was nature, not terrorists. It prompted the Texas governor to ask Texas A&M University to create a veterinarian emergency response team.
Dr. Floren Faires had the university's First Assessment and Sampling Team--FAST--in place before the Sept. 11 attacks.
When a virus strikes, FAST is the animal world's version of CSI. Investigators go to the scene, quarantine the area and trace the contagion source.
"FAST has an 800 number with a live person taking tips seven days a week," Faires said. FAST also trains police, animal control officers and sheriffs.
Texas A&M's program became Mississippi state veterinarian Dr. Jim Watson's model. Watson teaches veterinarians how to treat animals affected by dirty bombs. Police and firefighters attend the classes. Even motorcycle police have been taught how to evacuate a chicken house.
Watson warns students not to alienate the public by punching the panic button too much.
"Al Qaida prefers blowing things up; explosions cause instant death while bioterrorism takes longer to unfold," Watson said.
Watson suspects the ghost of another old foe may be the real bioterrorist threat. Russia manufactured huge stockpiles of plague, anthrax and equine encephalitis during the Cold War. Russian soldiers injected horses in Afghanistan with viruses in the 1982 war to rob the enemy of cavalry, according to the CDC.
"When the Soviet Union crumbled, Russia's bioterrorism scientists mostly vanished," Watson said. "Those experts are out there. But no one knows what country they're working for."
Date: 6/24/04
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