MSU lab theft alerts nation on bioterrorism

East Lansing, Mich.-As experts report that United States' livestock and food crops are increasingly vulnerable to terror attacks, Michigan State University (MSU) officials tested the nation's emergency system when two vials of genetically altered bacteria turned up missing from a secured lab.

University police have a suspect - an employee with access to laboratoriesat MSU's Biomedical and Physical Sciences Building who allegedly liftedtwo vials of Actinobaccillus pleuropneumoniae, also known as APP, on Sept.13. The bacteria are harmless to humans but can be fatal to swine, causingpneumonia and possibly encephalitis. Researchers were developing it as abasis for a vaccine, MSU officials say.

At presstime, no one had been arrested and charged, but police say they'veseized the stolen materials and evidence obtained suggests the biologicalsamples were destroyed.

"We have secured laboratories, well protected with good protocols,"says Dr. Lonnie King, dean of MSU's College of Veterinary Medicine. "Ifa theft can happen here, it can happen anywhere."

Chain of command

Introducing this natural bacterium to the country's swine populationlikely would not "devastate the pork industry," as a Sept. 19Wall Street Journal article reported, turning the incident into nationalnews, says Eric Newman, director of the National Pork Board's Swine HealthInformation and Research. But considering the threat of terrorism and aNational Academies of Sciences (NAS) report outlining bioterrorism risksconcerning U.S. agriculture, university officials acted fast, MSU spokesmanJ.T. Forbes says.

"From where I sat, when we got news of this, we immediately notifiedour state and local officials and the system worked," Forbes says."This happened on a Friday afternoon. There was never any indicationof terrorism or some sort of hyper virus or hyper bacteria to be releasedon the world. Still, by Monday, the FBI (Federal Bureau of Investigation),police and our staff were all on the same page."

Federal and industry authorities were contacted as a precaution, Kingadds.

"If this would've happened two years ago, we might not have thoughtanything of it," he says. "This isn't some fancy pathogen or foreignanimal disease; it's an organism we commonly see in hogs."

On the front lines

The quick communication demonstrated among MSU officials and local andfederal authorities is what the United States needs to expand, because terroristslikely won't strike a single farm but many agriculture regions at once,says Dr. David Franz, vice president for Chemical and Biological Defenseat Southern Research Institute in Frederick, Md.

Franz, a veterinarian on the NAS panel spotlighting U.S. agriculturesecurity, says while industry and government officials have made great stridesthwarting naturally occurring biological outbreaks such as foot and mouthdisease, the focus must shift to multiple, simultaneous epidemics spurredby manmade events. Veterinarians could be first to identify large-scaleattacks, he says.

"Bioterrorism takes very little technology," Franz says. "Allyou have to do is introduce a highly infectious animal virus to variousherds; they're a lot harder to contain than anthrax or a plague.

"Veterinarians need to be able to recognize unusual situations andknow how to react."

NAS panel chair Harley Moon, DVM, says the profession must raise itsawareness of the possibility of exotic, unanticipated, and in some cases,foreign animal diseases.

"Veterinarians are our first line of defense," says Moon, anIowa State University professor and one-time director of the Plum IslandAnimal Disease Center. "It's going to be the local veterinarian ifthere's terrorism in animal agriculture."

In recent months, the federal government has poured millions of dollarsinto United States Department of Agriculture (USDA)

antiterrorism programs. In a written statement, Agriculture SecretaryAnn Veneman says, "Many of these efforts identified in the NAS reportare already under way."

Forbes says he feels better having witnessed the vigilance and knowledgeof MSU veterinary medical leaders.

"I have little kids at home and let me tell you, I feel a lot saferafter having seen how all this rolled out," he says.