Stan Cox: The Germs Next Door

Bidding War for Biowarfare Labs

The Germs Next Door

By STAN COX

What would it take to convince you that your town should play host to the world’s most feared human and animal pathogens? Believe it or not, five states are locked in fierce competition over a proposed bioterror lab that would have them doing just that.

In 2002, the newly created Department of Homeland Security (DHS) was given control of Plum Island Animal Disease Center in New York. Now DHS is seeking a home in the heartland for a National Bio and Agro-Defense Facility (NBAF) that would take over Plum Island’s work, along with its potent microbial cultures. The fact that many diseases are now known to jump between humans and animals, combined with this decade’s terror-fixation, has led the federal government to convert the agricultural problem of sick livestock into the national-security problem of bioterrorism.