05/14/08 Foot and Mouth research facility

I'll be right back to give you an example. I sometimes wonder if bureaucracies are so intent on showing everyone they can accomplish anything quickly they get the cart before the horse of common sense. The Homeland Security Department would like to update and move the foot-and-mouth research facility from an isolated area on Long Island to the mainland. Foot-and-mouth is one of the most contagious animal diseases and while it only affects animals, an outbreak could be an economic disaster to the livestock industry. Homeland Security needs to update the research facility to stay ahead of such an outbreak and they would like to include research on diseases that can be transferred from animals to humans. That's good planning but the old site is not secure enough to facilitate the higher-level research. The problem is Homeland Security wants to move the research center to locations all surrounded by livestock populations from nearly 133,000 head to almost 543,000. Does fox in the hen house ring a bell? Former research director, Dr. Roger Breeze says the new facility would be a better fit on the Atlanta campus of the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, at the United States Army Medical Research Institute for infectious diseases, or even Long Island where there is no commercial livestock industry. Maybe common sense will win out. I'm Jeff Keane.