Hoof and mouth disease, a virus deadly to livestock, has been researched since 1954 in a government lab on Plum Island, NY. Since that time there have been some accidental releases of the virus, but none escaped the island. That’s why the lab in ON an island.
In 2002 the government ran a simulation of a hoof and mouth outbreak. It resulted in tens of millions of cattle killed by National Guardsmen, riots and protests and a 25-mile burial trench for the carcasses. “It was a mess,” said Senator Pat Roberts of Kansas, who played the president.
Now the government wants to move Plum Island’s lab to the mainland and Kansas is one of the proposed sites. What does Senator Roberts have to say about that, huh? “It will mean jobs,” he says. It will mean research and development, he says.
Yeah, and if all else fails it will mean jobs digging that 25-mile barbecue pit.
