Plum Island Animal Disease Center
Plum Island Animal Disease Center is a United States federal research facility dedicated to the study of foreign animal diseases of livestock. It is a national laboratory of the Department of Homeland Security Directorate for Science and Technology, and operates as a partnership with the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The facility's director of operations is Alan MacIntyre.
Isolated on Plum Island off the eastern tip of Long Island, New York, the center has been tasked with protecting America's livestock from animal diseases since 1954. It is the only facility in the country authorized to work with live foot-and-mouth disease samples, and specializes in the study of FMD and African swine fever. At the height of the Cold War, study of biological weapons for use against livestock was conducted at the site, ending in 1969 when President Nixon declared an end to the United States' offensive bioweapons program. Today the facility maintains laboratories up to biosafety level 3, and has remained controversial as a result of its high-risk work and proximity to the New York metropolitan area.
The facility has begun winding down its animal research and is slated for closure by 2028, with work moving to the National Bio and Agro-Defense Facility in Manhattan, Kansas.
Location
The center is located on Plum Island near the northeast coast of Long Island in New York state. During the Spanish–American War, the island was purchased by the government for the construction of Fort Terry, which was later deactivated after World War II and then reactivated in 1952 for the Army Chemical Corps. The center comprises 70 buildings on. Plum Island has its own fire department, power plant, water treatment plant, and security. Any wild mammal seen on the island is killed to prevent the possible transmission of foot-and-mouth disease. However, as Plum Island was named an important bird area by the New York Audubon Society, it has attracted different birds. Plum Island has placed osprey nests and bluebird boxes throughout the island., new kestrel houses were planned to be added.History
In response to disease outbreaks in Mexico and Canada in 1954, the US Army gave the island to the Agriculture Department to establish a research center dedicated to the study of foot-and-mouth disease in cattle.The island was opened to news media for the first time in 1992. In 1995, the Department of Agriculture was issued a $111,000 fine for storing hazardous chemicals on the island.
Local Long Island activists prevented the center from expanding to include diseases that affect humans in 2000, which would require a Biosafety Level 4 designation; in 2002, the US Congress again considered the plan.
The Wall Street Journal reported in January 2002 that many scientists and government officials wanted the lab to close, believing that the threat of foot-and-mouth disease was so remote that the center did not merit its $16.5 million annual budget. In 2002, the Plum Island Animal Disease Center was transferred from the United States Department of Agriculture to the United States Department of Homeland Security.
In 2003, a whistleblower who voiced concerns about safety at the facility was fired by the contractor he worked for. He had discussed his concerns with aides to Senator Hillary Clinton. A National Labor Relations Board judge found that the contractor, North Fork Services, had discriminated against the whistleblower.
In 2020, the Department of Homeland Security plan to put the island up for auction after the conclusion of laboratory activities in 2023 was blocked by Congress. As part of ongoing COVID-19 pandemic relief legislation, Senator Chuck Schumer of New York negotiated a provision in the CARES Act that protects the island from being sold. Environmentalists had opposed the sale of the island because of its extensive wildlife habitats. After the final draft of the legislation was announced, Schumer said “It would have been a grave mistake to sell and develop Plum Island's 840-acres of habitat, which is home to many endangered species, that's why preventing the unnecessary sale requirement was a top priority of these negotiations."
Activities
PIADC's mission can be grouped into three main categories: diagnosis, research, and education.Since 1971, PIADC has been educating veterinarians in foreign animal diseases. The center hosts several Foreign Animal Disease Diagnostic schools each year to train federal and state veterinarians and laboratory diagnostic staff, military veterinarians and veterinary school faculty.
At PIADC, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and U.S. Department of Agriculture work together; DHS' Targeted Advanced Development unit partners with USDA, academia and industry scientists to deliver vaccines and antivirals to the USDA for licensure and inclusion in the USDA National Veterinary Vaccine Stockpile.
USDA Agricultural Research Service performs basic and applied research to better formulate countermeasures against foreign animal diseases, including strategies for prevention, control and recovery. ARS focuses on developing faster-acting vaccines and antivirals to be used during outbreaks to limit or stop transmission. Antivirals prevent infection while vaccine immunity develops. The principal diseases studied are foot-and-mouth disease, classical swine fever, and vesicular stomatitis virus.
USDA Animal and Plant Health Inspection Services operates the Foreign Animal Disease Diagnostic Laboratory, an internationally recognized facility performing diagnostic testing of samples collected from U.S. livestock. APHIS also tests animals and animal products being imported into the U.S. APHIS maintains the North American Foot-and-Mouth Disease Vaccine Bank at PIADC and hosts the Foreign Animal Disease Diagnosticians training program, offering several classes per year to train veterinarians to recognize foreign animal diseases.
Research on biological weapons at PIADC ceased when the United States Biological Warfare program was ended in 1969 by President Richard Nixon.
Biological weapons research
The original anti-animal biological weapons mission was "to establish and pursue a program of research and development of certain anti-animal agents". By August 1954 animals occupied holding areas at Plum Island and research was ongoing within Building 257. The USDA facility, known as the Plum Island Animal Disease Center, continued work on biological warfare research until the U.S. program was ended by Richard Nixon in 1969. The bio-weapons research at Building 257 and Fort Terry was shrouded in aura of mystery and secrecy. The existence of biological warfare experiments on Plum Island during the Cold War era was denied for decades by the U.S. government. In 1993 Newsday unearthed documents proving otherwise and in 1994, Russian scientists inspected the Plum Island research facility to verify that these experiments had indeed ended.Diseases studied and outbreaks
As a diagnostic facility, PIADC scientists study more than 40 foreign animal diseases, including classical swine fever and African swine fever. PIADC runs about 30,000 diagnostic tests each year. PIADC operates Biosafety Level 3 Agriculture, BSL-3 and BSL-2 laboratory facilities. The facility's research program includes developing diagnostic tools and biologicals for foot-and-mouth disease and other diseases of livestock.Because federal law stipulates that live foot-and-mouth disease virus cannot be studied on the mainland, PIADC is unique in that it is currently the only laboratory in the U.S. equipped with research facilities that permit the study of foot-and-mouth disease.
Foot-and-mouth disease is extremely contagious among cloven-hooved animals, and people who have come in contact with it can carry it to animals. Accidental outbreaks of the virus have caused catastrophic livestock and economic losses in many countries throughout the world.
Foot-and-mouth disease was eradicated from the U.S. in 1929 but is currently endemic to many parts of the world.
In 2012, two researchers at the facility, John Neilan and Michael Puckette, developed the first Foot-and-mouth disease vaccine which does not require live virus cultures in the manufacturing process, allowing vaccine development to occur safely and legally on U.S. mainland for the first time.
Laboratory accidents
Plum Island has experienced outbreaks of its own, including one in 1978 in which foot-and-mouth disease was released to animals outside the center, and two incidents in 2004 in which the disease was released within the center.In response to the two 2004 incidents, New York Senator Hillary Clinton and Congressman Tim Bishop wrote a letter to the Department of Homeland Security regarding their concerns about the center's safety: "We urge you to immediately investigate these alarming breaches at the highest levels, and to keep us apprised of all developments."
Historic buildings
Building 257
Building No. 257 at Fort Terry, on Plum Island near Long Island, New York, was completed around 1911. The original purpose of the building was to store weapons, such as mines, and the structure was designated the Combined Torpedo Storehouse and Cable Tanks building. Fort Terry went through a period of activations and deactivations through World War II until the U.S. Army Chemical Corps took over the facility in 1952 for use in anti-animal biological warfare research. The Chemical Corps planned a laboratory for the fort, to be housed in Building 257. The conversion of Fort Terry to a BW facility required the remodeling of Building 257 and other structures.As work neared completion on the lab and other facilities in the spring of 1954 the mission of Fort Terry changed. Construction was completed on the facilities on May 26, 1954, but the post was transferred to the USDA before the military could utilize the new laboratory facilities. Fort Terry was officially transferred to the USDA on July 1, 1954, at the time scientists from the Bureau of Animal Industry were already working in Building 257. Construction on a new lab facility, known as Building 101, also began about this time but was not completed until September 1956.
A modernization program in 1977 aimed to update both Building 257 and Building 101, but the program was canceled in 1979 because of construction contract irregularities. Plum Island facilities were essentially unchanged until a new modernization began in 1990. Two-thirds of the laboratory facilities inside Building 101 were renovated and operations in Building 257 were consolidated into Building 101. According to a United States Department of Homeland Security spokesperson in 2004, Building 257 was closed in 1995 and poses no health hazard.