Plum Island Animal Disease Center
Established | 1954 |
---|---|
Budget | $16.5 million |
Field of research | Foreign animal diseases |
Director | Dr. Larry Barrett |
Location | Plum Island, New York, U.S. 41°10′44″N 72°12′20″W / 41.178889°N 72.205556°W |
11957 | |
Operating agency | United States Department of Homeland Security |
Website | DHS site |
Map | |
Plum Island Animal Disease Center (PIADC) is a United States federal research facility dedicated to the study of
Isolated on
The facility is slated for closure in 2023, with work moving to the National Bio and Agro-Defense Facility under construction in Manhattan, Kansas.
Location
The center is located on
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.[4]
The island was opened to news media for the first time in 1992.[5] In 1995, the Department of Agriculture was issued a $111,000 fine for storing hazardous chemicals on the island.[5]
Local
The
In 2003, a
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."[8]
Replacement facility
On September 11, 2005, DHS announced that the Plum Island Animal Disease Research Center will be replaced by a new federal facility. The location of the new high-security animal disease lab, called the National Bio and Agro-Defense Facility (NBAF), is being built in Manhattan, Kansas.[9][10]
The plan was controversial almost immediately when it was unveiled, following a cost assessment by DHS and prime contractor Booz Allen Hamilton in which the agency determined that the cost of maintaining or moving the facility would be comparable.[10]
Those conclusions, as well as claims about the safety of the facility proposed were called into question several times, first by a 2007
In 2012, DHS completed a risk assessment of the Kansas site that called the proposed facility "safe and secure".
Despite controversy, the new facility is nearing completion, and transfer of laboratory contents from Plum Island to NBAF is to be complete by 2023. The USDA has named former director of Canada's Centers for Animal Disease Alfonso Clavijo as the director of the new facility.[14]
Activities
PIADC's mission can be grouped into three main categories: diagnosis, research, and education.[citation needed]
Since 1971, PIADC has been educating
At PIADC, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) 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.[citation needed]
USDA
USDA Animal and Plant Health Inspection Services (APHIS) operates the Foreign Animal Disease Diagnostic Laboratory, an internationally recognized[
Research on biological weapons at PIADC ceased when the United States Biological Warfare program was ended in 1969 by President Richard Nixon.[15]
Biological weapons research
The original anti-animal biological weapons mission was "to establish and pursue a program of
Diseases studied and outbreaks
As a diagnostic facility, PIADC scientists study more than 40
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.[20]
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.[7] 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 (with the exception of the stocks within the Plum Island center)[4] but is currently endemic to many parts of the world.
In 2012, two researchers at the facility, Dr. John Neilan and Dr. 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.[21]
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.[7][10]
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."[7]
Historic buildings
Building 257
Building No. 257 at Fort Terry, on Plum Island near Long Island, New York, was completed around 1911.[22] 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.[22] 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 (BW) research.[15] The Chemical Corps planned a laboratory for the fort, to be housed in Building 257.[22] The conversion of Fort Terry to a BW facility required the remodeling of Building 257 and other structures.[15]
As work neared completion on the lab and other facilities in the spring of 1954 the mission of Fort Terry changed.[23] 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.[22] 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.[22] Construction on a new lab facility, known as Building 101, also began about this time but was not completed until September 1956.[22]
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.[22] Plum Island facilities were essentially unchanged until a new modernization began in 1990.[22] Two-thirds of the laboratory facilities inside Building 101 were renovated and operations in Building 257 were consolidated into Building 101.[22] According to a United States Department of Homeland Security spokesperson in 2004, Building 257 was closed in 1995 and poses no health hazard.[18]
Building 101
The structure is a 164,000-square-foot (15,200 m2) T-shaped white building.[17] It is situated on Plum Island's northwest plateau on a 10-acre (40,000 m2) site where it is buttressed by a steep cliff which leads into the ocean.[17] To the south-west of the building's site is the old Plum Island Lighthouse.[17]
Construction on Plum Island's new laboratory Building 101 began around July 1, 1954, around the same time that the Army's anti-animal
A modernization program in 1977 aimed to update both Building 101 and another laboratory,
Controversy
Conspiracy theories
Prolific but unfounded conspiracy theories have alleged that Lyme disease, first documented in nearby Lyme, Connecticut, was a biological weapon that originated in the Plum Island laboratory.[25] A discredited 2004 book entitled Lab 257: The Disturbing Story of the Government's Secret Plum Island Germ Laboratory fueled the conspiracy theories.[18][26] Archived specimens show that Lyme disease was endemic well before the establishment of Plum Island laboratory.[25] Additionally, Lyme disease was never a topic of research at Plum Island, according to the US Department of Homeland Security and Department of Agriculture.[3][18]
On July 12, 2008, a creature dubbed the
Terrorism
When American educated Pakistani neuroscientist
In popular culture
- Plum Island and PIADC are the subject of a murder mystery novel, Captain Kidd, who sailed the waters around Long Island prior to his capture. Kidd's treasurehas never been found.
- Plum Island is also referred to in the 1991 psychological thriller The Silence of the Lambs, when the character of Hannibal Lecter is offered a transfer to a different psychiatric institution, as well as the promise of annual week-long supervised furlough to Plum Island, in exchange for his assistance in helping the FBI locate the whereabouts of the missing daughter of a prominent US Senator. It is later revealed in the film that the offer is bogus in the first place, used only as a ruse to elicit Lecter's cooperation.
- The Plum Island facility served as the inspiration for the Mount Dragon research facility in the 1996 techno-thriller Mount Dragon, written by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child.
- The testing facility at Plum Island is the subject of a novel, The Poison Plum, by author Les Roberts.[30]
- Plum Island and the facility there figure prominently in the 2014 horror novel, The Montauk Monster, by Hunter Shea, in which a bizarre carcass found on a beach in 2008 is an early version of vicious creatures now terrifying the Montauk community.
- The Plum Island facility is mentioned in the television show Emergence as the takeoff point for a flight that crashes in Southold, New York. In reality, this would be impossible, as there are no airstrips on Plum Island.
References
- Department of Homeland Security.
- ^ "Inside the mysterious Plum Island Animal Disease Center". NBC4 WCMH-TV. 2019-05-07. Retrieved 2021-02-09.
- ^ a b "Plum Island Animal Disease Center". Department of Homeland Security. 6 July 2009. Retrieved 10 August 2020.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i "Bioterrorism Fears Revive Waning Interest In Agricultural Disease Lab on Plum Island". The Wall Street Journal. 2002-01-08. Retrieved 2008-05-17.
- ^ a b c d Miller, Judith (1999-09-22). "Long Island Lab May Do Studies Of Bioterrorism". The New York Times. Retrieved 2008-05-18.
- ^ "About Plum Island Animal Disease Center". Department of Homeland Security. 2008-12-28. Archived from the original on 2008-08-01. Retrieved 2008-08-04.
- ^ a b c d e Rather, John (2004-08-22). "Plum Island Reports Disease Outbreak". The New York Times. Retrieved 2008-05-17.
- ^ Bonfiglio, Briana (2020-12-22). "Congress Blocks Sale of Plum Island in Covid-19 Relief Bill". LI Press. Retrieved 2021-02-09.
- ^ "DHS: DHS Issues Record of Decision on Proposed National Bio- and Agro-Defense Facility". Dhs.gov. Archived from the original on 2011-07-06. Retrieved 2011-08-10.
- ^ a b c d Muller, Madison (8 September 2023). "A Mysterious Lab Is Shutting Down. It's the End of an Era for Biosecurity". Bloomberg News. Retrieved 20 September 2023.
- ^ "Study spurs request to not phase out Plum Island". Newsday.com. 2009-07-31. Retrieved 2011-08-10.
- ^ "DHS Issues Updated Site-Specific Risk Assessment For Proposed National Bio And Agro-Defense Facility (NBAF)". dhs.gov. 2 March 2012.
- ^ "Officials press feds for NBAF". LJWorld.com.
- USDA. Retrieved 20 September 2023.
- ^ a b c d e Cella, Alexandra. "An Overview of Plum Island: History, Research and Effects on Long Island", Long Island Historical Journal, Fall 2003/Spring 2004, Vol. 16, Nos. 1 and 2, pp. 176–181 (194–199 in PDF), accessed January 10, 2009.
- ISBN 0674016998).
- ^ ISBN 0060011416).
- ^ a b c d e
Dunn, Adam. "The mysterious lab off New York's shore", CNN.com, April 2, 2004, accessed January 10, 2009.
- ^ a b Lambert, Bruce. "Closely Guarded Secrets: Some Islands You Can't Get to Visit", The New York Times, May 17, 1998, accessed January 10, 2009.
- ^ U.S. General Accounting Office. "High-Containment Biosafety Laboratories: DHS Lacks Evidence to Conclude That Foot-and-Mouth Disease Research Can Be Done Safely on the U.S. Mainland". GAO-08-821T. 22 May 2008. p. 1.
- ^ "Snapshot: New Patent-Pending Process for FMD Vaccine". Department of Homeland Security. 2020-06-10. Retrieved 2021-02-09.
- ISBN 0060011416).
- ^ a b Telford, Sam (11 August 2019). "No, Lyme disease is not an escaped military bioweapon, despite what conspiracy theorists say". Washington Post. Retrieved 10 August 2020.
- ^ Kirby, Reid. "Book Reviews Archived 2009-03-09 at the Wayback Machine", Army Chemical Review, January–June 2005, accessed January 10, 2009.
- ^ "What was the Montauk monster? : Tetrapod Zoology". Scienceblogs.com. 2008-08-04. Archived from the original on 2012-05-07. Retrieved 2009-07-14.
- ^ "The Hound of Bonacville". Indyeastend.com – The Independent. July 23, 2008. Archived from the original on July 22, 2012. Retrieved June 8, 2009.
- ^ Weiser, Benjamin (September 2, 2008). "Indictment Hints of Plan to Attack Landmarks". The New York Times. Retrieved April 25, 2015.
- ^ Roberts, Les. The Poison Plum. Les Roberts. Archived from the original on 2007-12-13.
Further reading
- The Plum Island Animal Disease Laboratory (1956)
- U.S. General Accounting Office. (2003). Combating bioterrorism: actions needed to improve security at Plum Island Animal Disease Center. Washington, D.C.: Author.
- U.S. Government Accountability Office. (2005). Plum Island Animal Disease Center: DHS and USDA are successfully coordinating current work, but long-term plans are being assessed: report to congressional committees. Washington, D.C.: Author.
- U.S. Government Accountability Office. (2007). Plum Island Animal Disease Center: DHS has made significant progress implementing security recommendations, but several recommendations remain open. Washington, D.C.: Author.
- U.S. Government Accountability Office. (2008). High-containment biosafety laboratories: DHS lacks evidence to conclude that foot-and-mouth disease research can be done safely on the U.S. mainland: testimony before the Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations, Committee on Energy and Commerce, House of Representatives. Washington, D.C.: Author.
- U.S. Government Accountability Office. (2009). Biological research: observations on DHS's analyses concerning whether FMD research can be done as safely on the mainland as on Plum Island: report to congressional committees. Washington, D.C.: Author.
- U.S. House of Representatives. (2008). Germs, viruses, and secrets: government plans to move exotic disease research to the mainland United States: hearing before the Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations of the Committee on Energy and Commerce, House of Representatives, one hundred tenth congress, second session, May 22, 2008. Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office.
External links
- Official website
- Plum Island Animal Disease Center | USDA
- Dunning, Brian (May 10, 2011). "Skeptoid #257: The Secret of Plum Island". Skeptoid.