Anti-Terrorism Plans Include
Animal Disease Precautions

MASON CITY, Iowa —(AP)— People's lives and livestock as well as the rural economy are as vulnerable to terrorist action as any city, an expert says.

In a changing world where security can be threatened from new and unusual places, federal and state departments of agriculture have joined the military, police and health agencies in planning for emergencies.

Imported foreign animal diseases, introduced either intentionally or accidentally, pose an ongoing threat, said Don Ahrens of Mason City, district veterinarian of the Iowa Department of Agriculture.

"If some of these diseases were brought in, it would totally destroy our economy," he said. "It would eliminate all foreign trade because countries would put up barriers. It's one of those things we may have to deal with but hope we don't."

Working for the federal Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, part of the National Veterinary Labs out of Ames, Iowa, Ahrens recently became the first state employee to be trained at a special federal facility to develop and plan programs for just such emergencies.

"The training was held at the Plumb Island Animal Disease Center, a small island northeast of Long Island, N.Y.," said Ahrens. "It's where infected animals are inspected and used for instruction. You can't get on or off without passes and we had to pass through bio-containment security.

"We had to take a shower, put on clean clothes, go to the other end of the island and take another shower," he said.

Originally established by Congress in 1954 to deal with foot-and-mouth disease, exotic sounding foreign animal diseases currently under the microscope there include mad-cow disease, Newcastle disease, Rinderpest and African Swine Fever.

"There's not a lot of control over the organisms that cause these diseases," Ahrens said. "Someone could culture such diseases and bring them into the country in their pocket."

Just as introducing hog cholera from Taiwan could devastate the Iowa pork industry, someone could spread anthrax over miles from a small plane in minutes, he said.

Ahrens spent 14 days, eight hours a day, in the special training session in New York, learning to recognize such diseases as Rift Valley Fever, Newcastle and Avian Influenza.

Working out of his home office in Mason City, Ahrens is responsible for a 12-county area of northern Iowa.

Part of his job is to collect proper samples in suspected disease emergencies, to certify tissue samples collected by veterinarians and to design cleanup plans when diseases have been identified.