Originally from: Farmtalking
                        
http://www.aasv.org/news/story.php?id=773
 
Interferon – Potential for Swine Epidemic Control
October 3, 2003 — Michael Meredith (ed. Harry Snelson)

The U.S. National Cattlemen's Beef Association (NCBA) passed a Resolution in July 2003 asking the Department of Homeland Security and the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) to fund research into alternatives to "depopulation" (mass slaughter and disposal of infected animals) which is currently the USDA's first planned response to an agro-terror attack with foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) virus.

An article by Wes Ishmael in the July 2003 issue of Beef Magazine warned, "Easy accessibility and a weak response capability make livestock and agriculture the soft underbelly of Homeland Security."

According to US Deputy Secretary of Agriculture, Jim Moseley, "The threat to agriculture is real. We can no longer have a vague sense of agricultural terrorism. And the time to prepare for it is before it happens, rather than after it does." Moseley's remarks have been supported by recent articles in The New York Times and Science magazine, as well as by Paul Williams of the National Animal Health Emergency Management System – quoted in Beef Magazine as stating that US troops searching al Qaeda camps in Afghanistan had found more than 200 documents detailing ways to carry out agro-terror attacks.

According to Richard McDonald, President and CEO of Texas Cattle Feeders Association, "New control methods must be found -- control methods that are cost-effective, can be quickly and efficiently administered to millions of animals and that will be accepted by the animal agriculture industry."

The USDA plans to institute vaccination once depopulation fails but there are 7 main serotypes of FMD virus and more than 60 subtypes. Dr. Joseph Cummins, President of Amarillo Biosciences Inc. says "It is important that the vaccine contain the same subtype of virus as is in the area. If terrorists use multiple serotypes of FMD virus in an attack, vaccination as a control measure will be quite difficult".

An alternative to depopulation proposed by Amarillo Biosciences involves adding human interferon alpha to livestock feed as a means of bolstering the animals' immune system and increasing their resistance to infection by FMD virus. USDA researchers at the Plum Island Animal Disease Center have already published data on the protective value of Adenovirus-expressed alpha interferon in swine challenged with FMD virus. The Plum Island researchers went on to suggest that "These strategies could also be used as a prophylactic treatment against other acute infectious viral diseases". Amarillo Biosciences is a pharmaceutical research firm with almost two decades of experience and 18 patents in the therapeutic use of oral interferon.