LTE from Sharon Zecchinelli

We're going to scare you into being believers.

I attended a Foot and Mouth Disease informational meeting on Friday night called 'Planning to Survive an Agriculture Bio-disaster'. The speakers were Dr. Steve Van Wie, a USDA veterinary emergency responder who spent six months in England during the 2001 foot-and-mouth disease outbreak, serving as a contractor for the government. As he said he became an expert in killing cattle during his stint, killing something like 35,000 cows personally. The other speaker was Dr. Julie Smith of University of Vermont's Extension Service. Too bad they never supplied any answers as to how to prepare.

Just so you know, when it happens here on our shores all two-toed animals and pigs are going to be killed in a 12.4 mile diameter whether they are infected or not. It isn't always easy to diagnose FMD because it looks like other things many times. Infection of sheep and goats can be difficult to detect clinically though there is an available and internationally acceptable test. In 2001 many harried, overworked vets under a great deal of pressure mistook foot rot for FMD thus starting new quarantine zones that resulted in tens of thousand of needless deaths. All wooden structures, barns, outbuildings, houses, will be burned to the ground. You better hope you are the index (first farm) because you stand to get paid the most money. After that, good luck.

Is it interesting or a coincidence that just a few weeks ago there was a real-time agroterrorism training exercise in Washington state- the first of its kind in the nation. Partners in the exercise included camouflage-attired soldiers from the Washington National Guard, state and federal veterinarians, and officials from the USDA, the Washington State Department of Agriculture and the Food and Drug Administration as well as local sheriff, police and fire crews.

The 2007 outbreak in the UK was leaked from Pirbright for the second or maybe the third time. Might we count on our own USDA to be as sloppy on Plum Island?

I asked Dr. Van Wie why they don't just use a vaccine. He misrepresented that greatly when he told me there are 400 different strains of FMD but only one vaccine for one strain. That was an outright lie. An extensive FMD outbreak can be controlled and eradicated in a very short time, with minimal disruption of the rural society by vaccination of cattle only, in combination with livestock movement stand-still. The process involves vaccinating animals with inactivated vaccines produced from highly purified antigens which are free from Non Structural Proteins (NSP) of the FMD virus. These vaccines confer immunity quickly. In addition, even if the animal is already incubating FMD, it greatly reduces the amount of virus that animal produces. This process enabled the Dutch to bring their 2001 outbreak under control in just eight days.

Products from vaccinated animals, such as milk and meat, are safe for human consumption. But does the USDA want the pubic agree with this? If you listen closely to any information about animal disease, including National Animal Identification System (NAIS), the phrase 'economic reasons' keeps coming up. Do you get it yet? It is better for them to kill all of a farmers animals, burn his barn and house, spray the contaminated clean up water onto his fields and bankrupt Mr. Vermont Small Dairy Farmer (because by California or Midwest standards Vermont Dairy farmers are small) than to risk the loss of global markets that only benefit a few. Is that social justice? Is that why you have been a slave to your cows and the Milk Marketing Board for these long years? In the end they will leave you bankrupt with a burned out killing field and no chance to start up again for a year when they have at their disposal the methods to stop FMD like they stopped polio.

To the man who called me selfish for not registering my premises. Being a dairy farmer you are already under a considerable burden of government regulation and testing so when they told you to register your premises you did it but failed understand the implications of the premises registration program. I've been studying NAIS for two years and I know exactly where it is heading.

Sharon Zecchinelli
Enosburg Falls, VT