Washington Hopes To Further Guard Nation's Herds From Attacks

Federal authorities and some American agricultural veterinarian schools are working to close yet another gap in the nation's ever-widening homeland security defenses. A national wire story reports that since 2001, 28 universities in the southern states that offer vet training have added a new bioterror component to their programs. According to the story, which was picked up by newspapers like The Picayune Item in Mississippi, the danger of terrorists tainting U.S. herds is a real one - U.S. troops found al-Qaida training manuals in Afghanistan that described how to infect livestock with biological agents.

"The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the U.S. Department of Agriculture warned colleges that veterinarians would be the front line in detecting terrorist-engineered epidemics," writes the story's author. "Veterinary students must now learn to spot medieval terrors like bubonic plague, whether the symptoms erupt in pigs, cattle, horses, poultry, parrots, puppies or kittens."

The story further reports that regardless of terror threats, there is already a shortage of skilled vets in the US that specialize in livestock health -- Many graduating vets prefer family veterinarian medicine. Government officials are hoping that the new training programs at participating universities will turn out more agricultural veterinarians trained to deal with all manner of livestock health crises.

To read the full version of the story, visit: http://www.picayuneitem.com/articles/2004/06/13/news/11vets.txt.