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Image, April 13, 2001, On the word of Imperial College computer models, UK burned millions of healthy animals to stop virus: “Scientists back rapid slaughter policy,” BBC, “No alternative this time around, say scientists.”
In 2007 virus escaped from “high security” UK lab at Pirbright:
page 11: “Example 5: Foot and Mouth Disease (FMD) from Pirbright [England] 2007:”
“Foot and Mouth Disease (FMD) is a veterinary disease that affects primarily cloven-hoofed domestic animals (pigs, sheep and cattle). It has been eradicated in North America and most of Europe. It is highly transmissible, capable of spreading through direct contact and even through some prepared meats (sausages, airline food), on boots of farm workers (or tourists’ shoes: that’s why there’s that question “have you visited a farm” on the re-entry customs checklist coming into the USA), and even by aerosol spread.
FMD only occasionally causes a mild disease in humans, though exposed humans can carry the virus for up to three days, potentially an important method of spread. FMD causes a more serious disease in animals. Often fatal in young animals, survivors are stunted and lose their economic value. Adult animals die less often, but fail to gain weight or drop in milk production, and can become carriers. Most importantly, strict international quarantine regulations mean that an outbreak will cause all livestock and meat from that country to be banned from international trade. Various methods of outbreak control exist, but all are draconian, requiring massive culling (killing) of “in contact” but otherwise healthy animals surrounding index cases. [Perhaps not widely publicized, a 2011 UK peer reviewed study in journal Science said 2001 slaughter wasn’t necessary and that vaccines could’ve been used: 5/6/2011, “Mass culling for foot-and-mouth ‘may be unnecessary‘,” BBC]. Restrictions on all animal movement and often all commerce through infected areas are imposed, resulting in secondary economic losses from loss of tourism and general economic activity.
For instance, in the UK in 2001 a FMD outbreak ran from February to October 2001, with travel and export restrictions lasting into 2002. To control the outbreak, all susceptible livestock within 3 kms [1.86 miles] of an active case were culled. At its peak, 80,000-93,000 animals a week were killed and burned on farms, a total about 10 million sheep and cattle. Its direct cost was about $ 6.9 billion with overall costs to the British economy estimated at $16 billion.
On August 3, 2007 an outbreak of FMD was reported on a farm in the UK, initially with at least 38 cases in cattle identified. Quarantine measures were introduced and an investigation begun, with culling of surrounding livestock. Most countries banned UK livestock and meat exports. The virus was quickly identified as a strain that had caused a 1967 outbreak in the UK, but was not currently circulating in animals anywhere. Another case of “frozen evolution.” However, this outbreak was 2.8 miles (4.6 kms) south of Pirbright, where the only two facilities in the UK that were authorized to hold FMD virus were located. One was the UK Institute for Animal Health (IAH), the other Merial, a commercial veterinary FMD vaccine manufacturer. They both used the 1967 FMD strain, the Merial facility in large amounts (10,000 l) for vaccine manufacture. Operations were suspended at Merial on August 4 and its license to operate withdrawn. A second FMD outbreak quickly appeared near the first, and animal movement with the UK restricted and quarantine zones encompassing both the Pirbright campus and two affected farms were put in place on Aug 7.50. An initial investigation also published August 7 found no evidence for aerosol or surface water transmission of FMD virus from Pirbright, was investigating other wastewater issues, and suggested human carriage might have occurred.51.
Investigation eventually showed that a waste-water line carrying partially treated waste water from the Merial vaccine plant to the final waste treatment plant run by IAH had gone without routine inspection or maintenance, was damaged, leaking, and had an unsealed manhole opening to the surface, so was capable of contaminating ground and surface water. It became clear that Merial and the IAH each considered the other responsible for such inspection and maintenance, and it had gone undone. The non-secure wastewater line ran through a construction area that recent heavy rains had turned into deep mud, and construction vehicles traversed it and exited the Pirbright campus without inspection or monitoring. These trucks sometimes used the road that passed by the first affected farm. It was concluded that contaminated mud from the defective wastewater line at Pirbright had been carried on tyres or underbody of construction vehicles and caused the first outbreak.52.
For a brief time the outbreak was thought to have ended, and restrictions in the Pirbright area were lifted September 8, 2007. The UK applied to the EU to lift most restrictions on animal exports from the UK to EU on September 11, 2007.
However, on September 12, 2007 FMD was again reported, this time 30 miles north of Pirbright, again with the same 1967 strain of FMD. From September 18-30 multiple additional outbreaks of FMD appeared in the same area. A national embargo on all animal shipment was imposed, and new surveillance zones expanded rapidly until, overlapping they encompassed a portion of Heathrow Airport and were cut across by the major M4, M3 and M25 motorways. Rapid (real-time) genomic analysis had been ongoing during this outbreak, and indicated a single escape of FMD from Pirbright, which first spread between the two farms of the August outbreak, then went unnoticed at third farm before it blossomed again in mid September. Follow-up investigations identified the intermediate farm.53.
The 2007 UK FMD outbreak identified 278 infected animals, and required 1578 animals to be culled.54. It disrupted UK agricultural production and exports, and cost an estimated 200 million pounds. The ban of meat exports was particularly damaging as UK beef had only just exited a 10-year embargo by the EU because of BSE (Mad Cow Disease) in May of 2006.
FMD is such an easily transmitted virus with such potential to cause massive economic damage it would appear that manipulating it in a virology laboratory in a FMD free area is manifestly fraught with hazard. Particularly when it might escape by an “invisible” breach in biosafety as it did at Pirbright, and where it might lurk undetected despite heavy surveillance as it did between the two outbreaks.
In the US, previous law had banned it on the continental US, so FMD virus is currently only held in the USDA Plum Island facility off of Long Island (in a facility originally built in the 1950s for anti-animal BW work). Currently a replacement facility under the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), the National Bio-and Agro-Defense Facility (NBAF) is under construction in Manhattan, KS. The move of FMD research to the agricultural heartland of the US was opposed by many groups, including the GAO, but DHS decided on the KS location and construction is ongoing. So much for learning from other’s experience.”...
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Image above, April 12, 2020, “The full horrifying scale of the 2001 foot and mouth outbreak told by the Welsh farmers in the middle of it,“ walesonline.co.uk, Anna Lewis
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Added: Neil Ferguson, author of today’s global lockdown and “social distancing” has long been in the spotlight for his computer models. “In 2002, at the age of 34, the Oxford alumnus was appointed Order of the British Empire (OBE) [by the Queen] for his work in modelling the UK’s foot-and-mouth disease outbreak, which led to the culling, based on his models, of over six million cows and sheep.”
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Added:
US commenter observes that elites aren’t finished using viruses to “cull” unwanted Americans whom they consider “less than herds:”
“To them, we are less than herds, not worthy of life itself. The game is On, although we are only at Chapter 1. Many more chapters will follow–they already have a name for the new virus far deadlier than SARS-2, to be introduced later this year. The only weapon we have is our own consciousness. Do not give in their negative programming.”…commenter, 5/19/20
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