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Health experts say shortage of farm animal veterinarians could lead to disease outbreaks
By Nafeesa Syeed
ASSOCIATED PRESS
12:55 a.m. April 30, 2007
GUTHRIE CENTER, Iowa – Public health experts are concerned that a shortage of farm animal veterinarians could lead to disease outbreaks, potentially endangering human health and risking the nation’s food supply.
The American Veterinary Medical Association, a group with about 6,200 food animal vets, estimates the shortage at a relatively small 4 percent. But health officials say even the small gap increases the potential for diseases to go undetected.
“It’s not like the other 96 percent can pick up the slack,” said Dr. Lyle Vogel, director of the animal welfare division at the association, which used surveys to estimate the shortage. “Because of the distances and workload of the remaining veterinarians they just can’t fill in that shortage.”
Concerns have centered on more than 800 diseases that can spread from animals to humans, such as salmonella and E. coli. Experts also fear an inability to quickly diagnose conditions like foot and mouth disease and avian flu, said Robin Schoen, director of the Board on Agriculture and Natural Resources at the National Academy of Sciences.
“We’re kind of weakening the whole system,” Schoen said. “The veterinarian is the front line.”
With fewer veterinarians, more duties are falling to farmers and ranchers, who often vaccinate animals, diagnose illnesses and administer antibiotics. Vets typically offer some training and do-it-yourself medicine can cut costs, but some worry that the long-term result will be an inability to detect diseases early or address outbreaks, especially in remote areas.
Experts said the veterinarian shortage could lead to several troubling scenarios:
Salmonella in an untreated dairy herd could be spread by workers who come into contact with feces. Similarly, people who defeather or slaughter chickens infected with a certain strain of avian flu could get others sick.
Diseases like anthrax are hard to detect and spread quickly, so a farmer likely wouldn’t notice an illness until many animals were sick, potentially wiping out a whole herd.
Foot and mouth disease could enter the United States through imported animals or meat. Because the disease can spread rapidly by air, it could hit multiple producers if not detected, leading to a regional outbreak.
The shortage is blamed on graduates of veterinary schools who opt for the regular hours and assumed better pay of small animal medicine, though surveys indicate the pay difference is largely unfounded. There is no denying, however, that working with food animals can mean days and nights of messy, back-breaking work.
Doug Frels, a food animal vet for 20 years, earns about $75,000 a year, the same as his wife, who is a small animal vet. But he acknowledges many would rather work in a clinic than travel gravel roads, slop through slush and jostle with 500-pound cattle.
“There might be more lucrative things you could go into with less work and better hours,” said Frels, of Guthrie Center, Iowa.
Veterinary schools try to attract students to food animal practices through promises of debt relief and programs that acquaint them with rural communities, but it’s a hard sell.
“We’re constantly faced with that challenge,” said Dr. Raymond Sweeney, associate professor of large animal internal medicine at the University of Pennsylvania’s veterinary school. “There’s less and less people coming from a rural background, so they may not be aware of the importance of the food animal practitioner.”
The shortage prompted the National Academy of Sciences to begin an 18-month study in March to identify gaps in veterinary care and look for ways to coordinate resources.
A pilot program by the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service has been designed to deal with the problem. The program admits one student from each of the country’s 28 veterinary schools to a course focused on handling emergency disease outbreaks.
Dr. Tracee Treadwell, a senior veterinarian at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention who studies the spread of diseases between animals and humans, said getting more trained people out in the field is the only way to stop the spread of disease.
“The more smart, trained people you can have out there the better off we all are,” she said.
Find this article at:
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/nation/20070430-0055-farmscene-veterinarianshortage.html
Preschoolers given antibiotics to prevent meningococcal outbreak. 30/04/2007. ABC News Online
[This is the print version of story http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200704/s1910496.htm]
Last Update: Monday, April 30, 2007. 7:10pm (AEST)
Preschoolers given antibiotics to prevent meningococcal outbreak
About 20 children from a preschool on Sydney’s northern beaches will be treated with antibiotics to prevent an outbreak of meningococcal disease.
The move comes after a toddler from the centre was admitted to hospital with symptoms of the disease.
New South Wales health authorities say the four-year-old boy from Sydney’s northern beaches was admitted to a Brisbane hospital yesterday with suspected meningococcal disease.
The boy had travelled to Queensland by car with his family on Friday and was staying with relatives when he became sick.
He had a fever and was vomiting and after being admitted to hospital developed neck stiffness and a rash.
Close family contacts have been treated with antibiotic prophylaxis.
About 20 children who attended a preschool centre with the boy will also be treated.
Health authorities say that is about a quarter of the total number of children who attend the centre.
Outbreaks
Update: 2007 Measles and Mumps Outbreaks
This information is current as of today, April 30, 2007, 12:37:10 PM
Updated: April 28, 2007; October 27, July 28, 24 and 3, June 8, May 12, April 28, and March 31, 2006
Released: November 16, 2005
Measles and mumps remain common diseases in many parts of the world, including some developed countries in Europe and Asia. For US travelers, the risk for exposure to measles and mumps can be high, and both diseases can be prevented by the MMR (measles, mumps, rubella) vaccine.
Worldwide, more than 20 million people get sick with measles each year, causing 345,000 deaths. Measles cases occur in all regions of the world: Southeast Asia (14 million cases), Africa (3.5 million cases), Eastern Mediterranean (2 million cases), Western Pacific (1 million cases), Europe (170,000 cases) and the Americas (<1000 cases).
Recommendations for travelers
All travelers should be fully immunized and keep a copy of their immunization record with them as they travel.
Children
12 months or older should receive two doses of MMR vaccine separated by at least 28 days, with the first dose administered on or after the first birthday.
6–11 months, if they must travel outside the US, should receive single-antigen measles vaccine before departure if it is available, or MMR if single-antigen measles vaccine is not available. (Note: MMR given before 12 months of age should not be counted as part of the series. Children who receive MMR before age 12 months will need two more doses of MMR, the first of which should be administered at 12 months of age)
Adolescents and Adults
People who have received 2 doses of live measles or mumps containing vaccine are generally considered immune to measles and mumps.
Persons may be also considered immune to measles and mumps if they have documented diagnosis by a physician, laboratory evidence of immunity, or were born before 1957.
Adolescents and adults who cannot be considered immune based on the above mentioned criteria should receive two doses of MMR vaccine separated by at least 28 days.
Information about Measles and Mumps
Measles is a serious disease. Some of the people who become sick with measles also get an ear infection ( 7%-9%), diarrhea (8%), or a serious lung infection, such as pneumonia (1%-6%). One of 1,500 people with measles develops inflammation of the brain. In the United States, measles has been fatal in approximately 1-3 of every 1,000 people with measles in recent years. Measles can cause especially severe disease in people who are malnourished or immunosuppressed (i.e., HIV infection, leukemia, lymphoma, or generalized malignancy or persons receiving certain drug or radiation therapies).
Mumps is an infection of the salivary glands caused by a virus. It occurs through direct contact with respiratory droplets, saliva or contact with any surface that has been contaminated with the mumps virus. Early symptoms include fever, headache, and muscle ache; less than half of infected people may have the characteristic swelling of the glands close to the jaw. Mumps infection can lead to meningitis and inflammation of the testicles or ovaries, inflammation of the pancreas and deafness (usually permanent).
The MMR vaccine also provides protection against rubella (German measles). Rubella is caused by a virus that is spread through droplet transmission. It can cause a rash, mild fever, and arthritis(mostly in women). If a woman gets rubella while she is pregnant, she could have a miscarriage or her baby could be born with serious birth defects, such as deafness, cataracts, or mental retardation.
Since the introduction of vaccines containing measles, rubella, and mumps—and later combined measles-mumps-rubella (MMR) vaccine—in the United States, the numbers of reported cases of measles, mumps, rubella, and birth defects caused by rubella infection (congenital rubella syndrome) have decreased substantially. However, routine surveillance and vaccination remain necessary because of the continuing possibility of introduction of these diseases from other countries.
For more information, see the following links:
Lancet 2007; 369:191-200.
MMR vaccine (MMWR Recommendations and Reports, May 22, 1998)
Measles, mumps, and rubella (National Immunization Program website)
Measles outbreaks in Europe (Eurosurveillance website)
Update: Multistate Outbreak of Mumps—United States, January 1–May 2, 2006 (MMWR Dispatch, May 18, 2006)
Measles (Health Information for International Travel)
Mumps (Health Information for International Travel)
Rubella (Health Information for International Travel)
Date: April 28, 2007
Travelers’ Health Automated Information Line
PHONE: 877-FYI-TRIP toll free (Information about ordering the Yellow Book and International Certificates of Vaccination and recorded messages on travel-related health topics)
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention,1600 Clifton Rd, Atlanta, GA 30333, U.S.A
Tel: (404) 639-3311 / Public Inquiries: (404) 639-3534 / (800) 311-3435
QuickStats: Percentage of Hospitals with Staff Members Trained to Respond to Selected Terrorism-Related Diseases or Exposures* — National Hospital Ambulatory Medical Care Survey, United States, 2003–2004
* The staff person responsible for the hospital’s emergency response plan for bioterrorism or mass casualties was asked the following question: “Have your hospital staff members received special training (e.g., in-service or other courses, continuing medical education, grand rounds, or self-guided study) since September 11, 2001, in the identification, diagnosis, and treatment of the following diseases/conditions? Smallpox, anthrax, plague, botulism, tularemia, viral hemorrhagic fever, viral encephalitis, chemical exposure, nuclear/radiologic exposure.”
† 95% confidence interval.
During 2003–2004, the percentage of hospitals with emergency department staff members with bioterrorism-preparedness training for certain related diseases or exposures varied from 52.3% for hemorrhagic fever to 86.0% for smallpox.
SOURCE: Niska RW, Burt CW. Training for terrorism-related conditions in hospitals: United States, 2003–04. Advance data from vital and health statistics; no. 380. Hyattsville, MD: US Department of Health and Human Services, CDC, National Center for Health Statistics; 2006. Available at http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/ad/ad380.pdf.
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Date last reviewed: 4/26/2007
Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
1600 Clifton Rd, MailStop E-90, Atlanta, GA 30333, U.S.A
Department of Health
and Human Services
Here’s the latest from the Georgia Office of Homeland Security: Georgia Forestry Commission (GFC) firefighters, aided by other state, local and federal agency personnel, continue to battle wildfires that have, to date, burned 65,913 acres, or approximately 102 square miles, west of Waycross in Ware County. Firefighters are making progress and the fire is 50 percent contained.
This is the largest wildfire in Georgia history. GFC is fighting fire with fire by using controlled burns to lessen the fuels on the forest floor so the fire will burn less intensely in affected areas. In addition, to reinforcing the lines on US Highway 1, air tankers are also being used to drop fire retardant.
Two people have been killed and at least 30 injured in the third nail-bomb attack in London in two weeks.The bomb went off in the Admiral Duncan pub, in Soho, just after 1830. The bar was packed with drinkers at the start of the bank holiday weekend.
The pub is in Old Compton Street, at the heart of London’s gay community. Police are linking this bomb with last Saturday’s explosion in Brick Lane and the previous week’s attack in Brixton, which injured 39 people.
Eyewitnesses spoke of a “huge bang” as the bomb went off, hurling glass and debris into the street. Jason Everton had just left his job in nearby Frith Street to buy a sandwich, when he saw the front of the pub “coming straight off”.
“There were people running out, all covered in dust and bruises and cuts. It was quite horrific,” he said.
‘War scene’
Jean Pierre Trevor, who was working in an editing suite in offices just behind the pub, was blown three feet by the force of the blast. He went to offer his help, and found the street outside “like a war scene”.
“There were people lying everywhere,” he said. “Those who were around were putting thermal blankets over them. A lot of them had severe burns, so we were putting water and ice cubes on their skin.”
Nearby Soho Square, usually packed with office workers, became a makeshift treatment centre for the injured.
The police cleared nearby streets amid fears that there might be a second device.
‘Despicable’
At a press conference at Scotland Yard shortly after the attack, Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Paul Condon condemned the attack as “despicable” and “cowardly”, and appealed for help in catching those responsible.
A call to the BBC two hours after the attack attributed the bomb to the “White Wolves”. Four different right-wing extremist groups have admitted planting the Brixton bomb, but police say they have no specific corroboration that any particular group are behind the attack.
Watch/Listen
The explosion hurled glass and debris into the street
In Context
The death toll in the Soho pub bombing later rose to three. Andrea Dykes, 27, who was four months pregnant, was killed instantly; her husband was among those seriously injured. Their friend, Nik Moore, 31, was also killed, and the best man at their wedding, John Light, 32, died later in hospital.David Copeland, a 23-year-old engineer from Hampshire, was arrested at the beginning of May, and charged with murder and causing three explosions.
During his trial, the court heard he told police he was a Nazi, and believed in a master race. The jury found him guilty, and he received six life sentences.
Sentencing him, the judge said “The public must be protected from you, and assured that if you are ever released it will not be for a very long time.”
Intro: Strictly speaking, this was not a disaster. However, think what the consequences would have been had this occurred while people were evacuating the city due to an earthquake or a terrorist bombing. Even now, transit logistics will be problematic for months while the span is being re-constructed.
NY Times, 4/30/07: A fiery predawn tanker truck accident caused the collapse of a heavily trafficked freeway overpass near downtown on Sunday, sending hundreds of feet of concrete crashing onto a highway below and hobbling a vital Bay Area interchange.
The driver of the truck, which was carrying 8,600 gallons of gasoline, was hospitalized with second-degree burns. No other injuries were reported from the accident, which occurred at 3:42 a.m.
But even as the fire smoldered, transit officials said the accident could complicate the lives of commuters in both directions for months, raising the specter of circuitous detours to either the south or north.
“It will make for a long trip,” said Will Kempton, the director of Cal Trans, the state transportation agency.
The accident occurred in the heart of an unruly tangle of freeways known as the MacArthur Maze, where several major arteries converge at the approach to the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge, which connects San Francisco with the cities on the east side of San Francisco Bay.
The California Highway Patrol identified the driver as James Mosqueda, 51, from Woodland, Calif., near Sacramento. Officer Trent Cross, a spokesman for the highway patrol, said Mr. Mosqueda had just picked up the gasoline from a refinery and was headed to a gas station near the Oakland airport.
The highway patrol believes that Mr. Mosqueda was heading south on Interstate 80 into an interchange with Interstate 880 when he lost control in a curve, hit a guardrail and flipped the truck on its side. The tanker exploded, which sent flames hundreds of feet into the air, witnesses said. The fire quickly buckled a three-lane section of Interstate 580 and caused it to collapse onto some lanes of Interstate 880 about 30 feet below.
Michael Brown, the commissioner of the highway patrol, said the driver had been able to escape the burning truck, and he apparently took a cab in order to go to the hospital.
Mr. Brown said there was “no indication of impairment of the driver” by drugs or alcohol, but that some legal issues are outstanding for both Mr. Mosqueda, and the truck’s owner, Sabek Transportation, based in San Francisco. He did not elaborate.
Last June, according to records of the California Office of Spill Prevention and Response, a Sabek tanker truck jackknifed on an Interstate near Vallejo, spilling 4,500 gallons of diesel fuel, which contaminated a creek and vegetation.
For some Bay Area residents, the accident evoked memories of the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake, which caused the collapse of a mile-long, double-decker section of I-880, near the site of Sunday’s accident. That collapse, which occurred during the evening rush hour, resulted in 41 deaths and more than 100 injuries, as cars on the lower level were crushed.
Mayor Gavin Newsom of San Francisco, who visited the site on Sunday, called the collapse “a giant wake-up call to the region” about what may happen in a major temblor.
“It’s a matter of when not if,” Mr. Newsom said.
This time around, the results were not deadly on I-880, but no less arresting to look at. Dozens of people converged near the collapse site to gawk, and rubbernecking drivers on remaining roadways slowed traffic.
“I was on the road last night, so it’s kind of scary for me,” Anita Myles, 49, an Oakland resident, said as she peered at the damage through a chain link fence.
Another onlooker, James Signore, a civil engineer from Oakland, said he had a professional interest in the damage. “I have not seen this kind of wreckage before,” Mr. Signore, 43, said. “And I’m really curious how something this stout could be taken down.”
He was not the only one wondering how the overpass, which dates to the 1950s, had failed. At a noontime press conference held at a toll plaza near the collapse, Mr. Kempton said the heat from the fireball had most likely melted the steel girders and bolts that supported the concrete roadway. “If you have that kind of heat,” he said, “you’re going to have this kind of reaction. We’re not surprised by this result.”
With a Monday morning rush hour looming, officials said they were trying to assess the damage as fast as possible. Even with fewer cars on a Sunday afternoon, traffic was slow coming off the Bay Bridge into the East Bay, a situation that will no doubt intensify as the workweek begins. On an average day, the two spans that were destroyed on Sunday morning carried 160,000 vehicles, Mr. Kempton said.
Bay Area Rapid Transit, the train system connecting San Francisco and the East Bay, was not affected by the accident but said it would lengthen its trains to accommodate the rush on Monday.
“We would encourage people to stay away from the maze,” Mr. Kempton said. “If experience tells us anything, it will take a day or two to get this sorted out.”
Evaluating the damage will be the first step of a long process. Rebuilding the collapsed section of I-880 took nearly a decade, though Mr. Kempton called that situation “a much larger issue” involving neighborhood and environmental concerns.
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger authorized money for ferries, buses and the rail system to carry commuters at no charge during Monday’s commute, The Associated Press reported.
Mr. Kempton pleaded for patience, saying with this kind of complex highway system, “You’re not going to have a picnic every day.”
Intro: It seems that Colonel Mustard did the dasdardly deed in the library with a candlestick or rather the Chinese killed our doggies and kitties with melamine in Chinese animal feed plants. At least the evidence seems to be pointing in that direction. It’s not only what harmful material our pets and livestock are consuming, but how much contaminated food is getting into us. Meanwhile, the FDA remains undermanned and underfinanced.
NY Times, 4/30/07: As American food safety regulators head to China to investigate how a chemical made from coal found its way into pet food that killed dogs and cats in the United States, workers in this heavily polluted northern city openly admit that the substance is routinely added to animal feed as a fake protein.
For years, producers of animal feed all over China have secretly supplemented their feed with the substance, called melamine, a cheap additive that looks like protein in tests, even though it does not provide any nutritional benefits, according to melamine scrap traders and agricultural workers here.
“Many companies buy melamine scrap to make animal feed, such as fish feed,” said Ji Denghui, general manager of the Fujian Sanming Dinghui Chemical Company, which sells melamine. “I don’t know if there’s a regulation on it. Probably not. No law or regulation says ‘don’t do it,’ so everyone’s doing it. The laws in China are like that, aren’t they? If there’s no accident, there won’t be any regulation.”
Melamine is at the center of a recall of 60 million packages of pet food, after the chemical was found in wheat gluten linked this month to the deaths of at least 16 pets and the illness of possibly thousands of pets in the United States.
No one knows exactly how melamine (which is not believed to be particularly toxic) became so fatal in pet food, but its presence in any form of American food is illegal.
The link to China has set off concerns among critics of the Food and Drug Administration that ingredients in pet food as well as human food, which are increasingly coming from abroad, are not being adequately screened.
“They have fewer people inspecting product at the ports than ever before,” says Caroline Smith DeWaal, the director of food safety for the Center for Science in the Public Interest in Washington. “Until China gets programs in place to verify the safety of their products, they need to be inspected by U.S. inspectors. This open-door policy on food ingredients is an open invitation for an attack on the food supply, either intentional or unintentional.”
Now, with evidence mounting that the tainted wheat gluten came from China, American regulators have been granted permission to visit the region to conduct inspections of food treatment facilities.
The Food and Drug Administration has already banned imports of wheat gluten from China after it received more than 14,000 reports of pets believed to have been sickened by packaged food. And last week, the agency opened a criminal investigation in the case and searched the offices of at least one pet food supplier.
The Department of Agriculture has also stepped in. On Thursday, the agency ordered more than 6,000 hogs to be quarantined or slaughtered after some of the pet food ingredients laced with melamine were accidentally sent to hog farms in eight states, including California.
The pet food case is also putting China’s agricultural exports under greater scrutiny because the country has had a terrible food safety record.
In recent years, for instance, China’s food safety scandals have involved everything from fake baby milk formulas and soy sauce made from human hair to instances where cuttlefish were soaked in calligraphy ink to improve their color and eels were fed contraceptive pills to make them grow long and slim.
For their part, Chinese officials dispute any suggestion that melamine from the country could have killed pets. But regulators here on Friday banned the use of melamine in vegetable proteins made for export or for use in domestic food supplies.
Yet what is clear from visiting this region of northeast China is that for years melamine has been quietly mixed into Chinese animal feed and then sold to unsuspecting farmers as protein-rich pig, poultry and fish feed.
Many animal feed operators here advertise on the Internet, seeking to purchase melamine scrap. The Xuzhou Anying Biologic Technology Development Company, one of the companies that American regulators named as having shipped melamine-tainted wheat gluten to the United States, had posted such a notice on the Internet last March.
Here at the Shandong Mingshui Great Chemical Group factory, huge boiler vats are turning coal into melamine, which is then used to create plastics and fertilizer.
But the leftover melamine scrap, golf ball-size chunks of white rock, is sometimes being sold to local agricultural entrepreneurs, who say they mix a powdered form of the scrap into animal feed to deceive those who raise animals into thinking they are buying feed that is high in protein.
“It just saves money if you add melamine scrap,” said the manager of an animal feed factory here.
Last Friday here in Zhangqiu, a fast-growing industrial city southeast of Beijing, two animal feed producers explained in great detail how they purchase low-grade wheat, corn, soybean or other proteins and then mix in small portions of nitrogen-rich melamine scrap, whose chemical properties help the feed register an inflated protein level.
Melamine is the new scam of choice, they say, because urea — another nitrogen-rich chemical — is illegal for use in pig and poultry feed and can be easily detected in China as well as in the United States.
“People use melamine scrap to boost nitrogen levels for the tests,” said the manager of the animal feed factory. “If you add it in small quantities, it won’t hurt the animals.”
The manager, who works at a small animal feed operation here that consists of a handful of storage and mixing areas, said he has mixed melamine scrap into animal feed for years.
He said he was not currently using melamine. But he then pulled out a plastic bag containing what he said was melamine powder and said he could dye it any color to match the right feed stock.
He said that melamine used in pet food would probably not be harmful. “Pets are not like pigs or chickens,” he said casually, explaining that they can afford to eat less protein. “They don’t need to grow fast.”
The resulting melamine-tainted feed would be weak in protein, he acknowledged, which means the feed is less nutritious.
But, by using the melamine additive, the feed seller makes a heftier profit because melamine scrap is much cheaper than soy, wheat or corn protein.
“It’s true you can make a lot more profit by putting melamine in,” said another animal feed seller here in Zhangqiu. “Melamine will cost you about $1.20 for each protein count per ton whereas real protein costs you about $6, so you can see the difference.”
Feed producers who use melamine here say the tainted feed is often shipped to feed mills in the Yangtze River Delta, near Shanghai, or down to Guangdong Province, near Hong Kong. They also said they knew that some melamine-laced feed had been exported to other parts of Asia, including South Korea, North Korea, Indonesia and Thailand.
Evidence is mounting that Chinese protein exports have been tainted with melamine and that its use in agricultural regions like this one is widespread. But the government has issued no recall of any food or feed product here in China.
Indeed, few people outside the agriculture business know about the use of melamine scrap. The Chinese news media — which is strictly censored — has not reported much about the country’s ties to the pet food recall in the United States. And few in agriculture here do not see any harm in using melamine in small doses; they simply see it as cheating a little on protein, not harming animals or pets.
As for the sale of melamine scrap, it is increasingly popular as a fake ingredient in feed, traders and workers here say.
At the Hebei Haixing Insect Net Factory in nearby Hebei Province, which makes animal feed, a manager named Guo Qingyin said: “In the past melamine scrap was free, but the price has been going up in the past few years. Consumption of melamine scrap is probably bigger than that of urea in the animal feed industry now.”
And so melamine producers like the ones here in Zhangqiu are busy.
A man named Jing, who works in the sales department at the Shandong Mingshui Great Chemical Group factory here, said on Friday that prices have been rising, but he said that he had no idea how the company’s melamine scrap is used.
“We have an auction for melamine scrap every three months,” he said. “I haven’t heard of it being added to animal feed. It’s not for animal feed.”
Sunday Telegraph, 4/29/07: Suspects linked to al-Qaeda have obtained sensitive jobs in vital
industries that could be the target of terrorist attacks, it can be
revealed.
The individuals were uncovered by police and the security services in
operations designed to protect key British sites such as transport
hubs, power stations and the water supply.
Security chiefs believe that they may have become radicalised while
already in employment, thus evading the strict vetting procedure for
applicants for security-sensitive posts.
Following the discovery, the Government is to draft new guidelines
for companies to strengthen systems for monitoring staff. Employees
will be encouraged to report any concerns they may have about
suspicious behaviour by colleagues.
Other elements of the critical national infrastructure that the
Government has drawn up include plans to defend telecommunications,
food supply, finance, key health facilities and the emergency services.
A senior Whitehall source said: “Police and the intelligence services
are coming across more names – I’m not saying a huge number, but more
cases – where they are identifying people they are concerned about
that are working in jobs of some sensitivity.”
MI5 is understood to have unmasked al-Qaeda sympathisers who joined
its ranks during a recruitment drive aimed at young British Muslims,
following the London bombings. At least three Metropolitan Police
officers have also been investigated over visits they made to
Pakistan, according to the Association of Muslim Police
Intro: It’s only a matter of time before we have a mass shooting in one of our ERs. The area is a hotbed of stress and volatility. And that’s only among the staff! At least, Houston Medical Center is taking a proactive approach.
Healthcare Security Weekly, 4/30/07:
The Houston Medical Center in Warner Robins, GA, is increasing security by hiring an armed city police officer to patrol its emergency room.
The hospital plans to hire a Warner Robins police officer for the emergency room to patrol during the overnight hours, reported WMAZ-TV in Macon. The hospital’s administrator said the hiring is an effort to be proactive and prepare for the county’s growth as well as protect patients, faculty, and staff. The hospital currently employs security officers who do not carry weapons. The administrator said he hopes the presence of an officer equipped with a badge and gun will deter crime at the facility.
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