You're from up in the great north ? --->Canada plays down talk of foot-and-mouth terrorism
Hmmmmm...so all this foot and mouth disease might
have been terrorists?
By David Ljunggren
OTTAWA, April 6 (Reuters) - Canada's counterintelligence
service played down speculation on Friday that the country was
under active threat from bioterrorists armed with
foot-and-mouth disease to devastate Canadian agriculture.
Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) spokesman Dan
Lambert said an outbreak of the disease in Europe had triggered
excessive levels of anxiety about the potential spread of
foot-and-mouth to Canada.
A senior official at the Canadian Food Inspection Agency
(CFIA) triggered alarm bells on Thursday by saying CSIS was
assessing whether bioterrorists could introduce the disease,
which is not harmful to humans, into Canada.
CFIA executive vice-president Dr Andre Gravel -- questioned
about comments by the head of an animal rights group who
expressed the hope that foot-and-mouth would cross the Atlantic
-- told a parliamentary committee that it would be very hard to
stop someone from bringing the disease into the country.
"The threat of foot-and-mouth as a bioterrorism agent is no
different than it is from anthrax and all types of different
things that CSIS deals with every day. So it's not greater or
less," Lambert told Reuters.
"I think there's some measure of, I don't want to say
hysteria, but over-anxiety because of what is going on in
Europe. There are many terrible things that can happen along
the lines of bioterrorism."
Last week the president of People for the Ethical Treatment
of Animals (PETA), an influential hard-line animal rights
organization, said she hoped the disease would infect animals
in North America.
"I think it's important here not to make a bigger issue (of
this) than what it is. There was a statement made by PETA,
there was an interpretation made by their doctor, Mr Gravel,"
said Lambert.
He would not comment on whether CSIS was probing the
possible introduction of foot-and-mouth into Canada.
"If we're aware of something to investigate we investigate
it, but I don't think it's any different from any other
potential biological threat, of which there are many," he said
Inside the CFIA itself there were plenty of tight lips and
none of the eloquence that Dr Gravel had shown on Thursday.
"The only thing that I can properly say to you is that any
information we had indicating there was some active threat we
would refer to CSIS," said Susanne Frost, the CFIA's director
of enforcement and investigation services.
"It's not appropriate for me to speak to their mandate. You
should be following it up with CSIS," she told Reuters.
More than one million animals in Britain have been killed
or marked for slaughter in an attempt to halt the spread of the
disease, now in its seventh week. The epidemic has also
devastated the country's thriving tourism industry.
((Reuters Ottawa Bureau 613-235 6745; fax 613-235 5890))
REUTERS
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