An ISU professor is currently leading an 11-member national committee on biological threats to agricultural plants and animals. The committee is evaluating the United States’ ability to protect itself from agriculture bioterrorism attacks.

Harley Moon, professor at the Veterinary Medicine Research Institute, said a presidential decision made several years ago prepared the United States for terrorism attacks, but some felt the decision was made in haste.

“It was focused on threats directly at people. Threats to plants or animals haven’t been significant,” he said. “Some people thought that might have been an oversight.”

The National Research Council held a workshop to analyze the situation. The group assigned to the project, made up of Nobel Prize winners and top government officials, concluded that a study was needed to prevent agriculture bioterrorism in the United States.

Jennifer Kuzma, National Research Council study director, said the council does approximately 250 reports a year to inform the public about various topics.

“We will offer a consensus report on the U.S. Defense System for agriculture and its scientific capabilities in biological threats to agricultural plants and animals,” she said.

The committee is currently collecting information and is attempting to find ways to deter, prevent and detect potential acts of terrorism from happening.

“We are putting ourselves in the mindset of potential terrorists,” Moon said.

He said groups that pose a threat to the U.S. include a number of individual hate groups.

Moon said bombing is the typical approach to terrorism, but bioterrorism is a different case.

For example, smallpox, a viral disease that appears to have been eradicated, was a prevalent disease earlier, he said. It can be transmitted through air and is usually carried in discharge from the nose or mouth of an infected person.

Moon said the disease was formerly used as a weapon. Blankets contaminated with smallpox were offered to Native Americans, who were very susceptible to the disease.

Moons said nationwide, agricultural bioterrorism isn’t a problem.

“The issue is more concerned with what we are susceptible to,” she said.

Moon said Iowa has passed a law protecting against some terrorist acts, such as the liberation of a mink population in Northern Iowa. He said this type of terrorism usually occurs when animal activists take a criminal approach.

“I was astounded when, with the concern of the foot-and-mouth disease in Great Britain, members of [People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals] said they hoped the disease would get to the U.S.,” Moon said.

He said this was not directly a terrorist act, but he “thought it was odd that they would advocate such a disease in the animal population.”

“These kinds of groups very much object to much of what we do in mainstream agriculture,” he said.

Moon said case studies will be done for a number of crop and livestock diseases. Foot-and-mouth disease will be studied extensively, as well as wheat rust and other crop diseases.

He said they are beginning to understand the diseases and are trying to research the most likely threats to the United States.

The United States Department of Agriculture’s Agriculture Research Service provided the committee with an 18-month $400,000 grant to conduct the study.