MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

US contrary to FAM immunization

Despite the risk posed by highly contagious foot-and-mouth disease, FAM, US sanitary authorities and the meat industry have so far refused to consider immunizing livestock in the United States.

The decision is a matter of economics since vaccinating animals against the disease could wipe out the United States' $5 billion red-meat export business because: antibodies produced by the vaccination can't be distinguished from those produced by the disease. Without the ability to make that distinction, the United States would lose its FAM disease-free status and be subject to bans from importing countries.To be classified as FAM disease-free by the FAO world animal-health organization in Paris, Office International Des Epizooties, a vaccinated country must be disease-free for two years. If vaccines have not been used, a country needs to be disease-free for only a year.

American industry leaders also argue that the repeated inoculations would be costly and guarantee immunity from only one particular strain of FAM. Hog farmers, for instance, could immunize their pigs against the O type, which is devastating Britain, then could succumb to the A type from South America. ''There is no need to vaccinate against a disease that no animals have,'' reads the latest statement from the U.S. Department of Agriculture on FAM vaccines. The USDA sees vaccination as a last resort and plans to use it only in the case of an outbreak.

Although there hasn't been a case of FAM diagnosed in the United States since 1929, the risk of the disease entering the country is greater than ever. The biggest threat comes from U.S. ports, including the gateway ports in the West that face Asia, where FAM is endemic. But now the East Coast faces the Europe epidemic where an Asian O type is in at least four countries.

With an unvaccinated population of 98 million cattle, 10 million sheep and 100 million pigs, the United States is vulnerable to a devastating outbreak. The US FAM 1929 outbreak was first detected at a hog farm in California and started with waste from a vessel at the Port of Los Angeles. Because the pig owner was able to immediately detect the symptoms and a diagnosis was delivered in three days, the disease was rapidly contained.