(Credit:
Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation)
Bird flu, swine flu, anthrax; and now add Hendra--a lethal virus that resides in bat urine and horse spit--to the ever increasing list of barnyard threats.
The U.S. and other countries are investing in Hendra virus research because they fear it may be used in biological warfare, Dr. Peter Reid told horse owners and "bat carers" at the Queensland Horse Council Hendra virus conference last week. And Dr. Reid should know--he was the veterinarian involved in the first known Hendra outbreak, which killed prominent Queensland horse trainer Vic Rail and 14 of his horses in 1994.
Back then, there was speculation of foul play until the Australian Animal Health Laboratory isolated and identified what it said was a new virus unreported anywhere else in the world.
This bug, along with and its even deadlier relative the Nipah virus, is so virulent it's considered a U.S. homeland security threat. There is no effective treatment or vaccine for Hendra or Nipah. (An Ausie-U.S. team recently developed a serum that protects ferrets exposed to the Nipah virus.) Thankfully, it has to date occurred only in Australia. The latter has killed hundreds in Malaysia, Bangladesh, and India, while the former has downed four out of the seven people infected in Queensland, Australia--a 57 percent mortality rate.(PDF)
So far it appears that Hendra is transmitted from bats to horses and from horses to humans. Nipah transfers from bats to pigs and from pigs to humans, but there have also been cases of bat to human and human to human transmissions, according to experts. (Again with the swine?)
Still, although contained for now Down Under, it's one of the top items to justify a new $575 million National Bio and Agro-Defense Facility Kansas State University campus in Manhattan, Kansas.
The new facility would replace the Plum Island Animal Disease Center and would be dedicated to the research of "high-consequence biological threats involving zoonotic and foreign animal diseases."
Specifically, the new facility would provide a BSL-4 level space, which affords the protection necessary for researchers to study life-threatening microorganisms like Nipah and Hendra for which there is no known vaccine or therapy.
So, apart from the $575 million tab, is there reason for concern?
Dr. Reid told the Australian Associated Press that with the increased outbreaks in the past four years "it was his gut feeling that the virus was becoming more contagious".
"Bats are quite accessible and in the wrong hands it can pose quite a threat," he said.
School bus technology could improve Humvee safety.
BAE Systems has developed a way for crews of up-armored Humvees to quickly remove the ballistic windshield and exit the vehicle during an emergency.
Troops have long complained of being unable to exit tactical vehicles after land mine blasts or during accidents involving water and ditches. The problem is so serious that the 10th Mountain Division invented its own door-ripping tool called the "Rat Claw."
Similar to what's seen in many civilian buses, the BAE VEE Window allows a ballistic windshield to be removed in less than 5 seconds, according to the company.
(Credit:
BAE)
DHS on YouTube
Go to YouTube for latest on duct tape and color codes.
The Department of Homeland Security launched its new YouTube Channel site on Wednesday, in an attempt to enhance its "Web presence, increase transparency and provide accurate, up-to-date information to the public."
"Social media plays an increasingly large role in our engagement with the public, especially in the event of an incident or disaster," DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano said. "These new tools will facilitate an open dialogue about the Department's security efforts across the nation and around the world."
Yeah, as long as the power's not out.
Taser tactics
Taser International is in hot water Down Under.
An Australian man, who allegedly brandished a container of gasoline and a cigarette lighter, burst into flames after police tasered him in self-defense, according to Police Commissioner Karl O'Callaghan.
The man, who was in a remote Aboriginal community north of Perth, was allegedly sniffing the gas fumes in an attempt to get high, police said. He "burst into flames" after the Taser was fired, suffering third-degree burns to his face, arms, and chest. The possibility that the lighter started the fire has not been ruled out.
"The only other choice they would have had is to use a police-issue firearm, and the consequences would almost certainly have been far more grave," O'Callaghan told reporters.
(Credit:
GAO)
Soaring cost estimates for protecting US borders against nuclear smuggling arrived at by the Domestic Nuclear Detection Office (DNDO) are unreliable and could result in "significant" overruns, according to a Government Accounting Agency (GAO) report.
How significant? The projected cost to implement the Radiation Portal Monitor Program has gone from $399 million in 2003, when the Customs and Border Protection was in charge of the project, to $1.3 billion when DNDO took over in 2005. In 2007 the cost of equipping US ports with portal monitors was $1.7 billion. It's now $2.1 billion. But this latest estimate fails to take into account several major "cost elements". The true cost will be about $3.1 billion, but could go as high as $3.8 billion, according to the GAO.
DNDO did not follow Department of Homeland Security cost-estimating methodology or bother to document the estimating approach it did use, according to GAO. Further, when the GAO requested detailed documentation of DNDO's billion dollar portal monitor strategy, all it received was a one page spreadsheet of summary information, the report notes.(pdf)
Some of the price increase kicked in when DNDO sponsored the development of the next-generation, advanced spectroscopic portal (ASP.) These new portals not only detect radioactive material but also identify the source, thereby minimizing missed threats and greatly reducing false alarms, according to DNDO. The cost of these units has nearly doubled from around $576,400 to $800,000.
This is not first time GAO, (the nonpartisan audit and investigative arm of Congress,) has come down on DNDO, a relatively new agency establishment under the aegis of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) in 2005.
In 2007, the government watchdog accused the office of using biased methods to enhance performance results in testing the new detection portals. When preliminary tests were conducted, the defense contractors who were bidding on the job were allowed access to the results, allowing them to adjust their systems accordingly, GAO charged.
Preventing nuclear and radioactive material from being smuggled into the United States became a major security concern after 9-11. A common fear is that the stuff could be used by terrorists in a nuclear weapon or a "dirty bomb", even though that possibility remains highly theoretical.
(Credit:
IDO Security)
When it comes to gentility and airline security, we may have something to learn from Nairobi International, where they have the decency, and the equipment, to allow you to keep your shoes on.
Nairobi joins Madrid, Prague, and Budapest in deploying the MagShoe, a "high-speed, shoes-on, portable footwear weapons detection system," at their respective airports. U.K. and U.S. airports may be next.
The MagShoe is a metal detector designed to test shoes and ankles in the ongoing fight against foot-borne threats. A passenger simply steps on what looks like a twin mud scraper/shoe buffer, and within an average of 1.2 seconds an audio-visual signal either alerts the operator to concealed metal or gives the all-clear.
Development of the device was initiated by the technical branch of the Israeli Security Agency in response to 9/11 and the Richard Reid "shoe bomber" incident, according to the manufacturer, IDO Security. In both cases the weapons were smuggled in shoes, and in both cases the terrorists went through an Arch Metal Detector (Magnetometer Gates) without being detected.
MagShoe is being evaluated by TSA for the Department of Homeland Security and is expected to receive the seal of approval soon, according to the company. But not in time for the holidays.
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