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Dr. Simon M. Shane is a consultant poultry veterinarian and Adjunct Professor in the Department of Poultry Science and College of Veterinary Medicine, North Carolina State University.
But they were not:
And even operational security is poor:
The only concern about the journalists' findings I saw voiced by the MN Turkey Association was that biosecurity should be enhanced to keep out journalists and animal rights activists. Personally I think avian flu is a much bigger threat to the industry's reputation.
Dr Simon Shane: Biosecurity must be upgraded if the U.S. Egg Industry is to survive
Source: Egg-Cite 29 May, 2015 A detailed epidemiologic evaluation on the risk factors for rapid and extensive dissemination of HPAI virus has yet to be released, although there is a growing consensus that many of the outbreaks have resulted from deficiencies in biosecurity. Previously I commented on the need to establish and maintain a hierarchy of biosecurity extending from Conceptual Biosecurity (where complexes are located and their scope and size) through Structural Biosecurity (capital investment in facilities to exclude disease) and then Operational Biosecurity (how facilities are managed to prevent introduction of pathogens). Each component is in turn is dependent on the preceding level involving a sequence of appropriate strategic decisions, adequate investment and direct training and supervision of personnel and movement of flocks and equipment.
The establishment of mega-complexes of up to 5 million hens in close proximity especially in Iowa and other Midwest states represented a deficiency in Conceptual Biosecurity. It is axiomatic that if Conceptual Biosecurity elevates the risk and consequences of introducing an infection, the subsequent barriers represented by Structural Biosecurity must be proportionately intensified.
Source: Egg-Cite 29 May, 2015 A detailed epidemiologic evaluation on the risk factors for rapid and extensive dissemination of HPAI virus has yet to be released, although there is a growing consensus that many of the outbreaks have resulted from deficiencies in biosecurity. Previously I commented on the need to establish and maintain a hierarchy of biosecurity extending from Conceptual Biosecurity (where complexes are located and their scope and size) through Structural Biosecurity (capital investment in facilities to exclude disease) and then Operational Biosecurity (how facilities are managed to prevent introduction of pathogens). Each component is in turn is dependent on the preceding level involving a sequence of appropriate strategic decisions, adequate investment and direct training and supervision of personnel and movement of flocks and equipment.
The establishment of mega-complexes of up to 5 million hens in close proximity especially in Iowa and other Midwest states represented a deficiency in Conceptual Biosecurity. It is axiomatic that if Conceptual Biosecurity elevates the risk and consequences of introducing an infection, the subsequent barriers represented by Structural Biosecurity must be proportionately intensified.
In the desire to achieve lowest possible capital investment and correspondingly lower production costs, a facility which may have represented an initial investment of $120 million, it was not seen necessary to expend $250,000 for installations to maintain a barrier against introduction of infection.
Even in the face of massive mortality, there is evidence that personnel involved in movement of pullets, depletion of hens, beak trimming and vaccination of pullets and other activities were not subject to acceptable personal biosecurity precautions. A press report by journalists based in Chicago confirmed unrestricted access to a large complex currently undergoing depletion as a result of exposure to HPAI.
Invoking aerogenous transmission as a major route of disseminating of HPAI although valid in some cases may become an excuse for ?business as usual?.
In past years the emphasis by APHIS and state officials was to facilitate movement of eggs from unaffected farms in a controlled area following the outbreak of a proclaimed (exotic) disease. At the time, it was pointed out by those with experience in the spread of catastrophic poultry infections that this was an unrealistic scenario since the rate of transmission due to defects in biosecurity and possibly aerogenous transmission would have resulted in serial outbreaks within days among farms within close proximity. The programs depended on pre-qualifying farms as to adequacy in biosecurity. In this respect it was ?business as usual? and the participants remained vulnerable to infection with token measures directed at Operational Biosecurity. In the event, the warnings by naysayers including this commentator were ignored since the program offered a degree of theoretical security of supply but based on a false sense of reality.
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