The public discussion about the need for adequate food is a luxury that well-fed people in developed countries can afford.  But in developing countries where the population is growing while the supply of farmland shrinks, people are grappling with a much thornier and higher-stakes dilemma.  Unless they can grow more food on less land, they may not have enough to eat.  The scale of this is already daunting – more than 1 billion individuals in the world go to bed each night hungry.

Agricultural biotechnology is helping to solve this by making it possible to grow more and healthier food in conditions and places where it could not be grown before. The new agricultural biotechnologies offer great promise for producing enough food for the growing world population.  The world’s population is expected to increase to 9 to 10 billion individuals by 2050, with more than 60% of the growth occurring in Africa, Southern Asia, and Eastern Asia.  This increase in population translates to a projected increase in annual global food production from 9.9 trillion pounds to about 14.3 trillion pounds in 2050 (see post at Terry Etherton Blog on Biotechnology at:  http://blogs.das.psu.edu/tetherton/).

Some may be amazed at the extent to which plant biotechnology is being adopted in agriculture.  The rate is accelerating impressively.  For example, in 2010, the accumulated acreage planted during the past 15 years (i.e., from 1996 to 2010), exceeded one billion hectares for the first time.  This is equivalent to more than 10% of the total land area of the USA or China.   This translates to an 87-fold increase in acreage planted to GM crops between 1996 and 2010, making biotech crops the fastest adopted crop technology in the history of modern agriculture.

It is important to appreciate that feeding the growing world population will be a challenge.  As farmers in developing nations clear-cut more land and consume more natural resources to grow the food their mounting populations need to survive, the world faces an environmental dilemma in addition to a humanitarian one.  I don’t think we want to continue to destroy more wildlife habit or tropical rainforest to plant more soybeans.  What is the answer?  One important answer is to invest in science to develop future generations of technology that improve productive efficiency of plant and animal agriculture.  (Food productive efficiency is an increase in the quantity of food produced per acre for crops, and the quantity of meat or milk produced per unit of food consumed by animals.)

Opponents of ag biotechnology contend (incorrectly) that many consumers are opposed to modern biotechnology.  However, the science-based consumer survey evidence clearly shows that the majority of Americans have accepted the benefits of the new food biotechnologies  (see: Terry Etherton Blog on Biotechnology at:  http://blogs.das.psu.edu/tetherton/).

There are many compelling reasons to support and promote ag and food biotechnology for the global village.  These “biotechnologies” contribute importantly to alleviating some of the major challenges facing global society, including: food security and self-sufficiency, sustainability, alleviation of poverty and hunger, and help in mitigating some of the challenges associated with climate change and global warming.  We are fortunate that we are traversing an era where there is so much science that is being applied to pressing societal issues.  Let us celebrate the many positive contributions that ag biotechnology has made to the world, and will make in the future!

BRUSSELS | Tue Oct 11, 2011

(Reuters) – Europe’s biotechnology industry has warned the European Commission that agricultural imports vital to EU food security are increasingly being put at risk, due to the slow pace of the bloc’s approval system for genetically modified (GM) crops.

In a report to be presented to EU policymakers on Tuesday, biotech association EuropaBio said the speed of GM crop authorizations in Europe is slowing — even as governments worldwide seek to step up the pace of their approvals.

“The EU authorization process for GM products takes substantially longer than comparable systems, despite the fact that government processes around the world to assess the safety and impact of GM products are essentially the same,” it said.

EU policy on GM crops has long been politically fraught, with a majority of consumers opposed to modified foods, but the bloc reliant on imports of about 30 million tonnes of GM animal feed each year — equivalent to 60 kg per person.

EuropaBio estimates the EU’s approval process takes 15-20 months longer, on average, than in the three top global exporters of GM crops — the United States, Brazil, and Canada.

The number of GM crops awaiting approval in Europe has risen from about 50 at the end of 2007 to 72 today — 51 for import and 21 for cultivation. Based on current trends, EuropaBio said it expects more than 90 products to be pending approval by 2015.

Only two GM crops are currently approved for cultivation in Europe, compared to 90 in the United States and 28 in Brazil.

As well as blocking EU farmers from growing GM crops, the lack of approvals increases the risk of import disruptions due to contamination with unapproved GM varieties, the report said.

“It’s a double whammy — we don’t allow farmers to import these GM crops because they haven’t been approved here, and you can’t cultivate them either. We’re putting ourselves into a corner,” EuropaBio Secretary General Nathalie Moll told Reuters.

In its report, EuropaBio urges the European Commission, which oversees GM crop approvals, to set targets for reducing the backlog of applications.

POLITICAL IMPASSE

The Commission said its own analysis of GM approvals found the delays were not as significant as stated by EuropaBio and that it gave extra priority to cases that could disrupt imports.

“The Commission pays particular attention to authorizations which can have a major impact on trade, and looks for efficiency gains whenever they are possible,” EU health and consumer spokesman Frederic Vincent said.

EU environmental groups argue that pro-GM countries in other parts of the world cut corners in safety assessments, and that if anything the EU should beef up its approval system.

“In the U.S., GM crops are riddled with failures, so Europe shouldn’t be compared with a weaker system. EU laws are there to protect the public and environment from the risks of GM crops,” said Mute Schimpf, GM campaigner for Friends of the Earth.

Last month, U.S. agribusiness giant Cargill and agricultural processor Archer Daniels Midland refused to accept grain that had not received EU regulatory approval, for fear that traces in shipments could shut off a key export market.

In a bid to avoid such disruptions to animal feed imports –which totaled more than 50 million tonnes last year, worth some 15 billion euros ($20.5 billion) — the EU adopted rules in June allowing tiny amounts of unapproved GM crops in feed shipments.

In a bid to avoid such disruptions to animal feed imports –which totaled more than 50 million tonnes last year, worth some 15 billion euros ($20.5 billion) — the EU adopted rules in June allowing tiny amounts of unapproved GM crops in feed shipments.

While the so-called “low level presence” (LLP) rules will help, EuropaBio argues that their scope — applicable to feed, but not food — and the threshold for unapproved GM material of just 0.1 percent will not prove an effective long-term solution.

The European Commission drafted rules last year to allow EU governments to decide themselves whether to grow or ban GM crops, which could speed up the process. But opposition from members including France, Germany and Britain — and the biotech industry itself — stalled talks on the plans.

The impasse coincided with a fall in the number of GM crop authorizations proposed by the Commission for approval by governments.

“The processing of approvals has stopped while Europe works on these political issues … and there’s no reason why these two things couldn’t go in parallel,” said EuropaBio’s Moll.

Stefan Marcinowski, executive board member of German chemical giant BASF, said Europe’s slow approach went beyond a threat to imports and a lack of EU cultivation.

“We are not starting any new projects that are exclusively dedicated to being marketed in Europe, despite having many crops which have a special European demand. It makes no sense with this uncertainty to make long-term investments into such projects.”

The World Economic Forum (WEF) recently released its sixth annual report on the state of the global economy. The Global Risk Report 2011 discusses several threats to world stability, including rising economic disparity, insufficient global governance, and sufficient availability of water, food and energy.

According to the WEF Global Risk Report 2011, economic disparity and global governance failures likely will  pose a risk to global stability. Economic disparity can be viewed as the “gradient” in wealth among countries that may affect social and political stability.  Economic disparity is an important contributor to many global issues including corruption, health issues, food insecurity, terrorism, and several others.

The WEF also discussed other “risk factors” for global stability, including water, food, and energy availability in the future.  As Figure 1 (see below) conveys, world population is expected to increase 30-50% in the next twenty years, with most of the growth occurring in emerging economies. This could bring a plethora of problems, including geopolitical struggles and social and political instability, as the population struggles to attain access to resources.  As I have written about many times in Terry Etherton Blog on Biotechnology, the looming challenges in feeding the growing world population can not solved “overnight” and are dependent on an increased investment in research.  In addition to producing sufficient food, supplying sufficient water and energy will be daunting.  For example, projections are that there will be a 30% increase in demand for water by 2030.

The ever-pressing question is:  How are “we” (the developed and developing countries) going to solve these problems?  Unfortunately, in the nightly news (at least in the U.S.), this doesn’t seem to high on the priority list of policy issues that members of Congress are concerned about.

FIGURE 1.  WORLD POPULATION FROM 1960 to 2050. Source:  World Economic Forum Water Initiative, edited by D. Waughray (2010).  Water Security:  The Water-Food-Energy-Climate Nexus, based on United Nations Population Division, UN-DESA, UN Revision 2008.

The Economist published an article in their prestigious “The World in 2010” issue about the clear-cut environmental benefits of agricultural biotechnology.   The author, Matt Ridley, writes that the results of agricultural biotechnology are astonishing and promising, as genetically modified crops need less land and water to achieve the same yield.

This issue of The Economist is dedicated to looking ahead, and if Mr. Ridley is right, agricultural biotechnology will continue to be adopted worldwide as it is crucial to preserving our climate and feeding the world. He writes, “within a decade there may be crops that are no-till, insect-resistant, omega-3-enriched, drought-tolerant, salt-tolerant and nitrogen-efficient. If they boost yields, then the 21^st century will see more and more people better and better fed from less and less land.”

You can read the full article here.

Biotech Crops Help Reduce Agriculture’s Pesticide Use and Greenhouse Gas Emissions
PG Economics Research Summary (The UK)
December 7, 2009

In light of ongoing debates on global food security, agricultural sustainability and climate change, it is important to recognize the benefits biotechnology brings to world agricultural production.

According to several research summaries released by PG Economics in the UK, those impacts are significant.

Biotech crops have contributed to significantly reducing the release of greenhouse gas emissions from agricultural practices. In 2007, this was equivalent to removing 14.2 billion kg of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere or removing nearly 6.3 million cars from the road for one year (see Table below).

The greenhouse gas emission reductions are derived from two principle sources: reduced fuel use from less-frequent herbicide or insecticide applications and reduced energy usage in soil cultivation from the use of no-till and reduced-till farming systems.

From 1996 to 2007, pesticide spraying was reduced by 359 million kg, which is equivalent to 125% of the annual volume of pesticide active ingredient applied to arable crops in the European Union.

The fuel savings associated with making fewer spray runs (relative to conventional crops) and the switch to conservation, reduced-till and no-till farming systems have resulted in permanent savings in carbon dioxide emissions. In 2007, this amounted to about 1.144 billion kg (attributable to reduced fuel use of 416 million liters).

From 1996 to 2007, the cumulative permanent reduction from fuel use was estimated at 7.09 billion kg of carbon dioxide (arising from reduced fuel use of 2.578 billion liters).

The use of no-till and reduced-till farming systems has increased significantly with the adoption of herbicide-tolerant biotech crops because the technology has improved growers’ ability to control competing weeds, which reduces reliance on soil cultivation and seed-bed preparation as means for getting good levels of weed control.

As a result, tractor fuel use for tillage has dropped, soil quality has been enhanced and levels of soil erosion have been cut. In turn, more carbon remains in the soil, leading to lower greenhouse gas emissions.

Based on savings arising from the rapid adoption of no-till and reduced-till farming systems in North and South America, an estimated extra 3.57 billion kg of soil carbon were sequestered in 2007 (equivalent to 13.103 billion kg of carbon dioxide that have not been released into the atmosphere).

Cumulatively, the amount of carbon sequestered is probably higher due to year-over-year benefits to soil quality. However, due to the lack of data on the crop area in continuous no-till systems, PG Economics said it is not possible to confidently estimate cumulative soil sequestration gains.

Herbicide-tolerant biotech soybeans have also facilitated the adoption of no-till production systems, which shorten the production cycle.

This advantage enables many farmers in South America to plant a crop of soybeans immediately after a wheat crop in the same growing season. This second crop, additional to traditional soybean production, added 67.5 million metric tons to soybean production in Argentina and Paraguay between 1996 and 2007.

For more information visit PG Economics.

If Activists, Government, and Global Business Unite

I got my first bumper sticker (for my bicycle) as a 10 year old kid showing cows at the county fair. It said “Farmers Feed You Three Times a Day” and it resonated with me because, even at that age, I understood that those who feed the rest of the world are often not held in high regard. I got some of my first exposure to those who don’t like animal agriculture at the same fair when a stranger asked me how I would like my head brushed with that those stiff bristles.

Animal rights activists have long exaggerated, misunderstood and misrepresented farm practices. Their underlying philosophy that we have no more inherent worth than livestock is simply evil and makes a better argument for cannibalism than for the welfare of animals. Nevertheless, they’ve had success in state ballot initiatives. Many of the practices they’ve targeted are ones that I’m not all that fond of, frankly, and it’s understandable why people would vote to eliminate them. However, the leaders of the animal rights movement want animal agriculture to end, and the success they’ve had so far is simply one step along the path toward that ultimate goal.

Environmentalists are no fonder of animal agriculture. Livestock are bad animals that exhale carbon dioxide and emit methane. We’re being told that continuing to grow them for food will ruin the planet, especially as the world’s population grows. Revelations from stolen e-mails that global warming evidence has been manipulated gives me little confidence that the environmental impact of agriculture will be given a fair hearing. The activist movements have always been a thorn in the side of our farmers, but they weren’t a threat to our existence because they haven’t convinced the general public that animal production is an inherently evil enterprise. The game might change if heavy-handed government and big business interests enable the animal activist movement.

Government officials see in agriculture two things that excite them: revenue and the opportunity to protect ourselves from ourselves. America is too fat. Our expanding waistline is a needless medical expense. Previous efforts to control our weight have failed – who knew that introducing the food pyramid would be followed by people shaped thus? To some, it’s time for more draconian actions like a fat-tax. The current director of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has advocated taxes on sugary drinks, and taxes on fattening animal products won’t lag far behind. Emission taxes for livestock have been proposed as a way to help control greenhouse gas production. Once a government mandated national animal ID system is in place, such a tax will be easy to administer. Increase tax revenue, save on health care costs, reduce greenhouse gas emissions – animal agriculture is simply too great a political opportunity to go untouched!

Our protection has always been that consumers still want our product. We’ll continue to exist as long as that does not change, correct? Some high tech businesses might have other plans. Scientists have developed methods to grow meat in a Petri dish. It is “soggy” at this point, but they think they can improve the system and provide something edible in 5 years. Dairy protein substitutes also have  been created to facilitate cheese production. Consumers might just be able to get the animal protein they desire without actually needing animal production. Animal rightists and environmentalists think this development is fantastic. Meat and dairy without methane and with less carbon has already been suggested as a key piece of meeting greenhouse gas emission goals, and business leaders who want to sell fake meat are not likely to advocate on our behalf.

What can animal producers and their supporters do to prevent this perfect storm of activism, government regulation, and global business from taking hold? We have to provide something that consumers want, need and are willing to fight for. It will have to go beyond simple nourishment, because other food sources will be available and probably be less expensive. Family farms are held in high regard by the public, and I believe consumers are comfortable knowing that family farms spread around the country provide a food supply that is secure and less open to manipulation by a few large business conglomerates. We need to protect that image and build on it. To do so, consumer attitudes toward animal and environmental stewardship practices, farm consolidation, government farm subsidies, and immigration should be taken more seriously than they are currently.  Farmers also need more control over what they are paid and what their products cost consumers because the farm-to-retail price spread is growing. Many folks are lining their pockets at the expense of farmer and consumer.

We are likely a long way from the end of animal agriculture as we know it. But, its continued existence should not be a foregone conclusion. Will we take these threats seriously, or are current business interests just too entrenched to change? I hope not, because “Lab Techs Feed You Three Times a Day” bumper stickers might not be far behind.

WASHINGTON — Despite a critical report from another agency and a fair amount of political pressure, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) remains committed to the Manhattan, Kan., site it chose for building a new national bio-defense research laboratory and says it won’t re-open the site-selection process.

As part of the 2010 government appropriations bill, Congress asked the Government Accountability Office (GAO) to conduct a separate study on DHS’s recommendation to move the Level-3 laboratory at Plum Island, N.Y., to Kansas. The study was to evaluate whether it would be safe to conduct research into foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) at a mainland site for the first time, rather than on the offshore island where it’s been handled for decades in an aging facility.

GAO concluded that DHS, with input from the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), didn’t adequately assess the bio-security and economic risks of building the new Level-4 National Agro and Bio-Defense Facility (NABF) in Midwestern farm country, near livestock operations, where a release of the FMD pathogen by a tornado, terrorist act or other means reportedly could have a much greater economic and disease impact than in offshore New York.

Such an event on Plum island could have a $31 million economic impact, compared to a $1 billion impact in Kansas, the GAO report says, citing another study. “Given the significant limitations in DHS’s analyses that we found, the conclusion that FMD work can be done as safely on the mainland as on Plum Island is not supported,” the GAO report says.

DHS defends its choice

But DHS shot back, in a 30-page response in July, that the GAO study didn’t respond to what Congress asked. Instead of evaluating whether FMD research “can be done safely on the mainland,” the GAO instead chose to evaluate whether the research “can be done as safely on the mainland as on Plum Island.”

DHS says its own environmental-impact study took into account the GAO’s point that the water barrier around Plum Island would provide an extra layer of protection in the event of an accidental release of the FMD pathogen, but it called that scenario “extremely unlikely,” adding that “while the study of contagious diseases anywhere is not without risk, modern bio-containment technology makes the likelihood of an accidental release of a pathogen extremely low, and … has eliminated the need for locating animal-disease research on an island as was done decades ago.”

GAO should not dismiss the fact that FMD research is being performed safely on the mainland in several other countries, DHS says in its response. And it points out that there are already five BSL-4 (highest level) facilities currently operating in the United States in populated areas (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and Georgia State University, both in Atlanta; U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases at Ft. Detrick, Md.; University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston; and Southwest Foundation for Biomedical Research in San Antonio, Texas).

In his own formal response to the GAO report, Bradley Buswell, DHS Under Secretary for Science and Technology, noted strong public opposition to building a BSL-4 research lab on Plum Island but strong support for Kansas and the other locations DHS considered in Texas, North Carolina, Mississippi and Georgia.

But U.S. Rep. Tim Bishop (D-N.Y.), responding to GAO’s report, calls the recommendation to phase out Plum Island “essentially a rush job” and wants DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano “to revisit the decision” as well as the decision to build the Kansas facility.

“This (GAO) study underscores the validity of why Plum Island was originally chosen,” Bishop says. “I’m sobered by this report. … We still have time to correct this.”

Napolitano, however, says the decision to move the lab to Kansas was properly researched and should go forward.

A group of Texas business and bioscience experts sued DHS in a federal court over the decision to locate the NABF in Kansas, but a judge dismissed the suit in July, saying it was based on hypothetical claims and thus not “ripe” for judicial review, although the suit could be re-filed later.

Kansas officials say the county in Texas where some lobbyists had wanted to bring the NABF is more tornado-prone than Kansas, and presents a hurricane risk as well. And Tom Thornton, president of the Kansas Bioscience Authority, the group that helped land the facility at the Kansas State University site, says conducting FMD research in Kansas is no different or more dangerous than conducting research in human diseases at the CDC in Atlanta.

Kansas officials expect construction of the $560 million to $650 million NABF to start in July 2010, although Congress hasn’t yet appropriated any construction funds. The facility is expected to create 1,500 jobs and pump some $3.5 billion into the local economy when it opens in about 2015.

Hong Kong’s health authorities announced Wednesday [27 Jul 2009] that a new variant of the H3N2 seasonal influenza virus has been found in the city. The Brisbane strain has been the prevalent circulator of H3N2 in the past year, and the new variant is its direct descendent, said Thomas Tsang, controller of Hong Kong’s Center for Health Protection (CHP). “However, it has some genetic changes distinguishing it from the old Brisbane strain,” he said. He said it is normal for viruses to go through changes, adding that overseas health authorities, including those in Canada, Britain and Australia, had also found the new variant.

Tsang said although vaccines provided for the northern hemisphere may not be a direct match for this new variant, they will still provide some protection against it. Noting that vaccines will be widely available in Hong Kong in a month, Tsang appealed to high-risk groups, such as those with chronic diseases, the elderly and children, to get flu shots.

According to the CHP, H3N2 accounts for 43 percent of flu viruses circulating in Hong Kong, while A/H1N1 accounts for 49 percent.

By Carol D. Leonnig
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, July 27, 2009

The Department of Homeland Security relied on a rushed, flawed study to justify its decision to locate a $700 million research facility for highly infectious pathogens in a tornado-prone section of Kansas, according to a government report.

The department’s analysis was not “scientifically defensible” in concluding that it could safely handle dangerous animal diseases in Kansas — or any other location on the U.S. mainland, according to a Government Accountability Office draft report obtained by The Washington Post. The GAO said DHS greatly underestimated the chance of accidental release and major contamination from such research, which has been conducted only on a remote island off the United States.

DHS staff members tried quietly last week to fend off a public airing of the facility’s risks, agency correspondence shows. Department officials met privately with staff members of a congressional oversight subcommittee to try to convince them that the GAO report was unfair, and to urge them to forgo or postpone a hearing. But the House Energy and Commerce Committee’s oversight and investigations subcommittee, chaired by Rep. Bart Stupa (D-Mich.), decided otherwise. It plans to hold a hearing Thursday on the risk analysis, according to two sources briefed on the plans.

The criticism of DHS’s site selection comes as the proposed research lab, the National Bio and Agro-Defense Facility (NBAF), was expected to win construction funding in the congressional appropriations process.

“Drawing conclusions about relocating research with highly infectious exotic animal pathogens from questionable methodology could result in regrettable consequences,” the GAO warned in its draft report. DHS’s review was too “limited” and “inadequate” to decide that any mainland labs were safe, the report found. GAO officials declined to comment on the findings.

The new developments started another round of accusations that politics steered DHS’s decision in January to build the proposed lab in Manhattan, Kan. Critics of the choice argue that a Kansas contingent of Republican Senators Sam Brownback and Pat Roberts and then-Gov. Kathleen Sebelius, a Democrat, aggressively lobbied DHS to pick their state. Records show that a DHS undersecretary and his site selection committee met frequently with the senators, one of whom is a member of an appropriations subcommittee that helps set DHS funding.

A Texas consortium that hoped to lure the DHS facility to San Antonio argues that the agency has wasted millions of dollars trying to justify its choice, and said the GAO’s findings show that the selection method was “preposterous.”

“They call it ‘Tornado Alley’ for a reason,” said Michael Guiffre, an attorney for the consortium. “This really boils down to politics at its very worst and public officials who are more concerned about erecting some gleaming new research building than thinking about what’s best for the general public.”

DHS officials and Kansas leaders say the selection system, which began in late 2006, was always fair and open. Brownback has noted that George W. Bush was president in mid-January when his home state of Texas lost the competition.

“The process involved a transparent six-year process, run by career civil servants and punctuated with multiple public meetings near each finalist location,” DHS spokesman Matthew Chandler said.

The DHS lab would replace and expand upon the mission of a federal research facility on a remote island on the northern tip of Long Island, N.Y. Critics of moving the operation to the mainland argue that a release could lead to widespread contamination that could kill livestock, devastate a farm economy and endanger humans. Along with the highly contagious foot-and-mouth disease, NBAF researchers plan to study African swine fever, Japanese encephalitis, Rift Valley fever and other viruses.

GAO’s draft report said the agency’s assessment of the risk of accidental release of toxins on mainland locations, including Kansas, was based on “unrepresentative accident scenarios,” “outdated modeling” and “inadequate” information about the sites. The agency’s analysis of the economic impact of domestic cattle being infected by foot-and-mouth disease played down the financial losses by not considering the worst-case scenario.

The agency noted that the United Kingdom’s outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease in 2001, which resulted from an accidental release at a biological research laboratory south of London. Six million sheep, cattle and pigs were slaughtered to stop the contamination, and the country’s agriculture market, comparatively a fraction of the U.S. market, lost $4.9 billion.

DHS had cited a foot-and-mouth disease facility in Winnipeg, Manitoba, as evidence that doing this research on the mainland is safe. But GAO said that is illogical: The NBAF would have a less sophisticated method for containing releases than the Winnipeg lab, it said, but would handle as many as 10 times the number of animals.

Selecting a spot for the lab has been rife with political battling and vigorous lobbying from five states that were finalists. Though the general public repeatedly voiced concern about the safety of such research, elected leaders were seeking the $3.5 billion jolt that the facility was expected to bring to its host’s economy.

Critics of the selection of Kansas note that DHS Undersecretary Jay Cohen and others met often with the state’s senators. Brownback said this month that he had helped add $36 million to a Senate bill to build the Kansas facility, and that he would work for the same in the House.

“We fought hard for this funding, and I’m glad my colleagues in the Senate realized the significant role this facility will play in researching emerging diseases that could endanger our food supply,” he said on his Web site.

In recent days, DHS science officials involved in choosing the Manhattan site, adjoining Kansas State University, told Secretary Janet Napolitano’s top staff members that GAO exceeded its authority in reviewing the agency’s risk assessment, according to internal correspondence shared with The Post.

Chandler confirmed that agency staff members told the Energy and Commerce subcommittee staff members in their meeting last Monday that DHS would prefer not to have a hearing now. DHS officials were not trying to avoid discussing the issue during the appropriations process, Chandler said, but wanted to avoid wasting the agency’s and committee’s time until they saw the final GAO report.

“This has nothing to do with politics,” Chandler said. “This is about logical reasoning . . . and was in the interest of everyone’s time.”

Two Canadian Food Inspection Agency [CFIA] inspectors appear to have contracted swine flu while investigating an outbreak of the new virus in pigs on an Alberta farm in late April [2009], the agency confirmed on 21 July 2009.

The cases appear to be the first report of people catching the new H1N1 virus from pigs.

While the pandemic virus is of swine origin, it was found in people first. Pigs are not currently believed to be playing a role in ongoing transmission of the virus.

The agency said in emailed answers to questions that it’s impossible to say with 100 per cent certainty that the inspectors were infected by the animals. But the infections took place in the early days of the swine flu outbreak, when few cases were being reported in Canada.  It’s known that the men did not use proper safety techniques while in the barn, apparently removing the N-95 respirators that covered their noses and mouths because they were hot. “We conducted a review of the situation and determined that CFIA protocols for personal protection were not fully observed in this case,” the agency’s email said.

The agency said it doesn’t intend to change protocols for conducting this type of investigation because its existing protocols, if complied with, would have been adequate to protect the workers.

“Supervisors are being asked to ensure inspection staff have received the appropriate training and understand the procedures before being assigned to the investigation.”

The Alberta pig farm incident was the first report ever of this new virus being found in pigs. The source of the infection in the pigs remains a mystery and the handling of the case has been anything but smooth.

Officials at first identified a carpenter who worked briefly on the farm while ill with flu-like symptoms as being the source of the infection. But the man, who had recently returned from a trip to Mexico, was later told tests showed he was never infected with the new virus.

There were reports that members of the farm family were also sick shortly before the pigs started showing symptoms. But samples taken from them were not adequate to confirm or dismiss them as possible sources of the infection. Officials now admit they’ll likely never know how the virus was introduced into the herd.

Argentina recently reported two more cases of person-to-pig transmission of the new virus.

Influenza experts are not surprised the virus can infect pigs and pass back from them to people. But they worry that if this type of ping-ponging occurs, it will drive the viruses to mutate.

It’s impossible to predict what the outcome of that type of evolution would be, but it could undermine the effectiveness of swine flu vaccine currently being developed for people.

Earl Brown, an expert in influenza virus evolution, called the trend towards increasing interspecies transmission of flu viruses “disquieting.” “When it was in Alberta, you had this virus of swine origin … and then you had the question: Well, is it now a human flu or is it a swine flu? And it’s clear that it’s both,” said Brown, a virologist at the University of Ottawa. He said there has been rapid evolution of flu viruses in pigs in recent years, as well as cases of avian influenza viruses, including the dangerous H5N1 virus, jumping into people.

In the influenza world, pigs are described as the mixing vessel, because they can be infected with both bird viruses and human viruses — giving rise to hybrids that they can pass back to people. “You just don’t want the pig to be the conduit for all these adapted viruses they’ve got from birds,” Brown said.

“I think the general trend is not good but this particular virus, you know it’s still an open book at to whether it’s going to tone down, or it’s going to become more like a seasonal flu fast, or if it’s going to ramp up. We really can’t predict and we’re just watching and trying to read the numbers.”