KEY POINTS:
The latest foot-and-mouth outbreak in the UK is raising security questions at the many laboratories handling dangerous materials.
Research into a range of potentially fatal diseases such as CJD - the human form of mad cow disease - are also handled by the Pirbright laboratories, the company under suspicion as the source of the recent outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease.
The outbreak has led to a call from UK Labour MP Dr Ian Gibson for a security review of all British laboratories to stop dangerous pathogens falling into the hands of potential terrorists.
The Institute of Animal Health (IAH) laboratory is currently carrying out research into a range of diseases, including highly dangerous variant Creutzfeldt-Jacob disease, avian flu, bluetongue, African horse sickness, salmonella and foot-and-mouth disease.
Alarm about the safety of British labs has been raised by fears that security at the Animal Health plant, or the next door laboratory run by the US-based private company Merial, has been breached.
Professor Martin Shirley, the head of Animal Health, admitted last year after a critical report on the labs: "We're trying to deliver a Rolls-Royce service for surveillance in Britain but really we're being funded more and more at the level of a Ford Cortina."
Professor Shirley has denied this week that underfunding of labs had compromised safety. He said the budget for bio-security was given priority.
However, the outbreak has raised alarm about the safety of British science labs in the United States, where internet sites in Boston were questioning the rigour of bio-security measures.
The two UK Pirbright labs have level four security, the same as the germ warfare defence establishment at Porton Down, on Salisbury Plain in Wiltshire.
Officials have denied this week that the facilities also deal with Anthrax, a lethal bacteria also used in germ warfare.
Defra's Veterinary Laboratory Agency in Weybridge, Surrey, also carries out research on dangerous animal pathogens, including bird flu.
The Independent has learned that 36 other labs are licensed to deal with dangerous pathogens.
The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs refused to disclose their location, saying it was "too dangerous".
Defra fears that the labs could become a target for "bio terrorists" who could seek to release a virus deliberately to attack Britain's economy.
Dr Gibson, the former Labour chairman of the Commons select committee on science and technology, has called for an urgent review of security at British labs.
"The possibility of a release of the virus from a lab is very worrying. We did a report on biological terrorism and visited the United States. There is a real fear that these viruses could fall into the wrong hands."
His committee warned in a report that agriculture may be the target or may be adversely affected, with economic implications from bio-security breaches at labs.
It said: "Some animal diseases, notably anthrax and tuberculosis, can be transferred to humans.
"Experience and expertise in tracking and monitoring animal infectious diseases may be of value in developing counter measures."
Debby Reynolds, Defra's chief veterinary officer, said that the independent review by Professor Brian Spratt of Imperial College, London, into the outbreak will look at the overall standards of bio-security at the Pirbright laboratories and whether the decision to put them together on the same site was "appropriate".
The financial link-up between the research council-funded IAH and the private company which specialises in the manufacture of vaccines including foot-and-mouth is unclear, but it is believed they exchange research.
Suspicion fell on Merial labs after Gordon Brown revealed that the virus that escaped - O1 BFS 67 - was the same strain that Merial was using for the manufacture of foot and mouth vaccines on July 16.
The virus can take up to 14 days to incubate, making it the likely source for the outbreak at the start of August.
The strain was captured in 1967 after an outbreak of foot-and-mouth, but it has not been circulating in animals in recent times - a fact that has heightened suspicions that it came from a lab.
- Independent
