A biosafety level is a set of biocontainment precautions required to isolate dangerous biological agents in an enclosed laboratory facility. The levels of containment range from the lowest biosafety level 1 (BSL-1) to the highest at level 4 (BSL-4). In the United States, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) have specified these levels. In the European Union, the same biosafety levels are defined in a directive. In Canada the four levels are known as Containment Levels. Facilities with these designations are also sometimes given as P1 through P4, as in the term "P3 laboratory".
A biological hazard, or biohazard, is a biological substance that poses a threat to the health of living organisms, primarily humans. This could include a sample of a microorganism, virus or toxin that can affect human health. A biohazard could also be a substance harmful to other animals.
The Agricultural Research Service (ARS) is the principal in-house research agency of the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA). ARS is one of four agencies in USDA's Research, Education and Economics mission area. ARS is charged with extending the nation's scientific knowledge and solving agricultural problems through its four national program areas: nutrition, food safety and quality; animal production and protection; natural resources and sustainable agricultural systems; and crop production and protection. ARS research focuses on solving problems affecting Americans every day. The ARS Headquarters is located in the Jamie L. Whitten Building on Independence Avenue in Washington, D.C. and the headquarters staff is located at the George Washington Carver Center (GWCC) in Beltsville, Maryland. For 2018, its budget was $1.2 billion.
Classical swine fever (CSF) or hog cholera is a highly contagious disease of swine.
The Animal Welfare Act was signed into law by President Lyndon B. Johnson on August 24, 1966. It is the main federal law in the United States that regulates the treatment of animals in research and exhibition. Other laws, policies, and guidelines may include additional species coverage or specifications for animal care and use, but all refer to the Animal Welfare Act as the minimally acceptable standard for animal treatment and care. The USDA and APHIS oversee the AWA and the House and Senate Agriculture Committees have primary legislative jurisdiction over the Act. Animals covered under this Act include any live or dead cat, dog, hamster, rabbit, nonhuman primate, guinea pig, and any other warm-blooded animal determined by the Secretary of Agriculture for research, pet use or exhibition. Excluded from the Act are birds, rats of the genus Rattus, mice of the genus Mus, farm animals, and all cold-blooded animals.
The Henry A. Wallace Beltsville Agricultural Research Center (BARC), also known as the National Agricultural Research Center, is a unit of the United States Department of Agriculture's Agricultural Research Service. It is located at 39°02′N76°53′W in unincorporated Prince George's County, Maryland, with sections within the Beltsville census-designated place. The BARC is named for Henry A. Wallace, former United States vice president and secretary of agriculture. BARC houses the Abraham Lincoln Building of the National Agricultural Library.
The concept of biocontainment is related to laboratory biosafety and pertains to microbiology laboratories in which the physical containment of pathogenic organisms or agents is required, usually by isolation in environmentally and biologically secure cabinets or rooms, to prevent accidental infection of workers or release into the surrounding community during scientific research. The term "biocontainment" was coined in 1985, but the concept stretches back at least to the 1940s.
The National Bio and Agro-Defense Facility (NBAF) is a planned United States government-run research facility that will replace the 1950s-era Plum Island Animal Disease Center in New York, which is "nearing the end of its lifecycle and is too small to meet the nation’s research needs." The NBAF will be operated under the authority of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS), with the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Agriculture Research Service (USDA-ARS) and Animal Plant Health Inspection Service, Veterinary Services (USDA-APHIS-VS) as primary research partners.
President Chester A. Arthur signed the Animal Industry Act on May 29, 1884 creating the Bureau of Animal Industry (BAI), an organization that was established under the United States Department of Agriculture. It replaced the Veterinary Division that had been created by the Commissioner of Agriculture in 1883, which had taken over for the Treasury Cattle Commission, Department of Treasury.
The Virus-Serum-Toxin Act or VSTA was United States Federal legislation designed to protect farmers and livestock raisers by regulating the quality of vaccines and point-of-care diagnostics for animals. Initially, the Virus-Serum-Toxin Act was created due to significant losses from unregulated manufacture and distribution of anti-hog cholera serum. The Act's intended purpose is to ensure the safe and efficient supply of animal vaccines and other biological products. The United States Secretary of Agriculture is responsible for licensing and regulating the manufacture, importation, and exportation of affected agents. The act and its applicable guidelines are managed by the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) of the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA).
Building 257, also known as Lab 257, was a United States biological warfare research laboratory located at Fort Terry on Plum Island, New York. Originally intended for munitions storage, the facility researched anti-animal biological agents beginning in 1952 under the United States Army. Biological warfare research continued in the building under the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) until a new laboratory was completed.
The Uniform methods and rules are documents by the Veterinary Services office of USDA’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) that specify the minimum standards for preventing, detecting, controlling, and/or eradicating a particular animal disease. APHIS in late 2004 had UM&Rs posted on bovine tuberculosis eradication, brucellosis, brucellosis in cervidae, equine infectious anemia, pseudorabies eradication, swine brucellosis control/eradication, and voluntary scrapie flock certification program standards. UM&Rs usually are developed with input from state animal health authorities, industry, and the U.S. Animal Health Association. Although not legally binding, as are laws and regulations, UM&Rs are widely recognized within the industry and profession as the “gold standard” for addressing an animal disease of national concern; they may be incorporated by states into their own animal health codes.
The National Animal Health Reporting System (NAHRS) is a joint effort of the U.S. Animal Health Association (USAHA), American Association of Veterinary Laboratory Diagnosticians (AAVLD), and USDA's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS). NAHRS was designed to provide data from chief state animal health officials on the presence of confirmed Office International des Epizooties (OIE) LIST A and B clinical diseases in specific commercial livestock, poultry, and aquaculture species in the United States. It is intended to be one part of a comprehensive and integrated animal-health surveillance system.
The National Animal Health Laboratory Network (NAHLN) is a network of federal and state resources intended to enable a rapid and sufficient response to animal health emergencies. The concept of the NAHLN reconfigures animal health diagnostic services in the United States by positioning National Veterinary Services Laboratory as the lead U.S. animal health laboratory and allowing select laboratories operated by state and university officials to cooperate in foreign animal disease surveillance and related services.
Plant Protection and Quarantine (PPQ) is one of six operational program units within the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) of the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA). The PPQ works to safeguard agriculture and natural resources in the U.S. against the entry, establishment, and spread of animal and plant pests and noxious weeds, to help ensure an abundant, high-quality, and varied food supply.
The United States biological defense program—in recent years also called the National Biodefense Strategy—began as a small defensive effort that parallels the country's offensive biological weapons development and production program, active since 1943. Organizationally, the medical defense research effort was pursued first (1956-1969) by the U.S. Army Medical Unit (USAMU) and later, after publicly known discontinuation of the offensive program, by the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases (USAMRIID). Both of these units were located at Fort Detrick, Maryland, where the U.S. Army Biological Warfare Laboratories were headquartered. The current mission is multi-agency, not exclusively military, and is purely to develop defensive measures against bio-agents, as opposed to the former bio-weapons development program.
The National Centre for Foreign Animal Disease (NCFAD), located in the Canadian Science Centre for Human and Animal Health in Winnipeg, Manitoba, is part of the Canadian Food Inspection Agency’s National Centres for Animal Disease. NCFAD is co-located with the Public Health Agency of Canada’s National Microbiology Laboratory.
A Foreign animal disease (FAD) is an animal disease or pest, whether terrestrial or aquatic, not known to exist in the United States or its territories. When these diseases can significantly affect human health or animal production and when there is significant economic cost for disease control and eradication efforts, they are considered a threat to the United States. Another term gaining preference to be used is Transboundary Animal Disease (TAD), which is defined as those epidemic diseases which are highly contagious or transmissible and have the potential for very rapid spread, irrespective of national borders, causing serious socio-economic and possibly public health consequences. An Emerging Animal Disease "may be defined as any terrestrial animal, aquatic animal, or zoonotic disease not yet known or characterized, or any known or characterized terrestrial animal or aquatic animal disease in the United States or its territories that changes or mutates in pathogenicity, communicability, or zoonotic potential to become a threat to terrestrial animals, aquatic animals, or humans."
