The National Academy of Sciences published in its journal an article about homeland security and the food supply, after delaying publication at the request of the administration. The article essentially models the likely scenario of a bioterror attack on the food supply via dumping botulinum toxin into a milk silo. Despite press reports to the contrary, the article is not a handbook for terrorists; it is one of a series of scholarly efforts to predict what might happen in the course of a bioterroristic attack, what the scope of the damage might be, how effective current protective policies would be in responding to the attack, and what lessons can be learned. Some of the observations from the article:

• “A foodborne attack is much more preventable than an airborne or mailborne attack, due to the restricted number of release locations. Requiring all tanks, trucks, and silos to be locked when not being drained or filled would be an obvious step forward, as would security checks for personnel who have access to prebottled milk (farm laborers, truck drivers, receiving labor at the processing facility, and plant engineers) and requiring one person from each stage of the supply chain to be present while milk is transferred from one stage to the next (15). Although these and other measures are included in proposed Food and Drug Administration guidelines (16), they are currently voluntary.”
• “Although enforcement options range from voluntary guidelines to new laws, the most promising approach may be to develop International Organization for Standardization (ISO) security standards that are analogous to the ISO 9000 standards for quality management and the ISO 14000 standards for environmental management (www.iso.ch_iso_en_iso9000—14000_index.html, accessed on November 12, 2004).”
• Current botulinum testing protocols may not permit rapid detection of a widespread outbreak. “Our study highlights the value of rapid in-process testing for detecting an attack, and because stockpiling sufficient ventilators and antitoxin in the event of a large-scale attack would be exorbitantly expensive, it seems wise to aggressively invest in rapid, sensitive, and specific in-process testing.”
• The potential for secondary cases from cross-contamination of otherwise uncontaminated milk also raises concerns. “Two locations in the supply chain, trucks that are cleaned daily but that make two trips daily and processing lines that are cleaned daily, offer the opportunity for uncontaminated milk to become tainted by uncleaned residue from the primary release. The secondary effect from a release in a truck has an ~50% chance of causing damage equivalent to a release that is 8 h later and ~0.5% as large as the primary release…. 640,000 gallons per day of freshly produced milk would need to be discarded until the attack is effectively investigated, the supply chain is turned back on, and consumer confidence returns. This delay could be hastened by effective product tracing, decontamination, and risk communication.”

An accompanying editorial discusses the controversy over the suppression of the article and the rationale for its publication. More information:

• Scott Shane, “Paper Describes Potential Poisoning of Milk,” N.Y. Times, June 28, 2005
• Bruce Alberts, Editorial, “Modeling Attacks on the Food Supply,” 102 Procs. Of Nat’l Acad. of Sci. 9737 (2005)
• Lawrence M. Wein & Yifan Liu, “Analyzing a Bioterror Attack on the Food Supply: The Case of Botulinum Toxin in Milk,” 102 Procs. Of Nat’l Acad. of Sci. 9984 (2005)