Food chain at risk of being poisoned by terrorist groups

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         Manufacturers and retailers have been told that their sector is vulnerable to attacks by ideologically and politically motivated groups that may seek to cause widespread casualties and disruption by poisoning food supplies.


  The warning from the Centre for the Protection of National Infrastructure [CPNI], which operates as part of the Security Service, comes as experts warned the deadly E.coli outbreak in Germany has highlighted the vulnerability of the food chain and how quickly bacteria can spread.

  The highly virulent strain has claimed 18 lives and left more than 1,800 seriously ill, with the true number of cases expected to be far higher.

  A senior German doctor last night called for an investigation into the possibility that the bacteria had been spread deliberately.

  Klaus-Dieter Zastrow, chief doctor for hygiene at Berlin’s Vivantes hospital, said: “It’s quite possible that there’s a crazy person out there who thinks 'I’ll kill a few people or give 10,000 people diarrhoea’. It’s a negligent mistake not to investigate in that direction.”

  In the past, the main threat of deliberate contamination of food has been from criminals attempting extortion or from individuals with a grudge, but security officials fear there is an emerging threat from extremist groups such as al-Qaeda, dissident republicans in Northern Ireland and animal rights activists.

  The CPNI has asked food and drinks producers, suppliers and supermarkets to tighten security at plants and depots and to identify vulnerabilities in supply chains.

  One official from the CPNI spoke about the threat at a meeting of food safety experts. Addressing a conference of the Society for General Microbiology, he said: “The UK suffers from a low level of malicious contamination of food by the bad, the mad and the sad. Now it has to consider the possibility of food supplies being disrupted by politically motivated groups.”

  The E.coli outbreak is thought to have been caused by poor hygiene at a farm, in transit, or at a food outlet.

  Dr Richard Byrne, from the Centre for Rural Security at Harper Adams University College in Shropshire, said: “The outbreak in Germany very much highlights how we produce food and how it is distributed is quite vulnerable in terms of agroterrorism.

 “The impact on the German economy and fresh vegetable industry in general is huge. The US and Australia are much more publicly aware of the threat from terrorism to the food supply compared to the UK. Groups could go after consumer health in a short- term way by using something like E.coli, or longer term by contaminating with cadmium or radioactive caesium.”

  The CPNI report sent to companies in the food industry warns of a number of threats. Attackers could contaminate prepared food or drink with bacteria or chemicals. Or, by targeting basic ingredients used in large numbers of foods, they could cause even wider disruption.

  US experts have warned that the dairy industry is particularly vulnerable, as adding just a few grams of botulinum toxin or ricin to a tanker load of milk could poison or even kill thousands of consumers.

  The report warns that it is harder to guarantee the security of produce grown abroad and imported to Britain.

  It adds that such attacks could cause severe economic harm. In one example, a major British producer of pastries was targeted by an attack where peanuts were introduced into a nut-free product. The factory was shut down for five days and products were removed from sale due to the risk of anaphylactic reactions from allergy sufferers. Police ruled out accidental causes and the company lost five per cent of its annual sales.

  In February, a South African farmer was arrested after allegedly threatening to unleash foot and mouth disease in Britain. He was said to have believed that Britain was responsible for letting Robert Mugabe inflict losses on Zimbabwe’s farming industry.

  The CPNI report warns: “The food and drink industry in the UK — the food sector of the national infrastructure — could be under threat from ideologically motivated groups. The threat is unlikely to decline in the foreseeable future. This could cause mass casualties, economic disruption and widespread panic.”

  The report singles out farms as vulnerable because they often employ foreign workers, and urges all businesses to make comprehensive checks on new employees and visiting contractors.

  Production facilities should have security and perimeter controls, while unscheduled deliveries should not be accepted, it says.

  In the US, food “bioterrorism” has become a major concern after documents were found in Afghanistan apparently referring to plans by terrorists to contaminate supplies.