Food supply an easy target for terrorism
4/21/2006
Rae KrugerThe Marshall Independent (MN)
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MARSHALL — Dr. Heidi Kassenborg with the Minnesota Department of Agriculture was cited as telling the Southwest Minnesota Terrorism Awareness Symposium at the Marshall Golf Club on Thursday that there was an outbreak of Salmonella in Schwan ice cream in 1994 that infected more than 224,000 people, and that while not a terrorist act, does illustrate some of how, if targeted, a portion of the food supply could be vulnerable to terrorism.
The Schwan outbreak was caused when a tanker transporting raw eggs still contained particles of the substance after it was cleaned and filled with ice cream pre-mix. The tanker was contaminated, Salmonella occurred and infected ice cream that was distributed, sold and eaten nationwide.
Schwan took immediate steps after the outbreak was identified including recalling ice cream and has since implemented measures after the incident to prevent such an incident from happening again.
Kassenborg was further cited as saying the 1994 incident shows the impact of how many people can be impacted in a short time by an outbreak of a nationally distributed food product, adding, "Most people don’t think of how vulnerable."
Kassenborg went on to say that improving agriculture safety is not just the government’s responsibility, and that industries such as Schwan must be encouraged to share input on what is useful for prevention and response in a response to a terrorist act.
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