AS I SEE IT

Biological, agricultural defense lab in right place

Joerg Ohle

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Having lived and worked around the globe — from Europe to South America, Africa to Asia , and now the heartland of North America — I have witnessed firsthand the tremendous growth in international travel and goods distribution over several decades.

True globalization and the interconnected nature of the world bring tremendous benefits, experiences and advancements. They also bring new challenges such as preventing the spread of diseases. National borders and oceans alone can no longer protect us because diseases do not respect borders.

This challenge is not being ignored nor can it be. In the area of preventing the spread of diseases that threaten the food supply and agricultural economy, for example, the United States has long played an important role in animal health research and industry. This leadership is continuing and expanding with the creation of the National Bio and Agro-Defense Facility, a unique, state-of-the-art science lab that will use world-class research expertise and infrastructure in Kansas to ensure food safety.

The federal government is to be commended for foresight and vigilance in developing the National Bio and Agro-Defense Facility and for the painstaking, three-year process it undertook to determine the most effective place to conduct the compound’s critical research mission. It also should be commended for putting safety at the forefront of the project.

The National Bio and Agro-Defense Facility is being designed with the most modern bio-containment technology and safeguards available. As a result it will be a highly secure, cutting-edge facility that allows the best and brightest scientists to achieve remarkable results. Just as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has become an internationally recognized center of excellence in human disease research that protects public health, the National Bio and Agro-Defense Facility in Kansas will become a pre-eminent center in animal disease research to protect the food supply and agricultural economy.

The National Bio and Agro-Defense Facility will have many partners in this urgent endeavor, not the least of which will be the animal health industry, which will bring effective vaccines and other countermeasures out of the lab and into the marketplace. Situated in the Animal Health Corridor, which accounts for nearly one-third of the global animal health market, the National Bio and Agro-Defense Facility will benefit from this region’s unmatched concentration of expertise and resources.

It will be in exactly the right place to ensure maximum efficiency and seamless collaboration among researchers, producers, farmers, academia and industry. The ingenuity and spirit that took America to the moon 40 years ago are alive and well, and that same ingenuity and spirit will help meet the global challenge of combating dangerous animal diseases and safeguarding the food supply.

Joerg Ohle vice chair for animal health and nutrition with the Greater Kansas City Chamber of Commerce and president and general manager with Bayer Health Care LLC, Animal Health Division in Shawnee. He is one of the founders of the KC Animal Health Corridor economic development initiative.

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