Georgia makes short list for Homeland Security bio-lab

<p>Georgia has made a short list of five finalists competing for a new National Bio- and Agro-Defense lab where federal researchers would study deadly germs like anthrax and avian flu, lawmakers said.</p><p>The $450 million Homeland Security project would house at least 300 lab-related jobs in a proposed 520,000-square-foot facility. The Georgia site is in Athens near the University of Georgia campus. Sites in Texas, Kansas, Mississippi and North Carolina also made the cut.</p><p>The new facility would replace an aging, smaller lab at Plum Island, N.Y. A dozen states had been competing for the lab. Homeland Security plans to make a final decision next year, with the lab opening by 2014.</p><p>Pockets of opposition have emerged in some states, with local officials and residents expressing concern about housing dangerous germs.</p><p>The lab will have the highest-level security rating, BSL-4, meaning it would be equipped to handle the most lethal, incurable disease agents. The lab will be the only one in the country to integrate study of lethal agents that could be used as bioweapons on humans and in agriculture, research on diseases that could be passed between animal and human, and foreign animal diseases.</p><p>The Plum Island lab conducts research on foot-and-mouth disease and other germs to protect agriculture and livestock from foreign diseases, and Homeland Security officials have said that would remain a priority at the new facility.</p><p>Homeland Security officials are still deciding which additional pathogens will be researched at the new site. Scientists and officials from various states have named, among others, anthrax, smallpox and Marburg and Lhassa, rare hemorrhagic fevers that attack the vascular system.</p><p>The Georgia Consortium for Health and Agro-Security was created to push the state's bid. The consortium includes representatives from the University of Georgia, the Georgia Department of Economic Development, Emory University, the Georgia Institute of Technology and other Georgia colleges and research facilities.</p><p>A study by the Carl Vinson Institute of Government estimates the 20-year overall economic impact of the facility at between $3.5 billion and $6 billion.</p><p>___</p><p>On the Net:</p><p>HASH(0x2e1123c)</p>

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