On Wednesday, the FBI charged two Chinese nationals with smuggling a crop-killing fungus into the United States. Dr. Robert Redfield, former director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, told Newsmax on Thursday that the actions by the two scientists are troubling because biosecurity “is one of our greatest national security threats.”
“[Fusarium graminearum] is a fungus that attacks wheat, barley, maize, and rice and actually can destroy crops. And in 2000, we had about $2.7 billion worth of crops that were destroyed,” Redfield said during an appearance on Newsmax’s “Wake Up America.”
“And the other problem with this fungus is that if animals eat it, it produces toxins. And those toxins can cause vomiting, they can cause liver disease, or actually it can cause reproductive defects. They can do the same thing in humans. So, it’s a significant issue. And we need to have aggressive surveillance.”
Redfield, who is currently a senior visiting fellow at the Heritage Foundation, warned that “agroterrorism is real.”
“I’m very concerned about our biosecurity. I think it’s one of our greatest national security threats. And people that don’t perceive that maybe got a taste of it with the COVID pandemic. But it’s not just human pathogens that can cause real disruption for our nation. These agricultural pathogens can be extremely disruptive. If you go back through the history of time, it really is the famines that were caused by different plagues for agriculture that really caused the most havoc,” he added.
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