[Brenda Collins Dillon]

LAB 257 is a story of medical and biological experimentation and achievement, shadowed by concealment, carelessness and poor management.

Off the North Fork of Long Island, within sight of the sailors, Hamptons vacationers and passengers of the Connecticut ferry, lies a bucolic little island that holds some of the deadliest pathogens known to man. It is Plum Island, a historic place that has been an Indian outpost, a farm, a coastal defense fort, an army training facility, a mutinous factory, and a biological warfare laboratory. Today it is the site of the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Animal Disease Research Center.

There animals are regularly infected with lethal viruses—African Swine Fever, Japanese Encephalitis, Rift Valley Fever, Foot and Mouth Disease—then studied, killed, and dissected in the name of research. They are then incinerated and buried in massive pits. The experiments and research conducted on the island are designed to protect the nation’s $90 billion livestock industry from disease and destruction. But what really goes on behind the walls of this secret government installation has been anybody’s guess — until now.

http://www.harpercollins.com/hc/features/special/lab/

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