NAIS—not scientifically sound
by Karin Bergener

Neither the USDA nor any state agriculture department has scientific proof showing that NAIS will improve disease control. Representatives of Farm and Ranch Freedom Alliance and the Liberty Ark Coalition have requested copies of scientific studies showing how NAIS will address disease, including issues such as the different levels of risk on small versus large farms and why the proponents of NAIS have picked 48 hours as the magic time period for traceback of a diseased animal’s history. Neither USDA nor the National Institute for Animal Agriculture (NIAA) has produced any studies.

We know NAIS does not address the cause, treatment, or transmission of disease in domestic or wild animals. It does nothing to significantly improve current methods for the identification and tracking of disease.

Not a Food Safety Program—NAIS will not improve food safety, and the USDA itself has stated that it is not a food safety program. Contamination of food with E. coli and other bacteria occurs at the slaughterhouse or afterward, while NAIS tracking stops before that point.

Not Protection from Terrorism—Related to the food safety issue, NAIS has been touted as protection against terrorism. The supposed security of the NAIS data is laughable. The primary microchips chosen may be cloned, destroyed, infected with computer viruses, and reprogrammed. Any terrorist or thief could change an animal’s identity and either steal valuable breeding animals or insert a sick animal into a feedlot, infecting other animals and the food supply.

The database of information, held by the states and available to USDA, will provide a target for hackers. Every day brings another news report about someone hacking into a government or banking database and stealing private information, so we know the NAIS database will be vulnerable.

Won’t Prevent Disease Transmission—Making it criminal to own animals without having your premises registered, and the animals tagged and registered, will drive animal ownership underground (as happened in Australia). When those animals get sick, their owners will not consult a veterinarian or health authority, leading to the spread of disease, not its cure or control.

A good example is the Exotic Newcastle Disease outbreak in poultry in California in 2003. That outbreak was started with fighting cocks brought in from Mexico. Because cock fighting is illegal, those birds were not part of mainstream commerce and not getting veterinary care, which could have diagnosed the disease and worked to control it.

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Karin Bergener of Freedom, Ohio, is an attorney and a cofounder of the Liberty Ark Coalition dedicated to defeating NAIS. This article appeared in the Spring 2007 issue of Rural Heritage.