"The United States agriculture and food systems are vulnerable to disease, pest or poisonous agents that occur natually, and unintentionally introduced, or are intentionally delivered by acts of terrorism. America's agriculture and food system is an extensive, open, interconnected, diverse and complex structure providing potential targets for terrorist attacks. We should provide the best protection possible against a successful attack on the United States' agriculture and food system, which could have catastrophic health and economic effects."

Since 1954, Plum Island Animal Disease Center (PIADC) has been protecting America's livestock from foreign animal diseases (diseases not present in the United States) such as foot-and-mouth disease.
PIADC's mission can be grouped into three main categories:
Diagnostics
Research and Development
Education
As a diagnostic facility, PIADC is capable of diagnosing foreign animal diseases in addition to domestic animal diseases that may look like a foreign animal disease. PIADC runs between 22,000 and 35,000 diagnostic tests per year.
The facility's research programs include developing diagnostic tools and preventatives (such as vaccines and antivirals) for foot-and-mouth disease and other foreign diseases of livestock.
As an educational facility, PIADC has been instructing veterinarians in recognizing foreign animal diseases since 1971.

Because of the risks associated with the viruses researched at the lab, the public has been banned from the island.

Plum Island Animal Disease Center operates Biosafety Level 3 Agriculture (BSL-3Ag), BSL-2 laboratory facilities. PIADC has state-of-the-art biosafety practices and procedures to prevent a disease organism from escaping into the environment, including stringent and rigorously observed safety measures within the laboratories themselves. These safety measures include:
Restricted access to authorized employees and approved visitors. Trained security professionals and surveillance systems guard the island, laboratory and storage areas 24/7. All employees have pass security clearances.
The laboratory, animal care facility and laboratory sewage decontamination plant operate to enhanced BSL-3 standards. A careful program of preventive maintenance is performed on the lab's biosafety systems, and redundant or back-up systems provide an extra level of protection to ensure against escape of livestock disease causing agents.
A skilled staff monitors laboratory air handling systems in real-time to maintain bocontainments. The laboratory spaces on Plum Island are biologically isolated using a system that draws fresh air in and filters the air before being exhausted from the facility. The inside of the laboratory is kept at a lower air pressure than the ambient air outside (negative air pressure). This ensures air inside the building does not go out from the facility without first being filtered completely and thoroughly.
Employees who work in the containment laboratory spaces take special precautions to ensure they do not inadvertently carry with them animal viruses outside the laboratory. They must change clothes prior to entering the lab and change and shower many times throughout the work day when going betwen animal rooms. They must also remove their laboratory work clothes and shower before leaving the laboratory facilities. All employees and visitors of the laboratory facilities (not the administrative building) must agree to a Personal Recognizant Quarantine to preclude them for a defined time period from going to livestock holding areas on the mainland that contain cloven-hoofed animals.
Anything going into the laboratory must either stay there or go through an extensive biological decontamination process before being brought out. Water and sewage wastes from the laboratory are thoroughly decontaminated before further waste water treatment, and trash is incinerated.

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