CARVER Shock

1

• CARVER Shock
• Vulnerability Assessments
• Strategic Partnership Program Agroterrorism
  (SPPA)
• Donald Kautter, Jr.
• Food and Drug Administration, DHHS
• Office of Food Safety, Defense, and Outreach
• Multistate Partnership Meeting
• April 19, 2006

2
Why Are We Concerned about Food and Agriculture
Defense?

• No specific targeting information indicating
  attack on food supply is imminent
• Intelligence indicates that terrorists have
  discussed components of food sector
• Manuals for intentional contamination of food are
  widely available
• Concern exists for exploitation of soft targets,
  such as the food supply

3
Why Are We Concerned about Food Defense?

• Use of biological or chemical weapons against
  food supply could cause mass casualties
• Even an ineffective attack could cause
  significant economic and psychological damage
• Severity of attack dependant upon agent and
  attack scenario used, and efficiency and
  effectiveness of detection and response

4
Risk Assessments Food Defense
5
How does risk assessment help address food
defense?

• Focus limited resources on foods and agents that
  are of greatest concern
• Allows targeting of resources in the following
  areas
• Research
• Analytical methods (rapid and confirmatory)
• Nature of disease (e.g., oral infective dose)
• Food-agent compatibility
• Food processing mitigation steps
• Physical security mitigation steps

6
How does risk assessment help address food
defense?

• Selection of countermeasures
• Emergency response preparedness
• Preparedness exercises
• Sufficient laboratory capacity/capability
• Sufficient medical mitigations
• Effective disposal/clean-up methods
• Allows targeting of outreach to stakeholders
• Guidance
• Industry and regulator training
• Communication

7
Initial Agency Risk Rankings

• Conducted after 9/11/01 prior to CARVER analyses
• Assessed and ranked risk of product-agent-process
  combinations
• Prioritize foods that warrant more detailed
  analysis
• Evaluated public health consequences only.
• Did not consider other consequences (economic
  damage, public alarm, loss of confidence in the
  food supply and in the government, interruption
  of the food stream)

8
Findings of Initial Food Risk Rankings

• Foods and agents of greatest concern
• Common vulnerability factors
• Large batch size large number of servings
• Short shelf life rapid turnaround at retail and
  rapid consumption
• Uniform mixing of contaminant into food
• Easy accessibility to product at critical node

9
Why Use CARVER?

• Simplifies and standardizes the process
• Breaks down exposure and hazard into
  characteristics that are easily defined and can
  be examined independently
• Provides a measurable scale for each of the
  characteristics to facilitate quantitative
  assessment
• Examines public health, economic, and
  psychological consequences of an attack
• Offensive targeting tool used by the U.S. military

10
CARVER Overview

• Breaks a food system into its smallest pieces
  (nodes) in the farm to table continuum
• Identifies critical nodes that are the most
  likely targets for terrorist attack, by applying
  the analysis to each node
• Leads to the identification of countermeasures to
  reduce the risk at those nodes

11
CARVER METHOD

• Identify foods for evaluation - based on
  screening methods
• Assemble evaluation team potential expertise,
  depending on food or agriculture system being
  evaluated, might include

12
CARVER METHOD

• Develop flow diagram for each product Farm to
  Table
• Farm
• Bulk transportation
• Processing
• Finished product transportation
• Warehousing
• Retail/food service
• Develop terrorist profile based on threat
  intelligence and use throughout analysis

13
CARVER Shock

• Considers seven factors that affect the
  desirability of a target
• Criticality Public health and economic impacts
  to achieve the attackers intent
• Accessibility Physical access to the target
• Recuperability Ability of the system to recover
  from the attack
• Vulnerability Ease of accomplishing the attack
• Effect Amount of direct loss from an attack
• Recognizability Ease of identifying a target
• Shock Psychological effects of an attack

14
CARVER

• Criticality A target is critical when
  introduction of threat agents into food/system at
  this location would have significant health or
  economic impact. .
• One must ask Does it achieve the goals of the
  terrorist profile?

15
CARVER

• Accessibility A target is accessible when an
  attacker can reach the target to conduct the
  attack and egress the target undetected.
  Accessibility is the openness of the target to
  the threat. This measure is independent of the
  probability of successful introduction of threat
  agents.
• Includes the ability to gather intelligence,
  conduct reconnaissance, conduct the attack, and
  leave the target undetected.
• One must ask What are the barriers to an attack?

16
CARVER

• Recuperability Measured in the time it will
  take for the specific facility to recover
  productivity. The effect of a possible decrease
  in demand is considered in this criterion.

17
CARVER

• Vulnerability A measure of the ease with which
  threat agents can be introduced in quantities
  sufficient to achieve the attackers purpose once
  the target has been reached.
• Vulnerability is determined both by
• characteristics of the target (e.g., ease of
  introducing agents, ability to uniformly mix
  agents into target) and
• characteristics of the surrounding environment
  (ability to work unobserved, time available for
  introduction of agents).
• It is also important to consider what
  interventions are already in place that might
  thwart an attack.

18
CARVER

• Effect of system productivity damaged by an
  attack at a single facility. Thus, effect is
  inversely related to the total number of
  facilities producing the same product .

19
CARVER

• Recognizability The degree to which it can be
  identified by an attacker without confusion with
  other targets or components .
• Factors that influence recognizability
• Size of the target
• Complexity of the target
• Existence of distinguishing characteristics

20
Shock

• Combined measure of the health, psychological,
  and collateral national economic impacts of a
  successful attack on the target system.
• Shock is considered on a national level.
• The psychological impact will be increased if
  there are a large number of deaths or the target
  has historical, cultural, religious or other
  symbolic significance.
• Mass casualties are not required to achieve
  widespread economic loss or psychological damage.
  
• Collateral economic damage includes such items as
  decreased national economic activity, increased
  unemployment in collateral industries, etc.
• Psychological impact will be increased if victims
  are members of sensitive subpopulations such as
  children or the elderly.

21
Strategic Partnership Program Agroterrorism
(SPPA) Initiative
22
SPPA Overview

• What
• FDA, USDA, DHS, and FBI will collaborate with
  industry and States in a joint initiative to
• Validate and identify critical infrastructure and
  key resources within the food and agriculture
  system
• Identify early indicators and warnings
• Develop focused intelligence collection
  strategies
• Identify mitigation strategies

23
SPPA Overview

• How
• Seeking voluntary industry and state partners to
  conduct local assessments.
• USG will work with commodity group trade
  associations to increase the number of firms
  conducting the assessment.
• A site visit will be conducted at food and
  agriculture sites that represent the
  industry/commodity group.
• The actual assessment will take place in a
  facility conference room or hotel conference room.

24
Program Objectives

• In partnership with industry and States
• Validate or identify sector-wide vulnerabilities
  by conducting critical infrastructure/key
  resources (CI/KR) assessments in order to
• Identify gaps
• Inform Centers of Excellence and Sector Specific
  Agencies (SSA) of identified research needs and
• Catalog lessons-learned.

25
Program Objectives

• In partnership with industry and States
• Identify indicators and warnings that could
  signify planning for an attack
• Develop mitigation strategies to reduce the
  threat/prevent an attack. Strategies may include
  actions that either industry or that government
  may take to reduce vulnerabilities
• Gather information to enhance existing tools that
  both USG and industry employ
• Validate assessments conducted by the USG for the
  food and agriculture sector

26
Implementation

• The Sector Specific Agency (FDA or USDA) will
  lead site coordination and visit
• Teams will include
• USG reps (FDA, USDA, DHS, FBI)
• Industry reps/trade association
• State and local reps (State Dept. of Health,
  State Dept. of Ag, FDA, USDA, law enforcement,
  vets, etc)
• Contractor support
• Pre-planning and follow on reporting for each
  visit will consist of approximately 9 weeks (4
  week prep and 4 week follow-up). All will be
  adjusted based on USG and industry needs

27
Criteria List of Foods

• Beef cattle feedlot
• Citrus
• Corn farm
• Dairy farm
• Poultry farm
• Rice mill
• Seed production facility
• Soybean farm
• Swine production facility
• Veterinary biologics farm
• Deli meats
• Grain elevator/Grain export handling facility
• Ground beef processing facility
• Hot dog processing
• Liquid eggs
• Retailers
• School kitchens
• Warehouses
• Yogurt

• Animal foods/feeds
• Baby food
• Deli salads
• Dietary supplements
• Flour
• Frozen entrees
• Fruit juice
• Gum arabic
• High fructose corn syrup
• Honey
• Ice cream
• Infant formula
• Milk
• Peanut butter
• Produce
• Seafood
• Soft drinks
• Spices
• Vitamins

• Conducted
• Received

28
Deliverables/Outcomes

• Working Notes that will be developed and approved
  by industry participants and distributed to all
  attendees.
• Classified report from each site visit will
  detail critical nodes, vulnerabilities, possible
  mitigation strategies, and potential warnings and
  indicators.
• Information gathered will be shared with the Food
  and Ag Sector and help populate the National
  Asset Database.
• Vulnerability assessment tool for each industry
  sub-sector that incorporates existing tools.
• Sector-specific investigative templates and field
  guides for food and agriculture intelligence
  sector.
• Identify and validate RD initiatives related to
  the food and agriculture sector.

29
Overarching Observations (thus far)

• Out of CARVER categories, industry can
  influence/affect vulnerability and accessibility.
  
• Mitigation strategies are sensitive part of the
  discussion, though vital. Many best practices
  and flow of ideas help foster discussion.
• Participation of trade associations are key to a
  successful exercise.
• Provide general ranges and serve as broker during
  discussions involving proprietary information.

30
Overarching Observations (thus far)

• Many research gaps regarding properties and
  characteristics of agents in specific commodities
  
• Desire to know what is and isnt possible for
  public message
• Need to develop a system for prioritization,
  tasking, and system to relay results back to
  industry.
• Research will be key to mitigating food defense
  threats and issues
• CFSAN reprioritize of food safety research to
  food defense research
• NCFST Industry need to foster discussion of
  increased food defense research activities

31
Industry/State Volunteers

• Requesting industry and state volunteers for the
  site visits/assessments. Your involvement is
  important and critical to success
• Interested parties should contact the appropriate
  SSA (FDA or USDA) with available dates for the
  assessment
• Submit your request to
• Donald Kautter FDA
• Diane DiPietro USDA

32
Points of Contact

• FDA Donald Kautter, 301-436-1629
• Donald.Kautter_at_fda.hhs.gov
• USDA Diane DiPietro, 202-720-7654
  Diane.Dipietro_at_usda.gov
• FBI Megan Coward, 202-324-2562
  Megan.Coward_at_ic.fbi.gov
• DHS John Martin, 202-447-3044 John.D.Martin_at_dhs.g
  ov

33
Want to Know More about CARVER Shock?CARVER
Assessment Training April 20, 20068AM 1PM