WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Bush (news - web sites)'s top environmental official said on Sunday that the highly contagious foot-and-mouth disease could strike in the United States, but said the administration was taking every precaution to avert its spread from Europe.

Environmental Protection Agency (news - web sites) Administrator Christine Todd Whitman (news - web sites) credited the Agriculture Department and other U.S. agencies with doing ``everything that we can to keep it from coming into this country.''

But she said the ``easily transportable'' disease might still get in. ``There is a chance and there's a real concern, and that's why we've been so proactive,'' Whitman told NBC's ``Meet the Press.'' The United States has been free of the disease since 1929

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-- Anonymous, April 24, 2001