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West Nile Virus: The First Bioweapon
Josey1
Member Posts: 9,598 ✭✭
West Nile Virus: The First Bioweapon
Back in June of 2000, pundit John LeBoutillier first raised concerns on NewsMax that the West Nile virus may have been the first bioweapon used by Iraq against the U.S.
LeBoutillier wrote: "Never before had this Middle Eastern virus been seen in the United States. Then it suddenly is found in people and in birds in the borough of Queens and then in other areas around New York City. Several elderly people died from West Nile; many others were severely ill and hospitalized because of this mysterious disease.
"Again the media and the Congress were - and remain - lax in linking up two related facts. U.N. weapons inspector Scott Ritter has revealed that Saddam Hussein's Iraqi scientists were working on West Nile virus!
"Why were Ritter and the United Nations inspecting Iraq at all? Because of evidence that Saddam was developing weapons of mass destruction and biological agents, as well. Thus the United Nations kept severe sanctions on Iraq until Saddam was proven to be in compliance with U.N. mandates on his government. ...
"Do you believe it is a "coincidence" that this virus suddenly then appeared directly across the East River from U.N. headquarters?"
With the announcement that four people in Louisiana have died as a result of the disease, it is becoming clear that West Nile may be a plague upon America for years to come.
West Nile virus, the mosquito-borne disease once completely foreign to the Western Hemisphere, has now spread from New York to Florida, Louisiana and Wisconsin.
The pathogen was first discovered in the United States in 1999 when it appeared in New York's Long Island City, the Queens community LeBoutillier notes is just across New York's East River from the United Nations.
It killed seven people and caused serious illness in 62 others in New York and New Jersey.
Though the disease has all but disappeared from media scopes since the anthrax scare, it has not gone away, and its possible terrorist origins have never been definitively ruled out.
And why has the disease broken out in the United States, Israel and Saudi Arabia - all primary targets for Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein since the end of the Gulf War?
Experts agree that Saddam's bioweapons people might be brewing up God knows what in a French-built virology facility near Baghdad that has been closed to United Nations inspectors since Saddam threw them out years ago.
The facility, called the Foot and Mouth Vaccine Plant, was used for making botulinum toxin, or BTX - one of the most lethal biotoxins known.
In 1992, the United Nations tore down the buildings in which the BTX was made and destroyed equipment, but left standing the bulk of the facility, part of which was used for virus research. (In 1985 the CDC sent samples of West Nile virus to a researcher in Iraq, stirring controversy in the media five years later, on the eve of the Gulf War, when reports came out that Iraq had a significant biowarfare program.)
All but missing in action on the front lines of the anthrax attacks, controversial former U.S. Surgeon General David Satcher told the Jerusalem Post last year that the genetic strain of the West Nile virus found in Israel is the same as the one found in New York.
And, of course, there remains the sinister shadow of "In the Shadow of Saddam," the infamous book by Saddam's reputed former bodyguard and look-alike, Mikhael Ramadan. Published by a small press in the United Kingdom in 1999, the author's sensational allegations about Saddam's plans to wreak bioterror on the U.S. were featured that same year in the New Yorker magazine's "West Nile Mystery" by Richard Preston.
Preston quoted from the Ramadan account:
"In 1997, on almost the last occasion we met, Saddam summoned me to his study. Seldom had I seen him so elated. Unlocking the top right-hand drawer of his desk, he produced a bulky, leather-bound dossier and read extracts from it. ... The dossier holds details of his ultimate weapon, developed in secret laboratories outside Iraq. ... Free of U.N. inspection, the laboratories would develop the SV1417 strain of the West Nile virus - capable of destroying 97 pc [percent] of all life in an urban environment. ... He said SV1417 was to be "operationally tested" on a Third World population centre. ..." The target had been selected, Saddam said, "but that is not for your innocent ears."
Author Preston questioned: "Why would a man presenting himself as an Iraqi defector predict that Saddam would unleash a virus just months before the same one broke out unexpectedly in New York? And, of all the thousands of viruses in the world, why West Nile?"
Adding another twist to the bizarre story, it turns out that, said Preston, "the fatality rate for West Nile is not remotely near 97 percent, and "SV1417" is not a standard designation for any known strain of West Nile virus."
At the same time that Ramadan was being discussed in the CIA, Dr. Ken Alibek, a defector and the former deputy chief of research for Biopreparat, the Soviet Union's main biowarfare program, spoke to lawmakers on Capitol Hill, voicing his concern that the West Nile outbreak was "suspicious."
In his article, Preston reported a conversation with an anonymous FBI agent, who told him that West Nile might be a good choice for a terrorist. He said: "If I was planning a bioterror event, I'd do things with subtle finesse, to make it look like a natural outbreak. That would delay the response and lock up the decision-making process."
An Army expert interviewed by Preston in the article told him that the military knew that Soviet biologists working for the Soviet Union's biowarfare program had evaluated the West Nile virus for use as a biological weapon.
http://www.newsmax.com/showinsidecover.shtml?a=2002/8/6/141920
"If cowardly and dishonorable men sometimes shoot unarmed men with army pistols or guns, the evil must be prevented by the penitentiary and gallows, and not by a general deprivation of a constitutional privilege." - Arkansas Supreme Court, 1878
Back in June of 2000, pundit John LeBoutillier first raised concerns on NewsMax that the West Nile virus may have been the first bioweapon used by Iraq against the U.S.
LeBoutillier wrote: "Never before had this Middle Eastern virus been seen in the United States. Then it suddenly is found in people and in birds in the borough of Queens and then in other areas around New York City. Several elderly people died from West Nile; many others were severely ill and hospitalized because of this mysterious disease.
"Again the media and the Congress were - and remain - lax in linking up two related facts. U.N. weapons inspector Scott Ritter has revealed that Saddam Hussein's Iraqi scientists were working on West Nile virus!
"Why were Ritter and the United Nations inspecting Iraq at all? Because of evidence that Saddam was developing weapons of mass destruction and biological agents, as well. Thus the United Nations kept severe sanctions on Iraq until Saddam was proven to be in compliance with U.N. mandates on his government. ...
"Do you believe it is a "coincidence" that this virus suddenly then appeared directly across the East River from U.N. headquarters?"
With the announcement that four people in Louisiana have died as a result of the disease, it is becoming clear that West Nile may be a plague upon America for years to come.
West Nile virus, the mosquito-borne disease once completely foreign to the Western Hemisphere, has now spread from New York to Florida, Louisiana and Wisconsin.
The pathogen was first discovered in the United States in 1999 when it appeared in New York's Long Island City, the Queens community LeBoutillier notes is just across New York's East River from the United Nations.
It killed seven people and caused serious illness in 62 others in New York and New Jersey.
Though the disease has all but disappeared from media scopes since the anthrax scare, it has not gone away, and its possible terrorist origins have never been definitively ruled out.
And why has the disease broken out in the United States, Israel and Saudi Arabia - all primary targets for Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein since the end of the Gulf War?
Experts agree that Saddam's bioweapons people might be brewing up God knows what in a French-built virology facility near Baghdad that has been closed to United Nations inspectors since Saddam threw them out years ago.
The facility, called the Foot and Mouth Vaccine Plant, was used for making botulinum toxin, or BTX - one of the most lethal biotoxins known.
In 1992, the United Nations tore down the buildings in which the BTX was made and destroyed equipment, but left standing the bulk of the facility, part of which was used for virus research. (In 1985 the CDC sent samples of West Nile virus to a researcher in Iraq, stirring controversy in the media five years later, on the eve of the Gulf War, when reports came out that Iraq had a significant biowarfare program.)
All but missing in action on the front lines of the anthrax attacks, controversial former U.S. Surgeon General David Satcher told the Jerusalem Post last year that the genetic strain of the West Nile virus found in Israel is the same as the one found in New York.
And, of course, there remains the sinister shadow of "In the Shadow of Saddam," the infamous book by Saddam's reputed former bodyguard and look-alike, Mikhael Ramadan. Published by a small press in the United Kingdom in 1999, the author's sensational allegations about Saddam's plans to wreak bioterror on the U.S. were featured that same year in the New Yorker magazine's "West Nile Mystery" by Richard Preston.
Preston quoted from the Ramadan account:
"In 1997, on almost the last occasion we met, Saddam summoned me to his study. Seldom had I seen him so elated. Unlocking the top right-hand drawer of his desk, he produced a bulky, leather-bound dossier and read extracts from it. ... The dossier holds details of his ultimate weapon, developed in secret laboratories outside Iraq. ... Free of U.N. inspection, the laboratories would develop the SV1417 strain of the West Nile virus - capable of destroying 97 pc [percent] of all life in an urban environment. ... He said SV1417 was to be "operationally tested" on a Third World population centre. ..." The target had been selected, Saddam said, "but that is not for your innocent ears."
Author Preston questioned: "Why would a man presenting himself as an Iraqi defector predict that Saddam would unleash a virus just months before the same one broke out unexpectedly in New York? And, of all the thousands of viruses in the world, why West Nile?"
Adding another twist to the bizarre story, it turns out that, said Preston, "the fatality rate for West Nile is not remotely near 97 percent, and "SV1417" is not a standard designation for any known strain of West Nile virus."
At the same time that Ramadan was being discussed in the CIA, Dr. Ken Alibek, a defector and the former deputy chief of research for Biopreparat, the Soviet Union's main biowarfare program, spoke to lawmakers on Capitol Hill, voicing his concern that the West Nile outbreak was "suspicious."
In his article, Preston reported a conversation with an anonymous FBI agent, who told him that West Nile might be a good choice for a terrorist. He said: "If I was planning a bioterror event, I'd do things with subtle finesse, to make it look like a natural outbreak. That would delay the response and lock up the decision-making process."
An Army expert interviewed by Preston in the article told him that the military knew that Soviet biologists working for the Soviet Union's biowarfare program had evaluated the West Nile virus for use as a biological weapon.
http://www.newsmax.com/showinsidecover.shtml?a=2002/8/6/141920
"If cowardly and dishonorable men sometimes shoot unarmed men with army pistols or guns, the evil must be prevented by the penitentiary and gallows, and not by a general deprivation of a constitutional privilege." - Arkansas Supreme Court, 1878
Comments
matches Israeli strain
CDC scientist: Outbreak has Mideast roots, but feds don't know how bug jumped Atlantic
Posted: August 7, 2002
1:00 a.m. Eastern
By Paul Sperry
c 2002 WorldNetDaily.com
WASHINGTON - The strain of West Nile virus spreading rapidly across the country is a genetic match to one found in Israel, indicating the U.S. bug came from the Middle East, says a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention scientist.
"The virus that was introduced into New York in 1999 is closely related to a virus in Israel," which has infected hundreds of Israelis, said Harry Savage, a CDC researcher. "So it at least indicates that it came from that part of the world."
Federal scientists, however, are still trying to figure out how the mosquito-borne virus jumped the Atlantic, an unusual feat.
The mode of entry into the U.S. "is still unknown," Savage told WorldNetDaily.
Initially the CIA suspected bioterrorism, he says, but fears diminished after researchers found no traces of manufacturing in the U.S. strain.
"Bioterrorism is very remote because it's a wild virus," he said. "There's no engineering to it."
Also, West Nile wouldn't make an effective weapon since it kills relatively few and does not spread through human-to-human contact, Savage says. A blood-borne virus, its vector is mosquitoes, which can be controlled through water abatement and malathion spraying.
"There are lots of better weapons, if you want a weapon," he said.
Still, the death toll from West Nile has climbed to five in Louisiana alone, pushing total deaths nationwide to more than 20. And the CDC has rushed teams of doctors and scientists to the swampy state.
The brain-swelling disease has swept across more than half the states now and will hit all 50 within two years, epidemiologists predict. Relief from this year's outbreak isn't likely to come until October, when temperatures cool and viral growth slows.
So if not by bioterrorism, how was the virus introduced to America?
Epidemiologists and virologists offer three possibilities, all of which they admit are not highly feasible.
One is through an infected traveler. But that's not likely because humans usually don't have enough of the virus in their blood cells to act as a host for other mosquitoes, who in turn would spread it.
The second scenario is through an infected bird, which would provide a rich vector for the virus. But there are few birds imported from the Middle East.
The third way West Nile may have entered the U.S. is through a virus-carrying mosquito itself. Perhaps it came through a New York harbor. But that's not likely, either, since mosquitoes have a short life span.
Some point to government or university labs as the source.
Researchers were working on a West Nile virus vaccine in New York, Maryland and Washington, D.C., around the same time the virus first showed up in dead crows. Hundreds of infected crows have been found in the Washington area, including at the White House, which is near an Army medical facility that experimented with West Nile virus vaccines.
As part of experiments, researchers in New York and elsewhere injected crows with West Nile.
Some most affected by the virus (which is also quite lethal to horses), such as ranchers and horse trainers and breeders, can't understand why the government hasn't been able to solve the mystery.
"We have some of the best epidemiologists in the world. They have been assisting Europe with the Mad Cow (disease) problem," said Jim Garfinkel, a California equine veterinarian. "Why is it that we can't seem to get a handle on this disease?"
He says he was briefed about West Nile at a U.C.-Davis Veterinary Teaching Hospital meeting shortly after the virus first hit the U.S. and was told that it had been isolated to an Israeli strain of the virus.
http://www.wnd.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=28527
"If cowardly and dishonorable men sometimes shoot unarmed men with army pistols or guns, the evil must be prevented by the penitentiary and gallows, and not by a general deprivation of a constitutional privilege." - Arkansas Supreme Court, 1878
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Rugster
- Life NRA Member
"If cowardly & dishonorable men shoot unarmed men with army guns, the evil must be prevented by the penitentiary...and not by general deprivation of constitutional privilege." - Arkansas Supreme Court, 1878
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