The CDC filed a patent application on SARS-CoV in 2004; it was granted in 2007.
THE SYNTHESIS, MEANING SYNTHETIC, NOT FOUND IN NATURE.
Experts also noted that other steps in the process — like stripping genetic material from its chromosome and creating copies, or the use of biotechnology in general — likely made the patent viable.
SEE <THIS ARTICLE> ON THE LIKELY ILLEGALITY OF PATENTING HUMAN GENES, ANY GENES, ANY PART OF NATURAL GENES OR NATURAL PROTEINS, NATURAL VIRUSES.
YOU WILL ALSO SEE HOW DELIGHTED FAUCI'S NHGRI AND THE U.S. NHI WERE THAT THE SUPREME COURT ALLOWED THEM PATENT OF SARS-COV.
THIS VIRUS WAS DISCOVERED AND STUDIED BY A CHINESE RESEARCHER WORKING AT THAT WUHAN LAB FOR 15 YEARS.
COINCIDENCE, SURELY?
ARE YOU AWARE, HAS MAINSTREAM MEDIA MENTIONED LATELY, THAT SARS-1 ESCAPED FROM 6 ASIAN LABS BEFORE?
SARS has not re-emerged naturally, but there have been six escapes from virology labs: one each in Singapore and Taiwan, and four separate escapes at the same laboratory in Beijing.
The first was in Singapore in August 2003, in a virology graduate student at the National University of Singapore. He had not worked directly with SARS, but it was present in the laboratory where he worked. He recovered and produced no secondary cases. The World Health Organization formed an expert committee to revise SARS biosafety guidelines.
The second escape was in Taiwan in December 2003, when a SARS research scientist fell ill on a return flight after attending a medical meeting in Singapore. His 74 contacts in Singapore were quarantined, but again, fortunately, none developed SARS. Investigation revealed the scientist had handled leaking biohazard waste without gloves, a mask, or a gown. Ironically, the WHO expert committee called for augmented biosafety in SARS laboratories the day after this case was reported.
In April 2004, China reported a case of SARS in a nurse who had cared for a researcher at the Chinese National Institute of Virology. While ill, the researcher had traveled twice by train from Beijing to Anhui province, where she was nursed by her mother, a physician, who fell ill and died. The nurse in turn infected five third-generation cases, causing no deaths.
Subsequent investigation uncovered three unrelated laboratory infections in different researchers at the NIV. At least two primary patients had never worked with live SARS virus. Many shortcomings in biosecurity were found at the NIV, and the specific cause of the outbreak was traced to an inadequately inactivated preparation of SARS virus that was used in general (that is, not biosecure) laboratory areas, including one where the primary cases worked. It had not been tested to confirm its safety after inactivation, as it should have been.
Antoine Danchin, an epidemiologist with the Hong Kong University-Pasteur Research Center, who studied the SARS epidemic in Hong Kong, told us the latest incidents were probably the result of lab accidents.
[Lab security breach blamed in China SARS, USA Today via Associated Press, April 26, 2004. , http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2004-04-26-sars-security_x.htm]
IS MAINSTREAM MEDIA MENTIONING THAT THE BIG "SWINE FLU" SCARE OF 1974 WAS CAUSED BY TWO LAB ESCAPES OF HUMAN H1N1, ONE FROM CHINA, ONE FROM RUSSIA?
NO.
Human H1N1 virus reappeared in 1977, in the Soviet Union and China. Virologists, using serologic and early genetic tests, soon began to suggest the cause of the reappearance was a laboratory escape of a 1949-50 virus, and as genomic techniques advanced, it became clear that this was true. By 2010, researchers published it as fact: “The most famous case of a released laboratory strain is the re-emergent H1N1 influenza-A virus which was first observed in China in May of 1977 and in Russia shortly thereafter.” The virus may have escaped from a lab attempting to prepare an attenuated H1N1 vaccine in response to the U.S. swine flu pandemic alert.
BUT AN ESCAPE FROM A LAB IS TOTALLY IMPOSSIBLE THIS TIME, SURELY.
THAT'S WHAT THE MSM, CDC, WHO KEEP TELLING US.
NOT AGAIN, RIGHT?
THERE IS A 17-PAGE DETAILED REPORT ON THE TOO-COMMON LAB ESCAPES/LAB 'ACCIDENTS' IN THE INTERNET ARCHIVES <HERE>. IT SEEMS LABS JUST DON'T LEARN FROM PAST MISTAKES AND MAY NEVER LEARN.
THAT, OR MAYBE, JUST MAYBE, THOSE AREN'T ALL "ACCIDENTS"?
In October 2014, due to "biosafety and biosecurity risks," (YES, MORE LAB "ACCIDENTS!) the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy issued a moratorium on funding for gain-of-function research on influenza, SARS and MERS, per the NIH.
Little Anthony Fauci, who has headed the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) since 1984, has played a major role in promoting and funding gain-of-function (GoF) research, both in the U.S. and China.
Newsweek reported: “He argued that the research was worth the risk it entailed because it enables scientists to make preparations [ ] that could be useful if and when a pandemic occurred.”
- Those claims are belied by the empirical evidence
GoF experiments have neither prevented a pandemic, nor provided useful information about safe and effective pandemic countermeasures. Numerous prominent scientists argue that these experiments deviate from morally justifiable research, and the experimentally altered pathogens have put the entire human species at risk.
However, GoF research is defended by a closed circle of scientists within government and those who are contracted by government to conduct this line of research.
WHAT DOES "GAIN-OF-FUNCTION" MEAN?
IT MEANS THE ABILITY TO CAUSE THE VIRAL AGENT (OR BACTERIAL AGENT) TO SPREAD IN NEW WAYS, TO ENHANCE THE VIRULENCE, TO BASICALLY WEAPONIZE A VIRAL AGENT IN ORDER TO CREATE RAPID SPREAD AND HIGHER INFECTION RATE.
LET'S TALK ABOUT FAUCI AND THE CHINESE COMMUNIST PARTY.
“In order to outsource dangerous viral research from the U.S. to China during the Obama moratorium, Fauci prematurely approved the Wuhan Institute as a highest level containment facility (known as BSL-4) capable of safely working with lethal viruses,” Dr. Peter Breggin writes.
“He did this while knowing the Institute had a very poor safety record and while also knowing that all such facilities in China are overseen by the military as part of its biowarfare program. Thus, Fauci created two grave worldwide threats, the accidental release of a deadly coronavirus and/or its use as a military weapon.”
Interestingly, while the original moratorium on gain-of-function research was a direct order by then-President Obama, when the moratorium was lifted at the end of 2017, it was done so by the National Institutes of Health and the NIAID, WHICH FAUCI HAS HEADED FOR ALMOST 40 YEARS, SINCE 1984.
Fauci also defended and promoted gain-of-function research on bird flu viruses a decade ago, saying such research was worth the risk because it allows scientists to prepare for pandemics. However, as noted by Breggin, this kind of research does not appear to have improved governments’ pandemic responses one whit.
Fauci’s connections to and support of Director-General of the World Health Organization, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, a member of a Marxist-Leninist Ethiopian political party whose corrupt past and terrorist ties have been highlighted ever since his controversial nomination.
Incidentally, Tedros has also been accused of covering up cholera outbreaks in Ethiopia.
Tedros was also accused of complicity in his country’s dismal human rights record, which includes massacring protesters and jailing and torturing journalists and political opponents.
“Together, they initially minimized the dangers of COVID-19. Fauci and Tedros also delayed worldwide preparations for the pandemic while allowing the Chinese to spread the virus with thousands of international passenger flights,” Breggin writes, adding:
“Fauci publicly undermined the President’s criticism of Director-General Tedros and China. Instead, Fauci reassured the world that Tedros was a trustworthy and ‘outstanding’ man — implying that Tedros’s connections in China were similarly reliable and could be trusted.”
Rumors that Iraq was preparing to use weaponized anthrax – as a “weapon of mass destruction” – provided the US government with a justification for the 2003 invasion.
WE RUSHED TO STOP IRAQ BUT WE'RE DOING THE SAME THING HERE.
THE U.S. HAS BEEN DEEPLY DEVOTED TO DEVELOPING BIOLOGICAL WEAPONS SINCE WW1.
WE'RE TOLD THAT DRIVE TO BE TOP DOG IN 'GERM WARFARE' ENDED AFTER WW2, BUT IT ASSUREDLY DID NOT. ONLY THE NAME CHANGED.
A new Department of Defense (DoD) Biological and Chemical Defense Planning Board was created in 1960 to establish program priorities and objectives. Preventive approaches toward infections of all kinds were funded under the auspices of biological warfare. As concern increased over the biological warfare threat during the Cold War, so did the budget for the program: to $38 million by fiscal year 1966.
The U.S. Army Chemical Corps was given the responsibility to conduct biological warfare research for all of the services.
[ SEE Department of the Army. Special Report to Congress. US Army Activity in the US Biological Warfare Programs,1942–1977. Vols 1 and 2 ***. Washington, DC: DA. 24 Feb 1977. Unclassified. Part of Volume 1 can be read or downloaded <HERE>.
There are 1,829 results under the topic "biological warfare" in the online Internet Archives.
For those who'd like a more in-depth look at this, I suggest borrowing the book from that site and reading "A Higher Form of Killing : The secret history of chemical and biological warfare".]
In 1962, the responsibility for the testing of promising biological warfare agents was given to a separate Testing and Evaluation Command (TEC). Depending on the particular program, different test centers were used, such as the Deseret Test Center at Fort Douglas, Utah, the headquarters for the new biological and chemical warfare testing organization.
In response to increasing concerns over public safety and the environment, the TEC implemented a complex system of approval of its research programs that included the U.S. Army Chief of Staff, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the Secretary of Defense, and the President of the United States.
A "Select Agent Program" (SAP) was established to satisfy requirements of the USA PATRIOT Act of 2001 and the Public Health Security and Bioterrorism Preparedness and Response Act of 2002.AND DEVELOP OUR OWN "RESPONSE"...BETTER BIOWEAPONS.
IT'S WHAT ALL SUPER-POWER NATIONS DO TO GAIN THE UPPER HAND IN BIOLOGICL WARFARE.
THE NATION WITH THE BEST, MOST INFECTIOUS, UNSTOPPABLE VIRUSES, BACTERIA, OR CHEMICALS, WINS.
IT'S WHY AMERICA DUG UP THE SPANISH FLU FROM A GRAVE AND BROUGHT IT BACK TO LIFE, WHY WE COMB THE GLOBE, OCEANS, EVERYWHERE LOOKING FOR NEWER (OR ANCIENT) VIRUSES AND BACTERIA TO USE AS WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION EVERY SINGLE DAY. IT'S WHY WE KEEP SMALLPOX ALIVE IN LABS.
THESE ORGANISMS ARE OUR "SILENT ARSENAL", CHEAPER AND EASIER TO USE THAN NUCLEAR WEAPONS.
THEY CAN BE QUIETLY DEPLOYED BY THE WATER WE DRINK, FOODS WE EAT, THE AIR WE BREATHE, ON SURFACES AND NO ONE IS AWARE THEY'RE THERE, UNTIL PEOPLE BEGIN TO DIE EN MASSE.
In 1992, Meryl Nass, MD, analyzed the characteristics of an anthrax epidemic in Zimbabwe, Rhodesia in 1978-1980, that was claimed to be a natural occurrence. Dr. Nass demonstrated that the pattern of the epidemic, the spread, and weather conditions, could not have occurred due to a natural event; it must, therefore, have been triggered as a bioweapon. She reported her findings in the journal Physicians for Social Responsibility Quarterly, 1992.
AS FOR WUHAN/CHINA...
Cables leaked to the The Washington Post in April "suggested" there were safety issues at the Wuhan Institute of Virology and a 15-page dossier prepared by "Western governments" obtained by The Daily Telegraph on May 4 claimed China deliberately destroyed evidence of the outbreak in January.
Might not this explain the "tendency to feel suspicious"?
Given those two facts and the fact that there is no known virus that has the same makeup as 'novel coronavirus', aka, SARS-COV-2, it is all too easy to make the leap to at least questioning if it was lab-created. It could even be called a LOGICAL assumption since the nearest coronavirus ever studied, ever found is missing that 4% unique makeup, never seen in nature, that SARS-COV-2 has.
THIS NEW VIRUS WAS NOT FOUND IN ANY OF THE 585 SAMPLES COLLECTED FROM THAT WUHAN MARKET NEAR THAT WUHAN LAB.
ONE-THIRD OF THE FIRST HUMANS INFECTED HAD NEVER BEEN TO THAT MARKET.
THE NEW VIRUS WAS NOT FOUND IN PANGOLINS, PALM CIVET CATS, OR BATS THAT CAME FROM AS FAR AWAY AS MALAYSIA.
REGARDING THE PATENTED SARS-COV, THE U.S. HAD ALREADY LOOKED INTO WAYS THAT IT COULD BE SPREAD FROM BATS TO HUMANS.
THINGS WERE GETTING A LITTLE 'DICEY' AND THERE WAS TOO MUCH ROOM FOR HUMAN ERROR, FOR "ACCIDENTAL RELEASE" INTO THE AMERICAN POPULATION.
THE WHOLE THING WAS STARTING TO RESEMBLE STEPHEN KING'S IMAGINARY VIRUS "CAPTAIN TRIPS" IN HIS BEST NOVEL 'THE STAND'.
NIH "RESEARCH" GOT SHUT DOWN.
STOP THE "STUDIES", STOP LOOKING FOR WAYS TO MAKE IT GO AIRBORNE. STOP IT!
TOO LATE.
Our U.S. labs had already yielded 20 scientific reports on how zoonotic diseases MAY transfer from bats to humans.
The study was aiming at identifying locations to monitor for NEW coronaviruses, forming strategies, or so they vowed, to PREVENT animal-to-human transmission of the virus, and creating vaccines and treatments, according to NPR.
AND ACCORDING TO THE NOT SO TRUSTWORTHY HOLDERS OF THAT GOLD MINE OF A PATENT.
(BTW, there are many types of coronaviruses, seven of which are known to affect humans.)
USA TODAY previously reported that over the course of the two grants approved by the NIH for EcoHealth Alliance, AFTER THE U.S. MORATORIUM WAS DECLARED, the Wuhan Institute in communist China received about $600,000 from the NIH, according to Robert Kessler, a spokesperson for EcoHealth Alliance. The funding was a fee for the collection and analysis of viral samples.
In a grant approved in 2014, about $133,000 was sent to the institute in the first four years and about $66,000 in the past year. In a second grant approved in 2019, about $76,000 was budgeted for the Wuhan Institute, though no money was sent before the grant's termination, as previously reported by USA TODAY.
WHY FUND A CHINESE LAB, PERIOD?
WHY HELP OUR SWORN ENEMY, COMMUNIST CHINA, FIND A WAY TO BETTER WEAPONIZE A VIRUS THAT IT COULD USE AGAINST THE USA?
The moratorium on gain-of-function research in the U.S. was lifted in December 2017, when the Department of Health and Human Services issued new guidelines for the experiments, per the NIH.
The EcoHealth Alliance project (IN WUHAN)— which had successfully identified hundreds of coronaviruses to date — only came to a halt in April, when conspiracy theories about the origins of virus began to intensify and its funding was abruptly cut by the Trump administration.
THE "FACT-CHECKERS" AT USA TODAY WHO WROTE A LONG ARTICLE DISPELLING WHAT IT CALLED "CHERRY-PICKED FACTS" ABOUT ALL THIS, BUT FACTS THEY ARE AND FACTS ARE FACTS, HAVE A 'DISCLAIMER' AT THE BOTTOM OF EACH LITTLE FACT CHECK...THAT FACEBOOK, WHOSE CO-FOUNDER HAS DONATED MILLIONS TO DEFEAT TRUMP, FUNDS THEIR FACT-CHECKING.
"Our fact check work is supported in part by a grant from Facebook."
INSTEAD OF ENCOURAGING AMERICANS TO VIEW ALL SIDES OF THIS 'STORY', USA TODAY, LIKE TWITTER AND YOUTUBE AND FACEBOOK, WANT ANY/ALL FACTUAL REPORTS THAT CONTRADICT THEIR CHOSEN NARRATIVE LABELED AS "CONSPIRACY THEORY", BANNED, OBLITERATED, KEPT FROM PUBLIC SIGHT.
THEY DON'T SEEM TO BELIEVE THAT WE AMERICANS HAVE THE ABILITY TO SORT ANYTHING OUT FOR OURSELVES, THAT ONLY THEY, THE OMNISCIENT MEDIA, CAN TELL US WHAT'S TRUE, WHAT'S NOT.
REMEMBER THAT FRENCH VIROLOGIST/RESEARCHER WHOM MAINSTREAM MEDIA MOCKED AS A QUACK FOR SAYING COVID-19 ORIGINATED IN A LAB AND "ESCAPED", WHO DARED MENTION THAT SARS-COV-2 HAS ELEMENTS OF BOTH HIV AND MALARIA?
DID YOU KNOW HE'S A NOBEL PRIZE-WINNER FOR DISCOVERING THE HIV/AIDS VIRUS?
HE WON THE PRIZE IN 2008.
Luc Montagnier won the 2008 Nobel Prize in medicine, but has been mocked by so-called "scientific experts" who never won a Nobel Prize nor were ever even nominated for one, little nobody, I'm-for-hire media puppets who are trotted out to defame anyone who disagrees with the BS we're spoon-fed by media as "science" or "medicine".
Montagnier is skeptical how the COVID-19 contains elements of HIV and malaria, he told CNews Channel.
"The Wuhan city laboratory has specialized in these coronaviruses since the early 2000s," Montagnier said, according to an Asian Times translation. "They have expertise in this area."
The Wuhan lab in question was constructed with French assistance in a 2004 co-op on preventing and controlling infectious diseases, according to Nature.com.
"But the complexity of the project, China's lack of experience, difficulty in maintaining funding and long government approval procedures meant that construction wasn't finished until the end of 2014," according to Nature.com.
Nature's February 2017 report stated: "Some scientists outside China worry about pathogens escaping, and the addition of a biological dimension to geopolitical tensions between China and other nations.
Montagnier also made the claim during an interview with news platform CNews.
He said: “We have arrived at the conclusion that this virus was created.” He accused “molecular biologists” of having inserted DNA sequences from HIV into a coronavirus, “probably” as part of their work to find a vaccine against AIDS.
He said that it was not clear how the virus had been able to escape the laboratory, and condemned scientists for doing “the work of a sorcerer’s apprentice”.
Professor Montagnier has said that he is not the first to suggest the connection, and added that “a group of renowned Indian researchers” had also tried to publish a study showing that the new coronavirus includes HIV DNA, but were forced to retract their claims and had been “smothered”.
The Indian study said that there was “a strange similarity” between the new coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 and VIH-1 - the main cause of HIV - “which is unlikely to be coincidental”.
AND BELOW IS THE STRUCTURAL BIOLOGY OF SARS-COV-2
BTW, Montagnier has received more than 20 major awards, including the National Order of Merit (Commander, 1986) and the Légion d'honneur (Knight: 1984; Officer: 1990; Commander: 1993; Grand Officer: 2009).
He is a recipient of the Lasker Award and the Scheele Award (1986), the Louis-Jeantet Prize for medicine (1986), the Gairdner Award (1987), the Golden Plate Award of the American Academy of Achievement (1987), King Faisal International Prize (1993) (known as the Arab Nobel Prize), and the Prince of Asturias Award (2000). He is also a member of the Académie Nationale de Médecine.
WHAT DO OTHERS OF HIS PROFESSION HOLD AGAINST HIM?
HE'S DISAGREED WITH MANDATORY VACCINES.
YOU KNOW....VACCINES, THE BIG MONEY-MAKERS OF MEDICINE AND BIG PHARMACEUTICAL COMPANIES, BIG MONEY THAT THE CDC WILL SURELY CASH IN ON SINCE IT HAS THE PATENT FOR SARS-COV, NEEDED TO CREATE A VACCINE FOR SARS-COV-2.
DAMN ANYBODY WHO WANTS TO CUT THAT SACRED COW CALLED VACCINES FROM THE MIX, RIGHT?
HORRRRRIBLE NEW VIRUS = NEED FOR VACCINE = $$$$$$$$$$ KA-CHING! $$$$$$$
WHAT MONTAGNIER ISN'T IS A PAID MEDIA HACK WHO WILL SAY ANYTHING HE'S PAID TO SAY.
<HERE IS A LINK> TO A PARTIAL LIST of 56 Vaccine-Related Patents Owned by Members of the CDC.
The vaccination industry currently generates $30 billion in profit each year, some of which reaches the hands of the very people who create the vaccine schedule.
Ask yourselves, should a public health agency that is supposed to make impartial vaccine recommendations also be a private for profit company with an impressive portfolio?
A four-month investigation by United Press International found a pattern of serious problems linked to vaccines recommended by the CDC -- and a web of close ties between the agency and the companies that make vaccines.
Critics say those ties are an unholy alliance in a war against disease where vaccine side effects have damaged, hurt or killed people, mostly children.
"The CDC is a disgrace. It is a corrupt organization," said Stephen A. Sheller, a Philadelphia attorney who has sued vaccine makers for what he says were bad vaccines. "The drug companies have them on their payroll."
The agency sets the U.S. childhood immunization schedule, or the list of shots pediatricians give children. Some states say kids can't go to public school unless they have had CDC-endorsed vaccines.
Since the mid-1980s the agency has doubled the number of vaccines children get, up to nearly 40 doses before age 2. The CDC also tracks possible side effects, along with the Food and Drug Administration. This puts the agency in the awkward position of evaluating the safety of its own recommendations.
Because of concern over vaccine side effects, Congress in 1986 passed a law setting up a database at the CDC to track reports from doctors, manufacturers and the public of possible side effects from vaccines that started in 1991.
As of the end of last year, the system contained 244,424 total reports of possible reactions to vaccines, including 99,145 emergency room visits, 5,149 life-threatening reactions, 27,925 hospitalizations, 5,775 disabilities, and 5,309 deaths, according to data compiled by Dr. Mark Geier, a vaccine researcher in Silver Spring, Md. The data represents roughly 1 billion doses of vaccines, according to Geier.
Comorbidities
ON CDC's website, theyhave a "Table 3" THAT WAS UPDATED LAST ON OCTOBER 28, which shows Comorbidities, the types of health conditions and contributing causes mentioned in conjunction with deaths involving coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19).SIX PERCENT... 6% OF 210,326.
For deaths with conditions or causes in addition to COVID-19, on average, there were 2.6 additional conditions or causes per death.
IN MOST, THERE WERE 2.6 ADDITIONAL CONDITIONS.
91,153 HAD INFLUENZA AND PNEUMONIA.
IN THE UNDER-55 AGE GROUPS, EVEN WITH 2.6 ADDED CONDITIONS, FAR FEWER PATIENTS DIED.
ADD ALL THIS UP... 1+1= 2 STYLE.
DOES IT ADD UP LIKE THE MEDIA AND FAUCI AND TEDROS AND CHINA AND THE CDC AND WHO TELL US IT ADDS UP...OR NOT?
“In vast laboratories in the Ministry of Peace, and in experimental stations, teams of experts are indefatigably at work searching for new and deadlier gases; or for soluble poisons capable of being produced in such quantities as to destroy the vegetation of whole continents; or for breeds of disease germs immunised against all possible antibodies.” ~ George Orwell – 1984
_______________________
END NOTES:
-- THERE ARE SOME MOST INTERESTING DECLASSIFIED DOCUMENTS ON BIOWARFARE AT THE NATIONAL SECURITY ARCHIVE.
***DOCUMENT 26 IS BOTH VOLUMES I AND II OF THE ABOVE-MENTIONED REPORTS TO CONGRESS.
-- January 6, 2007
Sunshine Project of Austin, Texas, is a nonprofit watchdog group that attempts to protect the public from the risks of biotechnology experiments. The 1972 Biological Weapons Convention (BWC), which the US signed, prohibits research on offensive biological weapons. If the work is performed in secret, however, weapons designed for offensive use could be concealed. In the 1930s, the Japanese military masked its secret germ warfare scheme as a water purification project.
As the government-funded labs engage in "dual-use research," (pathogen research having both offensive and defensive applications), Sunshine's Edward Hammond reports he "has encountered grave problems with the system." These include "risky experiments approved with dubious safety precautions and/or inadequate IBC review, dysfunctional and otherwise noncompliant committees, and other types of biosafety problems."
Francis Boyle, an international legal expert at the University of Illinois, Champaign, puts it more bluntly. He called the in-house university committees "a joke and a fraud" that provide "no protection to anyone." Boyle, who drafted the Biological Weapons Anti- Terrorism Act of 1989 enacted by Congress, states the Pentagon "is now gearing up to fight and 'win' biological warfare" pursuant to two Bush national strategy directives adopted "without public knowledge and review" in 2002.
Last November 7th, Hammond lodged a complaint with Dr. Amy Patterson, director of the Office of Biotechnology Activities at NIH, citing 113 institutions "for non-compliance with the NIH Guidelines," specifically for refusing to honor requests for IBC meeting minutes.
"Honoring these requests is not only mandatory under the NIH Guidelines that you are charged with enforcing (but) transparency is also a moral duty of institutions that conduct research, such as rDNA and select agent work that could endanger the public," Hammond added. He wrote Patterson, "Failing prompt compliance by these institutions we note that your office must do its duty under NIH Guidelines and terminate funding."
NIH's Patterson apparently had troubles of her own obtaining information from labs on the Federal payroll. On Dec. 6, 2004, she issued a "reminder" to universities engaged in research that stated "compliance with the NIH Guidelines is critical to the safe conduct of research and to the fulfillment of an institutional commitment to the protection of staff, the environment, and public health."
Since 9/11, biotech houses, military laboratories, and State and private universities across America, and others sited in Canada, Australia, and South Africa, have collectively lapped up record sums in Federal R&D dollars.
How big is this enterprise? At just one venue, the Southwest Foundation for Biomedical Research (SFBR) in San Antonio, Tex., there are 6,000 caged chimpanzees, baboons, and other primates, Sunshine reports, whose upkeep alone costs U.S. taxpayers $6-million annually. SFBR genetically engineers monkeys and harbors some of the world's most dangerous viruses such as Ebola and Lassa, authorities state.
Again, the Battelle National Biodefense Institute(BNBI) of Columbus, Ohio, has just received a $250-million, five-year award from the Department of Homeland Security to run the new biodefense analysis center under construction at Fort Detrick, Md., according to The Washington Post of December 25, 2006.
Earlier, on July 30th of last year, The Post reported much of what transpires at the center may never be publicly known as the Bush administration "intends to operate the facility largely in secret."
Battelle also does not maintain an effective IBC, Sunshine charges. "Some of the research falls within what many arms-control experts say is a legal gray zone, skirting the edges of an international treaty outlawing the production of even small amounts of biological weapons," The Post reported. "The administration dismisses these concerns, however, insisting that the work...is purely defensive and thus fully legal. It has rejected calls for oversight by independent observers outside the (Homeland Security) Department's network of government scientists and contractors."
The paper quoted Milton Leitenberg, a weapons expert at the University of Maryland stating, "If we saw others doing this kind of research, we would view it as an infringement of the bioweapons treaty. You can't go around the world yelling about Iranian and North Korean programs ---about which we know very little ---when we've got all this going on."
The Post reported the operation would encompass about 160,000 gross square feet of working area and accommodate a staff of about 120. The Post noted, "Fort Detrick's history as the incubator of germ warfare research casts a long shadow over the new lab. When the fort held the Pentagon's very highly classified and long abandoned biological warfare program, it was a magnet for antiwar protests in the Vietnam War era."
In such labs, scientists can create new strains of disease for which those attacked would have no ready defense. Such weapons, once loosed, are notoriously difficult to control, and could ignite epidemics to sicken and terrify civilian populations.
Hammond believes there are about 400 bioweapons agents labs across the U.S., some of which encounter unexpected difficulty when they try to comply with the law.
David Perlin, president of the Public Health Research Institute (PHRI) of Newark, N.J., told Sunshine the FBI requested PHRI to enter into an agreement with them to "not publicly disclose which specific select agent pathogens and/or strains are stored at our facility."
Those who tend to dismiss NIH's laxity about enforcing its own regulations have only to recall the October, 2001, anthrax attacks on Congress and the media. The deadly strain released is believed to have come from a U.S. germ warfare lab at Fort Detrick although there is no certainty as the FBI has never solved the murders. Since then, the vast proliferation of such labs by the Bush administration has educated many new employees --- in some cases undergraduate students --- in germ warfare ops. Four employees at Fort Detrick are known to have died after performing lab work.
Because of their comparative cheapness to manufacture, biological weapons have been dubbed "the poor man's nuclear bomb." Yet their potential may be even deadlier. Jeremy Rifkin, author of "The Biotech Century"(Penguin), noted a government study in 1993 found "the release of just 200 pounds of anthrax spores from a plane over Washington DC could kill as many as three-million people."
The secret operations of the labs' would be less ominous if the Bush administration hadn't led the fight to demolish the international inspection system. Jackie Cabasso, executive director of Western States Legal Foundation, Oakland, Calif., warned, "Last year (2001), the U.S. single-handedly blew apart an international system for inspections of these kinds of (biological) laboratories, a system that would have made great strides toward ensuring that biodefense labs aren't abused for offensive purposes. Having thumbed our nose at the world, the US is now massively expanding its biodefense program, mostly in secretive facilities."
According to Boyle, President Bush "sabotaged the Verification Protocol for the BWC" as it was on the verge of conclusion and success. He said the U.S. "fully intended to get back into the research, development and testing of illegal and criminal offensive biowarfare programs." Boyle is the author of "Biowarfare and Terrorism," Clarity Press.
And Elisa Harris, former arms control official under President Clinton, told The New York Times in 2003 "It (the administration's actions) will raise concerns in other capitals in part because the United States has fought tooth and nail to prevent the international community from strengthening the germ treaty."
Among pharmaceutical houses not in compliance with NIH disclosure requirements are Abbott Laboratories of Abbott Park and Worchester, Agencourt Bioscience Corp.;Antibody Science, Inc.; BASF Plant Science, Bristol-Myers Squibb and its Pharmaceutical Research Institute of Connecticut; Centocor, Inc.; Chiron; Discovery Genomics Inc.; DuPont Central Research and Development; Embrex, Inc.; Genentech, Inc., Genzyme Corp. of Cambridge and Framingham, Mass.; GlaxoSmithKline, Merck & Co., Inc. and its Rahway, N.J., research site; Integral Molecular; Introgen Therapeutics; L2 Diagnostics LLC; Merck & Co. Inc., West Point; Merck Research Laboratories, Rahway, N.J.; Meridian Bioscience Inc.; Monsanto Co. Mystic, Conn.; New Link Genetics; NovaFlora, Inc.; NovoBiotic Pharmaceuticals; OSI Pharmaceuticals; Pfizer Inc., and Pfizer Pharmaceuticals of St. Louis, Roche Bioscience, Schering-Plough Research Institute; SelectX Pharmaceuticals; Serono Research Institution; Third Wave Technologies; and Vaxin, Inc.
Federal entities involved include the Center for Disease Control, the Walter Reed Army Medical Center, VA hospitals in Stratton, Va.; the Jerry Pettis Memorial hospital and the VA Pittsburgh Healthcare System. Also, the Idaho National Laboratory, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Plum Island Animal Disease Center of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, the U.S. Department of Agriculture, and Walter Reed Army Institute of Research and Navy Medical Research Center.
Other fund recipients include AERAS Global TB Vaccine Foundation, Battelle, CBR Institute for Biomedical Research, Inc.; Children's Hospital Oakland Research Institute, Children's National Medical Center, Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center, Columbus Children's Research Institute, Hadassah Medical Organization, Lovelace Respiratory Research Institute, Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, Mystic Aquarium & Institute for Exploration, and Scripps Clinic.
Among universities in non-compliance: Alabama A&M, Albany Medical College, Ball State, Brigham Young, Bucknell, Central Michigan, Drexel College of Medicine, Hackensack University Medical Center, Hunter College, Indiana State University, Purdue University, Loma Linda, Missouri State, New York Medical College, and Queens College of City University of New York.
Also, Rider, Rockefeller University, Rosalind Franklin University of Medicine and Science, South Dakota State University, St. John's University, State University of New York at Binghamton, Brockport, and Buffalo; Towson, Robert Wood Johnson Medical School(UMDNJ), and University Medical Center of Southern Nevada.
Also, the universities of Arizona, California at San Francisco, Maryland, Massachusetts, Miami, Fla.; Mississippi; Puerto Rico, Rhode Island, Southern Mississippi, Texas at Arlington and San Antonio, Tulsa, Utah State, Wake Forest, Washington University in St. Louis, Western Kentucky and Wilkes.
Foreign institutions include the University of Sydney, Australia; the University of British Columbia , and University of Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa. This listing covers most, but not all, of the names submitted to NIH by the Sunshine Project. Three years ago, Sunshine said if it had to pick the labs with the worst biosafety record-keeping, he would choose Princeton University, the University of Texas Southwestern at Dallas; the University of Vermont at Burlington and the University of Delaware at Newark.
Sunshine's Hammond said there has yet to be any formal response to his letter of last November from NIH. He added, "I doubt I will ever get one."
The NIH was asked to respond to the charges contained in this article but has yet not done so.
In sum, the costliest, most grandiose research scheme ever attempted having germ warfare capability is going forward today under President Bush and in apparent defiance of international treaties such as the Geneva Convention of 1925 that bans biological agents. What's more, where once the use of germ warfare was an isolated happenstance -- such as when an English general in 1767 gave smallpox-laced blankets to the Indians that decimated their tribes -- research in this grim area today suggests it has been elevated to an instrument of national policy.
And this program, involving some of the world's deadliest and most loathsome pathogens, many of which could trigger plagues and epidemics, is being conducted largely in secret without adequate oversight and in flagrant contempt of NIH's own rules.
Why?
//WW
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