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US official: Russian invasion of Ukraine risks release of dangerous pathogens
Bulletin of Atomic Scientists [The "Doomesday Clock" bunch] ^ | February 25, 2022 | Matt Field |

Posted on 03/08/2022 7:28:28 PM PST by BenLurkin

The Russian invasion of Ukraine may put at risk a network of US-linked labs in Ukraine that work with dangerous pathogens...

The US government maintains that they are public and animal health labs operated by host countries.

[Robert Pope, the director of the Cooperative Threat Reduction Program]said the labs conduct peaceful scientific research and disease surveillance. Outside experts have also said Pope’s program is not a covert bioweapons operation.

While the United States isn’t maintaining bioweapons facilities, Pope said, war could put pathogen collections in Ukraine at risk.

The pathogens in Ukrainian labs vary by facility, Pope said, but some can be characterized as presenting a concern in the Ukrainian environment. As an example, he cited African swine fever virus, which is highly contagious in pigs and has caused hundreds of outbreaks in Ukraine since 2012. Some labs, he said, may hold pathogen strains left over from the Soviet bioweapons program, preserved in freezers for research purposes.

The program is encouraging host countries to reduce the scope of their pathogen holdings to as small of a collection as necessary for legitimate scientific research, Pope said.

This work, Pope said, continued in Ukraine until recently. “They have more pathogens in more places than we recommend,” he said. The program had been helping Ukrainian researchers sift through their frozen pathogen collections, with the goal of persuading the Ukrainians to preserve their genetic information of samples via sequencing before destroying the live samples.

Some Ukrainian labs, like the Ukrainian Ministry of Health’s Public Health Center, Pope said, are major facilities, others small. Some are new, while others date back to the Soviet-era and the country’s bioweapons program.

The US government has worked with 26 facilities in Ukraine. Before the invasion, the program provided direct material support to six Ukrainian labs.

(Excerpt) Read more at thebulletin.org ...


TOPICS: Miscellaneous
KEYWORDS: biolabs; bioweapons; ukraine
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I guess my question is: Thirty years after the "threat reduction" started rounding up Soviet bioweapons for destruction, why are any of these pathogens still in existence?
1 posted on 03/08/2022 7:28:28 PM PST by BenLurkin
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To: BenLurkin

48 hours ago this was a ridiculed conspiracy


2 posted on 03/08/2022 7:29:30 PM PST by Mount Athos
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To: BenLurkin

A smart attack would target these facilities.


3 posted on 03/08/2022 7:32:06 PM PST by drSteve78 (Je suis Deplorable STILL)
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To: drSteve78

Especially since they don’t exist.


4 posted on 03/08/2022 7:32:32 PM PST by drSteve78 (Je suis Deplorable STILL)
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To: Mount Athos

I guess this guy is gonna get reamed by his superiors for saying this. The USA Today and other MSM outlets referred to Russian claims of bioweapons labs in Ukraine as a conspiracy theory just the other day.


5 posted on 03/08/2022 7:32:34 PM PST by dowcaet
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To: Mount Athos

Quick, somebody ask whether bat soup is on the menu in the cafeteria. Any wet markets conveniently located nearby?


6 posted on 03/08/2022 7:33:07 PM PST by FirstFlaBn
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To: BenLurkin
We will have to ask Fauci. A small pox release would be horrible.
7 posted on 03/08/2022 7:33:54 PM PST by pterional (scorched earth)
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To: Whenifhow; null and void; aragorn; EnigmaticAnomaly; kalee; Kale; AZ .44 MAG; Baynative; bgill; ...

DonaldJTrumpJr
·
4h
Well that went from conspiracy theory to senate testimony in about 6 days… It used to take six months to go from conspiracy theory to fact.
Quote Tweet

Ian Miles Cheong
@stillgray
· 6h
U.S. Under Secretary of State Victoria Nuland says Washington is working with Ukraine to prevent biological research facilities from falling into Russian hands. She just confirmed every conspiracy theory about the existence of those labs.
Show this thread


8 posted on 03/08/2022 7:34:23 PM PST by bitt ( <img src=' 'width=50%>)
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To: BenLurkin

It gets dicey.

Here is my problem. Ukraine is a very minor player in biotechnology. The notion they have sophisticated labs of any kind takes me by surprise. But there can be labs working on agricultural issues which can include plant viruses and animal viruses. Might some of these cause diseases in humans? Maybe.

However, if it turns out that Fauci’s fingerprints show up on any of this. I take back what I said.


9 posted on 03/08/2022 7:35:13 PM PST by bioqubit (bioqubit: Educated Men Make Terrible Slaves - Aristotle)
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To: BenLurkin
What biolab doesn't have protocols in place to immediately destroy the pathogens in an emergency?

How are the pathogens not already destroyed?

...unless they weren't just laboratories but are instead stockpiles.

10 posted on 03/08/2022 7:35:42 PM PST by T.B. Yoits
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To: BenLurkin

God, DC has a wonderful sense of humor. DC, Washington DC, protector and funder of Fauci, the ones who unleashed covid on us to get rid of Trump, the people who gave us the Wuhan lab...is warning us that the RUSSIANS might unleash pathogens when they overrun our secret weapons labs.

Did they say this with a straight face?


11 posted on 03/08/2022 7:36:38 PM PST by DesertRhino (Dogs are called man's best friend. Moslems hate dogs. Add it up..)
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To: All

Sorry but this sounds like Russian disinformation


12 posted on 03/08/2022 7:37:06 PM PST by escapefromboston (Free Chauvin)
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To: Mount Athos

“48 hours ago this was a ridiculed conspiracy”

Times they are a changin…..used to be years between conspiracy and the truth coming out.


13 posted on 03/08/2022 7:37:09 PM PST by walkingdead (We are sacrificing American youth's future on the altar of our own fear. And it is a travesty.)
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To: BenLurkin

Oh really now.

I guess another bio lab in a foreign country we are running since we can’t get an ok for it on our own soil.

Repugnant. It is getting to where I don’t know who to root for any more. Is there any decent nation left?


14 posted on 03/08/2022 7:39:27 PM PST by Persevero (You cannot comply your way out of tyranny. )
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To: T.B. Yoits

Don’t you think Bio Labs on Russia’s doorstep are reason enough for in invasion??

The US did it in Iraq.

Something is fishy....


15 posted on 03/08/2022 7:39:28 PM PST by blackberry1
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To: BenLurkin

OMG, look at this..

EXCLUSIVE: Deleted Web Pages Show Obama Led an Effort To Build a Ukraine-Based BioLab Handling ‘Especially Dangerous Pathogens’
The National Pulse ^ | 3/8/22 | Natalie Winters

https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/4045006/posts


16 posted on 03/08/2022 7:41:08 PM PST by bitt ( <img src=' 'width=50%>)
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To: escapefromboston

Sorry, did you forget the /sarc tag or just ignorant?


17 posted on 03/08/2022 7:41:17 PM PST by Equine1952
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To: BenLurkin
Outside experts have also said Pope’s program is not a covert bioweapons operation.

Well, as long as experts said so...

18 posted on 03/08/2022 7:44:22 PM PST by seowulf (Civilization begins with order, grows with liberty, and dies with chaos...Will Durant)
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To: blackberry1
The bio labs on on Russia’s doorstep are even more suspicious knowing what we now know about Pfascist korporations colluding with government employees such as Mr. Fauxi to illegally fund banned gain-of-function experiments in other countries such as China.

Since these labs in Ukraine were funded by the U.S. State Department as per their own website, and the Ukrainian entities were paying off Jao Bai-din and Hunter Bai-din, it begs the question, "what is Mr. Fauxi doing funding bio-weapon labs in Ukraine?"

No wonder the Russians invaded Ukraine. Could you imagine if Afghanistan was funding bio-weapon labs in Mexico?

19 posted on 03/08/2022 7:46:51 PM PST by T.B. Yoits
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To: escapefromboston

The article is quite friendly to the US government position. Adopts it really.


20 posted on 03/08/2022 7:46:54 PM PST by BenLurkin ((The above is not a statement of fact. It is either opinion, or satire. Or both.))
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