Biological Weapons Found in Ji Raid

World News ^ | November 15, 2003 | SBS News

[joinedafterattack]

The Philippines military says it has discovered traces of possible biological weapons in a raid on a suspected hideout of Southeast Asian terror group Jemaah Islamiah in the southern Philippine city of Cotabato.

A senior military official says possible residues of a "tetanus virus-carrying chemical was among those found" in Sunday's raid, along with a "bio-terror manual".

Bomb-making materials, documents and notes on assembling rocket-propelled grenades were also found during the raid, but no suspects were arrested.

Military spokesman Major General Rodolfo Garcia says the documents refer to Jemaah Islamiah, but has refused to elaborate further.

Last week authorities arrested key Jemaah Islamiah suspect Taufiq Rifqi in another raid in Cotabato. He’s said to be the second most important Jemaah Islamiah operative in the Philippines after fellow Indonesian Fathur Roman Al-Ghozi, who was killed by security forces in a gun battle on October 12.

[joinedafterattack]

YIKES

[RLK]

It isn't about Saddam Hussein or Iraq.

[JustPiper]

BumpPing!

[Mark17]

Holy moly, I was just in Mindanao last month. I am glad I missed this.

[XHogPilot]

bump

[struwwelpeter]

possible residues of a "tetanus virus-carrying chemical was among those found" in Sunday's raid, along with a "bio-terror manual".

Well, if the 'manual' described it as a 'tetanus virus chemical', I'm a lot less worried. Tetanus = a symptom caused by a toxin produced by a specific Clostridium bacterium. Sounds a bit over-hyped.

OTOH, I've known quite a few sharpshooters who couldn't spell 'bullet'.

[bonesmccoy]

I agree..

Clostridium tetani is not a virus... It's a bacteria.
http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/ency/article/000615.htm

[Pro-Bush]

lots of people are vaccinated against it.

[PurVirgo]

=) Good to see you guys are on top of things! I have to wonder about the validity of this report, though, after reading that. Besides - doesn't the bacteria become unable to produce toxin under aerobic conditions?

Question though - does Clostridium tetani form endospores?

[struwwelpeter]

All Clostridia form endospores, as far as I know. These are the reason for the canning industry and autoclaves.

They are pretty tough, but not as hard to kill as Bacillus spores - some anthrax spores were cultured from Louis Pasteur's lab coat over a hundred years after it was contaminated.

It is feasible to produce tetanus toxin, and it is a big NBC weapon. Saddam supposedly had many many gallons, enough to kill everyone on the planet.

The article is probably accurate, just the news release was shakey. Quite often, any infective agent is referred to as a 'virus'.

[neverdem]

Pardon me, but tetanus is caused by the bacterial species called Clostridium Tetani which produces a neurotoxin that causes painful muscular contractions. It is not caused by a virus. I think you can look it up. I just confirmed it by referencing a medical dictionary.

This just shows how ignorant the "media" are when discussing serious matters. They do excel at fear mongering. The DPT vaccine protects against that threat in pediatric patients, and for those older than seven years old, a different vaccine uses Td as it's name. In both cases, the capital "T" refers to tetanus due to the aforementioned bacterial species.

[Dajjal]

jihad bump

[struwwelpeter]

True, the DPT contains a tetanus "toxoid" which should confer immunity to the toxin. If that don't work, anti-toxin is only $1.59 for 1500 IU at the feed store ;-)

[Lurker]

No it isn't.

Too bad most folks don't get that.

L

[bonesmccoy]

yes, clostridia does form spores.

You are probably correct about the production of the toxins under aerobic conditions.

Vaccination would provide protection against this germ.

[PurVirgo]

I didn't know anthrax was a Clostridia (haven't gotten that far in my micro class)

And I knew spores could last a while, but not a hundred years!! That's really scary to think about.

As for the bacillus, we did cultivate lab strains (basically harmless) of it, then tried to kill it by incubating them at various temps - the only thing that worked was autoclaving. Wh also tried to kill it with various pH levels, osmotic pressure, O2 deprivation - they're hardy little suckers. It was of the subtillis variety.

I'm actually considering a career in microbiology because of this class - I'm continually fascinated by the tenacity of microbes

[PurVirgo]

I dunno - the last time I had a tetanus booster, my arm was swollen for about 2-3 days, and tender for about a week after that!!

It would take the threat of something before I volunteered for another one (damned college entrance requirements)

I feel pretty good though - seems my shot record is better than most - Hepatitis B, DPT regimen within last 5 years.

The only thing - I'm too young to have had smallpox vaccine

[PurVirgo]

you know what though? I would never have thought that tetanus could be viable as a threat, because so many people are vaccinated, at some point in their life

But you are correct - the media's ignorance panders to public panic. Now, the Hep B outbreak in Pennsylvania is a worthy matter for media to cover, but I think I've seen a total of one news story on it. Granted, I live in Texas, but still...

[bonesmccoy]

At least you know you're immune to the deadly germ.

If you didn't react at all, it would be questionable if you were really immune. When you get an immune response, you at least know that you're truly immunized.

[neverdem]

Food borne transmission of hepatitis is due to the Hepatitis A virus which is the case of the Mexican restaurant in Pennsylvania.