Md. experts' key lessons on anthrax go untapped

The Baltimore Sun ^ | November 4, 2001 | Scott Shane

[Mia T]

Md. experts' key lessons on anthrax go untappedFort Detrick's veteran researchers studied bioweapons for 26 years By Scott ShaneSun Staff

[Fixit]

Thank you for posting this great find!

[WillaJohns]

Wow.

[bvw]

Thank you!

What an arrogant fool CDC Director Koplan is! Even had he just poured some foot powder in an envelope he would have seen that mail IS being cross-contaminated. Instead he issued the *deadly wrong* assurance that there was no cross-contamination. He continued in that assertion,even in the face of compelling evidence ... postmasters and postal managers failed to act aggressively enough because of it.

Koplan was grilled about it by Larry King on the TV show. Koplan spun -- he could do no wrong -- clearly what he meant was that one couldn't get *inhalation* anthrax from cross-contamination. Even that spin was wrong!

He's a clear and present danger in his position. He must be fired!

[bvw]

FYI

[Merovingian]

Current unclassified information reveals that, despite the 1972 Geneva Biological Weapons Convention, at least seventeen countries are known or suspected of having offensive biological weapons programs.

Here is a link to Fort Detrick Biowarfare:Fort Detrick Click on Biowarfare...

[Merovingian]

Estimated casualties for BW attack with Anthrax on a city of 500,000 :
95,000 Dead 125,000 Incapacitated

[Mia T]

Agree.

But that his flawed thinking actually passed muster tells us something about govt./media analytical abilities, in general.

Politicos and reporters are not rocket scientists . . .

Professions tend to be self-selected, intellectually homogeneous subgroups of Homo sapiens. Great intellects (especially these days) do not generally gravitate towards careers in the media or politics. Mediocre, power-obsessed types with poor self-images do.

 

Thus, clinton mediocrity goes undetected primarily because of media mediocrity. ("Mediocrity" and "media" don't come from the same Latin root (medius) for no reason.) Insofar as the clintons are concerned, the media confuse form with substance, smoothness with coherence, data-spewing with ratiocination, pre-programmed recitation with real-time analysis, an idiosyncratic degeneracy with creativity.

Mia T, Mindless rhinestone-studded-and-tented kleptocracy

 

[bvw]

I just passed a wall of plaques on my way in to the G-ment office I am now contracting at. There are two wooden plaques with yearly honor brass nameplates affixed. One to the left one to the right. The one on the left honors those who most contributed to lowering costs and improving efficienies. There are only five honorees on that one. The last honoree is 1994's.

The one on the left honors those who most contributed to furthering diversity and improving tolerance in the workplace. That plaque is filled up with name plates and is current.

[vetvetdoug]

It took the press about a month to interview William Patrick or C.J. Peters. I was surprised at the first signs of anthrax how so many experts appeared, yet none of them had experience with biowarfare or even handling bioweapons. Those former workers at USAMARIID are the ones we need to listen to and take recommendations from in this era of bio-terrorism. The collective memory and experience of these military men are invaluable in these times. The enlisted men that worked at Ft. Detrick are more knowledgable than the "news yakkers" that we see daily on the television.

[GailA]

BUMP

[aristeides]

Well, the press is one thing -- we know most of them are fools -- but what about the CDC and the rest of the government, why didn't they think of these Detrick veterans?

[vetvetdoug]

There are a lot of government workers at CDC that have egos the size of Jupiter and would let many die before they had to admit that they did not know as much as what they are supposed to. There was a veterinarian who told the powers that be at CDC that the GRIDS disease was a virus. Because he was a veterinarian, those egotistical M.D.'s at CDC let the AIDS spread before they were convinced that AIDS was a sexually transmitted virus. Veterinarians have been working with a disease like AIDS in cats since the early sixties.

Unfortunately, there are still many of the ego based government employees at CDC that are protecting their jobs and retirement. To ask the help of those that have deep knowledgeable collective memory of biowarfare would expose those egos and even threaten their job security. Government employees don't like to have their job security threatened.

[bvw]

Government employees don't like to have their job security threatened.

They say the soul fights and begs not to be set in the infant aborning too, knowing the pain and bitterness to come. Yet that same soul, once born, holds life so dear and precious that it will fight, cajole and beg even harder not to return from that life once born.

[Gadsden1st]

Koplan was grilled about it by Larry King on the TV show.

I agree. I don't know if it was the same appearance you are referring to, but I saw him on Larry King also. Larry asked him about the size of the spores. He replied it wasn't his concern. I knew we were in trouble. Either he was deliberating lying or incompetent. After the post office fiascos it is clear he isn't up to the job.

[the]

Bump for this (apparently) under-appreciated article.