GOOD HEALTH:WHO Board urges smallpox research

AN influential World Health Organization committee is sending shock waves through the scientific community with a recommendation that researchers be permitted to conduct genetic-engineering experiments with the smallpox virus.

The idea is to be able to better combat a disease considered a leading bioterrorism threat though it was eradicated publicly 25 years ago.

The WHO previously had opposed such work for fear that a "superbug" might emerge. Because the disease is so deadly, the WHO at times has recommended destroying the world?s two known smallpox stockpiles, located in secure labs at the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta and in the former Soviet Union.

The recommended policy shift has reignited a debate over whether such research will help or hinder bioterrorism defenses.

The World Health Assembly - the ruling body of the 192-nation WHO - would decide whether to approve the experiments, which would include splicing a "marker" gene into the smallpox virus so its spread can be better tracked in the laboratory. The WHO committee said that inserting the marker gene wouldn?t make the disease more dangerous and that allowing such experimentation would speed depletion of remaining smallpox-virus stocks.

Dr. Ken Alibek, a former top scientist in the Soviet biological-weapons programme who believes the Soviets covertly developed smallpox as a weapon in the 1980s.

Alibek, who defected to the United States in 1992 and now teaches at George Mason University, said it's possible to genetically engineer smallpox to render current vaccines useless.

Other scientists argue that such research has little value and is too risky. "We have seen no evidence of a threat that would justify this research," said Sujatha Byravan, Executive Director of the Council for Responsible Genetics. "A decade ago, the WHO was planning to destroy the world's last remaining samples. Today, it is proposing to tinker with the virus in ways that could produce an even more lethal smallpox strain. This is a devastating step backward."

Smallpox is believed to have killed more people than all wars and epidemics combined. It is the only major disease to be eradicated successfully under a WHO-sponsored vaccination programme. The last known case was in 1978.

The WHO committee that made the genetic-engineering recommendation is the international organization's Advisory Committee on Variola Virus Research. News of its decision, in a meeting in Geneva last week, was first reported by National Public Radio. The committee said further research should be carried out before a decision is made.

... say are you aware of the brute
Whose job is to wither the fruit?
They'll cause us to fall
our history and all
by cuttin' us off at the root

They say "We'll stunt Africa's growth.
And Asia has too many folks.
Too large is the mouth
in the Latin South
We'll aid 'em by cuttin' their throats."

"No, we must approach as a friend
and do our job from within.
Let's feed 'em the pill
that's made up to kill
and make their beginning their end."

So poor folks of the world, be aware.
For their evil design is laid bare.
Watch out for the hag
with the little black bag
Marked "Birth Control: Peace Corps and CARE"

It's part of a game that they play.
And it's designed to make poor people pay.
It's part of a lie
to help you to die
while they cart your resources away.

I say conspiracy is in the air
To control the children that you bear.
Control of the land
is a part of the plan
as your kind grows increasingly rare.

It's a truth to be understood
through at first it may appear good.
But it's a menace to health
and to lineal wealth,
Since you can't reproduce when you should.

And in this respect I am told
it is better to use self-control.
For the future and truth
belong to the youth,
since you cannot prevent growing old.

So make sure that your reasoning's sound
before taking that potion down.
For it would be a shame
to come into fame
for being the last one around.

The Last Poets, This is Madness (1970)
The Pill and Mean Machine.

The Task Force feels that one of the most important functions of the federal government is to supply the public with the latest and most accurate data. This should be done in a non-judgmental fashion that will enable the citizens to be well-informed and to influence their own remedial action.

It is expected that the Council on Environmental Quality and the recently established President's Commission on Population Growth and the American Future will provide the public with this necessary information and ensure continuing data regarding the latest developments.

Death tolls have been reduced in every country to negligible rates from epidemics and diseases such as malaria, measles, smallpox, cholera, polio and tuberculosis; major advances have been made against heart disease and cancer, artificial organs can now prolong life.

Since we accept these intrusions into nature's control of population as morally justified, are we not unwise to consider birth control with equal moral justificiation?

...

As a result of reduced death rates, there are more people in their non-productive years than ever before. More children and more elderly people unable to participate in the world's work force increase the burden on the productive age group. [...] The National Academy of Sciences has said:

Either the birth rate must go back down or the death rate must go back up.

Recommendations of the Task Force on Earth Resources and Population (George H. Bush, Chairman)
Congressional Record | July 8, 1970

these tasks, the usual lumbering pace of bureaucracy has been lifted, fast-tracking the contracts for Dyncorp.” (Washington Business Journal, October 26^th 2001)

Other contracts won by Dyncorp exemplify how they maintain their status as one of the Governments top contractors. Maybe the most chilling is their role in the “war against bio-terrorism”. Their subsiduary company DynPort Vacine Company “is a prime contractor” for the Department of Defense “Joint Vaccine Acquisition Program”. It is currently working on the following:

• Smallpox Vaccine
• Vaccinia Immune Globulin
• Botulinum Multivalent Vaccine
• Plague Vaccine
• Venezuelan Equine Encephalitis (VEE) Vaccine
• Anthrax Vaccine, Next Generation
• Tularemia Vaccine

Those anthrax letters that – which it is now believed were carried out by a “US defence insider” – must’ve really given Dyncorp Vaccine Company a stream of steady cash. But lest it be said that Dyncorp is only in it for the $$’s, President & CEO Paul Lombardi had this to say on September 13^th:

“We draw comfort from being able to support our nation at this time. This is not about business. It’s about helping. Helping customers with whom we’ve worked side by side for many years. And, most importantly, it’s about helping people.

DynCorp has always been a compassionate company and our country needs our compassion today. Please join me in showing support and camaraderie with our nation. If you own an American flag, fly it proudly; volunteer in your communities; and show that our nation will not be defeated by these acts of hatred.” (source)

Indeed, the money keeps rolling in.

Seven million to distribute vaccines in the Omnibus spending package our Congress got in under the wire December.

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