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Terrorists could use 'insect-based' biological weapon
Telegraph ^

Posted on 01/05/2009 4:03:08 PM PST by traumer

Terrorists would find it "relatively easy" to launch a devastating attack using swarms of insects to spread a deadly disease, an academic has warned.

Jeffrey Lockwood, professor of entomology at Wyoming University and author of Six-legged Soldiers: Using Insects as Weapons of War, said such Rift Valley Fever or other diseases could be transported into a country by a terrorist with a suitcase.

He told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: "I think a small terrorist cell could very easily develop an insect-based weapon."

He said it would "probably be much easier" than developing a nuclear or chemical weapon, arguing: "The raw material is in the back yard."

He continued: "It would be a relatively easy and simple process.

"A few hundred dollars and a plane ticket and you could have a pretty good stab at it."

Governments, he advised, needed to have robust "pest management infrastructure that's able to absorb and respond to an introduction" of infected insects, he said.

Trying to stop everything coming in at the border would not work, he said.

Rift Valley Fever is an east African disease which "can cause severe disease in both animals and humans, leading to high rates of disease and death" according to the World Health Organisation.

(Excerpt) Read more at telegraph.co.uk ...


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To: traumer

Didn’t they make an x-files movie about this? (I think it was bees that were the weapons.)


21 posted on 01/05/2009 4:25:29 PM PST by Dawn531
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To: Dawn531
No, it was SNL.


22 posted on 01/05/2009 4:29:18 PM PST by the invisib1e hand (revolution is in the air.)
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To: DevNet
By the early 1950s the US Civil Defense Agency was producing training films warning of insect-vector BW.

Insect-vector. A real "buzzword."

haha.

23 posted on 01/05/2009 4:31:25 PM PST by the invisib1e hand (revolution is in the air.)
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To: SolidWood
"It would be a relatively easy and simple process. A few hundred dollars and a plane ticket and you could have a pretty good stab at it..."

Terrorists are smart enough to read western media and to watch western news media and this Professor of Entomology is DUMB enough to put it out there for all the world to see.

Some things require some technical expertise but this seems simple to me; am I missing something here? Who're the dumb ones and who're the smart ones?

24 posted on 01/05/2009 4:40:20 PM PST by Friend_from_the_Frozen_North (If you are, as Rush would say, "A Glittering Jewel of Colossal Ignorance" don't waste my time...)
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To: traumer
If I remember correctly, there are regiments of these little buggers on Paris Island just waiting to be drafted into service.

They have been feeding on Marine recruits for decades and are fit for the fight!


25 posted on 01/05/2009 4:40:27 PM PST by Obamageddon (Birth certificate and college transcripts will be required for Federal employment, Mr. Soetero)
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To: Obamageddon

Make that “Parris Island”


26 posted on 01/05/2009 4:41:51 PM PST by Obamageddon (Birth certificate and college transcripts will be required for Federal employment, Mr. Soetero)
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To: traumer

Oh yeah? Oh yeah? Well, our insects are tougher than your insects. Unfortunately most of our most disgusting insects have been elected to congress.


27 posted on 01/05/2009 4:42:59 PM PST by layman (Card Carrying Infidel)
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To: traumer
"Terrorists would find it "relatively easy" to launch a devastating attack using swarms of insects to spread a deadly disease, an academic has warned."

Solution: DDT

28 posted on 01/05/2009 4:46:30 PM PST by StormEye
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To: 353FMG

It’s worth noting that this type of “biological weapon” would likely be highly ineffective for a number of reasons — not the least of which is the fact that healthy white Americans would be among those least affected by them.


29 posted on 01/05/2009 4:54:47 PM PST by Alberta's Child (I'm out on the outskirts of nowhere . . . with ghosts on my trail, chasing me there.)
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To: traumer

Wonder what the dems will do if the terrorists use a bug on the endangered species list.


30 posted on 01/05/2009 5:00:24 PM PST by Terry Mross (Is this our last REAL Christmas?)
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To: JimSEA

12 MONKEYS

If it’s feasible Hollywood probably made a movie about it already....


31 posted on 01/05/2009 5:03:08 PM PST by traumer
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To: JimSEA

12 MONKEYS

If it’s feasible Hollywood probably made a movie about it already....


32 posted on 01/05/2009 5:03:12 PM PST by traumer
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To: traumer

This is nothing new. The Japanese in WWII were harvesting bubonic plague to spread by flea in clay pots (with balloons) to attack America’s Western coast.

Look up Camp 731 (I think).


33 posted on 01/05/2009 5:04:28 PM PST by weegee (Obamunism, just another word for the policies of a NeoCom.)
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To: Obamageddon

Paris Hilton may have already been exposed to all of the nasty bugs you could ever think of.


34 posted on 01/05/2009 5:05:25 PM PST by weegee (Obamunism, just another word for the policies of a NeoCom.)
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To: traumer

“Department of Pest Management”

Cool, will they have their own SWAT team?


35 posted on 01/05/2009 5:06:00 PM PST by Gator113 ("Noli nothis permittere te terere.")
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To: traumer

He must be aiming for a grant.


36 posted on 01/05/2009 5:36:10 PM PST by driftdiver (I could eat it raw, but why do that when I have a fire.)
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To: layman

That should account for 100,000 of those new employees.


37 posted on 01/05/2009 5:37:27 PM PST by driftdiver (I could eat it raw, but why do that when I have a fire.)
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To: layman

Department of Orkin... “Dorkin” for short!


38 posted on 02/02/2009 7:06:32 PM PST by postalx
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To: postalx

THAT exactly was the plot of “24” show tonight!


39 posted on 02/02/2009 7:07:42 PM PST by Recovering Ex-hippie (FREE BLAGO !!! LET HIM SPEAK TRUTH TO POWER !!!)
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