WASHINGTON – Over the past 18 months, health officials here have found 407 dead birds infected with the West Nile virus, including two picked up at the White House this week.
The mosquito-borne virus is spreading so fast in nearby Fairfax County, meanwhile, that health officials have stopped testing dead birds. Every quadrant of the county now has the virus.
Fifty birds – two blue jays and the rest crows – have already tested positive in the county so far this year, an official told WorldNetDaily. That's up from 34 for all of last year.
And neighboring Maryland has led the nation in West Nile virus cases, a few of which have resulted in human deaths.
What's behind the Beltway outbreak? No one knows for sure.
Experts don't even know how the North African virus, first discovered in New York in 1999, entered the U.S., although theories, such as bioterrorism, abound (even though the virus is not known to be an efficient bioweapons agent).
"They don't know how it started," said Dennis Hill, spokesman for the Fairfax County Health Department.
Some cite the National Zoo as a possible breeding ground. It's in the Northwest part of Washington, where the city's West Nile virus cases have clustered.
But zoo officials report only about a dozen bird deaths.
Many of the infected birds have been found in neighborhoods around the former headquarters of the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research, which has been developing a vaccine for West Nile virus. The infectious-diseases lab moved to Silver Spring, Md., three years ago.
But lab microbiologists still do research at the main post in Washington, which includes a hospital with an infectious-diseases clinic and lab on the 6th floor, Army officials say. Other visitors include researchers from the Dugway Proving Grounds in Utah, where the Army has tested biological weapons agents including anthrax, tularemia and encephalitis.
Walter Reed Army Medical Center, at 6900 Georgia Ave., N.W., is in the city's Ward 1, where many of the virus-carrying birds have been picked up. In fact, many have been found at sites along Georgia Avenue, N.W., says D.C. Health Department spokeswoman Vera Jackson.
The Walter Reed institute is developing a vaccine for West Nile virus that comprises dengue virus with certain genes replaced by West Nile virus genes. Monkey trials were expected to begin earlier this year.
The virus – which has spread from New York to Florida and has been reported as far west as Louisiana, where it has claimed lives – is expected to be in all 50 states within the next two years, Hill says.
The disease produces flu-like symptoms and can lead to death, especially in small children and the elderly. More than 18 have died so far in this hemisphere.
Hmmm, that wasn't a "killed" vaccine or even "modified live" -- but a "live" one, the real thing. Wouldn't it be interesting if the army let this one fly in a bird. Oops! What irony. The Palestinians blow themselves up in "work accidents" while making bombs to kill other people.
He said that the group ended up killing each other.
Do you remember the Legionaires conference in which Legionaire disease was named. They said it was from the air conditioning cooling towers.
I work on those things and have shoveled hundreds of pounds of pigeon crap out of them and have never gotten sick.
I remember a Sixty Minutes show I saw as a kid. They were interveiwing a Black man who said that the army had tested LSD on him , without letting him know , so they could study the effects.
It pretty much destroyed his life.
When I was in the army ( 74-77 )they made us take the swine flu vaccine , with the same threat of an Article 15 if we refused. Just like today with the anthrax vaccine they are making the military take.
I don't remember exactly where the labs are that make the anthrax vaccine , Milwaukee or Michigan I think , but there is only one lab producing it and the owner has change the formula which hasn't been approved. I don't remember his name either , but it was middle eastern sounding to me.
If we are attacked with a bacterial agent such as anthrax or bubonic plague , I have read that antibiotics will protect us , if you can get them. As far as I know , we are screwed if they use a virus because it will run its course regardless of medicine.
Cleanliness is the best protection , using iodine soap like the doctors use in hospitals. Iodine is also supposed to help protect our drinking water.
Bleach is too , but chlorine robs our bodies of oxygen and bacteria grows better in low oxygen environments ( I have read ). Bleach would be great for cleaning though.
Iodine is a trace metal that our bodies need and iodine tincture is just iodine and alcohol.
I'm just sharing some things off the top of my head dealing with tests on people. And a little info on protecting yourself. The antibiotics that will protect us from bacterias are available from foreign countries without prescriptions ( I just ordered some from Thailand as a test ), pet stores and farm stores. So far from what I see they have a one to two year shelf life , I'm freezing mine in the hope that when we lose power the one to two years starts then......