Posted on 12/08/2002 2:32:30 AM PST by Jim Robinson
Edited on 05/26/2004 5:10:40 PM PDT by Jim Robinson. [history]
30% mortality from smallpox isn't a theory-it's a FACT.
What's theoretical about DW is the # of secondary cases/exposure. In India in the 60s, it was 2-3.
In Yugoslavia in 1972 it was 38.
The models look very different with 2 secondary cases/sick person and 38 secondary cases/sick person.
sw
This info, (ie that bio-labs exist inside milk trucks, etc.) could only come from an inside source.
It makes sense that the kind of source that could reveal this type of info is also the type which cannot be exposed in any way, for fear of discovery.
Bush is determined to take Iraq out, and I just don't think he'd make the kind of effort necessary to do it if he didn't feel that the threat was too horrible to ignore.
And none of those scientists have said anything about Iraq possessing smallpox. The head of Iraq's bioweapons program defected to the West in 1995, and blew the gaffe on the whole thing, after the UNSCOM inspectors were set to give Saddam a clean bill of health. The program is based on anthrax and botulinum toxin. There is no Iraqi smallpox.
Our government is talking up threats which don't exist because, if they talked up the threat that does exist (THIS IS NEXT WE HAVE THIS ANTHRAX YOU CANNOT STOP US), pretty soon everyone would connect the dots and understand the real situation. The real situation is that Saddam staged a stunning, audacious revenge against the American "hyperpower" on 9-11-01, and has so far successfuly deterred a commensurate retaliation using nothing more than a handful of dust. And now is not a good time for that reality to crystallize in the minds of the American people or of the watching world.
It is protection for Saddam to have biological and chemical weapons, because, in the final analysis, if pressed, if he is surrounded in Baghdad, he will threaten to use them. He's capable of that. This is a sort of Samson complex--if you push me too hard, I'll bring the house down, on myself and on everyone else. Washington realizes that this is a possibility. For obvious reasons, it's not talked about openly. No one in Washington wants to tell the American people that Saddam is still capable of blackmailing us. They're acting as if he is capable of blackmailing them, but they are not going to admit it openly.Said K. Aburish, author of Saddam Hussein: The Politics of Revenge
Interview with PBS Frontline, January 2000
It is protection for Saddam to have biological and chemical weapons, because, in the final analysis, if pressed, if he is surrounded in Baghdad, he will threaten to use them. He's capable of that. This is a sort of Samson complex--if you push me too hard, I'll bring the house down, on myself and on everyone else. Washington realizes that this is a possibility. For obvious reasons, it's not talked about openly. No one in Washington wants to tell the American people that Saddam is still capable of blackmailing us. They're acting as if he is capable of blackmailing them, but they are not going to admit it openly.
If this is true, then I expect that the attack on Iraq may be called off completely. IOW, if we attack Iraq, the sleepers already here will unleash Anthrax into the postal system. And suicide bombers and snipers will paralyze our population centers. There is only one way to find out.
Well, no. It could also be an outright lie for the purposes of whipping up support for the Iraq invasion. Like the Gulf of Tonkin incident, if you go back that far.
IMHO the 'vaccinate them all now' scheme might have worked against a smallpox weapon of the 1940's but in the age of bioinformatics (where I worked for 5 years at a pharma company) that's just so much hot air now. The vaccinia virus is well documented and its genetic code available for anyone from NCBI. Mandatory quarantines and vaccinations will just precipitate civil discord and we'll *still* have weaponized smallpox killing us...joy.
What [the evil] mind can conceive, man can achieve.
IMHO the best counter to smallpox is to investigate the 'antitoxin' route for treatment instead of immunization. This is a promising route for Anthrax treatment as well. (among others...).
However, then the nasty people will just genetically engineer the viruses to produce toxins we don't have an anti for yet.
Radar, radar detectors...Better radar, better radar detectors...IR radar, IR radar detectors...
It will always be a race. This is why nationalization of the pharma industry for the votes of the obese lipitor voting block scares me...one day lipitor and its ilk may well be free or almost...antibiotics that work may be unavailable at any price.
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