Posted on 12/17/2002 1:57:05 AM PST by kattracks
A real eye opener to the true world of smallpox and the events following the anthrax attacks.
I'm getting MY vaccination.
Does anybody still not get what this is all about?
Colloidal silicon dioxide?
You said the magic word(s).
Officially, it seems, we have moved a step closer to revealing that two plus two does, indeed, equal four.
The mystery equation in detail:
Colloidal silicon dioxide + b. Anthracis = Iraq.
4 Nations Thought To Possess Smallpox
Iraq, N. Korea Named, Two Officials Say
By Barton Gellman
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, November 5, 2002; Page A01
[Excerpt]
A Bush administration intelligence review has concluded that four nations -- including Iraq and North Korea -- possess covert stocks of the smallpox pathogen, according to two officials who received classified briefings. Records and operations manuals captured this year in Afghanistan and elsewhere, they said, also disclosed that Osama bin Laden devoted money and personnel to pursue smallpox, among other biological weapons.
Smallpox in Iraq? CIA Investigates Allegations that Soviet Scientist Transferred Virus to Iraq
Dec. 3 — American intelligence officials are investigating whether a Russian scientist transferred a particularly lethal strain of smallpox to the government of Iraq in the 1990s, ABCNEWS has confirmed.
The allegations involve a smallpox strain stored at the Research Institute for Viral Preparations in Moscow. Intelligence officials say an informant has reported the institute's late director, virologist Nelja Maltseva, moved the smallpox on a trip to Iraq in 1990.
"Maltseva had access to the entire collection, in all probability, of the Russian strains of small pox — at least a hundred," said Dr. Alan Selikoff, a scientist at the Sandia National Laboratories in Albuquerque, N.M.
The collection includes an especially deadly strain of smallpox involved in an outbreak 30 years ago in the remote Kazakhstan city of Aralsk.
Selikoff, who first revealed the Aralsk outbreak earlier this year, says it's possible that strain is also resistant to known vaccines. Even if a vaccine were available, it would not stop the spread of this rare strain of smallpox, but Selikoff said it would help limit the number of deaths.
"It raises the specter of the transfer of the disease to the Iraqi government that might cause more problems than the garden-variety smallpox would if it were ever introduced into the open again," said Selikoff.
US warns of Iraq's smallpox stockpile
David Teather in New York
Wednesday November 6, 2002
The Guardian
The White House expressed fears yesterday that secret stocks of the smallpox virus are being hoarded by several countries, including two members of President Bush's "axis of evil", Iraq and North Korea.
US intelligence officials also believe that Russia and France possess hidden supplies and that al-Qaida has sought samples of the virus to use as a weapon.
Concerns about smallpox, which was officially eradicated in 1980, being released as a weapon have caused the Bush administration to consider vaccinating the American population in case of an outbreak.
Smallpox is more virulent than other biological weapons such as anthrax and can be passed from person to person.
The officials, cited in the Washington Post, said evidence had been uncovered in Afghanistan suggesting Osama bin Laden had an interest in obtaining stocks of the disease.
The White House spokesman, Ari Fleischer, said: "The general issue of smallpox does remain a concern." But he said that al-Qaida was not believed to have the capability to mount an attack using the virus.
The quantities held by Iraq and North Korea are also believed to be small but the US administration is worried that they could develop deadly biological weapons.
The Pentagon has been criticised for making slow progress in protecting troops heading for the middle-east against possible germ warfare.
Officials are also alive to the possibility that lax security in Russia may allow rogue states to obtain the virus for use as a weapon, much in the same way that the former Soviet nation has sparked fears over the proliferation of nuclear materials.
France is thought to have small amounts of the virus for use in programmes aimed at researching and mounting a defence to an outbreak of the disease.
According to World Health Organisation rules, smallpox virus stocks should be restricted to the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta or the Russian city of Vector.
But the Russian stockpile is believed to be far bigger than the international agreements allow.
Before being expelled, UN weapons inspectors found limited evidence of a smallpox programme in Iraq. The Iraqis were also said to be experimenting with a similar disease that afflicts camels.
Experts: Iraq May Have Smallpox>
WASHINGTON — Several clues, including discovery in Iraq of equipment labeled "smallpox," indicate the deadly virus could be part of Saddam Hussein's biological weapons arsenal, although the Bush administration has offered no public evidence to prove it.
Some biological weapons experts say the indications have convinced them that Iraq has stocks of smallpox, which was declared eradicated from the planet more than two decades ago. All samples of the virus, except those held by special labs in Atlanta and Moscow, were supposed to have been destroyed, but experts fear that some of the Russian smallpox may have been spirited away.
"I have no doubt in my mind that Iraq does have the smallpox virus," said Dr. Ken Alibek, a top official in the former Soviet Union's biological weapons program before defecting to the United States in 1992.
The official U.S. position, shared by other experts, is that it's unclear whether Iraq has the smallpox virus or, if it does, has the delivery technology to use it as a weapon. Still, worries about a possible terror attack with the virus have prompted the Bush administration to order enough smallpox vaccine to inoculate the entire U.S. population if necessary.
"We're very worried about Iraq," said Dr. D.A. Henderson, a smallpox expert and bioterrorism adviser to the Department of Health and Human Services. "Why is Saddam Hussein pushing ahead with weapons of mass destruction if at some point he is not going to use them? It's certainly got to be a factor in all of this."
Unlike anthrax, the bacteria used in last year's unsolved mail attacks, the highly contagious smallpox virus can be passed from person to person. The virus causes ugly pustules to form both on the skin and inside the mouth and throat. About a third of unvaccinated people who get the disease would die.
"As bad as anthrax is, it's not as bad as smallpox, which could run into the thousands to tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands (of deaths) in some imaginable scenarios," said Robert Gallucci, former deputy director of the U.N. weapons inspection program, now dean of Georgetown University's School of Foreign Service.
The last U.S. case of smallpox occurred in Texas in 1949, and routine vaccinations ended in America 30 years ago. That means at least two out of five Americans have not been vaccinated, and studies suggest the vaccine's protection probably fades over time.
An exercise in 2000 that simulated smallpox attacks on Philadelphia, Atlanta and Oklahoma City projected that after two months, a million people could be dead and an additional 2 million infected.
That simulation assumed that the United States had only about 12.5 million doses of smallpox vaccine rather than enough to treat the entire population. Other simulations indicated that vaccinations and other measures could contain a smallpox attack to a few hundred or a few thousand victims.
U.N. weapons inspectors and U.S. intelligence agencies have found several clues suggesting Iraq might have the smallpox vaccine.
In 1994, U.N. inspectors at an Iraqi medical complex found a freeze-dryer labeled "smallpox" in Arabic, said former inspector Jonathan Tucker.
The Iraqis claimed the equipment was used to make smallpox vaccine, Tucker said. A freeze-dryer could be used to make a weaponized form of the smallpox virus.
"It's not conclusive proof but suggestive of Iraqi interest," said Tucker, author of a recent book on smallpox.
Iraq also admitted to U.N. inspectors that its biological weapons scientists worked with camelpox, a close relative of the smallpox virus that doesn't usually infect people. Working with camelpox would give Iraq a way to perfect techniques for making smallpox weapons without endangering the researchers.
All ready had one? Hope it was recently.
Worry? I call it prepare.
With smallpox, there IS NO terrorist "target", it's hundreds of millions dead world-wide before anything can be done. It's shutting down all transportation (including the mighty SUV), malls, movies, ALL of it.
The simple rule is anyone within 2 weeks travel from an infected person will become infected, unless vaccinated. That's just about everyone I can think of.
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