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Biowarfare : Another “Sverdlosk Incident” in Russia ? I’ve been looking at two recent (and ongoing) outbreaks of Tularemia in Russia: (Source: ProMed : Archives # 20050824.2503; # 20050822.2467; # 20050718.2066 ) 1. 96 people –66 from Dzerzhinsk region; 30 from Nizhniy Novogorod. 2. 56 people – all from the Ryazan area , which borders on Nizhniy Novogorod and Vladimir. What makes it notable is that Tularemia is a fairly rare disease: the Ryazan area had only 4 known cases in 2004. (No historic stats were furnished on the Nizhniy Novgoros area or Dzerzhinsk , but the number of cases...

Genome sequencing has given rise to a new generation of genetically engineered bioweapons carrying the potential to change the nature of modern warfare and defense. Introduction Biological weapons are designed to spread disease among people, plants, and animals through the introduction of toxins and microorganisms such as viruses and bacteria. The method through which a biological weapon is deployed depends on the agent itself, its preparation, its durability, and the route of infection. Attackers may disperse these agents through aerosols or food and water supplies (1). Although bioweapons have been used in war for many centuries, a recent surge in...

ANNAPOLIS, Md. - During the anthrax mail attacks in 2001, Bill Paliscak, a gung-ho, hockey-playing postal investigator who had missed 3 days of work in 11 years, removed a filthy filter above a mail-sorting machine to preserve it as evidence. Anthrax-laden dust showered down on him. Skip to next paragraph David Scull for The New York Times Bill Paliscak cannot live at his home until an elevator is installed. Enlarge This Image Agence France-Presse Workers in October 2001 cleaned the Brentwood postal facility in Washington, where employees like Mr. Paliscak were exposed to anthrax. Four days later he began to...

New light is being shed on the 2001 anthrax attacks in a fascinating open letter to Ayman al Zawahiri of al Qaeda, written by a jihadi living in London. Numan Bin Uthman, a former leader of an armed Islamic group in Libya, provides yet more evidence that the global Islamic jihad movement is losing its resolve.  But the letter contains a startling admission. Uthman tells us of a conversation he had with al Qaeda leaders before the 9/11 attacks in which he urged them not to use WMD. From AKI News: Uthman also said that he had taken part in...

The “Teflon Terrorist” And Risk Of Infiltration Ron Kessler in his new book The Terrorist Watch quotes FBI Director Robert Mueller on the subject of WMD and the risk of infiltration: “Al Qaeda is tremendously patient and thinks nothing about taking years to infiltrate persons in and finding the right personnel and opportunity to undertake an attack. And we cannot become complacent, because you look around the world, and whether it’s London or Madrid or Bali or recently Casablanca or Algiers, attacks are taking place.” In November 2007, FBI Director Mueller gave a speech in which he warned against the...

Ali al-Timimi will be serving life for sedition. Specifically he was recruiting for al-Qaeda from the US. Scary enough, but read the whole article. It appears al-Qaeda had infiltrated US biodefense and has supporters/agents with access to the Ames strain of anthrax and the know how to make dried concentrated forms of the spores.Via Bloggernews.net:A colleague of famed Russian bioweaponeer Ken Alibek and former USAMRIID head Charles Bailey, a prolific Ames strain researcher, has been convicted of sedition and sentenced to life in prison. He worked in a program co-sponsored by the American Type Culture Collection and had access to...

I never give time frames, because you never know where you'll have sufficient evidence to go public with a prosecution, " Mueller said.

WASHINGTON — In the fall of 1992, Kanatjan Alibekov defected from Russia to the United States, bringing detailed, and chilling, descriptions of his role in making biological weapons for the former Soviet Union. ----------- Officials still value his seminal depictions of the Soviet program. But recent events have propelled questions about Alibek's reliability: No biological weapon of mass destruction has been found in Iraq. His most sensational research findings, with U.S. colleagues, have not withstood peer review by scientific specialists. His promotion of nonprescription pills — sold in his name over the Internet and claiming to bolster the immune system...

Tularemia Outbreak in Russia –443 Cases-Origins Unknown The ProMed site carried a report this morning concerning a Tularemia outbreak in Russia –updated to 08/29/05. The ProMed heading says 334 cases have been reported, but simple arithmetic shows the number to be 443. Breakdown follows: 135 Moscow (Shatursky District) 99 Nizhny Novgorod 83 Vladimir region ( Gorohovetsky) 67 Ryazan 28 Voronezh 29 Sverdlosk region 2 Yekaterinburg 443 Total Laboratory confirmation has been obtained in 128 of the cases,so far. (This is important, because influenza can cause similar symptoms , and there has been extensive migration of infected/infectious wildfowl into much of...

Notwithstanding former President Jimmy Carter's recent statement to the contrary, Undersecretary of State John Bolton's remarks about Cuba's biological weapons capabilities underscore lingering concerns with the rogue island only 90 miles from the United States. Bolton, on May 6, told an audience at the Washington, D.C.-based Heritage Foundation that the U.S. is suspicious about Cuban biomedical laboratories and their ability to transfer biological weapons technology to Iraq, Syria and Libya, all countries that Cuban President Fidel Castro visited last year. Bolton also made remarks, which may be interpreted as a clear signal of hardening State Department policy toward Cuba, faulting...

Brave New World: Welcome Aboard by Joseph D. Douglass, Jr. January 1, 2003 MK-Ultra was a CIA “mind control” project. Allen Dulles approved the project in April 1953, shortly after he had taken over the helm of CIA. Its mission was to counter similar efforts underway in the Soviet Union.A few weeks later, in an unusual move, Dulles talked to a gathering of Princeton alumni about “brain warfare,” the world of MK-Ultra. His talk was subsequently published in U.S. News & World Report.In his provocative talk, Dulles explained that the Russians were “now using brain-perversion techniques… so subtle and so...

Bioterrorism threat said real Oct 17, 2002 12:00 PM, Harry Cline There are 7,000 unaccounted for former Soviet Union biological warfare scientists and technicians in the world today. Before 9/11/01, that fact would be filed away under "So what...just left over Cold War paranoia." Now, though, that fact is cause for considerable concern to Americans, and a panel of experts on bioterrorism and radical environmental groups speaking at the recent California Plant Health Association and CropLife America joint annual convention in Palm Desert, Calif., only served to heighten that concern when they addressed biological warfare issues facing America today. According...

When the anthrax mailers penned the message, "YOU CAN NOT STOP US. WE HAVE THIS ANTHRAX," the threat included a chilling nuance that remains largely unrecognized. "ARE YOU AFRAID?" asked the attackers. "Yes," should have been the answer, according to some biodefense experts, who think that the anthrax spores mailed to Senators Thomas Daschle (D-- SD) and Patrick Leahy (D--VT) in the fall of 2001 represented the state of the art in bioweapons refinement, revealing telltale clues about the source. This view is controversial, however, because others dispute the sophistication of the Senate powder, and a schism now exists among...

FAIRFAX, Va. - Could a smallpox shot protect you from the AIDS virus? It's a tantalizing idea that scientists at George Mason University are studying. Early findings are very preliminary and based on lab tests of a small number of blood samples. Other AIDS researchers caution against putting too much faith in such early tests, and the George Mason study has not been published in a peer-reviewed scientific journal that is standard for major medical breakthroughs. But Ken Alibek, director of the university's National Center for Biodefense, said the early results are encouraging. "This could result in some very important...

WASHINGTON -- U.S. procedures for testing drugs are delaying approval of vital treatments for the victims of biological weapons attacks, a top biowar expert told United Press International. Dr. Ken Alibek, chief of a major biological research program at George Mason University in Virginia, told UPI that some existing drugs might be crucial to saving the lives of victims of anthrax and smallpox attacks. But he said that procedures of the National Institutes of Health and the Food and Drug Administration are delaying their use for as many as five or six years. Alibek has hands-on experience in biological warfare,...

The former head of Russia's biological weapons program and the man considered to be the foremost expert in the field of bioweapons told NewsMax he has "strong suspicions" that Cuba is developing deadly pathogens. Questions about Cuba's biological development program were defined recently by three separate charges. First, an undersecretary of state announced, "The U.S believes that Cuba has at least a limited offensive biological warfare research and development effort." Second, a spokesman for dictator Fidel Castro dismissed the slur as "loathsome." And finally, former President Jimmy Carter chimed in that the U.S. had no hard evidence that Cuba is...