Free Republic

JAKARTA, April 29 (Xinhua) -- Members of the Indonesian House of Representatives have moved to establish a special task force to investigate U.S. Naval Medical Research Unit No. 2 (Namru-2), local press said Tuesday. The Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P), the second largest faction in the House, proposed the fact-finding team because of allegations the U.S. laboratory is engaging in espionage and the lack of apparent benefits to Indonesia from their research. "We propose the House form a task force to investigate the lab to reassure the public that it isn't spying on us and that it really benefits...

JAKARTA (AFP) — The future of a major US Navy research laboratory in Indonesia is in doubt amid allegations, dismissed as "crazy" by US diplomats, of espionage and secret experiments. Negotiations between Washington and Jakarta over the renewal of the operating contract of US Naval Medical Research Unit-2, or Namru-2, have stalled over a range of issues including diplomatic immunity for its US staff. Established in Indonesia in 1970 and charged with researching infectious diseases of military importance, the facility employs 19 Americans and more than 100 Indonesians and is based in Indonesian health ministry grounds. Its operations have attracted...

The company that released contaminated flu virus material from a plant in Austria confirmed Friday that the experimental product contained live H5N1 avian flu viruses. And an official of the World Health Organization’s European operation said the body is closely monitoring the investigation into the events that took place at Baxter International’s research facility in Orth-Donau, Austria. “At this juncture we are confident in saying that public health and occupational risk is minimal at present,” medical officer Roberta Andraghetti said from Copenhagen, Denmark. “But what remains unanswered are the circumstances surrounding the incident in the Baxter facility in Orth-Donau.” The...

Dystopian seemingly "futuristic" events are not part of a science fiction plot; they are occurring and have already occurred. Science fiction is a quintessentially guilty (Anglo-) American pleasure. Like horror, crime fiction, and spy novels, sci-fi has yet to be recognized as "high literature" by many (especially conservative) literary critics. This is not, however, to say that science fiction has had no impact on American and broader world culture — quite the contrary. Elon Musk, the current billionaire bête noire of the left, has cited Isaac Asimov's classic Foundation series as inspiration for his own creation of Tesla and SpaceX....

A top U.S. biosecurity lab is assuming responsibility for signing “poorly drafted” agreements with three high-level biosecurity labs in China that they concede may have broken the law.The three contracts, including one with the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV), gave the Chinese labs powers to destroy “secret files” from any stage of their collaboration.“The party is entitled to ask the other to destroy and/or return the secret files, materials, and equipment without any backups,” stated the 2017 memorandum of understanding (MOU) that the University of Texas Medical Branch (UTMB) signed with the Wuhan lab, which first came to light in...

Earlier today, Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs, Victoria Nuland, was testifying before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee (SFRC) on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The Senate Foreign Relations Committee is the legislative branch body who works with the executive branch State Dept to launder money through foreign nations. The Senate is the bank, the State Dept is the collection agency. One of the members of the SFRC is Marco Rubio, also the vice-chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (SSCI). Keep this point at the front of your reference. Senator Rubio has a specific intent when he asks...

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...

FDA approves drug to treat smallpoxDisease considered eradicated in 1980 but drug development for smallpox is an important component for medical countermeasure response [6/4/2021] The U.S. Food and Drug Administration today approved Tembexa (brincidofovir) to treat smallpox. Although the World Health Organization declared smallpox, a contagious and sometimes fatal infectious disease, eradicated in 1980, there have been longstanding concerns that the virus that causes smallpox, the variola virus, could be used as a bioweapon. Before its eradication in 1980, the variola virus mainly spread by direct contact among people. Symptoms typically began 10 to 14 days after infection and included...

Trees and wildflowers blossom during all four seasons in Kunming, which is known as The City of Eternal Spring because of its year-round mild temperatures. However, it is also home to something much less natural: a laboratory where scientists have been creating monkey embryos with a mutated gene so that, when born, they will age unusually fast. Such experiments are done to study human diseases such as autism, cancer, Alzheimer's and muscular dystrophy.

Before Covid-19 ravaged the world, Dr. Anthony Fauci’s National Institutes of Allergy and Infectious Diseases funded coronavirus research that included work at China’s Wuhan Institute of Virology. The idea was to study the ability of such viruses to attack humans, but could a Fauci-funded experiment actually be the source of the deadly global infection? In an exhaustive account of the viral possibilities published this week by the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, Nicholas Wade argues that the Chinese lab is the most likely source of the world-wide agony.

In my rare moments of not wearing my rose-tinted glasses, I think it's time we stop calling him "Dementia Joe." Biden may get angry, stutter and struggle to find his words, but you have to be on the ball to drop code words, twice, during a live Presidential Debate. That's exactly what Joe did on Thursday evening when he gloomily stated, "We're about to go into a dark winter." Then he repeated it again: "A Dark Winter." What are the odds that he'd "accidentally" use the exact code name for a 2001 simulation of a "smallpox attack on U. S....

What is striking about the reactions to the apparatuses of exception that have been put in place in our country (and not only in this one) is the inability to observe them beyond the immediate context in which they seem to operate. Rare are those who attempt to interpret them as symptoms and signs of a broader experiment — as any serious political analysis would require — in which what is at stake is a new paradigm for the governance of men and things. Already in a book published seven years ago, now worth rereading carefully (Tempêtes microbiennes, Gallimard 2013),...

The French government has been notably restrained in their criticism of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) for unleashing a pandemic upon the world.  One possible reason for their reticence is a single, highly embarrassing fact: They essentially built the Wuhan Institute of Virology’s P4 lab in which the coronavirus now sweeping the world was being researched, and from which it escaped.  That the French delivered the turn-key, high-containment biolab to China has long been public knowledge, but now a German newspaper, the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, has added riveting details to the story.  The insider information comes from interviews with French...

Newly resurfaced footage of then-President George W. Bush urgently warning of the risks posed by pandemics in 2005 -- "If we wait for a pandemic to appear, it will be too late to prepare," Bush said at the National Institutes of Health -- has drawn belated praise from his detractors, and raised new questions as to the state of the federal government's disaster preparedness since his administration. In particular, a USA Today fact-check recently confirmed that the Obama administration had allowed the N95 mask stockpile to deplete following a series of crises, and apparently ignored calls for experts to renew...

BEIJING -- China has opened its first bio-safety level four laboratory, capable of conducting experiments with highly pathogenic microorganisms, according to the national health authority on Thursday. Wuhan national bio-safety level four lab of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (Wuhan P4 lab) is part of Sino-French cooperation in prevention and control of emerging infectious diseases, said the Department of Health Science, Technology and Education with the National Health and Family Planning Commission. Level four is the highest bio-safety level, used for diagnostic work and research on easily transmitted pathogens which can cause fatal disease, including Ebola virus. The Wuhan P4...

CommentaryAs the pandemic continues on its deadly path around the globe, some crucial facts are being pushed aside by the media and international organizations that wish to preserve their relationship with China. As a result, the narrative of this global disaster has been changing dramatically under the guidance of the Chinese regime.Therefore, let’s refocus on some key facts.The pandemic began in Wuhan, the capital city of Hubei province, in China. Furthermore, the virus did not come from Wuhan’s wild animal market.Rather, that which we prefer to call the “CCP virus” likely came from China’s one and only National Biosafety...

The Trump administration simulated the ability of the United States to handle a flulike pandemic months before the coronavirus turned the scenario into a reality. The Health and Human Services Department led the exercise, known as the "Crimson Contagion," last year in conjunction with dozens of states and federal agencies, according to the New York Times. HHS also invited charitable groups, insurance companies, and major hospitals to take part in the effort. Former Air Force physician Robert Kadlec, who has studied biodefense issues for decades, led the exercise, which imagined a contagious disease that originated in China and spread globally...

A US government laboratory mistakenly mixed a common flu strain with a dangerous and deadly type of bird flu and shipped it to another lab, authorities said Friday. The latest news followed admissions of mishandled anthrax and forgotten smallpox vials at separate US government labs, and raised new concerns about the safety of dangerous agents which could be used as bioterror weapons. No one was endangered by the mixed flu strain, said Centers for Disease Control and Prevention director Tom Frieden, who nevertheless said he was "astonished" that protocols could have been violated in that way. "Everything we have looked...

Expert unease over deadly flu virus 'created' in Dutch laboratory Friday 25 November 2011 Dutch scientists have created a flu virus which is so deadly there is doubt about whether the research should be published, the Volkskrant reports on Friday. The paper says American experts are worried detailed information could fall into the wrong hands and that terrorists could recreate the virus as a weapon. The fears are notable because the work was carried out on behalf of the National Institutes of Health in the US. The research team, led by Ron Fouchier, professor of virology at Erasmus teaching hospital,...

Flu scientists are hoping to vaccinate themselves against another outbreak of a crippling controversy. In a letter published this week by Nature and Science (see p. 612), 22 researchers make their case for launching potentially risky experiments with the H7N9 avian influenza virus, which emerged earlier this year in China and which some scientists fear could spark a deadly human pandemic. The scientists, who mostly work in U.S.-funded labs, also detail the safety and security precautions that they would take to prevent the possibly dangerous viruses they create from escaping from the lab—or falling into the hands of terrorists. In...