Free Republic

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Five shipping containers of lemons rotted on a ship held off New York all week after officials received a false tip amid heightened security that the cargo might be biologically contaminated, the U.S. Coast Guard said on Friday. The Coast Guard said in a statement that it boarded the container ship CSAV Rio Puelo on Saturday after being told by the U.S. Department of Agriculture of an "unconfirmed anonymous report" that one container of lemons had an "unknown harmful biological substance." Officials tested the cargo for biological hazards, but none was found, the U.S. Coast Guard...

While health officials reported this week West Nile virus has sickened 108 people in 10 states this summer, they continue to withhold opinions on how, where and why the mosquito-born disease originated. Maybe, say some U.S. intelligence sources of Joseph Farah's G2 Bulletin, that's because they know. The Centers for Disease Control gave samples of West Nile virus – among other deadly biological agents – to Saddam Hussein's Iraq in the 1980s. Some national security sources – as well as health professionals – believe Saddam Hussein weaponized those samples and sent them back to the United States, via his ally...

Instead of waking U.S. to bioterror, he woke the FBI Sunday, August 08, 2004 BY KEVIN COUGHLIN AND JOE MALINCONICO Star-Ledger Staff For Kenneth M. Berry, 1999 was a very big year. The Teaneck native hosted a conference in Washington, D.C., in which he crusaded for better training against biological attacks. He filed for patents on two systems to shield buildings from biochemical agents. And he was charged in a forgery scheme -- a sordid episode that, an accomplice says, was meant to fund Berry's fight against bioterror. Five years later, these strange cross-currents have splashed more mystery onto the...

The anthrax attacks and smallpox scare have thrust bioterrorism into the spotlight. Never before has the average person been so cognizant of the negative potential of research in the biological sciences. However, the truth is that the scare, though hyped by some accounts, does not adequately convey the danger involved. The danger is that by altering bacterial and viral DNA, a terrorist could create an agent far more devastating than the bugs featuring in today’s headlines. And these agents could cause far more damage than nuclear weapons could. After all, let us not forget that the largest mass casualties in...

The Washington Timeswww.washingtontimes.com Seeds of agro-terrorBy Austin BayPublished July 16, 2004 Does "agricultural terrorism" pose a real threat? The answer is yes, and not only to the United States and the rest of North America, but to the entire planet.     Agro-terror, closely associated with other forms of "bio-terror," illustrates just how difficult it is to passively defend against terror assaults.     Terror attacks on food resources and production obviously threaten farm animals, plants and the food supply chain, but agro-terror is also economic terror.     Britain's bout with Foot and Mouth Disease (FMD), which began in February 2001, predated the terror attacks...

<p>America is at a very dangerous crossroads. Not only al Qaeda but also terrorist groups such as Jemaah Islamiah are working on acquiring or developing new terrorism capabilities, including bioweapons. Will we be prepared?</p> <p>Evidence in an Egyptian terrorism trial two years ago indicated Osama bin Laden may already have access to dangerous biological agents. Meanwhile, the risk of proliferation to terrorists continues growing, with at least eight nations running bioweapons programs, including genetic engineering of pathogens and developmental programs for new production and delivery methods.</p>

WASHINGTON, June 30 — The Pentagon announced a major expansion of its vaccination program with a new order on Wednesday requiring that anthrax and smallpox vaccine be administered to all soldiers and essential civilians in the Middle East and, for the first time, to troops in South Korea. Pentagon officials said the decision resulted from an increased supply of vaccine, and not from indications of an increased threat of biological or chemical attacks. Even so, these officials also said their concerns that an adversary might attack troops with such unconventional weapons were undiminished. William Winkenwerder Jr., the assistant secretary of...

CARSON -- Los Angeles County's Department of Health Services will hold a mass smallpox vaccination drill Wednesday at the Carson Center. "We will have more than 1,000 volunteers practice how we would vaccinate the residents of the county in case of an outbreak of disease,' said Heidi Stevenson of the county Health Services Department. On its Web site, the county notes: "Although the risk of an actual smallpox outbreak is very low, the consequences of such an event would be great. It would be very important for us to be able to vaccinate millions of people in a very short...

Steve Kurtz is an artist operating in an unusual medium. Rather than exploring ideas with brushes and paint, he uses bacteria and DNA to create works meant to spark debate about the safety and morality of genetic research. But Kurtz's work and his beliefs are more radical than those of many of his peers. He has written proposals for releasing mutant flies into restaurants, and demonstrated methods for destroying genetically modified crops. And it is Kurtz's views, his supporters say, that have Kurtz on the wrong side of a federal investigation sparked by the death of his wife, Hope Kurtz....

An unidentified wheat virus has appeared in fields throughout western Kansas. The unknown pathogen causes the leaves to turn yellow and die.These symptoms are also associated with head death,wheat streak mosaic,and freezing; however,University of Kansas researchers have ruled out these possible causes. Researchers note evidence of the virus is in almost every field-although it has not yet destroyed the crop. University of Kansas virologists,with the help of researchers in Winnipeg,are trying to identify the proteins involved in the destruction of affected plants,so the genetic sequences may be compared to pathogens found in other parts of the world. One hypothesis-that nobody...

<p>Amid new warnings about a possible summer of terror, the U.S. government is preparing to spend billons to coax pharmaceutical companies to develop drugs to fend off a biological or chemical attack. But experts say the infusion of cash may be little more than a good start.</p>

MEMORANDUMFROM: BC’04 POLICY DEPARTMENTRE: THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION RECORD ON BIOTERROR INTRODUCTION President George W. Bush has long made bolstering the nation’s defenses against bioterrorism a central focus of his Administration. The President’s National Strategy for Homeland Security, announced in July of 2002, launched two major bioterror initiatives. The first called for the development of systems capable of detecting biological materials and attacks. The second called for the development, purchasing and stockpiling of a variety of vaccines and countermeasures. President Bush has demonstrated an unprecedented commitment to bolstering the nation’s defenses against biological attacks. He has increased the federal bioterrorism budget...

WASHINGTON, DC— Rep. Adam Putnam (R-FL) issued the following statement regarding the threat of bioterrorism: "The President singled out bioterrorism as a top priority for homeland security immediately after September 11th. He has increased spending on research and preparedness for bioterrorism by more than $4.8 billion since taking office and has provided an additional $4.5 billion to states, local governments and hospitals to assist them in preparing for possible bioterror attacks. "John Kerry’s political attacks on the President and failure to acknowledge these historic gains are just another example of Kerry playing politics with national security. After voting six times...

IT IS EXCEEDINGLY rare these days to find something that the House and the Senate, the Republicans and the Democrats, can all agree on. But after the Senate's final passage of the Project Bioshield bill last week -- by a vote of 99 to 0 -- it seems that there really is near-unanimous, bipartisan support for speeding up development and stockpiling of the vaccines, antidotes and diagnostic devices that could be used to deter or help cope with a biological terrorist attack in the United States. The bill, a version of which was passed by a comparable margin in the...

Those who go to sleep at night with the threat of terrorism on their minds might be surprised to learn that Muslim CEOs are running companies that watch over our safety. • Fuad El-Hibri is CEO of BioPort, the only U.S. maker of anthrax vaccine. • Houssam Salloum is CEO of Axiolog, a Detroit firm developing a high-tech system for tracking international cargo into vulnerable U.S. ports. • Nafa Khalaf is CEO of Detroit Contracting, which after the Sept. 11 attacks in 2001 secured the five major treatment plants that supply water to 4.5 million residents of the Detroit area....

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...

April 8 ? Sonny Ramaswamy is trying to walk a very fine line. He doesn't want to be seen as an alarmist, but he thinks people ought to know about the thought that keeps haunting him these days. Ramaswamy, who chairs the department of entomology at Kansas State University, is concerned that the tiny little insects he has spent a lifetime studying could become implements of international terrorism. It's possible, he says, that even a stable fly, or something as tiny as an aphid, could be used to distribute deadly pathogens over a wide geographical area in a surprisingly...

Tracks Infectious Diseases WICHITA, Kan. (AP) - Programs that track health-related 911 calls and purchases of over-the-counter medication help health authorities in the state's largest city get a jump on tracking outbreaks of infectious disease. Officials say the 911 program, called FirstWatch, can do something else as well - even though they hope it will never have to. FirstWatch, which began tracking calls on Wednesday, is a "smoke detector for bioterrorism," said FirstWatch project director Matthew Ferguson. In the past, health officials have had to rely on reports from doctors and hospitals to track outbreaks. FirstWatch, however, is able to...

The Bush administration continues to be worried that Fidel Castro's communist regime is developing biological weapons, according to U.S. Undersecretary of State for arms control and nuclear proliferation John Bolton. Geostrategy-Direct, the global intelligence news service, reports while intelligence on the biological program is uneven, Bolton said last week "there is additional intelligence information that strengthens my belief that Cuba's BW effort must be carefully monitored." Bolton said Ana Montes, a Cuban penetration agent inside the Defense Intelligence Agency, drafted a 1998 intelligence analysis that played down the threat from Cuba. "Additionally, Montes' espionage materially strengthened Cuba's denial and deception...

  Used primarily in laboratories for research, osmium tetroxide is known to attack soft human tissue and could blind or kill anyone who breathed its fumes.ABCNEWS.com ‘Very Nasty’ Potential Bomb Plot Involved Deadly Chemical By Brian Ross and Christopher Isham ABCNEWS.com April 5— British authorities believe terror suspects arrested last week were planning to make a bomb that would include a highly toxic, easily obtained chemical called osmium tetroxide, ABCNEWS has learned. Used primarily in laboratories for research, osmium tetroxide is known to attack soft human tissue and could blind or kill anyone who breathed its fumes. According to...