Free Republic

I understand that Health and Human Services nominee Kathleen Sebelius is still awaiting confirmation, but why is DHS head Napolitano acting as the point man for the Obama Administration? She is having a hard enough time keeping up with her job as it is. It just seems a little odd that the woman tapped to protect homeland security is discussing a virus outbreak. Unless... Could it be that we are not being told the truth about swine flu? As the virus spreads, more and more people — and even a few virologists — believe H1N1 is a human-engineered pathogen. On...

In a discussion this morning with a cell biologist and medical doctor working at Johns Hopkins, my friend thought this 4-part flu combination is highly unusual and looks like it could be man-made. Especially because it has an avian strain. My doctor friend (he's Taiwanese) explained that in Asia, it's common for a avian-swine-human flu to happen naturally, but this virus first showed up in Mexico, where pigs and ducks are not usually raised together. Also, recombination of more than 2-different flu viruses is extremely rare. I'm just repeating what he said as an expert in the field. He says...

In a discussion this morning with a cell biologist and medical doctor working at Johns Hopkins, my friend thought this 4-part flu combination is highly unusual and looks like it could be man-made. Especially because it has an avian strain. My doctor friend (he's Taiwanese) explained that in Asia, it's common for a avian-swine-human flu to happen naturally, but this virus first showed up in Mexico, where pigs and ducks are not usually raised together. Also, recombination of more than 2-different flu viruses is extremely rare. I'm just repeating what he said as an expert in the field. He says...

TRENTON, N.J. — The frozen remains of two mice injected with the organism that causes plague have not been accounted for seven weeks after being discovered missing at a University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey facility in Newark, the university said Friday. The FBI investigated and determined there was no risk to public health or any indication of the terrorist link. It wasn't the first time plague-infected mice have disappeared from the New Jersey facility. Four years ago, in September 2005, three live mice infected with bubonic plague bacteria disappeared from various cages. Officials later said they believed...

The enzyme DFPase from the squid Loligo vulgaris, is able to rapidly and efficiently detoxify chemical warfare agents such as Sarin, which was used in the Tokyo subway attacks in 1995. A detailed understanding of the mechanism by which enzymes catalyze chemical reactions is necessary for efforts aiming to improve their properties. A group of researchers at the University of Frankfurt, the Bundeswehr Institute for Pharmacology and Toxicology in Munich, and Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, USA, have successfully determined the structure of DFPase using neutron diffraction. The team used the neutron source at Los Alamos National Laboratory,...

An al Qaeda affiliate in Algeria closed a base earlier this month after an experiment with unconventional weapons went awry, a senior U.S. intelligence official said Monday. (SNIP) AQIM, according to U.S. intelligence estimates, maintains about a dozen bases in Algeria, where the group has waged a terrorist campaign against government forces and civilians. In 2006, the group claimed responsibility for an attack on foreign contractors. In 2007, the group said it bombed U.N. headquarters in Algiers, an attack that killed 41 people. Al Qaeda is believed by U.S. and Western experts to have been pursuing biological weapons since at...

An Al Qaeda affiliate in Algeria closed a base earlier this month after an experiment with unconventional weapons went awry, a senior U.S. intelligence official said Monday. The official, who spoke on the condition he not be named because of the sensitive nature of the issue, said he could not confirm press reports that the accident killed at least 40 Al Qaeda operatives, but he said the mishap led the militant group to shut down a base in the mountains of Tizi Ouzou province in eastern Algeria.

An al Qaeda affiliate in Algeria closed a base earlier this month after an experiment with unconventional weapons went awry, a senior U.S. intelligence official said Monday. The official, who spoke on the condition he not be named because of the sensitive nature of the issue, said he could not confirm press reports that the accident killed at least 40 al Qaeda operatives, but he said the mishap led the militant group to shut down a base in the mountains of Tizi Ouzou province in eastern Algeria. He said authorities in the first week of January intercepted an urgent communication...

ANTI-TERROR bosses last night hailed their latest ally in the war on terror — the BLACK DEATH. At least 40 al-Qaeda fanatics died horribly after being struck down with the disease that devastated Europe in the Middle Ages. The killer bug, also known as the plague, swept through insurgents training at a forest camp in Algeria, North Africa. It came to light when security forces found a body by a roadside. The victim was a terrorist in AQLIM (al-Qaeda in the Land of the Islamic Maghreb), the largest and most powerful al-Qaeda group outside the Middle East. It trains Muslim...

New bioterrorism lab to open next month in Lawrenceville

WASHINGTON – The government has recommended a site in Kansas for a new $450 million laboratory to study biological threats such as anthrax and foot-and-mouth disease, officials said Wednesday.

The White House wanted to know: How much safer are Americans today than they were on October 4, 2001? That was the day when a photo editor in Florida became the first reported case of inhalation anthrax in America in decades. In what became biology’s 9/11, five letters containing less than a quarter-ounce of anthrax total—the equivalent of two pats of butter—killed five people, infected 17, put more than 20,000 on antibiotics, and traumatized thousands more. Decontamination alone, including at the Hart Senate Office Building in Washington, took over three years and cost some $200 million. With these disturbing facts...

Nuclear and biological terrorism is the emerging threat the next US President should focus on, the US security chief has told Sky News. In an exclusive interview, homeland security secretary Michael Chertoff said sources of radioactive and biological materials must be properly secured "at all costs". He warned terrorists are actively seeking to acquire such materials. Mr Chertoff said he did not think a weapon of mass destruction, like a biological or nuclear bomb, was a danger that could be just months away. But he warned: "It may be years away and we can't afford to waste this time waiting...

LONDON — An Iranian ship captured by Somali pirates carried sealed containers of a powdery substance believed to be nuclear or chemical weapons agents. Western intelligence agencies have been monitoring the capture of the Iran Deyanat, seized by Somali pirates on Aug. 21. The cargo ship, owned and operated by the state-owned Islamic Republic of Iran Shipping Lines, or IRISL, contains sealed cargo thought to be linked to the death of 16 pirates.

IMPORTANT planning for responding to a future anthrax attack has quietly been under way since the last attacks seven years ago. A key part of this effort has been figuring out how best to deliver prophylactic antibiotics quickly to the people living in the city that is attacked. This is at least as difficult and complicated as it might seem. First, an attack must be detected, either by one of the BioWatch air monitors that have been placed in many cities or by finding symptoms of anthrax poisoning in a victim. Either way, this can take at least 12 to...

WASHINGTON — The Federal Bureau of Investigation on Wednesday outlined a pattern of bizarre and deceptive conduct by Bruce E. Ivins, an Army microbiologist who killed himself last week, presenting a sweeping but circumstantial case that he was solely responsible for mailing the deadly anthrax letters that killed five people in 2001. After nearly seven years of a troubled investigation, officials of the F.B.I. and the Justice Department declared that the case had been solved. Jeffrey A. Taylor, the United States attorney for the District of Columbia, said the authorities believed “that based on the evidence we had collected, we...

Army scientist Bruce Ivins had custody of highly purified anthrax spores with "certain genetic mutations identical" to the poison that killed five and rattled the nation in 2001, according to documents unsealed Wednesday in the government's investigation. Also, Ivins was unable to give investigators "an adequate explanation for his late laboratory work hours around the time of" the attacks, and he apparently sought to mislead investigators on the case, according to an affidavit filed by one government investigator.

<p>WASHINGTON - Army scientist Bruce Ivins had custody of highly purified anthrax spores with "certain genetic mutations identical" to the poison that killed five and rattled the nation in 2001, according to documents unsealed Wednesday in the government's investigation.</p> <p>Also, Ivins was unable to give investigators "an adequate explanation for his late laboratory work hours around the time of" the attacks, and he apparently sought to mislead investigators on the case, according to an affidavit filed by one government investigator.</p>

LAS VEGAS -- An unemployed graphic designer who told investigators that he found making ricin an "exotic idea" pleaded guilty Monday to possessing the deadly toxin in a hotel room here. Roger Bergendorff, 57, also pleaded guilty to a federal weapons charge. (A second weapons charge was dropped.) He could face up to 20 years in prison at his Nov. 3 sentencing, though prosecutors are recommending that he serve a little more than three years. Bergendorff reportedly fantasized about harming people with the poison -- he had sketched an "injection delivery device" disguised as a pen -- but never carried...

Its origins pointed to one conclusion: that only the government scientist could be behind the 2001 attacks. Federal investigators cinched their case against alleged anthrax mailer Bruce E. Ivins after sophisticated genetic tests by a California firm helped them trace a signature mixture of anthrax spores, the Los Angeles Times has learned. Well before the deadly 2001 anthrax mailings, Ivins, through his work as a government scientist, had combined anthrax spores obtained from at least one outside laboratory, people familiar with the evidence said. With the help of leading outside geneticists and a fresh look at the evidence by a...