[JimSEA]

The Headlines would have you getting on your biohazard suit and looking for the nearest Maoist or Muslim. However, as is made more clear in the Bangkok Post article on the same incident, it was just a case of poor hygene py the local canning company (combined with a low estimate of the number falling ill which caused the foreign responders to bring an insufficiet quanity of serum) The Post article says as follows:

Almost 170 villagers from Ban Luang district were admitted to the provincial hospital last week after eating tinned bamboo shoots and developing botulism, a form of food poisoning caused by the clostridium botulinum bacteria.

A team of medics investigating the disease outbreak suspected that the villagers' unhygienic production of tinned bamboo shoots was the cause of the food poisoning.

Our friends there say that the leftists are already spouting the mantra -- "It was a US military test" As depressing as it is predictable.

[Billthedrill]

Yep. You get a leaky can, you get a microaerophilic environment that is necessary for C. botulinum to grow the toxin. You serve it at a party and you have a lot of sick or dead people. Meat is perfect, but bamboo shoots will do - it used to happen fairly often in the days when canned meat was popular in the West.

[Sola Veritas]

This does not bear the marks of an intentional attack using botulinum toxin. It does bear all the marks of a standard case of food poisoning due to improperly food handling or canning.

I find it hard to believe that U.S. officials would take this seriously, unless it was just to placate locals.

[mfnorman]

it's funny how i start seeing all these kinds of stories coming from Thailand just before my trip there this weekend.

[Restorer]

It is claimed that one pint of pure botulin toxin would be sufficient to kill the entire population of the world.

As a weapon its drawback is the difficulty of getting 5B people to all line up for their injections.

[Wiz]

ping