Posted on 04/27/2009 9:55:37 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
"Anyone who is honest about this has to admit that if al Qaeda launches a spectacular biological attack which could cause contagious disease to be spread, no entity in the world is prepared for it," Noble said. "Not the U.S., not Europe, not Asia, not Africa."
Since the WSN/33 situation in Korea provides some valuable insight into detection and reporting of bird or human flu, and wire services are carrying stories about biologic attacks by terrorists causing a contagious disease, it is worth reviewing some of the lessons learned from the swine WSN/33 infections.
If pandemic flu is the contagious disease of choice, selection of WSN/33 at this time would offer some advantages. It is already transmissible from human-to-human, has been shown to be lethal in mice, has mutations in NA and PB2 that increase lethality, is widely available, and could be used without genetic manipulation.
As has been seen in Korea, introduction of the agent into pigs would allow it to spread almost undetected. Verification of its spread (or existence) has proven to be exceedingly difficult. Movement from swine to humans has not been reported and all reported isolates are missing the PB2 mutation. This may be due to a survival selection offered by recombining or reassorting with prevalent H9N2 subtypes. Most of the swine isolates have an avian PB2, but even the isolates that have half of a human PB2 have the 3' half of the human gene replaced with avian sequences. Thus, the results from the Korean swine may indicate that starting with a very lethal virus has disadvantages in that a less lethal virus will emerge virtually undetected.
A second choice would be the H5N1 currently causing the high case fatality rate in Vietnam, Thailand, and Cambodia. This version would be even more available, since it is excreted in large amounts by asymptomatic ducks, and is present in multiple organs in fatal infections. Although human-to-human transmission of H5N1 is limited, infecting a few international travelers would generate worldwide panic if these passengers became ill outside of areas with indigenous H5N1. Use of infected currency as a vector for transmission has been widely discussed.
A third approach would involve genetic manipulation. Creating an efficiently transmitted H5N1 would be relatively easy. Swapping a human receptor binding domain from a human flu virus into an H5 backbone would improve transmission efficiency and such an agent would quickly disseminate worldwide. Of course such an agent would be hard to control, and most unvaccinated people would be at risk. Since influenza evolves via recombination, implementation of an efficient laboratiry strain might be eclipsed by a natural version, and there would be uncertainty over the origins of such an agent.
Thus, like WSN/33 in Korean swine, taking credit for such a biologic attack may be difficult, since most countries appear to be unable to even determine if such an attack has happened.
Seems to be saying the task of cranking out a man made super virus may be harder than it looks and it may not be as deadly as hoped.
That is an interesting thought.
Baxter: Product contained live bird flu virus
The rebirth of the 1918 Spanish flu, which was a military flu.
As a 15 year employee of another "big pharma" corporation, let me be the first to say that you are an idiot.
Take your trash somewhere else, newb.
The contaminated product, which Baxter calls “experimental virus material,” was made at the Orth-Donau research facility. Baxter makes its flu vaccine — including a human H5N1 vaccine for which a licence is expected shortly — at a facility in the Czech Republic.People familiar with biosecurity rules are dismayed by evidence that human H3N2 and avian H5N1 viruses somehow co-mingled in the Orth-Donau facility. That is a dangerous practice that should not be allowed to happen, a number of experts insisted.
Anybody up for this as a “scourge of God” due to the present evil?
Mexicans are getting scourged worse then residents of the USA.
By Mario Andrade Mexican swine flu may have originated at US-owned pig breeding farm
Posted: April 26, 2009AUSTIN, Texas -- The recent swine flu outbreak taking place in Mexico may have originated at a US-owned pig-breeding farm by the name of Granjas Carroll (aka Carroll Farms), which is owned, in part by the Smithfield Food Company.
Smithfield also promotes the consumption of genetically-altered foods, and even owns certain genetic lines of pork breeding. On April 12 of 2009, before the swine flu outbreak was covered by mainstream media outlets, the Mexican newspaper La Jornada broke a story on how Carroll Farms was polluting the drinking water near the towns of La Gloria and Perote, in Veracruz.
According to La Jornada, Carroll Farms maintains a strong political influence in municipal governments in the area. Recently, group of environmental protesters that blocked a highway near the Carroll Farms facilities was arrested. Among them were Guadalupe Serrano Gaspar, a 66-year-old man who said was arrested by undercover police officers. Local residents from 20 towns nearby in Veracruz and the bordering state of Puebla also oppose what they consider deplorable environmental practices by Carroll Farms. The complaints from local residents range from reports of large quantities of pig excrement in the waterways to the smell of chemicals and feces in several towns.
Veratect, which is company that tracks epidemic outbreaks, has posted a timeline of events that also indicates that the Mexican swine flu outbreak may have started in Veracruz, Mexico near the Carroll Farms facilities. According to the Veratect timeline, more than 400 local residents at La Gloria, Veracruz and other nearby towns reported having strong flu-like symptoms days before the outbreak was reported by the media. Local health authorities in La Gloria and Perote have determined that this “strange” flu-like disease or “new strain of the flu” was spread to the local towns by flies that feed on pig feces. In the town of La Gloria, 60 percent of the 3,000 inhabitants have been infected.
The newspaper La Jornada also reported that local health officials and residents found “clouds of flies” feeding on organic pig waste, carcasses and feces. Reportedly, Carroll Farms has been dumping organic pig waste out in the open, leaving it exposed for the flies to feed.
The swine flu has now been spreading to major cities in Mexico, the US and Canada. In Mexico, over 900 people are dead. Mexico City has begun to close down schools, churches, and libraries. The Mexican government is planning to vaccinate 500,000 people, although it is widely known that there is no vaccine for this latest strain of swine flu because it has not yet been produced.
Is a bio-terrorist, having possible knowledge of events which may murder literally millions of persons, to have the prescribed “interrogation” of Obama and Holder?
Pelosi and Leahy should be asked about this. It is a perfect moment for the question.
Prescription Drugs - Leading Killer in USA...A statistical study of hospital deaths in the U.S. conducted at the University of Toronto revealed that pharmaceutical drugs kill more people every year than are killed in traffic accidents.
The study is said to show that more than two million American hospitalized patients suffered a serious adverse drug reaction (ADR) within the 12-month period of the study and, of these, over 100,000 died as a result. The researchers found that over 75 per cent of these ADRs were dose-dependent, which suggests they were due to the inherent toxicity of the drugs rather than to allergic reactions.
The data did not include fatal reactions caused by accidental overdoses or errors in administration of the drugs. If these had been included, it is estimated that another 100,000 deaths would be added to the total every year.
The researchers concluded that ADRs are now the fourth leading cause of death in the United States after heart disease, cancer, and stroke.
Source: Jason, et al. (Lazarou et al), Incidence of Adverse Drug Reactions in Hospitalized Patients, Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), Vol. 279. April 15, 1998, pp. 1200-05. Also Bates, David W., Drugs and Adverse Drug Reactions: How Worried Should We Be? JAMA, Vol. 279. April 15, 1998, pp. 1216-17.
One of the first JAMA article on medical errors appeared in JAMA 1994;272:1851-7. by Leape LL. Then in April 1998, JAMA 1998 Apr 15;279(15):1200-5 See http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/htbin-post/Entrez/query?db=m&form=6&Dopt=r&uid=9555760
Related articles are at http://jama.ama-assn.org/issues/v280n20/related/jlt1125-1.html#searchmedline
Other related articles: Schuster M, McGlynn E, Brook R. How good is the quality of health care in the United States? Milbank Q. 1998;76:517-563. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/htbin-post/Entrez/query?db=m&form=6&Dopt=r&uid=9879302
World Health Report 2000. Available at: http://www.who.int/whr/2000/en/report.htm.
I think the common thread in your possible villians is “big”. Big Pharma, BIg Agra.. Maybe Big Tobacco or Big Oil?
I’ve read that almost all paper currency has traces of the drug ‘coke’ in it. Logical to then think that other substances could be ‘soaked’ into the bills.
Handling it and getting it distributed would be the touchy part.
Probably because many older people just take too many medications. Some doctors will just give them a pill for every ailment, not even reviewing the meds the person is already taking.
No. Big tobacco just produces a product that people will always want and they comply with too many regulations. They don't try to say it's healthy.
Big oil is the most persecuted industry in the world and we better learn to appreciate them because we'll miss them if the enviro carbon crazies get their way.
But big pharma and big ag should have skull and crossbones on everything they produce, IMHO.
Eighteen years ago, the Iranian government welcomed bioweapon engineers from the collapsing Soviet Union into their country, and there set up shop to create really, really nasty killer diseases.
That in essence is the retaliatory threat Iran levels at the rest of the world - IF Israel attacks and destroys Iran’s nuclear facilities. Using agents in place for decades, Iran will destory all mankind with “plagues”.
Anyone care to speculate that this “swine flu” was a test case to see how well their evil plan might work?
Fine. So there are filty conditions existing there at these pig rearing facilities.
Influenza doesn’t develope in manure ponds or filthy conditions: it developes inside biological entities, like ducks (avian flu), pigs (swine flu), and humans.
This particular influenza contains snippets of dna from European swine flu, Asian swine flu, avian flu, and two types of human flu.
The idea that it sprang, fully formed, from pig farms in La Glora, Veracuz, Mexico is suspicious.
Swine Flu in Mexico - Timeline of Events
http://biosurveillance.typepad.com/biosurveillance/2009/04/swine-flu-in-mexico-timeline-of-events.html
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