[okie01]

"If you look at the pattern of when West Nile first appeared in New York is looks as through ground zero is Plum Island."

"Ground zero" was Queens -- at the opposite end of Long Island from Plum Island.

Almost simultaneously, additional infections showed up in the Baltimore/Washington area. And that's no reason to blame Fort Detrick, either.

[jjhunsecker]

Thats true as far as it goes as to Queens. But it isn't out of the realm of possibility that West Nile did not come from Plum Island. The migration of West Nile was in a most logical progression and did not show up immediatly in the Baltimore/Washington area from my memory. It moved into New Jersey and Pennsylvania from New York back in 1999 and in the last 3 years had managed to spread all over the country primarly from birds and mosquitoes. In addition in a customs port north of New York City almost all animals imported to the U.S.go through it. A number of these animals are tested and those samples end up at Plum Island. So it is not too farfetched that Plum Island may have been the source of West Nile. That isn't to say that West Nile wasn't a experiment by terrosists, etc. to see how a biological weapon might be spread by mosquitoes and birds. Certainly any number of theories are possible.

[Domestic Church]

"Ground zero was Queens -- at the opposite end of Long Island from Plum Island.
Almost simultaneously, additional infections showed up in the Baltimore/Washington area. And that's no reason to blame Fort Detrick, either."

Long Island Sound and the Chesapeake Bay are both big and easy to sail around...wouldn't be hard to find some marsh areas either.