Doctor: Smallpox Not a Bio-terror Threat

WXIA-TV (Atlanta) ^ | 09/26/02 | Keith Whitney

[Wordsmith]

Stunning. Thanks for posting the link to the articles about Alibek and the Soviet program.

I don't think there's any doubt that the bad guys have this.

[Interesting Times]

You're welcome.

Alibek's book BioHazard is also worth reading, if you're interested in more detail.

[ffrancone]

There's no reason to believe that any of our enemies has smallpox virus.

This statement by the author is not true. I spoke several months ago with a good contact in the intelligence community. We do not know where all our smallpox virus is. Some is unaccounted for.

If our security is so bad, can you imagine the Soviet security issues. You know there is strong evidence they were manufacturing large amounts of smallpox during the cold war.

Perhaps the rest of the article makes sense; but this statement is outlandish.

[woofie]

ping

[rwt60]

Last night on Nightline, there were two Islamic radicals from Northern Iraq in the custody of the Kurds. They were interviewed and they told a story of smuggling weapons from Iraq to Iran where they would then be forwarded into Afghanistan.

There were the usual weapons like ammunition and RPGs, but the most significant disclosure was that of smuggling refrigeration units. The going price for smuggling refrigeration units out of Iraq was $10,000. These men were self-admitted al Qaeda operatives smuggling refrigerators out of Iraq. They did not know what was inside the refrigerators.

[Wordsmith]

OK, assuming this is true, what possible use - other than bioweapons - could there be for smuggling refrigerators with covert weapons? I can't think of any.

[Thud]

Weaponized smallpox has a shelf life of 6-12 months when refrigerated - less if it isn't refrigerated.

[Dark Wing]

I also found the text below at the following link:

http://www.iraqwatch.org/wmd/biological.html

"Smallpox: The virus can be inhaled or absorbed by the skin. Its initial symptoms are like a severe flu, then a rash appears. Smallpox kills about a third of unvaccinated victims, but the vaccine is highly effective. The virus can be stored over long periods of time if it is freeze-dried, and it is easy to produce, making it a good candidate for biological warfare. In addition, countries like the United States are susceptible, as all natural occurrences of smallpox were eradicated by 1980, making regular vaccinations unnecessary. Iraq was reported in late 1998 to be suspected of concealing the smallpox virus, but this has not been confirmed."

[Interesting Times]

Thanks.

Here is a discussion about Iraqi smallpox with an expert from Sandia Labs.

[Jesse]

Weaponized smallpox has a shelf life of 6-12 months when refrigerated - less if it isn't refrigerated.

Depends on what you mean by refrigerated. The existing acknowledged stocks of smallpox are stored in deep freezers at the CDC and in Moscow, and have remained, and will probably remain, viable for decades without having to go through a host again. Weaponized smallpox may lose its delivery effectiveness sooner. The small particles which need to be aerosolized may tend to clump and lose their effeciency of infection with time but it would still be virulent.

[texasbluebell]

This guy gets it.

I think it's just as likely, if not more than likely, that this guy gets it:

Smallpox threat scares Sandia expert

Speaking to a gathering of emergency personnel and terrorism specialists in Albuquerque on Thursday, Zelicoff said he believes the Soviets engineered strains of smallpox that are airborne, resistant to vaccines and spread very rapidly.

"Those strains weren't destroyed," he said. "We don't have any idea where they are. The prime researcher working on them retired and spent the rest of his life in a country other than Russia.

"I'll leave it to your fertile imagination to figure out where that is."

[Thud]

Shelf-life when used as ICBM warheads.

[GirlShortstop]

• When in India, in the early 1970s: "...this is hopeless we can't eradicate this disease there's too much of it,” he recalled.
• 2002: Blumenthal added he does not think it is a likely weapon of bio-terrorism.
  

Two scientific assesments: he didn't get the first one right, how can we put weight behind the second? More less-than-stellar opinions for us to chew on. ©¿©

[Fred Mertz]

It ain't gonna be smallpox, that I'm sure of.

[texasbluebell]

Well, I think it will be something besides smallpox too, that we're hit with. Saddam knows we can vaccinate our population for that, so why would he use it? I think he'll use something we can't prepare for. Maybe he already has. The appearance of West Nile might not have been a natural occurrence.

[HangThemHigh]

< tinfoil> And now add to that two cases of malaria in Virginia. </ tinfoil>

[bonesmccoy]

Thud, you're right! You got good stuff!

Blumenthal's logic is nonsense. Just look at Legionaire's disease. The organism was incubating in air conditioning systems and was probably previously undiagnosed. Does Dr. Blumenthal actually believe that Iraq's healthcare system is capable of positively identifying the virus?

If doctors in Iraq can easily identify the virus and it's contagious spread, then he would be correct. While the clinical presentation may be obvious to our eyes, an untrained younger physician could mistake it for something else. At that point, the virus would spread, unless the persons around the index case (i.e. hospital staff) are immunized.

Blumenthal accepts that primary care physicians and emergency room staff are at risk in the first wave of the bioterrorist's gambit. I'd like to ask Dr. Blumenthal if he would like to advocate for small pox vaccine distribution immediately in order to protect the people that he recognizes as casualities.

This physician would thank him for his support!

[cookcounty]

But consider:

A. In India, people don't travel much. Compare that to 19 suicide carriers with $50,000 each criss-crossing the nation, seeking every possible crowded venue to spread the contagion.

B. What makes him so sure that it would come from a "cave in Afghanistan?"