Smallpox: Jumping Ahead of the Next Possible Threat

When playing chess, you know you're losing when your opponent keeps you responding to his moves. This is what has been happening to America since September 11. In a slight change of course, it's time to look at the next potential threat before it appears, one that is much less treatable than Anthrax, but getting the news into the forefront may motivate some to make available preventative steps to be taken. Here's the dirt we've uncovered on this little critter.

Note: There are no known cases of Smallpox in the U.S. at this time (so don't freak out)

Smallpox was once worldwide in scope; before vaccination was practiced almost everyone eventually contracted the disease. In 1980, the World Health Assembly announced that smallpox had been eradicated and recommended that all countries cease vaccination. That same year, the Soviet government embarked on an ambitious program to grow smallpox in large quantities and adapt it for use in bombs and intercontinental ballistic missiles. That initiative succeeded. Lord only knows where it is now. Vaccination against smallpox was not recommended to prevent the disease in the general public, and therefore is not now available. We know it doesn't make sense. We're just the messengers.

Russia still possesses an industrial facility that is capable of producing tons of smallpox virus annually and also maintains a research program that is thought to be seeking to produce more virulent and contagious strains.

Last year, the Washington Post reported that in Obolensk, Russia, the Western chem/bio experts working to end the production of bio warfare found the largest set of anthrax and tularemia samples in the world.

Elsewhere, Western scientists have discovered that the Soviet Union had a separate biological weapons program--outside of Biopreparat--designed to create agents that would kill livestock and crops on a mass scale. Little is known about it, but one official said that the Soviet efforts were "weaponized," meaning that not only did they experiment with such pathogens, but tested them and developed ways of delivering them. Research institutes developed weapons that would, for example, spread foot and mouth disease or African swine fever; the testing ground was in Kazakhstan, a Soviet republic at the time. But let's get back to small pox.

Smallpox is caused by variola virus. The incubation period is about 12 days (range: 7 to 17 days) following exposure. Initial symptoms include high fever, fatigue, and head and back aches. A characteristic rash, most prominent on the face, arms, and legs, follows in 2-3 days. The rash starts with flat red lesions that evolve at the same rate. Lesions become pus-filled and begin to crust early in the second week. Scabs develop and then separate and fall off after about 3-4 weeks. The majority of patients with smallpox recover, but death occurs in up to 30% of cases.

Smallpox is contagious. It is spread from one person to another by infected saliva droplets that expose a susceptible person having face-to-face contact with the ill person. Persons with smallpox are most infectious during the first week of illness, because that is when the largest amount of virus is present in saliva. However, some risk of transmission lasts until all scabs have fallen off.

Routine vaccination against smallpox ended in 1972. The level of immunity, if any, among persons who were vaccinated before 1972 is uncertain; therefore, these persons are assumed to be susceptible.

In people exposed to smallpox, the vaccine can lessen the severity of, or even prevent, the illness if given within 4 days after exposure. Vaccine against smallpox contains another live virus called vaccinia. The vaccine does not contain smallpox virus.

The United States currently has an emergency supply of smallpox vaccine. Approximately 140,000 vials of vaccine are in storage at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), each with doses for 50-60 people, and an additional 50-100 million doses are estimated to exist worldwide. This stock cannot be immediately replenished, since all vaccine production facilities were dismantled after 1980, and renewed vaccine production is estimated to require at least 24-36 months.

In 2000, CDC awarded a contract to Oravax of Cambridge, Massachusetts to produce smallpox vaccine. Initially producing 40 million doses, Oravax anticipates delivery of the first full scale production lots in 2004.

There is no proven treatment for smallpox but research to evaluate new antiviral agents is ongoing. Patients with smallpox can benefit from supportive therapy (intravenous fluids, medicine to control fever or pain, etc.) and antibiotics for any secondary bacterial infections that occur. An aerosol release of smallpox virus would disseminate readily given its considerable stability in aerosol form and epidemiological evidence suggesting the infectious dose is very small. Even as few as 50-100 cases would likely generate widespread concern or panic and a need to invoke large-scale, perhaps "national emergency" control measures. (read: quarantines). But considering in this war, the soldier can become the weapon himself, a voluntarily infected carrier should be considered a possible transport mechanism for this little critter.

Between the time of an aerosol release of smallpox and diagnosis of the first cases, an interval of as much as two weeks is apt to occur. This is because there is an average incubation period of 12 to 14 days.

Contaminated clothing or bed linen could also spread the virus. Special precautions need to be taken to insure that all bedding and clothing of patients are autoclaved. Disinfectants such as hypochlorite (bleach) and quaternary ammonia should be used for washing contaminated surfaces. WARNING: Don't mix these two ingredients. .

A smallpox outbreak poses difficult problems because of the ability of the virus to continue to spread throughout the population unless checked by vaccination and/or isolation of patients and their close contacts. Between the time of an aerosol release of smallpox and diagnosis of the first cases, an interval of as much as two weeks is apt to occur. This is because there is an average incubation period of 12 to 14 days.

LOL, here's some MORE to rattle cages with...

Plum Island is a legend, but not a myth. Just off Orient Point, Long Island, and six miles from the Connecticut coast, Plum Island is the site of a United States Agriculture Department Animal Disease Research Center. The USDA acquired the island from the War Department at the end of World War II with a charter from Congress to study animal diseases such as Foot and Mouth Disease. In surrounding communities, distrust of Plum Island runs deep. Lyme Disease takes its name from a Connecticut town across from the island: many wonder whether birds or swimming animals could have brought the disease from Plum Island. Some suspect this might be the case with West Nile Virus as well. Plum Island officials, of course, dismiss such hypotheses as fantasy.

Therefore, citizens were galvanized by the news, beginning with a September 22, 1999 New York Times article, that the USDA plans to expand its Plum Island laboratory to make it an ultra high-hazard Biosafety Level Four (BSL-4) facility. BSL-4 status would allow the lab to study zoonotic diseases, such as the Nipah Virus, anthrax, and Venezuelan Equine Encephalitis, all lethal to both animals and humans. The Times article, edited by national security correspondent Judith Miller, said that Floyd P. Horn, Administrator of the Agriculture Research Service, had persuaded President Clinton to include Plum Island in his expanded program on bioterrorism. Horn’s reasoning suggested terrorists might target livestock to hurt the US economy.

In stormy public hearings in Connecticut and on Long Island, citizens challenged both the safety and the purpose of the expanded laboratory. Many consider it an intolerable risk in a highly populated area. Though on an island, Plum Island's lab is not truly quarantined. Scientists and other laboratory workers commute to Connecticut and Long Island. ....................The risk of accidental exposure would be greater on Plum Island, where instead of cultures in flasks (as at Yale), there are animal populations infected with zoonotic diseases (an illness communicable from animals to humans under natural conditions). Such diseases have incubation times of days: a worker could easily go home or travel without realizing that they had been infected.

Representatives of the laboratory say it has never had a serious accident – although a contractor was fined in 1995 for improperly storing hazardous chemicals. But in high-risk technologies, performance is best judged by examining a detailed record of hazardous errors and near accidents. At public hearings, citizens were told they could obtain these only through the Freedom of Information Act. Officials also refused to discuss their plans for the laboratory and its animals in case of an emergency at the nearby Millstone nuclear reactor – a facility which itself has a notorious safety and cover-up record............

Here is a little more info....

Though virtually unknown to the layman, there is perhaps no substance more vital to life, (with the possible exception of oxygen and water) than the biologically derived compounds known as Humic and Fulvic acids. Fulvic acids enter into all life processes within plants and animals and wear many hats. When necessary; they act as free-radical scavengers, supply vital electrolytes, enhance and transport nutrients, make water wetter, catalyze enzyme reactions, increase assimilation, stimulate metabolism, chelate essential major and trace elements making them organic, and demonstrate amazing capacity for electrochemical balance. Fulvic acids are involved in indispensable biochemical reactions which influence all biological life-forms, both plant and animal.

THE FULVIC STORY

With regard to currently marketed liquid mineral products the bottom line is not how much mineral they contain, but how much Fulvic acid they contain. Regardless of product cost, even the strongest of the so-called colloidal minerals have, at most, a few cents worth of minerals per quart. If their mineral content is truly colloidal it is of no value to plants of animals since they cannot use minerals in this form. Fulvic acid is the biological substance that changes inorganic colloidal minerals into organically complexed, soluble minerals which can be used by plants and animals. Fulvic acid is an "organic" acid produced by soil microorganisms in trace amounts in healthy soils. It is vital to all life forms and without it there would be no you. In aqueous solutions it is the most powerful natural electrolyte known. It is also the most powerful natural chelating substance known which makes it an extremely effective anti-oxidant.

SCIENTIFIC DOCUMENTATION

A causal glance at the thousands of current scientific references on Fulvic acids will reveal the vital nature of this unique substance. All food, directly or indirectly, originates in the soil. What is taken up by plants also ends up in man's food chain. That which beneficially affects healthy plants will also beneficially affect humans. Fulvic acid is responsible for carrying these organically complexed minerals into the plant, where the Fulvic remains and becomes a vital link in our food chain.

NEW GENERATION DISEASES

It is evident that the pandemic deficiency diseases now occurring in America are the direct result of intensified chemical farming which destroys indigenous soil microorganisms vital to the production of Fulvic acid. Without healthy microorganisms, we have no Fulvic acid. With organically rich, Fulvic enhanced soils, we can have as much as 1,000 times more of vital trace elements and other bio-nutrients in our foods than is found in foods grown in chemically sterile soils. It is physically impossible to eat enough of these commercially grown, nutritionally-hollow fruits and vegetables to overcome the deficiencies currently being manifested in America. It is not enough to emphasize eating adequate amounts of fruits and vegetables. Fulvic acid is the vital and indispensable link in the chain of vibrant health and longevity.

VITAMINS, MINERALS AND ENZYME

The world at large now recognizes the essential nature of vitamins and enzymes. Less understood is that vitamins and enzymes cannot be properly formed without specific, organically-complexed minerals. For instance, zinc is absolutely necessary in the formation of over 200 different enzymes. Calcium is essential in over 500 different enzymes. The billions of cells in our bodies are all capable of producing their own specific enzymes. The metabolic and biochemical systems of the body are all enzyme driven. We have tens of thousands of functional enzyme systems within the healthy human body. Whenever any of these enzyme systems are stressed or malfunction to any degree, degenerative diseases begin to occur. We cannot have vitamins and enzymes without biologically complexed minerals without Fulvic acid.

SUMMARY

As an electrolyte, Fulvic Acid is unsurpassed. It carries all the natural components necessary for balance, cellular integrity and electrical potential. When combined with other supplements, it potentizes and adds positive benefit far beyond its role as an essential electrolyte. As a natural antibiotic, it is a wide spectrum antimicrobial, antiviral and antifungal agent and enhances the effects of colloidal silver, topical silver gels and aloe skin preparations of all kinds. There is no finer treatment for burns, cuts, abrasions and skin disorders than Fulvic acid. As an antioxidant, acting alone or in conjunction with other proven ingredients, it is unrivaled in its ability as a "free-radical" scavenger. Acting at times as an acceptor, and at other times as a donor (depending upon need), Fulvic acid helps to create balance. As a complexing agent, Fulvic acid helps to create balance. As a complexing agent, Fulvic acid can chelate, detoxify and restructure otherwise toxic substances into non-toxic, useful substances for the body. It can reduce mineral compounds from a higher oxidative, unavailable state to a lower oxidative, available ferrous oxide to eliminate iron deficiencies.

There is no other known biological substance that can beneficially modify so many essential biochemical, electrochemical and metabolic processes as can Fulvic acid. It is frequently referred to as "Fantastic Fulvic" and, as the late Dr. Clyde Sandgrin used to express it: "If I had to choose between that liquid mineral and electricity, electricity would have to go." �

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