Keyword: bioterror
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This photo is making the rounds: This is part or the whole of an extensive stash of bottles recovered in the 010th District the other day. All filled with human waste and no doubt whatever extra fecal matter the ne'er-do-wells were able to pick up on the parkways. Counts range from 100 to 500 bottles recovered depending on the rumor you believe. We're sure this isn't the only stash floating around out there. How about the Department try something novel and get the media to cover what the protestors and anarchists are planning and maybe get the public overwhelmingly on...
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Almost immediately after the 2008 election the VP-Elect, our SCHMOTUS (schmo of the United States) sat down with a bi-partisan panel investigating the possibility of terrorists using WMDs against Americans on our home turf. They presented and Ominous prediction to the SHMOTUS, within the next four years there will be a nuclear or biological terrorist attack on US shores. The experts said that the danger of an attack grows every day. "Our margin of safety is shrinking, not growing," states the report, obtained by The Associated Press. It is scheduled to be publicly released Wednesday. The commission is also encouraging
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In the TV Show NUMB3RS Charlie Eppes, a world-class mathematician, helps his FBI Agent brother solve many of his perplexing FBI cases through different mathematical formulas. NUMB3RS is coming to life, but in this case its not Crimes the world class mathematician is solving, but pandemics. The math whiz's at Tel Aviv University have developed a formula to predict that path of pandemics like the swine flu. This is important because it will direct authorities when to close mass transit, shut down and even how to distribute doctors and medicines. It wont prevent swine flu but it will predict the...
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U.S. counterterrorism officials have authenticated a video by an al Qaeda recruiter threatening to smuggle a biological weapon into the United States via tunnels under the Mexico border, the latest sign of the terrorist group's determination to stage another mass-casualty attack on the U.S. homeland. The video aired earlier this year as a recruitment tool makes clear that al Qaeda is looking to exploit weaknesses in U.S. border security and also is willing to ally itself with white militia groups or other anti-government entities interested in carrying out an attack inside the United States, according to counterterrorism officials interviewed by...
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Too many people on the liberal side of the fence argue that illegal immigration is a racial issue. They believe that those of us who want to secure the US boarders are inspired by racism, trying to keep out Hispanics. Last year's story of the Hezbollah Mole in the CIA case (Nada Nadim Prouty) and the terrorists targeting Army base after sneaking over the borders, highlight the reasons we want true immigration reform without amnesty, it is why we want the borders secured before anything else is done. It is more difficult to launch an attack when you can't get...
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"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...
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Excerpt from CDC on transmission: "In contrast, the situation with a pandemic strain of influenza A (H5) would become only too clear because no one would have any degree of immunity against such a virus, vaccines would not be available for months, and these viruses would likely be highly virulent. Even though efficient human-to-human transmission of the A (H5N1) virus has not yet been observed (by any mode), transmission of influenza A (H5N1) by aerosols from geese to quails has been demonstrated in the laboratory." "In principle, influenza viruses can be transmitted by 3 routes: aerosols, large droplets, and direct...
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Although the CDC has not explained whether the current swine flu outbreak in Mexico and the United States is bioterrorism, influenza can be very readily manipulated and may be one of the best candidates for weaponization for several reasons: 1) Terrorists can prepare a vaccine to protect themselves and their host populations in advance of its release. 2) Influenza is airborne, it is transmitted through either solid or lipid aerosol, therefore it’s easy to spread. 3) There is a normal period of incubation during which time the carrier displays no symptoms, but can infect others. Therefore, dispersion is very efficient....
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Al Qaeda terrorists have been left fearing the Black Death plague after it wiped out at least 40 insurgents at an Algerian training camp, it was reported today. The horror disease, which killed 25 million people in medieval Europe, is understood to have been found in a militant’s body dumped at a roadside. Terror group AQLIM (al Qaeda in the Land of the Islamic Maghreb) was forced to turn its shelter in the Yakouren forests into mass graves and flee, it has been claimed. Now al Qaeda chiefs are said to fear the plague has been passed into other cells...
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Another terrorist attack could hit the United States in the next five years — and North Texas could be a key target next time. By 2013, the U.S. “more likely than not” could be hit by another deadly attack, this time using something possibly like anthrax, according to the new report, World at Risk. And some fear that North Texas, with its population, sports and entertainment venues and businesses — not to mention the fact that President George W. Bush is moving back here after he leaves office in January — could be a target next time. “Everybody should be...
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WASHINGTON – The government has recommended a site in Kansas for a new $450 million laboratory to study biological threats such as anthrax and foot-and-mouth disease, officials said Wednesday.
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Nuclear and biological terrorism is the emerging threat the next US President should focus on, the US security chief has told Sky News. In an exclusive interview, homeland security secretary Michael Chertoff said sources of radioactive and biological materials must be properly secured "at all costs". He warned terrorists are actively seeking to acquire such materials. Mr Chertoff said he did not think a weapon of mass destruction, like a biological or nuclear bomb, was a danger that could be just months away. But he warned: "It may be years away and we can't afford to waste this time waiting...
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Hundreds of endangered African monkeys are being taken from their natural habitat and sold for scientific experiments, as well to a “secretive” biological laboratory in Iran, London's Sunday Times reported. Animal trader Nazir Manji, who has been exporting monkeys for 22 years, said Iran's Razi Vaccine and Serum Research Institute bought 215 vervet monkeys from him this year. The biological research institute, which has headquarters near Tehran, has been accused in the past by an Iranian opposition group of conducting biological weapons testing, it is reported, further fueling suspicions that the monkeys are being used for nefarious purposes.
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‘Germ warfare’ fear over African monkeys taken to Iran Daniel Foggo Hundreds of endangered monkeys are being taken from the African bush and sent to a “secretive” laboratory in Iran for scientific experiments. An undercover inquiry by The Sunday Times has revealed that wild monkeys, which are banned from experiments in Britain, are being freely supplied in large numbers to laboratories in other parts of the world. All will undergo invasive and maybe painful experiments leading ultimately to their death. One Tanzanian dealer, Nazir Manji, who runs African Primates, an animal-supplying company based in Dar es Salaam, said that in...
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Police baffled by horrific end of Laurent Bonomo and Gabriel Ferez Students were bound, gagged and stabbed more than 200 times but the motive for attack is a mystery Adam Fresco, Fran Yeoman and Marcus Leroux As two talented biochemistry students and close friends, Laurent Bonomo and Gabriel Ferez had come to London to develop their skills as specialists in infectious disease and environmental engineering. Instead the two became the victims of an attack that, even by the standards of a city battling against the blight of knife crime, is among the most horrific in living memory. The bodies of...
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In a move believed to be the first by a college campus in the nation, San Jose State University President Don Kassing has suspended all campus blood drives because the U.S. Food and Drug Administration bars any man who has had sex with another man from donating blood. "The FDA's lifetime blood donor deferral affecting gay men violates our non-discrimination policy," said Kassing in an e-mail sent to faculty, staff and students. The suspension, which is effective immediately, applies to blood drives arranged by employees representing the university as well as blood drives organized by student groups. The FDA's ban...
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Want to create a pathogen? Just download its gene sequence information from the Internet and place an order with a gene sequencing company. The genes arrive in the mail a couple of days later. Mix it in your basement lab and then release on an unprotected public. Is this nightmarish vision of mail-order bioterrorism really possible? Most experts agree that basement bioterrorism is unlikely right now. But rapid improvements in the technologies that allow researchers to generate genetic material starting from just information and raw chemicals could make such bioterror attacks possible in the next decade or so. The synthesis...
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Researchers in Germany reported Thursday that they had altered the DNA of a disease-causing bacterium so that it can infect a species it cannot normally sicken. Experts called the development a double-edged advance. Although the research could deepen scientists' understanding of human diseases, it also could speed development of novel bioterror agents. The change in infectiousness - the first of its kind ever engineered from scratch - poses no direct threat to human health, scientists said, because the microbe already causes a human disease - the food-borne illness called listeriosis. The change allows that microbe to sicken mice, a species...
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US Hospitals - once extremely vulnerable to a chaotic bio-attack, are in much better shape than they were in 2001 - no thanks to the critics !
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BAGHDAD, Iraq - Hundreds of Iraqi policemen fell sick from poisoning Sunday at a base in southern Iraq after the evening meal breaking their daily Ramadan fast, and officials said they were investigating whether the poisoning was intentional. An official with the Environment Ministry said 11 policemen had died. However, the governor of Wasit province — where the poisoning took place — denied any deaths, though he said some of the victims were in critical condition. There was no immediate explanation for the contradictory reports. Some of the policemen began bleeding from the ears and nose after the meal, said...
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The first hint of calamity came in deceptively routine form: a small fire in a rented Carson warehouse, apparently sparked by welders working on a lunch truck. But an investigation of that blaze turned up alarming details: respirators, a suspicious hookup on the truck, large sacks of rice flour. Within weeks, those puzzling discoveries would plunge Los Angeles into a whirlwind as a routine fire probe rapidly spun into an international investigation, uncovering a terrorist weapons lab in Mexico and a plan to douse the nation's second-largest city with anthrax and ricin. By the 40th day of the crisis, panic-stricken...
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The U.S. Customs area at Detroit Metropolitan Airport was briefly shut down today after a passenger claimed he had contaminated everyone on a flight from Amsterdam. Officials say a U.S citizen got off a Northwest Airlines flight and implied to the crew he had a biological agent of some sort and had contaminated the flight. Airport emergency medical technicians examined the man and decided that he did not pose a health risk. The man was eventually allowed to leave. It took about 90 minutes to investigate, and other passengers from Amsterdam were delayed in leaving. Passengers on two flights from...
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An Alzheimer's pill that helps slow the brain damage caused by the disease may also protect against the effects of nerve gases and pesticides, US researchers reported today. They said the drug, marketed under the name Reminyl and Razadyne, completely protected guinea pigs against the nerve agents soman and sarin, as well as toxic amounts of pesticides. They gave the animals high doses of the poisons and treated them with Reminyl, known generically as galantamine, along with atropine, often given as an antidote for organophosphate pesticides such as paraoxon. "To our amazement, the animals treated with galantamine behaved as if...
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The government is building a highly classified facility to research biological weapons, but its closed-door approach has raised concerns. On the grounds of a military base an hour's drive from the capital, the Bush administration is building a massive biodefense laboratory unlike any seen since biological weapons were banned 34 years ago. The heart of the lab is a cluster of sealed chambers built to contain the world's deadliest bacteria and viruses. There, scientists will spend their days simulating the unthinkable: bioterrorism attacks in the form of lethal anthrax spores rendered as wispy powders that can drift for miles on...
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Senators Hillary Clinton and Charles Schumer have been complaining for a week now about an $80 million cutback in New York City's anti-terrorism funding by the Department of Homeland Security. But it turns out that they both voted to make substantial cuts in the city's terrorism funding last year. According to Newsday, the Democratic duo backed a $95 million cut last December in funding from the Centers for Disease Control for bioterrorism programs around the nation. Of that amount, approximately $3 million would have gone directly to New York City. Mrs. Clinton and her Democratic co-hort actually wanted to cut...
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For a team of FBI anti-terrorism agents, the April incident was yet another false alarm. But in a business where U.S. authorities must be right every time and terrorists need only be successful once, everything is taken seriously. "We operate in Los Angeles under the assumption that we will be attacked and we need to stop it," said Eric Velez, an FBI assistant special agent in charge who oversees several Southern California-based counterterrorism squads. Indeed, since the 2001 terror attacks federal officials repeatedly have said Los Angeles is a primary al-Qaida target. Earlier this year, President Bush disclosed new details...
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AUSTIN, April 6, 2006 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Ebola, a form of hemorrhagic fever in which the internal organs of the victim liquefy, has one of the highest rates of fatality of any known contagious disease at approximately 80-90% and is one of the most contagious diseases known to medical science. It is also high on the list of possible bio-terror weapons of concern to international law enforcement and military security agencies. Tom Clancy’s thriller novel, Rainbow Six describes a group of radical environmentalists that wants to rid the world of people using a modified version of Ebola.All of which is...
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Nazis tried to halt Allies in Italy with malaria epidemic attack By Hilary Clarke in Rome (Filed: 14/02/2006) The Nazis tried to halt the advance of British and American troops through Italy in the Second World War by unleashing malaria-carrying mosquitoes in what is believed to be the only biological warfare attack out in Europe, according to new research. The plan was designed to hinder the Allied push from the south and to punish the Italian population for what the Germans saw as treachery after they switched sides and joined the Allied powers. According to Prof Frank Snowden, a history...
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AL-QAEDA is recruiting suicide bombers who are infected with the AIDS virus, according to documents revealed to the Sunday Mirror. Terror chiefs are also targeting fanatics who suffer other lethal blood diseases such as hepatitis and dengue fever in order to increase their "kill rate" from an explosion. The chilling new threat is revealed in papers distributed to British military camps in Iraq and across Europe. Under the heading "HIV/Hepatitis" the document states: "There is evidence that terrorists might be deliberately recruiting volunteers with diseases that are spread by blood transference." Experts have found that bones and other blood-spattered fragments...
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Health officials say they may have no other alternativeThe tuberculosis eating at Ricardo’s lungs makes him a public health threat. His fear of being picked up by immigration authorities has sent him into hiding. A hard-to-treat combination of medical problems left the young farmworker tired, without an appetite and, because of the tuberculosis, quarantined in a hotel room for weeks. But last week, Ricardo, who is also an illegal immigrant, heard that Skagit County Public Health, which has treated him for months, might have reported him to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Ricardo has been deported to Mexico once before...
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A few months ago, Kenyans were amused at media reports that thousands of rats had been killed at a major city market. While the story may have made news due to this unusual finding, many people are unaware of the dangers posed by such huge numbers of rodents. Besides being vermin preying on man's food, rats are more dangerous as reservoirs of lethal diseases that can affect man. That is why, with the ever-present threat of bio-terrorism, attention should also be focused on rats and how they can be used as bio-terror agents. The most memorable and most devastating disease...
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WASHINGTON, Nov. 2 - An outbreak of the avian flu virus in the United States could infect one-third of the population and kill as many as 1.9 million people, according to an analysis by the federal government released today. The report, by the United States Department of Health and Human Services, said that banning large gatherings and imposing quarantines would likely be necessary in order to contain the spread of the H5N1 avian influenza virus if it mutated into a form easily spread by human-to-human contact. There have been no reported cases of the virus being spread between humans. The...
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TORONTO - A newly disclosed Canadian intelligence study says al-Qaeda might try to spread the deadly avian flu virus as part of its campaign to sow terror in Western nations. The report by the federal government's Integrated Threat Assessment Centre describes the avian flu as a "potential terrorist-induced" pandemic and specifically mentions Osama bin Laden. "It is significant to note that Osama bin Laden views chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear weapons as legitimate," says the report, titled "Pandemics: Avian Flu." "In addition, Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda representatives have repeatedly named Canada as a target," it says under the heading...
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Bush Outlines $7.1B Flu-Fighting Strategy By LAURAN NEERGAARD, AP Medical Writer 32 minutes ago President Bush outlined a $7.1 billion strategy Tuesday to prepare for the danger of a pandemic influenza outbreak, saying he wanted to stockpile enough vaccine to protect 20 million Americans against the current strain of bird flu.The president also said the United States must approve liability protection for the makers of lifesaving vaccines. He said the number of American vaccine manufacturers has plummeted because the industry has been hit with a flood of lawsuits. Bush said no one knows when or where a deadly strain...
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U.S. Food Supply New Target for Terrorists Monday, October 24, 2005 •Report: Terrorists May Target Milk Supply WASHINGTON — Buildings, trains, ships and, now, the U.S. food supply are all potential targets that the U.S. government is trying to protect from a possible terrorist attack. Ever since plans to attack American agriculture were found in the caves of Afghanistan, Homeland Security (search) has been planning for an assault on the nation's meat and milk supply or an attempt to contaminate the seeds used to grow vegetables. Please click on the video box on the right to watch a full report...
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While official Washington has been poring over Harriet Miers’ long-ago doings on the Dallas City Council and parsing the Byzantine comings and goings of the Fitzgerald grand jury, relatively unnoticed was perhaps the most momentous event of our lifetime — what is left of it, as I shall explain. It was announced that American scientists have just created a living, killing copy of the 1918 “Spanish” flu. This is big. Very big. First, it is a scientific achievement of staggering proportions. The Spanish flu has not been seen on this blue planet for 85 years. Its re-creation is a story...
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THE growing threat of lethal bird flu spreading across Europe will soar to the top of EU leaders' menu this week, after the deadly Asian strain of the virus landed on the continent for the first time. Scientists and the European Union's political chiefs are battling to allay public panic after the H5N1 virus was confirmed in Romania at the weekend, only two days after its presence was identified in Turkey. EU foreign ministers will discuss the outbreak at emergency talks in Luxembourg Tuesday, while the bird flu scare will inevitably dominate the agenda of a meeting of EU health...
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Good Health Habits Good health habits are also an important way to help prevent the Flu. Avoid close contact. Avoid close contact with people who are sick. When you are sick, keep your distance from others to protect them from getting sick too. Stay home when you are sick. If possible, stay home from work, school, and errands when you are sick. You will help prevent others from catching your illness. Cover your mouth and nose. Cover your mouth and nose with a tissue when coughing or sneezing. It may prevent those around you from getting sick. Clean your...
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Bird flu 'will kill 50,000 people, but not this year' By David Derbyshire (Filed: 17/10/2005) A bird flu pandemic would kill about 50,000 people in Britain but will not necessarily strike this winter, the Government's chief medical officer said yesterday. Sir Liam Donaldson said that it was a question of "when, not if" the disease infecting birds in Asia and the fringes of eastern Europe mutated into a deadly form of human influenza. Sir Liam: deaths could be higher than 50,000 The number of deaths in Britain could reach 750,000 if the human strain were particularly serious, although a lower...
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WASHINGTON - The Bush administration is scrambling to prepare the nation for a possible global rampage by a new flu germ that it fears could kill nearly 2 million Americans, sicken tens of millions more and shatter the economy. The key question is how much preparation can be done before a calamity strikes that, in a worst-case scenario, could make the health system collapse; overwhelm morgues; close schools, airports and harbors; end public gatherings; require strict quarantines; and cripple businesses and vital public services by mass absenteeism. "You're looking at a nation-busting event," warned Tara O'Toole, director of the Center...
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AP SCIENCE WRITER NEW YORK -- Bird flu virus found in a Vietnamese girl was resistant to the main drug that's being stockpiled in case of a pandemic, a sign that it's important to keep a second drug on hand as well, a researcher said Friday. He said the finding was no reason to panic. The drug in question, Tamiflu, still attacks "the vast majority of the viruses out there," said Yoshihiro Kawaoka of the University of Tokyo and the University of Wisconsin-Madison. The drug, produced by Swiss-based Roche Holding AG, is in short supply as nations around the world...
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Washington--From North Dakota to Texas, cattle have been dying by the hundreds from what some claim is the largest anthrax outbreak on record. Vaccination is an effecient, effective defense, experts say. At presstime, North Dakota officials estimated 500 dead bison and cattle and 101 quarantined premises. South Dakota claims at least 400 cattle have died from anthrax exposure on 53 premises. In Texas, two ranches were quarantined following antrax detection among deer, cattle and horses. Although the term "anthrax" often incites bioterrorism fears, the naturally occurring bacterial spore is endemic from the Gulf of Mexico through the Great Plains, experts...
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BART said it was increasing security today in response to reports of a threat against the New York subway system. The system has operated on a heightened security alert, level orange, since the first London subway attack on July 7. After learning of the New York threat, BART said it was going on "an enhanced heightened alert." Bathrooms at underground stations, which have been closed since shortly after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, remain locked. BART says it worries that chemical or biological poisons could be spread into an underground station through a bathroom's ventilation system. San Francisco Municipal...
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UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - Avian flu will mutate and become transmissible by humans and the world has no time to lose to stop it becoming a pandemic, the head of the U.N. World Health Organization said on Thursday. Lee Jong-wook, a South Korean doctor, delivered his stark warning as the United States worked to rally states behind a new U.S. plan to fight the disease, which has already killed more than 60 people in Asia and spread to Russia and Europe. "Human influenza is coming, we know that, and no government, no leaders can afford to be caught off-guard," Lee...
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Government scientists who want to find out how fast and far a chemical attack could move through a city will release colorless, harmless gases in subways, an office building and some of Manhattan's most crowded streets to see which way the wind blows them. Ultimately scientists hope they can produce a computerized model of air flow patterns that could help authorities decide where to evacuate people and in which direction after a bioterrorist attack. ``You can use those models to say, `What if something happened here?''' said James Allwine, an engineer with the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory in Richland, Wash....
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Gay men should be able to donate blood, students say College group pressures Red Cross By STEVEN BODZIN Los Angeles Times July 11. 2005 8:06AM WASHINGTON - For more than a decade, gay rights advocates have grumbled about a federal policy that forbids blood donation by men who have had sex with men. They say that the policy, originally intended to keep HIV-positive blood from entering the nation's blood supply, implies gay men are inherently sick and that it prevents healthy people from donating. Occasional protests and talks with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, which oversees blood banks, have...
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WASHINGTON - A scientific article that says terrorists could poison thousands of people through the milk supply — withheld at first at the government's request — is being published despite continuing objections after the National Academy of Sciences concluded it wouldn't help attackers. The study by Lawrence M. Wein and Yifan Liu of Stanford University discusses such questions as how terrorists could release botulinum toxin into the U.S. milk supply and what effective amounts might be. Bruce Alberts, president of the Academy, said in an accompanying editorial that a terrorist would not learn anything useful from the article about the...
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WASHINGTON, June 7 (Reuters) - The threat of biochemical attacks by al Qaeda has declined, but the availability of agents and the group's professed interest in using them make the danger very real, a top German counterterrorism official said on Tuesday. "Why are we focusing on biological terrorism? We do so because it fits very well into the strategy, into the thinking of modern terrorists," Georg Witschel, counterterrorism coordinator at Germany's Foreign Ministry, told a biosecurity conference in Washington. "Looking at al Qaeda, since they have lost their territorial base, and since state sponsoring is in general declining, the probability...
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WASHINGTON, April 26 (UPI) -- Terrorists could spread smallpox via infected letters, similar to the 2001 U.S. anthrax attacks, bioweapon experts told United Press International. The experts' comments were spurred by an article in the May issue of Emerging Infectious Diseases, which describes twin outbreaks of smallpox in 1901 that were traced to infected letters. Officials from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta doubted that smallpox could be spread through infected letters, but several bioweapons experts thought otherwise. D.A. Henderson, of the Center for Biosecurity at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, said it was possible to...
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Among the concerns is the possibility terrorists on a suicide mission might deliberately travel to Marburg-infested areas and then travel back to the capital of Luanda on their way to the West. A severe form of hemorrhagic fever akin to Ebola, the Marburg virus spreads on contact with the fluids the body produces in reaction to it, such as blood, urine, excrement, vomit and saliva.
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