“Much of our knowledge about biosafety has come from investigations into the mechanisms and activities that caused workers to become infected . . . However, historically the majority of individuals, over 80% in one report, diagnosed with laboratory-acquired infections, could not identify a known incident or breach in laboratory policy responsible for their infection. . . There were 77 individuals evaluated for potential exposures to 107 viral agents . . . [N]o vaccine existed for many of [these] viral agents. . . .” This Journal article also refers to instance after instance of the failure of existent vaccines to prevent infection.
The experience of one USAMRIID scientist who accidentally contracted a disease called “glanders” was described in the article as follows: “The individual, after a diagnostic liver biopsy, subsequently went into respiratory failure, necessitating intubation, [followed by] a 6-month course of treatment.” There is explicit acknowledgement in this article of “the risk of introducing communicable illnesses into the community at large.”
Also relevant to this question about death and injuries is the apparent incidence of cancer afflicting neighbors of Ft. Detrick due to water contamination, as outlined in my answer to a previous question. Also, there is the matter of the anthrax letters of 2001. It bears pointing out that according to the official account, the anthrax in the letters was developed at Ft. Detrick .
Q: Do you know what the budget is for biological research programs?
A: Spending on so-called “bio-defense” research greatly increased immediately after the anthrax letters. In the seven fiscal years following the anthrax letters, $48 billion was spent on “bio-defense.” There is another $9 billion budgeted in fiscal year 2009. Much of this is for the stockpiling of pharmaceuticals -- vaccines and remedies such as Cipro for anthrax.
The General Accounting Office and scientists like Richard Ebright of Rutgers University have suggested that the spending on research since 2001 has actually made this country less safe by vastly increasing the number of researchers and labs authorized to handle bacteria and viruses of bioterrorism concern, known as “select agents.” Ebright estimates that the number of labs so engaged has increased 20-fold since 2001. Today, there are about 1,400 public and private labs and about 14,000 scientists known to be involved.
Q: Arms control expert Milton Leitenberg has said there is no evidence of biowarfare capability on the part of any terrorist group. What do you make of that?
A: I have read two books by Mr. Leitenberg that pertain to the bioterrorism threat, and I have spoken to him several times about his work. Mr. Leitenberg is a conservative academic. In Assessing the Biological Weapons and Bioterrorism Threat, Mr. Leitenberg demonstrates that billions of federal expenditures have been appropriated in the absence of virtually any real threat analysis, and that the risk and imminence of the use of biological agents by non-state actors/terrorist organizations has been “systematically and deliberately exaggerated” by our government. It is noteworthy that this book was published in December, 2005, by none other than the Strategic Studies Institute of the U.S. Army War College . On its title page can be found the following statement: “This publication is a work of the United States Government . . .”
Q: Turning to the anthrax letters, what is Amerithrax?
A: Amerithrax is the FBI’s name for its investigation into the anthrax letters attacks of September-October, 2001. This investigation has become a cover-up and a fraud, a systematic and deliberate fraud that now attempts to pin exclusive responsibility for the attacks upon a USAMRIID immunologist named Bruce Ivins. After months of intense harassment by the FBI, Ivins died in July, 2008, it appears by suicide.
Q: Do you believe the anthrax attacks on Congress and the media in 2001 emanated from Ft. Detrick ?
A: The anthrax in the letters was of a particularly pernicious strain called the “Ames strain” of anthrax. After being discovered in a dead cow from Texas in 1981, the Ames strain made its way to Ft. Detrick , where it was originally cultivated as a potential bio-weapon. Bruce Ivins worked with the Ames strain at Ft. Detrick in the course of his efforts to derive an effective vaccine. According to the FBI’s genetic analysis, the anthrax in the letters was of a specific genotype designated RMR-1029. RMR-1029 was created by Bruce Ivins in 1997. Thereafter, Dr. Ivins was called upon to send RMR-1029 to various laboratories, including those at the Army’s Dugway Proving Ground in Utah , as well as those in Ohio owned and operated by the company named Battelle. So, it is likely that the anthrax came from Ft. Detrick . But the attacks “emanated” from either Battelle or Dugway, where the anthrax was converted from the “wet slurry” form it was in at Detrick to the powdered weaponized form found in the letters addressed to the Senators.
Since the FBI announced that Dr. Ivins was the lone culprit, two articles of mine have been published on the internet that set forth the strong evidence that the real source of the anthrax letters was one of our own secret anthrax weaponization projects being conducted by the CIA and the DIA at Battelle’s labs in Ohio and at the Army’s labs in Utah. “FBI Sweeps Anthrax Under the Rug” can be accessed at http://rockcreekfreepress.tumblr.com/post/46413512/fbi-sweeps-anthrax-under-the-rug. “Amerithrax Hoax” can be accessed at
http://www.opednews.com/articles/AMERITHRAX-HOAX-by-Barry-Kissin-090113-263.html or at http://anthraxvaccine.blogspot.com/2009/01/critique-of-chemical-signature.html.
Q: The anthrax letters had “Death to Israel ,” “Death to America ” and “Allah is Great” printed in them. This seems like a crude propaganda plant to make the public believe the letters were sent by persons from the Middle East or their sympathizers. I’ve also heard it said the Bush Administration leaked information at the time of the anthrax attacks that the letters came from the Muslim world. What do you make of that?
A: This aspect of the anthrax letters is what makes the anthrax letters a “false flag” operation. A “false flag” operation is one wherein a country stages an attack made to look like an attack by an enemy, so as to justify an (aggressive) attack upon that enemy. Clearly, elements in the Bush administration and in the media, for as long as they could get away with it, pretended that the anthrax letters came from Iraq . This played an unmistakable role in gathering support for the invasion of Iraq .
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