hi ho...too many dead scientists...
Is the mysterious death of Dr David Kelly
Linked to the many other
strange deaths of Microbiologists?
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Scientists' deaths are under the microscope
Alanna Mitchell, Simon Cooper And Carolyn Abraham Saturday, May 4, 2002 - globe and mail
It's a tale only the best conspiracy theorist could dream up.
Eleven microbiologists mysteriously dead over the span of just five months. Some of them world leaders in developing weapons-grade biological plagues. Others the best in figuring out how to stop millions from dying because of biological weapons. Still others, experts in the theory of bioterrorism.
Throw in a few Russian defectors, a few nervy U.S. biotech companies, a deranged assassin or two, a bit of Elvis, a couple of Satanists, a subtle hint of espionage, a big whack of imagination, and the plot is complete, if a bit reminiscent of James Bond.
The first three died in the space of just over a week in November. Benito Que, 52, was an expert in infectious diseases and cellular biology at the Miami Medical School. Police originally suspected that he had been beaten on Nov. 12 in a carjacking in the medical school's parking lot. Strangely enough, though, his body showed no signs of a beating. Doctors then began to suspect a stroke.
Just four days after Dr. Que fell unconscious came the mysterious disappearance of Don Wiley, 57, one of the foremost microbiologists in the United States. Dr. Wiley, of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute at Harvard University, was an expert on how the immune system responds to viral attacks such as the classic doomsday plagues of HIV, ebola and influenza.
He had just bought tickets to take his son to Graceland the following day. Police found his rental car on a bridge outside Memphis, Tenn. His body was later found in the Mississippi River. Forensic experts said he may have had a dizzy spell and have fallen off the bridge.
Just five days after that, the world-class microbiologist and high-profile Russian defector Valdimir Pasechnik, 64, fell dead. The pathologist who did the autopsy, and who also happened to be associated with Britain's spy agency, concluded he died of a stroke.
Dr. Pasechnik, who defected to the United Kingdom in 1989, played a huge role in Russian biowarfare and helped to figure out how to modify cruise missiles to deliver the agents of mass biological destruction.
The next two deaths came four days apart in December. Robert Schwartz, 57, was stabbed and slashed with what police believe was a sword in his farmhouse in Leesberg, Va. His daughter, who identifies herself as a pagan high priestess, and several of her fellow pagans have been charged.
Dr. Schwartz was an expert in DNA sequencing and pathogenic micro-organisms, who worked at the Center for Innovative Technology in Herndon, Va.
Four days later, Nguyen Van Set, 44, died at work in Geelong, Australia, in a laboratory accident. He entered an airlocked storage lab and died from exposure to nitrogen. Other scientists at the animal diseases facility of the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization had just come to fame for discovering a virulent strain of mousepox, which could be modified to affect smallpox.
Then in February, the Russian microbiologist Victor Korshunov, 56, an expert in intestinal bacteria of children around the world, was bashed over the head near his home in Moscow. Five days later the British microbiologist Ian Langford, 40, was found dead in his home near Norwich, England, naked from the waist down and wedged under a chair. He was an expert in environmental risks and disease.
Two weeks later, two prominent microbiologists died in San Francisco. Tanya Holzmayer, 46, a Russian who moved to the U.S. in 1989, focused on the part of the human molecular structure that could be affected best by medicine.
She was killed by fellow microbiologist Guyang (Matthew) Huang, 38, who shot her seven times when she opened the door to a pizza delivery. Then he shot himself.
The final two deaths came one day after the other in March. David Wynn-Williams, 55, a respected astrobiologist with the British Antarctic Survey, who studied the habits of microbes that might survive in outer space, died in a freak road accident near his home in Cambridge, England. He was hit by a car while he was jogging.
The following day, Steven Mostow, 63, known as Dr. Flu for his expertise in treating influenza, and a noted expert in bioterrorism, died when the airplane he was piloting crashed near Denver.
So what does any of it mean?
"Statistically, what are the chances?" wondered a prominent North American microbiologist reached last night at an international meeting of infectious-disease specialists in Chicago.
Janet Shoemaker, director of public and scientific affairs of the American Society for Microbiology in Washington, D.C., pointed out yesterday that there are about 20,000 academic researchers in microbiology in the U.S. Still, not all of these are of the elevated calibre of those recently deceased.
She had a chilling, final thought. When microbiologists die in a lab, there's a way of taking note of the deaths and adding them up. When they die in freakish accidents outside the lab, nobody keeps track.
Suspicious deaths
The sudden and suspicious deaths of 11 of the world's leading microbiologists.
Who they were:
1. Nov. 12, 2001:
Benito Que was said to have been beaten in a Miami parking lot and died later.
2. Nov. 16, 2001:
Don C. Wiley went missing. Was found Dec. 20. Investigators said he got dizzy on a Memphis bridge and fell to his death in a river.
3. Nov. 21, 2001:
Vladimir Pasechnik, former high-level Russian microbiologist who defected in 1989 to the U.K. apparently died from a stroke.
4. Dec. 10, 2001:
Robert M. Schwartz was stabbed to death in Leesberg, Va. Three Satanists have been arrested.
5. Dec. 14, 2001:
Nguyen Van Set died in an airlock filled with nitrogen in his lab in Geelong, Australia.
6. Feb. 9, 2002:
Victor Korshunov had his head bashed in near his home in Moscow.
7. Feb. 14, 2002:
Ian Langford was found partially naked and wedged under a chair in Norwich, England.
8. 9. Feb. 28, 2002:
San Francisco resident Tanya Holzmayer was killed by a microbiologist colleague, Guyang Huang, who shot her as she took delivery of a pizza and then apparently shot himself.
10. March 24, 2002:
David Wynn-Williams died in a road accident near his home in Cambridge, England.
11. March 25, 2002:
Steven Mostow of the Colorado Health Sciences Centre, killed in a plane he was flying near Denver.
COMPILED BY ALANNA MITCHELL
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Scientists Killed For Weapons Programs
Wed Mar 23, 2005 - MACON,GA.- Although advances in science and technology improve prospects for developing innovative medical treatments, scientific advancements also lay the groundwork for the development, and use, of dangerous weapons of mass destruction.
Somewhere between 10 and 17 countries now possess biological weapons (BW) programs. Furthermore, a bizarre string of suspicious deaths of prominent, world-class microbiologists, who engaged in DNA sequencing-research, has triggered suspicion of cover-up of the development of ethnic-specific BW programs.
The theory is that weapons can be biologically manipulated through DNA sequencing to target certain ethnic groups with slight genetic features not prevalent in other groups at the same percentages.
Harvard University microbiologist, Don C. Wiley, disappeared in 2001. His body was found in the Mississippi River, 300 miles from where his abandoned rental car was parked. He had been exploring DNA sequencing, which is key to the development of ethnic-specific BW.
Three days before Wiley's disappearance, University of Miami Medical School Microbiologist Benito Que, was beaten to death in a parking lot. He was also a DNA-sequencing specialist.
Russian defector and renowned Microbiologist Vladimir Pasechnik, 64, was found dead at his home in the UK, one week after meeting with Wiley in Boston to talk over DNA sequencing.
North Korean Microbiologist, Dr. Ri Chae Woo, was working on a whites-only ethnic-specific BW when he defected from his underground laboratory at Chubari Chemical Corporation in Anbyon, North Korea. It is theorized that either the Chinese government or some Western intelligence agency intercepted him.
Some have suggested that DNA-sequencing research must be carefully monitored so that it won't be used to produce genetic weapons aimed at racial or ethnic groups, as well as at plants or animals. Perhaps the scientists who died under suspicious circumstances agreed.
In its report, Emerging Technologies: Genetic Engineering and Biological Weapons, The Sunshine Project urges governments to ensure maximum transparency in their bio-defense programs, and to immediately abandon any project that violates the Chemical and Biological Weapons Conventions Act. These steps would help to prevent the hostile exploitation of biology, the report says.
The most incriminating evidence of the existence of BW programs, particularly in Israel and the United States proves to be the relationships and odd connections between scientific academia and intelligence agencies.
At the same time that some nations are moving forward with BW research and development, some nations' attempts to participate with BW research are being thwarted by the elimination of scientific community.
For instance, more than 300 Iraqi scientists, particularly those with knowledge of nuclear, chemical or biological weapons, have been assassinated, since the U.S invaded the country. One source reported that more than a 1000 leading Iraqi professionals and intellectuals were assassinated within a 12-month period.
In a Washington Post article last year, Congressman Steve Buyer blamed Iraqi insurgents for the assassinations, but top Iraqi scientists and engineers last year told the Christian Science Monitor they believe Israel and the U.S. were responsible for the assassinations.
Usama al-Ani, director of the research and development department in the Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research in Iraq, said in an Aljazeera article, that he believes top Iraqi scientists are being targeted by foreign powers, most probably Israel. Al-Ani said Iraqi universities have lost 1315 scientists, or eight percent of the 15,500 Iraqi academics, holding MA and Ph.D. degrees.
If correct, some scientists are targeted for opposing the creation of biological weapons while others are targeted to exclude their participation in any weapons program.
If globally, we commit to developing defensive biological products such as medicines and vaccines instead of weapons of mass destruction, the deaths of scientists would be unnecessary [webmasters note: er say what???] and with all the brilliant minds, our world would have less illness. - Kenneth Wayne Yarbrough
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Dead Microbiologists Linked to Ethno-Specific BioWeapons
August 10, 2003 - From Patricia Doyle, PhD source
dr_p_doyle@hotmail.com
Hello, Jeff - Note the following exerpt from the article enclosed. I remember when I first read each news report about the death of separate microbiologists. Absolutely no one considered the fact that the deaths of the various microbiologists, especially the first five - Dr. Que, Wiley, Schwartz, Paschnek and Dr. Nguyen - were related. The press simply reported each death as it occurred and did not put the deaths together. In essence, no one connected the dots until you and I discussed the connection on your program.
It would appear that Dr. Kelly is related to the microbiologist deaths phonomenon. Please note the excerpt below. In the scheme of things, I wonder where Ken Alibek fits in? He is definitely one dot that I believe (allegedly) connects to, not only the microbiologist deaths, but the Anthrax attacks of 2001. I also believe that (allegedly) Don Rumsfeld is another dot.
If you remember, when we connected the dots i.e. put the deaths together, I discussed the possibility that each scientist had a "piece of the puzzle" in regard to a "target specific" bioweapon. I am wondering if SARS, somehow fits into the puzzle? Was SARS developed in China, or Israel? Does make one wonder.
Excerpt:
"The two American scientists he had worked with were Benito Que, 52, and Don Wiley, 57. Both microbiologists had been engaged in DNA sequencing that could provide "a genetic marker based on genetic profiling." The research could play an important role in developing weaponized pathogens to hit selected groups of humans"identifying them by race. Two years ago, both men were found dead, in circumstances never fully explained."
Microbiologists With Link to Race-Based Weapon Turning Up Dead
More on Kelly... True or False?
Exclusive to American Free Press By Gordon Thomas 8-10-3
Dr. David Kelly - the biological warfare weapons specialist at the heart of the continuing political crisis for the British government - had links to three other top microbiologists whose deaths have left unanswered questions.
The 59-year-old British scientist was involved with ultra secret work at Israel's Institute for Biological Re search. Israeli sources claim Kelly met institute scientists several times in London in the past two years.
Israel has not signed the Biological Weapons and Toxins Convention, an international treaty ratified by more than 140 countries. It forbids the development, possession and use of offensive biological and chemical weapons.
The CIA, FBI and MI5 are now examining Kelly's connections. Their findings could form part of the British government's inquiry into the background of Kelly's death, which opened last week.
The intelligence investigation is believed to have originated in Washington, where it emerged that Kelly had contacts with two companies in the U.S. bio-defense industry.
One of the men he was in touch with was a former Russian defector, Kamovtjan Alibekov. When he arrived in America, he changed his name to Ken Alibek. He is now president of Hadron Advanced Biosystems - a company specializing in medicines against biological terrorist attacks. Kelly was himself considering resigning from his senior post at the Ministry of Defense to work in America. Before his death, he had been discreetly headhunted by two companies. One was Hadron Advanced Biosystems, which has close ties to the Pentagon.
Hadron describes itself as "a company specializing in the development of technical solutions for the U.S. intelligence community." Hadron also has links to William Patrick, who has five classified patents on the process of developing weaponized anthrax. He is a biowarfare consultant to both the Pentagon and the CIA.
The other company is Regma Biotechnologies - one that Kelly helped its founder, Vladimir Pasechnik, to set up in Britain, arranging for it to have a laboratory at Porton Down, the country's chem-bio warfare defense establishment.
Regma currently has a contract with the U.S. Navy for "the diagnostic and therapeutic treatment of anthrax."
Kelly had told family friends he wanted to go to America so that he could obtain the specialized treatment his wife, Janice, requires. "He also felt that working in the U.S. private sector would relieve him of the intense pressures which came with his government work," said a colleague in the Ministry of Defense.
The two American scientists he had worked with were Benito Que, 52, and Don Wiley, 57. Both microbiologists had been engaged in DNA sequencing that could provide "a genetic marker based on genetic profiling." The research could play an important role in developing weaponized pathogens to hit selected groups of humans - identifying them by race. Two years ago, both men were found dead, in circumstances never fully explained.
In November 2001, Que left his laboratory after receiving a telephone call. Shortly afterward he was found comatose in the parking lot of the Miami Medical School. He died without regaining consciousness.
Police said he had suffered a heart attack. His family insisted he had been in perfect health and claimed four men attacked him. But, later, oddly, the family inquest returned a verdict of death by natural causes.
Many questions remain about Que's death:
Who was the mystery caller who sent Que hurrying from his lab hours before he was scheduled to leave? What attempts did the police make to track the four mystery men - after admitting Que was the "probable" victim of an attempt to steal his car? What were his links to the U.S. Department of Defense? What happened to his sensitive research into DNA sequencing? How close were his connections to Kelly?
A few days after Que died, Wiley disappeared off a bridge spanning the Mississippi River. He had just left a banquet for fellow researchers in Memphis.
Weeks later, Wiley's body was found 300 miles down river. As with Que, his family said he was in perfect health. There was no autopsy. The local medical examiner returned a verdict of accidental death. It was suggested he had a dizzy spell and fell off the bridge.
Again, there remain many unanswered questions concerning Wiley's demise:
Why did Wiley park his car on the bridge? Why did he leave the keys in the ignition and his lights on? Why was Wiley's car facing in the opposite direction from his father's house, which was only a short distance away? What happened to his research into DNA sequencing? How close were his connections to Kelly?
Kelly, himself an expert on DNA sequencing when he was head of microbiology at Porton Down, had been kept fully abreast of the two men's research.
The death of a third microbiologist - Vladimir Pasechnik, 64 - has left even more questions.
Kelly had played a key role in debriefing Pasechnik when he fled to Britain in 1989, bringing with him details of Russian plans to use cruise missiles to spread smallpox and plague, the Black Death of medieval times, which killed a third of Europe's population. Before the plans could be brought to completion, the Soviet Union had collapsed. Pasechnik had warned Kelly and his MI6 debriefers that the weapons could be used by terror groups - using missiles obtained from China or North Korea.
Kelly, with government approval, had helped Pasechnik create Regma Biotechnologies. Regma was allowed to set up a laboratory in Porton Down.
Research there is classified as top secret. However, in August 2002, the company obtained a contract with the U.S. Navy for "the diagnostic and therapeutic treatment of anthrax."
On Nov. 16, 2001, Pasechnik was found dead in bed - 10 days after he and Wiley had met in Boston to discuss the latest developments in DNA sequencing.
It was only a month later that Christopher Davis, a former MI6 officer and a specialist in DNA sequencing as a potential weapon, announced Pasechnik's death.
Davis had retired from MI6 and settled in Great Falls, Va. He confirmed to a reporter that Pasechnik was dead - from a stroke - a month after the microbiologist had been buried.
Details of the postmortem were not revealed at an inquest, in which the press was given no prior notice. Colleagues who had worked with Pasechnik said he was in good health.
Why was it left to Davis to announce Pasechnik's death? Who authorized the announcement? Did an MI6 pathologist conduct the autopsy, as one source close to the service claims? Why did Pasechnik continue to visit Porton Down up to a week before his death? Who authorized his security clearance to enter one of the most restricted establishments in Britain?
Kelly's links to the Institute of Biological Research in the Tel Aviv suburb of Nes Zions are also intriguing.
His connection to the secret biological plant began in October 2001, shortly after a commercial flight en route from Israel to Novosibirsk in Siberia was blown up over the Black Sea by a Ukrainian surface-to-air missile.
All on board the flight were killed, including five Russian microbiologists returning to their research institute in Novosibirsk - a city known as the scientific capital of Siberia. It has 50 facilities and 13 universities.
Many questions remain about the death of these five scientists. Why did Mossad send a team to Ukraine to investigate the crash? What became of their report after it was submitted to the Israeli government? Why do the Ukrainian authorities still insist they cannot reveal the name of the dead microbiologists? Did Pasechnik know them - or, more importantly, did Kelly?
The Institute for Biological Research is one of the most secret places in Israel. Only Dimona, the country's nuclear facility in the Negev desert, is surrounded by more secrecy. Most of the institute's 12 acres of facilities are underground. Laboratories are only reached through airlocks.
There have been persistent reports that the institute is also engaged in DNA sequencing research. One former member of the Knesset, Dedi Zucker, caused a storm in the Israeli Parliament when he claimed that the institute was "trying to create an ethnic specific weapon" in which Arabs could be targeted by Israeli weapons.
Patricia A. Doyle, PhD Please visit my "Emerging Diseases" message board at: http://www.clickitnews.com/ubbthreads/postlist.php?Cat=&Board=emergingdiseases Zhan le Devlesa tai sastimasa Go with God and in Good Health
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NUMBER |
SCIENTISTS |
AGE |
CIRCUMSTANCE |
DATE |
| |
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#1 |
Jose Trias
|
|
Murdered |
May 19, 1994 |
|
#2 |
Dr. Tsunao Saitoh |
46 |
Murdered |
May 7, 1996
|
|
#3-7
|
Microbiologists |
|
Plane crash |
October 4, 2001 |
|
#8 |
Jeffrey Paris Wall |
41 |
Murdered? |
November 6, 2001 |
|
#9 |
Dr.Vladimir Pasechnik |
64 |
Stroke |
November 21, 2001 |
|
#10-12 |
Dr.Yaakov Matzner, Amiramp Eldor,
& Avishai Berkman |
54,
59,50 |
Plane
crash |
November
24, 2001 |
|
#13 |
Roman Kuzmin |
24 |
Struck by a car |
December 2001 |
|
#14 |
Dr. Benito Que |
52 |
Mugging |
December 6, 2001 |
|
#15 |
Dr. David Schwartz |
57 |
Murdered |
December 10, 2001 |
|
#16 |
Set Van Nguyen |
44 |
Found in airlock chamber |
December 14, 2001 |
|
#17 |
Don C. Wiley |
57 |
Body found by river |
December 20,2001 |
|
#18 |
Ivan Glebov |
|
Bandit attack |
January 2002 |
|
#19 |
Alexi Brushlinski |
|
Killed/murdered?
|
January 2002 |
|
#20 |
Victor Korshunov |
56 |
Murdered |
February 9, 2002
|
|
#21 |
Dr. Ian Langford |
40 |
Murdered |
February 11, 2002 |
|
#22-23 |
Tanya Holzmayer &
Guyang
"Mathew" Huang |
46,
38 |
Murder
then suicide |
February
28, 2002 |
|
#24 |
David Wynn-Williams |
55 |
Struck by vehicle |
March 24, 2002 |
|
#25 |
Dr. Steven Mostow |
63 |
Plane
crash |
March 25, 2002 |
|
#26 |
Dr. Leland Rickman |
47 |
Unknown |
June 24, 2003 |
|
#27
|
Dr. David Kelly |
59 |
Suicide?/ Murder |
July 18, 2003 |
|
#28 |
Michael Perich |
46 |
Car
wreck |
October 11, 2003 |
|
#29 |
Robert Leslie Burghoff |
45 |
Hit and run |
November
20, 2003 |
|
#30 |
Dr Robert E. Shope
|
74 |
Idiopathic
Pulmonary Fibrosis |
January 19, 2004 |
|
#31 |
Michael Patrick Kiley |
62 |
Heart failure |
January 24, 2004 |
|
#32 |
Vadake
Srinivasan |
78 |
Stroke/Car
wreck |
March 13, 2004 |
|
#33 |
William T. McGuire |
39 |
Murdered |
May 5, 2004 |
|
#34 |
Dr. Eugene F. Mallove |
56 |
Murdered |
May 16, 2004 |
|
#35 |
Antonina Presnyakova |
46 |
Accidental/Ebola |
May 19, 2004 |
|
#36 |
Thomas gold |
84 |
Heart disease
|
June 23, 2004 |
|
#37 |
Dr. Assefa
Tulu |
45 |
Hemorrhagic
stroke |
June 24, 2004 |
|
#38 |
Dr. John Mullen |
67 |
Acute
arsenic intoxication |
June 29, 2004 |
|
#39 |
Dr Paul Norman |
52 |
Plane
crash |
July 2, 2004 |
|
#40 |
Dr. John Badwey |
54 |
Pneumonia like symptoms |
July 21, 2004 |
|
#41 |
Dr Bassem
al-Mudare |
|
Murdered |
July 21, 2004 |
|
#42
|
Professor John Clark |
52 |
Hanging |
August 12, 2004 |
|
#43 |
Mohammed Toki Hussein al-Talakani |
40 |
Murdered |
September 5, 2004 |
|
#44 |
Matthew Allison |
32 |
Car
exploded |
October 13, 2004 |
|
#45 |
John R. La Montagne,
Ph.D |
61 |
Sudden pulmonary embolism |
November 2, 2004 |
|
#46 |
Taleb
Ibrahim al-Daher |
|
Murdered |
December 21, 2004 |
|
#47-48 |
Tom
Throne & Beth
Williams |
63, 53 |
Car wreck |
December 29, 2004 |
|
#49 |
Jeong
H. Im |
72 |
Murdered |
January 7, 2005 |
|
#50 |
Geetha
Angara |
43 |
Murdered/Drowned |
February 8, 2005 |
|
|
The two American scientists he (Kelly) had worked with were Benito Que, 52, and Don Wiley, 57. Both microbiologists had been engaged in DNA sequencing that could provide "a genetic marker based on genetic profiling." The research could play an important role in developing weaponized pathogens to hit selected groups of humansidentifying them by race. Two years ago, both men were found dead, in circumstances never fully explained.
source [also thanks to Alex Jones]
google search genome specific bio warfare
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Quayle: Another clue is the racespecific and genetic-specific nature of some of these weapons systems. Let me give you the name of a guy who's been in the news. You can go on the BBC and type in this name on the Internet, and you'll get the whole background. The name is: Wouter Basson. He's known as "Dr. Death" in South Africa, and he was working on race-specific biological pathogens.
Martin: I've heard about that.
Quayle: The British Ministry of Defense stated that between 1940-1980 they ran over 100 different tests of germs on the British citizens.
Martin: Porton Down has been busy for a long time.
Quayle: And' by the way, I'm on record as stating that both Mad Cow and the virulent form of Hoof-and-Mouth Disease, both came from Porton Down, and they were intentional releases.
source (interview with author Steve Quayle)
The CIA Views the Future in 'The darker bioweapons future'
[pdf file]
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Plague virus samples 'LOST'
"Thomas Butler, the scientist who lost plague samples and prompted a national bioterrorism scare, goes to trial on November 3rd. Butler faces 69 federal counts and a possible penalty totaling $17 million in fines and more than 200 years in prison.
The Department of Justice (DOJ) doesnt publicly comment on the case; but news reports say that it is using Butler as an object lesson for scientists working with bioweapons agents. Purportedly, that lesson is "dont play loose with disease samples".
Some scientists and scientific organizations are rallying to Butler's cause. They say that the charges are grossly disproportionate to mistakes committed. Some allege that the Butler prosecution will make the US vulnerable by scaring scientists away from biodefense research. The case has been characterized as one pitting scientific freedom and treatments for disease against an overzealous DOJ that simply does not understand the culture of life scientists."
The Thomas Butler Case: Some Unreported Information
And Reasons for the Department of Justice's Prosecution
sunshine project
Crackdown On Bioterror Backfiring As Leading Scientist Faces Court
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"The 'Spanish Flu' influenza virus that killed 20-40 million people in 1918 is currently under reconstruction. Several genes of the extraordinarily lethal 1918 flu virus have been isolated and introduced into contemporary flu strains. These proved to be lethal for mice, while virus constructs with genes from a current flu virus types had hardly any effect. These experiments may easily be abused for military purposes, but provide little benefit from a medical or public health point of view."
Lethal Virus from 1918 Genetically Reconstructed
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Outcry over creation of GM smallpox virus
22 January 2005
Senior scientific advisers to the World Health Organisation (WHO) have recommended the creation of a genetically modified version of the smallpox virus to counter any threat of a bioterrorist attack.
Permitting researchers to engineer the genes of one of the most dangerous infections known to man would make it easier to develop new drugs against smallpox, the scientists said. But the man who led the successful global vaccination campaign to eradicate smallpox from the wild said he opposed the move on the grounds that the scientific benefits were not worth the risks to public health.
Professor Donald Henderson, of the Centre for Biosecurity at the University of Pittsburgh, said he feared that tinkering with the genetic makeup of the variola virus - which causes smallpox - might accidentally produce a more lethal form of the disease.
"What I worry about is that there is rather too much done in this area and the minute you start fooling around with it in various ways, I think there is a danger," Professor Henderson said. "I'd be happier if we were not doing it and the simple reason is I just don't think it serves a purpose I can support. The less we do with the smallpox virus and the less we do in the way of manipulation at this point I think the better off we are."
Laboratory stocks of smallpox are stored at only two locations - one in America and one in Russia - but there are fears that samples of the virus may have fallen into the hands of terrorists.
Scientists advising the WHO believe that creating a GM form of the virus would accelerate research into developing new antivirals. The WHO is due to consider the recommendations of its scientific committee at the world health assembly in May.
Four years ago, scientists in Australia genetically modified a mousepox virus and inadvertently created a highly virulent strain that could not be stopped by vaccination. But the WHO insisted the latest proposal to engineer the human smallpox virus was inherently safer.
Professor Geoffrey Smith of Imperial College London, who chairs the WHO committee for variola virus research, said American scientists simply wanted to insert a jellyfish gene, which produced a glow under fluorescent light, in order to see the virus better under the microscope.
"The reason why the proposal was made and the reason why the committee was prepared to consider it was that it is clear that there is a need to develop drugs against the virus," Professor Smith said. "The quickest way to screen a large database of compounds is to have an automated way and if you have a virus that expresses the green fluorescent protein you can do the drug screening in a much more rapid and automated way."
It is understood there are seven recommendations in the proposal, including permission to allow relatively large fragments of the virus - up to 20 per cent of its entire genome - to be shipped from the two secure laboratories to other research institutes in the world. Another recommendation allows Russian and US laboratories to snip small fragments of the virus and insert them into other members of the same pox-virus family.
Smallpox is one of the biggest killers in the history of infectious diseases. At least 300 million people died of it in the 20th century alone. It was eradicated in 1977. - independent
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Air Crash Victim Was Weapons Expert
By Sam Marsden, PA News
Fri 2 Jul 2004
The pilot of an aircraft who died alongside three passengers when it crashed into a field was an expert in chemical and biological weapons, it emerged today.
Dr Paul Norman, 52, of Salisbury, Wiltshire, was killed when the single-engine Cessna 206 he was piloting crashed in Devon on Sunday.
A father and daughter also died at the scene, and 44-year-old parachute instructor and Royal Marine Major Mike Wills later died in hospital.
Dr Norman, who was married with a 14-year-old son and a 20-year-old daughter, was the chief scientist for chemical and biological defence at the Ministry of Defences laboratory at Porton Down, Wiltshire. -
Scotsman
Professor John Clark
31/08/2004 -
Professor John Clark, who has died aged 52, was an expert in animal science and biotechnology and the Director of the Roslin Institute, near Edinburgh, where he developed techniques for the genetic modification of livestock; this work paved the way for the birth, in 1996, of Dolly the sheep, the first animal to have been cloned from an adult.
[snip]
Clark was appointed OBE in 1997, and elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh in 1999. He also contributed to numerous scientific committees and working groups. He died on August 12.
Telegraph
Porton Down's commercial arm is of course Bioport, supplier of the ill-tested anthrax vaccine Cipro The anthrax attacks post-911 were with the particular Ames strain of weaponised anthrax that originates or was verified at Porton Down before being shipped back to the Merck company in New Jersey near to where the anthrax mailings were made
The likelihood is that Porton and all the connected drug and military research units and their university outreach facilities are heavily implicated in the emerging virus and prion diseases - more from DH on Indymedia
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Squad seeks tips in death of researcher
A retired research assistant professor at the University of Missouri-Columbia died of multiple stab wounds before firefighters found in his body in the trunk of a burning car Friday.
Boone County Medical Examiner Valerie Rao said after an autopsy that Jeong H. Im, 72, of Columbia was stabbed several times, but she declined to elaborate.
MU police yesterday named Im as the victim. His body was found in the trunk of his burning white, 1995 Honda inside the Maryland Avenue parking garage, MU police Capt. Brian Weimer said.
The case was under investigation by the Mid-Missouri Major Case Squad. No arrests had been made by last night.
Weimer spoke to reporters at a news conference yesterday in Jesse Hall but declined to discuss details such as whether a murder weapon was recovered or the cause of the fire. - Columbia tribune
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A few days after firefighters found Im's body, a national radio talk-show guest theorized the killing was part of a plot to kill off key microbiologists in the world before unleashing "the ultimate epidemic."
Steve Quayle, a self-published author and newsletter writer from Bozeman, Mont., told listeners of "Coast to Coast AM" that Im was the 40th microbiologist to die under suspicious circumstances in four years and was perhaps among those specializing in vaccines and bio-weapons research. - source
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March 23, 2005 -
US Secret Police Forces (SSB) Bomb Biochemical Plant near Harvard University, 'Murdered' Scientist Dr. Don C. Wiley's Pioneering Work Destroyed
Sorcha faal
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Flashback to the Madrid bombings
The Madrid mass-murder had to have been perpetrated by people who wanted al Qa'eda implicated, because 1) they made the phone call taking credit for the attack; and, in conjunction with that, 2) they took steps to implicate al Qa'eda BEFORE the explosions by parking the van with the copy of the Holy Koran at the scene of the crime.
Comments:
The leaving of the vehicle as implicating evidence was used in the US on September 11, 2001.
Both the Spanish government, allied with George Bush and Tony Blair on the conquest and "reconstruction" of Iraq, and the US leadership, are in election seasons and desperately in need of fresh public support for unpopular war and "anti-terror" domestic policies to help them be returned to office in the coming elections. This motive is very strong.
I RECOMMEND THAT PEOPLE TAKE VERY SERIOUSLY THE STATEMENT BY THE CALLER CLAIMING RESPONSIBLITY FOR THE ATTACK, THAT A TERRIBLE PLAGUE WEAPON, WILL BE RELEASED IN THE NEAR FUTURE. I BELIEVE THAT THIS THREAT IS AN INTEGRAL PART OF THE ENTIRE OPERATION AND MAY IN FACT BE THE ENTIRE PURPOSE OF THE MADRID MASS-MURDER DECEPTION. THEY WANTED TO TIE AL QA'EDA TO THE BIO-CHEMICAL TERROR BEFORE THEY RELEASE IT, THEY WANTED THE IDEA OF "AL QA'EDA" ORIGIN FIRMLY PLANTED BY THE MADRID MASS-MURDER AND THE MASS-MURDERER'S PHONE CALL.
We Know Enough About
Madrid To Determine Who Did It By Richard P. Eastman MS, MA
'Black wind of death' will hit the US
"THE group which claimed responsibility for the Madrid train massacre threatened that America was on the verge of another deadly terror attack.
The group, speaking in the name of al Qaida, said plans to strike America with a "black wind of death" were at their final stage.
The warning was sent to the London-based Arabic newspaper, Al Quds, by The Brigade of Abu Hafs al-Masri.
It said: "We announce the good news for the Muslims in the world that the strike of the black wind of death, the expected strike against America, is 90% ready and it is coming soon."
The editor of Al Quds, Abdel Bari Atwan, said he believed the claim of responsibility was genuine.
He said: "In the past, the same organisation sent us similar letters. They claimed responsibility for the attacks against Italian troops in Iraq and in Istanbul against the British consulate. It is the routine of this kind of organisation to send these kind of e-mails."
In claiming responsibility for the Madrid attacks, the Brigade of Abu Hafs al-Masri said its "death squad" had penetrated "one of the pillars of the crusader alliance".
"This is part of settling old accounts with Spain, the crusader, and America's ally in its war against Islam," it said.
The suicide attacks in Istanbul killed 62 people during attacks on two synagogues on November 15 and two other simultaneous explosions at the British consulate and the HSBC bank five days later. "
Evening Times
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"the worst thing that could happen" is if terrorists acquire and then use a biological, chemical or nuclear weapon that inflicts heavy casualties.
If that happens, Franks said, "... the Western world, the free world, loses what it cherishes most, and that is freedom and liberty we've seen for a couple of hundred years in this grand experiment that we call democracy." Franks then offered "in a practical sense" what he thinks would happen in the aftermath of such an attack.
"It means the potential of a weapon of mass destruction and a terrorist, massive, casualty-producing event somewhere in the Western world it may be in the United States of America that causes our population to question our own Constitution and to begin to militarize our country in order to avoid a repeat of another mass, casualty-producing event.
Gen. Franks Doubts Constitution Will Survive WMD Attack
Biological & Chemical warfare - second sight magazine
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Mysterious death of WHO leader
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WHO chief Lee dies after blood clot surgery
By Richard Waddington GENEVA (Reuters) - 22nd May 2006 -
World Health Organization chief Lee Jong-wook of South Korea, his country's top international official, died on Monday after surgery to remove a blood clot from the brain, the United Nations agency said.
Lee, 61, had been WHO director-general since 2003 and was spearheading the organization's fight against the global threat of bird flu.
"I am sorry to tell you that Dr. Lee Jong-wook, director-general of the WHO, died this morning," Spain's Health Minister Elena Salgado, who was chairing the session, told the opening meeting of the agency's annual assembly.
Her voice trembling, Salgado described Lee as an "exceptional person and an exceptional director-general."
"Under his leadership, the WHO has been strengthened and has been able to give an effective response to world (health) problems," she said before asking delegates from the 192 member states to observe two minutes' silence.
Work at the annual assembly, which runs until Saturday, was briefly suspended. Flags at the U.N. European headquarters, where the assembly was being held, flew at half mast.
Lee's deputy, Anders Nordstrom of Sweden, would take over as acting head of the Geneva-based organization until elections for a new chief could be convened, the WHO said. Lee underwent an emergency operation on Saturday to remove a blood clot at the Cantonal Hospital of Geneva. He had been taken ill suddenly in the afternoon.
NO WARNING
The affable South Korean, who liked to pepper his press conferences with jokes, was a keen sportsman with no history of ill-health, officials said. "There was no warning, no nothing. It was a complete shock," said Iain Simpson, a WHO spokesman.
U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Mike Leavitt, who traveled to six countries in southeast Asia with Lee last year, praised the director-general for offering the WHO "visionary leadership and a cooperative spirit."
Lee's WHO career began in 1983 as an adviser on leprosy to its West Pacific office. An expert on vaccination, he won recognition for his work in the fight against polio, helping lower the global rate of contraction to less than one in 10,000 of world population.
In 2000, Lee became director of STOP TB, a coalition of more than 250 global partners including WHO member states, donors, non-governmental organizations and private foundations.
He was elected to the top job in world health in January 2003 and took office in July as the WHO was beginning to win its battle against SARS -- Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome -- the highly contagious respiratory disease which killed hundreds of people around the globe after spreading from China.
Within a year or so, the world was facing an even greater threat than SARS in the shape of bird flu, which experts fear could trigger a global pandemic in which millions may perish.
Bird flu is high on the agenda of the annual assembly, which will also debate whether or not to destroy the world's remaining stocks of smallpox as well as Taiwan's long-standing bid to win observership.
Lee is survived by his wife Reiko and a son.
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