Of the many alarming parts of this article in the Washington Post about biological weapons research, which one would keep you awake at night?
On July 10, the day he was taken to a hospital for psychiatric evaluation, for example, Ivins spent part of the afternoon at a sensitive briefing on a new bubonic plague vaccine under development at the Army’s elite biological weapons testing center, according to a former colleague who talked with him there.
(A) People with known psychiatric problems were doing sensitive bioweapons research while the rest of us dealing with the "War on Terror" can’t go through an airport screening with more than 3 oz of shampoo;
(B) We have something that can be characterized in the newspaper of record as our "elite biological weapons testing center";
(C) "Bubonic plague"
Personally, I’m gonna go for (C). But perhaps we should be reassured that everything is under control, the very folks that made a bloody fortune from the avian flu "crisis" are at the ready to make another billion pretending to fight valiantly against another threat which they will help generate.
Ah yes, good old Dynport, where investors like Rumsfeld go to make their millions scaring the bejeezus out of the rest of us and then offering an expensive solution.
Rumsfeld made $5,000,000 from this program, I’m sure it’s from good investment advice. Remember the omnipresent articles on avian flu? They finally had to quit talking about it because even the most compromised public health people stopped cooperating with such a ridiculous scam.
The potential for a virus with an animal reservoir to jump to humans and cause a catastrophe needs to be researched by public health professionals who will take it seriously and look for answers. Instead this was another opportunity for them to scare people to justify a program that will "save" us from yet another manufactured disaster.
Can’t make money off of avian flu? Must find another way to frighten people and make money. I know! Bubonic plague!
It clearly doesn’t trouble their conscience that tests will be done on actual human beings: vaccine tests on our helpless troops, just as with the anthrax vaccines which made untold numbers of our military sick; and worse, disease tests on a third world population group too poor, powerless, and isolated to complain. Not that I have any particular country in mind *cough*.
Thing is, I have really long thick hair and 3 oz of shampoo just isn’t enough. They raised my irish when they declared that mascara was a weapon of mass destruction after the London incident. But to keep our focus on ridiculous security concepts like four oz of shampoo instead of three, when the big boys are stealing billions yet again from making us afraid, reminds me of a very old racket.
Republican government: Break your windshield, then give you a business card about their windshield repair service.
photo by lopolis




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ZED for old time’s sake! Hey, EG!
More fuckery!
(Hi egr, hi Loo Hoo)
Hey Loo Hoo!
Looks more like a bullet hole to me. Musta been NYPD.
Actually Ivins was just creating a market for his anthrax vaccine. Just good old “free enterprise”
Hi WWD and SD. Hope you’re not in pain, WWD.
Didn’t Bush make a show of taking an anthrax vaccination? I googled this, but no luck finding anything other than lots of our military people were sickened by it.
btw, egregious, what’s the difference between a vaccination and an immunization?
Here are some interesting tidbits on the Ivins almost closed case:
http://www.atlargely.com/2008/…..ey-te.html
Didn’t we all die of smallpox a few years ago too?
Aloha, Egregious!
Fear, fear, fear…!
*sigh* I miss FDR’s “The only thing we have to fear, is fear itself…”
I did but was reborn as a Marxist.
Then there’s Brownie’s good ole’ friend Joe Allbaugh and his connections to anthrax:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Allbaugh
I thought that whole therapist story stunk to high heaven the moment I heard it.
Hi Loo Hoo, WWD, EG and CT. Looks like the stuff following some British lord’s name.
This whole thing is rotten through and through. Goddamn FBI couldn’t find a whale in a swimming pool.
The ultimate word on fear from kung fu monkey. Makes me laugh every single time.
Oh yeah, and we all got killed by SARS too. Forgot about that one during my reincarnation..
You sure got that right, Sir Dragon!
Hey egregious
Who stands to benefit from biofearmongering?
SARS was for real for the people in Southeastern China, just sayin’
Dugg!
” The Foundation for Biomedical Research (FBR) condemns the firebombings which took place on Saturday, August 2nd at the homes of two University of California – Santa Cruz researchers. These attacks, which are considered acts of domestic terrorism and attempted homicide, are the culmination of the mounting threats and home attacks made by animal rights extremists over the past two years.
“These attacks are appalling and it is absolutely critical that the FBI swiftly apprehend the people who committed these felonies,” said FBR president Frankie Trull. “The FBI must make animal rights terrorism a primary concern before lives are lost. It is not only the researchers themselves who are at risk, but also their families. I urge researchers and administrators to take all necessary security precautions.”
yahoo link
Definitely. It was just the fear-mongering…that I’m referring to. Of course, it was awful…but they still try to profit from the fear.
This is disaster capitalism at its most refined: create the shock, apply the cure.
As long as the cure enriches cronies of The Regime, it will be enacted unquestioningly. Folks in shock want a cure, and don’t care too much who gets rich because of it.
And, by the way, how many other disturbed individuals are working in our bio-weapons labs? Is it the standard practice to hire scientists with long-documented records of threats to self and others? Will we ever know?
Priceless!
Heh, my Sweetie, Rachel, once again schooled Pat Buchanon! Why Obama is not obliged to pick Hillary as Veep…!
It was pretty real in Toronto too, and would have been worse if the health people hadn’t handled it as well as they did.
Egregious!
Good topic.
But the Bubonic Plague is so, y’know, ancient, and European and all that.
How about something closer to home? Like the Hantavirus?
Hmm. Spread by rodents and aerosolized virus. Maybe not as deadly as Anthrax, but with modern airmovers in large buildings, and the presence of rats and mice just about everywhere, there’s potential for a modern plague, too.
Bob in HI
Personally, I like the push to give Cipro to all and sundry. Don’t know who has stock in the relevant company, but when my Achilles’ tendons blew out (thanks be, only partially), just like the doggies in the tests summarized in the drug’s data sheet, I lost all confidence in current pharma. Cipro is apparently given to troops who then have to carry heavy packs; hard for me to think of a better way to cripple your own army. And I would imagine that any soldier who said he couldn’t walk was ostracized as a sissy. (Try walking sometime with your calf muscle up around your kneecap.) But, hey, anthrax could be anywhere, ya know?
Vaccination is an event that may or may not produce immunity. You can get a shot that protects you to a certain degree with a curve of declining protection over time. A lot of elderly people who were vaccinated against whooping cough have now lost significant immunity to it, and will need a booster.
Being shown as the fool by Rachel has got to drive the old reprobate crazy.
Hey, LS. that link doesn’t work?
Is this the link you were trying to share?
….where investors like Rumsfeld go to make their millions scaring the bejeezus out of the rest of us and then offering an expensive solution.
Didn’t they get that from a Clancy novel?
Hey Wandang, hey Loo Hoo. Thanks for the post egregious.
Mr.Cbl
I wonder
I think it’s the Bush/Cheney wing of the FBI only. There are lots of really good FBI types.
He was virtually sputtering when David cut in to end the show…! ;-)
Yes! Thanks.
David Gregory makes some pretty ugly little faces when Rachel truth-tells as well. I wouldn’t be surprised if he knows she might replace him as host. As she should!
I think I had hantavirus once. It tried its level best to kill me. No diagnosis. No treatment known to my GP. It ended with foam pouring up the airways out of my lungs. I think I picked it up at an international airport. Always marveled that whatever it was did not go big-time. If somebody told me that whatever that was was about to hit, *that* would get my attention.
yes the airport screening is bs. but it does not follow from what you have quoted that there was any problem with ivins continuing his work.
1. working on a vaccine is not necessarily the same thing as working on weapons research.
2. vaccine work does not necessarily include working with live pathogen.
3. even antibiotic resistant strains of Yersinia pestis only require biosafety level 3 containment – which means that while it poses a serious risk to researchers who use it, it is not considered a big public health risk.
can anyone with some medical knowledge correct me on the public health risk involved? this is from the cdc:
The sooner the better…! Good riddance…! 8-)
and upvote on reddit
Ouch! Sounds horrible.
THANK YOU! I’ve never understood the distinction.
SARS was pretty scary stuff. Killed the medical care workers, that’s serious contagion. One of my distant cousins was involved in the research on it in Europe.
as far as i can tell you all are fear mongering without reason.
Hiya, Mr.!
The advantage of the bubonic plague, if I may state it that way, is that people are already afraid of the phrase. No need for a whole new marketing program.
Hi! Love Austin. It’s getting hot here in San Diego now. It’s been really mild. It was sure fun meeting you all.
Yet they don’t dare call it terrorism when the right-wing nutjobs do shit like this.
Sorry I missed you.
Hey, the whole Central Texas Firepup Brigade and Friends are in attendance!
Mad Dog says that Dana Milbank is quitting KO over his major screw up last week.
Gettin’ ready for some RAIN!!!
I missed it, what did he do?
Pittsburg?
Hail! Hail! The gang’s all here!
(Loved the orchid pic)
Too many critters to take care of…hard to travel. :(
He heard third hand from someone in the House when Obama met with the dems last week that Obama said that HE was the one America had been waiting for. In fact, Obama said that he was the SYMBOL for the change that the world had been waiting for. Not taking credit personally, just sort of the movement.
more fear mongering. i don’t know if it is still the case, but recently the fbi was claiming that the “eco-terrorists” and “animal rights terrorists” were the biggest domestic terrorism threats.
nuts.
Totally misquoted Obama.
That’s true. Hard to get my two dogs covered, can’t imagine horses and all you have. My daughter will be here (for pay!) next week while I’m in Panama.
I saw a video yesterday of Obama saying, “We are the one’s that the world has been waiting for”…actually, it’s in the McCain Messaiah
“ad”….attack.Just signing in.
Great post, EG.
AP is already backpedaling a little bit on their Kappa Kappa Gamma angle:
Yep, that’s convincing now. Ivins was obsessed with where the Kappas store their stuff, so that’s how he chose the mailbox to use.
I put up a post earlier today on my blog showing how the FBI’s analysis of isotope ratios in the water used to grow and process the anthrax attack material could easily have been defeated. Click my name for that.
Hi to the Central Texas gang!
Loo Hoo, whacha gonna be doing in Panama and where are you going to be? We’ve got a little piece of property down there.
OT, but good news…
It’s a pain sometimes…Just yesterday, I had to tromp all over the neighborhood looking for two of my horses (mischevious fence crashers), because they didn’t show up for food…Here I am tromping around, 100 degree heat, nearly croaked from the heat…I go back home and figure that I just can’t go out in the heat…let the chips (manure fall where it may) until it cooled down at about 7pm…..The brats were out munching on their hay…thank goddess…meanwhile, it took me hours and cold showers to cool off….Ugh. They were here all the time…hiding under some oak tree..and laughing at me.
Heat index @ 110 here today. Just another lovely day in the ‘hood.
egr – what’s your problem with avian flu research? that one i’ve supported – do you disagree?
jim – been reading your comments at glenn’s, all great thanks.
Great news. Arnold is being a Dick.
Hi greenwarria]or!
Just missing Betsy…
Hi Jim! I’m off to cook dinner, will check your blog after.
BBL…
Totally support the research, of avian flu in particular and of zoonotic issues in general. What I have trouble with, is the people who see one more opportunity to take an issue whether valid or not, and use it to scare the wallets out of our pants.
Really!?! Isn’t Panama beautiful. Actually I made a good move 3 years ago and bought a condo before it was being built. Now it’s done, so time to go do the paperwork. I put an ad to rent it on Craigslist yesterday and have 4 people who want it already. Guess I should have asked for more rent!
It’s just in case I decide to become an ExPat.
OMG! Better check that oak tree next time. Thank heavens for cool showers, huh?
scarecrow upstairs everybody
Yeah. I was alone and had to get pretty inventive to stay alive. Wound up doing an old yoga position to wring out the lungs. The pain before it went for the lungs you wouldn’t believe. It must have ripped off every receptor in my body, because I didn’t catch a cold for about five years after that. The vaunted Norwalk virus was a pussycat, by comparison; it was just making you feel lousy. This sucker was trying to kill you. It did not play well with others.
Austin was absolutely beautiful during Netroots. I really expected heat, but it was nice.
If McLame is elected we seriously should consider ex-pat status. Are you in Panama City? We’re up in Bocas del Toro on the Caribbean. Talking about spending Xmas there this year.
And directly into theirs!
John Chiang also announced today that it would take about seven to ten MONTHS to re-program the state’s archaic payroll system to, first, pay everyone the federal minimum wage of $6.55 and, then, return everyone to their correct wage and back them their back pay.
If done incorrectly, the state would be liable for treble damages, as the LA school district was recently for incorrectly paying its employees.
ok. i’m with you there. didn’t see it with avian flu but definitely see it with bioterrorism fear mongering. and was really concerned that more of that was happening here.
I can’t help thinking about Judy Barri, Pine Ridge, Waco, Ruby Ridge and Puerto Rico. Thugs and killers.
yep. and not just us. i’ll add Fernando Pereira.
And isn’t he a good sport, folks!
Egregious, was your headline a quote from Firesign? Sure resonated with me.
But I never thought we’d play Beat the Reaper in reality.
Points to you mkls….
Hugs to you!
My kids roll their eyes when their Dad and I trade Firesign quotes — but they’re still spot on. (Pastor Rod Flash of the Powerhouse Church of the Presumptuous Assumption of the Blinding Light? How prescient was that?)
Thanks for all you do.
You’ve made it farther than any contestant before! Are you ready for symptom 6?
hi folks. as a biologist, it seems pretty simple to me for some entity to create a vector that can cause death within the masses whilst preserving the vaccinated. just look at the 1918 pandemic virus. it’s not like we don’t have the genome or nothing. tweek a gene or two and we could save the planet’s biodiversity.
A little reading about yersinia pestis would settle a lot of this down. That is, if people bothered to actually take in something not on the Boob Tube.
Long story short, Bubonic Plague, a.k.a. yersinia pestis, isn’t all that contagious unless one of two things happens.
(1) It goes for the lungs. When that happens (fortunately, not often), you get pneumonic plague, which is airborne H2H contagious. Or …
(2) Local sanitation goes completely down the toilet.
Because Bubonic plague isn’t airborne H2H contagious. It needs a double vector. It cycles in small mammals like rats, or mice, or prairie dogs, or marmots. It has to use a secondary vector to make the jump to humans.
The way it got started in Europe in 1347 had roots in the Great Famine of 1315-1317, and the fact that ABSOLUTELY NOBODY bathed EVER. Which gave the plague flea, xenopsylla cheopis, the entering wedge …
Plague has been endemic in the Southwestern US since 1900. It’s all through the prairie dog towns. But absent sanitation standards which are literally lousy, it’s about 10,000 times less likely to kill you than common seasonal influenza is.
If we have more than two dozen cases in the entire country in a year, it’s considered a prodigy of nature.
Well, OK. I should have also mentioned two other items as probable contributory causes of the Second Pandemic.
(1) The theory that the strain that hit Europe in 1347 was marmot plague. Russian microbiologists believe that different strains of yersinia pestis cycle in different ground mammals. And the strain that cycles in marmots living in Mongolia and along its border with Russia apparently goes for the lungs like a heat seeking missile.
(2) The fact the the Mongols had declared peace against everybody in the region some decades past. This created conditions such that long-distance caravans got much safer to operate. Which meant more of them. Which jacked up the odds that some poor lot would camp close to the wrong bloody marmots one time too often. And bring something back with them they hadn’t intended to.
Wow, haven’t seen a Firesign Theater reference in a long time. Shoes for industry!!
This is disaster capitalism at its most refined: create the shock, apply the cure.
Isn’t that how it worked in V for Vendetta? They created the disease and the vaccine and got rich off the vaccine. Only there wasn’t enough vaccine for the rest of the world.
Sounds like 12 monkeys or just WWII when the Japanese “tested” the Chinese populations.
Here’s an article on Ivins from Medical News.
For starters:
I am still not convinced that the social worker Duley is all that authoritative on Ivins as the media makes her seem.
The curious public here wishes x-examine Ms. Duley:
Interesting. But did Ivins ever say he would come after Duley?