Antrax Origins?

VoodooAce

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Sorry, close this if need be, but......

Obviously, Greenpeace is wrong in accusing the government of releasing anthrax on it's own people....if they even did.

But it's not like we don't have a history of 'testing' chemicals and biological agents on our own people. Didn't we, back in the 50's dust a town in Minnesota with 'some kind of junk'? Does anyone know more about this?

Been a while since I read what it was, but I do remember it wasn't pleasant.

But I'm far more likely to believe that it was a right-wing nut group in the US that did it than the government itself. We're already lusting for blood, I don't think any further tweaking is necassary.
 
i know that in england they experimented with radiation on pregnant women, and im pretty sure they did that in the states aswell...............
 
The "Iowa" strain of antrhrax is available in laboratories around the world. Genetic researchers are now trying to develop a test sensitive enough to dectect the small amount of genectic drift differences that MAYBE could ID the lab from the agent came from. The technology used in "weaponizing" it is similar to USA technology of 30 years ago (when the USA govrnment program was shut down and stock destroyed), which by now could be all over the world. ID of the perpetrators at this point is more likely to come from mudane crimininal investigation, such as focusing on the mail or a tip from a lab co-worker, than from analysis of the biological agent.
 
I am going to throw in my 5 cents for last time on this topic.
Greenpeace did not say that US govt as a whole did it to test anthrax. That could be one very nasty person. The motive – increase funding for bio weapons research. Is it so hard to believe? I am saying that someone MAY did it for money. I underline what greenpeace suggested: whoever did it had not intended to kill people but to scare big guys in govt to increase funding. Where did you all see that I or greenpeace said that the plan was to kill US citizens or test anything. That is only a possibility and I think it has got motive (money) and proof so far is that anthrax came from US labs. Was it sold by US or stolen from labs? Investigation will hopefully find out but either way that was due to failure to secure the weapon. Who do we blame – Bin Ladin??? wake up !!!!
According to “BUT FOR” test (accepted by expl British, Australian courts). It all would have not happened but for negligence or fraud of someone who was in charge to secure labs.
Any comments
 
Sorry, but if you put anthrax in the mail, you intend to kill. at least, you don't mind if you kill. same thing.
 
I don't know anything about biological agents but I do know that in the 1950s, the U.S. Army tested the effects of nuclear fallout on their own troops. About 6,000 army personnel were exposed to the effects of a nuclear explosion...some troops were in trenches, others in no shelter at all spread out in various distances from the epicenter. Designed as an experiment to see if it would be possible to invade a country shortly after a nuclear bombardment, the experiment did nothing more than prove the long term effects of radiation exposure as all but a handful of the subjects tested have succomb to cancers and other mysterious deaths. This incident is currently a hotly debated, multi-million dollar, class action lawsuit with the governement claiming that at the time they did not know the harmfull effects of nuclear fallout.

In the seventies, a small town -not but an hour's drive from my apartment- was exposed to a dose of nerve agents that were accidently released from a nearby military testing facility on the Dugway Proving Grounds. Fortuneatly for the Skull Valley inhabitants, only sheep were killed by the release of these nerve agents. However, another class action lawsuit against the government is ongoing.

This state -Utah- is home to some of the deadliest of America's facilities. Just South of Tooele is one of the nation's largest depositories of chemical and nerve agents (nearly 1/4 of the national stockpile). Also, on the grounds is a recently built incinerator to dispose of the more obsolete bio-chemical weapons. Further south is the Dugway Proving Grounds -a couple hundred square miles to test conventional, nuclear, and bio-chemical weapons. In addition there are another half-dozen civilian installations of the similar hazard.

...What a great state to host the Olympics.

As for Greeenpeace's statement: Although I must admit that one loner with a P.h.d in bio-chemistry (American or otherwise) is a very likely possibility, I highly doubt it. First of all, the Anthrax used was home grown and not particularly well refined. If it had been stolen or bought from a lab it would have been a much more intense strain, capable of killing a person in a fraction of the time it took for the infected persons to die. The government and civilian labs have engineered strains hundreds of times more powerful than what was used in these letters. Don't believe that f***-off senator who said, "This strain was weapons grade; it airesolized when the letter opened..." He doesn't know sh!t about anthrax...he probably hasn't had any science courses since his freshman year in college.

Second: the timing. It was only a few days after f-day that these letters arrived. And three weeks before anyone knew about it. The timing of the Anthrax (as well as the letters saying "This is next, take pencilin now, Death to America, Death to Israel, Allah is great...") point towards knowledge of the events to take place. Mailing the antrax letter was not a spur of the moment decision. Whoever did it knew about what was going to happen and when it would happen. He would have manufactured the anthrax before f-day and mailed the letters immediatly after the events took place. If a person was going to use this event for whatever reason, I doubt he would have been able to gather the material, manufacture a lethal strain in a few days, and mail it to the intended targets.

Third: the concept of someone doing this for funding is hysterical. Although the U.S. government officially stopped the research of bio-chemical weapons for offensive purposes, the U.S. military still conducts millions of dollars worth of research into "defensive" bio-chemical weapons and both post-infection and pre-infection vaccines. In addition to the millions spent by the military, the government still showers civilian labs (like the CDC, or ATCC) with billions of dollars in research grants to develop biological agents. Funding for biological weapons is not an issue.

>>p.s. I was watching TV earlier on and they had a show on about the history of biological weapons. Strangely enough, you can buy deadly biological agents online from the ATCC. Not long ago an Aryan Nation nut-case posed as a biochemist doing research and was able to purchase three vials of Bubonic plague from the ATCC.

If you have the papers, you can buy almost any type of bacteria you want from http://www.atcc.org (Mastercard and Visa accepted). In 1985 Sadam Hussein was able to purchase botchulinum from the same organization.
 
Very interesting Blue Monday,
Just one question. Why has that anthrax thing been such a big failure (from terrorist point of view) if realised by terrorists. As you say that was not a weapon grade strength.
Are we suggesting that terrorist were ripped off and supplied with not what they would have wished for? I have to highlight that according to news reports ( can we trust? – but always we can discuss) the anthrax was originated from USA labs.
 
The Anthrax was a "primitive" strain. Modern US "weapon-grade" anthrax would have killed thousands.

I still believe it was Al-Quaida (or supported by). The strain could have been supplied from Iraq, to them.

Im sure Iraq has the capability to produce this "weak" strain. Most half-@$$ed industrial countries could.

We'll find out eventually.
 
Though I don't know much of whats going on over there, I do believe it is from the US, but not the government. It is probably just a crazy guy, and has some guys working to make anthrax for him. Even if it is not, if it is Iraq, it is definately not supervised by their government.
 
Originally posted by jedi rat
...I have to highlight that according to news reports ( can we trust? – but always we can discuss) the anthrax was originated from USA labs.

The possibility of Anthrax having been stolen from a lab in the U.S. is a very good possibility. However, Anthrax strains grown in labs under government supervision are heavily documented. If the strain had been taken directly from a lab (or even if it had been grown after being stolen) the genetics of the individual bacteria would be a literal fingerprint from which lab and which strain it was taken from. From there officials would be able to track whether or not some of the strain was sold, whether some went missing, who had access to it, and how much was lost. However, if it were homegrown, no one would know where it came from.
 
Yhe Washington Post today is report that laboratory distribution of the Iowa-Ames strain was much narrower that previously thougt beofore all the logs and tranfer document were studied (some uncertainty earlier because changes in the designation names of strain on the documents around 1980). It appears at this time to have been limited to a dozen or so labs in the USA, Canada, & UK, assuming there were (big assumption) no undocumented tranfers. This will narrow the amount of ground to be covered considerably. Most labs working with it were trying to develope and test vacines.
 
On a kind of related subject, my brother's roomy has a tape about LSD that goes into some of the testing done on servicement in the late 50's.

You should see these guys trying to fall into formation! The can't keep a straight face, and they have attention spans of about 2 seconds. Pretty weird crap. You see the back of these other guys' heads.....probably the doctors and officers.....and I wonder, WTH were these people thinking.

:rolleyes:
 
Originally posted by VoodooAce
On a kind of related subject, my brother's roomy has a tape about LSD that goes into some of the testing done on servicement in the late 50's.

You should see these guys trying to fall into formation! The can't keep a straight face, and they have attention spans of about 2 seconds. Pretty weird crap. You see the back of these other guys' heads.....probably the doctors and officers.....and I wonder, WTH were these people thinking.

Before organizations like the American Medical Association and American Psychological Association put down in writing specific guidelines for experimental testing, American scientists did some absolutely devastating research and programs.

My least favorite would be the Lynchburg Colony in Virginia that went about sterilizing mentally and physically defficient people (also poor and homeless) from 1927 to 1971. I'll bet you didn't learn about that one in your American History class.
 
They were no doubt relying on one of the shortest US SC majority opinions in our history, written by the great liberal justice of the 19th centruy, Oliver Wendell Homes. In a case upholding a NC law that allowed the state to sterilize a man if he, his father, and gradfather were shown to be idiots, here simply wrote "Three generations of idiots is enough."
Today, Eugenics is quite passe.
 
Don't believe the rumour, since it comes from a totally unrealiable source. Greenpeace and these type of extremist organisations have a way of exaggerating and making up false rumours, anyway, how does greenpeace know? Even if it was real, it would be so classified that the chances of greenpeace finding out is zero unless they have their own intelligence agency like the KGB or something. So its just a rumour that the stupid idiots at the lame organisation called greenpeace made up.
 
The experts first thought it was Islamic extremists because the letters had "Death to USA. Death to Israel, Allah be praised". But then they thought it was a clever ploy to distract attention from Neo-Nazi's.

Now they've full circle, back to blaming Islamist extremists.
 
They are certain at this point that it did come from some old secreted USA weapons stock. Documentation about the original labrotory isolation of the Iowa-Ames strain shows that it occured just after the USA shut down its production of weapons anthrax and destroyed the stock. Its was used in the USA bio wepons programs only for vaccine development.
 
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