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This broadcast highlights articles from the mainstream press that reinforce the remarkable research done by Ed Haslam, the author of the vitally important recent book Mary, Ferrie and the Monkey Virus: The Story of an Underground Medical Laboratory. A contaminant in the original polio vaccine, the SV40 appears to be the cause of a soft-tissue cancer epidemic.
1. The program begins with discussion of a front-page story in the San Francisco Chronicle that is strongly supportive of information presented in previous programs about SV40. “A growing number of medical researchers fear that a monkey virus that contaminated the polio vaccine given to tens of millions of Americans in the 1950s and ’60s may be causing rare human cancers. For four decades, government officials have insisted that there is no evidence the simian virus called SV40 is harmful to humans. But in recent years, dozens of scientific studies have found the virus in a steadily increasing number of rare brain, bone and lung-related tumors—the same malignant cancer SV40 causes in lab animals.” (“Rogue Virus in the Vaccine” by William Carlsen; San Francisco Chronicle; p. A1.)
2. As reported in previous programs on SV40, there is evidence that the virus (and, consequently, the cancers it causes) are contagious. “Even more troubling, the virus has been detected in tumors removed from people never inoculated with the contaminated vaccine, leading some to worry that those infected by the vaccine might be spreading SV40.” (Idem.)
3. The number of researchers who feel that SV40 is a threat is growing. “The discovery of SV40 in human tumors has generated intense debate within the scientific community, pitting a handful of government health officials, who believe that the virus is harmless, against researchers from Boston to China who now suspect SV40 may be a human carcinogen. At stake are millions of research dollars and potential medical treatments for those afflicted with the cancers SV40 may be causing.” (Ibid.; pp. A1-A16.)
4. Four years after the development of the Salk vaccine, Bernice Eddy of the National Institutes of Health discovered the contamination of the vaccine with SV40. “Four years later, Bernice Eddy, a researcher at the National Institutes of Health, noticed something strange while looking through her microscope. Monkey kidney cells—the same kind used to make the vaccine—were dying without apparent cause. So she tried an experiment. She prepared kidney extracts from eight to 10 rhesus monkeys and injected tiny amounts under the skin of 23 new born hamsters. Within nine months, ‘large, malignant, subcutaneous tumors’ appeared on 20 of the animals.” (Ibid.; p. A16.)
5. Eddy’s results were dismissed by NIH researchers. “On July 6, 1960, concerned that a monkey virus might be contaminating the polio vaccine, Eddy took her findings to Dr. Joseph Smadel, chief of the NIH’s biologics division. Smadel dismissed the tumors as harmless ‘lumps.’ The same year, however, at a Merck laboratory in Pennsylvania, Dr. Maurice Hilleman and Dr. Ben Sweet isolated the virus. They called it simian virus 40, or SV40, because it was the 40th virus found in rhesus kidney tissue.” (Idem.)
6. Other experts, however, shared Eddy’s concern. “But U.S. Public Health Service officials were worried. Tests had found SV40 in both the Sabin and Salk vaccines—it was later estimated that as much as a third of the Salk vaccine was tainted—and that SV40 was causing cancer in lab animals. In early 1961, they quietly met with the agency’s top vaccine advisers. The agency found no evidence that the virus had been harmful to humans, but in March, the officials ordered manufacturers to eliminate SV40 from all future vaccine. New procedures were adopted to neutralize the tainted polio virus seed stock and SV40-free African green monkeys were used to produce the bulk vaccine instead of rhesus monkeys.” (Idem.)
7. Although the vaccine-making procedures had been altered, the public was kept in the dark. “But officials did not recall contaminated Salk vaccine—more than a year’s supply—still in the hands of the nation’s doctors. And they did not notify the public of the contamination and SV40’s carcinogenic effect on newborn hamsters. [Maurice] Hilleman would later explain that government officials were worried that any potentially negative information could ignite a panic and jeopardize the vaccination campaign. The first public disclosure that the Salk vaccine was contaminated came in the New York Times on July 26, 1961. A story on Page 33 reported that Merck and other manufacturers had halted production until they could get a ‘monkey virus’ out of the vaccine. When asked to comment, the U.S. Public Health Service stressed there was no evidence the virus was dangerous.” (Idem.)
8. Michele Carbone was able to confirm the contamination of the vaccine. In addition, Carbone discovered that the vaccine contained a second form of SV40 that may have continued to contaminate vaccines! “For years, researchers had believed that all SV40-contaminated Salk vaccine made between 1955 and 1963 had been used or discarded. Then in 1999, Carbone was contacted by a former public health director in Oak Park, Ill., who said he had seven sealed vials of vaccine dated October 1955 in a refrigerator in his basement. Carbone, who had left the NIH and joined the faculty at Loyola University Medical Center, ran tests on the vaccine and made a startling discovery: Not only was the vaccine contaminated, it contained a second form of the virus—an ‘archetypal’ SV40 strain.” (Ibid.; p. A17.)
9. The continued contamination of the vaccine-making process is highlighted in the passage that follows. “Although manufacturers switched from rhesus monkeys to SV40-free green African monkeys to grow the bulk vaccine in 1961, they have continued to use potentially contaminated polio seed strains originally grown on the rhesus monkey tissue to start the bulk vaccine process. [Emphasis added.] Manufacturers check the purity of their vaccine with a series of 14-day tests to detect whether any SV40 slipped through. But when Carbone replicated the tests, he found that the second, slower-growing ‘archetypal’ strain took 19 days to emerge. It was possible, Carbone noted in a published report, that this second strain of SV40 had been evading manufacturers’ screening procedures for years—and infecting vaccine recipients after 1962.” (Idem.)
10. The National Cancer Institute continues to drag its feet with regard to SV40 and its relationship to human cancer. Historically, that institution is deeply tainted. “But the NCI recently acknowledged that there is evidence to suggest that SV40 ‘may be associated with human cancer.’ The NCI statement, released last month, also said that SV40’s interaction with ‘tumor suppressor proteins’ indicates ‘possible mechanisms that could contribute to the development of cancer.’ Top NCI officials declined to be interviewed on the record for this report. Fraumeni also declined several requests for an in interview. Dr. James Goedert, the chief of the NCI’s Viral Epidemiology Branch who supervised Strickler’s work, said that if SV40 is in human tumors, it must be at extremely low levels. To critics who claim the government has down played SV40’s potential health risks, Goedert responded: ‘Absolutely not.’ He acknowledged that research is needed to resolve the question of whether SV40 is prevalent in the human population and, if so, how it might be spreading. But Goedert said he has no plans for such studies. ‘It’s not our highest priority,’ he said.” (Idem.)
11. A subsequent article by William Carlsen supplements the above information concerning the SV40 contamination of more recent vaccines. “A monkey virus linked to human cancers may have contaminated the oral polio vaccine for years after the U.S. government ordered manufacturers to remove it, according to drug company documents obtained by The Chronicle. The Chronicle reported last week that the simian virus SV40 had contaminated early polio vaccine given to millions of Americans. When health officials discovered in 1961 that SV40 caused malignant tumors in lab animals, they ordered the virus eliminated from all future vaccine.” (“New Documents Show the Monkey Virus is Present in More Recent Polio Vaccine” by William Carlsen; San Francisco Chronicle; 7/22/2001; p. A6.)
12. More details about the subsequent contamination indicate the possibility of liability. (As this description is being written, the Homeland Security Act has been passed containing a clause eliminating the civic liability of vaccine makers for the product that they manufacture.) “But internal memos from Lederle Laboratories, the chief producer of polio vaccine in the United States, indicate SV40 may not have been completely removed. According to one memo, SV40 was found in three of 15 lots of the oral vaccine seven months after the federal directive was issued in March 1961. Lederle released the contaminated vaccine to the public anyway, the memo shows. The documents also suggest that the company failed to test the monkey-kidney seed strains used to make the bulk polio vaccine for contamination, despite a written warning from Dr. Albert Sabin, who developed the oral vaccine.” (Idem.)
13. Next, the broadcast sets forth the work of one of Bernice Eddy’s heroic (and relatively unrecognized) co-workers, Sarah Stewart. After relating the disastrous discovery of the SV40 contamination of the vaccine, the text highlights Ms. Stewart’s work. “In the aftermath of the debacle, Bernice Eddy was taken off of polio research and transferred to the influenza section by the thankless NIH management. She shared her frustrations with a small group of women scientists who ate brown-bag lunches on the steps of one of the laboratories. There, Eddy met a tenacious woman scientist named Sarah Stewart, who was waging her own battle against the official paradigms of bureaucratic medicine. Bernice Eddy and Sarah Stewart became close friends.” (Mary, Ferrie and the Monkey Virus: The Story of an Underground Medical Laboratory; Copyright 1995 [SC]; Wordsworth Press; p. 97.)
14. Although her contributions remain unrecognized, Sarah Stewart’s work led to the application of recombinant DNA, in addition to confirming the role of viruses in the development of cancer. “Sarah Stewart’s name remains virtually unknown today despite her huge contribution to modern medicine. Not only did she prove that some cancers were caused by viruses, but subsequent research on the virus she discovered led o the discovery of DNA recombination, which is the most powerful tool in medical research today.” (Idem.)
15. Ms. Stewart’s work on cancer-causing viruses supplemented the work of Bernice Eddy and influenced and anticipated the efforts of their collaborator, Dr. Mary Sherman. “From the beginning, Sarah Stewart promoted the idea that cancer was caused by viruses. Due to this, she was not well accepted by the NIH or NCI staffs who described her as ‘an eccentric lady’ determined to prove her theory was right. ‘No one believed her . . .’ Finally, she was given access to an NCI laboratory in Bethesda where she could try to prove her theories. In 1953, she almost succeeded, but her work was not accepted by the ruling crowd at NIH. They found her methods sloppy and objected to the fact that she did not culture her viruses. So in 1956, her lunch partner Bernice Eddy showed Sarah Stewart how to grow her viruses in a culture of mouse cells. She now had all the ingredients she needed and began a series of experiments which are called ‘classic’ by modern day NIH researchers.” (Ibid.; p. 98.)
16. Stewart’s work was rejected by many of her colleagues. Notable among those colleagues was her supervisor Alan Rabson—a name to remember in the context of discussion to follow. “As her work progressed, she realized she stood on the edge of an extremely important discovery and became very protective of her techniques. In staff presentations, she would bewilder NIH pathologists by showing them slides of things they had never seen before. Then, when they asked how she produced her results, she would giggle and say ‘It’s a secret.’ To quote her supervisor Alan Rabson: ‘She drove everybody crazy.’ ” (Idem.)
17. Stewart and Eddy discovered a carcinogenic virus called “polyoma,” which shed a great deal of light on the discovery of SV40. “In 1957, Stewart and Eddy discovered the polyoma virus which produced several types of cancer in a variety of small mammals. Polyoma proved that some cancers were indeed caused by viruses. Her discovery officially threw open the doors of cancer virology. As Rabson phrased it, ‘Suddenly, the whole place just exploded after Sarah found polyoma.’ It was the beginning of a new era of hope. But it raised some dark questions about earlier deeds. Before long Yale’s laboratory discovered that the polyoma virus that had produced the cancer in Stewart’s mice and hamsters turned out to be virtually identical to Simian Virus #40 (SV-40), a monkey virus that caused cancer.’ ” (Idem.)
18. Highlighting the discussion that is presented in the first part of the program, Mr. Haslam relates Bernice Eddy’s discovery of the contamination of the polio vaccine. He then goes on to describe the reaction of the NIH to her disclosures. “In October 1960, Eddy gave a talk to the Cancer Society in New York and, without warning NIH in advance, announced that she had examined cells from the monkeys kidneys in which the polio virus was grown and had found they were infected with cancer causing viruses! Her inference was clear: There were cancer-causing monkey viruses in the polio vaccine! This was tantamount to forecasting an epidemic of cancer in America! When the word got back to her NIH bosses, they exploded in anger. When the cussing stopped, they crushed Bernice Eddy professionally. Any mention of cancer-causing monkey viruses in the polio vaccine was not welcomed by NIH. They took away her lab, destroyed her animals, put her under a gag order, prevented her from attending professional meetings, and delayed publication of her scientific paper. In the words of Edward Shorter, author of The Health Century, ‘Her treatment became a scandal within the scientific community.’ Later, it became the subject of a congressional inquiry. In the words of Dr. Lawrence Kilham, a fellow NIH researcher who wrote a latter of protest to the Surgeon General’s office, ‘the presence of a cancer virus in the polio virus vaccine is the matter demanding full investigation . . .’ ” (Ibid.; pp. 98–99.)
19. In that context, one should note the following, referenced from the Congressional Record, U.S. Senate, Consumer Safety Act of 1972. In turn, the quote is from Ruth Kirchstein of the NIH. Along with the aforementioned Alan Rabson, hers is a name to be remembered. “The insiders already knew there was a cancer-causing virus in the polio vaccine, but they had not announced it. . .” (Ibid.; p. 99.)
20. The media cover-up of the SV40 contamination followed the institutional cover-up. “On the heels of the polio fiasco, the medical hierarchy feared the judgment of the masses. Their ability to destroy a painstakingly constructed scientific career overnight had been clearly proven. Another spate of bad news might shatter the public’s confidence in vaccines altogether. Where would the world be then? Where would the public health establishment be then? As SV40 discoverer Maurice Hilleman put it, the government kept the contamination of the polio vaccine secret to ‘avoid public hysteria.’ ” (Ibid.; pp. 99–100.)
21. In that context, it is worth noting that Sarah Stewart and Bernice Eddy had developed a prototypical vaccine to protect animals against polyoma as early as 1959! “Developing a vaccine against a spectrum of cancer-causing monkey viruses already inoculated into millions of people in the polio vaccine was at best a long shot. But there was some evidence that anti-cancer vaccines were possible. Quoting Time magazine [“The New War on Cancer via Virus Research & Chemotherapy;” 7/27/1959; p. 54.]: ‘Stewart and Eddy have gone a vital step farther . . . and made a vaccine that protects a big majority of normally susceptible animals against the polyoma virus’s effects.’ ” (Ibid.; p. 104.)
22. After discussing the relationship between Dr. Mary Sherman, David Ferrie, Dr. Alton Ochsner (like David Ferrie, a key figure in the investigation into the JFK assassination) and the (almost certain) work that was underway in New Orleans on a cancer vaccine, Mr. Haslam goes on to describe the relationship between Dr. Mary Sherman, the aforementioned Ruth Kirchstein and Alan Rabson. “Mary Sherman also knew Ruth Kirchstein at NIH. Kirchstein, who was thirteen years younger than Sherman, was an instructor at Tulane Medical School in 1954 and 1955. During these years, Mary was an Associate Professor in Tulane’s Department of Orthopedic Surgery and was that department’s specialist in pathology. Both Sherman and Kirchstein had common interests in pathology and cancer and taught in the same medical school. It is reasonable to assume they knew each other well. In 1957, immediately following the polio shake-up, Kirchstein went to the National Institute of Health where she stayed for the rest of her career. At NIH, Kirschstein began working as a pathologist in the Biologics division where Bernice Eddy worked. Her specialties were listed in the medical directories as virology, polio, and oncology. But since Kirschstein was barely out of medical school when Sherman, Stewart and Eddy were already nationally recognized authorities, I do not consider their direct contact to be very strong, but there are two things about Kirschstein that should be kept in mind. First, once at NIH, Kirschstein dated and later married, Alan Rabson, who was Sarah Stewart’s supervisor. Therefore, she was in a position to know things about both Stewart and Eddy’s research that she might not have known otherwise. And secondly, Kirchstein credits much of her professional success to the personal support and professional guidance of Tulane Medical School’s Chief of Surgery, Dr. Alton Ochsner, who is known to have enjoyed using his considerable contacts to help Tulane medical graduates find good professional positions. Did Kirschstein keep Ochsner informed about the research activities at NIH and NCI? It would be hard to criticize her for keeping her mentor informed about the progress of cancer research at the national labs, especially since he was the former president of the American Cancer Society and held many important positions in the world of medicine. Additionally, as an expert in polio who lived in New Orleans in 1955, Kirschstein would also have been keenly aware of the problems that Dr. Ochsner faced after injecting his grandchildren with Salk’s polio vaccine. When Eddy and Hilleman broke the news about the cancer-causing monkey virus in the polio vaccine, it would not have been unreasonable for Kirschstein to notify Ochsner about the danger his granddaughter faced. Noting the coincidence of the time frame, we ask the question: ‘Did the ‘Sensitive Position’ that Dr. Ochsner was cleared for in October 1959 have anything to do with a secret attempt to develop a cancer vaccine to protect the American public from an epidemic of cancer?’ ” (Ibid.; pp. 105–106.)
23. Mr. Haslam goes on to develop more connections between biological warfare research, the NIH, New Orleans and the milieu of the Kennedy assassination. “There were other connections between NIH and New Orleans. Of particular interest was Jose Rivera, M.D. Ph.D., who sat on the NIH Board of Directors in the 1960’s. We will note that the Dr. Rivera was really Col. Jose A. Rivera, one of the U.S. Army’s top experts in biological warfare, and that in the summer of 1963 he was in New Orleans handing out research grants from NIH (Institute for Neurological Diseases and Blindness) to Tulane Medical School, LSU Medical School, and the Ochsner Clinic. It is not my objective to pin Ferrie’s possession of the treatise on any one person, but I am trying to show that there were numerous connections between NCI and New Orleans, any one of which might explain how Mary Sherman and/or David Ferrie wound up with an internal document from NIH or NCI.” (Ibid.; p. 106.)
24. In the second edition of his book, Mr. Haslam highlights another intriguing detail about the connection between the JFK assassination and the investigation into the SV40/cancer connection. ” ‘The Warren Commission Volumes. The FBI went to the U.S. Public Health Service Hospital on 11/25/63 looking for evidence of either Lee Harvey Oswald or A.J. Hidell. They went back a second time on 11/26.’ The FBI was looking for Oswald at the U.S. Public Health Service Hospital! I could hardly believe my ears. ‘Why?’ ‘According to the Dallas Police, Oswald had a vaccination card issued to him by the U.S. Public Health Service on 6/8/63, when he lived at 4907 Magazine Street in New Orleans. It was issued to Lee Harvey Oswald, signed by Dr. A.J. Hidell. The FBI reports are in Volume 19. I’ll send you the citations.’ Had Lee Harvey Oswald been on the grounds of the U.S. Public Health Service Hospital at the time the linear particle accelerator was there? Take a look at this map. [Dr. Ochsner’s house, Oswald’s apartment, Children’s Hospital, the Infectious Disease Laboratory Building and the U.S. Public Health Service Hospital are within a 1‑mile radius of one another.]” (Ibid.; p.127.)
25. Subsequently, Dr. Ruth Kirchstein went on to become Acting Director of the National Institutes of Health. “Mr. Chairman and Members of the Committee: I am Ruth Kirchstein, the Acting Director of the National Institutes of Health.” (“Department of Health and Human Services: Statement by Dr. Ruth L. Kirschstein Acting Director, National Institutes of Health on Fiscal Year 2001 President’s Budget Request for the National Institute of Health;” 2/15/2000.)
26. Alan (“Al”) Rabson went on to become the Deputy Director of the National Cancer Institute. “NIH WORKING GROUP ON PRIORITY SETTING: [Names include] Al Rabson—Deputy Director, National Cancer Institute.” (“Setting Research Priorities at the National Institutes of Health;” September/1997; p. 10.)
27. Although it was not in the original broadcast, an article published on the front page of the San Francisco Chronicle on 3/9/2002 supplemented the material on the SV40/cancer connection in an important way. Referencing two articles from the prestigious British medical journal The Lancet, the article implicates SV40 in the development of non-Hodgkins lymphoma—one of the soft tissue cancers that Mr. Haslam documents as having assumed epidemic proportions.
Simian virus in polio shots tied to cancer
Two studies support widely disputed theoryby William Carlsen
San Francisco ChronicleScientists have found traces of a monkey virus that contaminated the polio vaccine in the 1950s in a common form of highly malignant human cancer that has mysteriously doubled in incidence over the past 30 years. Two studies, published yesterday in the British journal Lancet, found a link between the virus, called SV40, and non-Hodgkin’s lymphomas, a disorder ranked fourth or fifth among cancer deaths in the United States among women and men, respectively. Results suggest that the virus may play a much wider role in cancer than previously suspected.
‘No obvious risk factors have emerged for non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma in the general population, but a viral cause has been postulated,’ said a group of eight researchers at Baylor College of Medicine in Texas led by Dr. Janet Butel. ‘This finding sheds new light on the possible genesis of (this) important group of malignant disorders.’ The scientists added that their findings may also offer hope for new therapies for the malignancies.
In laboratory tests, hamsters injected with SV40 developed a variety of malignant tumors, but early government studies indicated that the virus appeared to have no negative effect in humans who had been exposed. That view began to change in the 1990s when DNA detection techniques became much more refined and evidence of the virus started showing up in human tumors.
The Salk polio vaccine, administered by injection in the United States and worldwide from 1955 through 1963, was grown on minced kidney tissue from rhesus monkeys. At the time, the manufacturing process was considered safe. But in 1960, it was discovered that large batches of the vaccine were contaminated with the simian virus later named SV40. An estimated 90 million Americans received Salk vaccine injections and as many as 30 million were exposed to the virus.
In laboratory tests, hamsters injected with SV40 developed a variety of malignant tumors, but early government studies indicated that the virus appeared to have no negative effect in humans who had been exposed. That view began to change in the 1990s when DNA detection techniques became much more refined and evidence of the virus started showing up in human tumors.
The group included rare brain, bone and lung-related cancers called mesotheliomas. Other research has also turned up SV40 in tumors of children and adults born after the contaminated vaccine was taken off the market in 1963, leading to the still-unsolved mystery of how the virus is being transmitted.
Yesterday’s reports indicate that SV40 may be involved in a much broader group of human cancers, playing a possible role in nearly half of the 55,000 new cases of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma diagnosed annually. The cancer, which can be highly aggressive, has been associated with HIV- positive patients, and it was thought that the suppression of the immune system in these patients may have had a connection with the dramatic increase in lymphomas since 1970.
The new studies examined lymphomas from HIV-positive and ‑negative patients. Results suggested that both groups had either about the same level of SV40 DNA fragments, or that the HIV-negative samples had a greater incidence.
The second group of researchers were at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle and the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas. Remarkably, both groups of researchers using slightly different detection techniques came up with almost identical results: SV40 fragments were found in 42 percent of 154 lymphomas sampled in one study, while the other found 43 percent in 68 cases.
No virus was detected by either study in nonmalignant lymphoid samples and other cancers used as controls. A Chronicle investigation reported last year that there is a heated controversy surrounding detection of SV40 and that most U.S. government’s studies over the past decade have debunked the theory that SV40 is causing human cancer or is even present in tumors.
But The Chronicle found that more than 60 studies from 30 laboratories around the world have reported detections of the virus in human malignancies. ‘I’ve been in meetings where people say there is nothing to it,’ said Dr. Jay A. Levy, a renowned virologist at the University of California at San Francisco. ‘That attitude is wrong.’
Levy said he had carefully reviewed the papers published yesterday and was impressed with the research. ‘You just can’t walk away from it,’ he said, noting that the association found was very strong. ‘But there is still quite a difference between association and causation,’ he added, ‘and proving causation is very difficult.’
Dr. Adi Gazdar of the University of Texas, who led the second study, said yesterday that the ‘data is very, very solid.’ He said it had to be more than coincidence that the four types of tumors found in hamsters after injection with SV40 — brain, bone, mesothelioma and lymphomas — are now exactly the same tumor types in humans found with detectable levels of SV40.
‘The chances are 10 million to 1 it is a coincidence,’ he said. Evidence of how the virus works in tumors is growing as research shows that proteins from SV40 have a powerful effect in turning off tumor suppressor genes in humans.
Gazdar and the other researchers said that the recent SV40 discoveries also could help lead to effective cancer treatment, by using SV40 as a target for therapies. ‘A vaccine targeting SV40 in mesothelioma is now being developed,’ he said. ‘But it’s still only a potential therapy, and we don’t know if it will work yet.’
He said that U.S. officials have all but ignored the SV40 detections and that government funding and support for research has been nonexistent. One reason given by Gazdar and other scientists is that the government is worried about its role in promoting polio vaccination campaigns in the 1950s. ‘And maybe it’s because the first SV40-related cancers that were discovered were such rare ones,’ Gazdar said. ‘But you can’t ignore lymphoma; it’s too widespread and too important a cancer. Jackie Kennedy and a lot of other well-known people have died from it. [Emphasis added.]’
I just added you to my Google News Reader. Keep up the good work. Look forward to reading more from you in the future.
yea and i just found out salk was prominent in the eugenics movement . the testing by B Eddys was in about 1955 but Alton Oschner at the Tuland labs dismissed Eddys findings of tumor in hampsters , why not ‚he was heavily invested in the reaserch and development . the risks were known bu a few very early on in the mass polio vaccine campaign .
Here’s a quick update on advances in biowarfare technologies. Or, in this case, it’s expected advanced in biowarfare technologies: The US Department of Defense ordered a study examining how synthetic biology technologies could be applied for biowarfare purposes.
The tools they looked at, like CRISPR gene-editing technology, aren’t new and are already widely employed in areas like agriculture and medicine. And, for the most part, they didn’t see synthetic biology as a major threat “at the moment”. But since things like vaccines can take years to develop it’s the kind of threat that you don’t want to catch you by surprise.
One of the “high concern” threats is exactly what you would expect: the re-creation of a virus such as smallpox. It’s a high concern because it’s both technologically possible and previously demonstrated.
Other threats include using CRISPR to create viruses that damage DNA and cause cancer (which isn’t exactly a new threat, but CRISPR could make the viruses much more potent).
And one particularly nasty possibility included genetically engineering human gut bacteria to produce toxins. So we could end up getting the population of bacteria that normally have a symbiotic-like relationship with humans can contaminated with weaponized variants.
At the same time, there’s concern that these kinds of studies are, themselves, potential fueling a new synthetic biology arms race. Why? Because these kind of studies are typically funded by the military, and while they are ostensibly defensive in nature (trying to understand possible futures risks to defend against them), the studies also obviously double as possible offensive studies (identifying possible offensive capabilities of new technologies). It’s a great example of why technology in the hands of a species like humanity is so perilous: even simply learning about the dangers is potentially dangerous because it might fuel an arms race:
“The new tools aren’t in themselves a danger and are widely employed to create disease-resistant plants and new types of medicine. However, rapid progress by companies and university labs raises the specter of “synthetic-biology-enabled weapons,” according to the 221-page report.”
This is part of what’s going to make future biowarfare technologies so challenging to control: the tools aren’t in themselves a danger. If your civilization wants things like medical advances or biotech for commercial purposes there’s no avoiding the possible application of these technologies for nefarious purposes. And in the case of this report it appears that CRISPR, the new super precise gene-editing technology
, is the dual use technology in particular that has experts concerned about biowarfare uses. If your civilization wants super precise gene-editing technologies, these kinds of dangers come with that package:
And the range of possibilities for customized viruses is immense. For instance, a virus could be designed to simply damage DNA and cause cancer:
Or we could see designer bacteria based on the ubiquitous bacteria that make up the human microbiome built to release toxins:
Keep in mind that one of the features of the bacteria that make up the human microbiome is that they’re generally evolved to co-exist well with a human body. So designing microbiome bacteria to produce toxins is literally weaponizing bacteria your body’s immune system is built to not attack.
But perhaps the most immediate danger from synthetic biology technology is the simple possibility that someone will use these to recreate a known virus like smallpox:
And the fact that this is highly useful technology already in use in science and medicine for legitimate purposes means that the traditional list-based approach of tracking technologies deemed to be dangerous is no longer going to be sufficient:
But perhaps the most ominous aspect of this report is the reminder that simply generating a report of this nature could generate anxiety in other nations and help fuel an arms race. Because you can’t use a weapon you haven’t thought of before:
It’s all a reminder that knowledge is, itself, the ultimate dual use tool. It can be used for good or ill. And since humanity is filled with so much ill will towards itself it’s more or less a given that the knowledge we possess will somehow be weaponized. This is why we can’t have nice things. Like non-poisonous gut bacteria.
@Pterrafractyl–
Remember, the distinction between “offensive” and “defensive” biological warfare research is ENTIRELY academic.
When you are studying how micro-organisms infect, sicken and/or kill humans and/or crops and/or livestock you are studying it–PERIOD.
Best,
Dave