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This pro­gram details some alarm­ing devel­op­ments in the fields of bio-tech­nol­o­gy and med­i­cine. Unwit­ting­ly (per­haps), these “advances” may have dev­as­tat­ing appli­ca­tions to the field of bio­log­i­cal war­fare.

1. The British mag­a­zine New Sci­en­tist report­ed that Aus­tralian gene engi­neers had con­vert­ed a mouse­pox virus into a dead­ly killer. (“Aussie Sci­en­tists Stum­ble Across the Dooms­day Bug” [Agence France Presse]; Yahoo! Asia News;1/11/2001.)

2. The mouse­pox virus is close­ly relat­ed to the human small­pox virus, and the inser­tion of the mol­e­cule inter­leukin 4 (IL‑4) made the rodent ver­sion much dead­lier. (Idem.)

3. Specif­i­cal­ly, the virus destroyed the immune sys­tems of the infect­ed mice, and fit proved resis­tant to a vac­cine that would nor­mal­ly pro­tect mice from infec­tion. (Idem.)

4. Sci­en­tists are afraid that, if IL‑4 were added to the human small­pox virus, it could become much dead­lier. (Idem.)

5. Next, the broad­cast high­lights dis­cus­sion about a the­o­ry that AIDS may have result­ed from the con­t­a­m­i­na­tion of a polio vac­cine with HIV. (“Quest for the Ori­gin of AIDS” by William Carlsen; San Fran­cis­co Chron­i­cle , 1/14/2001; pp. A1-A14.)

6. The arti­cle (first of two parts) gives some cre­dence to the the­o­ry advanced in the book The Riv­er by Edward Hoop­er. (Idem.)

7. The hypoth­e­sis appears to be the syn­the­sis of dis­tinct, but relat­ed hypotheses–that an epi­dem­ic of soft tis­sue can­cers result­ed from the con­t­a­m­i­na­tion of the polio vac­cine with a can­cer-caus­ing mon­key virus (SV40) and the con­t­a­m­i­na­tion of an exper­i­men­tal hepatitis‑B vac­cine with HIV.

8. Most of the pro­gram con­sists of excerpts of an inter­view with Ed Haslam, the author of Mary, Fer­rie and the Mon­key Virus: The Sto­ry of an Under­ground Med­ical Lab­o­ra­to­ry (Wordsworth Press, copy­right 1995.) In the inter­view, Ed effec­tive­ly debunks Hoop­er’s hypoth­e­sis, and points out that the pub­li­ca­tion of The RiverUnit­ed States. (The prob­a­bil­i­ty that AIDS stemmed from the appli­ca­tion of genet­ic engi­neer­ing to bio­log­i­cal war­fare is dis­cussed in numer­ous pro­grams not­ed below.) led to the destruc­tion of exist­ing stocks of the old polio vac­cine. Ed also debunks a bogus the­o­ry that AIDS had evolved as ear­ly as 1930, point­ing out that the “data” uti­lized to val­i­date that the­o­ry came from a chim­panzee in a U.S. Air Force lab­o­ra­to­ry in the Unit­ed States. (The prob­a­bil­i­ty that AIDS stemmed from the appli­ca­tion of genet­ic engi­neer­ing to bio­log­i­cal war­fare is dis­cussed in numer­ous pro­grams not­ed below.)

9. After the Haslam inter­view, the broad­cast high­lights an alarm­ing genet­ic engi­neer­ing exper­i­ment. In the exper­i­ment, a jel­ly­fish gene was suc­cess­ful­ly insert­ed into a mon­key egg, the egg was then fer­til­ized and the pro­tein cre­at­ed by the insert­ed gene was passed on to the young mon­key. (“Mon­key Born With Altered Cells in Gene Engi­neer­ing Exper­i­ment” by Gina Kola­ta; New York Times; 1/12/2001; pp. A1-A17.)

10. The stat­ed pur­pose of the exper­i­ment was “to cre­ate colonies of mon­keys that had been genet­i­cal­ly mod­i­fied to devel­op a human dis­ease.” (Idem.) In numer­ous pro­grams cit­ed below, the dan­gers of bridg­ing the “species bar­ri­er” are cit­ed. In par­tic­u­lar, pri­mate virus­es and human ill­ness have been pos­i­tive­ly linked by numer­ous cred­i­ble stud­ies.

11. Next, the pro­gram sets forth infor­ma­tion about a genet­i­cal­ly engi­neered vac­cine being mar­ket­ed by the Bay­er com­pa­ny. The vac­cine is said to have anti-can­cer prop­er­ties and acts on a gene that caus­es tumors. (“Bay­er, Mil­len­ni­um Say Genom­ic Drug that They Devel­oped Fights Tumors” by Vanes­sa Fuhrmans; Wall Street Jour­nal; 1/11/2001; p. B4.) Mr. Emory points out that this same tech­nol­o­gy could be used to cause tumors, and that the Bay­er com­pa­ny was for­mer­ly part of the I.G. Far­ben com­pa­ny that was the back­bone of the Third Reich.

12.The pro­gram con­cludes with exam­i­na­tion of claims that a vac­cine that inoc­u­lates chil­dren for measles, mumps and rubel­la can be dan­ger­ous. (“Report Over Vac­cine Sparks off Polit­i­cal Row, as Cam­paign­ers Say Fig­ures Will not Change their Oppo­si­tion;” York­shire Post; 1/13/2001.)