Recorded February 11, 2007
MP3 Side 1 | Side 2
REALAUDIO
Introduction: Continuing the inquiry undertaken in FTR 480, this program explores the relationship between Lyme disease and biological warfare research. After reviewing American employment of Nazi biological warfare chief Erich Traub in the aftermath of World War II, the broadcast notes that Traub may well have experimented with disease-infected ticks on Plum Island. Circumstantial evidence suggests that Lyme disease may have stemmed (accidentally or deliberately) from biological warfare research experiments on Plum Island. At every turn, Lyme disease research is inextricably linked with biological warfare research. Divided into the “Steere” and “ILADS” camps, the Lyme disease research community is split between the view that the disease is “hard-to-catch, easy-to-cure” and the diametrically opposed view that the disease is very serious and produces long-term neurological disorder. The Steere camp diminishes the significance of the disease and is closely identified with biological warfare research. At the epicenter of Lyme disease research (and the Steere camp) are members of the Epidemic Intelligence Service, or EIS. EIS personnel are to be found at every bend in the road of Lyme disease research.
Program Highlights Include: The discovery by Willy Burgdorfer of the microbe that causes Lyme disease; Burgdorfer’s work as a biological warfare (BW) researcher; Burgdorfer’s work on Lyme disease conducted in concert with BW researchers Jorge Benach and Alan Barbour; the appointment of BW researchers Edward McSweegan and Mark Klempner to head up official research into Lyme disease; the “accidental” classification of Lyme disease as a potential biological warfare weapon by both the NIH and the CDC; the Pentagon’s use of a real-time satellite system that enables troops in the field to assess the threat of Lyme-infected ticks in their area; the fact that Lyme disease sheds its outer coat in such a way as to be resistant to antibiotics; the difficulty in diagnosing Lyme disease; the designation of Lyme disease as a “sentinel” ailment to aid in the detection of biological warfare agents.
1. Side “A” of the broadcast consists of review of information from FTR 480. Highlighting an aspect of Project Paperclip (the importation of Nazi scientists to work for the U.S. after World War II), the program details the work of Erich Traub. In charge of bacteriological and virological warfare research for the Third Reich, he went to work for the U.S. after the conflict. Circumstantial evidence suggests he may have conducted biological warfare research on tick-borne diseases on, among other places, Plum Island, off the coast of Long Island. FTR 480 presents information suggesting that the spread of Lyme disease in this country may have originated from Plum Island BW tests.
2. The second half of the program sets forth a thought-provoking paper about the ubiquitous presence of biological warfare specialists in the Lyme disease research community. By the same token, the history of Lyme disease research is associated with biological warfare research at virtually every turn. Lyme research is controlled by the Steere Camp, whose members are inextricably linked to the biological warfare research community in this country. The opposing camp-the ILADS—contends that Lyme disease is a serious ailment that produces prolonged neurological symptoms. The Steere Camp maintains that Lyme is “hard-to-catch, easy-to-cure.” “The world of Lyme disease medicine is split into two camps – the US government-backed ‘Steere camp’, which maintains the disease is hard-to-catch, easily cured, and rarely causes chronic neurological damage, and the ‘ILADS camp’, which maintains the opposite. The Steere camp is intricately bound up with the American biowarfare establishment, as well as with giant insurance and other corporate interests with a stake in the issue. The ILADS doctors lack such connections, but are supported instead by tens of thousands of patients rallying behind them. Because the Steere camp has been massively funded and promoted by federal agencies, its view has dominated Lyme medicine not just in the US, but across much of the world. The result has been suffering on a grand scale. Below is a concise history of the military aspects of this cover-up.”
(“History of Lyme disease as a Bioweapon: Lyme is a Biowarfare Issue” by Elena Cook.)
3. The Borrelia genus has long been researched as a biological warfare vector. Note that Unit 731 personnel and their files were put to work for the United States after World War II, much like the Project Paperclip scientists from Germany. “ . . . The Borrelia genus of bacteria, which encompasses the Borrelia burgdorferi species-group (to which Lyme disease is attributed), was studied by the infamous WW2 Japanese biowar Unit 731, who carried out horrific experiments on prisoners in Manchuria, including dissection of live human beings. [iii] Unit 731 also worked on a number of other tick-borne pathogens. After the war, the butchers of Unit 731 were shielded from prosecution by the US authorities, who wanted their expertise for the Cold War. [iv] The US government also protected and recruited German Nazi bioweaponeers under the aegis of the top-secret Operation Paperclip. . . .” (Idem.)
4. The extraordinary mutability of borrelia bacteria makes that genus especially well-suited for biological warfare purposes. “ . . . borrelia were known for their ability to adopt different forms under conditions of stress (such as exposure to antibiotics). Shedding their outer wall, (which is the target of penicillin and related drugs), they could ward off attack and continue to exist in the body. Lyme disease is not usually fatal, and it is sometimes argued that, with rapidly lethal agents like smallpox and plague available, an army would have no interest in it. However, what is important to understand here is that incapacitating or ‘non-lethal’ bioweapons are a major part of biowarfare R&D [vi], and have been for decades. . . . Military strategists understand that disabling an enemy’s soldiers can sometimes cause more damage than killing them, as large amount of resources are then tied up in caring for the casualties. An efficient incapacitating weapon dispersed over a civilian population could destroy a country’s economy and infrastructure without firing a shot. People would either be too sick to work, or too busy looking after those who were.” (Idem.)
5. Research into Lyme disease has been dominated by personnel from the Epidemic Intelligence Service, whose members are the premier biological warfare experts in the country. The EIS personnel make up the Steere Camp. EIS personnel administered Lyme disease research from the beginning: “ . . . When Polly Murray made her now-famous call to the Connecticut health department to report the strange epidemic among children and adults in her town, her initial reception was lukewarm. However, some weeks later, she got an unexpected call from a Dr David Snydman, of the Epidemic Intelligence Service (EIS), who was very interested. He arranged for fellow EIS officer Dr Allen Steere to get involved. By the time Mrs. Murray turned up for her appointment at Yale, the doctor she had expected to see had been relegated to the role of an onlooker. Allen Steere had taken charge – and his views were to shape the course of Lyme medicine for the next thirty years, up till today. [x]” (Idem.)
6. More about the EIS and its importance to the international biological warfare research community: “The EIS is an elite, quasi-military unit of Infectious Disease experts set up in the 1950’s to develop an offensive biowarfare capability. Despite the banning of offensive biowar in the 1970’s, the crack troops of the EIS continue to exist, ostensibly for non-offensive research into ‘emerging disease’ threats, a blanket phrase covering both bioweapon attacks and natural epidemics at the same time. Graduates of the EIS training program are sent in to occupy strategic positions in the US health infrastructure, taking leadership at federal and state health agencies, in academia, industry and the media. The organization also extends its influence abroad, training officers for public health agencies in Britain, France, the Netherlands etc. [xi] [xii]” (Idem.)
7. “In fact a high proportion of Steere camp Lyme experts are involved with the EIS. Given that the EIS is a small, elite force, (in 2001 the CDC revealed there were less than 2500 EIS officers in existence since the unit was first created in 1951 [xiii]), it seems incredible that so many of America’s top Infectious Disease experts would devote their careers to what they themselves claim is a ‘hard-to-catch, easily-cured’ disease. . . .” (Idem.)
8. The discoverer of the micro-organism that causes Lyme was a biological warfare expert—Willy Burgdorfer. Two of the people with whom Burgdorfer worked in the early phases of Lyme research (Jorge Benach and Alan Barbour) were also BW [biological warfare] specialists. “ . . . The microbe was accidentally found by biowarfare scientist Willy Burgdorfer and was subsequently named for him. [Emphasis added.] Burgdorfer has championed the Lyme patients’ movement and is not suspected of any wrongdoing. However it is not impossible that he was unwittingly caught up in a chain of events that were not as random as they might have seemed. [Burgdorfer was a Swiss scientist who had been recruited by the US Public Health Service in the 1950’s. He was highly experienced with both ticks and borrelia, but after being told that the government was not interested in funding work with the latter, he switched to work with Rickettsia and other pathogens. [xiv] In 1981, Burgdorfer was sent a batch of deer ticks by a team studying Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever on the East Coast. In charge of the team was one Dr Jorge Benach. [xv] Benach subsequently spent much of his career as a Steere camp Lyme researcher. In 2004 he was chosen as recipient for a $3 million biowarfare research grant. [xvi] [Emphasis added.] Cutting open some of Benach’ ticks, Burgdorfer noticed microfilaria (microscopic worm young). This was a subject he had been studying recently, only these microfilaria were different. They were exceptionally large, large enough to be seen with the naked eye.[xvii] His curiosity naturally piqued, he opened up several more ticks. There he was surprised to find the spiral-shaped germs of borrelia. Cultivation is necessary in order to isolate bacteria for study, so that diagnostic tests, vaccines or cures can be developed. Borrelia are very difficult to grow in culture. However, by ‘lucky coincidence’, another scientist had recently joined the lab where he worked, and had apparently been involved in an amazing breakthrough in this area. So naturally Burgdorfer handed the infected ticks over to him. [xviii] That scientist was Dr. Alan Barbour, an officer, like Steere and Snydman, of the Epidemic Intelligence Service, with a background in work on anthrax, one of the most terrifying biowarfare agents known. [xix] [Emphasis added.]” (Idem.)
9. Setting the template for future Lyme research, EIS researcher Alan Barbour’s work on borrelia determined the nature of subsequent Lyme disease testing. Barbour has gone on to the top position in a biological warfare research facility at the University of California at Irvine, where he is working with another “Steerite,” Jonas Bunikis. “. . . EIS man Barbour therefore became the first to isolate the prototype organism on which all subsequent Lyme disease blood tests would be based. [xx] This is very significant, as a huge body of evidence [xxi] indicates the unreliability of these tests, which are routinely used to rule out the disease. Additionally, all DNA detection of the Lyme agent in ticks and animals is ultimately based, directly or indirectly, on the genetic profile of the strain first isolated by Barbour. Shortly after Barbour’s discovery, other species and strains of the Lyme-causing bacteria were isolated, especially in Europe. They were all classified based on their resemblance to Barbour’s organism, and have been grouped into a category called Borrelia burgdorferi sensu lato or ‘Bbsl’ for short. . . . In 2005 Barbour, who spent much of his career studying the ‘hard-to-catch, easy-to-cure’ Lyme disease, was placed in charge of the multi-million dollar new biowarfare mega-complex based at University of California at Irvine (UCI). [xxiv] Barbour is joined there by his close colleague and fellow Steerite Jonas Bunikis, author of recent papers calling for a restrictive approach to Lyme diagnosis. [Emphasis added.]” (Idem.)
10. Edward McSweegan and Mark Klempner are two of the other BW experts to enter the Lyme disease research field. “ . . . The National Institute of Health (NIH) appointed biowarfare expert Edward McSweegan as Lyme Program officer. [xxv] [Emphasis added.] Under his leadership the diagnostic criteria was skewed to exclude most sufferers, especially those with chronic neurological illness. McSweegan’s successor at NIH, Dr Phil Baker, is an anthrax expert [xxvi], and has continued his policies. . . . In 2001, responding to the protest of thousands of patients that standard two or three-week antibiotic courses were not sufficient, the NIH commissioned biowarfare scientist Mark Klempner to study persistence of Lyme infection. [Emphasis added.] ILADS doctors had found that patients left untreated in the early phase often needed long courses of antibiotics, [xxix] sometimes for years. Klempner, however, concluded that persistent Lyme infection did not exist. In 2003 Klempner was appointed head of the new $1.6 billion biowarfare top-security facility being developed at Boston University. Shortly after, the news emerged that there had been an escape of the deadly bug tularemia, which was not properly reported to the authorities. [xxx] . . .” (Idem.)
11. Both the National Institute of Health and the Center for Disease Control “accidentally” listed Lyme as a potential bioterrorism vector. “In 2005 the author discovered a document on the NIH website listing Lyme as one of the potential bioterrorism agents studied in BSL‑4 (top security) labs. After this was publicized, the NIH announced they had made a ‘mistake’, and removed the words ‘Lyme disease’ from the page. (At the time of writing, the original is still available in cached Internet archives. [xxxi]) However, at around the same time, a CDC source leaked the identical information to the Associated Press. [xxxii] Moreover, the Science Coalition, comprising entities as prestigious as the American Medical Association, Yale University, and the American Red Cross, maintain a website which, at the time of writing, also lists Lyme as a disease studied for its biowarfare potential. [xxxiii] Could these three major organizations all have, co-incidentally, made the same ‘mistake’? . . .” (Idem.)
12. Supplementing information in paragraph 4, the program notes that the Lyme disease is difficult to diagnose, another factor that makes it ideal for BW use. “ . . . Lyme’s ability to evade detection on routine medical tests, its myriad presentations which can baffle doctors by mimicking 100 different diseases, its amazing abilities to evade the immune system and antibiotic treatment, would make it an attractive choice to bioweaponeers looking for an incapacitating agent. Lyme’s abilities as ‘the great imitator’ might mean that an attack could be misinterpreted as simply a rise in the incidence of different, naturally-occurring diseases such as autism, MS, lupus and chronic fatigue syndrome (M.E.). Borrelia’s inherent ability to swap outer surface proteins, which may also vary widely from strain to strain, would make the production of an effective vaccine extremely difficult. (A vaccine developed for the public by the Steere camp in collaboration with Glaxo Smithkline was pulled from the market a few years ago amid class action lawsuits [xxxvi].) Finally, the delay before the appearance of the most incapacitating symptoms would allow plenty of time for an attacker to move away from the scene, as well as preventing people in a contaminated zone from realizing they had been infected and seeking treatment. Often in the early period there is no rash, only vague flu-like or other non-specific symptoms which might be dismissed by GP’s, or ignored by the patient. . . .” (Idem.)
13. Lyme disease has been proposed as a “sentinel” germ for biological warfare detection. A Department of Defense satellite system gives soldiers real-time data on the presence of Lyme-infected ticks in their vicinity. “ . . . The 2003 proposal for a rapid-detection method for biowarfare by Dr JJ Dunn of Brookhaven National Lab seems to add further grounds for suspicion. It is based on the use of two ‘sentinel’ germs – plague and Lyme. [xxxvii] In 1999 Lyme patient advocacy leader Pat Smith was amazed to find, on visiting an Army base at an old biowar testing ground in Maryland, that the US Dept. of Defense has developed a satellite-linked system that enables soldiers to read, in real-time, off a display on their helmet’s visor, information about the rate of Lyme-infected ticks wherever they may be on earth. Unit commanders could update the database using state-of-the-art portable PCR machines, which test for Lyme DNA in soldiers bitten by ticks. [xxxviii] The use of such cutting-edge technology for a supposedly ‘hard-to-catch, easy-to-cure’ illness seems odd, to say the least! . . .”(Idem.)
14. The conclusion to the essay encapsulates its working hypothesis: “ . . . It’s possible to see the modern history of Lyme as a string of events with an EIS member at every crucial node. . . .” (Idem.)
Uncle Sam and Il Duce
Where ‚and why cant i get a old,
new photo of “erick traub”
Just FYI, if you’re going to be working anywhere near Plum Island’s new replacement facility in the heart of cattle country you might want to become a germaphobe:
Anyone want to buy an island? It’s got a rare ecosystem. And if that doesn’t float your boat it’s also got a former biowarfare research facility. There’s something for everyone:
I have no problem with the government encouraging a vegetarian diet, but I’m not sure this is the way to do it:
Mmmmmm....salmonella and feces. And chicken. The only thing that could this dish better is some delicious
beefpink-slime. Better yet, how about a side of feces-laden pork:The future is now. It’s just not the future you were hoping for.
The USDA’s Go-Veg campaign is utilizing some surprisingly powerful and persuasive messaging:
Hopefully that cockroach infestation was something that just popped up last September although it probably doesn’t matter. Resistance is futile.
The FDA recently increased the regulations on antibiotics added to soap. Now manufacturers need to prove that the antibiotic is actually safe and more effective than soap and water alone.
This is some very good news because antibiotics are, ironically, both a vital tool in modern medicine and a gateway to the unstoppable plagues of tomorrow:
Well that’s some good news for a change. Unfortunately, there’s still an alarming amount of room for additional good news regarding humanity’s life-threatening drug abuse problems.
The USDA announced a new massive beef recall from the Central Valley Meat Co. in Hanford, CA, over unsanitary conditions. Hanford is the same region that had a mad cow scare in April 2012, although the identity of the plant where the diseased cow was found hasn’t been disclosed. Central Valley Meat Co. was also shut down in August 2012, after videos of animals abuse were made public. This latest shutdown of Central Valley meat processor is on the heals of the closing of the Rancho Feeding Corp., another Central Valley meat processing plant. Fortunately, there were no animals found with mad cow from the Rancho Feeding Corp. plant. Unfortunately, it sounds like that’s because they were slaughtering visibly diseased animals without full inspections:
Hmmm...beef seems to be going through a natural and healthy cleansing process at the moment. What else is on the menu?
Awwww...it turns out the 2011 story of the poop-steak researchers in Japan was just a hoax. Sorry meat-lovers, no poop steaks for you. If only you were a pig. Yep, pigs are increasingly being fed baby-big poop as a way to fend off the new porcine epidemic diarrhea (PED) virus. Sounds mad? Well, that’s a less insane than feeding your bacon baby pigs:
Yes, as a result of this new pig-poo feeding trend the US pork industry might actually regain non-cannibal status and all it took was a little baby pig poo (but don’t hold your breath). Still grossed out but can’t quite imagine giving up pork? Well, don’t worry. You’ll get over your pork pooaranoia eventually.
If Donald Trump’s grand schemes don’t normally leave you feeling a little ill this one might do the
ticktrick:So what’s par for the course going to be? Oh yeah, Lyme Disease.
When good bugs go bad:
Lets hope GAS doesn’t start hanging out with MRSA. That could be one of those ‘there goes the neighborhood!’-experiences.
Here’s one of those stories that should have pretty much everyone deeply concerned: Ebola is back and stronger than ever:
Ok, there might be a few people that are delighted by this news. The usual suspects.
There’s news out of Kansas about a never before seen tick-born virus that killed a man in 11 days in Bourbon County. So, in the spirit of anti-alarmism, it’s worth pointing out that the CDC’s new National Bio and Agro-Defense Facility (NBAF) in nearby Manhattan, Kansas (that’s due to replace the Plum Island biowarfare research facility) isn’t up and running yet:
While $231 million isn’t exactly something Kansas afford at the moment, at least it’s in the form of bonds and not immediate cuts from elsewhere in the state budget. That could have been alarming (alarmingly typical).
Just FYI, “all the key players are now in place to make the post-antibiotic world a reality.”:
So it’s looking like our upcoming bacterial apocalypse, which is clearly not going to be limited to humans but could spread all over the ecosystem, was completely predictable and avoidable:
You have to wonder how many future refugee crises of people with compromised immune systems are going to be triggered by mass outbreaks of now-common bacteria morphing into super-bugs. You also have to wonder which nations are the most likely to experience such crises given the role industrial farming practices appears to have played in creating this situation.
In other news...
According to a recent study out of the UK, if the world doesn’t find a way to effective halt the spread of drug-resistant ‘superbugs’, those critters could end up killing 10 million people a year, more than killed by cancer, by the year 2050. Hopefully that not the actual future we create, but as the article below makes clear, a superbug-filled future is indeed the future we’re currently creating:
““It is the end of the road for antibiotics unless we act urgently,” Dr Tom Frieden, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), said in Washington.”
Well, that certainly doesn’t bode for the general health in the United States. And keep in mind that while the superbugs themselves might kill more people than cancer, that could be due in part to the fact that the treatments for an array of diseases simply will not be possible without effective antibiotics, included cancer treatments.
Still, the situation could be worse. For instance, there could massive outbreak of superbugs that were literally polluting beaches and heavily-used waterways. And this could all be happening right before a huge international event surrounded by those polluted waterways that end up simultaneously spreading these bugs all over the world. And, on top of all that, there could be a massive Zika virus outbreak on top of all the other health concerns. Yes, the superbug situation could be much, much worse:
“Flamengo beach, where spectators will gather to watch Olympic sailors vie for medals, had the super bacteria in 90 percent of samples. Ten percent of Copacabana’s samples had the microbes.”
So it looks like the 2016 Olympics might be a major event in humanity’s aggressive stumble into the post-Antibiotic era. Hopefully the 2020 games will have fewer environmental pollution threats. Hopefully.
Just FYI, the post-antibiotics era is still knocking on the door. Or, in the case of the US farm that was recently discovered to be infested with a dreaded superbug, is now knocking on the bacon:
“Worse, this superbug gene is carried on an easily swapped bit of genetic material called a plasmid, and the researchers found it in several different species of bacteria on the farm.”
Yeah, reports of plasmids of doom are pretty disturbing. But note what is perhaps the most disturbing aspect of this story: They still have no idea how it got there which means the outside source of contamination is presumably still running around spreading it:
So that’s happening. It’s one more compelling reason to swap out the bacon with facon. One of many.
Here’s a look at a particularly cost-effective form of biological warfare research and development that the Trump administration appears to be planning on implementing. Oh, and the targets of this biological warfare is everyone. So what’s the new program? The gutting of global infectious disease monitoring programs that were set up to detect the outbreak of infectious diseases and prevent them from becoming epidemics. That’s the new biological warfare program targeting everyone:
As a particularly nasty flu season continues to unfold across the US, the annual question of how to best avoid getting the flu is a much more topical question in 2018. And while getting an annual flu shot is one obvious approach, it turns out President Trump’s Evangelical spiritual advisor has some very different advice for people: avoid the flu shot and innoculate yourself with the word of God by repeating the worlds “I’ll never have the flu. I’ll never have the flu”:
““Well, listen, partners, we don’t have a flu season,” Copeland told her followers. “And don’t receive it when somebody threatens you with, ‘Everybody’s getting the flu.’ We’ve already had our shot: He bore our sicknesses and carried our diseases. That’s what we stand on.””
So that’s some free medical advice from Trump’s spiritual advisor. If you accepted Jesus you’ve already had all the flu shots you’ll ever need.
Thankfully, that advice hasn’t yet become official government advice for how to avoid the flu. That said, you still might want to engage in some disease-prevention prayer. Why? Because, as the following article noted, there’s a looming 80 percent cut in funding for Centers for Disease Control (CDC) efforts to combat global disease outbreaks, and no indication that extra funding is going to emerge in time so the CDC is already planning for major staffing cuts. Back in 2014, Congress passed a one-time bill that grants the CDC a one-time $600 million award dedicated to helping countries stop infectious-disease threats from becoming epidemics. And that money has indeed gone towards combating diseases like Ebola, the Zika virus, HIV, tuberculosis, malaria, polio eradication, vaccine-preventable diseases, influenza and emerging infectious diseases. And that’s funding is on track to run out in 2019 and there’s no indication Congress is going to renew the program. So all of those diseases — Ebola, the Zika virus, HIV, tuberculosis, malaria, polio eradication, vaccine-preventable diseases, influenza and emerging infectious diseases — are slated to get a major booster shot next year:
“The CDC programs, part of a global health security initiative, train front-line workers in outbreak detection and work to strengthen laboratory and emergency response systems in countries where disease risks are greatest. The goal is to stop future outbreaks at their source.”
Stopping future outbreaks at their source. That was the goal of the global health security initiative helped launched back in 2014 with 60 participating countries, with a recognition that detection and prevention of diseases is a far cheaper approach than waiting for them to spiral into epidemics. And that global initiative is what’s at risk of collapsing with more funds:
“. . . We recognize that the cost of failing to control outbreaks and losing lives is far greater than the cost of prevention.”
Yes, global health experts recognize that the cost of failing to control outbreaks and losing lives is far greater than the cost of prevention. And Congress also seemed to recognize this back in 2014 when the initial $600 million in funding for the project was approved. But despite statements from senior Trump administration officials affirming the importance of preventing outbreaks, CDC officials and global infection-disease experts are operating on the assumption that new funding isn’t going to happen in time. Hence the plans now getting put in place for massively scaling back the program:
“Countries where the CDC is planning to scale back include some of the world’s hot spots for emerging infectious disease, such as China, Pakistan, Haiti, Rwanda and Congo.”
And at this point, it’s just $150 million remaining. And if it new funds aren’t found, the only other option is to fund these programs using the CDC’s core annual funding, which remains flat at $50 to $60 million:
And this means that if Americans want to see global disease prevention programs continue, there’s going to have to be cuts to other domestic-oriented CDC programs.
And as former CDC director Tom Frieden points out, even if Americans ONLY care about the well-being of Americans, it’s not like letting epidemics erupt overseas isn’t a threat to Americans because there’s little stopping those diseases from the US:
““Either we help or hope we get lucky it isn’t an epidemic that travelers will catch or spread to our country.”
So how is the US right-wing responding to this ‘let them eat Ebola’ set of priorities? Well, according to Betsy McCaughey, a far-right go-to shill for all things health-related and one of Trump’s economic advisors during teh 2016 campaign, these cuts are all just part of Donald Trump’s ‘America First’ slogan. As McCaughey sees it, all of that money spent on global disease prevention is just wasted money that could be better spent on domestic problems like combating obesity and the opioid epidemic and encouraging Americans to get a flu shot.
She also called former CDC director Tom Frieden a “globalist” for bashing Trump over these funding cuts. And she suggests that “Trump will spend the money here instead” by pointing to a $500 million “Federal Emergency Response Fund” block grant to US states that would be designed to “rapidly respond to public health outbreaks,” such as Zika. This fund was actually part of Trump’s 2017 budget proposal...a budget that gutted scientific and medical research severely. And while such a Federal Emergency Response Fund would no doubt a great a idea and is something experts have long been calling for, it’s not like these experts have been calling for an end to global disease prevention programs. After all, even if someone ONLY cares about Americans and ONLY wants to help Americans, it’s still a wildly inefficient use of resources to let global contagious disease outbreaks to erupt and only then try to contain them in the US, which is the point Tom Frieden was trying to make. But according to Betsy McCaughey, this is all part of making ‘America First’:
“Under President Obama, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention sent money and staff to distant parts of the globe while neglecting life-threatening health crises under our noses. Dr. Thomas Frieden, who headed the CDC then, is joining a chorus of globalists bashing President Trump’s decision to end funding for the CDC’s overseas projects in dozens of countries. Frieden charges the cuts will “endanger lives in our country.” Sounds scary, but the facts prove otherwise. Trump will spend the money here instead, where it’s urgently needed. As Trump searches for a new CDC director, it’s time to put America first — something the agency has neglected.”
It’s time to put America first — something the agency has apparently been neglecting with all this work on global contagious disease prevention. That’s apparently what it means to put ‘America First’.
Similarly, pulling back for global epidemic prevention and replacing those efforts with a “Federal Emergency Response Fund” for dealing only with the outbreaks of diseases within the US is also seen as ‘American First’. And that includes diseases with obvious foreign sources like Zika:
“The Zika crisis shows the need for this state funding.”
LOL, yes, the Zika crisis does indeed show the need for state funding. But it apparently doesn’t show a need for funding a global initiative designed to combat Zika in the countries its most likely to become an epidemic and spread to other countries. At least that’s how Betsy McCaughey sees it. Along with the rest of the Trump administration. As far as she’s concerned, letting that global disease initiative die is as reason to yell “Alleluia!”:
So, again, if you haven’t started praying that you won’t catch a horrible preventable infectious disease, there’s no time like the present to start.
“I’ll never have the flu, or Zika, or Ebola, or tuberulosis, or any other infectious disease. I’ll never have the flu, or Zika, or Ebola, or tuberulosis, or any other infectious disease. Alleluia!”
There was some potentially big news for the community of Lyme Disease sufferers this week: An amendment was quietly added to the 2020 defense authorization bill in the US House of Representatives that would require the Pentagon’s inspector general to investigate and tell Congress whether or not the Pentagon had ever experimented with weaponizing disease-carrying insects and, if so, whether they were ever released into the public. If the answer is yes, a report on the experiments needs to be made to the House and Senate Armed Services Committee. Those committees could still keep things secret, of course.
The amendment was introduced by New Jersey Republican Christopher H. Smith and co-sponsored by Minnesota Democrat Collin C. Peterson, who is the House caucus’s other leader, and by Maryland Republican Andy Harris. It remains to be seen if it will be included in the final bill that gets sent to President Trump because the Senate version of the bill did not contain this amendment.
The impetus for the amendment was a new book called “Bitten,” that bases its case on a large number of archival documents and, crucially, the often cryptic testimony of Willy Burgdorfer, a former US biowarfare research scientist. Burgdorfer is a Swiss-born retired NIH scientist who discovered the bacteria believed to be the cause of Lyme disease. The bacteria is named “Borrelia burgdorferi” after him.
Burgdorfer grew up in Switzerland, got his PhD at the Swiss Tropical Institute where he became fascinated with ticks, and at the end of his training, in 1951, took a position at the US government’s Rocky Mountain Laboratory in Montana. Burgdorfer was covered extensively in FTR #585.
Burgdorfer died in 2014, but before he died himself to be interviewed by the author of “Bitten,” Kris Newby. Newby herself is a Stanford educated engineer and science writer who contracted Lyme disease herself, sending her on this quest to find answers about the nature of this still-mysterious disease. Newby co-created the 2008 awarding-winning “Under our Skin” documentary on Lyme disease. It was during the making of that film that they met Burgdorfer. He allowed himself to be interviewed and even seemed eager to talk, making him stand out among the Lyme disease researchers they contacted for the film. Burgdorfer was highly critical of the Lyme research community during that interview. Burgdorfer told Newby about meetings he had that made it clear they were working on weaponizing ticks, including working on infecting ticks with more than one pathogen. He admitted to brainstorming with entomologist James Oliver, who was working on a program to drop weaponized ticks out of airplanes. Burgdorfer even traveled to England and Czechoslovakia and met with scientists doing similar work. Oliver tied in 2018, two years after giving an interview where he talked about his work at Fort Detrick and admitted one of his goals was delivering ticks to targeted geographical areas.
After they finished filming the interview for the “Under our Skin” documentary, Burgdorfer ominously tells Newby, “I didn’t tell you everything.” He wouldn’t say more, until he agreed to be interviewed again in 2013. His health was failing at this point (he died the next year). It was during this second interview that Burgdorfer confirmed that he was working on weaponizing ticks and insinuated there had been an accidental release. But he wouldn’t give details about that alleged accidental release. He did, however, leave a large archive of materials at the Utah Valley University that he never handed over to government scientists. That archive is now available online. So during the final years of his life, Burgdorfer appeared to be leaving clues and hints about a big revelation that he wasn’t quite willing to openly disclose.
Newby delved into those archives, and what she found pointed to a potentially huge finding that could fundamentally change our understanding of the biology of Lyme disease: Burgdorfer’s archives referred to some he dubbed the “Swiss Agent.” It was something never mentioned in any of his journal articles. This raised the question of whether or not there was a yet-to-be-discovered/disclose additional biological agent that is playing a role in the development of the disease.
So that’s the thrust of Newby’s new book, “Bitten,” which has prompted this Congressional call for an investigation: the death bed crypto-confessions and archives of the biowarfare scientist who admits to working on weaponizing ticks:
“It remains to be seen whether Congress will send President Donald Trump a defense authorization bill with the weaponized ticks amendment. The Senate has passed its version without any similar provision, and now House and Senate negotiators must reconcile the two bills.”
So if you want to see this investigation happen, contact your Senator.
Now, here’s an overview of “Bitten” by an author at LymeDisease.org and the role Willy Burgdorfer’s cryptic testimony played in making . Part of what makes this summary so significant is that, when you read virtually all of the mainstream news articles discussing the above amendment added to the Defense authorization bill, almost none of them actually discuss the content of “Bitten” and who Willy Burgdorfer was. It’s a timely example of why the Lyme disease community tends to be paranoid about how this issue is generally treated. The article mentions how James Oliver also did an interview in 2016 where he admitted to working on weaponizing ticks. It’s a key point in all this: it’s not just Willy Burgdorfer who left cryptic clues about a tick biowarfare program before he died. James Oliver did too:
“Then, Newby writes: “As soon as we turned off the camera and began packing up our gear, Willy told us with a smile, ‘I didn’t tell you everything.’ But try as we might, we couldn’t get him to say more.””
That was the ominous hint Burgdorfer left for them after his interviews for the 2008 “Under Our Skin” documentary. And a big part of what made it so ominous is that is was indisputable that Burgdorfer was someone who was in a position to know whether or not such research took place. That was his job:
And, again, it’s not just the testimony of Burgdorfer. James Oliver admitted to much of this too before his death in 2018. We have two death bed confessions from former tick biowarfare researchers:
That evidence isn’t just their interviews. Burgdorfer left an archive. And in that archive we find references to a mysterious “Swiss Agent”. This is particularly important given the observation that signs of Lyme disease has been found in human remains going back thousands of years. “The Iceman”, who was found frozen in the Alps for 5,000 years, even had the DNA for the Lyme spirochete “Borrelia burgdorferi” found inside him. So if humans and Lyme disease have co-existed for millennia, what explains the sudden explosion of cases in the 1970’s? Why wasn’t this an already-recognized disease? That’s part of what makes the references to the “Swiss Agent” so intriguing in the context of allegations of the weaponization of ticks. Especially given the research into infecting ticks with multiple diseases. It points towards the possibility that what we know of at modern day Lyme disease is cause by a combination of “Borrelia burgdorferi” and a yet to be identified agent. A mystery agent that needs to be identified for effective treatment:
Keep in mind that the name “Swiss Agent” hints at something that came from Swiss researchers which could obviously be a reference to something acquired as a result of Operation Paperclip. Might that explain Burgdorfer’s extreme secrecy and hesitancy at discussing this topic with Newby? At this point we don’t know, hence the need for that investigation. Again, if you’re an American, contact your Senator.
Additionally, as we’re going to see below, Kris Newby herself describes the trail of clues and documentation Burgdorfer left behind as pointing in the direction of a genetically engineered unidentified agent that is causing Lyme disease. Now, modern genetic engineering technology didn’t exist when the the “Swiss Agent” would have been developed or discovered but that doesn’t preclude older and less precise methods for mutating and effectively selectively breeding a bacteria.
Now, as an example of how this story is generally being treated in the press. It’s one ‘debunking’ piece after another. And, surprise!, all the ‘debunking’ is easily debunked. For example, here’s a Washington Post article that features an attempted debunking by Michael T. Osterholm, the director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at University of Minnesota. Osterhold knew and worked with Burgdorfer. According to Osterholm, there’s simply “just no credible evidence,” for any of this and he calls it all science fiction. Osterholm points to the fact that deer populations in the Northeast increased after the Great Depression which correlated with the increase in Lyme disease cases. In other words, according to Osterholm, Lyme disease has always existed in its present form and the explosion of cases in the 1970’s was simply the inevitable and natural consequence of a rising number of humans getting exposed to infected ticks. Osterholm goes on to assert that ticks would make for an ineffective vector for spreading disease.
Now, while it’s true that there’s should be an expected increase in Lyme disease as a consequence of rising deer populations, the idea that this expected correlation explains away both the sudden explosion of cases in the 70s and the testimonies of both Burgdorfer and Oliver is absurd. Even more absurd is the dismissal that such research could have happened because ticks wouldn’t make an effective disease vector. Burdorfer and Oliver were literally working on making them better vectors! They literally dropped them from planes in an attempt to make them better vectors! But that’s how this story is being treated. And as we’ll see below, Kris Newby actually left a comment to this Washington Post article where she expresses her dismay at the coverage:
“Osterholm said that ticks would be an ineffective biological weapon and that there are much more effective options.”
That as Osterholm’s rebuke to the idea that there was secret research into make ticks better biological weapons: there would be more effective options. It’s not exactly a compelling argument.
And now, here’s a comment to the article from someone who claims to be Kris Newby herself. Newby expresses a feeling of infinite sadness
Now, in the defense of Meghan Krakow, the author of the article, note that her bio-blurb at the end of the article says she’s an intern at the Washington Post who started in June. So an intern who has been there for about month got this story.
But note the crucial point Newby makes in her rebuttal: Burgorfer’s clues and archives point towards the “Lyme outbreak” being primarily cause by something other than the “Borrelia burgdorferi” bacteria that was discovered in the 1970s and has co-existed with humanity for millennia. Instead, it was caused by something man-made/modified that no one is looking for:
And that’s the key point of Newby’s work that is being systematically left out of the news coverage of her book and this Congressional inquiry.
Next, here’s a BuzzFeed article that includes the ‘debunking’ by three different experts. They are, again, all easily ‘debunked’ debunkings. One expert, Maria Diuk-Wasser, an associate professor of ecology, evolution, and environmental biology at Columbia University, literally says the charges in “Bitten” are “an easy one to debunk” by pointing out that the “Borrelia burgdorferi” bacteria is found all across the US and not just in the Northeast. According to Diuk-Wasser, “It couldn’t have spread from the ’50s or ’60s all over the country. That’s impossible because ticks move very slowly. We know that the Borrelia that is throughout the whole US has an old origin genetically.” So Diuk-Wasser appears to be citing the ancient origins of “Borrelia burgdorferi” and the fact that it’s found across the US as an argument against the idea that US researchers created and developed the “Borrelia burgdorferi” and infected ticks with it. But that’s not a refutation the actual case made in “Bitten.” As we saw above, what Newby’s research points towards is the prospect that there’s something in addition to “Borrelia burgdorferi”, the mysterious “Swiss Agent”, that made Lyme disease so much more potent and easier to spread and might be the actual primary source of the disease. Additionally, whether or not the Lyme disease bacteria already existed or was man-made/modified is beside the point when it comes to questions of whether or not there was research on weaponizing the ticks themselves to make them better vectors for spreading diseases (like dropping them from planes).
Another expert, Gary Wormser, chief of infectious diseases at New York Medical College and founder and director of the Lyme Disease Diagnostic Center, asserts that the theory presented in “Bitten” are “not logical, not reasonable, and not true.” Wormser then said the “theory” in Newby’s book included the myth that the bacteria was created in a US government lab. But, again, that’s not actually what Newby’s book is asserting. No one disputes that the “Borrelia burgdorferi” bacteria has long existed. The questions are whether there’s an addition “Swiss Agent” and whether experiments in weaponizing this disease took place.
Finally, Greg Ebel, professor and director of the Arthropod-Borne and Infectious Diseases Laboratory at Colorado State University, gives perhaps that most beside-the-point ‘debunking’ attempt by observing, “I don’t know that you could really aerosolize it.” It’s literally a book about weaponizing ticks as vectors and he ‘debunked’ it by pointing out you can’t aerosolize it easily. *Face palm*:
“But experts say there’s no need to investigate because there’s no evidence or science to back it up.”
No need to even investigate because there’s no evidence and no science to back it up. That was the consensus of these experts who were keen to ‘debunk’ Newby’s book and nonsensically dismiss the evidence of the testimony of these former biowarfare tick researchers.
So as we can see, there is already immense resistance to even the idea that this kind of research might have taken place and notion that we should even investigate this at all. This is why Kris Newby feels infinite sadness. Along with all the other ailments she’s feeling as a result of her uncured Lyme disease.
And in related news, there’s a new invasive species of tick that feeds on cattle and is spreading across the US at an alarming rate. It’s the Asian Longhorned tick. Unlike most ticks, this one can close itself. All it needs is a blood supply. It’s so good at cloning itself that cattle has been found that was literally sucked to death in the US by swarms of tick clones. It’s a reminder that, in addition to learning about tick weaponization research of the past, global bans on future research are also vital. Getting sucked to death by a swarm of weaponized tick clones is a good recipe for more infinite sadness.
First, note that Kris Newby, the author of the book “Bitten” documenting the claims of former US biowarfare researchers Willy Burgdorfer and James Oliver about their work on weaponizing ticks and Lyme disease starting in the early 1950s, was interviewed on the latest episode of War Nerd Radio. You can hear a free preview of the first half hour here.
Next, here’s a story from 2016 that’s directly related to revelations in “Bitten”: According to a book “Clouds of Secrecy: The Army’s Germ Warfare Tests Over Populated Areas” by Dr. Leonard Cole, the director of the Terror Medicine and Security Program at Rutgers New Jersey Medical School, the first secret bioware experiments that exposed on the US public to started in 1949 and continued for the next 20 years. There are 239 known secret tests on the public in this germ warfare testing program:
“The Navy continued the tests for seven days, potentially causing at least one death. It was one of the first large-scale biological weapon trials that would be conducted under a “germ warfare testing program” that went on for 20 years, from 1949 to 1969. The goal “was to deter [the use of biological weapons] against the United States and its allies and to retaliate if deterrence failed,” the government explained later. “Fundamental to the development of a deterrent strategy was the need for a thorough study and analysis of our vulnerability to overt and covert attack.””
20 years of secretly exposing the public to all sorts of biological agents. That was happening from 1949–69 under the “germ warfare testing program”. And we aren’t talking about small isolated tests. It was on the scale of potentially exposing millions of people:
Not all of the testing under this program involved biological agents. Sometimes it was chemical agents. And what they found after dumping these agents on entire towns was the chemicals could rapidly spread over 1000 miles away within days. So some people were getting very heavy exposures to these agents while a much larger number of other people were getting lighter exposure as the released substances dispersed. What were the long-term consequences of this exposure? We don’t really know, but the fact that cancer clusters have been found in the targeted areas gives us a hint:
And note how the targeting of African Americans in one test was justified by claiming it was in preparation for an attack targeting African Americans because the germ used is one blacks are more susceptible to than whites. While it’s possible that was the case, given that this was 1951 and given the subhuman treatment of blacks, it seems like a pretty good bet that this was a contrived excuse. It’s an example of how historical vulnerable populations were probably extra vulnerable for getting selected for these tests:
But it wasn’t just vulnerable populations targeted by these tests. Even the New York City subways were used for these tests with crowds getting exposed to clouds of bacteria. Bacteria now known to cause food poisoning:
Keep in mind that a bacteria known to cause food poisoning but not generally be fatal could have been seen as a good choice for these kinds of experiments if there was a way for the researchers to track the number of food poisoning cases in the surrounding area after the exposure.
Adding to this troubling history is the fact that much of the evidence for these tests was uncovered by the Scientologists. So our historic evidence for these tests is now tainted by an association with the Church of Scientology:
And when military officials were called to testify before Congress in 1977 after evidence of these experiments, they explained that these tests were necessary for the protection of the public. It’s another example of how relatively easy it is to justify secret testing in the context of a war mentality. Or in this case, a Cold War mentality. That’s a key lesson to take from all this: secret testing on the public might seem unthinkable to today, but whether or not something is unthinkable depends a lot of the broader context of that decision. War, or a sense of looming war, can make a lot of unthinkable acts much more thinkable. It’s an especially important point to keep in mind when asking the question what experiments might be going on today or could happen in the future:
Were unthinkable experiments suddenly thinkable following the 9/11 attacks and the onset the War on Terror? Hopefully not, but we obviously can’t ruling it out given the precedent. That’s all part of the context of Kris Newby’s book “Bitten” and the ongoing questions about the potential weaponization of Lyme disease. Context that makes the content of “Bitten” far from unthinkable.
Here’s another article about the looming danger of antibiotic-resistant super-bugs. But unlike most articles about this topic that focus on the overuse of antibiotics or other collective behaviors that are driving the development of super-bugs, this article is about the problems facing the research in finding new antibiotics that can kill the already existing super-bugs: The pharmaceutical industry has basically given up even bother to try to find new antibiotics. Why? Because it’s not profitable enough. That’s right, as humanity stumbles towards a post-antibiotics future, the industry doesn’t see profit potential in developing new antibiotics. Why is there so little perceived profit potential? Because companies are already finding it difficult to sell the new cutting-edge antibiotics they’ve already developed. This appears to be due to the fact that these new antibiotics are vastly more expensive than traditional antibiotics and so hospitals don’t want to use them. Keep in mind that humanity doesn’t necessarily want to see new cutting-edge antibiotics wildly used when not necessary because that’s a great way to encourage the development of new drug resistant strains.
It’s one of the paradoxes of this market: the more you use the still-effective antibiotics, the less effective they become. The whole paradigm of depending on widespread use of antibiotics to finance their development is fundamentally counter-productive to the goal of have a ready stock of antibiotics that are still effective when necessary. And it sounds like years of warnings about doctors overprescribing existing antibiotics, leading to drug resistant strains, has made doctors much less likely to prescribe antibiotics making it harder for drug companies to recoup the cost. So doctors being more responsible about not overprescribing drugs is apparently undermining the economics encouraging companies to the development new drugs. It’s a pretty messed up dynamic.
At the same time, as the article notes, the high costs of these new drugs is discouraging hospitals from using them even when their use is necessary and appropriate. So the high costs of developing new antibiotics is resulting in the high costs to use them once they’re developed, which is discouraging hospitals from using them and preventing the drug companies from recouping the costs of development. But if that cost barrier is overcome and these drugs do get more widely used after development, that’s just going to speed up the rate at which new drug-resistant strains emerge and the drugs lose effectiveness. That suggests the model we should want to see is one that encourages the development of new antibiotics drugs that are ONLY used when necessary, but are affordable enough to actually be used when they’re needed. In other words, the ‘profit maximization’ paradigm that drives US society has concluded that a post-antibiotic future is the most profitable future for companies and investors today:
“The problem is straightforward: The companies that have invested billions to develop the drugs have not found a way to make money selling them. Most antibiotics are prescribed for just days or weeks — unlike medicines for chronic conditions like diabetes or rheumatoid arthritis that have been blockbusters — and many hospitals have been unwilling to pay high prices for the new therapies. Political gridlock in Congress has thwarted legislative efforts to address the problem.”
Developing drugs to kill drug-resistant bacteria and ward off a post-antibiotic future isn’t profitable. It’s kind of amazing. Especially since it sounds like the global death toll from antibiotic-resistant bacteria is expected to soar to 10 million people a year by 2050. There’s no profit in avoiding that massive annual death toll. In the 1980’s there were 18 major pharmaceutical companies developing new antibiotics but just three today. So even a collapse in the competition in this market hasn’t made it profitable enough for new companies to jump in and existing companies stay in:
And part of the reason there’s no profit is because doctors are trying to to overprescribe antibiotics the way they’ve done in the past. So doctors doing what they should be doing is harming the business model of these drug companies:
But then there’s also a problem with doctors not wanting to prescribe the drugs because of their high costs. So one solution the US Congress is looking at is ordering Medicare to reimburse hospitals for the costs of new important antibiotics, while others are calling for extending the lifetime of the patents. So the solution that Washington appears to have focused on is keeping these drugs very expensive but subsidizing that expense for the hospitals:
Now, on the one hand, having Medicare reimburse hospitals for the costs of these drugs would be an effective way to ensure they’re used on patients when those expensive new drugs are required to save the patients’ lives. But on the other hand, if there aren’t safeguards in place to ensure these subsidized drugs are only used when necessary it’s a great way to encourage the overuse of these drugs and the eventual development of drug-resistant strains. So let’s hope those safeguards are in place, which is what made the comments by Rick A. Bright, the director of the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA), a government agency that’s been doing its own drug development work, somewhat perturbing. Bright gave a personal anecdote where he cut his thumb gardening and almost had to have the thumb amputated because he was infected with a strain of MRSA that was only discovered after 7 antibiotics are tried on the infection. It was only one expensive new antibiotics that hospitals were wary of using due to its high cost that saved his thumb. As Bright put it, “If I had gotten the right drug on Day 1, I would have never had to go to the emergency room.” And while he’s correct on that account, he also seems to be calling for a system where these new drugs are used much more routinely aggressively even when it’s not obvious that they’re what’s required which is precisely the model for encouraging the development of new drug-resistant strains:
As we can see, the antibiotic situation facing humanity is one where we want to have new and still-effective antibiotics that are available and used when necessary, but ONLY when necessary in order to preserve their effectiveness. And there isn’t a profit-driven business model that can work under those constraints. It’s quite a market failure.