Toxic Shocks

[Guest guest]

" WC Douglass " <realhealth

 

 

Toxic Shocks

Tue, 28 Dec 2004 08:25:00 -0500

 

Daily Dose

 

Tuesday December 28, 2004

 

 

The mesh umbrella shielding us from bioterror

 

Ah, we of the short memory.

 

Perhaps people are thinking " It can't happen to me. " Or

perhaps the thought of it is just too unpleasant for Americans

to even stay focused on. Worse yet, perhaps we're all so

caught up in our lattes and laptops that we just don't stop to

consider how frighteningly (and easily) possible it would be

for a determined individual or group to eradicate large

numbers of us with simple diseases or toxic agents.

 

Yet regardless what the reason is, clearly we're not at all

concerned about chemical and biological weapons anymore

— even though it wasn't all that long ago that the entire

nation was held ransom by the fear of anthrax in our mail

(remember also that this crime hasn't been solved yet). That

attack was extremely small-scale and specifically targeted,

yet still managed to sicken and kill a handful of Americans

— none of which were the intended victims...

 

But imagine how many deaths a well-organized, large-scale,

open-air attack using this very same bio-toxin would result

in. Likely hundreds. And what about multiple attacks in

several metropolitan areas simultaneously? Such would

surely kill thousands of us, and paralyze the rest of the

country so completely we'd likely go bankrupt as a nation, or

nearly so, anyway.

 

Not pleasant to consider (or reconsider), is it? Nevertheless,

according to a recent report by the British Medical

Association, it may currently be possible for evil-minded

scientists or the dictators that puppet them to loose upon us

deadly viral illnesses that would rival the Spanish flu

epidemic of 1918 that killed 40 million worldwide.

 

Aside from whatever security measures are in place, only the

anemic Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention stands in

the way of such an action — a pseudo-treaty initiated in 1975

which carries with it NO PROVISIONS FOR MONITORING and NO

MEANS OF ENFORCEMENT. One reason why this treaty is really

nothing more than a " gentleman's agreement " between nations is

that the United States won't ratify attempts to strengthen the

treaty, even in the wake of September 11th.

 

Why won't we vote to beef up the measure? Because the U.S.

biotechnology industry (in many ways nothing more than an

offshoot of the drug business) continually pressures

presidential administrations to avoid signing anything that

could inhibit their " research. " International conventions are

always a collection of fools anyway; no good will come from

it, but it gives me a chance to rant on the subject.

 

And apparently, that now includes the manufacture of deadly

new bio-terror toxins. Keep reading...

 

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WHO's (not) afraid of smallpox?

 

In an astonishing reversal of position, the 192-nation World

Health Organization (WHO) has come out in favor of

tinkering with the smallpox virus in ways that could render it

vaccine-proof, according to a recent Associated Press article.

Needless to say, this comes as a shock to most in the

scientific community.

 

Long known as staunch advocates of destroying the last two

(that we know of, anyway) remaining stockpiles of the virus

— one at the Center for Disease Control and Prevention in

Atlanta and the other in the former Soviet Union — the

WHO now advocates allowing researchers to conduct genetic

experiments with the virus.

 

The reason? Ostensibly, it's to allow scientists to stay ahead

in the bioterror game. This is the WHO's rationale: Since

global villains already have the ability to develop strains of

smallpox that are resistant to all known vaccines and

treatments, drug makers and medical researchers should be

able to breed smallpox-based " superbugs " in order to be able

to develop effective treatments for them.

 

It's like a biological arms race!

 

As much as I hate to say it, if it is indeed the case that the

baddies have these bugs or the capability of making them

(according to the article, at least one escaped Soviet scientist

claims that covert caches of smallpox-based weapons existed

in the 1980s — God only knows who has them now), the

WHO's new outlook on the situation might be the only

course of action that could protect us at all from a madman

determined to wipe us out with a killer virus. And if we are

dependent on the WHO for survival, we are TOAST.

 

But if they'd just done what they said they were going to do

all along, we wouldn't have to grapple with this dilemma at

all. See what I mean about international conventions?

 

 

Always racing to arm you with the facts — no matter how

shocking,

 

William Campbell Douglass MD, II

 

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