Planting the seeds of war against WMD: US Sends Deadly Flu Virus 'in Error'

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Sat, 16 Apr 2005 00:35:39 -0000

Planting the seeds of war against WMD

 

 

 

 

http://mathaba.net/x.htm?http://mathaba.net/0_index.shtml?x=186680

 

 

 

US Sends Deadly Flu Virus 'in Error'

Posted: 04/14

Mathaba

 

The World Health Organisation issued a warning today after a US

institute sent to thousands of laboratories samples of a lethal flu

virus that killed around four million people in the late 1950s.

 

Observers have long wondered why such deadly viruses should be stored

in US and labs like the UK military's Porton Down, and not simply

destroyed.

 

" There is a slim but a real risk that this could spark a pandemic, "

said Maria Cheng, a spokeswoman for the WHO, explaining that many

people around the world would have no protection if the virus were

ever released from the high-security labs.

 

The virus, H2N2, killed between one million and four million people

worldwide during the Asian influenza pandemic of 1957-58 before

disappearing in 1968.

 

" As far as pandemics go, it (the event in 1957-58) was relatively

mild. But if this were to recur it would have significant consequences

for the public health system, " Cheng said.

 

The samples were included in kits used to regularly test the ability

of the laboratories in 18 countries to identify strains of flu virus.

 

Ninety per cent of the laboratories were in North America.

 

The virus was sent to laboratories in Belgium, Bermuda, Brazil,

Canada, Chile, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Israel, Italy, Japan,

Lebanon, Mexico, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan and the

United States, the UN's health agency said.

 

So far, laboratories in Canada, Hong Kong, Singapore and South Korea

were known to have destroyed all the H2N2 samples they received, it

said. But could Israel and Saudi Arabic be trusted to do so, each

representing religious fanatics and renowned as hot beds of terrorism?

 

The agency's top flu expert, Klaus Stohr, said all the samples were

expected to be destroyed by Friday. Yet no one explained how it could

be known if a small amount is saved and not destroyed, and whether

therefore 100% verification would be possible.

 

A US-based private institution, the College of American Pathologists,

distributed the samples of H2N2 to 3,747 laboratories through the

private Meridian Bioscience Inc in two batches, in October 2004 and

February 2005.

 

The samples appeared to have been distributed deliberately and legally

because of national differences in the hazard rating of the strain,

Stohr told journalists.

 

" Legally that's fine, epidemiologically and looking at the risk

assessment, it may have not been a good idea to do that, " Stohr said

in a clear understatement.

 

" It is certainly something that will have to be reconsidered in the

future, definitely, and WHO will make recommendations, " to ensure that

the virus strain is given a higher hazard rating, he added.

 

The WHO said normally only circulating influenza virus strains to

which people have been exposed in recent years should be sent out in

testing kits.

 

It warned in a statement yesterday that people born after 1968 would

probably have no or only limited immunity to the strain, which is not

contained in current influenza vaccines.

 

However, the WHO itself commissioned an independent report in the

1980's into investigating a link between the initial spread of HIV in

Africa and Asia and one of its vaccine programs and then surpressed

the report which briefly surfaced in the London 'Times' newspaper

before being censored by a compliant media.

 

The 'US distribution of lethal flu' alarm was first raised by Canada's

National Microbiology Laboratory after it detected H2N2 virus in a

sample on March 25, leading to an alert issued by US authorities

through the College of American Pathologists on April 8.

 

It is also worth noting that the Hand Foot and Mouth Disease which

spread like wildfire around England and other countries came from a

sample that " went missing " from the British Military lab at Porton

Down, which also stores lethal diseases for unknown purposes. The

source of the " Asian Bird Flu " and other recent pandemics may also be

traced to such origins in coming years, if transparency and

accountability of the UK and US governments and their institutions is

ever attained.

 

There has been no sufficient logical explanation for the reasons for

outbreak of such diseases in recent years, as well as deadly viruses

in Africa, usually in war zones such as South Sudan and Zaire.

 

 

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