Losing Control of Global Biosecurity
Foot-and-Mouth, BSE,
GMOs
"There
are no defensive measures that can protect civilian populations
from biological weapons
and no military countermeasures that can reverse the
epidemic spread of new and uncontrollable diseases."
Los Angeles Times, 6
September, 2001
10 September 2001
Humanity
is in danger of rapidly losing control of global biosecurity as
governments and corporate scientists fall over each other in an
irresponsible rush to introduce dangerous practices involving
experimental biotechnology into the agriculture, medicine and
'defence' sectors.
In addition to GMO and BSE related issues, below is some 'interesting'
material concerned with questions as to why the UK
government does not want a full public inquiry into the
foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) epidemic. Included is
a foretaste of what lies ahead for the globe's biology unless
there is an urgent shift in our approach towards science, health,
the environment and world peace.
NATURAL
LAW PARTY WESSEX
nlpwessex@bigfoot.com
www.btinternet.com/~nlpwessex
British
Association for the Advancement of Science - Former Govt Chief
Scientist speaks out on Foot-and-Mouth and GM viruses
http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/in_depth/sci_tech/2001/glasgow_2001/newsid_1521000/1521986.stm
Warning against the threat from
global biological warfare and an increasing pool of man-made
genetically modified (i.e. recombinant DNA) viruses, former UK
Government Chief Scientific Adviser and President of the British
Association for the Advancement of Science, Sir William Stewart
said: "We only
have to look at the current foot-and-mouth episode to see what
can go wrong if we are not properly prepared and when a bug is
not adequately contained."
BBC Online, 2 September 2001, British
Association's Festival of Science in Glasgow
Australian
vaccine scientists genetically engineer new deadly virus by
mistake www.btinternet.com/~nlpwessex/Documents/Bio-terrorism.htm
"They wanted to make a contraceptive vaccine by altering the genes of the mousepox virus. But in January the project gained notoriety after the pair inadvertently created an unusually virulent strain of mousepox. If a similar genetic manipulation were applied to smallpox, the scientists realized, this feared killer could be made even more dangerous." Nature 411, 232 - 235 (2001) 'The bugs of war', 17 May 2001
US government
working on new genetically engineered vaccine for foot-and-mouth
http://www.newsday.com/news/health/ny-dsspd2349566sep04.story
"Plum Island [off Long Island, New York] is the
repository for the North American Foot and Mouth Disease Vaccine
Bank, established in 1982, which keeps vaccine for this country,
Canada and Mexico.....[Peter] Mason's lab [at Plum Island
Animal Disease Center] has developed a genetically modified
vaccine it hopes will solve some.... problems..... Because it
would lack some of the virus' proteins, it would also be easy to
distinguish between a vaccinated and infected animal.....
A vaccine of synthetic peptides developed by United Biomedical
Inc. of Hauppauge, in collaboration with Plum Island scientists,
also awaits further evaluation, Mason said. The vaccine is
constructed to duplicate the chemical structure of the virus so
that the animal's immune system will make antibodies. Like the
other vaccine, if it works, it too would make it easy to
distinguish between a vaccinated and infected animal."
Newsday, (Long Island, New York, newspaper) 5
September 2001, 'Lab
Returns to Its Roots'
US
company works to introduce synthetic vaccine for foot-and-mouth
http://www.unitedbiomedical.com/html/4_23_01.htm
"UBI (United Biomedical, Inc.) of
Hauppauge, N.Y. has developed a synthetic peptide vaccine against
foot-and-mouth disease virus....
In five different trials done in government
laboratories on three continents, the UBI
vaccine protected 45 out of 46 pigs from an intentional exposure
to the highly contagious virus..... Dr. Walfield's report will
focus on a trial conducted at the United States Department of
Agriculture Plum Island Animal Disease Center and is co-authored
by Dr. Fred Brown of the USDA Agricultural Research Service, Dr.
Juan Lubroth of the USDA Animal and Plant Health Inspection
Service, and others....
UBI has been developing synthetic peptide-based diagnostics and
vaccines as an integrated system for control and eradication of
foot-and-mouth disease virus (FMDV) since 1997....."
UBI Press Statement, Monday, April 23, 2001 [emphasis
added by nlpwessex - In which countries did the five
trials take place? Did this include trials in the UK prior to the
current foot-and-mouth outbreak? - see items below.]
US company confirm they have been testing the new synthetic vaccine in the UK http://www.unitedbiomedical.com/html/newstoday01.htm
"....in the midst of a global scare over recent outbreaks in England and Europe, the Long Island biotech firm headed by Wang is being looked to by the U.S. Department of Agriculture and 18 other countries-the latest being Germany, which called Wang on Wednesday-as, potentially, a major arms supplier in that war. United Biomedical Inc. of Hauppauge is testing use of an experimental synthetic vaccine that early results suggest could protect animals without the need to turn to conventional vaccines, which use weakened forms of the virus itself to promote production of protective antibodies..... Last week, Wang confirmed the vaccine is being tested in Britain by a pharmaceutical partner she would not identify." Newsday (Long Island, New York, newspaper) article, April 22nd, 2001 LI Lab Tests Vaccine For Foot-&-Mouth
[It has been suggested that UBI's partner company
in the UK is Merial Ltd. Merial is a Merk and Aventis company
which have foot-and-mouth vaccine production laboratories close
to those of the government's Institute for Animal Health at
Pirbright, Surrey. http://disc.server.com/discussion.cgi?id=93896&article=4831
http://uk.merial.com/merial_corporate/innovation/manufacturing.html
UBI and Merial appear to have signed an option agreement prior to
the UK outbreak for commercial development of UBI's synthetic FMD
vaccines. http://www.sheepdrove.com/yw_letters.htm.]
US scientist claims synthetic vaccine trials in UK last year (2000) responsible for foot-and-mouth outbreak
There is much speculation as to the actual cause of the FMD
outbreak in the UK with many competing theories.
One scenario is outlined in an article written June 15 2001 (http://www.nightsearch.net/bio-news13.html#oot and Mouth
Outbreak Cover-up ), by New York based former US vetinary
consultant Dr Patricia Doyle who has been monitoring activities
at the US government Plumb Island Animal Disease Center for some
time. Dr Doyle claims there is evidence which suggests the
complete story about the UK outbreak is not being told. In the
article she states her belief that:
1. Secret trials of synthetic FMD vaccine were taking place in the UK as far back as before September 2000 and that the trials are implicated in the outbreak [given the June date of her article Dr Doyle's reference to Sept '2001' appears to be a typing error].
2. That the epidemic is related to a lab created FMD type O virus and that the virus was used to challenge pigs in the FMD synthetic vaccine trials.
(for more on lab created mutant/recombinant/genetically engineered FMD viruses see: http://www.bio.ph.ic.ac.uk/~scurry/abstract_sc1.html ;
http://www.tdi.es/group_inves/pachiweb.htm ; - viz: "...[This] will provide information relevant to the improvement of FMD synthetic vaccines. In connection with this objective, we are producing recombinant vaccinia viruses expressing different FMDV genes."
http://www.prosci.uci.edu/Articles/Vol5/issue9/6143/6143.html ; http://www.promega.com/pnotes/68/7381_35/7381_35.html (4th item);
http://aleffgroup.com/avisfmd/A010-fmd/mod4/4500-control.html - viz: "...virulance can be altered by direct manipulation of the genome....")
3. Synthetic vaccine trials on pigs took place in the UK at Pirbright, Surrey. Additional trials took place at Plumb Island, US, as well as in China and Taiwan.
4. Trials in China and the UK were subject to secrecy conditions in the government contracts concerned (more details on this and other matters at Dr Doyle's article web page).
However,
a paper submitted to the Journal of General Virology 31
October 2000 by UK government scientists from the Institute of
Animal Health at Pirbright indicates that they had been working
on a genetically engineered recombinant DNA vaccine. It is not
clear if this might be instead of, or in addition to, the trials
referred to by Dr Doyle, or possibly the same trials with a
discrepancy over the vaccine type.
In the trials described in the journal in which pigs were
challenged with live virus, the recombinant DNA vaccine only
provided protection for some of the animals tested and 'was
not as effective as conventional virus vaccine'. The paper
also states: 'A particularly serious problem is that several
outbreaks in Europe have been attributed to incomplete
inactivation of the virus or to the escape of live virus from
vaccine production laboratories'. The paper in fact makes
passing reference to the UK outbreak, because although the paper
was originally submitted in October 2000 it was not accepted for
publication (presumably with interim revisions required by the
journal review panel) until 30 March 2001(http://www.sgm.ac.uk/JGVDirect/17505/17505ft.htm ).
It would certainly be regrettable if, in attempting to produce a
new genetically engineered vaccine only a less effective type had
been created, and in the process a foot-and-mouth virus had
escaped into the environment - irrespective of whether the virus
itself was naturally occurring or man made.
Meanwhile, the Sunday Express reported 8 April 2001 that
as a result of a routine audit a container of foot-and-mouth
virus was found missing from the UK government's bio-warfare
research lab at Porton Down Wiltshire two months before the first
official outbreak. The paper also claims it has seen documents
confirming that some sheep carried the virus long before the
outbreak was confirmed on February 20, 2001. A Welsh vet says the
virus was in Wales as early as January according to the Express.
(http://www.lineone.net/newswire/cgi-bin/newswire.cgi/skynews/uk/story/2001/4/c--2001-4-8-1n29.html
)
A later UK provincial press report (29 June 2001) quotes a Canadian Government spokesman who appears to confirm that a foot-and-mouth 'simulation exercise' took place in the UK and the US (together with its immediate neighbours in Canada and Mexico) in the autumn of 2000 - see Newcastle Evening Chronicle article below.
In the absence of more information these scenarios can be regarded either as conflicting or overlapping. The separation of fact from fiction is unlikely, however, to be achieved without the holding of a full public enquiry into the UK outbreak where ministers and officials can be subjected to quasi-judicial cross-examination. Without such a process speculation will never die away.
Why does the
British Government not want a full public inquiry into the
foot-and-mouth outbreak?
http://icnewcastle.icnetwork.co.uk/0100news/0100local/page.cfm?objectid=11124271&method=full
"Government scientists in four countries were preparing for a foot and mouth outbreak months before it swept Britain.
A Chronicle investigation has discovered the British, American, Canadian and Mexican governments were all staging a co-ordinated foot and mouth simulation exercise in October 2000, despite the fact that Britain had not been struck by the disease for 34 years and the USA and Canada had not been affected since 1929.....
Amble-based geneticist Bruce Jobson, added: "This confirms what we knew all along, that the Government was aware foot and mouth was on the loose long before they identified it at Bobby Waugh's farm. The new Department of the Environment Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) must now admit that MAFF had covered up the real cause of this outbreak'
Newcastle-based microbiologist Dr Harash Narang added: 'I firmly believe that the virus escaped from a MAFF experiment and had infected sheep as long ago as last October. 'This evidence now supports that belief.'.......
A spokesman for the
Canadian Government said he was unable to comment on its foot and
mouth simulation exercise due to agreements it had made with the
British Government. "Due to the sensitivity surrounding
events which have occurred since February this year, we are
unable to comment further on the reasons or results of the
November exercise," he added.
Newcastle Evening Chronicle, a newspaper local
to the 'first' foot-and-mouth outbreak at
Heddon-on-the-Wall: "Animal Virus Ordeal Shock
Report", Jun 29 2001.
Why no-one believes government reassurances on biosafety anymore
BSE
"The disease has now claimed the lives of more than 100 people in the UK, and scientists say its incidence increased by 20% last year. Estimates of the final total of cases expected in the UK range from a few hundred to 140,000.
Professor James Ironside, of the vCJD Surveillance Unit at Edinburgh University, told BBC Radio 4's Today programme on Wednesday it was difficult to tell how the disease would grow in the future. 'Because of the uncertainties associated with the disease, the unknown incubation period, genetic factors that are probably associated with different susceptibility - it makes modelling the future very difficult,' he said.....
Professor Ironside
said the origins of vCJD were still a mystery to
scientists."
BBC Online, September 6, 2001, British Association's Festival of
Science in Glasgow
http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/in_depth/sci_tech/2001/glasgow_2001/newsid_1527000/1527851.stm
Foot-and-Mouth
"The decision to have closed inquiries into the foot-and-mouth outbreak showed that the UK Government has not learnt the lessons from mad cow disease, a leading BSE inquiry scientist said on Tuesday. Professor Malcolm Ferguson-Smith said the ministers had failed their first big test to demonstrate a more open approach to scientific crises. He said the 16-volume Phillips report into BSE, released last year, was in danger of becoming a '£26m doorstop'......
Professor
Ferguson-Smith of Cambridge University was one of the three
members of the BSE inquiry committee. 'There is some evidence
that one or two of the lessons have certainly not been learned,'
he told the Glasgow meeting. He said: 'I was rather devastated
when I heard that the inquiries into foot-and-mouth disease were
going to be held in private. I think that is a mistake.' There
was a need for greater openness and discussions with independent
scientists, he said. 'Lack of openness leads to public mistrust
of government,' he told journalists......"
BBC Online, September 4, 2001, British Association's
Festival of Science in Glasgow
http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/in_depth/sci_tech/2001/glasgow_2001/newsid_1525000/1525154.stm
GMOs
"The government and the company that developed
genetically modified StarLink corn had at least some indication
that the corn might be entering the human food supply more than
half a year before environmental advocates discovered it in taco
shells, according to a government document.
StarLink was approved for use as animal feed but not for human
consumption because of concern it might cause allergic reactions.
But last September, Friends of the Earth found traces of the corn
in taco shells. That, and discoveries in other foods, set off
food recalls and depressed American corn exports
....[economic impact is often a major factor determining
presentation and handling of biosafety matters by governments -
viz: BSE and foot-and-mouth in relation to British export
markets, nlpwessex]
But in a survey conducted in December 1999, nine months
before the taco shell discovery, 2 of 230 farmers growing
StarLink reported that they had sold the corn for food use or for
export while another 12.6 percent said they did not know what
happened to the corn after they had sold it. The
survey was commissioned by Aventis CropScience, the crop's
developer, which sent the results to the Environmental Protection
Agency in a report dated Jan. 27, 2000".
New York Times article, September 4, 2001,
'Altered Corn Surfaced Earlier'
Huge increase in food related disease numbers since introduction of GM crops in US
"The
C.D.C. [Centres for Disease Control] now says that food is
responsible for twice the number of illnesses in the United
States as scientists thought just seven years ago.... At least 80
percent of food-related illnesses are caused by viruses or other
pathogens that scientists cannot even identify."
New York Times, 18 March 2001
(5,000 deaths, 325,000 hospitalizations and 76
million illnesses per annum caused by food poisoning in the US)
US goverment working on
genetically modified anthrax for destructive purposes
http://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/0,,3-2001305743,00.html
"THE Pentagon
has secretly built a germ factory capable of producing enough
deadly bacteria to kill millions of people, it was revealed
yesterday.
The project is one of a number of covert biological initiatives
pursued by the United States over recent years. One proposal
awaiting final approval is to manufacture a more potent version
of anthrax using genetically engineered biological agents. Last
night, Donald Rumsfeld, the US Defence Secretary, confirmed that
the Administration planned to proceed with these tests...." London Times, September 5,
2001: 'Secret US germ
tests threat to treaty'
Who's Afraid of a Germ Warfare Treaty?
"....much that can be
carried out in the name of biological threat assessment is
indistinguishable from preparations for the offensive use of
biological weapons, activities such as creating new, genetically
engineered pathogens..... There are no defensive measures that
can protect civilian populations from biological weapons and no
military countermeasures that can reverse the epidemic spread of
new and uncontrollable diseases."
Los Angeles Times, 6 September, 2001
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-000072140sep06.story?coll=la%2Dnews%2Dcomment%2Dopinions
Regaining Control of Global Security
"[Genetically
engineered] DNA is no respecter of natural law, and terrorism is
no respecter of man-made law. No regulatory system, however
well-intentioned and complex, can possibly deal with this
combination. Only an entirely new paradigm for the biosciences
and global security can guarantee 'apocalypse never'. We should
pursue it."
NLPWessex,
19 May 2001
http://www.btinternet.com/~nlpwessex/Documents/Bio-terrorism.htm
"Military
and diplomatic solutions will never produce lasting peace while
enmity seethes in the hearts of the people. The persistent crisis
in the Middle East alone proves the inadequacy of paper treaties,
and underscores
the need for a fundamentally new approach.... Fortunately, now
there is a better way..... Ours is the only new approach with a
proven track record - an approach that is backed by extensive
published research."
India's Major General Kulwant Singh, 6th
September 2001, announcing the launch his
proposals for a new system of global security based
on Vedic
Defence.
http://www.btinternet.com/~nlpwessex/Documents/vedicdefence.htm
NATURAL LAW PARTY WESSEX
nlpwessex@bigfoot.com
www.btinternet.com/~nlpwessex