This week, diplomats from around the world are meeting in Geneva, Switzerland, as part of an annual gathering of state parties for the Biological Weapons Convention (BWC). The BWC has an important mandate: It prohibits the 182 countries that have signed on and ratified the convention from developing, producing, and stockpiling biological weapons.
The BWC, and the biosecurity community broadly, has historically been more focused on existing pathogens with clear potential to be used as biological weapons, such as anthrax and the agents causing botulism and Q fever. In addition, health security experts are worried about the “next big one” — the next global pandemic. Pandemic diseases are often zoonotic, meaning they jump from animals to humans. Zoonotic diseases like Ebola, Zika, SARS, and HIV are created when, say, the wrong pig meets up with the wrong bat — and then meets the wrong human.
The emergence of such diseases depends a great deal on spontaneous genetic mutations and circumstantial factors. So here’s a scary thought: Possible future pandemics may not depend on the chance meeting of different animal species and chance mutations, but may be deliberately designed instead. New tools from the field of synthetic biologycould endow scientists with the frightening ability to design and manufacture maximally dangerous pathogens, leapfrogging natural selection.
The threat is very much on the minds of security officials. This past May, the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security (CHS) led an exercise involving former US senators and executive branch officials on how the country would respond to an international outbreak of an engineered pathogen. In this fictional scenario, a terrorist group constructed a virus that was both deadly and highly contagious. More than a year into the made-up pandemic, the worldwide death toll was soaring past 150 million, the Dow Jones had fallen by 90 percent, and there was a mass exodus from cities amid famine and unrest.
In biotech, the story of the past several decades has been one of exponential progress. Just 75 years ago, we were not even confident that DNA was the primary material governing genetic heredity. Today, we are able to read, write, and edit genomes with increasing ease.
But biotechnologies are dual-use — they can be used for both good and ill. We fear that with even just current capabilities, an engineered pandemic could join the growing list of seismic changes made possible by biotechnological advances. Sufficiently capable actors could work to resurrect the deadliest pathogens of the past, like smallpox or Spanish flu, or modify existing pathogenssuch as bird flu to be more contagious and lethal. As genome engineering technologies become more powerful and ubiquitous, the tools necessary for making these modifications will become increasingly accessible.
This leads to the terrifying specter of independent actors intentionally (or unintentionally) engineering pathogens with the potential to inflict worse harm than history’s deadliest pandemics. No obvious physical or biological constraints preclude the construction of such potent biological weapons. According to biosecurity expert Piers Millett, “If you’re deliberately trying to create a pathogen that is deadly, spreads easily, and that we don’t have appropriate public health measures to mitigate, then that thing you create is amongst the most dangerous things on the planet.”
Mitigating this risk is shaping up to be one of the major challenges of the 21st century — not only because the stakes are high, but also because of the myriad obstacles standing between us and a solution.
The technologies that help us might also hurt us
Natural pandemics can be horrific and catch us completely off guard. For example, three years elapsed between the first officially documented US AIDS cases in 1981 and the identification of HIV as its cause. It took another three years to develop and approve the first drug treating HIV. While antiretroviral treatments now allow those living with HIV to manage the disease effectively (that is, if they can afford the treatment), we still lack a promising HIV vaccine.
Yet as ill-equipped as we may be to fight newly emergent natural pathogens, we are even less prepared to cope with engineered pathogens. In the coming decades,it may become possible to create pathogens that fall well outside the range of infectious agents modern medicine has learned to detect, treat, and contain.
Worse yet, malicious actors might build disease-causing microbes with features strategically tailored to thwart existing health security measures. So while advances in the field of synthetic biology will make it easier for us to invent therapeutics and other technologies that can defend us from pandemics, those very same advances may allow state and nonstate actors to design increasingly harmful pathogens.
For example, new gene-synthesis technologies loom large on the horizon, allowing for the automated production of longer DNA sequences from scratch. This will be a boon for basic and applied biomedical research — but it also will simplify the assembly of designer pathogens.
A technician at the Smartman Laboratory facility at the US Army’s Dugway Proving Ground on August 15, 2017, in Dugway, Utah. Workers at this facility handle some of the deadliest biological and chemical agents on earth.
Compared to other weapons of mass destruction, engineered pathogens are less resource-intensive. Although malicious actors would currently need university-grade laboratories and resources to create them, a bigger obstacle tends to be access to information. The limits of our knowledge of biology constrain the potential of any bioengineering effort. Some information, like how to work proficiently with a specific machine or cell type, can be acquired only through months or years of supervised training. Other information, like annotated pathogen genome sequences, may be easy to access through public databases, such as those maintained by the National Center for Biotechnology Information.
If information such as pathogen genome sequences or synthetic biology protocols is available online, this could make it much easier for malicious actors to build their own pathogens. But even if they’re not online, hackers can also steal sensitive information from the databases of biotechnology companies, universities, and government laboratories.
Preventing damage from engineered pathogens is complicated by the fact that it takes only one lapse, one resourceful terrorist group, or one rogue nation-state to wreak large-scale havoc. Even if the majority of scientists and countries follow proper protocols, a single unilateral actor could imperil human civilization.
And some wounds can be self-inflicted. Between 2004 and 2010, there were more than 700 incidents of loss or release of “select agents and toxins” (i.e., scary stuff) from US labs.In 11 instances, lab workers acquired bacterial or fungal infections. In one instance, a shipment of a harmful fungus was lost — and, according to the FBI, destroyed — in transit. In a world in which well-meaning but sometimes careless biologists are creating dangerous organisms in the lab, such accidental release events could prove even more frightening.
A global problem
Like naturally occurring pandemics, engineered pandemics will not respect national borders. A contagious pathogen released in one country will emigrate. Actions that protect against engineered pathogens are an example of a global public good: Since a deadly engineered pathogen would adversely affect countries around the world, doing something to prevent them is a service that benefits the whole world.
A fundamental challenge of global public goods is that they tend to be underprovided. With global public goods, individual countries prefer to free ride over unilaterally providing global public goods if they can get away with it.
This doesn’t mean that countries won’t do anything to provide global public goods; they just won’t do as much as they should. For example, a country such as the United States will consider the potential damage an engineered pathogen could wreak on its 325 million people, and it will take actions to prevent this from happening. However, the actions it takes won’t be as extensive as they would be if it were to consider the toll an engineered pathogen could take on the planet’s 7.6 billion people.
To address this dilemma, world leaders created the Biological Weapons Convention in the 1970s. The BWC has the important goal of constraining bioweapons development; in practice, it has been ineffective at verifying and enforcing compliance.
And bioweapons have specific characteristics that make verification and enforcement difficult compared to chemical and nuclear weapons.
Consider nuclear technology. Nuclear power plants require low levels of uranium enrichment (typically around 5 percent), whereas nuclear weapons require highly enriched uranium (typically above 90 percent). Highly enriched uranium requires large industrial facilities with precise centrifuges. When granted access, it is comparatively easy for inspectors to determine when a facility is being used for the production of highly enriched uranium.
Partly for these reasons, no country has ever developed nuclear weapons while being a party to the NPT. Of the nine nuclear weapons nations, the US, USSR (whose weapons are now exclusively owned by Russia), UK, France, China, and likely Israel had nuclear weapons before the treaty was enforced. India (first test in 1974) and Pakistan (first test in 1998) never signed the NPT. North Korea withdrew from the treaty in 2003, three years before its first nuclear test in 2006.
In contrast, bioengineered organisms require fewer resources and smaller facilities to make, and it is harder to readily distinguish between organisms that are being developed for scientific purposes from those that are being developed with malicious intent.
Historically, the BWC does not have a good track record of preventing the possession of bioweapons. The Soviet Union maintained a large bioweapons program after it signed on to the BWC in 1975. The South African apartheid regime held bioweapons in the 1980s and ’90s while being a party to the BWC.
Fearing that invasive verification by the BWC could compromise sensitive intellectual property and hurt the competitiveness of its cutting-edge biotechnology sector, the US chose to withdraw from negotiations at the BWC’s Fifth Review Conference in 2001. The US later rejoined those negotiations, but serious measures to improve the BWC’s verification and enforcement mechanisms have not been implemented, and the agreement remains largely ineffective.
Despite this concern about the invasiveness of verification, there is a growing consensus that the BWC must become more effective. The 2015 Bipartisan Report of the Blue Ribbon Study Panel on Biodefense, chaired by Joe Lieberman, the 2000 Democratic vice presidential candidate, and Tom Ridge, the first secretary of homeland security under George W. Bush, called for the vice president and the secretary of state to chair a series of meetings with relevant Cabinet members and experts to come to an agreement on verification protocols that would satisfy US concerns while adequately enforcing compliance with the treaty. The study led to the introduction of the National Biodefense Strategy Act of 2016, which is still awaiting a vote.
In September 2018, the Trump administration released a National Biodefense Strategy, though this document contained little specific information on how the US would strengthen the BWC and didn’t mention Cabinet-level meetings chaired by the vice president, as was recommended by the blue ribbon panel.
Emergency personnel walk down the aisle of an Amtrak train during a biological preparedness drill being led by members of the Chemical Biological Incident Response Force (CBIRF), a unit in the United States Marine Corps, at Penn Station during the early morning hours on September 22, 2012, in New York City.
Some have questioned the seriousness of the threat posed by bioweapons. For example, in his recent book, Harvard University professor Steven Pinker suggests that “Bioterrorism may be [a] phantom menace.” He claims that terrorists wouldn’t weaponize pandemic pathogens, since their goal is typically “not damage but theater.” Others have suggested that even if terrorists wanted to engineer a pathogen as a weapon, they’d lack the requisite biological knowledge and practical know-how to get the job done.
While it is true (and quite fortunate) that these factors reduce at least the present risk of a biological attack, it is cold comfort. In the coming decades, it will only become easier for nonstate actors to acquire and deploy powerful biotechnologies for ill. And beyond terrorists, state actors also pose serious risks.
For example, Japan launched devastating bioattacks against China during World War II. Japanese Unit 731 dropped bombs filled with swarms of plague-infested fleas on Chinese cities, likely killing hundreds of thousandsof civilians. The unit’s commander, Shiro Ishii, found plague to be a potent weapon because it could present itself as a natural epidemic and kill large numbers of people through person-to-person transmission.
In addition, the US had a bioweapons program from 1943 to 1969 that, among other things, made propaganda videos bragging about testing biological weapons on human subjects. The Soviet Union’s covert bioweapons program that it maintained after signing on to the BWC had more employees at its peak in the 1980s than Facebook currently has.
We don’t know what we don’t know — but here’s what we can do
Many questions remain unanswered when it comes to the potentially catastrophic risks posed by engineered pathogens. For example, what is the full spectrum of microbes that cause human disease? And which types of microbes would most likely be used as bioweapons? Research centers such as the Center for Health Security at Hopkins, the Future of Humanity Institute, and the Nuclear Threat Initiative are working hard to answer such questions.
But just because we don’t have answers to all the questions — and don’t even know all the questions to begin with — doesn’t mean there aren’t things we can do to mitigate our risks.
Thinking and acting globally
For starters, we should develop a process to address advancements in biotechnology in the BWC.Currently, the BWC lacks a dedicated forum where the treaty implications of new developments in biotechnology can be discussed. Other international agreements like the CWC have dedicated scientific advisory boards to track and respond to new science and technological changes. The BWC has no such board.
There’s some movement on this issue — the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security hosted an event in Geneva earlier this week to discuss how the BWC can evolve to address rapid advances in biotechnology. Still, it is crucial to establish a permanent institutional capacity within the BWC to address biotechnological change.
This all connects to another priority: give the BWC’s Implementation Support Unit more resources.The four-person implementation support unit, the convention’s sole administrative body, has immense responsibilities that far exceed its current resources. These responsibilities include supporting and assisting nations as they implement the treaty, administering a database of assistance requests, facilitating communication between the parties, and much more.
But the resources remain minuscule, especially compared to other international treaties. The annual cost allocated to BWC meetings and its implementation support unit is less than 4.5 percent of the cost allocated to the CWC. This inadequate budget sends a grim signal about how seriously the world is currently taking the growing risks from bioweapons.
Another global priority should be finding ways to regulate dual-use gene synthesis technologies. To facilitate their research, biologists regularly order short, custom pieces of DNA from companies that specialize in their manufacture. In 2009, the International Gene Synthesis Consortium proposed guidelines for how gene synthesis companies should screen customers’ orders for potentially dangerous chunks of DNA, such as those found in harmful viruses or toxin genes. Most companies voluntarily follow these guidelines, and they represent 80 percent of the global market.
However, even companies currently applying recommended screening procedures only test whether ordered sequences match those of known pathogens. An engineered pathogen with a novel genome could potentially slip past this filter.
Presently, the gene synthesis market is expanding internationally and synthesis costs are falling. It is urgent that governments both independently and multilaterally act to mandate proper screening of sequences and customers. As Kevin Esvelt of MIT writes, “adequately screening all synthesized DNA could eliminate the most serious foreseeable hazards of biotech misuse by nonstate actors.”
Dealing with biorisk on the ground and in the lab
Beyond developing new global standards and practices, we need to adopt more flexible countermeasures to face off the threat of bioengineered pathogens. As noted in a recent CHS report, “One of the biggest challenges in outbreak response, particularly for emerging infectious diseases, is the availability of reliable diagnostic assays that can quickly and accurately determine infection status.”
Diagnostics based on cutting-edge genome sequencing methods could provide detailed information about all the viruses and bacteria present in a blood sample, including even completely novel pathogens. Meanwhile, as genome sequencing technology becomes less expensive, it could be more widely applied in clinics to provide unprecedented real-time insights into genetic diseases and cancer progression.
We also need to invest more in developing antivirals that hit a wider range of targets. Such broad-spectrum drugs may stand a better chance of slowing the proliferation of an engineered bug than treatments specific to single known pathogens.
And we should also develop “platform” technologies that allow rapid vaccine development.Currently, the process of designing, testing, and manufacturing a vaccine to prevent the spread of a new pathogen takes years. Ideally, we could immunize all at-risk individuals within months of identifying the pathogen. Accelerating vaccine development will require us to innovate new and likely unconventional technologies, such as vectored immunoprophylaxis or nucleic acid vaccines.
Even as we pursue and accelerate such research, we should also be mindful of the possibility of self-inflicted wounds. To avert a terrible accident, the international biomedical community should establish firmer cultural guardrails on the research into pathogens.
Currently, career advancement, financial gain, and raw curiosity motivate biologists at all levels to push the envelope, and we all stand to gain from their efforts. However, these same incentives can sometimes lead researchers to take substantial and perhaps unjustified risks, such as evolving dangerous strains of influenza to be more contagious or publishing instructions for cultivating a close cousin of the smallpox virus. It’s important for biologists to do their part to promote a culture in which this adventurous intellectual spirit is tempered by caution and humility.
Encouragingly, synthetic biology luminaries like Esvelt and George Church of Harvard University are doing just that, pioneering technologicalsafeguards to mitigate accidental release risks and advocatingpolicies and norms that would make 21st-century biology a less perilous pursuit. As the tools of synthetic biology spread to other disciplines, their example is one that others should follow.
Underlying the prescriptions above is the need to approach the problem with the sense of urgency it warrants. As our biotechnological capabilities grow, so too will the threat of engineered pathogens. An engineered pandemic won’t announce itself with a towering mushroom cloud, but the suffering of the individuals it touches will be no less real.
R. Daniel Bressler is a PhD candidate in the sustainable development program at Columbia University. His research is at the intersection of dual-use technologies, environmental change, and the capacity for collective action in the international system to deal with these issues. Find him on Twitter @DannyBressler1.
Chris Bakerlee is a PhD candidate in molecules, cells, and orgamisms at Harvard University, where he uses genetic engineering to study how evolution works. Find him on Twitter @cwbakerlee.
Some of the stealth edits that Vox made to its article debunking "conspiracy theories" that Covid-19 originated in a lab leak between its original publication in March 2020 and now. pic.twitter.com/RYxZ2B81mc
“Vox was founded in April 2014 by Ezra Klein, Matt Yglesias, and Melissa Bell. Prior to founding Vox, Ezra Klein was a former Washington Post columnist where he worked as the head of Wonkblog, a public policy blog. Vox is run by Vox Media, a digital publishing network founded by Jerome Armstrong, Tyler Bleszinski, and Markos Moulitsas.
According to its website, Vox Media’s portfolio includes 13 other brands: Vox, New York Magazine, The Verge, The Cut, Eater, Vulture, The Strategist, Polygon, SB Nation, Intelligencer, Curbed, Grub Street, and Recode.” – Tech StartUps
“Think outside the Vox”
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! Articles can always be subject of later editing as a way of perfecting them
Dr. Malone was so damn right when he said we’re barely scratching the surface on the biolabs topic. And so was I when I insisted you should pay special attention to the research on insects that’s been going on not only in the US funded labs in Ukraine and Georgia, but all over the world, including US soil.
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTH CAROLINA WELCOMES YOU TO YOUR WORST NIGHTMARE YOU HAVEN’T EVEN FATHOMED YET
The Chernobyl Research Initiative began formal research activities in Ukraine in 2000, Belarus in 2005, and Fukushima, Japan, in July, 2011. To date, the group has conducted more than 35 research expeditions to Chernobyl and 16 expeditions to Fukushima.
USC’s Chernobyl Research Initiative was the first and currently is the only research group to utilize a multidisciplinary approach to address the health and environmental outcomes of radiation effects in free-living natural populations. This has permitted the investigation of both acute (short term) and chronic (long term and multi-generational) exposures.
The Chernobyl Research Initiative is also currently the only research team studying plants and animals in both Chernobyl and Fukushima.
Key funding sources have included the Samuel Freeman Charitable Trust, the CNRS (France), the National Science Foundation, and the National Geographic Society. Subsequently, additional funding sources have included the Civilian Research Development Foundation (CRDF), the National Institutes of Health (NIH), Qiagen GmbH, the Fulbright Foundation, the University of South Carolina Office of Research and the College of Arts and Sciences, the Academy of Finland, and gifts from private citizens.
To date, more than 90 scientific publications have resulted from this initiative, most in the past 10 years (see link above for publications). This research has been highlighted in many newspaper reports and television programs including the New York Times, The Economist, Harpers, the BBC, CNN, CBS’s 60 Minutes, and Miles O’Brian of PBS News Hour (see links above for media coverage).
The team has pioneered the use of ecological, genetic and dosimetric technologies in order to unravel the health and environmental consequences of chronic low-dose exposure resulting from the Chernobyl and Fukushima disasters. These have included massively replicated ecological censuses of natural populations of birds, mammals and insects to investigate population and demographic effects; DNA sequencing and genotoxicity testing to assess short and long term genetic damage to individuals living in the wild; and the use of miniature dosimeters attached to wild animals and field measurements of whole body burdens of radioisotopes in birds and mammals to obtain accurate estimates of realized external and internal radiation doses to animals living under natural conditions. Recently, the group has expanded to include epidemiological and genetic studies of human populations (especially children) living in Chernobyl-affected regions of Ukraine.
Key results include the discovery of tumors, cataracts and damaged sperm in birds from high radiation areas of Chernobyl, and impacts on biodiversity in Fukushima. Exciting new results include the discovery that some species of birds may have developed resistance to the effects of radiation and effects on neurological development in small mammals in both Chernobyl and Fukushima.
These two disasters differ in the time since the events, and the amount and diversity of radionuclides that were released, although the predominant source of radiation is cesium-137 in both locations.
We are seeking funding to support the following ongoing and planned future research activities of the Chernobyl + Fukushima Research Initiative:
1)Continued monitoring of Fukushima populations of birds, small mammals, and insects in order to test for changes in population sizes (abundances) and numbers of species (biodiversity) through time.
2)Continued monitoring of barn swallows and rodents (mice and voles) populations for cancers, survival, reproduction, and genetic damage in Fukushima and Chernobyl (in collaboration with the CNRS, France, Rikkyo University, Tokyo, the Wild Bird Society of Japan, the National Institute of Forestry, Japan, and the University of Jyvaskyla, Finland).
3)Initiate a new project to study effects of radiation on tree growth and soil microbial activity in Fukushima (in collaboration with Chubu University, Nagoya, Japan).
4)Initiate a new project to investigate effects of radiation growth, fertility, and genetic damage in cows living in highly radioactive regions of Fukushima (in collaboration with the Fukushima Cattle Ranchers Association).
5)Initiate a new project to examine mutation rates in humans using whole genome DNA sequencing. Initially this project will focus on families living in contaminated regions of Ukraine. The project is in collaboration with the Montreal Neurological Institute and Hospital at McGill University, the Center of Radiological Research at Columbia University, and the Institute for Radiation Medicine in Kiev, Ukraine.
6)Continued development of new methods for measurement of dose and genetic damage in wild populations of animals.
7)Coordination of an international consortium of independent scientists to provide unbiased evidenced-based information concerning the health and environmental risks related to nuclear accidents. This group will compile, evaluate, and interpret the current scientific and medical literature and develop a literature suitable for public distribution via the print and internet media, as well as public presentations in Japan and internationally.
Highlights from research published by the Chernobyl Research Initiative include the following:
•Population sizes and numbers of species (i.e. biodiversity) of birds, mammals, insects, and spiders are significantly lower in areas of high contamination in Chernobyl.
•For many birds and small mammals, life spans are shorter and fertility is depressed, in areas of high contamination.
•In Fukushima, only birds, butterflies, and cicadas showed significant declines during the first summer following the accident. Other groups were not negatively affected. Now, five years later, effects on birds have increased.
•There is considerable variability among species in their sensitivity to radionuclides. Many species are not affected, and a few species even appear to increase in numbers in areas of high contamination in both Chernobyl and Fukushima, presumably in response to competitive release (i.e. more available food and shelter) and fewer predators.
•Many species show evidence of genetic damage stemming from acute exposures and the differences observed between Fukushima and Chernobyl suggests some species may show the consequences of mutation accumulation over multiple generations.
•Some individuals and species show no evidence of genetic damage in relation to radiation exposure and some even show evidence of evolutionary adaptation to the effects of radiation through increased antioxidant activity, which may provide protection against ionizing radiation.
•The bird species that are most likely to show declines in numbers in response to radiation are those that historically have shown increased mutation rates for other reasons possibly related to DNA repair ability or reduced defenses against oxidative stress.
•Deleterious effects of radiation exposure seen in natural populations in Chernobyl include increased rates of cataracts, tumors, growth abnormalities, deformed sperm, and albinism.
Maps of Contaminated regions of Fukushima (left), Ukraine, Belarus and Russia (right), and Europe (below). Fukushima map courtesy of Shane Welch; other maps courtesy of the European Union.
•Neurological development is impacted as evidenced by depressed brain size in both birds and rodents and consequent effects on cognitive ability and survival have been demonstrated in birds.
•Tree growth and microbial decomposition in the soil are also depressed in areas of high radiation.
•In Fukushima, the first signs of developmental abnormalities have been observed in birds in 2013, although significant genetic damage has not yet been documented for birds or rodents.
Do I need to spell it out? They are using these grounds for experiments. Did they end up being experiment grounds by accident? People in Chernobyl have been evacuated, but fauna and flora are hardly impacted by radiation. Radiation does not discriminate by species. You know who does that? Viruses and bacteria.
WASHINGTON — DARPA, the Pentagon’s high-tech office, is working with the government of Ukraine to develop capabilities to help Kiev in its hybrid warfare challenge.
DARPA director Steven Walker, who recently took over that job after five years as the agency’s deputy, told reporters that he had personally visited the country in 2016 for talks with Ukrainian military, intel and industry leaders.
“We did have a good visit to the Ukraine,” Walker said Thursday at a breakfast hosted by the Defense Writer’s Group. “Yes, we have followed up with them, and through the U.S. European Command, we have started several projects with the Ukraine, mostly in the information space.”
“Not providing them weapons or anything like that, but looking at how to help them with information,” Walker added, before declining to go into further detail.
Ukraine has become a testing ground for hybrid warfare techniques from Russia and Russian-backed militant groups ever Russia’s invasion of Ukrainian territory in 2014, including disinformation campaigns. While that has allowed Moscow to test out new capabilities and techniques, it also provides an opportunity to develop counter techniques — which may benefit the U.S. and its allies in the long term.
“I think we’ve got to get better, as a country, in information warfare and how we approach info warfare,” Walker said. “I think there are capabilities there that we need to improve upon, and DAPRA is working in some of those areas.”
This is not the first tie between DARPA and Kiev. The Ukrainian government has hired Tony Tether, who led DARPA for the entirety of the George. W. Bush administration, to help lead a reorganization of their science and technology efforts, something Tether in a LinkedIn post said was necessary in part because so much of Ukraine’s S&T facilities were in the territory seized by Russia.
The former DARPA head has also consulted for the Ukroboronprom group, Ukraine’s largest defense contractor, and just a few weeks ago was added to the group’s supervisory board in a move that Ukrainian president Petro Poroshenko called a “symbol of effective cooperation between Ukrainian and American partners.”
Tether is expected to try and recreate some of what make DARPA so successful in Ukraine, but Walker notes that many countries have tried to do that — and failed, in large part due to a cultural fear of giving workers the freedom to fail they need.
“When I talk to others about DARPA and why it works, many other cultures say ‘this couldn’t happen,’” Walker noted.
More broadly, Walker said part of what he wants to see at DARPA during his tenure is looking at increasing counterinsurgency capabilities.
“I think as more populations across the world move to larger and larger cities, we need to understand the three dimensionality of cites and how to operate in those very crowded, very three-dimensional spaces,” Walker said, noting DARPA is working on ways to sense and map underground tunnels and infrastructure.
Updated 3/1/18 at 1:45 PM EST to reflect the fact that after publication, DARPA confirmed that Walker visited Ukraine in 2016.
Aaron Mehta was deputy editor and senior Pentagon correspondent for Defense News, covering policy, strategy and acquisition at the highest levels of the Defense Department and its international partners.
The U.S. government’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has been accused of trying to create a new class of biological weapons that would be delivered via virus-infected insects. Aphids are one of the insects being used in the DARPA program.ISTOCK
The U.S. government’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has been accused of trying to create a new class of biological weapons that would be delivered via virus-infected insects.
The Insect Allies program was announced by DARPA in 2016. It is a research project that aims to protect the U.S. agricultural food supply by delivering protective genes to plants via insects, which are responsible for the transmission of most plant viruses. Scientists believe loading the bugs up with viruses that would offer plants protective benefits could be one way of ensuring food security in the event of a major threat.
In an editorial published in the journal Science, a group of researchers led by Richard Guy Reeves, from the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Biology in Germany, says Insect Allies isn’t exactly what it says it is. Instead, they claim DARPA is potentially developing insects as a means of delivering a “new class of biological weapon.”
How Does Insect Allies Work?
There are many threats that could impact upon food security. This includes environmental disasters, natural pathogens and intentional attacks. Crop failure, for whichever of these reasons, has the potential to have devastating consequences—wheat and maize, for example, are relied upon by hundreds of millions across the globe for their basic nutritional needs.
Scientists with the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) are looking at introducing genetically modified viruses that can edit chromosomes directly, like using insects to transmit genetically modified material into plants.DARPA
Genetically altering a species to make it more resilient comes with problems. Introducing alterations directly into a species’ chromosome is slow, as the alteration must be passed down through generations before it takes hold.
Instead, scientists with DARPA are looking at introducing genetically modified viruses that can edit chromosomes directly in fields—these are known as horizontal environmental genetic alteration agents (HEGAAs).
The DARPA program is using the principles of HEGAAs but, unlike traditional methods of dispersal—like spraying fields with them—it wants to spread them through insects. At the moment, maize and tomato plants are being used in experiments and the insects being used for dispersal are leafhoppers, aphids and whiteflies.
“Insect Allies aims to develop scalable, readily deployable, and generalizable countermeasures against potential natural and engineered threats to mature crops,” Blake Bextine, DARPA Program Manager for Insect Allies, told Newsweek. “The program is devising technologies to engineer and deliver these targeted therapies on relevant timescales—that is, within a single growing season. To do so, Insect Allies researchers are building on natural, efficient, and highly specific plant virus and insect vector delivery systems to transfer modified, protective genes to plants.”
Why Biological Weapons?
Reeves and his colleagues offer a number of assertions about why Insect Allies could end up being a means of bioweapon dispersal. Firstly, they question the very nature of the project—the use of insects. Why, they say, are insects so integral? What is the problem with spraying HEGAAs?
The team says Insect Allies “appears very limited in its capacity to enhance U.S. agriculture or respond to national emergencies…. As a result, the program may be widely perceived as an effort to develop biological agents for hostile purposes and their means of delivery.”
Potentially, the viruses being introduced could do harm instead of good. The insects could be used to disperse agents that would prevent seeds from growing. “HEGAA weapons could be extremely transmissible to susceptible crop species, particularly where insects were used as the means of delivery,” they write. “Chromosomal editing would be targetable to particular crop varieties dependent on their genome sequence (presumably those varieties not grown by the deploying parties).”
Maize, one of the crops being tested by Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), is relied upon by millions of people for basic nutrition. Scientists believe loading the bugs up with viruses that would offer plants protective benefits could be one way of ensuring food security in the event of a major threat.ISTOCK
The development of an insect-based system, according to the authors, points to “an intention to develop a means of delivery of HEGAAs for offensive purposes.” The technology, they say, could quickly be simplified and used to develop a whole new class of biological weapons. “In our view, the program is primarily a bad idea because obvious simplifications of the work plan with already-existing technology can generate predictable and fast-acting weapons, along with their means of delivery, capable of threatening virtually any crop species,” they wrote.
The team calls for more transparency from DARPA as the Insect Allies progresses. However, it also says the potential to weaponize this technology is already out there. They say weapons programs are driven by the perceived activities of competitors—maybe the Insect Allies program is a response to intelligence about another nation’s capabilities.
Furthermore, “the mere announcement of the Insect Allies Program, with its presented justifications, may motivate other countries to develop their own capabilities in this arena—indeed, it may have already done so…. Reversal of funding for this DARPA project…would not in itself close the particular Pandora’s box that HEGAAs or their insect dispersal may represent.”
DARPA denies the assertions made by Reeves and his colleagues. “DARPA is producing neither biological weapons nor the means for their delivery,” a spokesman told Newsweek. “We do accept and agree with concerns about potential dual use of technology, an issue that comes up with virtually every new powerful technology.” He said these concerns are the reason Insect Allies has been structured in the way it is—supposedly as a transparent and university-led research project that encourages communication. “We also have numerous, layered safeguards in place to maintain biosecurity and ensure the systems we’re developing function only as intended,” the DARPA spokesperson added.
Bextine reiterated this point. Researchers working with DARPA are allowed to publish their results and work with different agencies. The experiments they carry out are done so in biosecure greenhouses. “At no point in the program is DARPA funding open release of Insect Allies systems,” Bextine said.
He said he disagrees with the conclusion of the editorial in Science, saying technology and research that deals with food security and gene editing “have a higher bar than most for transparency”—and Insect Allies, he says, meets these high standards.
Responding to the queries relating to delivery—why spraying technology cannot be used—Bextine said these are just not up to the challenge, especially when it comes to responding at a large scale to the most severe threats.
“Many existing methods for protecting crops are inefficient, expensive, imprecise, or destructive to plants, may require significant infrastructure, and often provide only limited efficacy,” he said. “Sprayed treatments are impractical for introducing genetic modifications on a large scale and potentially infeasible if the spraying technology does not access the necessary tissues with specificity. Meanwhile, traditional selective breeding methods for introducing protective traits into plants require years to propagate, nowhere near the speed required to prevent a fast-moving threat from developing into a crisis.”
He added that DARPA would never receive funding for the next generation of aerial spraying technology. The development of this new technology is dependent on industry and other research funders. “Instead, we reach for fundamentally new ways of delivering more precise, efficacious treatments through systems that can be readily adapted to confront a range of potential threats.
“Emerging biotechnologies—and especially the cutting-edge research being performed on Insect Allies—are pushing science into new territories. DARPA is proud to be taking a proactive role in working with stakeholders to inform a new framework for considering how the benefits of these technologies can be most safely realized.”
US military plan to spread viruses using insects could create ‘new class of biological weapon’, scientists warn
Agency says it is trying to genetically modify crops, but experts think this goal is ‘simply not plausible’
US military plan to spread viruses using insects could create ‘new class of biological weapon’, scientists warn
Insects could be turned into “a new class of biological weapon” using new US military plans, experts have warned.
The Insect Allies programme aims to use bugs to disperse genetically modified (GM) viruses to crops.
Such action will have profound consequences and could pose a major threat to global biosecurity, according to a team that includes specialist scientists and lawyers.
However, the Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency (Darpa), which is responsible for developing military technologies in the US, says it is merely trying to alter crops growing in fields by using viruses to transmit genetic changes to plants.
In theory, this rapid engineering would allow farmers to adapt to changing conditions, for example by inserting drought-resistance genes into corn instead of planting pre-engineered seeds.
But this seemingly inoffensive goal has been slammed by the scientists, who say the plan is simply dangerous and that insects loaded with synthetic viruses will be difficult to control.
They also say that despite being in operation since 2016 and distributing $27m in funds to scientists, Darpa has failed to properly justify the existence of such a programme.
Research programme with potential for dual use: scientists fear that the Insect Ally programme by the US could encourage other states to increase their own research activities in the field of biological warfare (MPG/D.Duneka) (MPG/ D. Duneka)
“Given that Darpa is a military agency, we find it surprising that the obvious and concerning dual-use aspects of this research have received so little attention,” Felix Beck, a lawyer at the University of Freiburg, told The Independent.
Dr Guy Reeves, an expert in GM insects at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Biology, said that there has been hardly any debate about the technology and the programme remains largely unknown “even in expert circles”.
He added that despite the stated aims of the programme, it would be far more straightforward using the technology as a biological weapon than for the routine agricultural use suggested by Darpa.
“It is very much easier to kill or sterilise a plant using gene editing than it is to make it herbicide or insect-resistant,” explains Reeves.
Experiments are reportedly already underway using insects such as aphids and whiteflies to treat corn and tomato plants.
Mr Beck said he and fellow experts were not suggesting that the US military wanted to create biological weapons, but that the proposed agricultural uses are “simply not plausible for a number of reasons”.
Firstly, they note that if farmers wanted to use genetically modified viruses to improve their crops, there is no reason not to use conventional spraying equipment.
They also noted that despite Darpa stating that no insects used should survive longer than two weeks, if such safeguards were not in place “the spread could in principle be unlimited”.
Mr Beck added: “The quite obvious question of whether the viruses selected for development should or should not be capable of plant-to-plant transmission – and plant-to-insect-to-plant transmission – was not addressed in the Darpa work plan at all”.
Air Force fails to acknowledge mysterious meteor that crashed to Earth near US military base
Making their case in the journal Science, the team noted that if Insect Allies’ research cannot be justified, it could be perceived as breaching the UN’s Biological Weapons Convention.
“Because of the broad ban of the Biological Weapons Convention, any biological research of concern must be plausibly justified as serving peaceful purposes,” explained Professor Silja Voeneky, a specialist in international law at Freiburg University.
“The Insect Allies Program could be seen to violate the Biological Weapons Convention, if the motivations presented by Darpa are not plausible.
“This is particularly true considering this kind of technology could easily be used for biological warfare.”
To prevent any suspicion and to avoid encouraging other nations to develop their own technologies in this area, the authors of the study have called for more transparency from Darpa if it intends to pursue such programmes.
A spokesperson from Darpa defended the programme, explaining that using insects to apply these gene altering treatments could provide advantages over sprays.
“Most importantly in this context, sprayed treatments are impractical for introducing protective traits on a large scale and potentially infeasible if the spraying technology cannot access the necessary plant tissues with specificity, which is a known problem,” they said.
“If Insect Allies succeeds, it will offer a highly specific, efficient, safe, and readily deployed means of introducing transient protective traits into only the plants intended, with minimal infrastructure required.”
LMFAO
Ukroboronprom Appoints Former DARPA Head as Supervisory Board Member
Anthony Tether, Former Head of US DARPA was appointed as member of UOP Supervisory Board (Image: Ukroboronprom)
Ukraine’s state run Ukroboronprom has appointed former head of US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), Anthony Tether as member of UOP Supervisory Board.
Anthony Tether has been in charge of Ukroboronprom long-term development for over a year and a half. He assists in implementing UOP development strategy, implementation of reforms, corporatization, and international audit. The former head of DARPA contributed to strengthening Ukroboronprom’s export potential and investment development. Under his chairmanship, the State General Advanced Research and Development Agency (GARDA, the prototype of the American DARPA) was created, the company said in a statement Thursday.
“As a member of the Supervisory Board, Anthony Tether will help Ukroboronprom to implement the reform strategy and international audit,” said Roman Romanov, Ukroboronprom Director General.
Earlier, Mykhaylo Zhurovs’kyy – the rector of the National Technical University of Ukraine “Kyiv Polytechnic Institute named after I. Sikorsky” – was elected as Chairman of the Supervisory Board. Lieutenant General Yaroslav Skal’ko, former commander-in-chief of the Ukrainian Air Force, was elected as Vice-Chairman.
On January 31, the Ukroboronprom Supervisory Board – after a long-term meeting -took key decisions on the activities of the Concern. During the meeting, UOP management report was heard; strategic directions for UOP development, corporatization process of UOP enterprises-participants, the international audit, the system of effective anti-corruption measures, creation of an advisory body and other issues were discussed.
Ukraine to Create DARPA-like Defence Research Agency
Ukriane will soon set up its General Advanced Research & Development Agency (GARDA), modeled along the American Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) at Igor the Sikorsky Kyiv Polytechnic Institute (KPI).
This was stated by UKROBORONPROM Director General Pavlo Bukin during his speech at the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, during the parliamentary hearings “National Innovation System: State and Legislative Development”.
“It was decided to create an agency of advanced technologies based on the DARPA model, to implement technologies in the defense industry. Mykhaylo Zhurovs’kyy – the rector of the National Technical University of Ukraine “Kyiv Polytechnic Institute named after I. Sikorsky” – agreed that the agency will be based at this very university. I am sure this decision will contribute to the greatest effect”, stressed Pavlo Bukin.
At the same time, he mentioned that the issue of innovative technologies development is connected with the necessity of legislative changes that would improve the mechanisms of financing such projects.
“The legal framework for innovation in Ukraine is sufficiently developed, but some aspects need to be improved, as they hamper financing. When it comes to research institutes and design bureaus – their resources are limited. It is necessary to legislatively create a mechanism for innovation activity financing and preferential taxation, “- said UKROBORONPROM Director General Pavlo Bukin from the rostrum of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine.
He named UGV “Phantom-2” development among UOP innovations. “This platform allows to destroy the enemy’s manpower and to transport the goods, and it has already passed the test abroad, and it can be considered to be a result of the activities of the State Concern and its design engineering bureaus,” said Pavlo Bukin.
Ukroboronprom head: Ukraine’s military industrial complex during hybrid warfare
By Roman Romanov, Dec 11, 2017 Roman Romanov is the director general of Ukrainian defense company Ukroboronprom.
Three years ago, Ukraine was facing an unexpected challenge – Russia’s military aggression. The annexation of Crimea and the first battles in Donbass were a total shock to the Ukrainian armed forces and the domestic defense industry. At that time, defense and law enforcement agencies were uncapable of performing their tasks; weapons and military equipment were not ready for operational use; and the military-industrial complex could not meet the needs of the Army.
Unfortunately, over the past 25 years, Ukrainian defense enterprises received no orders from the state – more than half of the plants were practically closed. The main types of the military equipment manufactured required Russian components.
In 2014, we completely stopped our cooperation with the Russian defense industry, and Ukroboronprom received the task to provide the Army with necessary weapons and military equipment in the shortest possible time.
First of all, we formed a new team of Ukroboronprom managers, who managed to quickly make qualitative changes and introduce the best business and management practices. We replaced about half of the directors of Ukroboronprom enterprises, mainly those who failed to adapt their way of thinking to new realities; we initiated repair and overhaul of the military equipment – Ukroboronprom enterprises organized 55 mobile maintenance crews, restoring military equipment directly in the anti-terrorist operation zone.
Furthermore, we arranged the import of critical components and organized the repair and manufacture of modernized military equipment samples. Ukroboronprom heads for strategic partnership with Western countries and NATO-Ukraine defense-technical cooperation.
In 2015, Ukroboronprom began implementing a new strategic task – the State Defense Order. Ukroboronprom enterprises launched serial production of new military equipment samples. The Army began to receive sniper rifles, mortars, modernized tanks and new armored personnel carriers manufactured in Ukraine.
The next urgent task was set: to overcome the dependence on imported components from the Russian Federation. To solve this problem, we launched a large-scale import substitution program to attract domestic reserves and set up cooperation within the country with enterprises of any form of ownership.
Ukroboronprom representatives visited all regions of Ukraine, held meetings with governors and discussed the issues of attracting the region’s industry to cooperation with Ukroboronprom.
As a result, enterprises from all regions of Ukraine began to join the import-substitution program implementation. As of today, 414 small, medium and large enterprises of Ukraine and 200,000 specialists joined the process. In fact, Ukroboronprom has attracted the whole country to working on strengthening the Ukrainian Army and the development of the country’s economy.
Furthermore, we renewed the workforce, attracted scientific and educational potential of the country: memorandums of cooperation were signed with 48 Ukrainian universities. Today, we train young specialists: 8,000-plus students had their practical training at Ukroboronprom enterprises and almost 600 of them are already working at our plants.
Memorandums of cooperation were signed with 30 institutes of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine. Attracting talented Ukrainian scientists and young specialists resulted in 535 promising developments upon the anvil and 80 projects that are already being implemented at Ukroboronprom enterprises.
We set ourselves to the task of expanding partnerships and implementing NATO standards for all stages of armament life cycles. The work on the introduction of the AQAP 2000 series standards at Ukroboronprom enterprises is launched. The ISO 9001 system already operates at 73 percent for Ukroboronprom enterprises.
Ukroboronprom specialists actively participate in multinational projects of the NATO concept Smart Defence, as well as in the meetings of the NATO-Ukraine Joint Working Group on Defence-Technical Cooperation.
In 2016, the development of the Ukroboronprom reform strategy was launched. The state concern Ukroboronprom held a meeting of a specially established tendering committee, involving the specialist of the Independent Defence Anti-Corruption Committee of Transparency International Ukraine, to help select the international consulting company using a “competitive dialogue” procedure. Thus, the concern started the process of conducting an international audit. We launched the next stage of Ukroboronprom’s reform. Implementation of such a large-scale process – as international audit and transformation of Ukroboronprom’s enterprises into joint stock companies – will last for about two years.
As a result of military operations in the anti-terrorist operation area, 900-plus technical solutions were introduced and implemented by Ukroboronprom engineers in the armored vehicles operated by the Army, having significantly improved tactical and operational characteristics of the military equipment and taking into account hybrid war experience.
Today, the latest developments of our specialists are being used and tested in the anti-terrorist operation zone. A good example is the unmanned complex Spectator, developed by the specialists of state concern Ukroboronprom, together with scientists of the National Technical University of Ukraine “Igor Sikorsky Kyiv Polytechnic Institute.” In May 2015, a contract for production was signed. And in January 2016, the first batch was transferred to Ukraine’s armed forces. This high-tech product has been successfully used in combat conditions for more than a year. The prototype of the new tactical UAV, Horlytsya, developed by the Ukrainian enterprises, successfully performed its first flight.
Hybrid war in the east of Ukraine forced us – taking into account combat experience – to develop unmanned equipment for performing various tasks on the battlefield without putting our soldiers’ lives at risk.
Ukroboronprom withstood the challenge of the war and in three years transferred about 16,000 units of weapons and military equipment to the military. Thanks to the work of the entire defense industry of Ukraine, our armed forces – from combat-ineffective units in 2014 – turned into a well-armed Army.
Mosquitos potentially carry a range of deadly diseases, from malaria to yellow fever. (Photo by James Gathany/CDC. Public Domain.)
WASHINGTON: The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency may have been created to develop cutting-edge technology to help the US take on the Soviet Union in the Cold War, but now it’s taking on another deadly enemy: mosquitos.
DARPA’s latest idea, now entering its second phase, is to get down to the molecular level to make a topical cream that would actually alter the “microbiome” of human skin to make it less appetizing to the disease-carrying insects.
“The ReVector program aims to precisely, safely, and efficiently reduce mosquito attraction and biting, and, subsequently, to help maintain the health of military personnel operating in disease-endemic regions,” the agency said in a release last month.
While tiny compared to the USSR and totally lacking artillery, the mosquito is the deadliest animal on the planet, responsible for spreading malaria, which kills more than 400,000 people every year, in addition to other deadly diseases. Throughout human history militaries have struggled with mosquito-borne maladies, from the million-plus cases that waylayed soldiers during the Civil War to the over 80,000 cases among US servicemembers in Vietnam.
Even though a vast majority of those survived, the disease disrupted the forces’ ability to fight, at times in critical moments. Army researchers currently estimate malaria infections are responsible for up to 21,000 lost work hours and between $1.2 and $4.4 million per year in evacuation and medical costs.
The treatment for malaria has progressed significantly in recent decades, but the ReVector program aims to stop the disease before it can get into the human body at all. The program’s first phase involved the development of technology to “modify human skin microbes” and the “volatile molecules” it produces, and testing the effect of those modifications on mosquitos.
“In Phase 2, the team plans to advance testing in animal models and move complex microbiome communities,” ReVector program manager Linda Chrisley said in the release.
The release explained that “ultimately, ReVector seeks to develop topical formulations that could be applied shortly before a mission with minimal equipment or training, and last for at least two weeks without reapplication, offering improved, sustained protection against disease vectors.”
DARPA is working with Stanford University researchers on the project, and the agency notes the research is reviewed by the US Food and Drug Administration and “if necessary” the Environmental Protection Agency “to ensure that technologies are effective and do not pose a threat to humans or the environment.”
PENTAGON UNIT A1266 STUDIES INSECTS AS BIOTERRORISM AGENTS ON RUSSIA’S DOORSTEPS:
DARPA has been working for several years on genetic editing of mosquitoes. Through its “Insect Allies” program, DARPA has been working, using CRISPR gene-editing and gene drive technologies, on manipulating the Aedes Aegypti mosquito. The US Department of Defense has spent at least $100 million in the controversial technology known as “gene drives” making the US military a top funder and developer of the gene-modifying technology. “Gene drives are a powerful and dangerous new technology and potential biological weapons could have disastrous impacts on peace, food security and the environment, especially if misused,” said Jim Thomas, co-director of ETC Group, an environment safety group. “The fact that gene drive development is now being primarily funded and structured by the US military raises alarming questions about this entire field.”
Entomological warfare is a type of biological warfare that uses insects to transmit diseases. The Pentagon, using DARPA research, has allegedly performed such entomological tests secretly in the Republic of Georgia and Russia. Is the DARPA development, together with Gates’ foundation and Oxitec, of the gene edited mosquitoes a covert program in entomological warfare?
The Pentagon presently has top security bio laboratories in 25 countries across the world funded by the Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA) under a $ 2.1 billion military program– Cooperative Biological Engagement Program (CBEP). They are in former Soviet Union countries such as Georgia and Ukraine, the Middle East, South East Asia and Africa. Among their projects, Phlebotomine sand fly species were collected under the heading, “Surveillance Work on Acute Febrile Illness,” in which all (female) sand flies were tested to determine their infectivity rate. A third project, also including sand flies collection, studied the characteristics of their salivary glands. This is weaponization research.
The controversial person picked by the Biden Administration to become the first Cabinet-level science advisor, Eric Lander, came from the MIT-Harvard Broad Institute. Lander is a specialist in gene drive and gene editing technologies and played a major role in the flawed US Human Genome Project. This is not the kind of science we need to be supporting. It is rather part of what is obviously a larger eugenics agenda and Bill Gates is again playing a key role. SOURCE
The highly attuned sensory abilities of plants could be employed to gather intelligence for the military (Getty Images/iStockphoto)
The US military wants to deploy plants as “the next generation of intelligence gatherers”.
Genetically modified plants could be employed as self-sustaining sensors to gather information in settings unsuitable for more traditional technologies.
The Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), which is responsible for the development of emerging technologies in the US military, has called for scientists to submit ideas for how to harness the power of plants.
In the past, DARPA has produced information-gathering technologies such as the satellites and seismographs employed to ensure Soviet compliance with the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty.
But in this new initiative, termed the Advanced Plant Technologies (APT) programme, the agency is looking to the natural world for help.
“Plants are highly attuned to their environments and naturally manifest physiological responses to basic stimuli such as light and temperature, but also in some cases to touch, chemicals, pests and pathogens,” said Dr Blake Bextine, the manager of the ATP programme.
“Emerging molecular and modelling techniques may make it possible to reprogramme these detection and reporting capabilities for a wide range of stimuli, which would not only open up new intelligence streams, but also reduce the personnel risks and costs associated with traditional sensors,” said Dr Bextine.
The idea is that plants’ natural capabilities can be co-opted to detect relevant chemicals, harmful microorganisms, radiation and electromagnetic signals.
Modifying the genomes of plants would enable the military to control the types of sensing they are doing, and also trigger certain responses that can be monitored remotely using existing hardware.
Technology already exists to monitor plants from the ground, air and even from space.
“Advanced Plant Technologies is a synthetic biology programme at heart,” said Dr Bextine.
“As with DARPA’s other work in that space, our goal is to develop an efficient, iterative system for designing, building, and testing models so that we end up with a readily adaptable platform capability that can be applied to a wide range of scenarios.”
Past experiments with plants that have been modified in this manner have resulted in organisms that have difficulty settling in the natural environment, where they would be deployed.
The additional strain placed on the modified plants by their new duties makes it difficult for them to survive and compete with surrounding plants. This will be a key area that the new programme seeks to address.
The “proposers day” is being held on 12 December in Arlington, Virginia. It will lay out the objectives of DARPA’s programme and take submissions for research projects that are relevant to the initiative.
A British-American gene-editing company has released millions of genetically modified mosquitoes containing a dominant lethal gene, each week for 27 months in the Bahia, Brazil region in a test to see if the gene-edited mosquitoes would mate with local mosquitoes carrying Zika, malaria or other mosquito-borne diseases. A new study documents the alarming fact that following an initial reduction of the target population of mosquitoes, after some months the “population which had been greatly suppressed rebounded to nearly pre-release levels.” Scientists to date have no idea what dangers are presented by the new mutations. This once more highlights the dangers of uncontrolled gene-editing of species.
According to a new published study in Nature Reports journal, genetically engineered mosquitoes produced by the biotech company, Oxitec, now part of the US company Intrexon, have escaped human control after trials in Brazil and are now spreading in the environment.
On paper the theory was brilliant. Strains of “yellow fever” male mosquitoes taken from Cuba and Mexico were altered using gene-editing to make it impossible for their offspring to survive. Oxitec then began a systematic release of tens of millions of the manipulated mosquitoes over more than two years in the the city of Jacobina in the region of Bahia in Brazil. The Oxitec theory was the altered mosquitoes would mate with normal females of the same type which carry infectious diseases like dengue fever, and kill them off in the process.
‘Unanticipated Outcome…’
A team of scientists from Yale University and several scientific institutes in Brazil monitored the progress of the experiment. What they found is alarming in the extreme. After an initial period in which the target mosquito population markedly declined, after about 18 months the mosquito population recovered to pre-release levels. Not only that, the paper notes that some of the mosquitos likely have “hybrid vigor,” in which a hybrid of the natural with the gene-edited has created “a more robust population than the pre-release population” which may be more resistant to insecticides, in short, resistant “super mosquitoes.”
The scientists note that, “Genetic sampling from the target population six, 12, and 27–30 months after releases commenced provides clear evidence that portions of the transgenic strain genome have been incorporated into the target population. Evidently, rare viable hybrid offspring between the release strain and the Jacobina population are sufficiently robust to be able to reproduce in nature…” They continue, “Thus, Jacobina Ae. aegypti are now a mix of three populations. It is unclear how this may affect disease transmission or affect other efforts to control these dangerous vectors.” They estimate that between 10% and 60% of the Bahia natural Ae. Aegypti mosquitoes now had some gene-edited OX513A genome. They conclude that “The three populations forming the tri-hybrid population now in Jacobina (Cuba/Mexico/Brazil) are genetically quite distinct, very likely resulting in a more robust population than the pre-release population due to hybrid vigor.”
This was not supposed to happen. Professor of ecology and evolutionary biology, Jeffrey Powell, senior author of the study, remarked on the findings: “The claim was that genes from the release strain would not get into the general population because offspring would die. That obviously was not what happened.” Powell went on to note, “But it is the unanticipated outcome that is concerning.”
A Gates Foundation Project
The Brazil study deals a major alarm signal on the uncontrolled release of gene-edited species into nature. It calls to mind the horror plot of Michael Crichton’s 1969 science fiction novel, Andromeda Strain. Only it is no novel.
The Oxitec mosquitoes were developed using a highly controversial form of gene-editing known as gene drive. Gene Drive, which is also being heavily funded by the Pentagon’s DARPA, combined with CRISPR gene-editing, aims to force a genetic modification to spread through an entire population, whether of mosquitoes or potentially humans, in just a few generations.
The scientist who first suggested developing gene drives in gene-editing, Harvard biologist Kevin Esvelt, has publicly warned that development of gene editing in conjunction with gene drive technologies has alarming potential to go awry. He notes how often CRISPR messes up and the likelihood of protective mutations arising, making even benign gene drives aggressive. He stresses, “Just a few engineered organisms could irrevocably alter an ecosystem.” Esvelt’s computer gene drive simulations calculated that a resulting edited gene “can spread to 99 percent of a population in as few as 10 generations, and persist for more than 200 generations.” This is very much what has now been demonstrated in the mosquito experiment in Brazil.
Notable is the fact that the Oxitec Brazil mosquito experiment was funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. In June, 2018 Oxitec announced a joint venture with the Gates Foundation, “to develop a new strain of Oxitec’s self-limiting Friendly™ Mosquitoes to combat a mosquito species that spreads malaria in the Western Hemisphere.” The Brazil results show the experiment is a catastrophic failure as the new strain is anything but self-limiting.
The Gates Foundation and Bill Gates have been backing development of the radical gene-editing technology and gene drive technology for more than a decade. Gates, a long-time advocate of eugenics, population control and of GMO, is a strong gene-editing promoter. In an article in the May/June 2018 magazine of the New York Council on Foreign Relations, Foreign Affairs, Gates hails gene editing technologies, explicitly CRISPR. In the article Gates argues that CRISPR and other gene-editing techniques should be used globally to meet growing demand for food and to improve disease prevention, particularly for malaria. In his article he adds, “there is reason to be optimistic that creating gene drives in malaria-spreading mosquitoes will not do much, if any, harm to the environment.”
Every bit as alarming as the failure of the Brazil gene-editing mosquito experiment is the fact that this technology is being spread with virtually no prior health or safety testing by truly independent government institutions. To date the US Government relies only on industry safety assurances. The EU, while formally responsible to treat gene-edited species similarly to GMO plants, is reportedly trying to loosen the regulations. China, a major research center for gene-editing, has extremely lax controls. Recently a Chinese scientist announced an experiment in human gene-editing allegedly to make newborn twins resistant to HIV. Other experiments are proliferating around the world with gene-edited animals and even salmon. The precautionary principle has been thrown to the winds when it comes to the new gene-editing revolution, not a reassuring situation.
Currently Oxitec, which denies that the Brazil results show failure, is now trying to get regulatory approval from the US Environmental Protection Agency to conduct a similar experiment with the same gene-edited species in Texas and Florida. One of the people involved in the attempt, Texan Roy Bailey, is a Washington lobbyist and close friend of Randal Kirk, the billionaire CEO of Intrexon, owner of Oxitec. Bailey is also a major Trump fundraiser. Let’s hope that regulatory prudence and not politics decide the outcome.
F. William Engdahl is strategic risk consultant and lecturer, he holds a degree in politics from Princeton University and is a best-selling author on oil and geopolitics, exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook.”
So yeah, nothing to worry here, just “health labs” and SPAs …
Thanks Fukushima Exposed for the great and timely contribution that decisively helped me complete this investigation!
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! Articles can always be subject of later editing as a way of perfecting them
At first I wasn’t so sure these labs were even a stake in this war, I’m pretty sure Putin wouldn’t bomb them anyway, that poses huge risks to Russia too. But seeing the dumb and desperate counter-narrative efforts from US / UA, coupled with the latest press releases from Moscow., I know we’re over some major target.
BREAKING UPDATE: DANG!
China — “The US has 336 labs in 30 countries under its control, including 26 in Ukraine alone. It should give a full account of its biomilitary activities at home and abroad and subject itself to multilateral inspections.“
Their strawman argument is rookie level, not much effort needed to tear it apart:
However, documents tell another story:
“Ukraine has no control over the military bio-laboratories on its own territory. According to the 2005 Agreement between the US DoD and the Ministry of Health of Ukraine the Ukrainian government is prohibited from public disclosure of sensitive information about the US program and Ukraine is obliged to transfer to the US Department of Defense (DoD) dangerous pathogens for biological research. The Pentagon has been granted access to certain state secrets of Ukraine in connection with the projects under their agreement. “
❗️ @mod_russia: During the course of the special military operation evidence of an emergency clean-up performed by the Kiev regime was found – aimed at eradicating traces of the military-biological programme, in Ukraine, financed by @DeptofDefense.
Graphic shows part of U.S.-funded overseas bio-labs. /CGTN
Russian defense ministry spokesperson said on Sunday that evidence of a U.S.-financed military biological program developed in Ukraine has been revealed during Russia’s special operation on Ukraine.
The spokesperson Igor Konashenkov said, “In the course of the special military operation, evidence of the Kyiv regime’s hasty measures to conceal any traces of the military biological program, financed by the U.S. Department of Defense in Ukraine, has been revealed.”
Konashenkov pointed out that the employees of Ukrainian bio laboratories had provided information that especially hazardous pathogens: plague, anthrax, cholera, tularemia and other lethal diseases infecting agents had been urgently destroyed following the beginning of Russia’s special military operation in Ukraine on February 24.
The defense ministry further informed that the results of the analysis of the documents will be shared in the near future.
“We will share the results of the analysis of the documents we have received in the near future. Some of them, in particular the Ukrainian health ministry’s instruction to destroy pathogens and certificates of completion from the Kharkov and Poltava bio laboratories we are publishing right now,” Konashenkov added.
A screenshot of The Rio Times’ online page.
U.S. embassy deletes files on Ukrainian bio-labs
According to a report of The Rio Times and a Twitter message posted by the Brazilian new agency’s investigative journalist Dilyana Gaytandzhieva, the American Embassy in Ukraine on February 26 removed all documents about Pentagon-financed bio-labs in Ukraine from its website. But they forgot to remove a document showing that the Pentagon is funding two new biolabs in Kyiv and Odesa.
One of the old labs financed by the U.S. in Ukraine is located in Kharkiv, the country’s second-largest city. In January 2016, at least 20 Ukrainian soldiers died there from a flu-like virus in two days while another 200 soldiers were hospitalized. However, the Ukrainian government did not provide details on the soldiers who died.
U.S.-funded overseas bio-labs concerns
The U.S. has set up over 200 bio-labs in 25 countries and regions across the Middle East, Africa, Southeast Asia and the former Soviet Union, with 16 in Ukraine alone.
Some of the places where the labs are based have seen large-scale outbreaks of measles and other dangerous infectious diseases, triggering international concerns about the safety of U.S. overseas laboratories. – CGTN
IN FACT, RUSSIA HAS COMPLAINED FOR YEARS THAT US IS CONDUCTING BIOWARFARE IN UKRAINE LABS AT THE BORDER. PROJECTS INVOLVED INSECT SPREADERS JUST LIKE IN BILL GATES AND DARPA’S CRAZIEST PLANS.
If US/UA were smart enough to deny the lab bombings, not the labs, this would’ve been a closed case to me.. But no… They are desperate to deny the whole shabazz…
And that’s borderline insane, given the abundance of evidence, see some examples below.
Another point Ukraine and Western narrative control is trying to push: The labs work in accordance with Ukraine laws for biodefense and vaccine research. But we know that the difference between bio-defense / vaccine research and bioweapon / biowarfare research is solely in INTENTION. And to settle this problem, all they are offering is a declaration of positive intentions from the accused.
As I was writing this previous paragraph, I heard Shaggy singing “It Wasn’t Me” in my head, do you get this too?
You loved her epic expose on the American biolabs network around the world. The Bulgarian one-woman-media-army did it again! Dilyana Gaytandzhieva is a Bulgarian investigative journalist, Middle East correspondent and founder of Arms Watch. Over the last years she has published a series of revealing reports on weapons supplies to terrorists in Syria, Iraq and Yemen. Her current work is focused on documenting war crimes and illicit arms exports to war zones around the world.
Documents expose US biological experiments on allied soldiers in Ukraine and Georgia
January 24, 2022
The US Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA) program in the Republic of Georgia. Photo: Ministry of Internal Affairs of Georgia
While the US is planning to increase its military presence in Eastern Europe to “protect its allies against Russia”, internal documents show what American “protection” in practical terms means.
The Pentagon has conducted biological experiments with a potentially lethal outcome on 4,400 soldiers in Ukraine and 1,000 soldiers in Georgia. According to leaked documents, all volunteer deaths should be reported within 24 h (in Ukraine) and 48 h (in Georgia).
Both countries are considered the most loyal US partners in the region with a number of Pentagon programs being implemented in their territory. One of them is the $2.5 billion Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA) Biological engagement program which includes research on bio agents, deadly viruses and antibiotic-resistant bacteria being studied on the local population.
Project GG-21: “All volunteer deaths will be promptly reported”
The Pentagon has launched a 5-year long project with a possible extension of up to 3 years code-named GG-21: “Arthropod-borne and zoonotic infections among military personnel in Georgia”. According to the project’s description, blood samples will be obtained from 1,000 military recruits at the time of their military registration physical exam at the Georgian military hospital located in Gori.
The samples will be tested for antibodies against fourteen pathogens:
Bacillus anthracis
Brucella
CCHF virus
Coxiella burnetii
Francisella tularensis
Hantavirus
Rickettsia species
TBE virus
Bartonella species
Borrelia species
Ehlrichia species
Leptospira species
Salmonella typhi
WNV
The amount of blood draw will be 10 ml. Samples will be stored indefinitely at the NCDC (Lugar Center) or USAMRU-G and aliquots might be sent to WRAIR headquarters in US for future research studies. Walter Reed Army Institute of Research (WRAIR) is the largest biomedical research facility administered by the U.S. Department of Defense. The results of the blood testing will not be provided to the study participants.
Such a procedure cannot cause death. However, according to the project report, “all volunteer deaths will be promptly reported (usually within 48 h of the PI being notified)” to the Georgian Military Hospital and WRAIR.
According to the GG-21 project report, “all volunteer deaths will be promptly reported” to the Georgian military hospital and WRAIR, USA.
The soldiers’ blood samples will be stored and further tested at the Lugar Center, a $180 million Pentagon-funded facility in Georgia’s capital Tbilisi.
The Georgian project GG-21 has been funded by DTRA and implemented by American military scientists from a special US Army unit code-named USAMRU-G who operate in the Lugar Center. They have been given diplomatic immunity in Georgia to research bacteria, viruses and toxins without being diplomats. This unit is subordinate to the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research (WRAIR).
The Lugar Center is the $180 million Pentagon-funded biolaboratory in Georgia’s capital Tbilisi.A diplomatic car with a registration plate of the US Embassy to Tbilisi in the car park of the Lugar Center. US scientists working at the Pentagon laboratory in Georgia drive diplomatic vehicles as they have been given diplomatic immunity. Photos: Dilyana Gaytandzhieva
Documents obtained from the US Federal contracts registry show that USAMRU-G is expanding its activities to other US allies in the region and is “establishing expeditionary capabilities” in Georgia, Ukraine, Bulgaria, Romania, Poland, Latvia and any future locations. The next USAMRU-G project involving biological tests on soldiers is due to start in March of this year at the Bulgarian Military Hospital in Sofia.
Project UP-8: All deaths of study participants should be reported within 24 h
The Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA) has funded a similar project involving soldiers in Ukraine code-named UP-8: The spread of Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever (CCHF) virus and hantaviruses in Ukraine and the potential need for differential diagnosis in patients with suspected leptospirosis. The project started in 2017 and was extended few times until 2020, internal documents show.
According to the project’s description, blood samples will be collected from 4,400 healthy soldiers in Lviv, Kharkov, Odesa and Kyiv. 4,000 of these samples will be tested for antibodies against hantaviruses, and 400 of them – for the presence of antibodies against Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever (CCHF) virus. The results of the blood testing will not be provided to the study participants.
There is no information as to what other procedures will be performed except that “serious incidents, including deaths should be reported within 24 hours. All deaths of study subjects that are suspected or known to be related to the research procedures should be brought to the attention of the bioethics committees in the USA and Ukraine.”
Blood samples from 4,000 Ukrainian soldiers will be tested for hantaviruses. Another 400 blood samples will be tested for CCHF under the DTRA-sponsored Ukrainian Project UP-8.Project UP-8: “Serious incidents, including deaths should be reported within 24 hours. All deaths of study subjects that are suspected or known to be related to the research procedures should be brought to the attention of the bioethics committees in the USA and Ukraine.” Source: ukr-leaks.org
DTRA has allocated $80 million for biological research in Ukraine as of 30 July 2020, according to information obtained from the US Federal contracts registry. Tasked with the program is the US company Black &Veatch Special Projects Corp.
Another DTRA contractor operating in Ukraine is CH2M Hill. The American company has been awarded a $22.8 million contract (2020-2023) for the reconstruction and equipment of two biolaboratories: the State Scientific Research Institute of Laboratory Diagnostics and Veterinary-Sanitary Expertise (Kyiv ILD) and the State Service of Ukraine for Food Safety and Consumer Protection Regional Diagnostic Laboratory (Odesa RDL).
US personnel are indemnified for deaths and injuries to the local population
The DTRA activities in Georgia and Ukraine fall under the protection of special bilateral agreements. According to these agreements, Georgia and Ukraine shall hold harmless, bring no legal proceedings and indemnify the United States and its personnel, contractors and contractors’ personnel, for damage to property, or death or injury to any persons in Georgia and Ukraine, arising out of activities under this Agreement. If DTRA-sponsored scientists cause deaths or injuries to the local population they cannot be held to account.
Furthermore, according to the US-Ukraine Agreement, claims by third parties for deaths and injuries in Ukraine, arising out of the acts or omissions of any employees of the United States related to work under this Agreement, shall be the responsibility of Ukraine.
Exactly one year before the Ukraine “invasion”, Grayzone obtained hard evidence that Reuters, BBC, Bellingcat and Zinc acted as intelligence operatives for UK against Russia. I don’t know how such activities are regarded by laws, national or international, but in my books, by common sense criteria, the hostility of their plan is nothing short of war. Same UK intelligence is most likely behind the Bucha false flag one year later.
Once we pull it out you better pick up on it quickly, I told you we’re in the business of dictating future MSM headlines. But without the sugar glazing. 🙂
To be continued? Our work and existence, as media and people, is funded solely by our most generous supporters. But we’re not really covering our costs so far, and we’re in dire needs to upgrade our equipment, especially for video production. Help SILVIEW.media survive and grow, please donate here, anything helps. Thank you!
! Articles can always be subject of later editing as a way of perfecting them
I dug out for you a big gold nugget from a Johns Hopkins specialist who also inspected Iraq on behalf of UN searching for bioweapons. If you pay close attention, this talk delivers powerful details on GoF beyond the scope of Russia.
Raymond Zilinskas, Monterey Institute of International Studies Speech at the Herrenhausen Symposium “Dual Use Research on Microbes: Biosafety, Biosecurity, Responsibility”, 11.12.2014
A few key-points:
You can’t differentiate between bioweapons and vaccine research except by intention, which you can’t really know
Bioweapons often target crops and livestock. As in ‘swine-flu’.
Raymond A. Zilinskas speaks about the first (1928-1971) and second (called FERMENT, 1972-1992) generation biological warfare programs, relevant elements of the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention, and Russian weapons based on “genetics”. He provides statistics about the USSR Ministry of Defense biological warfare facilities, the biopreparat biological warfare facilities, and anti-plague institutes. The scientist names examples of FERMENT program’s projects and discusses the program’s legacy in today’s Russia.
The speech has only been recorded in audio:
Zilinskas has worked for the U.S. Office of Technology Assessment, the U.N. Industrial Development Organization, the University of Maryland Biotechnology Institute, the School of Hygiene and Public Health, and the Johns Hopkins University. In 1994, he twice served as UNSCOM biological inspector in Iraq. Currently he directs the Chemical and Biological Weapons Nonproliferation Program at James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies, Monterey Institute of International Studies, California.
To be continued? Our work and existence, as media and people, is funded solely by our most generous supporters. But we’re not really covering our costs so far, and we’re in dire needs to upgrade our equipment, especially for video production. Help SILVIEW.media survive and grow, please donate here, anything helps. Thank you!
! Articles can always be subject of later editing as a way of perfecting them
THERE’S NO BETTER PREVENTION THAN SHARING THE KNOWLEDGE FASTER THAN THEY SHARE THEIR PROPAGANDA!
The original title of this article was URGENT! DEBUNKING THE NEXT ENGINEERED PANDEMIC: NIPAH VIRUS. I expanded the scope because in the meantime I learned they are ramping up propaganda for all three. These viruses have more things in common, as you will find out below.
You should actually begin with this earlier report:
To further develop the ChAd3 Ebola and Marburg vaccines, Sabin has entered into a Research Collaboration Agreement with the Vaccine Research Center at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. The Sabin Vaccine Institute, a non-profit organization founded in 1993, is a leading advocate for expanding vaccine access and uptake globally, advancing vaccine research and development, and amplifying vaccine knowledge and innovation. Sabin received more than $110 million for vaccine R&D programs from public and philanthropic funding sources, including the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, European Commission, Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Global Health Innovative Technology Fund and the Michelson Medical Research Foundation.
Washington DC, Oct. 21, 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — The Sabin Vaccine Institute (Sabin) announced that the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA), part of the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response within the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, has exercised the third contract option, valued at $34.5 million, under the 2019 contract to advance the development of vaccines against Ebola Sudan and Marburg viruses through Phase 2 clinical trials.
In September 2019, BARDA awarded Sabin a development contract, valued up to $128 million, and has already provided funding of $40.5 million. This third contract option will enable continued nonclinical efficacy and safety studies, Phase 2 clinical trials in Africa, and vaccine manufacturing processes to ensure quality and safety.
In August, a case of Marburg disease was confirmed in the West African country of Guinea where the Ministry of Health officially declared an outbreak of Marburg.1 This recent case, as well as Marburg’s history of outbreaks and their potential for future devastating outbreaks, demonstrates that preventative measures are overdue to protect civilian populations, military personnel, first responders, health care workers and laboratory workers, both in the United States and abroad, against these emerging infectious diseases.
Ebola Sudan and Marburg viruses are closely related to Ebola Zaire virus, which has caused more than 2,200 deaths since 2018, leading the World Health Organization (WHO) to declare it a Public Health Emergency of International Concern. Like Ebola Zaire, Ebola Sudan and Marburg are among the world’s deadliest viruses, causing hemorrhagic fever with subsequent death in an average of 50 percent of cases.2,3
“Even as the world struggles with the COVID-19 pandemic, disease caused by Ebola Sudan and Marburg viruses continue to be a serious threat, as we have seen with the recent outbreak of Marburg in Guinea. We are grateful for BARDA’s continued support of Sabin’s efforts to advance vaccines against these deadly viruses,” said Sabin Chief Executive Officer Amy Finan. “We also thank our partners at the Vaccine Research Center of the NIH National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases for their continued collaboration, and GSK for their earlier work on the candidates.”
The two candidate vaccines, based on GSK’s proprietary ChAd3 platform, were exclusively licensed to the Sabin Vaccine Institute from GSK in 2019.
This project has been funded in whole or in part with federal funds from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services; Office of the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response; Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority, under contract number 75A50119C00055.
This above is the official Sabin Inst. press release, this below isn’t:
November 4, 2021 – The U.S. CDC published a Level Three Travel Advisory for the recent Ebola outbreak in the Beni Health Zone of the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
November 3, 2021 – The U.S. CDC vaccine advisory committee reviewed previous recommendation preexposure vaccination with Ervebo for adults aged ≥18 years in the U.S. population who are at highest risk for potential occupational exposure to Ebola virus species Zaire ebolavirus because they are: responding to an outbreak of Ebola Virus Disease (EVD), or work as health care personnel at federally designated Ebola treatment centers in the U.S., or work as laboratorians or other staff at biosafety level 4 facilities in the U.S.
November 2, 2021 – The WHO reported additional cases and deaths confirmed in the Ebola virus disease outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo with two new health areas affected. A total of 394 people (67 primary care providers including nine high-risk contacts, nine contacts of contacts, and 49 probable contacts) have been vaccinated including 182 contacts of contacts, 125 probable contacts, and 87 high-risk contacts.
October 29, 2021 – A Research Article – Safety and immunogenicity of 2-dose heterologous Ad26.ZEBOV, MVA-BN-Filo Ebola vaccination in healthy and HIV-infected adults: A randomized, placebo-controlled Phase II clinical trial in Africa – was published by the journal PLOS Medicine. Conclusion – The Ad26.ZEBOV and MVA-BN-Filo combo vaccination were well tolerated and immunogenic in healthy and HIV-infected African adults. Increasing the interval between vaccinations from 28 to 56 days improved the magnitude of humoral immune responses. Antibody levels persisted to at least 1 year, and an Ad26.ZEBOV booster vaccination demonstrated the presence of vaccination-induced immune memory. These data supported the approval by the European Union for prophylaxis against EBOV disease in adults and children ≥1 year of age.
October 27, 2021 – IAVI announced an award of up to US$126 million from the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority to develop two recombinant vesicular stomatitis virus (rVSV)-vectored filovirus vaccine candidates. This award supports preclinical activities and includes options for clinical development up to and inclusive of a Phase II clinical trial of IAVI’s rVSV Sudan ebolavirus vaccine candidate (rVSVΔG-SUDV-GP). Optional work that would continue the development of IAVI’s Marburg virus vaccine candidate (rVSVΔG-MARV-GP) that is currently supported by the Defense Threat Reduction Agency of the U.S. Department of Defense could be funded at a later date.
“Vectored” means, most likely, mRNA or some other genetic / nanotech targeting technology.
October 20, 2021 – The WHO African Region reported 5 Ebola cases, and over 27,000 travelers have been screened in the DRC. Furthermore, over 116 people have been vaccinated.
October 17, 2021 – Africa News reported Ebola vaccinations started in Beni, DRC, after at least two people died due to the virus in October 2021. The WHO African Region Tweeted DRC Situation Report (17/10/21) 5 confirmed cases, three deaths, 369 contacts identified, and 308 contacts monitored.
October 13, 2021 – Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) health officials confirmed an Ebola vaccination campaign had launched in the North Kivu province where one confirmed Ebola case, plus three related suspected deaths, were recently reported. About 1,000 doses of the rVSV-ZEBOV Ebola vaccine and other medical supplies were delivered from the capital Kinshasa to Goma city in North Kivu. The DRC has more than 12,000 vaccine doses in Kinshasa that can be deployed if necessary.
October 10, 2021 – The WHO reported additional Ebola cases related to the recent DRC case of a 3-year-old boy. A cluster of three deaths (two children and their father) who were neighbors of the case. These three patients died on 14, 19, and 29 September 2021 after developing symptoms consistent with Ebola. However, none were tested for the virus. As of October 9th, a total of 148 contacts have been identified and are under follow-up by the local response team.
October 8, 2021 – A case of Ebola has been confirmed in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo, five months after the end of the most recent Ebola outbreak there. The child died on October 6th. It was not immediately known if the Ebola case was related to the 2018-20 outbreak that killed more than 2,200 people in eastern Congo or the flare-up that killed six people in 2021.
September 13, 2021 – A new study based in Sierra Leone concluded the Ebola vaccine regimen from Janssen – J&J. It was found well tolerated with no safety concerns in children aged 1–17 years and induced robust humoral immune responses, suggesting the suitability of this regimen for Ebola virus disease prevention in children.
August 31, 2021 – The government of Cote d’Ivoire has informed the WHO that a second laboratory has tested samples from a patient suspected of having Ebola and has found no evidence of the virus. Around a dozen WHO experts were mobilized to support the country’s efforts, and 5,000 Ebola vaccine doses which WHO had helped Guinea procure were sent from Guinea to Cote d’Ivoire.
August 23, 2021 – The WHO African region reported Ebola booster dose vaccinations in Sierra Leone following administration of the prime dose of the Johnson & Johnson Ebola vaccine in May 2021. Frontline health workers, practitioners of traditional medicines or traditional healers, and commercial motorbike riders who received the first dose are now given their second jab to maximize their protection against the disease.
August 17, 2021 – The WHO confirmed Cote d’Ivoire deployed 2,000 vaccine doses from Merck and around 3,000 vaccine doses manufactured by Johnson & Johnson – Janssen.
August 14, 2021 – The WHO Africa reported the Ministry of Health of Cote d’Ivoire today confirmed the country’s first case of Ebola since 1994. This came after the Institut Pasteur in Cote d’Ivoire confirmed the Ebola Virus Disease in samples collected from a patient hospitalized in Abidjan’s commercial capital after arriving from Guinea.
August 9, 2021 – The WHO confirmed ‘Marburg virus disease (MVD) is a highly virulent, epidemic-prone disease associated with high case fatality rates (CFR 24-90%). In the early course of the disease, the clinical diagnosis of MVD is difficult to distinguish from other tropical febrile illnesses because of the similarities in the clinical symptoms. Differential diagnoses to be excluded include Ebola virus disease, as well as malaria, typhoid fever, leptospirosis, rickettsial infection, and plague.’
June 15, 2021 – The Southwest National Primate Research Center at Texas Biomedical Research Institute (Texas Biomed) has been awarded more than $37 million from the U.S. National Institutes of Health to continue operations into 2026. The P51 grant, given by the NIH Office of Research Infrastructure Programs, provides essential funding to house and care for nearly 2,500 non-human primates that are part of life-science research programs at Texas Biomed and partners around the globe.
June 4, 2021 – Johnson & Johnson welcomed a new recommendation by the Strategic Advisory Group of Experts on Immunization for the WHO that supports the use of the Johnson & Johnson Ebola vaccine regimen both during outbreaks for individuals at some risk of Ebola exposure and preventively, in the absence of an outbreak, for national and international first responders in neighboring areas or countries where an outbreak might spread.
April 10, 2021 – The government of Sierra Leone and the WHO announced Johnson & Johnson had donated about 4,500 Zabdeno and Mvabea Ebola vaccines to Sierra Leone to help prevent any Ebola outbreak. The last Ebola outbreak in Sierra Leone was in 2016.
March 25, 2021 – Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine revealed health officials are monitoring 44 people who have returned from areas of Africa with active outbreaks of Ebola.
March 25, 2021 – Oregon public health officials announced they are monitoring four people who recently visited the West African countries of Guinea and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Regions in each of these countries are currently experiencing outbreaks of Ebola virus disease. The Oregon Health Authority and local public health departments have been in contact with these individuals, considered “persons under monitoring” since they arrived in the state earlier in March 2021.
March 23, 2021 – The WHO African Region Tweeted Guinea Ebola outbreak Situation Report (22/03/21) 18 cases, nine deaths, 78 contacts, 82% monitored. And 3,905 people have been vaccinated.
March 13, 2021 – After a request from the Guinean authorities, Russia is considering supplying a domestic vaccine against the Ebola virus to the African country, reported TASS.
May 13, 2020 – BARDA Provides the Sabin Vaccine Institute with an Additional $20 Million for Further Development of Ebola Sudan and Marburg Vaccines
The Sabin Vaccine Institute (Sabin) and its partner ReiThera Srl today announced that the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA), part of the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response within the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, has exercised the first two options, valued at $20 million, under the 2019 contract to advance the development of vaccines against Ebola Sudan and Marburg viruses through Phase 2 clinical trials. In September 2019, BARDA awarded Sabin a development contract, valued at $128 million, and provided the initial funding award of $20.5 million. This second $20 million award will enable the manufacture and release of clinical vaccine material developed by ReiThera, a specialist in the development and cGMP manufacture of adenoviral vector vaccines. The funding will also support non-clinical studies to evaluate efficacy and immune response.
UPDATE 5: NOVEMBER 7, 2021: MARBURG GOES VIRAL ON INTERNET ONLY, YET. I’m happy awareness increases, it’s crucial. I’ve addressed this virus below, but not many had the patience to go through all text, and I kind of understand them, but there’s no easier way than reading. Here’s another angle to keep in sight when computing all this info:
UPDATE 4: OCTOBER 19 2021: THE FEARPORN CAMPAIGN TAKES SPEED AS IF THEY ARE TO RELEASE THIS SOON. IF YOU FALL FOR THEIR BRAINWASH, THEY HAVE NO REASON TO STOP.
And they’re still not running out of stupid ideas we can see through:
Oh, look who pushes the fear! Exactly who I would’ve expected:
Later update: In the meantime I’ve learned that Marburg (an Ebola relative) and Xinjiang fever, a Chinese relative of the Yellow Fever virus, are also top candidates, and that goes in line with the Fauci e-mails I highlighted below. I will be back with more details shortly. Almost certainly it will be some form of hemorrhagic fever, most likely to cover for injections side-effects on the blood stream.
UPDATE 2:
One month later, they’re starting to catch up and it’s still not too late to un-play it if this goes BOOM NOW!
By the end of last century, The Military has abandoned you and has joined Pharmafia and the super-rich elites in a plan to govern you with bioweapons and psy-ops. As I’ve said many times, Big Pharma and Big Tech are long gone, The Military BioTech Complex has been running the show for quite a while. This is just a chapter from that book, more to come if we get some love.
Canadian lab’s shipment of Ebola, Henipah viruses to China raises questions
Henipah and Nipah are interchangeable
Scientists at the National Microbiology Lab sent live Ebola and Henipah viruses to Beijing on an Air Canada flight March 31, and while the Public Health Agency of Canada says all federal policies were followed, there are questions about whether that shipment is part of an ongoing RCMP investigation.
Ebola and Henipah are Level 4 pathogens, meaning they’re some of the deadliest viruses in the world. They must be contained in a lab with the highest level of biosafety control, such as the one in Winnipeg.
Two months after that shipment, on May 24, the Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC) referred an “administrative matter” to RCMP that resulted in the removal of two Chinese research scientists — Xiangguo Qiu and Keding Cheng — and several international students on July 5.
Both agencies have said repeatedly that public safety has not been at risk.
PHAC will not confirm if the March 31 shipment is part of the RCMP investigation.
Strict protocols
Several sources, who have asked to remain anonymous because they fear for their jobs, say the pathogens may have been shipped to the Chinese Academy of Sciences in a way that circumvented the lab’s operating procedures, and without a document protecting Canada’s intellectual property rights.
Researchers working at the National Microbiology Lab on cutting-edge, high-containment research are not allowed to send anything to other countries or labs without the intellectual property office negotiating and having a material transfer agreement in place, in case the material sent leads to a notable discovery.
A PHAC spokesperson did not confirm if this shipment included such an agreement.
However, Eric Morrissette said it’s “routine” for the lab to share samples of pathogens and toxins with partners in other countries to advance scientific work worldwide.
“All transfers of Risk Group 4 samples follow strict transportation requirements and are authorized by senior officials at the lab and the NML tracks and keeps electronic records of all shipments of samples in accordance with the HPTA. Agreements for the transfer of materials are determined on a case-by-case basis,” Morrisette wrote in an email statement.
“On the specific shipments to China earlier this year, we can confirm that we have all records pertaining to the shipment, and that all protocols were followed as directed by the above Acts and Standards.”
Sources say Xiangguo Qiu and her husband, Keding Cheng, were escorted from the National Microbiology Lab in Winnipeg on July 5. (Governor General’s Innovation Awards)
Xiangguo Qiu is head of the National Microbiology Lab’s Vaccine Development and Antiviral Therapies section in the Special Pathogens Program. She is responsible for the lab that works with Ebola. Her husband, Keding Cheng, is also a PHAC biologist.
After their security clearance was revoked and they were escorted from the lab, the University of Manitoba also cut ties with them and re-assigned Qiu’s graduate students, pending the RCMP investigation. No charges have been laid.
Neither scientist has responded to requests for comment, although some of their former colleagues say Qiu is not just a world-renowned scientist who helped develop a treatment for Ebola, but also a researcher with ethics and integrity.
Case raises questions
One question raised by this case is that of intellectual property protection, says Leah West, who practises, studies and publishes in the field of national security law and lectures at the Norman Paterson School of International Affairs.
“If China was leveraging these scientists in Canada to gain access to a potentially valuable pathogen or to elements of a virus without having to license the patent … it makes sense with the idea of China trying to gain access to valuable IP without paying for it,” she said.
Leah West says she hopes the lab and Health Canada are doing an investigation in addition to the one the RCMP is conducting. (Submitted by Leah West)
West accepts PHAC’s assertion that public safety is not an issue, even though the viruses were transported on a commercial Air Canada flight.
However, she says the fact the RCMP is involved means there’s a legitimate concern.
“You don’t send a policy breach, a bureaucratic policy breach, to the RCMP to investigate unless you believe that that policy breach has resulted in a criminal offence or could have resulted in a criminal offence. So what is the criminal offence potentially here?” West said.
She said she hopes the lab and Health Canada are also doing an internal investigation.
“I think there will need to be an inquiry into the scientists to potentially see whether or not they were compromised or any elements of their work were compromised and that China gained illegal or improper access to Canadian intellectual property … to see what China may have gained access to without knowledge, prior to this incident,” West says.
Don’t ‘jump into any conclusions too quickly’
However, the deputy director of the University of Alberta’s China Institute is urging caution when it comes to making assumptions.
Jia Wang doesn’t dispute China has been involved in the past in espionage and intellectual property theft, but she says that country is making big investments in developing STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) scholars and then putting that into innovation.
China has its own reasons to protect intellectual property because many new ideas are coming from there, Wang says.
She’s waiting to see what comes of the RCMP investigation of the lab in Winnipeg.
“As China observers, we’d like to perhaps gently remind people not to jump into any conclusions too quickly,” she said.
“It will be good to get to the bottom of this and see what might have gone wrong and what was the oversight and how can the procedures be improved or people involved can be reminded of how to adhere to the policies better.”
Jia Wang, deputy director of the University of Alberta’s China Institute, is advising caution about making assumptions concerning the case. (Submitted by Jia Wang)
The shipment of the viruses took place at a time when relations between Canada and China have been strained over the arrest of a Huawei executive, at the request of the United States.
In retaliation, China has detained two Canadians and is boycotting Canadian canola and pork.
Because of the strained relationship between the two countries, and this case at the lab, Chinese-Canadian researchers and academics are starting to worry they may be singled out and targeted, Wang said.
“Certain assumptions are made or their loyalty to Canada is questioned in any way. And as multicultural as we are in Canada, we don’t want to see that.” – CBC, 2019
On December 19, 2019, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration announced the approval of Ervebo to prevent EVD caused by Zaire ebolavirus in individuals 18 years of age and older. This report, published by the U.S. CDC on January 8, 2021, summarizes the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) recommendations for using the rVSVΔG-ZEBOV-GP Ebola vaccine (Ervebo) in the USA.
On July 1, 2020, the European Medicines Agency granted Johnson & Johnson Janssen’s Zabdeno and Mvabea Ebola vaccine therapy, a prime-boost vaccination approach for preventing infectious diseases. Janssen’s Ebola vaccine regimen is specifically designed to induce long-term immunity against the Ebola virus in adults and children aged one year and above.
CanSino Biologics’s Ad5-EBOV Ebola vaccine received approval in China in October 2017. Ad5-EBOV is an adenovirus type 5 vector-based Ebola virus disease vaccine that protects against Ebola by relying on the recombinant replication-defective human adenovirus type-5 vector immune response. In addition, Ad5-EBOV is manufactured as a lyophilized powder, highly stable, and does not require storage at ultra-low temperatures. This feature renders it viable for use in resource-limited tropical areas.
The WHO published the revised Ebola Vaccine FAQ on January 11, 2020.
Henipaviruses belong to the family of paramyxoviruses. Two species have been identified to be zoonotic, causing disease in animals. These are the Hendra virus (HeV) and the Nipah virus (NiV). They produce severe and often fatal illness in humans and horses.
Samples from early Wuhan COVID-19 patients show the presence of genetically modified Henipah virus, an American scientist has found.
Henipah was one of the two types of viruses sent to China by Chinese-born scientists from a Canadian laboratory at the centre of a controversy over the firing of the scientists and collaboration with Chinese military researchers. It is not clear whether the virus found in the Chinese samples is related to the samples sent by the Canadian lab, which were shipped in late March 2019.
The finding was confirmed for The Epoch Times by another qualified scientist.
The evidence was first found by Dr. Steven Quay, a Seattle-based physician-scientist and former faculty member at the Stanford University School of Medicine, who looked at early COVID-19 samples uploaded by scientists at the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) shortly after China informed the World Health Organization about the SARS-CoV-2 outbreak.
Chinese virologist Shi Zhengli is seen inside the P4 laboratory in Wuhan, China, on Feb. 23, 2017. (Johannes Eisele/AFP via Getty Images)
The samples from the patients, who reportedly were found to have the “unknown pneumonia” in December 2019, were uploaded to the genetic sequence database, GenBank, on the website of the U.S. National Institute of Health (NIH).
Quay says that while other scientists around the world were mostly interested in examining the genome of SARS-CoV-2 in the samples uploaded by the WIV scientists, he wanted to see what else was in the samples collected from the patients.
So he collaborated with a few other scientists to analyze sequences from the samples.
“We started fishing inside for weird things,” Quay told The Epoch Times.
What they found, he says, are the results of what could likely be contamination from different experiments in the lab making their way into the samples, as well as evidence of Henipah virus.
“We found genetic manipulation of the Nipah virus, which is more lethal than Ebola.” Nipah is a type of Henipah virus.
The Epoch Times asked Joe Wang, PhD, who formerly spearheaded a vaccine development program for SARS in Canada with one of the world’s leading pharmaceutical companies, to verify the finding. Wang is currently the president of NTD Television Canada, the sister company of The Epoch Times in Canada.
After examining the evidence, Wang said he was able to replicate Quay’s findings on the Henipah virus. He explains that the genetic manipulation of the virus was likely for the purposes of vaccine development.
Winnipeg Lab
The firing of Chinese-born scientist Xiangguo Qiu and her husband, Keding Cheng, from the National Microbiology laboratory (NML) in Winnipeg has been the subject of much controversy in Canada, with opposition parties pressing the government for more details on the case, and the government refusing to release information citing national security and privacy concerns.
Qiu and Cheng along with several Chinese students were escorted out of NML, Canada’s only Level 4 lab, in July 2019, amid a police investigation. The two scientists were formally fired in January 2021.
The Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC), which is in charge of NML, said the termination was the result of an “administrative matter” and “possible breaches of security protocols,” but has declined to provide further details, citing security and privacy concerns.
House Speaker Anthony Rota admonishes Public Health Agency of Canada President Iain Stewart in the House of Commons on June 21, 2021, for failing to provide documents related to the firing of two scientists from the National Microbiology Laboratory in Winnipeg. (The Canadian Press/Sean Kilpatrick)
During her time at NML, Qiu travelled several times in an official capacity to WIV, helping train personnel on Level 4 safety. The Globe and Mail later reported that scientists at NML have been collaborating with Chinese military researchers on deadly pathogens, and that one of the Chinese military researchers worked at the high-security Winnipeg lab for a period of time.
Documents and emails released by PHAC show that the shipment of Henipah and Ebola samples was done with the permission of NML authorities.
In one of the emails sent in September 2018, David Safronetz, chief of special pathogens at PHAC, informs then-head of NML Matthew Gilmour and other lab administrators about the request from WIV for the shipment of the samples, saying “I trust the lab.”
In response, Gilmour asks about the nature of the work that will be done at the Wuhan lab, and why the lab doesn’t get the material from “other, more local labs.” He also tells Safronetz that it’s “good to know that you trust this group,” asking how NML was connected with them.
In his reply, Safronetz doesn’t specifically say what the samples will be used for in China, but notes they will only be sent once all paperwork and certification is completed. He also says the WIV is requesting the material from NML “due to collaboration” with Qiu.
He adds, “Historically, it’s also been easier to obtain material from us as opposed to US labs. I don’t think other, closer labs have the ability to ship these materials.”
Gilmour resigned from his position at NML in May 2020 and joined a UK-based bioresearch company.
MPs have asked NML management why shipment of the samples was allowed and whether they knew if China performs any Gain of Function (GoF) research at WIV. GoF research involves increasing the lethal level (virulence) or transmissibility of pathogens.
NML’s acting scientific director general Guillaume Poliquin told MPs during a parliamentary committee meeting on March 22 that the lab only sent the samples to WIV after receiving assurance that no GoF research would take place.
Conservative MP John Williamson pressed for more answers, saying the word of the state-run Chinese lab can’t be trusted as the Chinese regime “has a history of theft and lies.”
The issue of GoF research at WIV has been a point of contention in the United States between lawmakers and Dr. Anthony Fauci, NIH’s head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, whose organization has funded research (through EcoHealth Alliance) on coronaviruses at the Wuhan lab. U.S. Sen. Rand Paul says published work from WIV on coronaviruses shows the lab is conducting GoF research, a charge Fauci denies.
The P4 laboratory on the campus of the Wuhan Institute of Virology in Wuhan, China, on May 13, 2020. (Hector Retamal/AFP via Getty Images)
The Epoch Times sought comment from PHAC, including as to how the agency addressed issues of intellectual property and the development of any products such as vaccines with WIV, but didn’t hear back by time of publication.
Despite repeated requests by opposition parties for more details related to the firing of the two NML scientists, the Liberal government has refused to provide records, saying there are national security and privacy concerns.
After the House of Commons issued an order for the government to disclose the information, the government took the Speaker of the House to court to obtain confirmation from a judge that it can withhold the documents. The government later dropped its court case once Prime Minister Justin Trudeau called an election and Parliament was dissolved. – Epoch Times
UPDATE 3: I FOUND CREDIBLE SOURCES FOR MOST OF DR. ARYANA LOVE’S EXPLOSIVE CLAIMS BELOW:
I didn’t have an in depth look at all her sources, I can’t have a final 100% verdict, but I did more than a glance and no lies detected. You can review her blog post yourself HERE. This might be the closure to this report and the start for another.
OBAMA: EBOLA RESPONSE A TRIAL RUN FOR A POTENTIAL AIRBORNE VIRUS THAT MIGHT HIT SOON (2014)
BONUS
This is from 2014, but the story goes a way long back. And forward. Let’s not forget Putin is a Davos regular since before he became such a literal czar.
To be continued? Our work and existence, as media and people, is funded solely by our most generous supporters. But we’re not really covering our costs so far, and we’re in dire needs to upgrade our equipment, especially for video production. Help SILVIEW.media survive and grow, please donate here, anything helps. Thank you!
! Articles can always be subject of later editing as a way of perfecting them
Article 8 of The Rome Statute of The International Criminal Court (ICC) defines biological experiments as war crimes. The US, however, is not a state party to the international treaty, and cannot be held accountable for its war crimes.
“The Russian Defence Ministry continues to study materials on the implementation of military biological programs of the United States and its NATO allies on the territory of Ukraine.
We have already mentioned Robert Pope, director of the Cooperative Threat Reduction Programme and author of the idea of the Central Depository of Highly Dangerous Microorganisms in Kiev.
In his statement of April 10, 2022, Pope said that “…there is no reason to claim that research related to the development of biological weapons is taking place in Ukraine…”. He previously claimed that “…the Americans did not find biological weapons when they first started working with Ukraine, and they still haven’t. In addition, Ukraine lacks the infrastructure to develop and produce biological weapons…”.
I would like to recall that the term “biological weapons” includes biological formulations that contain pathogenic micro-organisms and toxins, as well as the means of delivery and use of said formulations.
While the priority for Ukrainian healthcare is socially significant diseases such as HIV, poliomyelitis, measles and hepatitis, US customers are interested in a completely different nomenclature: cholera, tularemia, plague and hantaviruses.
As a result of the special military operation on the territory of Ukraine, facts of work with the specified pathogens, which are potential agents of biological weapons, have been revealed. At the same time, it was noted that Ukraine had sent a request to the manufacturing company regarding the possibility of equipping the Bayraktar drones with aerosol equipment.
In addition on March 9, three unmanned aerial vehicles equipped with 30-litre containers and equipment for spraying formulations were detected by Russian reconnaissance units in Kherson region. At the end of April, 10 more were found near Kakhovka.
All this information calls into question the statements of American experts.
We have previously provided a scheme for US coordination of biological laboratories and research institutes in Ukraine. Its preliminary analysis suggests that Ukraine is essentially a testing ground for the development of biological weapons components and the testing of new samples of pharmaceuticals.
The Russian Ministry of Defence was able to clarify the said scheme.
It should be noted that the ideologues of US military-biological activities in Ukraine are the leaders of the Democratic Party.
Thus, through the US executive branch, a legislative framework for funding military biomedical research directly from the federal budget was formed. Funds were raised under state guarantees from NGOs controlled by the Democratic Party leadership, including the investment funds of the Clintons, Rockefellers, Soros and Biden.
The scheme involves major pharmaceutical companies, including Pfizer, Moderna, Merck and the US military-affiliated company Gilead. U.S. experts are working to test new medicines that circumvent international safety standards. As a result, Western companies are seriously reducing the cost of research programmes and gaining a significant competitive advantage.
The involvement of controlled nongovernmental and biotechnological organisations, and the increase in their revenues, allows the leaders of the Democratic Party to generate additional campaign finance and hide its distribution.
In addition to US pharmaceutical companies and Pentagon contractors, Ukrainian state agencies are involved in military bioweapons activities, whose main tasks are to conceal illegal activities, conduct field and clinical trials and provide the necessary biomaterial.
Thus, the US Department of Defence, using a virtually internationally uncontrolled test site and the high-tech facilities of multinational companies, has greatly expanded its research capabilities, not only in the field of biological weapons, but also in gaining knowledge about antibiotic resistance and the antibodies to specific diseases in populations in specific regions.
It should be noted that not only the US, but also a number of its NATO allies are implementing their military-biological projects in Ukraine.
The German government has decided to launch a national biosafety programme independent of Washington, D.C., starting in 2013. Twelve countries, including Ukraine, are involved in the Programme.
On the German side, the programme involves the Institute for Armed Forces Microbiology (Munich), the Robert Koch Institute (Berlin), the Loeffler Institute (Greifswald) and the Nocht Institute for Tropical Medicine (Hamburg).
New documents reveal that between 2016 and 2019 alone, three and a half thousand blood serum samples of citizens living in 25 regions of Ukraine were taken by military epidemiologists from the Bundeswehr Microbiology Institute.
The involvement of institutions subordinate to the Bundeswehr confirms the military orientation of biological research carried out in Ukrainian laboratories and raises questions about the goals pursued by the German armed forces in collecting biomaterials of Ukrainian citizens.
The documents obtained also show the involvement of Poland in Ukrainian biolaboratories. The participation of the Polish Institute of Veterinary Medicine in research aimed at assessing the epidemiological threats and spread of the rabies virus in Ukraine has been confirmed. Characteristically, the research in question was carried out jointly with the US-based Battelle Institute, a key contractor for the Pentagon.
In addition, Polish funding for the Lvov Medical University, which includes a member of US military biology projects, the Institute of Epidemiology and Hygiene, has been documented. The organisation has been running a retraining programme for specialists with experience of working with dual-use materials and technologies since 2002.
The special military operation by Russian troops succeeded in obtaining additional information about bio-incidents in Ukraine.
For example, materials indicating the intentional use of a multidrug-resistant tuberculosis pathogen in 2020 to infect the population of the Slavyanoserbsky district of the LPR were examined.
The flyers, made in the form of counterfeit currency notes, were infected with the tuberculosis agent and distributed to minors in Stepovoe village. The organisers of this crime took into account the behaviour of children, who have a habit of “putting everything in their mouths” and taking food with unwashed hands.
The results of bacteriological studies have confirmed the resistance of the isolated bacteria to first- and second-line anti-TB drugs, meaning that the disease caused by them is much more difficult to treat and the cost of treatment is much higher.
According to the conclusion of the Lugansk Republican Sanitary and Epidemiological Station, “…the contamination of the notes was most likely carried out artificially, as the material contains extremely dangerous strains of the pathogen in concentrations capable of ensuring infection and development of the tuberculosis process…”.
In his conclusion, the chief doctor of the Lugansk Republican TB Dispensary also notes that “…there are all signs of deliberate, man-made contamination of the flyers with highly pathogenic biomaterial…”.
We previously reported on trials of potentially dangerous biological drugs on one of the least protected categories of people – patients of the Kharkov Regional Clinical Psychiatric Hospital No 3.
We have received new information revealing details of the Pentagon’s inhuman experiments on Ukrainian citizens in Psychiatric Hospital No 1 (Streleche village, Kharkov region). The main category of subjects was a group of male patients aged 40-60 years with a high stage of physical exhaustion.
In order to conceal their US affiliation, the biological research experts travelled via third countries. Here is a photograph of Florida native Linda Oporto, who was directly involved in these works.
In January 2022, the foreign nationals conducting the experiments were evacuated in an emergency and the equipment and drugs they were using were taken to western Ukraine.
Russian Defence Ministry specialists have carried out work directly in two biolaboratories in Mariupol.
Evidence of emergency destruction of documents confirming work with the US military establishment was obtained. A preliminary analysis of extant documentation indicates the use of Mariupol as a regional centre for cholera pathogen collection and certification. The selected strains were sent to the Public Health Centre in Kiev, which is responsible for the onward shipment of biomaterials to the United States. These activities have been carried out since 2014, as evidenced by the transfer of strains.
An act of destruction of the pathogen collection dated February 25, 2022, according to which cholera, tularemia and anthrax pathogens were handled there, was found in the sanitary and epidemiological laboratory.
Part of the collection of the veterinary laboratory was not destroyed in a hurry. In order to ensure safety and secure storage, 124 strains were exported by Russian specialists and their study was organised.
The presence in the collection of pathogens that are uncharacteristic of veterinary medicine, such as typhoid, paratyphoid fever and gas gangrene, is a cause for concern. This could indicate the laboratory’s misuse and involvement in a military biological programme.
We will continue to examine the full volume of material received from the Mariupol biolaboratories and will inform you about the results.
The Russian Ministry of Defence has information that provocations are being prepared to accuse the Russian Armed Forces of using weapons of mass destruction, followed by a “Syrian scenario” investigation to fabricate the necessary evidence and assign blame.
The high likelihood of such provocations is confirmed by requests from the Kiev administration for personal skin and respiratory protection equipment that provides protection against toxic chemicals and biological contaminating agents. The supply to Ukraine of organophosphorus poisoning antidotes raises concerns. In 2022 alone, more than 220,000 ampoules of atropine, as well as preparations for special treatment and disinfection, were delivered from the USA at the request of the Ukrainian Ministry of Health.
Thus, the information obtained confirms that the United States is implementing an offensive military-biological programme in Ukraine to study the possibility of forming controlled epidemics in specific territories.
The special military operation of the Russian Armed Forces has crossed the US military-biological expansion in Ukraine and stopped criminal experiments on civilians.” – RUSSIA MOD
Yeah, everything from any government has to be taken with a pinch of salt and all that, but when things easily corroborate with what we previously discovered, we need to pay attention. I can’t argue anything against the new data yet, but we can cross-reference a lot of it, so, rather than a bombshell, this is more like cementing the foundation and filling in some gaps.
She originated all our revelations and public debate and this is her first lengthy interview lately! Thank her and be a part of the solution by spreading this!
US fired back at Russia with very symmetrical accusations. Many are correct. That doesn’t let either of the parts off the hook, both are dirty and guilty, both are a reflection of each other, like commies and nazis, libtards and trumptards, Pepsi and Coke, all eventually owned by some Blackrock.
Dilyana Gaytandzhieva is a Bulgarian investigative journalist, Middle East correspondent and founder of Arms Watch. Over the last two years she has published a series of revealing reports on weapons supplies to terrorists in Syria and Iraq. Her current work is focused on documenting war crimes and illicit arms exports to war zones around the world.
Attention: for expired/deleted links, learn to use the Wayback Machine from the Internet Archive, their apps and plugins are great.
The US Army regularly produces deadly viruses, bacteria and toxins in direct violation of the UN Convention on the prohibition of Biological Weapons. Hundreds of thousands of unwitting people are systematically exposed to dangerous pathogens and other incurable diseases. Bio warfare scientists using diplomatic cover test man-made viruses at Pentagon bio laboratories in 25 countries across the world. These US bio-laboratories are funded by the Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA) under a $ 2.1 billion military program– Cooperative Biological Engagement Program (CBEP), and are located in former Soviet Union countries such as Georgia and Ukraine, the Middle East, South East Asia and Africa.
Georgia as a testing ground
The Lugar Center is the Pentagon bio laboratory in Georgia. It is located just 17 km from the US Vaziani military airbase in the capital Tbilisi. Tasked with the military program are biologists from the US Army Medical Research Unit-Georgia (USAMRU-G) along with private contractors. The Bio-safety Level 3 Laboratory is accessible only to US citizens with security clearance. They are accorded diplomatic immunity under the 2002 US-Georgia Agreement on defense cooperation.
The Lugar Center, Republic of GeorgiaThe US Army has been deployed to Vaziani Military Air Base, 17 km from the Pentagon bio-laboratory at The Lugar Center.The USA-Georgia agreement accords diplomatic status to the US military and civilian personnel (including diplomatic vehicles), working on the Pentagon program in Georgia.
Information obtained from the US federal contracts registry clarifies some of the military activities at The Lugar Center – among them research on bio-agents (anthrax, tularemia) and viral diseases (e.g. Crimean-Congo Hemorrhagic Fever), and the collection of biological samples for future experiments.
Pentagon contractors produce bio agents under diplomatic cover
The Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA) has outsourced much of the work under the military program to private companies, which are not held accountable to Congress, and which can operate more freely and move around the rule of law. US civilian personnel performing work at The Lugar Center have also been given diplomatic immunity, although they are not diplomats. Hence, private companies can perform work, under diplomatic cover, for the US government without being under the direct control of the host state – in this case the Republic of Georgia. This practice is often used by the CIA to provide cover for its agents. Three private American companies work at the US bio-laboratory in Tbilisi – CH2M Hill, Battelle and Metabiota. In addition to the Pentagon, these private contractors perform research for the CIA and various other government agencies.
CH2M Hill has been awarded $341.5 million DTRA contracts under the Pentagon’s program for bio-laboratories in Georgia, Uganda, Tanzania, Iraq, Afghanistan, South East Asia. Half of this sum ($161.1 million), being allocated to The Lugar Center, under the Georgian contract. According to CH2M Hill, the US Company has secured biological agents and employed former bio warfare scientists at The Lugar Center. These are scientists who are working for another American company involved in the military program in Georgia – Battelle Memorial Institute.
Battelle as a $59 million subcontractor at Lugar Center has extensive experience in research on bio-agents, as the company has already worked on the US Bio-weapons Program under 11 previous contracts with the US Army (1952-1966).Source: US Army Activities in the US, Biological Warfare Programs, vol. II, 1977, p. 82
As opposed to this Al Jazeera dude, we’re not working for corporations or governments and there’s no government that can put up with our research. Dilyana is anti-Russian, I am against any large group of people that’s not a music festival audience or a tree-planting brigade, they’re all dumb and only harmonic vibrations can redeem them.
The CIA-Battelle Project Clear Vision
Project Clear Vision (1997 and 2000), a joint investigation by the CIA and the Battelle Memorial Institute, under a contract awarded by the Agency, reconstructed and tested a Soviet-era anthrax bomblet in order to test its dissemination characteristics. The project’s stated goal was to assess bio-agents dissemination characteristics of bomblets. The clandestine CIA-Battelle operation was omitted from the US Biological Weapons Convention declarations submitted to the UN.
Top Secret Experiments
Battelle has operated a Top Secret Bio laboratory (National Biodefense Analysis and Countermeasures Center – NBACC) at Fort Detrick, Maryland under a US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) contract for the last decade. The company has been awarded a $344.4 million federal contract (2006 – 2016) and another $17.3 million contract (2015 -2026) by DHS.
Besides the military experiments at the Lugar Center in Georgia, Battelle has already produced bioterrorism agents at the Biosafety Level 4 NBACC Top Secret Laboratory at Fort Detrick in the US. A NBACC presentation lists 16 research priorities for the lab. Amongst them to characterize classical, emerging and genetically engineered pathogens for their BTA (biological threat agent) potential; assess the nature of nontraditional, novel and non-endemic induction of disease from potential BTA and to expand aerosol-challenge testing capacity for non-human primates.
Scientists engineer pathogens at the NBACC lab. Photo credit: NBACC
The US Company Metabiota Inc. has been awarded $18.4 million federal contracts under the Pentagon’s DTRA program in Georgia and Ukraine for scientific and technical consulting services. Metabiota services include global field-based biological threat research, pathogen discovery, outbreak response and clinical trials. Metabiota Inc. had been contracted by the Pentagon to perform work for DTRA before and during the Ebola crisis in West Africa and was awarded $3.1 million (2012-2015) for work in Sierra Leone – one of the countries at the epicenter of the Ebola outbreak.
Metabiota worked on a Pentagon’s project at the epicenter of the Ebola crisis, where three US biolabs are situated.
A July 17, 2014 report drafted by the Viral Hemorrhagic Fever Consortium, accused Metabiota Inc. of failing to abide by an existing agreement on how to report test results and for bypassing the Sierra Leonean scientists working there. The report also raised the possibility that Metabiota was culturing blood cells at the lab, something the report said was dangerous, as well as misdiagnosing healthy patients. All of those allegations were denied by Metabiota.
2011,The Lugar Center, Andrew C. Weber (on the right) – US Assistant Secretary of Defense (2009-2014), US DoD Deputy Coordinator for Ebola Response (2014-2015), is currently a Metabiota ( the US contractor) employee.
[Keep these guys in mind for later! – S.m.]
Military Experiments on biting insects
Entomological warfare is a type of biological warfare that uses insects to transmit diseases. The Pentagon has allegedly performed such entomological tests in Georgia and Russia. In 2014 The Lugar Center was equipped with an insect facility and launched a project “Raising Awareness about Barcoding of Sand Flies in Georgia and Caucasus”. The project covered a larger geographic area outside of Georgia – Caucasus. In 2014-2015 Phlebotomine sand fly species were collected under another project “Surveillance Work on Acute Febrile Illness” and all (female) sand flies were tested to determine their infectivity rate. A third project, also including sand flies collection, studied the characteristics their salivary glands.
A biting fly in a bathroom in Tbilisi (photo 1), flies in Georgia (photo 2, 3)
As a result Tbilisi has been infested with biting flies since 2015. These biting insects live indoors, in bathrooms, all year long, which was not the typical behaviour of these species in Georgia previously (normally the Phlebotomine fly season in Georgia is exceptionally short – from June to September). Local people complain of being bitten by these newly appeared flies while naked in their bathrooms. They also have a strong resistance to cold and can survive even in the sub-zero temperatures in the mountains.
Biting Flies in Dagestan, Russia
Since the start of the Pentagon project in 2014 flies similar to those in Georgia have appeared in neighboring Dagestan (Russia). According to local people, they bite and cause rashes. Their breeding habitats are house drains.
Flies in Georgia (on the left). The same species in Dagestan (on the right)
Flies from the Phlebotomine family carry dangerous parasites in their saliva which they transmit through a bite to humans. The disease, which these flies carry, is of high interest to the Pentagon. In 2003 during the US invasion of Iraq American soldiers were severely bitten by sand flies and contracted Leishmoniasis. The disease is native to Iraq and Afghanistan and if left untreated the acute form of Leishmoniasis can be fatal.
A 1967 US Army report “Arthropods of medical importance in Asia and the European USSR” lists all local insects, their distribution and the diseases that they carry. Biting flies, which live in drains, are also listed in the document. Their natural habitats, though, are the Philippines, not Georgia or Russia.
Source: “Arthropods of medical importance in Asia and the European USSR”, US Army report, 1967
Operation Whitecoat: Infected flies tested to bite humans
Sand fly
In 1970 and 1972, Sand Fly Fever tests were performed on humans according to a declassified US Army report – US Army Activities in the US, Biological Warfare Programs, 1977, vol. II, p. 203. During operation Whitecoat volunteers were exposed to bites by infected sand flies. Operation Whitecoat was a bio-defense medical research program carried out by the US Army at Fort Detrick, Maryland between 1954 and 1973.
Despite the official termination of the US bio-weapons program, in 1982 USAMRIID performed an experiment if sand flies and mosquitoes could be vectors of Rift Valley Virus, Dengue, Chikungunya and Eastern Equine Encephalitis – viruses, which the US Army researched for their potential as bio-weapons.
Killer Insects
A. Aegupti
The Pentagon has a long history in using insects as vectors for diseases. According to a partially declassified 1981 US Army report, American bio warfare scientists carried out a number of experiments on insects. These operations were part of the US Entomological Warfare under the Program for Biological Weapons of the US.
The Pentagon: How to kill 625,000 people for just $0.29 cost per death
A US Army report in 1981 compared two scenarios – 16 simultaneous attacks on a city by A. Aegupti mosquitoes, infected with Yellow Fever, and Tularemia aerosol attack, and assesses their effectiveness in cost and casualties.
Operation Big Itch: Field tests were performed to determine coverage patterns and survivability of the tropical rat flea Xenopsylla cheopis for use as a disease vector in biological warfare.
Operation Big Buzz: 1 million A. Aeugupti mosquitoes were produced, 1/3 were placed in munitions and dropped from aircraft, or dispersed on the ground. The mosquitoes survived the airdrop and actively sought out human blood.
Source: Evaluation of Entomological Warfare as a potential Danger to the US and European NATO nations, US Army, March 1981 Report
Operation May Day: Aedes Aegupti mosquitoes were dispersed through ground based methods in Georgia, USA, during a US Army operation codenamed May Day.
Parts of the 1981 US Army report such as the “Mass production of Aedes Aegypti” have not been declassified, potentially meaning that the project is still ongoing.
Aedes Aegypti, also known as yellow fever mosquito, have been widely used in US military operations. The same species of mosquitoes are alleged to be the vectors of dengue, chikungunya and the Zika virus, which causes genetic malformations in newborns.
The US Army Chemical Research and Development Command, Biological Weapons Branch, studied outdoor mosquito biting activity in a number of field tests at Dugway Proving Ground, Utah, in 1960. Virgin female Aedes aegypti mosquitoes, which had been starved, were tested upon troops out in the open air.
Military Experiments with Tropical Mosquitoes and Ticks in Georgia
Such species of mosquitoes and fleas (studied in the past under the US Entomological Warfare Program) have also been collected in Georgia and tested at The Lugar Center.
Under the DTRA project “Virus and Other Arboviruses in Georgia” in 2014 the never-before-seen tropical mosquito Aedes albopictus was detected for the first time and after decades (60 years) the existence of Aedes Aegypti mosquito was confirmed in West Georgia.
Aedes Albopictus is a vector of many viral pathogens, Yellow fever virus, Dengue, Chikungunya and Zika.
These tropical mosquitoes Aedes Albopictus having never been seen before in Georgia, have also been detected in neighboring Russia (Krasnodar) and Turkey, according to data provided by the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control. Their spread is unusual for this part of the world.
Aedes Aegupti Mosquitoes have been distributed only in Georgia, Southern Russia and Northern Turkey. They were detected for the first time in 2014 after the start of the Pentagon program at The Lugar Center.
Under another DTRA project “Epidemiology and Ecology of Tularemia in Georgia” (2013-2016) 6,148 ground ticks were collected ; 5,871 were collected off the cattle and 1,310 fleas and 731 ticks were caught. In 2016 a further 21 590 ticks were collected and studied at The Lugar Center.
In 2007 despite the anthrax outbreak the Georgian government terminated the compulsory vaccination for 7 years, 2013 saw NATO start human trials on a new anthrax vaccine in Georgia.
Pentagon Research on Russian Anthrax
Anthrax is one of the bio agents weaponized by the US Army in the past. Despite the Pentagon’s claims that its program is only defensive, there are facts to the contrary. In 2016 at The Lugar Center American scientists carried out research on the “Genome Sequence of the Soviet/Russian Bacillus anthracis Vaccine Strain 55-VNIIVViM”, which was funded by the U.S. Defense Threat Reduction Agency’s (DTRA) Cooperative Biological Engagement Program in Tbilisi, and administered by Metabiota (the US contractor under the Pentagon program in Georgia).
34 people infected with Crimean-Congo Hemorrhagic Fever (CCHF) in Georgia
Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever (CCHF) is caused by infection through a tick-borne virus (Nairovirus). The disease was first characterized in Crimea in 1944 and given the name Crimean hemorrhagic fever. It was then later recognized in 1969 as the cause of illness in Congo, thus resulting in the current name of the disease. In 2014 34 people became infected (among which a 4-year old child) with CCHF. 3 of which died. The same year Pentagon biologists studied the virus in Georgia under the DTRA project “Epidemiology of febrile illnesses caused by Dengue viruses and other Arboviruses in Georgia”. The project included tests on patients with fever symptoms and the collection of ticks, as possible vectors of CCHV for laboratory analysis.
34 people became infected with CCHF, 3 of them died in Georgia. Source: NCDC-Georgia
The cause of the CCHF outbreak in Georgia is still unknown. According to the local Veterinary Department report, only one tick from all of the collected species from the infected villages tested positive for the disease. Despite the claims of the local authorities that the virus was transmitted to humans from animals, all animal blood samples were negative too. The lack of infected ticks and animals is inexplicable given the sharp increase of CCHF human cases in 2014, meaning that the outbreak was not natural and the virus was spread intentionally.
In 2016 another 21 590 ticks were collected for DNA database for future studies at The Lugar Center under the Pentagon project “Assessing the Seroprevalence and Genetic Diversity of Crimean-Congo Hemorrhagic Fever Virus (CCHFV) and Hantaviruses in Georgia”.
Symptoms of CCHF
Military bio-lab blamed for deadly CCHF outbreak in Afghanistan
237 cases of Crimean-Congo Hemorrhagic Fever (CCHF) have also been reported across Afghanistan, 41 of which were fatal as of December 2017. According to Afghanistan’s Ministry of Health most of the cases have been registered in the capital Kabul where 71 cases have been reported with 13 fatalities, and in the province of Herat near the border with Iran (67 cases).
Afghanistan is one of 25 countries across the world with Pentagon bio-laboratories on their territory. The project in Afghanistan is part of the US bio-defense program – Cooperative Biological Engagement Program (CBEP), which is funded by the Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA). The DTRA contractors, working at The Lugar Center in Georgia, CH2M Hill and Battelle have also been contracted for the program in Afghanistan. CH2M Hill has been awarded a $10.4 million contract (2013-2017). The Pentagon contractors in Afghanistan and Georgia are the same and so are the diseases which are spreading among the local population in both countries.
Why the Pentagon collects and studies bats
Bats are allegedly the reservoir hosts to the Ebola Virus , Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) and other deadly diseases. However, the precise ways these viruses are transmitted to humans are currently unknown. Numerous studies have been performed under the DTRA Cooperative Biological Engagement Program (CBEP) in a search for deadly pathogens of military importance in bats.
Bats have been blamed for the deadly Ebola outbreak in Africa (2014-2016). However, no conclusive evidence of exactly how the virus “jumped” to humans has ever been provided, which raises suspicions of intentional and not natural infection.
This comes from the set of evidences Russia made public prior to convoking a UN meeting on March 11 2022
Engineering deadly viruses is legal in the US
MERS-CoV is thought to originate from bats and spread directly to humans and/or camels. However, like Ebola, the precise ways the virus spreads are unknown. 1,980 cases with 699 deaths were reported in 15 countries across the world (as of June 2017) caused by MERS-CoV.
3 to 4 out of every 10 patients reported with MERS have died (Source: WHO)
MERS-CoV is one of the viruses that have been engineered by the US and studied by the Pentagon, as well as Influenza and SARS. Confirmation of this practice is Obama’s 2014 temporary ban on government funding for such “dual-use” research. The moratorium was lifted in 2017 and experiments have continued. Enhanced Potential Pandemic Pathogens (PPPs) experiments are legal in the US. Such experiments aim to increase the transmissibility and/or virulence of pathogens.
Tularemia as Bioweapon
F. Tularensis is a highly infectious bacterium and has the potential to be weaponized for use through aerosol attacks.
Tularemia, also known as Rabbit Fever, is classified as a bioterrorism agent and was developed in the past as such by the US. However, the Pentagon’s research on tularemia continues, as well as on possible vectors of the bacteria such as ticks and rodents which cause the disease. The DTRA has launched a number of projects on Tularemia along with other especially dangerous pathogens in Georgia. Especially Dangerous Pathogens (EDPs), or select agents, represent a major concern for the public health globally. These highly pathogenic agents have the potential to be weaponized with proof of their military importance seen through the following Pentagon projects: Epidemiology and Ecology of Tularemia inGeorgia (2013-2016) (60 000 vectors were collected for strain isolates and genome research); Epidemiology of Human Tularemia in Georgia and Human Disease Epidemiology and Surveillance of Especially Dangerous Pathogens in Georgia (study of select agents among patients with undifferentiated fever and hemorrhagic fever/septic shock).
Tularemia is one of the bio-weapons that the US Army developed in the past. Source: 1981 US Army Report
Pentagon bio-laboratories spread diseases in Ukraine
The DoD Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA) has funded 11 bio-laboratories in the former Soviet Union Country Ukraine, bordering on Russia.
The US military program is sensitive information
Ukraine has no control over the military bio-laboratories on its own territory. According to the 2005 Agreement between the US DoD and the Ministry of Health of Ukraine the Ukrainian government is prohibited from public disclosure of sensitive information about the US program and Ukraine is obliged to transfer to the US Department of Defense (DoD) dangerous pathogens for biological research. The Pentagon has been granted access to certain state secrets of Ukraine in connection with the projects under their agreement.
Biowarfare scientists under diplomatic cover
Among the set of bilateral agreements between the US and Ukraine is the establishment of the Science and Technology Center in Ukraine (STCU) – an International organization funded mainly by the US government which has been accorded diplomatic status. The STCU officially supports projects of scientists previously involved in the Soviet biological weapons program. Over the past 20 years the STCU has invested over $285 million in funding and managing some 1,850 projects of scientists who previously worked on the development of weapons of mass destruction.
The US personnel in Ukraine work under diplomatic cover.
364 Ukrainians died from Swine Flu
One of the Pentagon laboratories is located in Kharkiv, where in January 2016 at least 20 Ukrainian soldiers died from Flu-like virus in just two days with 200 more being hospitalized. The Ukrainian government did not report on the dead Ukrainian soldiers in Kharkiv. As of March 2016 364 deaths have been reported across Ukraine (81.3 % caused by Swine Flu A (H1N1) pdm09 – the same strain which caused the world pandemic in 2009).
According to DPR intelligence information the US bio lab in Kharkiv leaked the deadly virus.
Police investigate infection with incurable disease
A highly suspicious Hepatitis A infection spread rapidly in just few months across South East Ukraine where most of the Pentagon biolabs are located.
29 cases of Hepatitis A were reported in Kharkiv in November 2017. The virus was isolated in contaminated drinking water. One of the Pentagon bio-labs is located in Kharkiv which was blamed for the deadly Flu outbreak a year ago which claimed the lives of 364 Ukrainians.
Ukraine and Russia hit by new highly virulent cholera infection
A new highly virulent variant of the cholera agent Vibrio cholera, with a high genetic similarity to the strains reported in Ukraine, hit Moscow in 2014. According to a 2014 Russian Research Anti-Plaque Institute genetic study the cholera strain isolated in Moscow was similar to the bacteria which caused the epidemic in neighboring Ukraine.
Southern Research Institute, one of the US contractors working at the bio-laboratories in Ukraine, has projects on Cholera, as well as on Influenza and Zika – all pathogens of military importance to the Pentagon.
Along with Southern Research Institute, two other private American companies operate military bio-labs in Ukraine – Black&Veatch and Metabiota.
Black & Veatch Special Project Corp. was awarded $198.7 million DTRA contracts to build and operate bio-laboratories in Ukraine (under two 5-year contracts in 2008 and 2012 totaling $128.5 million), as well as in Germany, Azerbaijan, Cameroon, Thailand, Ethiopia, Vietnam and Armenia.
Metabiota has been awarded a $18.4 million federal contract under the program in Georgia and Ukraine. This US company was also contracted to perform work for the DTRA before and during the Ebola crisis in West Africa, the company was awarded $3.1 million (2012-2015) for work in Sierra Leone .
Southern Research Institute has been a prime subcontractor under the DTRA program in Ukraine since 2008. The company was also a prime Pentagon contractor in the past under the US Biological Weapons Program for research and development of bio-agents with 16 contracts between 1951 and 1962.
Southern Research Institute was also a subcontractor on a Pentagon program for anthrax research in 2001. The prime contractor being Advanced Biosystems, whose president at that time was Ken Alibek (a former Soviet microbiologist and biological warfare expert from Kazakhstan who defected to the US in 1992).
Ken Alibek was the First Deputy Director of Biopreparat, where he oversaw a program for biological weapon facilities and was the Soviet Union’s main expert on anthrax. After his defection to the US, he was engaged on Pentagon research projects.
$250 000 for lobbying Jeff Sessions for “research for US intelligence”
Southern Research Institute lobbied the US Congress and US Department of State hard for “issues related to research and development for US intelligence” and “defense related research and development”. The lobbying activities coincided with the start of the Pentagon projects on bio-labs in Ukraine and other former Soviet states.
The company paid $ 250 000 for lobbying the then Senator Jeff Sessions in 2008-2009 (currently the US Attorney General appointed by Donald Trump), when the institute was awarded a number of federal contracts.
US Attorney General Jeff Sessions, US Senator from Alabama (1997-2017)
Police investigate Botulism toxin poisoning in Ukraine
115 Botulism cases, with 12 deaths, were reported in Ukraine in 2016. In 2017 the Ukrainian Ministry of Health confirmed a further 90 new cases, with 8 deaths, of botulinum toxin poisoning (one of the most poisonous biological substances known). According to the local health authorities, the cause of the outbreak was food poisoning into which police launched an investigation. The Pentagon biolaboratories in Ukraine were among the prime suspects, as botulinum toxin is one of the bioterrorism agents which have already been produced at a Pentagon bioweapons facility in the US. (see below)
The Ukrainian government stopped supplying antitoxin in 2014 and no botulism vaccines in stock were available during the 2016-2017 outbreak.
Botulism is a rare and extremely dangerous illness caused by a toxin produced by the bacterium Clostridium botulinum.
1 gm of the toxin can kill as many as 1 million people
Botulinum neurotoxin poses a major bio-weapon threat because of its extreme potency, ease of production and transport. It causes muscles paralyses, respiratory failure and ultimately death if not treated immediately. A single gram of crystalline toxin, evenly dispersed and inhaled can kill more than one million people. It could be disseminated via aerosol, or by contamination of water and/ or food supplies.
The Pentagon produces live Viruses, Bacteria & Toxins
Botulinum Toxin was tested as a bio-weapon by the US Army in the past, as well as Anthrax, Brucella and Tularemia. Although the US bio-weapons program was officially terminated in 1969 documents show that the military experiments have never ended. Presently the Pentagon produces and tests live bio- agents at the same military facility as it did in the past – Dugway Proving Ground.
The US Army produces and tests bio-agents at a special military facility located at Dugway Proving Ground (West Desert Test Center, Utah), as proven in a 2012 US Army Report. The facility is overseen by the Army Test and Evaluation Command.
The Life Sciences Division (LSD) at Dugway Proving Ground is tasked with the production of bio-agents. According to the Army report, scientists from this division produce and test aerosolized bio-agents at Lothar Saloman Life Sciences Test Facility (LSTF).
Lothar Saloman Life Sciences Test Facility (LSTF) where bio-terrorism agents are produced and aerosolized. Photo Credit: Dugway Proving GroundBiological Agents produced by the US Army at Dugway Proving Ground, Utah, USA Source: Capabilities Report 2012, West Desert Test Center
The Life Sciences Division consists of an Aerosol Technology branch and a Microbiology Branch. The Aerosol Technology Branch aerosolizes biological agents and simulants. The Microbiology branch produces toxins, bacteria, viruses and agent-like organisms which are used in chamber and field testing.
The fermentation laboratories at the Life Sciences Test Facility grow bacteria in fermentors ranging from a small 2 L to a large 1500 L system. The fermentors are tailored specifically to the requirements of the microorganism that is being engineered – pH, temperature, light, pressure, and nutrient concentrations that give the microorganism optimal growth rates.
A large 1500 L fermentatorA post-production laboratory dries and mills test materials. Photos credit: Dugway Proving Ground
After the bio-agents are produced, the scientists challenge them at containment aerosol chambers.
Technicians disseminate live biological agents for identification sensitivity tests (photos: Dugway Proving Ground)
Aerosol experiments with Botulinum Neurotoxin and Anthrax
Documents prove that the US Army produces, possesses and tests aerosols of the most lethal toxin in the world – Botulinum Neurotoxin. In 2014 the Department of the Army purchased 100 mg of Botulinum Toxin from Metabiologics for tests at Dugway Proving Ground.
The experiments date back to 2007 when an unspecified quantity of the toxin was procured to the Department of the Army by the same company – Metabiologics. According to the 2012 West Desert Test Center Report, the military facility performs tests with Botulinum Neurotoxin Aerosol, as well as with aerosolized Anthrax, Yersinia pestis, and Venezuelan Equine Encephalitis Virus (VEE).
Source: Capabilities Report 2012, West Desert Test Center
Outdoor field test programs at Dugway Proving Ground
US Army documents and photos show that the Pentagon has developed various dissemination methods for bioterrorism attacks including by explosives.
Source: Capabilities Report 2012, West Desert Test CenterDissemination of contaminants for biological/chemical tests. Photo credit: Dugway Proving GroundDissemination of simulants by explosives. Photo Credit: Dugway Proving GroundLiquid DisseminationPowder DisseminationDissemination on the test grid. Photos Credit: Dugway Proving GroundAerosol Sprayer
The US Army report lists numerous dissemination techniques including by bio-aerosol sprayers. Such sprayers called Micronair disseminators have already been developed by the US Army and tested at Dugway Proving Ground. According to the documents, they can be vehicle-mounted, or worn as a backpack, with a pump system which can be fitted to the unit to increase the accuracy of the release. Micronair sprayers can release 50 to 500 mL of bio-liquid simulant per minute from 12 L tanks.
The US stole bacteria from Saddam Hussein’s bio weapons factory
Bacillus thuringiensis
Bacillus thuringiensis is an insect pathogen that is widely used as a bio-pesticide. B. thuringiensis (BT) Al Hakam was collected in Iraq by the UN Special Commission led by the US in 2003. It is named after Al Hakam – Iraq’s bio-weapons production facility. Apart from Pentagon field tests, this bacterium is also used in the US for the production of GM corn, resistant to pests. Photos posted by the CIA prove that the bacteria was collected by the US in Iraq. According to the CIA, the vials containing bio-pesticide, were recovered from an Al Hakam scientist’s home.
CIA: A total of 97 vials-including those with labels consistent with the al Hakam cover stories of single-cell protein and bio-pesticides, as well as strains that could be used to produce BW agents were recovered from a scientist’s residence in Iraq in 2003. Photo credit: CIA
Information from the US federal contracts registry shows that the Pentagon performs tests using the bacteria stolen from Saddam Hussein’s bio-weapons factory in Iraq.
The Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA) federal project for laboratory analysis and field tests with bacteria. Source: govtribe.com
The tests are performed at Kirtland Air Force Base (Kirtland is the home of the Air Force Materiel Command’s Nuclear Weapons Center). Here weapons are being tested, meaning that the field tests with biological simulants (bacteria) also fall into this group.
The DTRA contractor on this project – Lovelace Biomedical and Environmental Research Institute (LBERI), operates an Animal Bio-safety 3 Level (ABSL-3) laboratory which has Select Agent status. The facility is designed to conduct bioaerosol studies. The company has been awarded a 5-year contract for field tests with biological simulants at Kirtland Air Force Base.
Photo Credit: Kirtland Air Force Base
Field tests with Biological Simulants (bacteria)
What the Pentagon is now doing is exactly what it did in the past, meaning that its bio-weapons program was never terminated. The US Army performed 27 field tests with such biological simulants, involving the public domain from 1949 to 1968, when President Nixon officially announced the end of the program.
The Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA), which runs the US military program at the Lugar Center in Georgia, is alleged to have already performed field tests with an unknown substance in Chechnya, Russia. In the spring of 2017 local citizens reported on a drone disseminating white powder close to the Russian border with Georgia. Neither the Georgian border police, nor the US personnel operating on the Georgia-Russia border, commented on this information.
$9.2 million US military project on Russia-Georgia border
DTRA has full access to the Russia-Georgia border, granted under a military program called “Georgia Land Border Security Project”. The activities, related to the project have been outsourced to a private American company – Parsons Government Services International. DTRA has previously contracted Parsons for similar border security projects in Lebanon, Jordan, Libya and Syria. Parsons have been awarded a $9.2 million contract under the Pentagon border security project on the Russia-Georgia border.
Local citizens in Chechnya noticed a UAV sprayer near the Russian border with Georgia in 2017.
US Defense Agency tests GM Insects to transmit GM Viruses
The Pentagon has invested at least $65 million in gene editing. The US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has awarded 7 research teams to develop tools for genome engineering in insects, rodents and bacteria under DARPA’s Safe Gene program, using a novel CRISPR-Cas9 technology.
Under another military program –Insect Allies, GM insects are engineered to transfer modified genes to plants. The $10.3 million DARPA project includes both gene editing in insects and in the viruses that they transmit. Ecological Niche-preference Engineering is a third ongoing military program for genome engineering in insects. The Pentagon’s stated objective is to engineer GM organisms so that they can resist certain temperatures, change their habitat and food sources.
Besides gene editing in insects and in the viruses they transmit, the Pentagon wants to engineer humans as well. DARPA Advanced Tools for Mammalian Genome Engineering Project seeks to create a biological platform inside the human body, using it to deliver new genetic information, and thus altering humans at the DNA level.
DARPA wants to insert an additional 47th artificial chromosome into human cells. This chromosome will deliver new genes that will be used for engineering the human body. SynPloid Biotek LLC has been awarded two contracts under the program totaling $1.1 million (2015-2016 – $ 100,600 for the first phase of the research; 2015-2017 – $ 999,300 for work which is not specified in the federal contracts registry. The company has only two employees and no previous record on bio-research.
Top Secret Research on Synthetic Viruses
Between 2008 and 2014, the United States invested approximately $820 million in synthetic biology research, Defense being a major contributor. Most of the military projects on synthetic biology are classified, among them are a number of classified studies by the secretive JASON group of US military advisors – e.g. Emerging Viruses and Genome Editing for the Pentagon, and Synthetic Viruses for the National Counterterrorism Center.
JASON is an independent scientific advisory group that provides consulting services to the U.S. government on matters of defense science and technology. It was established in 1960 and most of their resulting JASON reports are classified. For administrative purposes, the JASON’s projects are run by the MITRE Corporation, which has contracts with the Defense Department, CIA and the FBI. Since 2014 MITRE has been awarded some $27.4 million in contracts with the DoD.
Although the JASON Reports are classified, another US Air Force study titled Biotechnology: Genetically Engineered Pathogens, sheds some light on what the secretive JASON group has researched – 5 groups of genetically engineered pathogens that can be used as bio-weapons. These are binary biological weapons (a lethal combination of two viruses), host swapping diseases (animal viruses that “jump” to humans, like the Ebola virus), stealth viruses, and designer diseases. Designer diseases can be engineered to target a certain ethnic group, meaning that they can be used as ethnic bio-weapons.
Ethnic Bioweapons
Ethnic biological weapon (biogenetic weapon) is a theoretical weapon that aims to primarily harm people of specific ethnicities, or genotypes. Although officially the research and development of ethnic bio-weapons have never been publicly confirmed, documents show that the US collects biological material from certain ethnic groups – Russians and Chinese.
The US Air Force has been specifically collecting Russian RNA and synovial tissue samples, raising fears in Moscow of a covert US ethnic bio-weapons program.
Source: fbo.gov
Apart from Russians, the US has been collecting biological material from both healthy and cancer patients in China. The National Cancer Institute has collected biological samples from 300 subjects from Linxian, Zhengzhou, and Chengdu in China. While another federal project, titled Serum Metabolic biomarkers discovery study of Esophageal Squamous Cell Carcinoma in China, includes analysis of 349 serum samples which have been collected from Chinese patients.
The US National Cancer Institute has been collecting biological material from patients of the Chinese Cancer Hospital in Beijing.
Chinese biological material has been collected under a series of federal projects including saliva and cancer tissue. Among them, Genotyping DNA Samples from Lymphoma cases and from controls (healthy patients), Breast cancer tissue blocks from breast cancer patients, Saliva samples of 50 families who have 3 or more cases of UGI cancer, Genotype 50 SNP’S for DNA samples from the Cancer Hospital, Beijing, Genotypes from 3000 cases of gastric cancer and 3000 controls (healthy patients) in Beijing.
Tobacco Vaccines: How the Pentagon helped tobacco companies to profit from Ebola
The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has invested $100 million in vaccines production from tobacco plants. The companies, involved in the project, are owned by the biggest American tobacco companies – Mediacago Inc. is co-owned by Philip Morris, and Kentucky BioProcessing is a subsidiary of Reynolds American which is owned by British American Tobacco. Currently they are producing Flu and Ebola vaccines from tobacco plants.
The $100 million program Blue Angel was launched as a response to the H1N1 pandemic in 2009. Medicago being awarded $21 million to produce 10, 000 million doses of an influenza vaccine within one month.
Blue Angel program manager Dr. John Julias explains: “Although there are multiple plant species and other organisms being explored as alternative protein production platforms, the US Government has continued to make an investment in tobacco-based manufacturing.”
The plant-based vaccine production method works by isolating a specific antigen protein that triggers a human immune response from the targeted virus. A gene from the protein is transferred to bacteria, which is used to infect plants. The plants then start producing the protein that will be used for vaccinations (photos: DARPA)
It is not clear why the Pentagon chose to invest in vaccines produced from tobacco plants amongst all other plant species, which they explored. Medicago, co-owned by Philip Morris, paid $495,000 for lobbying the Department of Defense, the Congress and The Department of Health and Human Services for “funding to advance technology to support public health preparedness applications”. The Pentagon funded tobacco companies to develop new technology and to profit from vaccines. – http://dilyana.bg/
Bulgarian journalist confronts US official over secret biolabs
Dilyana Gaytandzhieva gets expelled from a conference on biological weapons at the European Parliament in Brussels after confronting US Assistant Secretary Robert Kadlec.
On 16 January 2018, a Bulgarian investigative journalist Dilyana Gaytandzhieva wrote a detailed article about the US bio-weapons research that spans across the world in 25 different countries. Gaytandzhieva wrote in her article that the US Army regularly produces deadly viruses, bacteria and toxins in direct violation of the UN Convention on the prohibition of biological weapons, and that hundreds of thousands of unwitting people are systematically exposed to dangerous pathogens and other incurable diseases. She added that bio-warfare scientists are using diplomatic cover test man-made viruses at Pentagon bio-laboratories in 25 countries across the world. These bio-laboratories are funded by the Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA) under a $2.1 billion military program called Cooperative Biological Engagement Program (CBEP), and are located in countries such as Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Georgia, Azerbaijan, Jordan, Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Laos, Cambodia, the Philippines, etc. Luckily, the Balkans seems to be clear.
Gaytandzhieva recently traveled to Brussels and attended the European Parliament in order to confront Robert Kadlec, Assistant Secretary at the US Department of Health, regarding the number of classified bio-weapons research labs scattered through Eastern Europe and Central Asia. Kadlec categorically denied the existence of an American bio-weapon program as well as that information surrounding the labs in question were classified. Gaytandzhieva attempted to continue her follow up but was silenced by Hilde Vautmans, the EU official sitting next to Kadlec, who stated “This is not an investigation” to applause from the audience and an embrace between herself and Kadlec. Gaytandzhieva didn’t stop there, however, following Kadlec to the elevator and continuing to ask him questions regarding the bio-weapons program which Kadlec refused to answer. Security staff then refused to let Gaytandzhieva on the elevator.
Here’s the full transcript of the exchange between Gaytandzhieva and Kadlec:
Gaytandzhieva: Why has the Pentagon been operating military bio-laboratories in 25 countries, bordering on the US rivals Russia, China and Iran, and why has the number of deadly outbreaks, in all those countries, increased dramatically since the start of the military program of the United States in these countries? Kadlec: I will say unequivocally and undeniably, the US does not have a military biological weapons program. Period. End of statement. Number two [interrupts Gaytandzhieva], we have been working, and I do know from the Department of Defense, they have been working with partners in parts the World, to ensure that those laboratories, and we trained them to do the diagnostic tests on these diseases, to ensure that they can manage them and also safely secure those facilities, so they’re not accessible by terrorists, or by criminals, who would do ill with them. Gaytandzhieva: Why are all these projects classified information? All these bio-laboratories of the Pentagon in 25 countries across the world? Why are they classified information? Kadlec: They’re not classified, they’re openly avaliable to anyone who wants to look at them. Gaytandzhieva: No, I tried it. No, this is not true. They are classified information. Vautmans: Ok, ok, I think I will not give you more time. We will try to answer your questions, but that’s not the place here. Case closed, thank you very much [kisses with Kadlec].
Gaytandzhieva then followed Kadlec to the elevator and continued to ask him questions regarding the bio-weapons program.
Gaytandzhieva: Just one more question? Kadlec: No more questions. Gaytandzhieva: What is the need of military biolaboratories of the United States in 25 countries across the world?
She attempted to enter the elevator, but was forcibly stopped.
Gaytandzhieva: This is public area, sorry, I can use the elevator. Security man: Sorry not this one, it’s full. Gaytandzhieva: I can use the elevator. Security man: No more questions then [trying to prevent cameraman]. Gaytandzhieva: Why not? Why is the Pentagon investing 65 million dolars in gene editing? The gene editing is the part of this program.
Elevator gates closed.
Later, Gaytandzhieva posted the video on her social media pages, simply commenting: “How a journalist gets expelled from the European Parliament when asking the Assistant Secretary at the US Department of Health questions about the Pentagon bio-laboratories around Russia, China and Iran.
Although unable to retrieve any answers from Kadlec, her article is already an impressive collection of information revealing a network of bio-weapons research facilities as well as mysterious outbreaks in their vicinities.
This is not the first time that Gaytandzhieva is exposing the US secret military programs. Last summer, she published a bombshell report which found that an Azerbaijan state airline company was regularly transporting tons of cheap Bulgarian and East European weaponry to Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates and Turkey, under diplomatic cover as part of the CIA covert program. These weapons were found inside underground terrorist warehouses belonging to Al Nusra Front, Al Qaeda affiliate in Syria designated as a terrorist organization by the UN. The US modus operandi was the same: using bases in the satellite countries, abuse of diplomatic channels, and dirty politics directed against Russia, Iran and Syria.
A diplomatic car with a registration plate of the US Embassy to Tbilisi in the car park of the Lugar Center. US scientists working at the Pentagon laboratory in Georgia drive diplomatic vehicles as they have been given diplomatic immunity (photo: Dilyana Gaytandzhieva)
Leaked e-mails between the Lugar Center, the Pentagon biolaboratory in Tbilisi, the US Embassy to Georgia and the Georgian Ministry of Health reveal new information about the $161 million secretive US Government biological research program in this former Soviet country.
The data allegedly originating from the Ministry of Health of Georgia has been published anonymously on Twitter and on a forum for database leaks – Raidforums. Among the documents there are internal memos, official letters and detailed information about US government projects at the Lugar Center, funding and foreign business trips.
Arms Watch volunteers have analyzed these documents and discovered very interesting facts about the Center’s recent activities.
The Pentagon has planned to turn Georgia into its largest biological research center overseas, combining its military resources with the resources of the US Centers for Disease Control (CDC) in Georgia.
Furthermore, the number of US projects and grants have increased as well as the number of US scientists deployed to the Lugar Center. The Pentagon-funded facility is planned to temporarily accommodate 16 CDC specialists from Atlanta, for whom Georgia will build a separate BSL-2 laboratory, administrative building and a campus near the Lugar Center. In addition, Georgia will become a regional CDC hub for Eastern Europe and Central Asia, internal documents reveal.
The Lugar Center is a $161 million Pentagon-funded biolaboratory in Georgia’s capital Tbilisi (photo: Dilyana Gaytandzhieva)
The Lugar Center already sparked controversy about possible dual-use research in 2018 when leaked documents revealed that US diplomats in Georgia were involved in the trafficking of frozen human blood and pathogens for a secret military program.
Pentagon research on bioterrorism agents at the Lugar Center
US military scientists have been deployed to Georgia for research on bioterrorism agents at the Lugar Center, according to the new data-leak. These bio-agents have the potential to be aerosolized and used as bioweapons. Among them anthrax, tularemia, Brucella, Crimean-Congo Hemorrhagic Fever, Hantavirus, Y. pestis (causing the disease plague).
The US military biological research projects in Georgia have been funded by the Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA). According to internal data, American and Georgian scientists are currently working on the following DTRA projects in the Lugar Center:
Project 1059:Zoonotic Infections with Fever and Skin Injuries in Georgia
The project includes isolation of new orthopoxviruses in humans, rodents, domestic and wild animals in Georgia, and collection of rodents (as a natural reservoir for this virus) for their further study.
Duration: 01/11/2015-31/10/2018 (extended to 2020)
Funding: $702,343
Project 1060:Characterization of the Georgian National Center for Disease Control (NCDC) Strain Repository by New Generation Sequencing
Description: characterization and genome research on 100 strains from four endemic species: Y. pestis (causing the disease plague), B. anthracis (anthrax), Brucella, and F. tularensis (causing the disease tularemia).
Duration: 01/11/2015-31/10/2018
Funding: $ 518,409
Project 1439:Molecular Virological Research in Georgia
Description and objectives:
Identify and characterize Hantavirus and Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever virus (CCHFV) strains by molecular methods;
Characterize and study genetic diversity of Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever virus and hantavirus strains isolated from rodents and ectoparasites;
Serological examination of febrile patients with Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever and hemorrhagic fever with renal syndrome;
Collection of rodents and ectoparasites (ticks, fleas);
Duration: 16/08/2017-15/08/2021
Funding: $612,614
Project 1497:Molecular Epidemiology and Ecology of Yersinia Species in Georgia and Azerbaijan
Description: 1) Ecological research on rodents in Kerb on the Georgian-Azerbaijani border 2) Isolation of different strains of Yersinia; 3) Molecular screening of collected rodent and flea samples. 4) A comparative analysis of the genomes of Yersinia strains obtained during the fieldwork; 5) Spatial analysis of the distribution of Yersinia strains.
Duration: 01/09/2017-31/08/2018 (extended to 2022)
Funding: $134,090.00DTRA Projects in Georgia1 of 8
Project 1742:Risks of bat-borne zoonotic diseases in Western Asia
Duration: 24/10/2018-23 /10/2019
Funding: $71,500
In 2017 the US Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA) launched a $6.5 million project on bats and coronaviruses in Western Asia (Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Turkey and Jordan) with the Lugar Center being the local laboratory for this genetic research. The duration of the program is 5 years and has been implemented by the non-profit US organisation Eco Health Alliance.
The project’s objectives are: 1. Capture and non-lethally sample 5,000 bats in 5-year period (2017-2022) 2. Collect 20,000 samples (i.e. oral, rectal swabs and/or feces, and blood) and screen for coronaviruses using consensus PCR at regional labs in Georgia and Jordan. According to the project presentation, Eco Health Alliance already sampled 270 bats of 9 species in three Western Asian countries: 90 individual bats in Turkey (Aug 2018), Georgia (Sept 2018), and Jordan (Oct 2018).Video Player00:0003:02
EcoHealth Alliance and Georgian scientists sampling a bat for coronavirus research in 2018 (Facebook, Keti Sidamonidze)
Coincidentally, the same Pentagon contractor tasked with the US DoD bat-research program – Eco Health Alliance, USA, also collected bats and isolated coronaviruses along with Chinese scientists at the Wuhan Institute of Virology. EcoHealth Alliance received a $3.7 million grant from the US National Institutes of Health (NIH) to collect and study coronaviruses in bats in China from 2014 to 2019.
Project 1911:Ricketsia and Coxelia infection surveillance in Georgia and Azerbaijan (US federal grant HDTRA1-19-1-0042 awarded to NCDC-Georgia)
Duration: 23/09/2019 – 22/09/2022
Funding: $945,000
Despite the official claims of Georgia and USA that the Lugar Center is under the full control of the government of this Caucasus country internal documents show otherwise. Not only has the Pentagon funded biological research projects but it has also paid all the expenses for security and maintenance including utility bills – water, gas, electricity, and cleaning. Tasked with the operational and scientific support to the Lugar Center is USAMRU-Georgia, a special unit deployed to Georgia by the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research (WRAIR). WRAIR has paid: $524,625 (2016-2018), $650,000 (2017-2019) and $1,062,400 (2017-2021) for utility bills, and a further $158,050 (2016-2017) and $322,000 (2018-2021) for security guards.
The Pentagon has also awarded a private US contractor, Technology Management Company (TMC) an $8 million contract for science services to support USAMRU-Georgia in the Lugar Center (2016-2021).WRAIR Projects at the Lugar Center1 of 5
Tularemia research on soldiers
The Pentagon unit USAMRU-Georgia has conducted extensive research on tularemia involving Georgian soldiers, scientific papers reveal.
Tularemia is a rare infectious disease that typically attacks the skin, eyes, lymph nodes and lungs. Tularemia, also called rabbit fever or deer fly fever, is caused by the bacterium Francisella tularensis. It is categorized as a category A bioterrorism agent. Tularemia was weaponized for mass aerosol dissemination by the US Army in the past, according to a recently declassified military report.
Tularemia is one of the bio-weapons that the US Army developed in the past. Source: 1981 US Army Report
900 volunteers (soldiers and civilians) were recruited for the DTRA project GG-19 “Epidemiology and Ecology of Tularemia in Georgia” from 2014 to 2017. Blood samples were collected from those volunteers and tested for tularemia.
According to the study, 10 soldiers (2%) of the 500 solders tested had antibodies for F. tularensis. The seropositive soldiers were men, the majority of whom were between 30 and 39 years of age. Seven cases had current residences in known endemic areas (i.e. Kakheti, Samtskhe-Javakheti, Kvemo Kartli, Shida Kartli, and Tbilisi). Three were from areas without previously known F. tularensis transmission (i.e. Imereti).
Of the 783 residents approached to participate in this study, 35 (5.0%) volunteers had antibodies to F. tularensis.
While the civilian volunteers were all residents of two areas with naturally occurring foci of tularemia in Georgia, the military personnel were soldiers visiting Georgia’s military hospital. The study does not provide any explanation as to why soldiers were enrolled in this project nor how exactly they contracted the disease in the army.Project GG-19: Tularemia in Georgia1 of 8
Furthermore, Georgia has asked the US Embassy for assistance for the construction of a second military hospital in the country, according to leaked correspondence between local health officials and the US Embassy to Tbilisi.
Below is Google translation in English of this correspondence:
CDC regional hub
The US Government has launched a parallel civil program in Georgia implemented by the US Centers for Disease Control (CDC). Leaked e-mails between the US Embassy to Tbilisi and Georgian health officials reveal that CDC has planned to set up a regional office for Eastern Europe and Central Asia in Georgia. The US Embassy and CDC have requested additional office space for 16 employees. Currently the CDC staff are working inside the Lugar Center.CDC regional hub for Eastern Europe and Central Asia in Georgia1 of 4
Interestingly, the Georgian health officials do not ask about any further information or clarification as to what this new foreign hub is going to do in their own country. Instead, Georgia’s Ministry of Health has planned the construction of a new BSL-2 laboratory, conference hall and campus near the Lugar Center with a loan from the European Investment Bank, according to a letter to the finance minister of Georgia leaked on Raidforums.
Arms Watch could not independently verify the authenticity of this letter as we did not find it in the leaked files. We have further analyzed the ministry’s internal data and discovered the following CDC projects in Georgia:
Project 1320: Antimicrobial Resistance Project
Duration: 01/09/2016 -29/09/2020
Funding: $153,492.40
Project 1440:Introducing or Expanding the Use of Influenza Vaccine Outside the United States
Duration: 30/09/2016 – 29/09/2019
Funding: $750,000
Project 1441:Influenza Surveillance Outside the United States
Duration: 30/09 / 16-29 / 09/21
Funding: $250,000
Project 1446: Strengthening New Generation Sequencing Capacities for Hepatitis C Surveillance in Georgia
Duration: 01/07/2017-30 /06/2018
Funding: $22,000
Project 1447:Samples collection under the Hepatitis C Elimination Program in Georgia – Bio-Bank
Objective: The aim of the project is to store samples collected under the Hepatitis C program for future scientific work
20,000 plasma/serum samples
6,000 serum samples from the 2015 National Seroprevalence Survey of Hepatitis C and B
1,000 blood samples from blood banks
500 blood samples from patients with terminal liver disease
Duration: 01/07/2017-30/06/2018
Project 1456:Strengthening the micronutrient deficit monitoring system in Georgia
Duration: 01/09/2017 – 31/08/2018
Funding: $92,875
Project 1457:Genetic peculiarities of hepatitis C virus in Georgia and its role in the Georgian Hepatitis C elimination program
Objective: Evaluate morbidity and mortality associated with Hepatitis C virus
Duration: 01/09/2017-31/08/2018
Funding: $127,125
Project 1532:Strengthening, detection, response and prevention of diarrhea outbreaks in Georgia
Duration: 30/09/2017 -29/09/2020
Funding: $40,000
Project 1533:Strengthening Immunization and Vaccination Control System
Duration: 30/09/2017 – 29/09/2020
Funding: $67,220.00
Project 1534: Respiratory Disease Surveillance
Duration: 30/09/2017 – 29/09/2020
Funding: $80,000.00
Project 1535:Enterovirus surveillance Georgia
Duration: 30/09/2017 -29/ 09/2020
Funding: $45,000
Project 1536:National Laboratory Quality Control Program in Georgia
Duration: 30/09/2017 -29 /09/2020
Funding: $56,140
Project 1537:South Caucasus Field Epidemiology and Laboratory Training Program
Duration: 30/09/2017 -29 /09/2020
Funding: $150,000
Project 1538: Fever of unknown etiology caused by arboviruses in the Black Sea region – clinical specimens will be shipped to the CDC Laboratory for analyses
Duration: 30/09/2017 – 29/09/2020
Funding: $100,360CDC Projects in Georgia1 of 15
In conclusion, the United States has been consistently developing its laboratory facilities in the Caucasus. Why has the US Government spent billions of dollars on such biolaboratories and projects abroad instead on the health of its own citizens?Scientists with diplomatic immunity1 of 6
Six diplomatic cars in the car park of the laboratory, all of them with registration plates of the US Embassy.Six diplomatic cars in the car park of the laboratory, all of them with registration plates of the US Embassy.Six diplomatic cars in the car park of the laboratory, all of them with registration plates of the US Embassy.Six diplomatic cars in the car park of the laboratory, all of them with registration plates of the US Embassy.Six diplomatic cars in the car park of the laboratory, all of them with registration plates of the US Embassy.Six diplomatic cars in the car park of the laboratory, all of them with registration plates of the US Embassy.
Furthermore, why have US scientists working at the Lugar Center been given diplomatic status and immunity to research deadly pathogens and insects in Georgia? Diplomatic immunity is a principle of international law by which foreign government officials are not subject to the jurisdiction of local courts and other authorities for their activities. Hence, US scientists could even perform illegal experiments in Georgia without being prosecuted as they have diplomatic immunity.
The Internet has generated this and sent it my way, I don’t know who to credit, but it’s a good job, no lies detected as of now.
UPDATE MARCH 10, 2022: Klaus Schwab & Hunter Biden Connected To Ukraine Bio-Labs
I was working on exposing these connections myself, but Infowars moved faster and they did great job. So I can vouch for almost every sentence there based on my own research and I will take it even further. Until then, enjoy their video:
The Gateway Pundit identified through the Wayback Machine that Rosemont Seneca provided capital (invested in) Metabiota as noted on the firm’s website back in 2014.
It is listed as “Our Team’s Investments” on the Rosemont Senaca webpage.
We also located a number of documents from the Wayback Machine (meaning they have been since deleted off the Internet) that show the Department of Defense investing in the creation of Biolabs in Ukraine with the help of firm Black & Veatch.
Here is a sample of one of the documents located. (We’ve located nearly a dozen of these documents.)
Today, Metabiota, the pioneer in epidemic risk modeling, announced it has been awarded a subcontract from Black & Veatch (B&V) to support the U.S. Defense Threat Reduction Agency’s (DTRA) Cooperative Biological Engagement Program (CBEP) in Iraq under the Biological Threat Reduction Integrating Contract (BTRIC). Metabiota has also partnered with B&V on DTRA’s recently awarded Cooperative Threat Reduction Integrating Contract (CTRIC) III with an Indefinite Delivery/Indefinite Quantity (ID/IQ) contract ceiling of $970M.
Metabiota, a pandemic tracking and response firm that has collaborated with Peter Daszak’s EcoHealth Alliance and the Wuhan Institute of Virology, was a primary financial backer of Rosemont Seneca Technology Partners, an investment group led by Hunter Biden.
Rosemont Seneca Technology Partners (RSTP) was a spinoff of Rosemont Capital, a venture capital firm created by Biden and John Kerry’s stepson in 2009. Biden served as a Managing Director.
<<Hunter Biden’s shady business dealings are becoming harder for the major media to suppress amid revelations coming out of an ongoing grand jury investigation and his business partner’s prison sentence in a scheme to defraud a Native American tribe of some $60 million in bonds.
Which brings us back to a topic many have forgotten if they even knew: The proximity between Hunter Biden and the origins of COVID-19.
Hunter Biden
Independent media outlet The National Pulse reported in June of last year that an investment firm led by Hunter Biden was a key financial collaborator with Peter Daszak’s EcoHealth Alliance and the Wuhan Institute of Virology.
Rosemont Seneca Technology Partners (RSTP), the firm led by Joe Biden’s son, was a lead financial backer of Metabiota, a pandemic tracking and response firm that partnered with EcoHealth Alliance and the Wuhan lab, the report said.
EcoHealth Alliance, headed by Daszak, and financed by several U.S. government agencies, partnered with Dr. Ralph Baric of the University of North Carolina and Dr. Shi Zhengli of the Wuhan Institute of Virology to conduct gain-of-function research on bat-borne coronaviruses in communist China prior to the initial outbreak of Covid.
The National Pulse cited financial reports which show that RSTP led Metabiota’s first round of funding, which amounted to $30 million.
“Former Managing Director and co-founder of RSTP Neil Callahan – a name that appears many times on Hunter Biden’s hard drive – also sits on Metabiota’s Board of Advisors,” the report noted.
In April 2021, Joe Biden’s USAID announced a new initiative spearheaded by EcoHealth Alliance to track emerging infectious diseases with pandemic potential. Also collaborating on the taxpayer-funded venture was Metabiota.
Since 2014, Metabiota has been a partner of EcoHealth Alliance as part of the U.S. Agency for International Development’s (USAID) “PREDICT” project, which seeks to “predict and prevent global emerging disease threats.” As part of this effort, researchers from Metabiota, EcoHealth Alliance, and the Wuhan Institute of Virology collaborated on a study relating to bat infectious diseases in China.
Daszak is also central figure in the potential origins of Covid. His EcoHealth Alliance funneled taxpayer dollars from Anthony Fauci’s National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) to collaborate on bat coronavirus research in Wuhan.
Meanwhile, Hunter Biden’s business partner Devon Archer on Monday was sentenced to one year and one day in federal prison by Manhattan Judge Ronnie Abrams.
“There’s no dispute about the harm caused to real people,” Abrams said, noting that the defrauded tribe, the Oglala Sioux, is one of the poorest in the nation. Archer will also have to pay more than $15 million in forfeiture by himself and more than $43 million in restitution with his co-defendants in the case.
Rosemont Seneca was one of a handful of companies listed in a May 2019 grand jury subpoena that ordered JP Morgan Chase to provide records of transactions between Hunter Biden’s various ventures and the Bank of China for the previous five years.
The subpoena also asked for similar “records, documents and accounts” related to James Biden, Joe Biden’s brother, and Hunter’s former business partners Eric Schwerin and Archer, both founding partners at Rosemont Seneca.
Archer’s attorney, Matthew Schwartz, confirmed that his client had “cooperated completely” with the Department of Justice after the subpoena was leaked online last month by Marco Polo which is preparing a comprehensive report on the Biden family.
“The document offered the first real clues as to the specifics of Delaware U.S. Attorney David Weiss’s probe, which was launched in late 2018 but controversially kept under wraps until weeks after the 2020 Presidential election, supposedly to avoid becoming a campaign issue,” the Daily Mail noted.>>
Update March 30, 2020: Once we pull it out you better pick up on it quickly, I told you we’re in the business of dictating future MSM headlines. But without the sugar glazing. 🙂
Knight Spirit makes a nice summary of the Metabiota – Covid connection:
Metabiota & COVID-19 origin
<<Since 2014, Metabiota has been a partner of EcoHealth Alliance as part of the “PREDICT” initiative of the U.S. Agency for International Development’s (USAID), which aims to “predict and prevent global emerging disease threats.”
As part of this endeavor, researchers from Metabiota, EcoHealth Alliance, and the Wuhan Institute of Virology collaborated on a study into bat infectious diseases in China. According to the research, “sensitive and broadly reactive RT-PCR assays were performed at Wuhan Institute of Virology, Chinese Academy of Sciences.”
Shi Zhengli, the Director of the Center for Emerging Infectious Diseases at the Chinese Communist Party’s Wuhan Lab, is one of the researchers included in the aforementioned 2014 publication. Peter Daszak, who was recently removed from the Lancet COVID-19 panel due to many conflicts of interest as a “longtime collaborator” of the Wuhan Institute of Virology, is named as a contributor.
Daszak is also a key figure in COVID-19’s possible origins. His EcoHealth Alliance used public funds to collaborate on bat coronavirus research in Wuhan with Anthony Fauci’s National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID).
EcoHealth Alliance and Metabiota researchers have also worked together on presentations on how to “live safely with bats” and studies tying new infectious disease epidemics to wildlife trade facilities, such as “wet markets.”
“Wildlife trade can facilitate zoonotic disease transmission and represents a threat to human health and economies in Asia, highlighted by the 2003 SARS coronavirus outbreak, where a Chinese wildlife market facilitated pathogen transmission,” the 2016 paper notes.
End slide of presentation. (Screenshot via TheBL)
On a 2014 study on henipavirus spillover, a 2014 study on Ebola monitoring, a 2015 study on herpes, and a 2015 study on viral diversity, Metabiota researchers were named with EcoHealth Alliance staff.
Aside from its ties to EcoHealth Alliance, Metabiota has also been criticized for “bungling” America’s Ebola response.>>
BUT METABIOTA IS INVOLVED IN MANY PLACES AND MANY BITHREATS, SUCH AS:
ABOUT PREDICT
PREDICT is enabling global surveillance for viruses that may spillover from animal hosts to people by building capacities to detect and discover viruses of pandemic potential. The project is part of USAID’s Emerging Pandemic Threats program and is led by the UC Davis One Health Institute. The core partners are USAID, EcoHealth Alliance, Metabiota, Wildlife Conservation Society, and Smithsonian Institution. Scientists work in 30 countries in Africa and Asia testing for five viral families—coronaviruses (e.g. SARS/MERS), filoviruses (e.g. Ebola), paramyxoviruses (e.g. Nipah / Hendra), influenza viruses (e.g. H1N1, H5N1, H7N9) and flaviviruses (e.g. Zika)—in wildlife, livestock, and humans, to understand the risk of spillover. As part of this effort, lab scientists around the world are trained to perform viral testing—a vital skill in case an outbreak should emerge. Field researchers are trained to safely handle and sample animals by capture and release. – SOURCE
Researchers from Metabiota have also been listed alongside EcoHealth Alliance personnel on a 2014 study on henipavirus [aka Nipah – keep this in mind – S.m.] spillover, 2014 study on Ebola monitoring, 2015 study focusing on herpes, and 2015 study on viral diversity.
“An American company that bills itself as a pioneer in tracking emerging epidemics made a series of costly mistakes during the 2014 Ebola outbreak that swept across West Africa — with employees feuding with fellow responders, contributing to misdiagnosed Ebola cases and repeatedly misreading the trajectory of the virus,” an Associated Press (AP) investigation into the company found.
The company reportedly made the “already chaotic situation worse,” prompting World Health Organization officials to criticize the company.
Emails obtained by AP and interviews with aid workers on the ground show that some of the company’s actions made an already chaotic situation worse.
WHO outbreak expert Dr. Eric Bertherat wrote to colleagues in a July 17, 2014, email about misdiagnoses and “total confusion” at the Sierra Leone government lab Metabiota shared with Tulane University in the city of Kenema. He said there was “no tracking of the samples” and “absolutely no control on what is being done.”
“This is a situation that WHO can no longer endorse,” he wrote.
<<A separate document detailing Ukraine’s biolab network from the BioWeapons Prevention Project outlines in greater detail the scope of pathogens the facility has conducted research with.
Among the viruses the lab studied were Ebola and “viruses of pathogencity group II by using of virology, molecular, serologica and express methods.”
Additionally, the lab provided “special training for specialists on biosafety and biosecurity issues during handling of dangerous biological pathogenic agents.”>> – National Pulse
BIOLAB’S PATHOGENS.
Look again and tell me if that virus list reminds you of anything. Hint:
This above quotes a National Defense Magazine article, which reveals the Covid narrative was already being set up in 2011, as we’ve shown in other reports too:
<<Teams are learning that local health clinics in South Asia, Africa and Southeast Asia possess deadly pathogens, not as potential weapons, but because they need samples of naturally-occurring diseases on hand to diagnose outbreaks in their human and animal populations. These samples are often kept in public repositories where the microbes could easily be stolen and released.
“We’re looking for partners in new areas around the world who have legitimate need for maintaining samples of these horrible diseases and pathogens,” Myers said, according to National Defense Magazine. “We are looking for ways to partner with them to increase their ability to keep them secure and safe, to be able to account for them so they know exactly how many strains of pathogen X or pathogen Y or pathogen Z they might have.”
The cooperative biological engagement teams are also seeking to assist the partner nations with epidemiological training to ensure scientists are effective and efficient at identifying outbreaks and alerting the proper authorities.
“Many of the countries we’re dealing with now never had any intention of being a threat to the United States,” Myers said, according to National Defense Magazine. “One of their interests in engaging with us is to become real partners with us, and we look forward to developing those relationships.”>> –
The U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases at Fort Detrick.News-Post file photo
All research at a Fort Detrick laboratory that handles high-level disease-causing material, such as Ebola, is on hold indefinitely after the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found the organization failed to meet biosafety standards.
No infectious pathogens, or disease-causing material, have been found outside authorized areas at the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases.
The CDC inspected the military research institute in June and inspectors found several areas of concern in standard operating procedures, which are in place to protect workers in biosafety level 3 and 4 laboratories, spokeswoman Caree Vander Linden confirmed in an email Friday.
The CDC sent a cease and desist order in July.
After USAMRIID received the order from the CDC, its registration with the Federal Select Agent Program, which oversees disease-causing material use and possession, was suspended. That suspension effectively halted all biological select agents and toxin research at USAMRIID, Vander Linden said in her email.
The Federal Select Agent Program does not comment on whether a program such as USAMRIID is registered and cannot comment on action taken to enforce regulations, Kathryn Harben, a spokeswoman for the CDC, wrote in an email.
“As situations warrant, [Federal Select Agent Program] will take whatever appropriate action is necessary to resolve any departures from regulatory compliance in order to help ensure the safety and security of work with select agents and toxins,” Harben said in the email.
The suspension was due to multiple causes, including failure to follow local procedures and a lack of periodic recertification training for workers in the biocontainment laboratories, according to Vander Linden. The wastewater decontamination system also failed to meet standards set by the Federal Select Agent Program, Vander Linden said in a follow-up email.
“To maximize the safety of our employees, there are multiple layers of protective equipment and validated processes,” she said.
Vander Linden could not say when the laboratory would be able to continue research.
“USAMRIID will return to fully operational status upon meeting benchmark requirements for biosafety,” she said in an email. “We will resume operations when the Army and the CDC are satisfied that USAMRIID can safely and consistently meet all standards.”
USAMRIID has been working on modified biosafety level 3 procedures and a new decontamination system since flooding in May 2018. This “increased the operational complexity of bio-containment laboratory research activities within the Institute,” she said.
At the time of the cease and desist order, USAMRIID scientists were working with agents known to cause tularemia, also called deer fly or rabbit fever, the plague and Venezuelan equine encephalitis, all of which were worked on in a biosafety level 3 laboratory. Researchers were also working with the Ebola virus in a biosafety level 4 lab, Vander Linden said.
Of the pathogens, Ebola, bacteria Yersinia pestis (plague), and bacterium Francisella tularensis (tularemia) are on the list of the Health and Human Services select agents and toxins. The three are considered Tier 1 agents, which pose a severe public health and safety threat.
Venezuelan equine encephalitis also falls under the Federal Select Agent Program, according to the Code of Federal Regulations.
The military research institute is looking at each of its contracts to see what will be affected by the shutdown. USARMIID work outside the lab is not expected to be affected, including on Ebola, Vander Linden said.
“We are coordinating closely with the CDC to ensure that critical, ongoing studies within bio-containment laboratories are completed under appropriate oversight and that research animals will continue to be cared for in accordance with all regulations,” she said in an email. “Although much of USAMRIID’s research is currently on hold, the Institute will continue its critical clinical diagnostic mission and will still be able to provide medical and subject matter expertise as needed to support the response to an infectious disease threat or other contingency.”
According to the Code of Federal Regulations, which also lists required training, records and biosafety plans, Federal Select Agents Program registration can be suspended to protect public health and safety. It is not clear if this is why the USAMRIID registration was suspended.
The code also gives the Department of Health and Human Services, under which the CDC falls, the right to inspect any site and records, without prior notifications. Vander Linden said in the email that the CDC inspected USAMRIID several times over the past year, both unannounced and on a regularly scheduled basis.
USAMRIID will work to meet requirements set by the Army and the CDC and have its suspension lifted, Vander Linden said.
“While the Institute’s research mission is critical, the safety of the workforce and community is paramount,” she said. “USAMRIID is taking the opportunity to correct deficiencies, build upon strengths, and create a stronger and safer foundation for the future.”
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Detection and comparative analysis of persistent measles virus infection in Crohn’s disease by immunogold electron microscopy Daszak, Peter, Purcell, Matthew, Lewin, Jackie, Dhillon, Amar P, Pounder, Roy E and Wakefield, Andrew J (1997) Detection and comparative analysis of persistent measles virus infection in Crohn’s disease by immunogold electron microscopy. Journal of Clinical Pathology, 50(4), pp. 299-304. ISSN (print) 0021-9746 Official URL: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9215145
AFTER THAT, HE GOT 77 NOBEL PRIZES AND 31 MEDICAL ASSOCIATIONS TO BACK HIS AND FAUCI’S GAIN-OF-FUNCTION RESEARCH
Peter Daszak – who donated to Hillary Clinton 13 times in 2016 – serves as the president of EcoHealth Alliance, a research organization that has partnered with the Wuhan Institue of Virology (WIV) – the very same lab many count as the source of COVID-19.
The type of research conducted by the group in tandem with the WIV prompted concern among National Institutes of Health officials for its role in COVID-related research, as outlined in a letter by NIH’s Deputy Director for Extramural Research Dr. Michael Lauer.
“It is our understanding that one of the sub-recipients of the grant funds is the Wuhan Institute of Virology (‘WIV’). It is our understanding that WIV studies the interaction between corona viruses and bats. The scientific community believes that the coronavirus causing COVID-19 jumped from bats to humans likely in Wuhan where the COVID-19 pandemic began. There are now allegations that the current crisis was precipitated by the release from WIV of the coronavirus responsible for COVID-19. Given these concerns, we are pursuing suspension of WIV from participation in Federal programs.”
Chinese State Media.
While speaking at a conference sponsored by state-run media outlet China Global Television Network (CGTN), Daszak also revealed that he was a recipient of Chinese Communist Party cash.
He revealed he “has been working in China in collaboration with Chinese scientists and the government of China for over 15 years supported by federal funding from the U.S. and federal funding from China.”
Daszak has praised and attended the Beijing-based World Conference on Science Literacy, which is sponsored by the scientific group China Association for Science and Technology (CAST) that “serves as a bridge that links the Communist Party of China and the Chinese government to the country’s science and technology community.”
He has also appeared on panels at a CGTN-sponsored conference in cooperation with the Chinese Society for Science and Technology Journalism, a subsidiary of CAST. .
The zoologist obtained his Ph.D. in parasitic infectious diseases from the University of East London – a college ranked 116th of 130 in the country.
He has repeatedly appeared on CGTN, including praising the network as “fantastic” and “great” and defending scientific collaboration with the Chinese Communist Party as “important”
EcoHealth Alliance, Daszak’s nonprofit group, routed $600,000 in taxpayer funds to the WIV in form of subgrants as part of a project to study bat-based coronaviruses in China, funding that was terminated by the National Institutes of Health in May 2020.
From the onset of the pandemic, Daszak has denied he has a conflict of interest with the WIV, a claim that Rutgers University professor of chemical biology Richard H. Ebright said in April was a “brazen lie.
"'I have no conflicts of interest,' said Peter Daszak"
The WHO has defended its decision to appoint Daszak to the investigation of its COVID-9 origins despite accusations that his involvement mires the probe with major conflict of interests.
The WHO investigative panel shelved plans last week to release an interim report detailing how it concluded that it was “extremely unlikely” that COVID-19 could have accidentally leaked from the WIV. ”
Despite working at the onset of the pandemic to suppress debate on the lab leak theory, Daszak said former White House strategist Steve Bannon and the Chinese Falun Gong religious sect, which financially backs the Epoch Times newspaper and faces persecution from the Chinese Communist Party, are the ones responsible for China’s decision to block an outside investigation of the pandemic’s origins for over a year after the initial outbreak.
“I’ve seen incredible efforts from everything from Falun Gong to … Steve Bannon’s group pushing the conspiracy theories around China,” Daszak said during Wednesday’s panel discussion. “It’s useful to them. They’re funding it and pushing it and science has been to some extent caught up in that to other instances absolutely crushed by it.”
“We’ve not had access to work in China on the origins for the last 12 months, which is ironic because we could have been on the ground there working with our Chinese colleagues and by now we could have found some really important answers,” he said. “The rhetoric has held that up.”
Life is good when you share the bill with both Wakefield and Fauci
Science’s COVID-19 reporting is supported by the Pulitzer Center.
Seventy-seven U.S. scientists who have won a Nobel Prize today asked Francis Collins, director of the National Institutes of Health, and Alex Azar, secretary of Health and Human Services, to “act urgently” to review a controversial NIH decision to terminate a grant that supported research into bat coronaviruses in China. NIH’s explanation for killing the grant was “preposterous,” the laureates write.
On 24 April, NIH informed the nonprofit EcoHealth Alliance, led by wildlife disease specialist Peter Daszak, that it was ending a grant, first awarded in 2014 and renewed in 2019 because it no longer aligned with the agency’s priorities. The move came after Conservative U.S. politicians and media suggested—without evidence—that the coronavirus causing the pandemic escaped from a laboratory in Wuhan, China, that employs a Chinese virologist who had received funding from the grant. The termination also came 1 week after President Donald Trump, when asked about the project at a press conference, said: “We will end that grant very quickly.”
In their letter, the Nobel laureates say they “are gravely concerned” about that decision. “We believe that this action sets a dangerous precedent by interfering in the conduct of science and jeopardizes public trust in the process of awarding federal funds for research. … Now is precisely the time when we need to support this kind of research if we aim to control the pandemic and prevent subsequent ones.”
They write that “despite the high relevance of the studies to the current pandemic, and despite the very high priority score that his application for renewal had received during peer review, the NIH informed Dr. Daszak and his colleagues that the grant was being terminated because ‘NIH does not believe that the current project outcomes align with the program goals and agency priorities.’ Such explanations are preposterous under the circumstances.”
Azar and Collins should, they write, “act urgently to conduct and release a thorough review of the actions that led to the decision to terminate the grant, and that, following this review … take appropriate steps to rectify the injustices that may have been committed in revoking it.”
The signers of the letter include researchers who won a Nobel Prize as recently as 2019, and as long ago as 1975.
The letter from the scientific societies was organized by the American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology (ASBMB). “Our aim with this effort is to stand up for a scientific enterprise that should be free of political influence on sound scientific research,” said Benjamin Corb, public affairs director for ASBMB, in a statement. “The continued politicization of science during this pandemic crisis is an alarming trend that is risking not only the integrity of science, but also the lives of citizens.
The Honorable Francis S. Collins Director National Institutes of Health 9000 Rockville Pike Bethesda, MD 20892 May 20, 2020 Director Francis Collins: We, the undersigned scientific organizations representing tens of thousands of members of the American biomedical research enterprise, are alarmed by the National Institutes of Health’s revocation of a peer-reviewed research grant for studies of coronaviruses by EcoHealth Alliance. Not only is this decision counterintuitive, given the urgent need to better understand the virus that causes COVID-19 and identify drugs that will save lives, but it politicizes science at a time when, if we are to stamp out this scourge, we need the public to trust experts and to take collective action. The foundation of the American biomedical research enterprise rests on two principles: international collaboration and a robust peer-review process. Both must be vigilantly upheld. The abrupt revocation of the NIH grant for the EcoHealth Alliance concerns us for two primary reasons: First, the decision seems to be a reaction to a theory about the origins of the COVID-19 virus that the intelligence community itself has publicly repudiated. EcoHealth Alliance at one point collaborated with a lab in Wuhan, China, which has recently been at the center of rumors about the origin of the pandemic. The overall goal of EcoHealth Alliance’s research project is to study coronavirus transmission from species to species. But the purpose of the research project has been conflated with these rumors. This is worrisome. International collaboration has propelled the American research enterprise to achieve vital innovations and discoveries; it is the gold standard for the scientific community. The United States is a beacon for the best and brightest minds, consistently attracting top scientists from around the world. However, with this incident, international collaboration is being portrayed as a threat. The scientific enterprise requires diversity, and American scientists depend on their international colleagues to pool resources, expertise, and ultimately make scientific breakthroughs. Second, the decision sets a dangerous precedent by revoking a grant that was awarded based upon scientific merit without a justifiable rationale such as issues related to scientific or financial fraud or misconduct. This grant is highly and uniquely relevant to all NIAID priorities to address the current COVID-19 pandemic. Most extramural research funds are awarded through a robust peer-review process. Scientists, not politicians, determine the merit of grant applications, and grant recipients are expected to be careful stewards of taxpayer dollars. Throughout the lifetime of a grant, each recipient communicates regularly with scientific review officers at the funding agency and produces progress reports providing evidence that the work remains valuable and on track. This has been the norm and until April 24, 2020 was applied to the now terminated grant. That has now been breached and this action must not become the norm going forward. The scientific community urges federal funding agencies and policymakers to ensure the transparency, openness, and collaborative nature of the American biomedical research enterprise. We call on the NIH to be transparent about their decision-making process on this matter. We urge federal funding agencies to safeguard the American biomedical research enterprise. The action taken by the NIH must be immediately reconsidered. Respectfully, The American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology The Academy for Radiology and Biomedical Imaging Research The American Association for Anatomy The American Institute of Biological Sciences The American Physiological Society The American Psychological Association The American Society for Investigative Pathology The American Society for Virology The American Society of Ichthyologists and Herpetologists The Association of Anatomy, Cell Biology and Neurobiology Chairs The Association of Biomolecular Resource Facilities The Association of Medical and Graduate Departments of Biochemistry The Association of Schools and Programs of Public Health The Biophysical Society The Botanical Society of America The Conference Board of Mathematical Sciences The Endocrine Society The Entomological Society of America The Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology The Genetics Society of America The HIV Medicine Association The Infectious Diseases Society of America The Natural Science Collections Alliance The North American Vascular Biology Organization The Shock Society The Society for Freshwater Science The Society for the Study of Amphibians and Reptiles The Society for the Study of Reproduction The Society of Toxicology
To be continued? Our work and existence, as media and people, is funded solely by our most generous supporters. But we’re not really covering our costs so far, and we’re in dire needs to upgrade our equipment, especially for video production. Help SILVIEW.media survive and grow, please donate here, anything helps. Thank you!
! Articles can always be subject of later editing as a way of perfecting them
Sometimes my memes are 3D. And you can own them. Or send them to someone. You can even eat some of them. CLICK HERE
UPDATE: LATER JOSH ROGIN APPEARANCE ON JOE ROGAN’S PODCAST
Washington Post’s Josh Rogin Calls Out Media for Ignoring Fauci’s Potential Connection to Wuhan Lab
Rudy Takala April 25, 2021
Washington Post columnist Josh Rogin lamented the media’s refusal to discuss aspects of the Covid-19 pandemic, including Dr. Anthony Fauci’s potential connection to a Wuhan lab, in an interview with Megyn Kelly.
“This body of research, this gain-of-function research, the whole world of virologists … it’s very insular,” Rogin said in an interview on Kelly’s podcast. “I often talk to scientists who say the same thing, who say, ‘Listen, we really want to speak out about this, but we can’t do it.’ Why can’t we do it? Well, We get all of our funding from NIH, or NIAID, which is run by Dr. Fauci. … And so we can’t say anything like ‘Oh, gain-of-function research might be dangerous, or it might have come from a lab, because we’re going to lose our careers, we’re going to lose our funding, we’re not going to be able to do our work.’
“Gain-of-function” research focuses on artificially enhancing the transmissibility of pathogens. In the five years prior to the coronavirus pandemic, that research was spearheaded in China by the Wuhan Institute of Virology. The U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, which Fauci has led since 1984, oversees funding for most of the related research in America. The agency falls under the National Institutes of Health, which Rogin referenced.
“The head of the funding, the head of the entire field, really, is Anthony Fauci,” Rogin said. “He’s the godfather of gain-of-function research as we know it. That, what I said right there, is too hot for TV, because people don’t want to think about the fact that our hero of the pandemic … might also have been connected to this research, which might also have been connected to the outbreak.
“The problem is not that they were doing something wrong or illegal,” he noted. “The problem is that nobody knows what this legal stuff was that was going on. And now, all of a sudden, we have to take a look at it.”
Fauci has inspired critics in some quarters for his role in approving a $3.7 million grant to the Wuhan lab in 2015 to engage in related research, which came just a year after the Obama administration issued a moratorium on conducting such research in the U.S.
Rogin claimed in a book published last month that sources informed him China engaged in that research more aggressively than was previously understood, arguing that it contributed to evidence the Covid-19 pandemic stemmed from the lab in Wuhan.
“The Wuhan Institute of Virology had openly participated in gain-of-function research in partnership with U.S. universities and institutions,” Rogin noted in the book. “But [an] official told me the U.S. government had evidence that Chinese labs were performing gain-of-function research on a much larger scale than was publicly disclosed, meaning they were taking more risks in more labs than anyone outside China was aware of. This insight, in turn, fed into the lab-accident hypothesis in a new and troubling way.”
Rogin expanded on that statement in his interview with Kelly, saying, “Dr. Fauci, the hero of the pandemic, might also have had a role in the research that may have caused the pandemic.”
“People can’t get it through their heads, but that’s the reality,” he added, before lamenting that the topic was largely absent from public dialogue. “We don’t have a media environment where we can have that kind of discussion.”
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This is a corroboration of a few recent reports from various news outlets in India and external sources. We face another grave under-reported fact in a “top-shelf authoritative source” CV. Or CR. The ramifications are vast. We have much more of these to disclose in the near future.
<< India has asked the American frontline public health agency, the Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to stop funding virus research studies in the country. CDC was caught funding Karnataka’s Manipal Center for Virus Research (MCVR) for secretly carrying out research on the lethal Nipah virus – a pathogen considered potential bioweapon. The fact that an under-qualified private laboratory was secretly handling a dangerous virus under government’s nose at the behest of a foreign agency has raised major concerns within the health ministry apparatus.
The matter is more complicated with the fact that the CDC has a checkered history in India. The Indian defense establishment believes that the CDC was involved in the plague outbreak in the western Indian city of Surat in 1994, which they consider to be a case of bioterrorism. Earlier in February this year the Indian government launched an investigation into another secret research being conducted on bat hunters in the eastern Indian state of Nagaland, funded by the US Department of Defense in collaboration with Wuhan Institute of Virology and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
India Blacklists US CDC For Secretly Funding Bioweapons Research At Manipal Institute Of Virology | GreatGameIndia https://t.co/VpwWNp7Y19
A $3.6 million donation from Atlanta-based US health agency CDC to Indian research agencies for tackling the COVID-19 pandemic has been put on hold by the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA). The CDC has been placed on the watchlist since December 2019 for its involvement in funding virus research without government’s approval.
The Nipah research fiasco that came into light in October last year was the primary reason behind the MHA decision. As of now, any funding or donation from the U.S government body CDC would be first cleared by the MHA itself. They can no longer send funds directly to any government or private institution in India without MHA’s clearance.
No translation availables, sorry!
CDC secretly funds risky virus research in India
In October 2019, Hindustan Times reported that the Union health ministry wrote to both CDC and Manipal Center for Virus Research, ordering them to shut down the study related to Nipah virus that belongs to Risk Group 4 (RG4) classification. The RG4 viruses are considered highly dangerous and have no treatment or vaccine. They can only be tested in BSL4 lab which is the highest level of biological safety. The health ministry was upset that a study related to high risk pathogens like Nipah was being carried out at MCVR which is BSL2+ level facility.
A memorandum sent out by the health ministry said:
“It has been brought to our notice that CDC had trained MCVR for diagnosis of Nipah virus disease (NIV) in spite of the known fact that NIV is BSL 4 level pathogen whereas MCVR is a level BSL2+lab. Prior to this training to MCVR, CDC has not consulted national/govt agencies as per norm. Since Nipah is a high risk pathogen with potential for being used as agent of bio-terrorism the samples were to be handled more carefully and tested only in a BSL4.”
While CDC admitted that the training program didn’t have the necessary approval due to some confusion, it maintained that they did not commission the research directly. “The training was done through the Global Health Security Agenda (GHSA) and was aimed at strengthening laboratory systems in India which allowed for detection of Nipah virus.”
International collaborations of Manipal Center of Virus Research
CDC has partnered with MCVR to carry out illness surveillance across India under the project known as AFI surveillance which tracks mysterious diseases in the government hospitals. The Indian government has now asked both agencies to stop the surveillance project. It also warned CDC to ensure all funding is approved by the government.
In its defence, MCVR denied carrying out any risky virus isolation work at their lab. Dr. Arunkumar, Director of MCVR, said:
“We did not take approval from HMSC. Prior to testing, MCVR inactivated the virus. Inactivation of the virus was carried out in BSL3 facility at MCVR. Once inactivated, the virus cannot spread. Molecular testing was carried at MCVR in its BSL2 facility. No Nipah virus sample was transferred from MCVR to any other lab (except NIV Pune) within and outside the country.”
Investigation on secret research on Bat Hunters
This is not the first time a dangerous research took place in India without keeping the government in loop. Back in February this year, the officials confirmed to that foreign funded researchers were conducting study on bats and bat hunters (humans) in the northeastern state of Nagaland. Bats are known to often carry viruses such as ebola, SARS coronavirus, rabies,etc.
What’s more alarming was that two of the 12 researchers belonged to the Wuhan Institute of Virology’s Department of Emerging Infectious Diseases – the same institute from where COVID-19 outbreak is believed to have originated. The Nagaland study was funded by the United States Department of Defense’s Defense Threat Reduction agency (DTRA).
The results of the study were published in October last year in the PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases journal, originally established by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
To conduct a high-risk study in India, they would have needed special permissions from the Indian authorities which was not sought by the parties involved in the study. The fact that scientists from foreign countries were allowed to handle live samples of bats and bat hunters without permission prompted Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) to send a five-member committee to investigate the matter.
Funding of controversial Gain-of-Function research
Even before the coronavirus outbreak, a number of controversial studies were being carried out at China’s Wuhan lab under the patronage of United States’ National Institutes of Health (NIH). One of the studies is the gain-of-function research on bat coronaviruses which involves mutating viruses in the lab to explore their potential for infecting humans.
The gain-of-function research has been widely criticized by the scientists around the world due to the risk of starting a pandemic from accidental release.
However, last year the National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Diseases, the organization led by Dr. Anthony Fauci, funded scientists at the Wuhan Institute of Virology and other institutions for work on gain-of-function research. A total of $7.5 million of American tax dollars have been spent since 2014 for conducting GoF studies.
Role of CDC in Surat plague
The plague outbreak in the western Indian city of Surat in 1994 has been mired in controversy just as COVID-19. Around 55 people died and close to a half of the city of 1.2 million people fled Surat for fear of the plague and of being quarantined.
The origin of the outbreak is still a mystery. Indian defense establishment believes the 1994 Surat Plague is a case of bioterrorism. Numerous media outlets at the time reported the involvement of American CDC. It was suspected that the germ with an extra protein ring was developed by a CDC lab in Almaty, Kazakhstan.
Thus it comes as no surprise that Indian authorities are taking no chances this time around with CDC, especially since the world is already under the grip of a virus pandemic and the role of CDC is increasingly being seen as suspicious. >> GGI
Dear @GreatGameIndia It appears that one of your study concerning HIV insertions inside coronavirus made it to a Nobel prize winner, Luc Montagnier https://t.co/82BMeFiAhq
He discovered HIV was nominated for a Nobel prize in 2008/2009. He was inspired by an Indian group.
Additionally, The Week Magazine from India reported recently:
<< Did the novel coronavirus leak similarly through a worker in a biowar lab in Wuhan? The Washington Times, which is known for its CIA links, has raised the suspicion in an article quoting Dany Shoham, a former Israeli military intelligence officer who has studied Chinese biowarfare.
Indian scientists would not rule out the possibility. The Wuhan lab, said Dr William Selvamurthy, a former chief controller of the Defence Research and Development Organisation who was in charge of the life science labs, could have been keeping the virus under BSL-4 (biosafety level-4)—the most secure condition for reseach. So, the possibility of someone having been infected from the lab and inadvertently spreading it could not be ruled out, said Selvamurthy.
The Wuhan Institute is officially acknowledged to be China’s most advanced virus research lab complex. China, a signatory to the Biological Weapons Convention (BWC) since 1985, had, in 1993, declared the Wuhan Institute of Biological Products as one of eight biowarfare research facilities covered by the BWC. Yet, last year’s US state department report on arms control compliance had accused China of working on military pathogens for offensive purposes. It said the US had concerns with respect to “Chinese military medical institutions’ toxin research and development because of the potential dual-use applications and their potential as a biological threat”.
China has maintained that the virus has originated from wild animals sold at a market in Wuhan. The lab under suspicion is just about 30km from the market. The virus has been identified as a virulent strain, much like any classical germ warfare strain—they were designed to be virulent initially, but quickly controllable. The idea, as a military scientist explained, was for the germ to be released in hostile territory to disable the enemy, but the territory would have to be quickly sanitised for your own forces to capture it.
During the 1994 plague outbreak in Surat and Beed, it was found that the germs had an extra protein ring which could only have been inserted artificially. Indian scientists had raised concerns about a US biowar experiment having gone awry. THE WEEK had carried reports giving details of germ war research being carried on in labs under the Centre for Disease Control in Atlanta and about a newly developed germ detector being tested. The US embassy had denied the allegations. There were also reports that the Surat germ could have been developed in a lab in Almaty, Kazakhstan.
There have been rumours and reports in Chinese cybermedia in the last few days suggesting that the Wuhan outbreak could have been a US biowar attack. This, US officials consider, was an attempt to preempt charges that the new virus had escaped from the Wuhan lab, which had been in the crosshairs of the west especially after a team of Chinese virologists working in a lab in Winnipeg, Canada, unauthorisedly sent samples of some of the deadliest viruses on earth to China.” >> – The Week Mag
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