rs79.vrx.palo-alto.ca.us

Missing Ebola and Anthrax samples

Lab specimens of anthrax spores, Ebola virus and other pathogens disappeared from the Army's biological warfare research facility in the early 1990s, during a turbulent period of labor complaints and recriminations among rival scientists there, documents from an internal Army inquiry show.

Not in dispute is what the incidents say about disorganization and lack of security in some quarters of the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases -- known as USAMRIID -- at Fort Detrick, Md., in the 1990s. Fort Detrick is believed to be the original source of the Ames strain of anthrax used in the mail attacks last fall, and investigators have questioned people there and at a handful of other government labs and contractors.


Much of Britain was exposed to bacteria sprayed in secret trials

"Sue Ellison, spokeswoman for Porton Down, said: 'Independent reports by eminent scientists have shown there was no danger to public health from these releases which were carried out to protect the public."

Ah well, as long as they're eminent. They must be right even if they were just made up.


flu

"Chemotherapy, though still primordial, must eventually provide the ultimate solution to vaccine failures."

"Probing the enigma of the severe influenza pandemic of 1918–1919 is an exciting contemporary venture in which genetic reconstruction of the viral genome from surviving archival RNA is being conducted with great success"

"Many different species of enveloped RNA viruses share a common need to achieve both attachment of virus to host cell membranes and fusion of virus and host cell membranes to provide for entry of the viral genome into the cell where replication occurs. Examples (see [39]) include the Orthomyxoviruses that cause influenza; the Paramyxoviruses to which measles virus, respiratory syncytial virus, simian virus 5, and parainfluenza virus belong; the Filoviruses which include the Ebola and Marburg agents; and the Retroviruses of which human leukemia and the human immunodeficiency agent (HIV) are members."

- Hellerman 2002




missing: Missing Ebola and Anthrax samples
http://www.courant.com/hc-ant-3-story.html


uk mod: Much of Britain was exposed to bacteria sprayed in secret trials
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2002/apr/21/uk.medicalscience