rs79.vrx.palo-alto.ca.us

AF Ebola

Iraq

ObamaGoF

US Ebola

who

AF Ebola Ebola in Africa starts to decline Reasons for this have never been explained. Iraq The Secret Casualties of Iraq’s Abandoned Chemical Weapons It was August 2New York Times, Published: October 14, 2014 008 near Taji, Iraq. They had just exploded a stack of old Iraqi artillery shells buried beside a murky lake. The blast, part of an effort to destroy munitions that could be used in makeshift bombs, uncovered more shells. Two technicians assigned to dispose of munitions stepped into the hole. Lake water seeped in. One of them, Specialist Andrew T. Goldman, noticed a pungent odor, something, he said, he had never smelled before. He lifted a shell. Oily paste oozed from a crack. “That doesn’t look like pond water,” said his team leader, Staff Sgt. Eric J. Duling. The specialist swabbed the shell with chemical detection paper. It turned red — indicating sulfur mustard, the chemical warfare agent designed to burn a victim’s airway, skin and eyes. See also: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/american-soldiers-exposed-to-chemical-weapons-during-iraq-war/ ObamaGoF White House to Cut Funding for Risky Biological Study New York Times, By Donald G. McNeil Jr. Oct. 17, 2014 The White House announced Friday that it would temporarily halt all new funding for experiments that seek to study certain infectious agents by making them more dangerous. It also encouraged scientists involved in such research on the influenza, SARS and MERS viruses to voluntarily pause their work while its risks were reassessed. Opponents of this type of research, called gain of function — for example, attempts to create a more contagious version of the lethal H5N1 avian influenza to learn which mutations made it that way — were elated. The moratorium is only on research on influenza virus and the coronaviruses that cause SARS and MERS. It made no mention of Ebola or any related filovirus. Ebola is already extremely lethal, but it is not easily transmissible. No scientist has publicly announced an attempt to make Ebola as easy to transmit with a sneeze as flu is. Given the current panic around Ebola, and congressional anger at federal health agencies, it is unlikely that federal funding for such a project would be given out. The debate over the wisdom of “gain of function” research erupted in 2011 when the labs of Ron Fouchier of Erasmus University in the Netherlands, and Yoshihiro Kawaoka of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, separately announced that they had succeeded in making the lethal H5N1 avian flu easily transmissible between ferrets, which are a model for human susceptibility to flu.

US Ebola US Army withheld promise from Germany that Ebola virus wouldn't be weaponized The United States has withheld assurances from Germany that the Ebola virus - among other related diseases - would not be weaponized in the event of Germany exporting it to the US Army Medical Research Institute for Infectious Diseases. German MFA Deputy Head of Division for Export Control Markus Klinger provided a paper to the US consulate's Economics Office (Econoff), "seeking additional assurances related to a proposed export of extremely dangerous pathogens." Germany subsequently made two follow-up requests and clarifications to the Army, according to the unclassified Wikileaks Berlin cable. "This matter concerns the complete genome of viruses such as the Zaire Ebola virus, the Lake Victoria Marburg virus, the Machupo virus and the Lassa virus, which are absolutely among the most dangerous pathogens in the world," the request notes. who The WHO had no idea why and was blamed for letting it get so bad Guardian World Health Organization admits botching response to Ebola outbreak BBC Ebola crisis: WHO accused of 'failure' in early response CNN WHO to review Ebola response amid criticism of its efforts TheHill Internal document faults global health agency in Ebola response