Anthrax
On the back of 911 - less than two weeks later in fact - the Anthrax terrorist attack happened. Letters laced with the deadly pathogen were addressed to prominent politicians and press representatives - they stated:
This created a helluva fuss not surprisingly - great stuff if yer the media - which was at fever pitch - breathlessly reporting on scientists talking up Al Qaeda in crop dusters - powdering New York City with anthrax - killing hundreds of thousands.
The Vice-President’s advice: Never waste a crisis. Devise em if you have to. We’ve got the media feeding em Islamophobia multiplied by bio-terror. It’s a no-brainer. Launch a payback invasion of Iraq while the tide is full - give 'em the good ol' foil evil spiel - whatever - meanwhile liberating the oilfields.
And so it came to pass. An invasion to dismantle Saddam Hussein’s - non-existent - bio-weapons of mass destruction program - whilst insisting it was all to keep us safe - but hey - Cheney and the gravy-trainers made a killing - God willing - let freedom reign.
Julian Assange tried uncovering it - earned ‘im a life of One-Everything security rammed up his arse - now behind bars. Yeah-no - a rare hero in this - i’m thinkin it’s in his upbringing - at Goolmangar Primary - next door to Nimbin
Meanwhile back at the ranch, smashing the axis of evil involved soldiers vaxxed-to-the max with the latest in experimental anthrax-jabs. Now known as Gulf War illness.
Which gets me to this:
Amidst the commotion there was another - lesser known - explosion:
a silent one
in science-funding - to fight bioterrorism.
A mushrooming of BSL labs at dual-purpose bio-weapons/defense facilities - or - universities - at your expense. On the edge of science and global security - secret projects meddling with deadly bugs to predict the next moves of our devious extremist enemies - the full might of one-science riding to our rescue - so exciting - then designing, delivering drugs, surveillance tech - to protect us.
One small example: in 2004, Bush signed Project Bioshield into law - making a speech to mark the occasion
Bush: Project Bioshield authorizes $5.6 billion ..on vaccines to fight anthrax .. and other potential agents of bioterror for the American population.
That’s seventh heaven - for vaccine-scientists at least.
Bush: Since September the 11th, we've increased .. funding for biodefense research at NIH by a factor of 30.
Mate, you little beauty.
Bush: When I sign this bill, the Food and Drug Administration will be able to permit rapid distribution of promising new drugs in the most urgent circumstances.
Shit, that's ominous. So the murky emergency-use approval enacted to fast-track Covid vacs was invented by George W after Anthrax?
Bush: I want to thank the Vice President for his hard work. He was the point man in the White House on this piece of legislation .
Congratulations Dick - i stand corrected. Going berserk on scio-bio-shielding was a Cheney sponsored venture - that makes me feel much better.
How boutcha science right-hand-man in all this cash-cowing?
Cometh the hour - cometh the man - take a bow Anthony S. Fauci
Right-in-the-thick-of-it - pleading for BioShield before Congress - a leading advocate/recipient - Fauch the Pouch siphoned billions from the fountain spouting public dollars in the name of bioterrorism - it was the making of his NIAID kingdom. As he said at the hearings:
The accelerated development of effective countermeasures against terrorism requires a new research paradigm.
Mate, I'm finding - with old-fashioned paradigm thinking, admittedly - that between the lines - your new paradigm scheme of accelerated development was a ticking time-bomb ........ that detonated in 2019
The events of September 11, and the subsequent anthrax attacks have changed, forever, how the biomedical community responds to emerging threats.
You betcha it did! But was that a good thing?
We are now on a wartime footing and are compelled to modify the way we do business.
Hell! Our brave bio-warrior general from NIH - ready ta do: whatever it takes. Btw, who are you doing business with again? Who's the muscle in thius bio-war-on-terror?
The Fouch: Biotech firms are our industrial partners - they are essential to countermeasure development.
Like Pfizer & Moderna and a firm called Emergent Biosolutions - the countermeasure experts? I wonder what level of Dante's inferno Big-Pharma would've earned if he'd known they existed when he wrote it.
There's still karma i guess - that shit can twist in an instant - but i forgot - scientists don't believe in that crap.
The Fouch: But they want some assurances if they are successful that there'll be a market for their product.
Guess they got it. Never mind that antibiotics work fine on Anthrax symptoms - it was pure scio-politics - in-fact-in-the - US at the time - there was a rush on Cipro - today’s Ivermectin? Guessin the experts are gettin wiser - restrictin its availability - in our best interests - to lessen bio-state hesitancy. But i degrees.
Pop question … who executed the Anthrax terrorist attack that ignited this funding-feeding-frenzy?
Extra points: What was their reasoning?
I didn't know - Dan @ formosahut put me onto it. The FBI website states:
Justice Department’s Counterterrorism Section, expended - hundreds of thousands of investigator work hours on this case - and conducted more than 10,000 witness interviews on six different continents.
Wow - that’s a lot isn’t it?! A seven year Robert Mueller led junket. Bet that involved shit-loads of the public's spondula - so - Robert - i’m curious - who’s dunnit?
- drumroll …
Yeah i’d never heard of him either.
A US biodefense scientist from Lebanon, Ohio
Working at: Fort Detrick. WIV is the modern day equivalent. It gets better - Ivins was an expert advisor to the FBI in their investigation. A very good one apparently
LA Times: At a Pentagon ceremony in 2003 (two years in), Ivins and two colleagues from USAMRIID (who i wonder?) were presented with the Decoration of Exceptional Civilian Service.
That’s hilarious. I’m sure they deserved it - the highest honour Defense can give ya. Of all the people on earth in the war on bio-terror you’ve gone the very-one who mailed the letters. Either you're the greatest idiots on earth - or - you're complicit - which is it? I'm scratching my head - can't think of third possibility.
Ivins: Awards are nice - but the real satisfaction is knowing the vaccine is back on line.
The real dissatisfaction is knowing it was a known known within weeks it was a lab-leak from Fort Detrick. Each strain of Anthrax has its own unique kinda signature. The spores in the American attack were signed: Fort Detrick bio-weapons lab - Frederick County - Maryland.
Yeah … now might not be the right time to talk about wild conspiracy theories - right when we’re about to wage wars to fight bio-terrorism. How’s it gonna look if we caused it?
Motive: Ivins was a co-inventor on two patents for quote a genetically engineered anthrax vaccine. Two more for additives - which turned out the most lucrative
LA Times: In 2002, the Pentagon's Advanced Research Projects Agency doled out $12 million (to) Coley Pharmaceuticals for developing the additive. The company was acquired last fall by Pfizer Corp.
Bruce’s big picture? Shark public funding for bio-defense research via paradigm disruption - by creating some urgency - a market - the future - it will make it's own weather. His rationalization? It’s the only way to divert the planet’s trajectory as it hurtles towards self-destruction. We, as a science community, have the ability to insert ourselves into that equation - to take the reins - to change the world - as one would - for the common good - it’s our solemn duty as a scientific experts.
Apart from the planet bit - which - as luck would have it - got more fucked-up and perverted - the rest actually worked out perfectly. Bio-science funded to preeminence - on everything - in global security
Anthrax started as a media-frenzy when Journalist Bob Stevens from Florida, was the first confirmed person murdered by it. Of the three doctors who diagnosed him, Wolf and Abrams were subsequently convicted, independently, of running Oxycontin scams - while the third, Larry Bush, no relation, rode it to Celebrity Scientist status. In 2020, he pops up as head of AZ's US emergency use trial. So Anthrax was a wild tale of intrigue from the get go - but never told.
To make sure of that, Bruce, personally, unfortunately, had sacrificial lamb written all over him - took his own life in July 2008 - an overdose of prescription medicine - his wife found him lying on his bed in his clothes at home - The FBI said it was set to execute an arrest warrant but he'd beaten em to it. Conveniently avoiding a public trial. He was assessed as a loner acting alone. Case closed.
His colleague said: They seemed to harp on he was a loner. He was not a loner. …. He had a lot of friends ..
Indeed, 20 to 30 colleagues showed up at his 1st & 2nd death anniversaries. lvins was a weirdo though - make no mistake - had a not-so-secret fetish - known around the office - for secret initiations of Ivy-League sororities - that included stalking - breaking-and-entering. But when ya enmeshed in the closed-society of the well-off science community - hiding in plain sight - you get away with it - it's called eccentricity.
He also had direct access to the exact same anthrax strain and a money motive. Would it've stood up in court - line-ball call. But the real crime was pretending Bruce Ivins dropped out of the sky - it wasn't like that - he was the result of a culture. In this instance the science community - a close-knit society - unaccountable - monied-up - playing secret power shenanigans with security organizations - functioning with impunity.
I don’t know much about nothin - but i know that’s a recipe for corruption.
Further up the food chain at Fort Detrick is ex-Commander David Franz - the man in charge of science culture in the lead up to the Anthrax scam. His next job was a Bush-appointed bio-weapons inspector in Iraq. With Franz's science reputation enshrined as a walking disaster area/disrupter, he then landed a leadership role at Peter Daszak’s EcoHealth Alliance. So that’s a handy CV. His take on Anthrax is worth a look:
I think a lot of good has come from it. From a biological or a medical aspect, we've now five people who have died, but we've put about $6 billion in our budget into defending against bioterrorism.
But where is the evidence of the good that's come from it? I’d’ve innocently thought a deliberate release from a BSL-4 lab by a popular-scientist might be a red-flag - for a Mad-scientist culture gone maddist - not a green-light for an unprecedented funding empowerment.
For fuck’s sake, it’s time to de-escalate, regulate risky bio-defense experiments, before you cause a catastrophic pandemic! Brackets - there were lots of scientists warning exactly that - no that's not right - they were few and far between in fact - Richard Ebright, Wain-Hobson, & Yves Moreau - but they got drowned out by the One-Health show - that's a shame.
Coz with money came the addictive rush of influence - the power - to entrench it - censor/crush your opponent. But where has that left us?
Let’s at least - press pause - to discuss what you’re fating us with. I get it that you think you're very clever, but your instating a genetically engineered future that negates all our freedoms - a surveillance-system invented initially - let's not forget - to counter the very bio-terrorism - that you artificially created.