Surviving Biowar
By Cheri Seymour
January 2015
Excerpt: — “The Soviets froze Ustinov’s blood and body parts and kept the Ustinov Ebola strain alive and replicating in the Biopreparat lab called Vector. They named the strain Variant U, after Ustinov, and mass produced it in simple bio-reactors. They dried Variant U, processed it into an inhalable dust, resembling pink talcum powder, then tested the airborne weapon on animals in special explosion-test chambers. Just one to five microscopic particles of Variant U lodged in the lungs of a monkey was equal in lethality to eight thousand spores of weapons-grade anthrax. Variant U was on the verge of becoming a strategic bio-weapon, ready to be loaded into MIRV warheads, when the Soviet Union fell apart and Russian scientists left to work in other countries.”
NOTE from the author: This article is an updated version originally written in October 2000, but never published until now [2015].
Urgent U.S. defense preparations are underway to cope with the emerging threat of Ebola virus, the most recent of which occurred in West Africa and spread to the United States by volunteer healthcare workers and doctors returning home from the Ebola-infected regions of Sierra Leone, Liberia, and Guinea.
Ebola, commonly known as Hemorrhagic Fever, killed 6,331 people as of December 10, 2014, according to the World Health Organization (WHO), originally set up by the United Nations in 1948 to combat global pandemics such as polio, malaria, tuberculosis, and influenza. The Ebola virus had never been seen in West Africa before December 2013, nevertheless critics argue that WHO should have had a “pandemic preparedness plan” in effect and ready to roll long before the first outbreak in Guinea.
“Nobody knew that this disease called Ebola would be possible in such parts of Africa,” said Dr Isabelle Nuttall to BBC News in October 2014. http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-29691044 Dr. Nuttall is WHO’s Director of Global Capacities, Alert and Response, and should have done her homework on the full history of Ebola in Africa and other areas of the world before she made that statement. Ebola is an infectious disease, not airborne or contagious unless it becomes mutated, and that is the crux of the story.
CNN news reported in October 2014 that health experts are fast-tracking tests for various vaccines, and hope to have millions of experimental doses in 2015. The Ebola virus currently spreads only through direct contact with bodily fluids, but some of the nation’s top infectious disease experts worry that this deadly virus could mutate and be transmitted just by a cough or a sneeze, according to CNN. “It’s the single greatest concern I’ve had in my 40-year public health career,” said said Dr. Michael Osterholm, director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota. “I can’t imagine anything in my career – and this includes HIV — that would be more devastating to the world than a respiratory transmissible Ebola virus.”
It’s relevant to understand the history of gene-spliced, mutated micro-organisms designed for biological warfare (that predate the Internet) to understand how to survive such devastating viruses. In the early 1940’s it was nuclear fusion; in the 1980’s it was biological technology, an out-of-control Manhattan Project hemorrhaging sinuously upon the world scene like a nuclear mushroom, caught in the winds of scientific whimsy. Today much of that gene-splicing research has been officially shut down, but continues covertly in corporate laboratories around the world. Few civilians realize that Ebola is the least worrisome of the world’s bio-warfare arsenal, which might explain why the U.S. was woefully unprepared to repel the first 2014 Ebola outbreak test cases.
History of Germ Warfare:
Historically, the United States originally developed methods of induction and activation of germ warfare agents at Fort Detrick, Maryland for defensive capabilities following World War II. The Senate Select Committee on Intelligence and Senator Edward Kennedy’s Subcommittee on Health and Scientific Research held public hearings in 1977 and the CBW program at Fort Detrick was subsequently shut down.
Fast forward to 1992 when Dr. Ken Alibek arrived in the United States after the fall of the Soviet Union. In Russia, Dr. Alibek was Dr. Kanatjan Alibekov, deputy chief of research and production for the Soviet biological-weapons program at Biopreparat, a sprawling, clandestine enterprise which had research-and-production facilities across the Soviet Union. As Dr. Alibekov, Ken Alibek had thirty-two thousand scientists and staff people working under him.
When he was sent to the United States in December 1991 to observe the status of government biological weapons facilities, Alibek was astonished to learn they were rusted, outdated, and unused. Prior to this visit he had been told by the KGB that Russia was in competition with the U.S. in bio-war technology.
According to Richard Preston in his article “Annals of War – The Bioweaponeers” published in New Yorkermagazine on March 9, 1998, Alibek was head of the Stepnagorsk bioweapons facility, in what is now Kazakhstan, which was once the largest biowarfare production facility in the world. http://cryptome.info/0001/bioweap.htm
Ken Alibek is part of a scattering of biologists who came out of Russia following the breakup of the Soviet Union. Government funding for research decreased dramatically, and scientists who were working in the biowarfare program found themselves without jobs. Some of them went looking abroad. A few came to the United States or Great Britain, but most went elsewhere. “No one knows where they are,” Alibek said. “One can guess that they’ve ended up in Iraq, Syria, Libya, China, Iran, perhaps Israel, perhaps India — but no one really knows, probably not even the Russian government.”
As of year 2,000, Dr. Alibek, who resides on the east coast, said he particularly worries about lethal genetically engineered viruses, i.e., contagious, airborne organisms. In his 1999 book “Biohazard,” published by Random House, Alibek warns: “Few Americans are aware that they are living under a state of national emergency relating to weapons of mass destruction.”
Indeed, the discovery of synthetic lab-created retroviruses designed to attack the very nature of human immunity is in the hands of every major country in the world. While the stalemate continues, people go about their ordinary lives, and governments ponder who will use it first; will it be used for good or evil? It can be used to seek out and detect cancer causing viruses, or as a biological weapon.
The technology is complicated for dissemination to the general public, civilians are not educated on the subject, thus fear of the unknown and unseen creates silent terror in a population. The New York Times reported on April 24, 1998 that President Bill Clinton, after reading “The Cobra Event,” a 1997 fictional book based on scientific fact about a biological attack on New York City, immediately convened a panel of experts to brief him on preparations for biological warfare. A subsequent report suggested stockpiling vaccines, antibiotics and antidotes, and setting up mechanisms to make large quantities in a hurry.
A secret drill simulating a germ warfare attack in which a small pox hybrid virus was dropped along the Mexican-American border showed the U.S. government was unprepared to deal with such a crisis. Officials who participated in the drill soon found themselves overwhelmed by a panicked population, short of antibiotics and vaccines, hampered by antiquated quarantine laws, and unable to get trained, immunized medical personnel to the scene, the Times reported.
The technology IS scary, to be sure, and that doesn’t change the fact of its existence, however people can educate themselves on the options. Patrick Henry once said, (on the brink of the American revolution): Excerpted – “We are apt to shut our eyes against a painful truth, and listen to the song of that siren till she transforms us into beasts — For my part, whatever anguish of spirit it may cost, I am willing to know the whole truth; to know the worst, and to provide for it.”
Biology of a Recombinant Virus
Genetic engineering has brought forth cures for diseases and synthetic spray vaccines, while it paradoxically spawned deadly predator viruses that mutate at will and can jump species from a spider host to a mosquito, lizard, mouse, cat, monkey or human. The new hyper-mutant life form (virus) can even live inside a bacteria host and multiply until it explodes out of the cell and finds its way into the bloodstream. (Thousands of tiny virus cells can hide and replicate inside one bacteria cell).
Weapons-related genetic engineering, in military terms, is the creation of genetically altered viruses and bacteria in order to enhance their power as weapons. This can be done by altering an organism’s DNA, or its genetic code, which is found in every cell and in every virus particle in existence. In high schools in the United States today, students are taught how to do genetic engineering. They learn how to create new variants of (safe) bacteria which are resistant to antibiotics.
In 1990 and 1991, Russian scientists found a way to splice Venezuelan equine encephalitis (a brain virus) into the genome, or DNA, of smallpox. The result was a “recombinant chimera virus” called Veepox. In ancient Greek mythology, the chimera was a monster made of parts of different animals. Recombination means the mixing of genes from different organisms. Under a microscope, the Veepok looks like smallpox, but it isn’t. It is a new form of life.
Understanding the biology of a deadly Level-4 (90% fatality) virus, how it was conceived, and by whom, is the first step in combating the effects of biological warfare. The books “The Hot Zone” and “The Cobra Event ” by Richard Preston, an MIT and American Institute of Physics award winning science writer, provide clear scientific data on Level-4 viral outbreaks in the U.S. and Africa, and give valuable information on bio-hazard protection against these microorganisms.
The book, “Emerging Viruses,” by Dr. Leonard Horowitz, a Harvard graduate with a master of arts degree in health education and a master of public health degree in behavioral science, suggests that the Ebola virus has also become a biological weapon.
Spray Vaccines for Anthrax & Plague
The biotechnology revolution was launched when Dr. Joshua Lederberg, a professor at Rockefeller University, won the Nobel Prize in 1946 for discovering that bacteria can swap genes with each other. By 1970 huge bio programs, administered by the Rockefeller Foundation in cooperation with the CIA, provided experimental vaccines to millions of recipients worldwide. Subsequently, Dr. Lederberg became advisor to the government on biological weapons and the potential for bio-terrorism.
Fifteen years ago, Rockefeller University in cooperation with SIGA Pharmaceuticals developed a revolutionary nasal spray antidote for military defense applications. The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) funded the research under the umbrella of the Department of Defense.
The nasal spray, called a “mucosal vaccine,” was the latest breakthrough in vaccine technology. It is a rapidly deployable defense against biological warfare agents such as anthrax and plague, and can be administered by a soldier, civilian, or even a child. No needles or shots are necessary. This genetically engineered commensal delivers an antigen (stimulates the production of antibodies) from a variety of pathogens (cause of disease), viral or bacterial, to surfaces in the mouth, nasal passages, gastrointestinal and genital tracts. By combining a specific antigen with specific commensals (harmless bacteria that naturally inhabit the body’s mucosal surfaces), vaccines or other neutralizing agents are rapidly produced. It is not known, when, if ever, this spray vaccine will be
marketed to the general population, but someone stands to make $billions, akin to a biological Bill Gates, if a large-scale bio-war outbreak occurs in the United States.
Quarantine Trials
A telling article by World Health Organizatioin [WHO] consultants in March 1970 presciently warned of grave psychological consequences if a biological pandemic occurred in the U.S.: “The response to a chemical or biological attack may require precautionary or other measures on such a scale that extraordinary means of social control will have to be introduced, and these may remain in force long after the need for them has passed. Thus an attack may lead to social changes out of all proportion to the actual damage done.”
The 1994 book, “The Hot Zone” by Richard Preston unwittingly corroborates the WHO consultants’ prediction of “extraordinary means of social control.” During the 1976 Ebola outbreak in Kinshasa, the World Health Organization and public officials sent the Army in to enforce quarantines; roadblocks were set up, hospital staff were quarantined inside the hospital, planes and boats were not allowed in or out, communications were cut off, and anyone trying to leave the city was shot.
Ebola: A Russian Bio-Weapon
On yet another continent, in April 1988, Dr. Nikolai Ustinov, a forty-four year old scientist at a virology-research facility in Western Siberia pricked his finger with a needle and contracted the Ebola virus. He had been studying its potential as a bio-weapon that could be loaded into special biological warheads on the MIRV missiles that were aimed at the United States. At the time, the Soviet missile warheads were designed for strategic genetically engineered strains of smallpox virus, anthrax, and Black death which was resistant to antibiotics.
The deputy chief at the Biopreparat facility, Dr. Kanatjan Alibekov (Ken Alibek), attempted to obtain the special immune serum from the Ministry of Defense, but bureaucratic delays prevented its arrival in Siberia until it was too late. After moving to the United States in 1992, Alibek told American officials the Ebola strain had been obtained by Soviet intelligence, but he didn’t know where it came from, maybe Marburg, Germany, he said.
The Soviets froze Ustinov’s blood and body parts and kept the Ustinov Ebola strain alive and replicating in the Biopreparat lab called Vector. They named the strain Variant U, after Ustinov, and mass produced it in simple bio-reactors. They dried Variant U, processed it into an inhalable dust, resembling pink talcum powder, then tested the airborne weapon on animals in special explosion-test chambers. Just one to five microscopic particles of Variant U lodged in the lungs of a monkey was equal in lethality
to eight thousand spores of weapons-grade anthrax.
Variant U was on the verge of becoming a strategic bio-weapon, ready to be loaded into MIRV warheads, when the Soviet Union fell apart and Russian scientists left to work in other countries.
Hantavirus in Russia?
In the New Yorker magazine article entitled, “Annals of War – The Bioweaponeers,” by Richard Preston, Alibek discussed accidental contamination of the soil outside a bio-factory at Omutninsk. Wild rodents living in the woods outside the factory had become chronically infected with the Schu-4 military strain of tularemia, a bacterium that causes a type of pneumonia, which was being developed in the plant. It was a hot, lethal strain that came from the United States: an American biological weapon that the Soviets had managed to obtain. The mutant bacteria had “jumped species,” from its natural host to rodents. People catch tularemia easily from rodents, noted Preston.http://cryptome.info/0001/bioweap.htm
In April 1998, health officials began monitoring mice populations near a government research facility in Colorado Springs in the United States. The Associated Press reported a 17-year-old boy who lived on a ranch west of Colorado Springs, died on April 18th of Hantavirus. The press described Hantavirus as “a rare pneumonia-like disease [which] is contracted by ingesting airborne dust particles of the feces, urine or saliva of tiny deer mice.”
Aged: Targets of Bio-War
The world’s most serious known bio-weapon outbreak occurred in the Ural Mountains east of Moscow at Yekaterinburg. In April 1979, the military microbiology lab there known as Compound 19, emitted a cloud of human inhalation anthrax spores that spread downwind killing 68 people and contaminating livestock and food sources. A subsequent study from Harvard University, based on research at the scene, noted the absence of any victims under the age of 24. In February 1998, the Washington Post reported that a news conference in Moscow revealed the 1979 leak did not release anthrax, but some kind of “new biological weapon” that was designed to target middle-aged men.
Bio-Terrorism Comes in Many Forms
Establishing the truth about U.S., Iraqi, or Russian biological weapons programs is ambiguous because research on defensive means, such as vaccines, and on offensive weapons involves identical equipment. If a scientist is developing a defensive vaccine, he must test it against a virulent agent. And even small quantities of these virulent organisms can be grown to significant quantities in a few weeks and moved around the country in portable bio-reactors.
Bio-terrorism comes in many forms: A hantavirus leak into the general population from a secret bio-research facility; a super-mutant antibiotic-resistant staphylococcus found in hospitals; contaminated experimental vaccines injected into Gulf War soldiers; genocide in Africa; pharmaceutical profiteers creating retroviruses, then making millions on miracle cures and vaccines; a terrorist suitcase left in a New York subway; military bio-quarantine containments and social controls; and last but not least, the threat of biological warfare.
Remedies
It is likely the 21st Century will be called the Biological Age. The children of the third millennium face an invisible challenge, a new life form created in laboratories by scientists standing on the edge of existence, shaking their fists at Heaven. As ancient man survived predator dinosaurs with his wits and the tools at hand, so have Americans emerged from the Nuclear Age unscathed. Perhaps with the demise of T- Rex, man felt compelled to create his own deadly challenges through technology. The most deadly discovery, genetically engineered viruses, are above all subject to natural law, because they are the most fundamental and fragile of all life forms.
The deaths of over 6,000 Ebola victims in 2014 may be a harbinger of future U.S. vulnerability. Education is the only defense against these lethal viruses. Keep in mind that even the most sophisticated predator-virus DNA material degenerates and falls apart when exposed to sunlight (ultra-violet rays). Viruses like dry, “dead air” (enclosed air spaces), and dust and darkness. They have difficulty surviving exposure to moisture, sunlight and fresh air. They can be eradicated from any contaminated area with simple household bleach, and they must enter the body through injections, open cuts, eyelids, lips, or mucous membranes, all of which can be covered or protected with readily available bio-protective gear, most of which is commonly used in hospitals.
Virus-proof surgical masks, eye goggles, face shields, surgical gloves, scrub suits, plastic caps, and much more can be purchased at most medical supply stores. Doctors and dentists use them daily. *See list at bottom of this article.
Protective Gear
In his book “The Hot Zone,” Richard Preston describes in detailed layman’s terms the equipment and procedures used by the USAMRIID bio-hazard team from Fort Detrick to decontaminate the Reston Primate Quarantine Unit during an Ebola virus outbreak in 1989. The Reston “deconn” was a field operation, conducted entirely outside a contained Level-4 bio-lab. Ebola is considered a Level-4 (90% fatality) “hot” agent, which can be inhaled into the lungs when exposed at close range to coughing or sneezing droplets.
Other known field operations include an expedition by Ft. Detrick scientists into the Rift Valley in Africa to locate the suspected source of Ebola virus in remote Kitum Cave, Mount Elgin. The scientists camped outside the cave and used field bio-protective equipment to enter the cave and take samples from rocks, animals and insects. Ebola was not found in the cave, or anywhere else in the natural environment. Nevertheless, the equipment used provides valuable information to those who are interested.
The equipment worn at Kitum Cave in 1988 included orange colored “Racal” bio-suits, which are positive pressure space suits with battery powered air supplies; used primarily at that time by Ft. Detrick scientists in field work with extreme bio-hazardous airborne viruses. The suit was fully portable, with a self-contained breathing apparatus. Military gas masks with twin-purple virus filters fitted over hoods were used to enter the cave.
The military bio-hazard operation in Reston, Virginia in 1989 included much of the stockpiled gear used at Kitum Cave. In this instance, bio-protective gear used to enter the Ebola contaminated monkey house included light-weight Racal suits, battery packs, rubber gloves (over surgical gloves), surgical scrub suits (under bio-suits), flashlights, blunt scissors, plastic bottles, bio-hazard bags, and most importantly “hand-pumped garden sprayers for spraying bleach” on bio-suits and objects that needed to be “deconned” [decontaminated] as they exited the monkey house.
The procedure went as follows: The team put on surgical scrub suits, then entered a storage room used for a staging area inside the monkey building. The suits were orange field biological Racal suits, commonly used with airborne biological agents. The pressurized suit has a clear, soft plastic bubble for a helmut. Air pressure was supplied by an electric motor that sucks air from the outside and passes it through “virus filters,” then injects it into the suit. This keeps the suit under positive pressure so that any airborne virus particles will have a hard time flowing into it. It protects the entire body from virus, surrounding the body with super-filtered air.
Next the rubber gloves were put on and taped with military sticky tape to the sleeves of the suits. On their feet, they wore sneakers, and over the sneakers they pulled bright yellow rubber boots. The support team taped the boots to the legs of the suits to make an airtight seal above the ankle. The electric blower was switched on and the suits puffed up. The military brown sticky tape was used during the operation to tape shut any rips that occurred in the suit. This prevented the suits from losing pressure and getting contaminated inside.
The rule inside the monkey house storage room airlock was that both doors, the far door and the near door, could never be opened at the same time. This to prevent a back-flow of contaminated air from flowing into the staging room. The batteries that pressurized the suit had a life span of 6 hours. When the team emerged from the monkey house into the airlock, the support team sprayed the team members for five minutes with bleach. The suits were placed in bags and the bags sprayed with bleach. Everything that went down the drain had bleach poured after it to prevent Ebola from getting into the sewer system.
In 1993 author Richard Preston trekked up Mt. Elgin to Kitum Cave in deepest Africa. The following description of “field” procedures and equipment he used in this remote area is outstanding in value to the reader and entirely unique in detail.
It reads as follows: (Excerpted) “I unzipped my backpack and withdrew my gear and laid it on the rocks. I had assembled the components of a Level-4 field biological space suit. It was not a pressurized suit – not an orange Racal suit. It was a neutral- pressure whole-body suit with a hood and full-face respirator. The suit itself was made of Tyvek, a slick, white fabric that is resistant to moisture and dust.
“I laid out a pair of green rubber gauntlet gloves, yellow rubber boots, a black mask with twin purple [virus] filters. The mask was a silicone rubber North respirator mask with a Lexan faceplate, for good visibility, and the purple filters were the kind that stop a virus. I placed a roll of sticky tape on the rocks. A plastic shower cap – ten cents apiece at Woolworths. Flashlight, head lamp —
“I stepped into the suit, feet first, pulled it up to my armpits, and fed my arms into the sleeves. I stretched the shower cap over my head, then pulled the hood of the suit down over the shower cap. I zipped up the front of the suit, from crotch to chin. I taped the front zipper of the suit, taped the wrists of my gloves to the suit, taped the cuffs of the boots to the suit —” Preston then attached an electric miners lamp on his head.
When Preston exited the cave, he deconned himself as follows: He took a plastic laundry tub and filled it with water from a nearby waterfall. Then he poured a gallon of bleach into it. Then he stepped into the tub, placed his gloved hands into the liquid and scooped it over his capped head and face mask.
Using a toilet brush, he scrubbed his boots and legs. Then he dropped his flashlight and headlamp into the bleach mixture, took off his face-mask and dunked it along with the purple virus filters. Then he peeled off his green gauntlet gloves, then stepped out of his Tyvek suit, peeling the sticky tape off as he went. The whole suit, together with the yellow boots, went into the bleach. “It was a stew of bio-hazard gear,” he said. The suit and gear was double-bagged, washed outside with bleach, then bagged again, then bleached again.
An incredible feat by a courageous researcher, yet no less complicated than deep sea diving or sledding the Alaskan wilderness in the dead of winter. Both require special protective clothing and a knowledge of the elements. Few would enter the wilderness or the sea unprepared. Today’s microbes are an inescapable element, the most basic of all creation, that will challenge us in the coming years, just as computer technology challenged us over a decade ago. No one is helpless in the wake of emerging viruses, education is the key. A quote by Louis Pasteur sums it up best: “Chance favors the prepared mind.”
Government Warning
On April 22, 1998, author Richard Preston went before the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Technology, Terrorism and Government Information and the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence regarding chemical and biological weapons threats to America. He presciently underlined the need for the United States to stockpile the smallpox vaccine, noting there was currently only 7 million usable doses on hand. “Experts believe that in any terrorist release of smallpox, even a small one, the virus is so contagious that it would be necessary to vaccinate at least 20 to 30 million Americans to stop the outbreak,” said Preston.
Preston warned the Senate that the smallpox virus would be easy to make in large quantities by a terrorist. “I’m not going to say exactly how to do it, but basically you can grow it in glass bottles the size of wine bottles. A room full of these bottles constitutes a national biological-weapons laboratory. Virtually any nation can have such a facility, and hide it easily. All you need is a master seed strain and a few Ph.D. scientists and perhaps $200,000 worth of equipment, which can be bought on the open market. Have scientists left Russia bringing their expertise and master seed strains of smallpox with them, or other bio-weapon seed strains?” he asked the Senate.
Government Preparedness -Year 2000
On February 4-5, 2000 the Western Regional Bio-Terrorism Conference was held at the La Jolla Marriott Hotel in San Diego, California. The conference was sponsored by the County of San Diego, University of California – San Diego School of Medicine, and John Hopkins Center for Civilian BioDefense Studies in association with Science Applications International Corporation.
The conference cost $125 per person, per day and was open to the general public, though it was not advertised to the public until opening day, and then no location was disclosed. Rooms A through E were devoted to the conference with an adjacent Exhibits Hall. Some of the materials displayed on exhibit tables originated from the following sources:
- Center for Civilian BioDefense – Johns Hopkins University.
- BioDefense Quarterly – Publication of Johns Hopkins University.
- Center for COMMUNITY Disaster Preparedness & Response.
- Amateur Rescuer – Disaster Preparedness & Response Magazine.
- Manual on Western Regional Conference on Bio-Terrorism (161-pages).
- Bio-Terrorism Participant Listing – 19-pages of names, title, city, specialty, who participated in the conference.
- C.E.R.T. – Community Emergency Response Team – advertised as “regular” folks that had been trained by the local fire department to assist them, the police and other disaster relief crews in time of disaster.
A professional audio-tape package enclosed within a bound folder, along with the conference manual, was sold at a table outside the auditorium. The audio-tapes for the entire conference could be purchased from Castle Communications. The entire collection cost $99.00 + tax + $10. S&H.
An enthusiastic fireman who was manning a booth inside the Exhibit Hall noted that bio-terrorism is “sweeping the nation like a firestorm.” He said everyone in government, first responders, and military were urgently training for bio-defense.
Across the aisle an empty booth displayed individual, airtight, clear bio-tents where sick civilians would be placed under field conditions in the event of a large biological outbreak. These tents would be used to quarantine civilians after the hospitals were filled to capacity and infected people were sent to containment areas. It didn’t require much imagination to envision an entire stadium filled with civilians inside bio-tents being treated by doctors and nurses wearing bio space-suits.
The conversation with the fireman went as follows:
CS: “What type of bio-equipment is your department using?”
Fireman: “The standard Tyvek Bio-Suits and Chem-Bio respirators.”
CS: “Do the respirators have twin-purple virus filters?”
Fireman: “I haven’t heard of that.”
CS: “Thousands of virus cells can live inside one bacteria cell. A bacteria filter won’t keep a virus out. What kind of containment procedures have you developed for a Hot Zone?”
Fireman: “Well, we [the firemen] won’t actually be in the front line, in the Hot Zone. The first line of defense will be handled by the Military.”
CS: “Oh, so the sick and dying civilians will be passed on to the first responders by the Military?”
Fireman: “Yes, they will handle the containment.”
CS: “Have you ever heard of an actual containment situation?”
Fireman: “No.”
CS: “Well, during the 1976 Ebola outbreak in Kinshasa, Africa, the military contained an entire city. The hospitals, doctors, nurses, were quarantined. No ships, no planes, no person was allowed in or out. Anyone attempting to leave the area was shot. The phone lines were shut down – no calls in or out.”
Fireman: “What’s your point?”
CS: “I plan to write to the participants at this conference, asking for names of manufacturers of bio-suits and respirators with virus-filters. Most Israeli citizens were provided respirators during the Persian Gulf War. That’s a pretty good deterrent against a bio-terrorism outbreak — in Israel.”
Fireman: “Well, that would put a burden on U.S. manufacturers of bio-suits and respirators; currently they’re backlogged and trying to keep up with government orders.”
CS: “Well, then they need to upgrade their production. If the equipment costs $3,000 now, it could cost $20,000 after the first outbreak.”
Fireman: Nodding. “Yeah someone stands to make a lot of money after an outbreak.”
CS: “Have any of the speakers at this conference addressed Civilian Preparedness, i.e., civilian bio-suits and respirators?”
Fireman: Hesitating, as if a lightbulb had been turned on in his mind. “Well, no.”
CS: “I’ll bet all the participants at this conference have bio-suits and respirators, don’t they?”
The fireman chose not to respond.
Anthrax Vaccines Unreliable
On March 9, 2000, Rep. Christopher Shays released a report calling for suspension of the anthrax mandatory immunization program for U.S. troops. He had found the DOD Anthrax Vaccine Immunization Program to be unsustainable in its present form due to “unreliable vaccine supply, uncertain program safety and unproven efficacy against the validated threat.”
If the U.S. government is unable to produce a reliable anthrax vaccine for military troops, where does that leave American civilians? Why has no one publicly outlined exactly what would be done with infected civilians in the event of a large-scale, contagious outbreak? Currently experts advise civilians to “go to a hospital” if they are in a hot zone, or effected area.
Only those who survive the disease can provide antibodies to make vaccines and it would take years to develop enough vaccine to treat large populations. These designer viruses can be genetically altered at will, thus it would be pointless to manufacture vaccines for every virus capability. Only a vaccine that kills all viruses would be effective in today’s biological arsenal, and that hasn’t been developed yet.
So What is the Answer?
The immediate answer is hiding in plain view. Most of the television coverage during the 2014 Ebola scare depicted hazmat teams running around in bio-suits while TV anchormen and women reported in the forefront wearing ordinary street clothing. One wonders if they were thinking, “What am I doing here?”
To date, the only segment of the population which has no access to emergency biohazard equipment are civilians. First responders, firemen, police, hospitals, military, and even Congress have direct access to bio-suits and respirators. Yet, civilians are deprived of this same protection, despite the fact it is their tax money that is paying for this gear.
Bio-experts say it’s ridiculous to purchase gas masks. They’re right. Common gas masks do not protect against viruses, they protect against gas and chemicals, and most surplus stores sell antiquated and leaky gas masks anyway. Nevertheless, the experts could suggest other methods of protection, even if it is minimal, but they refuse to educate civilians on how to survive a bio attack before it occurs, or where to buy protective equipment, because it might cause a panic.
On October 25, 2000, the Center for Disease Control [CDC] published a report on the Internet entitled “Interim Recommendations for the Selection and Use of Protective Clothing and Respirators Against Biological Agents.” The web address is:
The recommendations were technical in nature, suggesting the use of half-mask or full facepiece air-purifying respirators with particulate filter efficiencies ranging from N95 to P100 as a minimum level of protection.
For maximum protection against a lethal unidentified bio-weapon the CDC recommended the following: Emergency first responders should use “self-contained breathing apparatus (SCBA) respirators with a full facepiece operated in the most protective, positive pressure (pressure demand) mode during emergency responses. This type of SCBA provides the highest level of protection against airborne hazards when properly fitted to the user’s face and properly used. National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) respirator policies state that, under those conditions, SCBA reduces the user’s exposure to the hazard by a factor of at least 10,000.”
Manufacturers of NIOSH-approved [certified], pressure-demand SCBA respirators and Level A protective suits sell only to first responders, military, and government agencies. This equipment is not available to civilians, but OSHA-approved mine safety respirators [P-100 particulate] might be.
Today the U.S. government is mindful of terrorists using biological weapons of mass destruction against the U.S. population. Yet, to date, it has not developed defensive measures for civilians, such as mass-produced protective equipment, or even development of immune boosting technology.
Dr. Ken Alibek, in his 1999 book “Biohazard,” admits there is little current protection against today’s emerging viruses, but points out that over the past two decades, scientists have vastly expanded their understanding of how the immune system works. “This knowledge can be exploited to provide a new form of medical defense against biological agents,” he wrote.
Essentially, Alibek promotes the notion that immunology is the ultimate weapon against biowarfare, particularly non-specific immunity in which cytokine molecules stimulate the secretion of antibodies and prompt the growth and activation of a host of immune cells. Most cannot kill viruses or bacteria on their own, but they have been found to boost the immune system and enable patients to respond to previously unproductive treatments. They have also been shown to increase the effectiveness of T-lymphocytes including natural killer cells which destroy pathogenic bacteria and cells invaded by viruses.
Alibek concluded, “Nothing will replace the long-term protection provided by vaccines against specific diseases, but boosting the non-specific immune system may offer at least temporary protection from pathogenic agents and possibly go even further. If administered in the crucial first hours after an attack – when authorities are still trying to identify which agent was used and organize a medical response – such a booster could help contain the crisis. It is a long shot, but everything I know about biological weapons tells me that this is far more promising than attempts to rig office buildings and public monuments with detection devices or to stockpile vaccines.” [pp 290].
The notion of immunotherapy was never really a focus of either the research community or big pharma until about a decade ago, when the U.S. as well as the public health agency of Canada finally realized the importance of developing antibodies against the Ebola virus and thus funded a few research projects leading to “monoclonal antibodies.” In 2014, ZMapp serum was made available for two health-care workers who were infected with Ebola during their work in Liberia. Of the few doses available, the two health-care workers from the U.S. were infused with ZMapp serum and both survived. http://journal.frontiersin.org/Journal/10.3389/fimmu.2014.00562/full
Nevertheless, the answer for civilians is clear: they’re essentially on their own for the time being. It’s time to get bio-educated and improvise until the government gets its act together.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency [FEMA] published a preparedness manual on the Internet entitled: “Your Family Disaster Supplies Kit” which offers details for assembling a disaster supplies kit, including the six basics: “water, food, first aid supplies, clothing and bedding, tools and emergency supplies and special items.” The manual advises people to “keep the items that you would most likely need during an evacuation in an easy-to-carry container.”
But the manual does not address biological warfare preparations. Few publications do; bio-gear and procedures had not been tested under actual emergency conditions until the recent Ebola scare in 2014. Thus civilians can look to the medical community for improvisation on bio-protective gear in lieu of bio-suits and virus-proof respirators. Most medical supply stores, some pharmacies, hardware stores, and even Walmart carry the following gear which can be worn while standing in long lines to receive treatment during a bio outbreak.
It is important to keep in mind that some weaponized or powdered anthrax spores that have been reduced to five-microns or smaller can pass through a surgical mask. Some experts are suggesting the use of mine safety respirators [P-100 particulate] that reportedly can be purchased by civilians at some hardware stores or through an industrial supplier.
- Shower caps. Can also be purchased in bulk at beauty supply stores.
- Disposable vinyl surgical gloves. Quantity of 100 can be purchased in box.
- Latex dishwashing gloves to be worn over surgical gloves.
- Two-piece hooded vinyl rain-suits.
- Rain boots.
- Surgical scrub-suits to be worn under rain-suits.
- Industrial protective eye-goggles and face shields, as worn by dentists.
- Virus-proof, germ-filter surgical masks. Bulk quantity. [As worn by surgeons]
- Mine safety respirator – P100 particulate.
- Bleach – lots of it.
- Common garden sprayer to decon gear and environment with bleach or disinfectant.
- Large container to hold bleach for decontamination of gear before entering house. To stand in while spraying bleach from head to toe before removing gear and placing in container.
- Large plastic trash bags for decontaminated throw-away gear.
- Military sticky-tape to wrap around wrists, ankles, to seal all openings around rain-suit and boots.
- Ultra-violet light to decontaminate rooms in house.
- Household disinfectants, anti-bacterial cleaners for gear that can’t be deconned by bleach.
- Antibiotics such as doxycycline, amoxicillin, or cipro, if they can be obtained.
- Three-week supply of water and food.
- Other improvisation as necessary.
Perhaps a quote published in Richard Preston’s “Annals of War – The Bioweaponeers” [New Yorker magazine – March 9, 1998] by Dr. Peter Jahrling, chief scientist at USAMRIID (Ft. Detrick), offers some hope — “I don’t think anyone could knock out New York City with a genetically engineered bug, but someone might be able to knock out a few people and thereby make an incredible panic.”
Cheri Seymour is the author of The Last Circle: Danny Casolaro’s Investigation into the Octopus and the PROMIS Software Scandal
