Chapter 22: Rockefellers Anthrax

Former Rockefeller University president Dr. Joshua Lederberg not only gave Iraq West Nile Virus, but "anthrax Bacillus" too! The American Type Culture Collection (ATCC) - under his watch - sent nineteen shipments of various strains of anthrax, suitable for weapons production, to Saddam Hussein in the years leading up to Desert Storm. (123)

Anthrax

ATCC

The weapons-grade anthrax used in the October 2001 attacks had an "extraordinarily high concentration of deadly spores" - "higher than any stock publicly known to be produced by other governments." "Someone with ties to the old program may be behind the attacks" speculated one writer in the New York Times. (124)

Bayer's lab in Berkeley, Cal.

In the early 1960s, Rockefeller-linked Merck manufactured anthrax vaccine, but then lost interest. (125) In 1992, it was reported that Bayer's Miles-Cutter bio-war lab in Berkeley, California - aside from the "class 3" plague - was manufacturing "class 2" viruses. Examples of "class 2" viruses are polio, rabies, Epstein Barr, Legionnaire's disease and "Bacillus anthracis" or anthrax. (126)

In October 1998, Bioport Corp. landed an exclusive $29 million contract with the Department of Defense to "manufacture, test, bottle and store the anthrax vaccine." BioPort's principal investor was Saudi businessman Fuad El-Hibri - a close friend of the bin Laden family, and a previous merger and acquisitions manager for the Rockefeller-linked Citigroup in New York. (127)

Vaccination, Diego Rivera, 1932

Notes

(123) www.healingcelebrations.com/smallpoxandanthrax.htm - See also www.senate.gov/~byrd/byrd_issues/byrd_iraqi_bioweapons/byrd_sept262002/byrd_sept262002.html

(124) William J. Broad, "Terror Anthrax Linked to Type Made by U.S.," The New York Times, December 3, 2001 - See also: www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB58 - "US anthrax attacks linked to army biological weapons plant," Patrick Martin, at www.wsws.org

(125) BioPort history www.bioport.com/default.asp

(126) Miller, Jenny, "Bayer Buys Berkeley," Z-Magazine, January 1992, p. 26

Dr. Thomas P. Monath, M.D. Dr. Thomas Monath began work with the CDC in 1968. Quickly he became involved in investigating yellow fever in Nigeria and Lassa fever in Liberia and Sierra Leone. In 1972, he led the team that first discovered the rodent reservoir of Lassa virus and, inn 1973, he began work with the CDC's programs on arbovirus infections and bubonic plague. Monath was appointed Chief of the Virology Division of the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases in 1989. There he directed research programs on vaccine development and antiviral drugs against high-hazard hemorrhagic fever viruses including Hantaan, Crimean-Congo Hemorrhagic Fever and Lassa fever. He has served on numerous national and international public health committees working to stop the spread and lower the death rate of arboviruses and tropical diseases such as Dengue fever.

Defense Secretary William Cohen receives his fifth anthrax inoculation at the Pentagon from Lt. Col. John Baxter, U.S. Air Force Medical Corps, Flight Surgeon, in this Feb. 16, 1999 file photo.

Faced with a small but vocal resistance in the ranks to anthrax vaccine shots, the Pentagon is struggling to overcome what officials call Internet-driven proliferation of myths and misinformation about the health risks of getting inoculated against the deadly biological agent. ASSOCIATED PRESS

Pentagon struggling to overcome troops' fear of vaccine
Web posted March 20, 1999 - Pentagons official Anthrax website

By Robert Burns
Associated Press

WASHINGTON -- Faced with a small but vocal resistance, the Pentagon is struggling to overcome what officials call an Internet-driven proliferation of myths and misinformation about the health risks of getting inoculated against the deadly biological agent anthrax.

At the heart of the problem: doubts among some troops that the Defense Department is telling all it knows about a vaccine that Defense Secretary William Cohen has ordered for all 2.4 million people in uniform.


Those doubts, whether reasonable or not, are spreading on Internet chat lines. ``Risking your health for something unproven,'' one man wrote this week on a newspaper-sponsored chat line, ``is almost as dumb as trusting anything the military has to say.'' Others wrote of being used as ``guinea pigs.''

Pentagon officials are fighting back with their own form of Internet ammunition, starting with a Web site titled ``Countering the Anthrax Threat,'' featuring a photograph of Cohen with his shirt sleeve rolled up, a smile on his face and an American flag in the background, receiving his vaccine shot.

The Pentagon's Web page also features a ``Fact vs. Myth'' section aimed at dispelling what officials consider misconceptions about the necessity of inoculating the troops and the health risks they face. The first fact: ``Mortality levels from a biological attack could exceed that of a nuclear explosion.''

Anthrax has never been used in combat, but the Pentagon fears Iraq, North Korea and other countries -- or terrorist groups -- might try. Anthrax is a naturally occurring bacteria found in domesticated animals; it can be produced as dry spores that, when inhaled, cause death within a few days.

Another myth, according to the Pentagon: ``The anthrax vaccine may cause sterility. Fact: The vaccination has been routinely used for the past 28 years and has not been associated with sterility. Although we cannot conduct experiments with lethal agents on the human reproductive system (for ethical reasons), there is ample evidence that it does not cause any harm or sterility.''

The myth-debunking effort has not convinced some doubters. Twenty-three sailors on the aircraft carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt have refused to receive the vaccination and have been disciplined with fines, extra duty and demotions in rank. The Roosevelt is due to leave port at Norfolk, Va., on March 26 to begin a six-month deployment in the Mediterranean and the Persian Gulf.

The Pentagon says it is not counting, but apparently 100 to 200 service members so far have refused the vaccination. This is a tiny fraction of the approximately 220,000 people who have received it.

The resisters reportedly include about three dozen Marines and about 50 Air Force members, in addition to the defiant sailors. Nine members of the Connecticut Air National Guard resigned rather than take the shot.

In a phased inoculation program announced by Cohen last May, all troops serving in the Persian Gulf and East Asia -- considered the highest-risk areas for anthrax attack -- must get the vaccination. Starting this summer, the shots will be given to all troops in units designated for early deployment to either the Gulf or Korea in the event of war. And beginning in about 2003, the rest of the military will get the shots.

Critics point to the Pentagon's checkered history of sharing facts on radiation exposure to troops in nuclear tests in the 1950s, illnesses attributed to the herbicide Agent Orange in the Vietnam War, and speculation about the root causes of unexplained illnesses among thousands of Gulf War veterans.

The Pentagon has been misleading at best and disingenuous at worst,'' says Mark S. Zaid, who was the lead civil defense attorney for Airman 1st Class Jeffrey A. Bettendorf, who refused to receive the anthrax vaccine and was discharged in early March under ``other than honorable conditions'' for his defiance.

Zaid contends that Pentagon officials have understated the risk of bad reactions to the shots and that there has been too little scientific study of the vaccine's long-term health effects on humans.

People are really scared,'' Zaid says, and some would rather end their careers than have the shots.

Pentagon officials say they are concerned by the resistance, but they do not expect it to snowball into a major rebellion.

Lt. Gen. Charles Roadman, the Air Force surgeon general, said in an interview that he is bothered by even the limited number of resisters. He says the Pentagon has ``framed the problem wrong'' and should be telling troops it's not the vaccination they should fear but the possibility of facing anthrax without it.

Roadman has received the six-shot vaccination. ``All I can do from a leadership standpoint is say, 'Look, I've got six holes in my arm where I did this. I believe this is the right thing for us to do,''' he said.