Sunday, June 12, 2011

German E Coli Contains Bubonic Plague DNA?

According to this May 21, 2011 article in Spiegel Online International:
...On Tuesday, the German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung reported that Karch [the director of the RKI's EHEC consulting laboratory at the Münster University Hospital in western Germany] had discovered that the O104:H4 bacteria responsible for the current outbreak is a so-called chimera that contains genetic materia from various E. coli bacteria. It also contains DNA sequences from plague bacteria, which makes it particularly pathogenic. There is no risk, however, that it could cause a form of plague, Karch emphasized in remarks to the newspaper....
Bubonic plague has been used in biological warfare, most recently in 1941.

According to this source:
After World War II, both the United States and the Soviet Union developed diverse means of weaponizing pneumonic plague. Experiments included various delivery methods, vacuum drying, sizing the bacteria, developing strains resistant to antibiotics, combining the bacteria with other diseases (such as diphtheria), and genetic engineering. Scientists who worked in USSR bio-weapons programs have stated that the Soviet effort was formidable and that large stocks of weaponized plague bacteria were produced. Information on many of the Soviet projects is largely unavailable. Aerosolized pneumonic plague remains the most significant threat.

Contemporary cases

...There is no plague-infected animal population in Europe or Australia.
Is the recent outbreak of E Coli in Germany a weaponized version of the bacterium or a natural mutation? I'm certainly not qualified to answer that question, but surely Germany has scientists who are able to do so.

PASTORIUS CUTTING IN WITH A REMINDER:

HAMBURG IS THE EPICENTER OF THE DEADLIEST E. COLI OUTBREAK IN MODERN HISTORY"

“It’s quite possible that there’s a crazy person out there who thinks 'I’ll kill a few people or give 10,000 people diarrhoea’. It’s a negligent mistake not to investigate in that direction.” 

For anyone who does not remember, Hamburg is the city of Mohammed Atta. And, after 9/11, it was reported that Hamburg was a home to over 1,000 "Islamic Radicals".

9 comments:

Unknown said...

That's a very interesting find AOW, considering the fact how quickly and happy Russia was, to close his market to the European Union after the outbreak.

ronmorgen said...

"There is no risk, however, that it could cause a form of plague, Karch emphasized".

Yes Mr. Karch, no risk whatsoever.

Always On Watch said...

Will,
I'm no science expert.

But I have read quite a bit about biological weapons, in part because of what happened near me in Reston, Virginia (See The Hot Zone).

I have the hinckies about this E Coli outbreak in Germany.

Always On Watch said...

Will,
You might want to do some research on Ken Alibek.

I pulled up this index by searching Ken Alibek e coli.

Always On Watch said...

From the NYT in 2001:

American scientists in the 1980's made E. coli, a common bug, more virulent by transferring a dangerous gene from a relative of the plague bacterium.

Always On Watch said...

Review of the book Biohazard (1999), written by Ken Alibek, head of the USSR's bioweapon program:

Biohazard : the chilling true story of the largest covert biological weapons program in the world, told from the inside by the man who ran it
Alibek, Ken.
Summary
Imagine a hot zone in which Ebola is being spliced--using the latest techniques of genetic engineering--with smallpox, the most infectious disease known to man. Now imagine that cocktail is meant for you.

For fifty years, while the world stood in terror of a nuclear war, Russian scientists hidden in heavily guarded secret cities refined and stockpiled a new kind of weapon of mass destruction--an invisible weapon that would strike in silence and could not be traced. It would leave hundreds of thousands dead in its wake and would continue to spread devastation long after its release. The scientists were bioweaponeers, working to perfect the tools of a biological Armageddon. They called it their Manhattan Project. It was the deadliest and darkest secret of the cold war.

What you are about to read has never before been made public. Ken Alibek began his career as a doctor wanting to save lives and ended up running the Soviet biological weapons program--a secret military empire masquerading as a pharmaceutical company. At its peak, the program employed sixty thousand people at over one hundred facilities. Seven reserve mobilization plants were on permanent standby, ready to produce hundreds of tons of plague, anthrax, smallpox, and Venezuelan equine encephalitis, to name only a few of the toxic agents bred in Soviet labs. Almost every government ministry was implicated, including the Academy of Sciences and the KGB.

Biohazard is a terrifying, fast-paced account of tests and leaks, accidents and disasters in the labs, KGB threats and assassinations. The book is full of revelations--evidence of biowarfare programs in Cuba and India, actual deployments at Stalingrad and in Afghanistan, experiments with mood-altering agents, a contingency plan to attack major American cities, and the true story behind the mysterious anthrax outbreak in Sverdlovsk. But beyond these is a twisted world of lies and mirrors, and the riveting parable of the greatest perversion of science in history.

No one knows the actual capabilities of biological weapons better than Dr. Alibek. Many of the scientists who worked with him have been lured away from low-paying Russian labs to rogue regimes and terrorist groups around the world. In our lifetime, we will most likely see a terrorist attack using biological weapons on an American city. Biohazard tells us--in chilling detail--what to expect and what we can do. Not since Arthur Koestler's Darkness at Noon has there been such a book--a report from inside the belly of the beast.

Pastorius said...

AOW,
The fact that this e coli bacteria contains plague is almost 100% confirmation that this is a terrorist act, then?

Am I right?

And, if so, it is a terrorist act that likely began AT A STREET FAIR IN HAMBURG!

Always On Watch said...

Pastorius,
The fact that this e coli bacteria contains plague is almost 100% confirmation that this is a terrorist act, then?

I am not a science major, but I would answer yes to your question.

I was hoping that Ken Alibek had issued some kind of statement, but if so, I haven't found it. Alibek has a great deal of knowledge about bioweapons.

Epaminondas said...

If this assertion is factually correct, there is ZERO CHANCE this is some Darwinian result.

ZERO CHANCE.

The only remaining question would be HOW SOPHISTICATED the lab would have to be to do this in 'seed' stock.

Once the seed bacteria was established we could all mass manufacture in some dipshit apartment in a city and walk around every green grocer, supermarket, handling fruit and veggies, and then take a stroll thru mass transit handling every rail, surface and seat, taking care to touch one our petri dishes each time.

Then wash VERY carefully and burn the clothes.