45380
From: ryan, [DNS_Address]
Subject: lyme diease...jury is still out imo...
URL: https://www.newsweek.com/pentagon-weaponized-ticks-lyme-disease-investigation-1449737
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the feedback denial is certainly not conclusive, nor is the accusation...but the possibility that this occurred is high imo...this is the kind of stuff those military asswips do... Pentagon May Have Released Weaponized Ticks That Helped Spread of Lyme Disease: Investigation Ordered Published Jul 17, 2019 at 11:39 AM EDT Updated Jul 30, 2019 at 12:10 PM EDT By Aristos Georgiou Science and Health Reporter Last week, the U.S. House of Representatives quietly passed a bill requiring the Inspector General of the Department of Defense (DoD) to conduct a review into whether the Pentagon experimented with ticks and other blood-sucking insects for use as biological weapons between 1950 and 1975. If the Inspector General finds that such experiments occurred, then, according to the bill, they must provide the House and Senate Armed Services committees with a report on the scope of the research and "whether any ticks or insects used in such experiments were released outside of any laboratory by accident or experiment design," potentially leading to the spread of diseases such as Lyme. The amendment was put forward by Rep. Chris Smith, a Republican from New Jersey, who was "inspired" by several books and articles claiming that the U.S. government had conducted research at facilities such as Fort Detrick, Maryland, and Plum Island, New York, for this purpose. However, some Lyme disease experts are warning that Smith's claims should be viewed with plenty of caution. They include Phillip Baker, Executive Director of the American Lyme Disease Foundation (ALDF), who says Smith has been "terribly misinformed" with "false and misleading information." One of the books that Smith refers to—called Bitten: The Secret History of Lyme Disease and Biological Weapons—was published earlier this year, authored by Stanford University science writer and former Lyme suffer Kris Newby. It features interviews with late Swiss-born scientist Willy Burgdorfer—the man credited with discovering the bacterial pathogen that causes Lyme disease—who once worked for the DoD as a bioweapons specialist. "Those interviews combined with access to Dr. Burgdorfer's lab files suggest that he and other bioweapons specialists stuffed ticks with pathogens to cause severe disability, disease—even death—to potential enemies," Smith said during the debate on the House floor. "With Lyme disease and other tick-borne diseases exploding in the United States—with an estimated 300,000 to 437,000 new cases diagnosed each year and 10-20 percent of all patients suffering from chronic Lyme disease—Americans have a right to know whether any of this is true," he said. "And have these experiments caused Lyme disease and other tick-borne diseases to mutate and to spread?" Smith asked. According to Smith, the investigation into the claims should attempt to address several questions: "What were the parameters of the program? Who ordered it? Was there ever any accidental release anywhere or at any time of any diseased ticks? Were any ticks released by design? Did the program contribute to the disease burden? Can any of this information help current-day researchers find a way to mitigate these diseases?" Despite the passing of the recent bill by the House, the American Lyme Disease Foundation's (ALDF) Phillip Baker says Smith's claims are unfounded. "I think that Rep. Chris Smith is terribly misinformed by the Lyme disease activists and by the false and misleading information," Baker told Newsweek. "He would be well advised to check the facts by consulting the experts on Lyme disease at the National Institutes of Health or the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention [CDC] for accurate and reliable information before proposing such legislation." In a piece for the ALDF website, Baker noted that some people claim Lyme disease was introduced into the northeastern region of the U.S. after a strain of Borrelia burgdorferi—the bacterium that causes Lyme disease—escaped from the Plum Island biological warfare facility. "However, there is ample evidence to indicate that both Ixodes ticks and B. burgdorferi were present in the U.S. well before the Plum Island facility was ever established," he wrote, adding that the center says it has never researched Lyme disease. The symptoms of what is now known as Lyme disease were potentially first described in Scotland in 1764. Recent research has indicated that the Lyme disease bacterium was present in America in pre-Columbian times, many thousands of years before Europeans arrived on the continent. Furthermore, Baker says the rationale for believing that Lyme disease was used as an agent of biowarfare is "flawed." "Note that about 95 percent of cases of Lyme disease reported to the CDC occur in 12 states," he told Newsweek. "Based on what we know concerning the pathology of Lyme disease—and we know a lot—does anyone seriously think that people living in those 12 states are any more vulnerable to an enemy attack because of the high incidence of Lyme disease than those living in the remaining areas of the U.S.? That would be 'quite a stretch' to say the least." "The main reason for considering a given pathogen for possible use as an agent of biowarfare is its ability to create terror and or havoc by causing serious incapacitating illness and/or death within a short time interval after its release," he said. "The bacterium that causes Lyme disease is not such an agent. If one were to prioritize a list of agents to be considered for use as biowarfare agents, the organisms that cause smallpox, plague, Ebola and anthrax would be at the top of the list. Only a fool would ever consider adding Borrelia burgdorferi, the bacterium that causes Lyme disease, to such a list. If it ever was given any consideration, and I have no knowledge that it ever was, it would not have been for more than a nanosecond!" This article was updated to include additional comments and information from Phillip Baker. |
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45381
From: akira, [DNS_Address]
Subject: Re: lyme diease...jury is still out imo...
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fwiw but even assuming this is 100% factual, it doesn't preclude the possibility of the bacterium being used/researched/experimented with for the purpose of bioweapon at plum island, across from CT on the Long Island sound. Maybe yes, maybe not https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plum_Island_Animal_Disease_Center Yale School of Medicine: "Ancient History of Lyme Disease in North America Revealed with Bacterial Genomes August 28, 2017 A team of researchers led by the Yale School of Public Health has found that the Lyme disease bacterium is ancient in North America, circulating silently in forests for at least 60,000 years—long before the disease was first described in Lyme, Connecticut, in 1976 and long before the arrival of humans. For the first time, the full genomes of the Lyme disease bacterium, Borrelia burgdorferi, were sequenced from deer ticks to reconstruct the history of this invading pathogen. The finding shows that the ongoing Lyme disease epidemic was not sparked by a recent introduction of the bacterium or an evolutionary change—such as a mutation that made the bacterium more readily transmissible. It is tied to the ecological transformation of much of North America. Specifically, forest fragmentation and the population explosion of deer in the last century have created optimal conditions for the spread of ticks and triggered this ongoing epidemic. Katharine Walter conducted the research while a doctoral student at Yale School of Public Health and is lead author of the study published in Nature Ecology and Evolution. “The Lyme disease bacterium has long been endemic,” she said. “But the deforestation and subsequent suburbanization of much of New England and the Midwest created conditions for deer ticks—and the Lyme disease bacterium—to thrive.” Lyme disease is the most common vector-borne disease in North America. Since it was first described in the 1970s, the disease has rapidly spread across New England and the Midwest. Reported cases of Lyme disease have more than tripled since 1995 and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention now estimate that more than 300,000 Americans fall ill each year. The team turned to genomics to reveal the bacterium’s origins. By comparing B. burgdorferi genomes collected from different areas and over a 30-year period, the team built an evolutionary tree and reconstructed the history of the pathogen’s spread. Researchers collected deer ticks, vectors of B. burgdorferi, from across New England. They focused sampling efforts in areas predicted to be sources of the epidemic—Cape Cod and areas around Long Island Sound. Over 7,000 tick were collected from these areas during the summer of 2013. To extend the spatial scope of the study, collaborators in the South, Midwest, and across Canada contributed ticks to the team. The Lyme disease bacterium has long been endemic. Katharine Walter Using a method the team previously developed to preferentially sequence bacterial DNA (and avoid sequencing only DNA from the tick), the researchers sequenced 148 B. burgdorferi genomes. Earlier studies of the evolutionary history of B. burgdorferi have relied upon short DNA markers rather than full genomes. Reading the one million letters of the full bacterial genome allowed the team to piece together a more detailed history. The team drew an updated evolutionary tree which showed that the bacterium likely originated in the northeast of the United States and spread south and west across North America to California. Birds likely transported the pathogen long distances to new regions and small mammals continued its spread. Imprinted on the bacterial genomes was also a signature of dramatic population growth. As it evolved, it seemed to have proliferated. The tree was also far older than the team had expected—at least 60,000 years old. This means that the bacterium existed in North America long before the disease was described by medicine and long before humans first arrived in North America from across the Bering Strait (about 24,000 years ago) This findings clarify that the bacterium is not a recent invader. Diverse lineages of B. burgdorferi have long existed in North America and the current Lyme disease epidemic is the result of ecological changes that have allowed deer, ticks and, finally, bacterium to invade. The explosion of deer in the twentieth century into suburban landscapes, free of wolf predators and with strict hunting restrictions, allowed deer ticks to rapidly invade throughout much of New England and the Midwest. Climate change has also contributed. Warmer winters accelerate ticks’ life cycles and allow them to survive an estimated 28 miles further north each year. Ticks expanded into suburbanized landscapes—full of animals like white- footed mice and robins, excellent hosts for B. burgdorferi. The expansion of ticks into habitats with ideal hosts allowed the bacterium to spread. Adalgisa Caccone, a lecturer at Yale in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology and a senior research scientist at the School of Public Health, and Maria Diuk-Wasser, of the Department of Ecology, Evolutionary and Environmental Biology at Columbia University, are senior authors. Giovanna Carpi, of the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, also contributed to the research." |
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