Quite the Mistake - Live Anthrax shipped by Army over 11 years to 194 labs in every state, 9 countries, 3 territories
This article is what I was treated to today on what to me is usually Recipe Wednesday, when I scour newspapers mostly for their Wednesday Food Sections. Today I found a most disconcerting Recipe For Disaster which has left me clammy and slack jawed for several hours. How is it possible for something like this to occur for over eleven years without detection by someone somewhere?
The Army mistakenly ships live anthrax to Hampton Roads , GAO report shows
Are we to take comfort in the word "mistakenly"? Like, oh, well at least they didn't do it on purpose ?
The Army has said samples of anthrax that were supposed to have been inactivated were sent to 194 federal, academic and commercial laboratories in every state, nine countries and three U.S. territories. There were a total of 575 shipments of live anthrax delivered to labs from 2004 through 2015, although the Army says no illnesses were reported.
Take a look at that distribution map. 11 years before one lab in Maryland noticed live spores? Where was the internal testing from the originating source? How about the internal testing at every single recipient? How is this even possible? No really, how is this possible?
Comments
Holy God! I wonder if it
Holy God! I wonder if it goes even further back in time? I hope the part about no illnesses is true, of course, but I wonder how live anthrax goes hither and yon and no one gets sick? Maybe people got sick and reports of it were scrubbed...this is a CF of epic proportions.
Betcha they've been screwing up longer than that
Anyone remember the anthrax attacks of 2001, and how everyone was "so sure" they could "only" have come from one place?
Yeah.
There is no justice. There can be no peace.
I was going to say, THE ANTHRAX ATTACKS
Late 2001 was a very odd time.
Actually, it's been odd ever since.
Gëzuar!!
from a reasonably stable genius.
I remember well; happened to be at a briefing
on the Hill in a conference room in Hart SOB that had slight but possible exposure to anthrax through air ducts. Attendees were later offered free doses of Cipro.
Date: Oct. 17, 2001
(Ironic?) Title of this briefing: U.S. Biowarfare Defense: A Cost-Effective Strategy to Create Highly Efficacious Strategic Reserves of Therapeutics and Vaccines
"It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society." --Jiddu Krishnamurti
I didn't know you worked on the Hill.
We may have even met in passing; I was doing a lot of lobbying in the early halcyon days of Obama's presidency.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
I didn't work on the Hill; I was a lowly contractor and sub-
contractor. That work took me all over DC, various agencies, and the Hill. For that particular Capitol Hill briefing, I worked with the outfit that summarized the proceedings.
"It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society." --Jiddu Krishnamurti
Or were you gone by then?
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
Left just before start of Bush II's 2nd term
The city had become a visibly armed camp (bad enough hearing choppers in the wee hours delivering wounded from our Iraq misadventures to Walter Reed under cover of darkness). Nearest Metro stop had armed guards. Walls were going up around fed facilities. Unmarked police cars multiplied by the day. Flyovers increased. A mood of fear and intolerance for dissent pervaded. Didn't want child still at home growing up thinking that was normal. Moved far from the belly of the beast to a verdant rural valley.
"It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society." --Jiddu Krishnamurti
How wonderful!
Good choice. I made a similar one last year.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
Where did you go? We went to VT but a decade later had
to leave for family health issues related to the extreme climate. Now in the Willamette Valley and content here. Many politically compatible folks.
"It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society." --Jiddu Krishnamurti
I came home to Gainesville, FL.
I lived here as a teenager. It's still a good place to live. But you've found a better one--Oregon was next on our list. It's just that it was very far away from everybody we knew, a place none of us had ever been.
We may, if money and circumstances allow, eventually get a place in OR, because their right-to-death laws are very helpful for us, as are their medical marijuana laws (I know, what a weird reason to move somewhere, right?)
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
Not weird reasons, depending on your situation
OR was the #1 relocation destination in the US last year, driven heavily, but not exclusively, by Portland. Retirees from colder climates are flowing in; a lot of movement north from parched CA as well. For us, the idea of a cross-country move turned out to be harder than the actuality.
Family, friends, and familiarity also are good reasons to stay or move. Best wishes with wherever life takes you. Must say that I kinda wish we'd made it to OR sooner.
"It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society." --Jiddu Krishnamurti
I had to hand-copy this one
I had to hand-copy this one part from some text below a picture from the OP's link, but I think it's accurate:
http://pilotonline.com/news/military/local/the-army-mistakenly-shipped-l...
In other words, they apparently have nothing that can reliably kill those live batches, presumably including those sent out and labelled as 'inactivated'.
Also, from the main article:
So unkillable and deadly pathogens are sent all over America by the Army sworn to defend it over at least an eleven or twelve-year period? Why the heck are these even around for people to play with? I'll bet it's less searching for treatments than searching for appalling biological weapons to loose upon the world in war-crimes, considering what's already been and being done.
Corporate interests/defenders always accuse others of what they do themselves...
Psychopathy is not a political position, whether labeled 'conservatism', 'centrism' or 'left'.
A tin labeled 'coffee' may be a can of worms or pathology identified by a lack of empathy/willingness to harm others to achieve personal desires.
What I remember most about that was
how they hounded that poor scientist (Bruce Edwards Ivins at Fort Detrick in Maryland) until he finally killed himself.
Glenn Greenwald covered it quite extensively and really took up that poor man's cause.
"When we remember we are all mad, the mysteries disappear and life stands explained." - Mark Twain
Now next time they need to stage anthrax attacks
they will be able to plausibly claim not to know exactly where it came from. How convenient.
Since anthrax bacillus sporulates it's easy to store
and probably easy to ship: spores need growth medium to come to life, I can't recall the query lines from shipping biological materials. I was usually shipping DNA versions on a plasmid to grow in lab bacteria, but that was for one of the two pootie retroviruses. The one I worked with, an FIV variant, was most similar to HIV. I shall be visited tomorrow, never did this while in the lab, but I could have dripped the DNA version into an envelope with directions to receiver on where and what bacterial strains would grow it. So easy. There are many humans with ethics out there. Nice people.
Hey! my dear friends or soon-to-be's, JtC could use the donations to keep this site functioning for those of us who can still see the life preserver or flotsam in the water.
Check this out.
The relevant part's at 1:55
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p1x-fMPyuAM]
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
Shipping biologicals all around is what has me freaked.
Anthrax itself not so much. Anthrax is pretty much everywhere, and with the condition of our feedlot industries I'm amazed there haven't been tons of outbreaks. Robin Cook even wrote a medical thriller on how easy it'd be to weaponize and disseminate anthrax.
What scares me more is some of the super plagues (sounds tinfoil hatty, but y'know they're doin' it) they're creating. Nothing scares me more than a truck loaded with Captain Trips gets t-boned by a semi running a red light.
There is no such thing as TMI. It can always be held in reserve for extortion.
It reminds me of the lost nukes
The Cold War's Missing Atom Bombs
The political revolution continues
What is this, a threat?
Interesting timing for letting the proles know.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
After I read about Guy Sims Fitch
on Joe's Evening Blues yesterday, I don't believe in much anymore and might just stop reading. Anyhow, we die with or without Anthrax and with or without nukes. So, why bother?
Meet Guy Sims Fitch, a Fake Writer Invented by the US Government
And aren't we back in cold war days? Or may be in "winless war days" of
Killing People, Breaking Things, and America’s Winless Wars - Nick Turse and Tom Engelhardt, September 28, 2016
Anthrax? That's just a footnote.
Ah, what happened to Scott Ritter?
AT FORUM HELD IN BALTIMORE ON AUG. 22 (me:that was in 2002) - Scott Ritter, former Marine and UN Weapons Inspector in Iraq, Makes Case Against War
heh...
PBS Frontline Interview with Scott Ritter:
heh, heh
The Meeting That Never Was: One UN Weapons Inspector’s Effort to Educate Hillary Before Her Iraq Vote - 02/29/2016 04:37 pm ET
Oh well.
heh,heh,heh
and he got into an Assange-like mess over sexual misconduct with minors etc. Sounds familiar, what else is new?
Edward Snowden, My Book with Scott Ritter, and the Art of Crushing the Messenger to Crush the Message
You really think I should read all that stuff?
I go by the "Less is More" motto. I think the truth news are always short.
https://www.euronews.com/live
Well, modern-day journalists do a lot of things that would make
Ed Murrow blush, too.
I'd take him back in a hot second over what we've got now. (Though I'm glad to know about Guy Fitch.)
People on the left tend to think that deflating notions of the "good old days" is automatically a progressive, maybe even a revolutionary, thing to do. But I'd be careful, especially right now, with people who deflate notions of the "good old days;" they may be trying to enforce a notion of political and economic inevitability. One of the main ways they do that is to wipe out historical difference--it's always been this way, this is just how the world is is a very useful statement to them, because then no pesky dissenters will imagine that change is possible (if it's never been any different before, what are the chances it will ever be any different in the future?) They buttress the idea that there never was anything good to look back to by revealing what was bad, and saying, triumphantly, See? Your heroes are a lie. No one with any ethics ever had power. This is just the way things are. In fact, ethics themselves are a pretty fantasy conjured up by people like you. I'm in favor of being honest about heroes, and their flaws, but not at all OK with the leap to See? Things have always sucked. Nothing exists but the suck. My way of trying to be truthful and not give in to their totalizing BS, which is, itself, propaganda of the highest order, is to attend to historical difference. Did Ed Murrow serve some interests which were wrong? Yes. Does his life-work, overall, tend toward the good? Yes. Most importantly, was his kind of journalism something that absolutely could not exist today, and is that a loss? Yes, and yes.
It's way easier to imagine a way out of Babylon if you think someplace else may have existed in the past, as the Rastafarians have figured out. (And no, they're not perfect either: terrible ideas about women.)
As for journalism, Murrow and Cronkite and the industry generally of course committed some quintessentially American sins during the "golden age of capitalism," but I remember what it was like living then, and what the press was like. For one thing, there was a press that had independent power coming from many different fiefdoms. Corporate power over the press existed, and Ed Murrow was eventually benched because of it, but it didn't have near-totalitarian control, as it does now. Bullshit Cold War gestures or not, if I were given the chance to have them back, I'd be dancing in the street.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
Guy Sims Fitch?
What a crazily bizarre name to pick for the alias. Very interesting little historical snippet. Yes, it is hard to live in our Post Reality world.
" “Human kindness has never weakened the stamina or softened the fiber of a free people. A nation does not have to be cruel to be tough.” FDR "
I almost mistakenly became
I almost mistakenly became part of a cloud of Fallout when one of our sergeants mistakenly woke one of our nukes up. took three tries and all night to put that baby back to sleep.
So long, and thanks for all the fish