Dear San Jose Mercury News,
This is not the most politic way to begin a story about the West Nile virus:
Like any new immigrant, the deadly West Nile virus became American almost immediately after landing on our shores—altering itself to fit in and then infecting a popular backyard bird to secure a firm foothold in its new home.
That is the startling conclusion of a decade-long analysis by UC Santa Cruz biologist Marm Kilpatrick, who explored the ecology of an infectious disease that has killed five Californians this summer and sickened another 197, up from 82 last year.
“Just like other invasive species, the virus starts adapting to its new environment,” Kilpatrick said.
"Shortly after arriving in New York in 1999, the virus started changing -- evolving to become a new and distinct strain, the research shows. It likely smuggled itself into America within
an infected mosquito on a trans-Atlantic airplane. The original New York strain seemed to match a strain in Israel, suggesting Middle East origins. But now it's different.
This new strain is transmitted more efficiently by local mosquitoes than the original strain."
The New York Times offered a service for $50 per year which provided access to some selected articles and 50 (30?) Archive articles per Month.
The Search ordered the articles chronologically, so I jumped in and developed some interesting histories of some issues including The Plum Island Laboratory.
2 Weeks after I paid for year 2 of the Service, they suddenly dropped the Service and refunded my $50 (Less the 2 weeks).
The Plum Island articles alluded to some possible escapes of pathogens and that combined with the trajectory of the West Nile Virus convinced me that the virus had probably been released from the Lab.
Not long after, the decision was made to move the Lab to Kentucky where it would only kill Hillbillies.
Recently, Diane Rehm had Fauci and some others chit-chatting about the new Pandemical Flu virus, but I was distressed to see the non-mentioned:
1) A convincing reason why the Virus was created.
2) No discussion of the implications for the Biological Weapons Treaty that the US and others may be violating.
3) No mention of the West Nile Virus.
4) No Mention of the bizarre history of the AIDS Vaccine tests and the Media complicity in muddling the truth for about it for years.
5) After many years of searching by the Army for enough fragments to reconstruct the 1918 Flu virus, can it have found its way into the 2009 Pandemic or the 2010 Epidemic?
6) The alleged releases of Flu Viruses from a Russian Lab in the 1950's.
7) Why has the aggressive use of Flu vaccines not produced larger reductions in Flu deaths?
8) Considering its incompetence, why was the FBI allowed to conduct research on pathogens like Anthrax?
Monte Haun mchaun@hotmail.com
#1 Posted by Monte Haun, CJR on Wed 28 Dec 2011 at 12:39 AM