OT Lyme is a Biowarfare Issue

[Guest guest]

A brief history by Elena Cook

Introduction

The world of Lyme disease medicine is split into two camps – the US

government-backed " Steere camp " , which maintains the disease is

hard-to-catch, easily cured, and rarely causes chronic neurological

damage, and the " ILADS camp " , which maintains the opposite. The Steere

camp is intricately bound up with the American biowarfare

establishment, as well as with giant insurance and other corporate

interests with a stake in the issue. The ILADS doctors lack such

connections, but are supported instead by tens of thousands of

patients rallying behind them.

Because the Steere camp has been massively funded and promoted by

federal agencies, its view has dominated Lyme medicine not just in the

US, but across much of the world. The result has been suffering on a

grand scale. Below is a concise history of the military aspects of

this cover-up.

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Weapons of Mass Infection

The development of biological weapons has never been confined to

dictatorships or " rogue " regimes. During the Second World War America,

Britain and Canada collaborated closely on developing offensive

bioweapons, and offensive research continued as an openly acknowledged

activity of the US scientific establishment during the Cold War. Only

in 1972 was this work banned by international treaty. Meanwhile the

land-based labs at Fort Detrick, for example, had produced

millions of mosquitoes, ticks and other vectors for the purpose of

spreading lethal germs. The island of Gruinard, off the coast of

Scotland, was only declared habitable again in 1990, nearly fifty

years after the British first contaminated it during anthrax

experiments. [ii]

Ticks, which vector Lyme disease, have been studied as biowarfare

instruments for decades. Such well-known biowar agents as tularaemia

and Q-fever are tick-borne. The Borrelia genus of bacteria, which

encompasses the Borrelia burgdorferi species-group (to which Lyme

disease is attributed), was studied by the infamous WW2 Japanese

biowar Unit 731, who carried out horrific experiments on prisoners in

Manchuria, including dissection of live human beings. [iii] Unit 731

also worked on a number of other tick-borne pathogens.

After the war, the butchers of Unit 731 were shielded from prosecution

by the US authorities, who wanted their expertise for the Cold War.

[iv] The US government also protected and recruited German Nazi

bioweaponeers under the aegis of the top-secret Operation Paperclip.

[v]

Borreliosis, or infection with microbes belonging to the borrelia

genus, had been dreaded during the Second World War as a cause of the

often-fatal disease relapsing fever. The new post-war era of

penicillin meant that many bacterial infections could now be easily

cured. However, borrelia were known for their ability to adopt

different forms under conditions of stress (such as exposure to

antibiotics). Shedding their outer wall, (which is the target of

penicillin and related drugs), they could ward off attack and continue

to exist in the body.

Lyme disease is not usually fatal, and it is sometimes argued that,

with rapidly lethal agents like smallpox and plague available, an army

would have no interest in it. However, what is important to understand

here is that incapacitating or " non-lethal " bioweapons are a major

part of biowarfare R & D[vi], and have been for decades. For example,

during the Second World War, brucellosis, chronically disabling but

not usually fatal, was a major preoccupation. Military strategists

understand that disabling an enemy's soldiers can sometimes cause more

damage than killing them, as large amount of resources are then tied

up in caring for the casualties. An efficient incapacitating weapon

dispersed over a civilian population could destroy a country's economy

and infrastructure without firing a shot. People would either be too

sick to work, or too busy looking after those who were.

The EIS and the " Discovery " of Lyme

Modern Lyme history begins in 1975 when a mother in the town of Old

Lyme, Connecticut reported the outbreak of a strange, multi-system

disease. The town lies directly opposite the Plum Island biowarfare

research lab where, according to former Justice official Loftus,

Nazi scientists brought to the US after WW2 may have test-dropped

" poison ticks " . [vii] It should be noted that Loftus' reputation for

gathering accurate, hard-hitting information is strong – strong enough

to bring down in disgrace the former Chancellor of Austria and

Secretary-General of the UN Kurt Waldheim, after the latter's wartime

SS record was revealed.

While it's not yet known if Plum Island experimented on Lyme-causing

borrelia, the lab's directors openly admitted to Carroll,

author of a recently-published book which is endorsed by two former

State Governors, that they kept " tick colonies " . The " hard tick "

Amblyomma americanum, a known carrier of Borrelia burgdorferi, was one

of the subjects of the Island's experiments. [viii]This tick is not

the one most commonly associated with transmitting Borrelia

burgdorferi, but it is implicated in harbouring Borrelia lonestari,

believed to be the cause of a " Lyme-like illness " in the American

south. [ix]

Carroll's book reveals a shocking disregard for safety, in this lab

handling some of the most dangerous germs on earth. Eyewitnesses

described how infected animals were kept in open-air pens. Birds

swooping down into the pens could have picked up and spread infected

ticks worldwide.

When Polly Murray made her now-famous call to the Connecticut health

department to report the strange epidemic among children and adults in

her town, her initial reception was lukewarm. However, some weeks

later, she got an unexpected call from a Dr Snydman, of the

Epidemic Intelligence Service (EIS), who was very interested. He

arranged for fellow EIS officer Dr Steere to get involved. By

the time Mrs. Murray turned up for her appointment at Yale, the doctor

she had expected to see had been relegated to the role of an onlooker.

Steere had taken charge – and his views were to shape the course

of Lyme medicine for the next thirty years, up till today. [x]

To understand the significance of all this, we need a closer look at

the Epidemic Intelligence Service, the EIS.

The EIS is an elite, quasi-military unit of Infectious Disease experts

set up in the 1950's to develop an offensive biowarfare capability.

Despite the banning of offensive biowar in the 1970's, the crack

troops of the EIS continue to exist, ostensibly for non-offensive

research into " emerging disease " threats, a blanket phrase covering

both bioweapon attacks and natural epidemics at the same time.

Graduates of the EIS training program are sent in to occupy strategic

positions in the US health infrastructure, taking leadership at

federal and state health agencies, in academia, industry and the

media. The organisation also extends its influence abroad, training

officers for public health agencies in Britain, France, the

Netherlands etc. [xi] [xii]

In fact a high proportion of Steere camp Lyme experts are involved

with the EIS. Given that the EIS is a small, elite force, (in 2001 the

CDC revealed there were less than 2500 EIS officers in existence since

the unit was first created in 1951 [xiii]), it seems incredible that

so many of America's top Infectious Disease experts would devote their

careers to what they themselves claim is a " hard-to-catch,

easily-cured " disease.

Within a few years of Steere's " discovery " of Lyme disease (the unique

Lyme rash, and certain associated symptoms, had been recognised in

Europe nearly a century before), it was announced that its bacterial

cause had been identified. The microbe was accidentally found by

biowarfare scientist Willy Burgdorfer and was subsequently named for

him. Burgdorfer has championed the Lyme patients' movement and is not

suspected of any wrongdoing. However it is not impossible that he was

unwittingly caught up in a chain of events that were not as random as

they might have seemed.

Burgdorfer was a Swiss scientist who had been recruited by the US

Public Health Service in the 1950's. He was highly experienced with

both ticks and borrelia, but after being told that the government were

not interesting in funding work with the latter, he switched to work

with Rickettsia and other pathogens. [xiv] In 1981, Burgdorfer was

sent a batch of deer ticks by a team studying Rocky Mountain Spotted

Fever on the East Coast. In charge of the team was one Dr

Benach. [xv] Benach subsequently spent much of his career as a Steere

camp Lyme researcher. In 2004 he was chosen as recipient for a $3

million biowarfare research grant. [xvi]

Cutting open some of Benach' ticks, Burgdorfer noticed microfilaria

(microscopic worm young). This was a subject he had been studying

recently, only these microfilaria were different. They were

exceptionally large, large enough to be seen with the naked eye.[xvii]

His curiosity naturally piqued, he opened up several more ticks. There

he was surprised to find the spiral-shaped germs of borrelia.

Cultivation is necessary in order to isolate bacteria for study, so

that diagnostic tests, vaccines or cures can be developed. Borrelia

are very difficult to grow in culture. However, by " lucky

coincidence " , another scientist had recently joined the lab where he

worked, and had apparently been involved in an amazing breakthrough in

this area. So naturally Burgdorfer handed the infected ticks over to

him. [xviii]

That scientist was Dr. Alan Barbour, an officer, like Steere and

Snydman, of the Epidemic Intelligence Service, with a background in

work on anthrax, one of the most terrifying biowarfare agents known.

[xix]

EIS man Barbour therefore became the first to isolate the prototype

organism on which all subsequent Lyme disease blood tests would be

based. [xx] This is very significant, as a huge body of evidence [xxi]

indicates the unreliability of these tests, which are routinely used

to rule out the disease. Additionally, all DNA detection of the Lyme

agent in ticks and animals is ultimately based, directly or

indirectly, on the genetic profile of the strain first isolated by

Barbour.

Shortly after Barbour's discovery, other species and strains of the

Lyme-causing bacteria were isolated, especially in Europe. They were

all classified based on their resemblance to Barbour's organism, and

have been grouped into a category called Borrelia burgdorferi sensu

lato or " Bbsl " for short. However, a borrelia was subsequently found

in the southern US (referred to briefly above) which appears not to be

a member of Barbour's Bbsl group at all.[xxii]

The bacteria, named Borrelia lonestari, often evades detection on Lyme

blood tests, is not found using DNA tests, and does not grow in

Barbour's culture medium which is used world-wide for lab study.

[xxiii]And yet, it appears to cause an illness identical to Lyme –

down to the " bullseye rash " , which, though not present in all

patients, is considered unique to Lyme disease.

In 2005 Barbour, who spent much of his career studying the

" hard-to-catch, easy-to-cure " Lyme disease, was placed in charge of

the multi-million new biowarfare mega-complex based at University of

California at Irvine (UCI). [xxiv] Barbour is joined there by his

close colleague and fellow Steerite Jonas Bunikis, author of recent

papers calling for a restrictive approach to Lyme diagnosis.

The Spread and the Spin

By the late 1980's it was realised that Lyme disease was rapidly

spreading out of control. Cases were reported across America, Europe

and Asia. Federal health agencies launched a major propaganda effort

to limit diagnosis and so artificially " contain " the epidemic. The

National Institute of Health (NIH) appointed biowarfare expert

McSweegan as Lyme Program officer. [xxv] Under his leadership the

diagnostic criteria was skewed to exclude most sufferers, especially

those with chronic neurological illness. McSweegan's successor at NIH,

Dr Phil Baker, is an anthrax expert [xxvi], and has continued his

policies.

The Center for Disease Control (CDC) is another federal body which has

had a major impact on how Lyme is diagnosed and treated. Its influence

extends abroad, with European public health departments drawing up

policies based on CDC guidelines. It should be remembered that it is

the CDC which trains the Epidemic Intelligence Service, and much of

the leadership of CDC has traditionally been drawn from EIS ranks.

Therefore it comes as no surprise to learn that Dennis, the head

of vector-borne diseases at CDC, with massive influence over Lyme

issues, was involved with the EIS. However, we could legitimately

wonder why, at lower levels of the CDC hierarchy, EIS officers - the

nation's heavyweight infectious disease experts - continue to play

such a major role in investigating the supposedly " hard-to-catch,

easily cured " Lyme. (For example, EIS officers Schriefer and

Captain Mead.) [xxvii].[xxviii]

In 2001, responding to the protest of thousands of patients that

standard two or three-week antibiotic courses were not sufficient, the

NIH commissioned biowarfare scientist Mark Klempner to study

persistence of Lyme infection. ILADS doctors had found that patients

left untreated in the early phase often needed long courses of

antibiotics, [xxix] sometimes for years. Klempner, however, concluded

that persistent Lyme infection did not exist. In 2003 Klempner was

appointed head of the new $1.6 billion biowarfare top-security

facility being developed at Boston University. Shortly after, the news

emerged that there had been an escape of the deadly bug tularaemia

which was not properly reported to the authorities. [xxx]

In 2005 the author discovered a document on the NIH website listing

Lyme as one of the potential bioterrorism agents studied in BSL-4 (top

security) labs. After this was publicised, the NIH announced they had

made a " mistake " , and removed the words " Lyme disease " from the page.

(At the time of writing, the original is still available in cached

Internet archives. [xxxi]) However, at around the same time, a CDC

source leaked the identical information to the Associated Press.

[xxxii] Moreover, the Science Coalition, comprising entities as

prestigious as the American Medical Association, Yale University, and

the American Red Cross, maintain a website which, at the time of

writing, also lists Lyme as a disease studied for its biowarfare

potential. [xxxiii] Could these three major organisations all have,

co-incidentally, made the same " mistake " ?

In 2004 the UK government denied that Lyme was a threat in Britain and

told Parliament that no Lyme research had been conducted since 1999.

[xxxiv] Yet the report of the official UK delegation to an

international conference on the prevention of bioterrorism revealed

that Lyme was being studied at Porton Down, Britain's top biowarfare

facility. [xxxv] Britain, and many other European countries, take

their lead on Lyme from a body called EUCALB, rooted in Steere camp

methodology. NATO has also been directly involved in moves to

" harmonise " European Lyme diagnosis along Steerite lines

A Bug of Many Talents

Lyme's ability to evade detection on routine medical tests, its myriad

presentations which can baffle doctors by mimicking 100 different

diseases, its amazing abilities to evade the immune system and

antibiotic treatment, would make it an attractive choice to

bioweaponeers looking for an incapacitating agent. Lyme's abilities as

" the great imitator " might mean that an attack could be misinterpreted

as simply a rise in the incidence of different, naturally-occurring

diseases such as autism, MS, lupus and chronic fatigue syndrome

(M.E.). Borrelia's inherent ability to swap outer surface proteins,

which may also vary widely from strain to strain, would make the

production of an effective vaccine extremely difficult. (A vaccine

developed for the public by the Steere camp in collaboration with

Glaxo kline was pulled from the market a few years ago amid class

action lawsuits [xxxvi].) Finally, the delay before the appearance of

the most incapacitating symptoms would allow plenty of time for an

attacker to move away from the scene, as well as preventing people in

a contaminated zone from realising they had been infected and seeking

treatment. Often in the early period there is no rash, only vague

flu-like or other non-specific symptoms which might be dismissed by

GP's, or ignored by the patient.

The 2003 proposal for a rapid-detection method for biowarfare by Dr JJ

Dunn of Brookhaven National Lab seems to add further grounds for

suspicion. It is based on the use of two " sentinel " germs – plague and

Lyme. [xxxvii]

In 1999 Lyme patient advocacy leader Pat was amazed to find, on

visiting an Army base at an old biowar testing ground in land,

that the US Dept. of Defence has developed a satellite-linked system

that enables soldiers to read, in real-time, off a display on their

helmet's visor, information about the rate of Lyme-infected ticks

wherever they may be on earth. Unit commanders could update the

database using state-of-the-art portable PCR machines, which test for

Lyme DNA in soldiers bitten by ticks. [xxxviii] The use of such

cutting-edge technology for a supposedly " hard-to-catch, easy-to-cure "

illness seems odd, to say the least!

Lyme is often complicated by the presence of co-infecting diseases in

the same tick, e.g. those caused by the microbes of babesia,

bartonella, mycoplasma (believed by some researchers to be the cause

of Gulf War illness), ehrlichia, microfilaria and encephalitis

viruses. Investigations into some of these, too, have been led by

American biowar experts.

It could be argued that some of these Lyme researchers have been

awarded biowar-related grants simply because they are Infectious

Disease specialists, which is a natural terrain from which to recruit.

After all, research budgets for biowar have ballooned massively since

the anthrax attacks of 2001; there is a demand for large numbers of

personnel to work on such projects.

Well, there are two things that could be said here. First, researchers

who have spent much or most of their careers studying a

" hard-to-catch, easily-cured " disease would not appear to be the best

choice as recipients of this type of grant, unless the " easily-cured "

disease had some relation to biowarfare. Second, while some infectious

disease specialists began to study biowarfare organisms for the first

time after 2001, this is not necessarily the case with the Steerites.

Klempner, for example, was studying ways to increase the virulence of

Yersinia pestis, the causative agent of plague, over 20 years ago

[xxxix]; Barbour researched anthrax for the Army in the 1970's. [xl]

The defeat of Saddam Hussein in the 1991 Gulf War was followed by the

drawing up, by the UN Special Commission (UNSCOM) of a list of

microbes to be monitored in Iraq. Among them - the borrelia genus in

general, and Borrelia burgdorferi in particular. [xli] UNSCOM also

included organisms such as ehrlichia and babesia, which are often

present in Lyme-infected ticks, and are acquired as concurrent

illnesses when a person is bitten.

There are other organisms on the UN list not generally associated, in

the public mind, with biowarfare, and it could be argued that the UN

was simply being extra cautious by casting a wide net. However,

whether Lyme bacteria were present in Iraq at that time or not, they

certainly are today, and US Army manuals warn soldiers to protect

themselves from the disease [xlii] If we are to accept the traditional

Steerite explanation for the rise of Lyme – that it is a natural

consequence of a recent population explosion of deer due to

reforestation, combined suburbanisation, bringing humans into contact

with forests – then the presence of Lyme in the dusty sand dunes of

Iraq seems perverse.

And what of the doctors of the opposing camp, those associated with

ILADS? ILADS doctors and researchers increasingly find themselves

persecuted, victims of spurious charges made against them to Medical

Boards, and are hounded out of their professions. At the time of

writing, paediatrician Dr Ray , credited by thousands of

parents with restoring the health of their disabled children, is under

trial, accused of misconduct. A few years ago, Dr Lida Mattman, a

Nobel Prize nominee who worked on an alternative culture medium for

Lyme, was ordered to shut down operations by police who arrived at her

lab with handcuffs. Dozens of doctors who had been treating Lyme

successfully according to their clinical judgement, rather than

relying on insensitive blood tests or arbitrary limits on antibiotic

duration, have been forced to stop. The president of ILADS, Dr

Stricker, has told the press he believes Lyme disease is a bioweapon.

Summary

Lyme disease is the subject of hot controversy, with the " Steere camp "

claiming it is an easily cured ailment, while the ILADS camp views it

as a severely disabling, multi-symptom neurological disease.

The number of Steere camp Lyme researchers with a background in the

Epidemic Intelligence Service (EIS) and/or biowarfare research is too

numerous to be pure co-incidence. Two scientists who have played a

central role in the Lyme story, Barbour and Klempner, have been placed

in charge of new biowar super-labs set up in the aftermath of 9-11,

where they are aided by some of their Steerite colleagues. Others,

while not in charge of super-labs, are nevertheless in receipt of

substantial grants for biowarfare research.

The United States and some of its NATO allies have a long and sordid

history of experimentation into biological weapons of mass destruction

and mass incapacitation. The Borrelia genus and ticks as biowar

vectors have been studied for decades, and recent revelations about

the Plum Island disease lab, across the water from old Lyme,

Connecticut are worrying. The development of the so-called " non-lethal

weapons " has been a major part of biowar science for decades.

Suspicion is further fuelled by the declaration by America's National

Institute of Health that a document on their website listing Lyme as a

microbe studied for bioterrorism potential was a " mistake " , just at

the time that a CDC source leaked the same " mistake " to the Associated

Press. British delegates at an international conference on the

prevention of bioterrorism revealed that intense work on Lyme and

other tick-borne disease is conducted at the UK's top biowar lab at

Porton Down.

Lyme has been chosen as a " sentinel organism " in a method of rapidly

detecting bioweapons, and the whole genus, or category, of borrelia

was included among those to be monitored by the UN in Iraq after the

first Gulf War. US soldiers in Iraq today are warned by the military

to protect themselves against the disease.

It's possible to see the modern history of Lyme as a string of events

with an EIS member at every crucial node. The discovery of new

Lyme-causing borrelia, genetically distinct from the Borrelia

burgdorferi group first cultured by EIS officer Alan Barbour, throws

up the question as to whether the Bbsl organisms he introduced to

medicine was the only, (or even the most) relevant borrelia. The

testing and diagnostic regimens based on the views of Barbour, Steere,

etc and backed by federal health agencies such as CDC and NIH

currently condemn huge numbers of Lyme patients to a medical limbo,

without treatment or recognition for their disease. The cost in human

suffering may be unimaginable.

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P, and Wallace D, " Unit 731, the Japanese Army's Secret

of Secrets " , Hodder and Stoughton 1989, p284

[ii] BBC news website news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/1457035.stm

[iii] Cole, Chief of Intelligence at America's Chemical Warfare

Service, reported in " Unit 731 " , p105

[iv] " Unit 731 " . Op cit.

[v] Carroll, " Lab 257-

The Disturbing Story of the Government's Secret Germ Laboratory " ,

Harper 2004

[vi] Joint Non-Lethal Weapons Directorate /www.jnlwd.usmc.mil

[vii] " Lab 257 " op cit.

[viii] ibid.

[ix] Bacon et al, " Glycerophosphodiester phosphodiesterase gene (glpQ)

of Borrelia lonestari identified as a target for differentiating

Borrelia species associated with hard ticks " , J Clin Microbiol 2004

May;42(5):2326-8.

[x] Murray, Polly, " The Widening Circle " , St 's Press 1996

[xi] www.cste.org/PS/2006pdfs/...FINAL.pdf.

[xii] Center for Disease Control website www.cdc.gov/eis;

www.cdc.gov/od/oc/media/p...010720.htm

[xiii] ibid.

[xiv] Barbour, Alan " Lyme Disease: the Cause, the Cure, the

Controversy " , The Hopkins University Press 1996, p 29.

[xv] " The Widening Circle " , op cit. p.174

[xvi] New York State Office of Science, Technology and Academic

Research, NYStar News

www.nystar.state.ny.us/nl...A08-04.htm

[xvii]Beaver, PC and Burgdorfer, W " A microfilaria of exceptional size

from the ixodid tick, Ixodes dammini, from Shelter Island, New York " J

Parasitol 1984 Dec;70(6):963-6

[xviii] Barbour, Alan " Lyme Disease: the Cause, the Cure, the

Controversy " , The Hopkins University Press 1996 p30.

[xix] University of California at Irvine website

today.uci.edu/news/media_...asp?key=80

[xx] Barbour, Alan op cit.

[xxi] See 17 pages of citations from peer-reviewed medical literature

archived at www.lymeinfo.net/medical/...tivity.pdf

[xxii] Bacon et al, op cit.

[xxiii] Varela et al, " First Culture Isolation of Borrelia lonestari,

Putative Agent of Southern Tick-Associated Rash Illness " , J Clin

Microbiol. 2004 March; 42(3): 1163–1169

[xxiv] UCI Medical Centre

www.ucihealth.com/News/Re...search.htm

[xxv] McSweegan biography

advance.uri.edu/quadangle...m#profile6

[xxvi] NIH News www.nih.gov/news/pr/apr2006/niaid-23.htm

[xxvii] CDC

www.cdc.gov/eis/conference/archives/2003ProgramAbstracts.pdf

[xxviii] NY Academy of Sciences www.nyas.org/biodef/speakers.asp

[xxix] ILADS Treatment Guidelines www.ilads.org/guidelines.html

[xxx] www.washingtonpost.com/wp...Jan21.html

[xxxi] For example, this one at:

web.archive.org/web/20050...ick_qa.htm

[xxxii] See MSNBC article featured on

www.ctlymedisease.org/fea...icle02.htm

[xxxiii] www.sciencecoalition.org/...y_main.htm

[xxxiv] www.theyworkforyou.com/wr...disease%22

[xxxv] www.opbw.org/new_process/...ev.1_E.pdf

[xxxvi] business.guardian.co.uk/s...32,00.html

[xxxvii] Sherr, V comment in the Lancet

www.thehumansideoflyme.ne...51aface839

[xxxviii] www.lymediseaseassociatio...erence.doc

[xxxix] Pollack C, Straley SC, Klempner MS, " Probing the

phagolysosomal environment of human macrophages with a Ca2+-responsive

operon fusion in Yersinia pestis " Nature. 1986 Aug 28-Sep

3;322(6082):834-6.

[xl] Rees et al, " Epidemiologic and laboratory investigations of

bovine anthrax in two Utah counties in 1975 " Public Health Rep, 1977

Mar-Apr;92(2):176-86.

[xli] " Note by the Executive Chairman of the Special Commission

established pursuant to paragraph 9 ( (i) of Security Council

resolution 687 (1991) " Document date: 17 March 1995 Ref- S/1995/208

www.fas.org/news/un/iraq/...5-0208.htm

[xlii] First Infantry Division Soldier's Handbook to Iraq,

Unclassified Document 2003