"Robert J. Bradbury" wrote:
> Re: smallpox
> > You are talking about one infected person could cause a wildfire affect
> > across a nation and the globe. This viscous disease will kill within a week.
> > The USA for example only has a total of 7 million vaccines available.
>
> Once the outbreak became known we would likely have a tremendous
> hunkering down by people not traveling anywhere near locations
> where there are known outbreaks. The damage to economies might
> be much worse than the damage from the smallpox itself.
Sure, unless of course you are flying, say, a crop duster and spraying a
very light mix for a long distance over a large area. Flying from
Virginia to Connecticutt on a course 50 miles inland at 10,000 feet
would infect millions in the first round over a wide area.
>
> It is also true that one could probably scale up a crash vaccination
> production program if required. You could synthesize the required
> DNA vectors around the world and do bulk fermentation growth in
> wine or beer manufacturing equipment. You might not get the best
> vaccine out of it but something is better than nothing.
Current claims are that starting now, we could get sufficient vaccine
doses available for the entire country by 2004 (according to CNN last
night).
>
> > SMALLPOX escaped the controlled laboratories with the end of the Russian
> > communist regime.
>
> Credible evidence?
No refs, but news sources say that that is how Iraq got its own samples.
It is now apparently researching techniques for making it more potent
with a relative, the camelpox virus, which it hopes to apply to smallpox
once it figures out some good techniques (if it hasn't already).
>
> > The required resources, technology, and human endeavor are at our
> > collective fingertips.
>
> True, neutralizing antibodies produced in bulk would be much more
> effective than vaccines at stopping the spread of viral diseases.
> A very clever technique *has* been published that demonstrates it is
> possible to use a mutated anthrax toxin to neutralize the normal anthrax
> toxin by disrupting the channel in forms. One would need bulk production
> of this, though one could imagine the conversion of insulin production
> facilities in a crisis situation.
>
> I don't mind being urged to action, the claims need to be backed by
> credible evidence though. For example I've seen claims that bin Laden
> obtained soviet nuclear missle warheads from the Chechnyans, but the
> question becomes *where* did the Chechnyans get them.
Captured/stolen from Russians of course. Russia doesn't design the same
sort of controls into tactical warheads as it does for its ICBM
warheads. They are apparently uncoded arming systems. Russia has
compiled evidence that several hundred weapons have dissapeared over the
years. With the abyzmal level of pay for its military personnel, it is
no wonder that this might occur.
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Fri Oct 12 2001 - 14:40:57 MDT