Learn from the Past: Don’t Be A Guinea Pig!

ARE WE BEING SET UP FOR ANOTHER GULF WAR SYNDROME DISASTER?

An Open Letter to Those Offered Vaccines by the US Government

by Jerry Leonard (jerryleonard999@yahoo.com)

To counter the latest “terrorist” threats, the government has announced elaborate plans to vaccinate the American public (forcibly if necessary) against smallpox and anthrax. If you are contemplating taking government vaccines to “protect” yourself or your family, please considering the following:

Numerous researchers have traced Gulf War Syndrome–an affliction affecting thousands of American soldiers–to unethical testing conducted by the US government using experimental anthrax vaccines and other treatments during the first Gulf War.

Upon closer examination, a scenario comes into focus which is even more disturbing than government experimentation on hundreds of thousands of its troops. Recent press reports have shown that this experimentation under the first Bush administration was conducted under the guise of protecting US troops from an enemy the US not only created but gave bioweapons.(1) Robert Novak explained in the Chicago Sun-Times:

An eight-year-old Senate report confirms that disease-producing and poisonous materials were exported, under U.S. government license, to Iraq from 1985 to 1988 during the Iran-Iraq war. Furthermore, the report adds, the American-exported materials were identical to microorganisms destroyed by United Nations inspectors after the Gulf War. (2) [emphasis added]

Although hundreds of thousands of Gulf War soldiers developed complications as a result of the vaccines and chemicals(3) they were given by the government, investigations into why they got sick have been seriously hindered. One reason for this is that the very same people who armed Iraq with bioweapons were put in key positions supposedly investigating US soldiers’ exposure to biowarfare agents during the war.(4) Another reason is that the government just does not want its troops to know the details of how they were used as experimental guinea pigs for the pharmaceuticals industry.

Round Two

Now the government is again offering vaccines to “protect” not only its troops but the public at large from Iraq and another enemy it helped create… Bin Laden and his terrorist network. This time it is George H.W. Bush’s son, George Bush III—a business partner of the Bin Laden family,(5) leading the charge.

The more things change…

While the US government initially attempted to blame Iraq and/or Bin Laden’s terrorist group as the source of anthrax in “terrorist” attacks on the US, it has been revealed that the source of the disease, once again, appears to be none other than the US government itself. The New York Times reported:

The dry powder used in the anthrax attacks is virtually indistinguishable in critical technical respects from that produced by the United States military before it shut down its biowarfare program, according to federal scientists and a report prepared for a military contractor.

Obviously, the government’s claims that it shut down its bioweapons program decades ago are false.(6)

While the goal of the second Gulf War is transparent enough,(7) given the disastrous results of the use of experimental vaccines in the first Gulf War, one wonders what the rush is to give admittedly dangerous vaccines(8) to the public to “protect” it from US-manufactured enemies(9) and biowarfare agents. It is tempting to postulate that a justification for unethical experimentation is being carefully constructed through the deliberate creation of “enemies.”

Was the Gulf War Syndrome that devastated US troops just a warm-up for a wider experimental project aimed at the American public? Are there hidden benefits to these experimental vaccine programs—as harmful as they may be to the vaccine recipients?

The Benefits

I have completed a study showing that these experimental vaccines are indeed beneficial to certain government agencies and private industries because they are being covertly used as experimental vehicles to achieve unstated economic and political goals. In my book AIDS: The “Perfect” Disease, I summarize the evidence that one manifestation of the Gulf War Syndrome was caused by experimental AIDS vaccines secretly tested by the government during vaccination of its Gulf War troops. I also show how the outbreak of the AIDS epidemic itself has been traced to experimental vaccines and is fulfilling the goals of cancer vaccine researchers—the same group that injected human subjects with monkey cancer viruses and isolated and grew immunosuppressive viruses in human cell cultures(10) just before AIDS conveniently broke out in human populations.(11)

While Gulf War Syndrome has been traced to an experimental anthrax vaccine, the international AIDS epidemic has been traced to a smallpox vaccine program covertly used as a cancer experiment. Oddly enough, the smallpox and anthrax vaccines are the very same vaccines that the government is now pushing the public to take!

Is it not curious that world events have been shaped by persons connected with CIA operations such that taking these vaccines can be presented to the public as not only in their best interest but necessary for their very survival?

Recent history should prod us to ask whether the war against terrorism or another war against Iraq will be used, as the first one was, to continue the long-term program of experimentation on US citizens by pharmaceuticals corporations through the government using vaccines.

The right people are in place to use the government for just such a self-serving scenario. For example Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, who helped orchestrated the arming of Iraq in the 1980s,(12) is conveniently in a position to oversee “defense” contracts handed out to well-connected vaccine manufacturers(13) in response to terrorist threats he helped create. And Rumsfeld, as a former multinational pharmaceuticals company executive and lobbyist, (14) now back in “public service” overseeing the defense establishment, is in position to oversee human testing of biowarfare countermeasures on a captive population by the government on behalf of the pharmaceuticals industry.(15)

With high-level lobbyists like this, it is no wonder that outrageous legislation conveniently benefiting the pharmaceuticals industry was placed in the Homeland Security Act.(16)  The “war against terrorism” has provided the vaccine manufacturers with an ideal scenario--an increased demand for their products (including mandatory vaccination clauses), relaxed laws on human experimentation with these products and legal protection against lawsuits resulting from any side-effects from this experimentation.(17)

So the stage is set: the vaccine manufacturers have learned the lesson of the first Gulf War. Now they have license to experiment on the public through the government with impunity. And they have the perfect vehicle with which to do it. Advances in genetic engineering have made the smallpox vaccine one of the best vehicles imaginable for sophisticated and covert vaccine experimentation.(18) Simultaneously, these advances in genetics make it unlikely that existing smallpox vaccines would even be useful against “weaponized” versions of smallpox. When considered together, these facts make the current rush towards mass vaccination against smallpox appear much more suited for public experimentation than public protection.(19)

Additional cause for concern lies in the documented history of unethical experimentation using smallpox vaccines. Such experimentation was conducted from the beginning by its “inventor”(20) and has more recently been tied to the outbreak of AIDS. Moreover, the US government--which would be overseeing the smallpox vaccination of the US public--has a history of using vaccines for experimental purposes other than those stated and, more specifically, using smallpox for unethical purposes against defenseless populations.(21)

Robert Novak recently warned: “Looking at a little U.S.-Iraqi history might be useful on the eve of a fateful military undertaking.” I would add that looking at a little US history regarding human experimentation with vaccines, especially those administered at the outset of the last Gulf War, would be useful on the eve of mass-vaccination efforts by the government in conjunction with a second Gulf War.

In light of recent “terrorist” attacks with biowarfare agents traced back to the same U.S. government which armed Iraq and created Bin Laden, I believe widespread knowledge of the history of these experiments is vital to prevent a repeat of the Gulf War Syndrome on a wider scale through government vaccine programs administered to fight alleged terrorist attacks. My concerns are summarized in greater detail at: www.winstonsmith.net.

Please review the author’s findings regarding the uninterrupted program of experimentation on US citizens by their government and consider whether the risks of taking the government’s vaccines outweigh the stated benefits.

Disclaimer: This information is not to be construed as medical or legal advice. This article was written to assist you in making an informed choice. The decision on whether to vaccinate or not is yours alone.

Notes:

(1) Newsweek, in an article subtitled “America helped make a monster,” reported how Donald Rumsfeld, now Secretary of Defense, met with Saddam Hussein in the 1980s setting the stage for the US building up his war machine: “Rumsfeld was aware that Saddam was a murderous thug who supported terrorists and was trying to build a nuclear weapon. … But at the time, America’s big worry was Iran, not Iraq. …The meeting between Rumsfeld and Saddam was consequential: for the next five years... the United States backed Saddam’s armies with military intelligence, economic aid and covert supplies of munitions.” [emphasis added] [Christopher Dickey and Evan Thomas, “How Saddam Happened: America helped make a monster,” Newsweek, 9/23/02]; Michael Dobbs wrote in the Washington Post: "The administrations of Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush authorized the sale to Iraq of numerous items that had both military and civilian applications, including poisonous chemicals and deadly biological viruses, such as anthrax and bubonic plague." "U.S. Had Key Role in Iraq Buildup: Trade in Chemical Arms Allowed Despite Their Use on Iranians, Kurds," Michael Dobbs, Washington Post; Monday, December 30, 2002; Page A01.

(2) “The shipments were approved despite allegations that Saddam used biological weapons against Kurdish rebels and (according to the current official U.S. position) initiated war with Iran.” Robert Novak, “Following Iraq’s bioweapons trail,” Chicago Sun-Times, 9/26/02

(3) A Senate investigation found a link between the experimental treatments recklessly given to the troops and the Gulf War Syndrome that developed. Warren Leary reported in the New York Times: “Senator John D. Rockefeller 4th, chairman of the Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee, said his committee’s staff had spent six months looking into possible causes of the ailments reported by the veterans and had found a link with drugs experimentally given to more than 400,000 of the 700,000 troops who served in the war.” Warren E. Leary, “Experimental Drugs Linked To Ills of Gulf War Veterans,” New York Times, 5/7/94.

(4) “A scientist who headed a Pentagon study that dismissed exposure to chemical and biological agents as a cause of illness among Persian Gulf war veterans was a director of an organization that sent samples of deadly germs to Iraq before the war began in January 1991...” Associated Press, “Report Ties Expert to Supplier of Germs to Iraq,” New York Times, 11/28/96.

(5) “Incredibly, Salem [Bin Laden] went on to become a business partner of the man who is leading the hunt for his brother. In the 1970s, he and George W Bush were founders of the Arbusto Energy oil company in Mr Bush’s home state of Texas. …As he built his own business empire, Salem Bin Laden had an intriguing relationship with the president-to-be. In 1978, he appointed James Bath, a close friend of Mr Bush who served with him in the Air National Guard, as his representative in Houston, Texas. It was in that year that Mr Bath invested $50,000 (about £34,000) in Mr Bush's company, Arbusto. It was never revealed whether he was investing his own money or somebody else’s.” PETER ALLEN, “Bin Laden's family link to Bush,” Daily Mail, 9/24/01.

(6) The Times reported:

"As the investigation into the anthrax attacks widens to include federal laboratories and contractors, government officials have acknowledged that Army scientists in recent years have made anthrax in a powdered form that could be used as a weapon. Experts said this appeared to be the first disclosure of government production of anthrax in its most lethal form since the United States renounced biological weapons in 1969 and began destroying its germ arsenal." [emphasis added]

WILLIAM J. BROAD and JUDITH MILLER, “U.S. Recently Produced Anthrax in a Highly Lethal Powder Form,” New York Times, December 13, 2001.

(7) Not surprisingly, the oil industry stands to benefit from US policy targeting Iraq: “A U.S.-led ouster of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein could open a bonanza for American oil companies long banished from Iraq, scuttling oil deals between Baghdad and Russia, France and other countries, and reshuffling world petroleum markets, according to industry officials and leaders of the Iraqi opposition.” Dan Morgan and David B. Ottaway, “In Iraqi War Scenario, Oil Is Key Issue: U.S. Drillers Eye Huge Petroleum Pool, Washington Post, 9/15/02

(8) Both the anthrax and smallpox vaccines are incredibly dangerous. While the dangers of the anthrax vaccine have become apparent due to Gulf War Syndrome, the health industry is just waking up to the dangers of the smallpox vaccine. The New York Times reported that the smallpox vaccine “is significantly more likely than any other vaccine to cause serious side effects.” The Washington Post reported that “the vaccine can cause severe, sometimes fatal, side effects.” Denise Grady, “Doctors Urge Caution on Smallpox Vaccinations,” New York Times, 10/8/02; Ceci Connolly, “Smallpox Vaccine Guidelines Readied Emergency Plan To Cover All of U.S.,” Washington Post, 9/23/02.

(9) The consolidation of power in Iraq by Saddam Hussein was assisted by the US through the CIA from his earliest days. (See Jonathan Marshall, IRAQ: It’s Not Always So Simple; Foreign policy malpractice, San Francisco Chronicle, 10/20/02)  As Newsweek summarized: “American officials have known that Saddam was a psychopath ever since he became the country’s de facto ruler in the early 1970s. ...But top officials in the Reagan administration saw Saddam as a useful surrogate.” Christopher Dickey and Evan Thomas, “How Saddam Happened: America helped make a monster,” Newsweek, 9/23/02.

(10) I trace the origins of the international AIDS epidemic to experimental AIDS-like viruses developed and tested long before AIDS began in human populations. These immunosuppressive viruses were developed to mimic suspected natural causes of human cancer due to viruses so that cancer vaccines could be developed. (Monkey AIDS viruses were being grown in human cells just before AIDS exploded on the scene.)

(11) Before dismissing the theory that AIDS was intentional and part of the government’s “war on cancer” one should realize that as part of this ongoing effort the government paid researchers to inject human subjects with West Nile Virus as well as transmissible human tumors and monkey sarcoma viruses in cancer vaccine experiments. (In the latter two cases, tumors were successfully produced in human guinea pigs and the results were openly published in the medical literature.) Shortly after researchers injected human subjects with monkey sarcoma viruses, they mixed these viruses with monkey immunosuppressive viruses and grew the mixtures in human cell cultures. And shortly thereafter, an epidemic of useful sarcomas due to a monkey immunosuppressive virus called HIV exploded in human populations. Cancer vaccine researchers, the group that invented and tested various animal AIDS viruses for cancer vaccine research, have predicted that the AIDS-induced cancer epidemic will prove highly useful for human cancer vaccine development.

(12) Newsweek summarized how the US not only assisted but armed Iraq in the early 1980s: “After Rumsfeld’s visit to Baghdad in 1983, U.S. intelligence began supplying the Iraqi dictator with satellite photos showing Iranian deployments. Official documents suggest that America may also have secretly arranged for tanks and other military hardware to be shipped to Iraq in a swap deal—American tanks to Egypt, Egyptian tanks to Iraq. Over the protest of some Pentagon skeptics, the Reagan administration began allowing the Iraqis to buy a wide variety of ‘dual use’ equipment and materials from American suppliers. According to confidential Commerce Department export-control documents obtained by NEWSWEEK, the shopping list included a computerized database for Saddam’s Interior Ministry (presumably to help keep track of political opponents); helicopters to transport Iraqi officials; television cameras for ‘video surveillance applications’; chemical-analysis equipment for the Iraq Atomic Energy Commission (IAEC), and, most unsettling, numerous shipments of ‘bacteria/fungi/protozoa’ to the IAEC. According to former officials, the bacteria cultures could be used to make biological weapons, including anthrax.” Christopher Dickey and Evan Thomas, “How Saddam Happened: America helped make a monster,” Newsweek, 9/23/02.

(13) Rumsfeld is also in a position as Secretary of Defense to help guarantee that BioPort, a company reportedly owned by Carlyle Group—the holding company that employs political elites including George Bush and was partly owned by the Bin Laden family—maintains a monopoly on the anthrax vaccine.

(14) Donald Rumsfeld, the current Secretary of Defense, has moved in and out of the top levels of government and industry for decades. After serving as Secretary of Defense in the Ford Administration, according to the White House home page, Rumsfeld “served as Chief Executive Officer, President, and then Chairman of G.D. Searle & Co., a worldwide pharmaceutical company,” for nearly a decade, and was named “Outstanding Chief Executive Officer in the Pharmaceutical Industry” for two years during that time. Rumsfeld then joined the board of another pharmaceuticals company named Gilead in 1988 and was subsequently named Chairman in 1997. He served there until nominated as Bush’s Secretary of Defense.

(15) The CIA recruitment of Nazi war criminals following World War II and previous US support for Iraq is bearing much fruit. US-created “monsters” like Saddam Hussein are providing an excuse for driving US culture closer and closer to that of Nazi Germany. And the US population is being treated more and more like the concentration camp inmates of Nazi Germany, who were also cruelly experimented on with vaccines by German companies (working closely with American corporations). Curiously, the smallpox vaccination may serve not only as a vehicle for experimenting on the public with viruses, but a method of tracking the experimentation. Researchers have noted that vaccination would be the perfect vehicle for tracking American citizens through injectable microchips which have recently become available. Such microchips can be read external to the body and could contain information about both the vaccine recipient and the medications he was injected with. This would allow American corporations to conduct sophisticated experiments by tracking both the experimental vaccine additives and the people they were injected in, much like IBM helped the Nazis keep track of their concentration camp inmates and the experiments they were subjected to through its early data processing equipment used extensively by the Reich. Such a plan would dovetail nicely with the other proposed measures geared toward total surveillance of the American public under the guise of protecting it from enemies created by its business elites. (Iraq would hardly be the first global enemy US corporations helped create and sustain through weapons sales.)

(16) Industry lobbyists managed to sneak a provision into the Homeland Security bill which has nothing to do with national security but which will protect Eli Lilly and Co. from lawsuits related to one of its vaccines containing “Thimerosal, a preservative in childhood vaccines that has been circumstantially linked to rising rates of autism and pediatric developmental problems.” According to the Washington Post, “the brief provision -- designed to shield vaccine makers such as Eli Lilly and Co. from lawsuits seeking billions of dollars for families of autistic children -- has generated a whirlwind of controversy and a mystery as to its origin. …If action was not taken, advocates say, the lawsuits could have driven vaccine makers out of business.” Jonathan Weisman, “A Homeland Security Whodunit: In Massive Bill, Someone Buried a Clause to Benefit Drug Maker Eli Lilly,” Washington Post, Thursday, November 28, 2002.

(17) Lobbyists from the pharmaceuticals industry managed to insert legislation in the Homeland Security Act protecting themselves from lawsuits resulting from negative effects of their products. “The Bush administration, voicing increased fears over the threat of a biological attack, has quietly moved one step closer to a voluntary national smallpox vaccination program by offering full legal protection to manufacturers and medical personnel who administer the vaccine. [Under a] provision belatedly tucked into the homeland security bill… the federal government would assume all responsibility for the smallpox vaccine. Medical workers administering it would be deemed employees of the public health service and protected under the Federal Tort Claims Act. Smallpox vaccine manufacturers, which were already indemnified under contracts with the Department of Health and Human Services, would receive even broader legal protections.” [emphasis added] Ceci Connolly, “Homeland Bill Covers Smallpox Shot Liability: U.S. Would Shield Firms, Health Workers,” Washington Post, Saturday, November 16, 2002.

(18) The vaccinia virus used in the smallpox vaccine has remarkable properties which make it an especially effective tool for use in experiments which require the covert delivery of multiple viruses to a biological organism. The large genome size of the vaccinia virus and its infectious properties make it a very convenient experimental vehicle for incorporating genes of dozens of viruses within the vaccinia virus host genome (to make what are called recombinant viruses) which can mimic natural infection with these passenger viruses.  These properties of vaccinia have allowed it to be used in experiments in which vaccines to multiple diseases are delivered in a single injection. Such properties would of course also make vaccinia highly useful for covert vaccine experimentation or biological warfare, especially if the infection due to the passenger viruses could be delayed to hide the vaccine's role in causing disease. See: B. Moss, “Vaccinia Virus: A Tool for Research and Vaccine Development,” Science, vol. 252, June 21, 1991, pp. 1662-1667;  M. E. Perkus, A. Piccini, B. R. Lipinskas, E. Paoletti, “Recombinant Vaccinia Virus: Immunization Against Multiple Pathogens,” Science, v. 229, Sept. 6, 1985, p. 983.

(19) The war on terrorism is providing a convenient pretext for injecting the public with a vaccine virus (vaccinia) which is the vehicle of choice for conducting vaccine experiments. While the use for vaccinia in the form of smallpox vaccines had all but disappeared, the uses for the vaccinia virus as a delivery vehicle for experimental vaccines against diseases other than smallpox have increased dramatically. The authors of one vaccinia-related patent summarized: “Vaccinia virus has been used successfully to immunize against smallpox, culminating in the worldwide eradication of smallpox in 1980. …With the eradication of smallpox, a new role for vaccinia became important, that of a genetically engineered vector for the expression of foreign genes. Genes encoding a vast number of heterologous antigens have been expressed in vaccinia, often resulting in protective immunity against challenge by the corresponding pathogen.” [Paoletti] These vaccinia-based vaccines are expected to have numerous advantages over conventional vaccines and are now ready for large-scale human testing. By providing a crisis environment and an artificial demand for vaccinia-based vaccines, the war on terrorism has provided the perfect scenario for testing these new vaccines. And the nature of the vaccinia virus makes it a nearly perfect vehicle for testing these vaccines covertly. Unfortunately, numerous precedents for government experimentation on the public with vaccines in time of war, and precedents for unethical vaccine experiments with vaccinia make this alarming scenario all too feasible. If the government didn't hesitate to experiment on the military with HIV vaccines in the first Gulf War, why would they hesitate to use vaccinia-based HIV vaccines in such experiments in the shadow of a second Gulf War--especially now that they have been given legal protection from side-effects in advance? [Paoletti; Enzo; Pincus; Steven E.; Cox; William I.; Kauffman; Elizabeth K., “Recombinant poxvirus--cytomegalovirus compositions and uses,” United States Patent, #6,267,965, July 31, 2001]

(20) Edward Jenner, the controversial “discoverer” of the smallpox vaccine, after exposing human subjects to his experimental cowpox vaccine, then exposed them to deadly sources of smallpox to measure the effectiveness of his vaccine. As Jenner described in 1800: "Upwards of six thousand persons have now been inoculated with the virus of cow-pox, and the far greater part of them have since been inoculated with that of smallpox, and exposed to its infection in every rational way that could be devised, without effect." Despite his unethical procedure of "challenging" vaccine recipients with deadly viruses (which was replicated by the Nazis), over time Jenner became viewed as a hero for his early vaccine experiments using children as guinea pigs. “With hindsight, Jenner’s experiment appears to be the audacious and pioneering act of a visionary. However, at the time it was viewed with the scepticism [sic] and horror that would confront a modern-day attempt to inoculate a healthy child with HIV-infected tissue.” Robert Brines, Immunology Today, vol. 17, no. 5, May 1996, 203, 204.

(21) In addition to having used smallpox infected blankets against the American Indians, the US government developed plans to use weaponized smallpox in covert warfare against Vietnam in the 1960s. The lethal smallpox virus seemed like an ideal biological warfare agent because it was not only deadly but had a delayed infectious effect and was naturally occurring. The authors of the bestselling book Germs noted: “...North Vietnamese troops appeared to be vulnerable. In some ways, the setting was ideal. Though Vietnam had experienced no smallpox outbreaks since 1959, the disease still lurked in neighboring countries, allowing an epidemic to be attributed to natural causes. In the argot of covert operations, the strike would be plausibly deniable, a key requirement.” Judith Miller, Stephen Engelberg, William Broad, Germs, (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2002), pp. 60, 61, 74.