The
Smallpox Vaccine:
An Ideal Vehicle for Covert Vaccine Research on Human Subjects
By Jerry Leonard
“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.”
Edward Jenner, 1798
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Abstract: Grotesquely unethical experiments in vaccine research are nothing
new. They have a long and sordid history. In this essay I review Edward Jenner's pioneering
methods for creating a model infection of smallpox in human subjects through
person-to-person smallpox "transplants" as a means of developing and
testing his cow-pox vaccines against the deadly disease.[1]
In other works, I have proposed
that the cancer epidemic induced by AIDS was deliberately caused by cancer
researchers following in Jenner's footsteps, in this case creating a model
infection of viral cancer in humans (and model forms of immune system
defects suspected of increasing viral cancer susceptibility) so that cancer
vaccines could be developed and tested.[2] Cancer researchers not only used Jenner's
"vaccine/challenge" method for human cancer vaccine research, they
apparently used a vaccine based on the same virus (vaccinia) that Jenner used
in a component of this research–with catastrophic results.[3]
Modern developments in genetic engineering coupled with recent political
developments enabling unethical social engineering make an understanding
of Jenner’s methods and the experimentation now possible with his virus even
more vital for the health of the international public--lest ongoing attempts at
manipulating and attacking
the social immune system (e.g. the assault on medical ethics) facilitate
the continued
attack on the human immune system through ongoing and covert vaccine
experimentation.
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Several researchers have linked the international outbreak of HIV with the global smallpox vaccination program overseen by the World Health Organization. The author has proposed that this smallpox vaccination program was deliberately used to conduct a covert human cancer experiment with immunosuppressive viruses designed to aid in the development of human cancer vaccines.[4]
Such a cancer vaccine experiment would represent the culmination of a long-running set of parallel experiments by the cancer research establishment toward that end: one set involved exploiting immune system damage to cause cancer in human subjects with “transplantable tumors” and monkey viruses; the other involved inducing controlled immune system damage using “immunosuppressive” viruses in animals to facilitate cancer transplantability.
The author believes the documented modification of these animal immunosuppressive viruses for growth in human cells[5] was used to merge the lines of human and animal cancer transplant experimentation. By replicating these animal experiments in human populations, researchers would be able to create a long-sought model of viral cancer in humans that would be highly useful for cancer vaccine research. Such a model has been provided by the highly beneficial cancer epidemic caused by AIDS.[6]
Dangerous human experiments with immunosuppressive viruses of the type used for years in animal experiments would of course have to be conducted covertly. As it turns out, the vaccinia virus used in the smallpox vaccine that has been linked to AIDS not only has a long history of abuse in dangerous human experiments, it is a virus ideally suited for conducting unethical and covert experimentation today.
As will be discussed below, the
vaccinia virus used to induce immunity against smallpox is a very convenient
virus for conducting covert experiments because it can be modified to deliver
multiple viruses to a biological organism.[7]
The recent push to vaccinate the entire American public against smallpox with vaccinia virus makes it extremely important for the public to understand that dangerous vaccine experiments against diseases other than smallpox could be covertly conducted with vaccines containing this virus.
Overview
The vaccinia virus used in the international smallpox vaccine has unique properties that make it an especially effective tool for use in experiments, covert or overt, that require the delivery of multiple viruses to a biological organism. The fact that DNA recombination is a natural byproduct of poxvirus replication (vaccinia is a poxvirus) makes it practical to incorporate “foreign” viral genes in the vaccinia genome.[8] Importantly, these foreign viruses can be integrated in the host genome such that they can mimic natural infection with the “passenger” viruses when the “recombinant” virus is injected in a host organism. Additionally, the vaccinia virus is so large that the genomes of dozens of viruses of average size can be inserted in its nonessential regions for use in this manner.[9] Finally, the wide host-range of the vaccinia virus makes the novel characteristics of the virus useful for application in numerous species, including humans.
These convenient properties combine to make the vaccinia virus a viral “delivery vehicle” that can be exploited for fascinating applications ranging from human vaccine research to biological warfare.[10]
Vaccinia and Vaccine Research
In the development of a vaccine against a given virus, scientists typically develop a modified (or attenuated) form of the virus that can mimic natural infection without actually causing disease.[11] Although the resulting infection due to the attenuated virus is milder, it is capable of eliciting an immune response that will provide long-term immunity[12] against the natural form of the virus.
Another way to vaccinate against a dangerous virus is to find a similar virus already existing in nature which results in a harmless infection but which elicits an immune response capable of defeating the dangerous form of the virus. The vaccinia virus (a form of cowpox) is such a virus that produces a “mild” infection in humans but which also stimulates an immune response that protects against smallpox (caused by the variola virus)—one of the most deadly diseases known to man.[13] Early vaccines against smallpox using vaccinia were developed after it was noticed that persons who had been naturally exposed to cowpox viruses exhibited immunity to smallpox.
Since genetically engineered vaccinia virus can deliver numerous “passenger” viruses in a manner that mimics natural infection, it can be used as a delivery vehicle for vaccines against diseases other than smallpox. Indeed, according to the patent literature, vaccines delivered by vaccinia virus have numerous advantages over other forms of vaccines with live or killed viruses.[14]
The process of creating vaccines by inserting genes from “attenuated” or modified viruses into the vaccinia virus genome is being actively exploited by medical researchers. Genes from viruses such as hepatitis B,[15] herpes simplex,[16] influenza,[17] and rabies[18] have been inserted into the vaccinia genome (which is used as a carrier) to form vaccinia-based vaccines against diseases caused by these viruses.
The tremendous carrying capacity of the vaccinia virus allows the process described above to be exploited to create single vaccines capable of inducing immunity to multiple viruses (these are sometimes referred to as “polyvalent” vaccines). This is accomplished by inserting genes from several vaccine viruses into the vaccinia virus genome so they are able to mimic natural infection and thereby elicit an immune response that provides long-term immunity from naturally occurring versions of the inserted viruses.
The feasibility of such polyvalent vaccines has recently been demonstrated for an experimental vaccinia vaccine capable of simultaneously inducing immunity to hepatitis B, herpes simplex, and influenza in rabbits.[19] Researchers are hoping to extend these results to diseases infecting humans so that one day a single vaccine to many different viruses could be given to young children instead of the traditional battery of vaccines given currently.
Vaccinia and Unethical Vaccine Research
The same property that allows vaccinia virus to deliver proven vaccine viruses offers the possibility of exploitation early in the research process typically used to test such vaccine viruses.
Before vaccines are used in human populations, they must be shown to be capable of preventing disease without causing harm. One way of demonstrating the effectiveness of vaccines is to inject the experimental vaccine into test subjects followed by “challenging” the subjects with injections of the disease to be protected against. If subjects who are given the vaccine are protected against the injected disease, while those not given the vaccine fall prey to the disease, then the vaccine has the potential to be used in human applications.
The reputed “inventor” of the smallpox vaccine, Edward Jenner, used this “vaccination-challenge” procedure in an unethical and dangerous way. He first injected human subjects with his experimental smallpox vaccine. (In this case he used the cowpox or vaccinia virus.) He then demonstrated the protective ability of the vaccine virus by challenging both vaccinated and unvaccinated human subjects with the deadly smallpox (variola) virus! Those who had been vaccinated with cowpox were protected from smallpox injections. Those who were not vaccinated contracted smallpox.
Jenner described the procedure he used to inject a boy with smallpox virus (variola) to test the effectiveness of his cowpox vaccine:
In order to ascertain whether the boy, after feeling so slight an affection of the system from the cow-pox virus, was secure from the contagion of the smallpox, he was inoculated the 1st of July following with variolous matter, immediately taken from a pustule. Several slight punctures and incisions were made on both his arms, and the matter [smallpox] was carefully inserted, but no disease followed. …Several months afterwards he was again inoculated with variolous matter, but no sensible effect was produced on the constitution.[20]
Despite his grotesquely unethical procedure of injecting vaccinated and unvaccinated children with the deadly smallpox virus, [21] over time Edward Jenner came to be viewed as a hero for his dangerous vaccine experiments using humans as guinea pigs. One author summarized, “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 and horror that would confront a modern-day attempt to inoculate a healthy child with HIV-infected tissue.”[22]
Fortunately dangerous experiments like those conducted by Jenner cannot be conducted overtly today.[23] However, the virus that Jenner used in his smallpox vaccine—vaccinia—can itself be used with other viruses to covertly replicate his procedure. All that is required to conduct such experiments with experimental vaccines and/or challenging viruses is to exploit the properties of the vaccinia virus that make it useful for polyvalent vaccines.[24]
Vaccines requiring the traditional use of vaccinia can be used to conduct such covert human experiments on the public. For example, campaigns against smallpox outbreaks due to terrorists are being used to justify massive smallpox vaccination campaigns with vaccinia virus. Since these vaccinations would already employ the vaccinia virus, the vaccines could simply be augmented with modified vaccinia viruses containing the experimental viruses to be covertly tested on the public.
The use of such “modified” vaccinia-based vaccines would be a powerful research tool. Smallpox vaccines could be modified to include experimental vaccine viruses against a disease other than smallpox or they could contain a “challenging” virus against a previously administered vaccine.[25]
If the latency period of the infections caused by vaccinia-delivered viruses can be controlled, more sophisticated experiments using vaccines might be carried out. For example, vaccinia-based vaccines could conceivably contain an experimental vaccine as well as the challenging virus to determine the vaccine’s efficacy. This would allow Jenner’s vaccine-challenge experiments to be carried out with a single injection. For such an experiment to work properly, the infection due to the vaccine virus would have to be timed to take place before the infection due to the challenging virus. If this could be accomplished, Jenner’s experiment involving injections of vaccine virus followed by injections of a challenging virus might be replicated covertly in a single injection—coincidentally, using the virus he used for his experimental vaccine.
In addition to allowing such vaccine experiments to take place, control over the incubation times of the injected viruses would provide other benefits. For example, if the infection due to a vaccine “additive” could be delayed, the disease induced by the passenger virus in the vaccine could not then be correlated with the administration of the vaccine that caused it. This would obviously provide benefits for covert experimentation.[26]
A second Gulf War or measures against terrorism could make such a scenario for unethical experimentation a reality if such measures are used to justify massive smallpox vaccine inoculations. Since traditional vaccinia vaccines are unlikely to prevent the disease induced by any version of smallpox engineered for biological warfare, and since naturally occurring forms of smallpox have supposedly been eliminated, it seems more likely that vaccination campaigns with vaccinia are better suited for public experimentation than public protection. In fact, antiterrorism has given a new life to the use of vaccinia in public vaccines[27] just at a time when recombinant vaccinia vaccines against numerous diseases other than smallpox have been developed and are ready to be tested.[28]
Thus the war against terrorism has created a scenario for using an agent optimized for covert experimentation under conditions perfect for covert experimentation. The precedent for unethical experimentation under similar conditions in the past (Gulf War I) combined with the advanced legal protection for experimentation already granted to medical institutions in preparation for Gulf War II[29] make the current situation seem ripe for abuse.[30]
What vaccines might be tested under such a scenario? This author and others have documented the use of vaccines in Gulf War I to conduct covert experiments against HIV. If this type of experimentation is repeated, Gulf War II may be used to test versions of vaccinia-based HIV vaccines that have been developed.[31] Vaccinia-based vaccines against the cancers caused by HIV have also been developed and may be used in such vaccine experiments. Vaccinia-based vaccines against other forms of human cancer have already been tested. For example, four different human melanoma cell lines were used in one vaccinia-based vaccine trial.[32] Vaccinia-based vaccines using viruses (such as human papilloma virus) thought to be a cause of human cancer are also being developed for human trials and are candidates for covert human testing.[33]
Vaccinia and Immunosuppressive Research
It has been
shown that, in addition to serving as a delivery platform for multiple vaccine
viruses, vaccinia could be used earlier in the vaccine research process to
deliver combinations of vaccine and challenging viruses. However, the same
properties that would allow the vaccinia virus to deliver multiple viruses to an
organism to induce and verify immunocompetence
(through vaccination and challenge) might also be used even earlier in the
vaccine research process. For example, vaccinia could be used to aid the powerful component of vaccine experimentation that exploits
immune system damage (or immunosuppression) to identify promising avenues of
research.
An Overview of Immunosuppressive Research
The
creation and exploitation of immunosuppression has played a very useful role in
vaccine research. For example, by watching how
diseases are induced in subjects with controllably damaged immune systems, scientists can identify which components of the immune
system need to be boosted to provide immunity against disease. This information, in turn, provides scientists with clues as
to which viruses or other treatments might be more fruitfully explored in
subsequent vaccine experiments designed to “jump-start” the immune response to
viruses.
The
deliberate creation of immunosuppression was used extensively in viral cancer
vaccine research.
The methodology scientists used to induce and exploit immunosuppression in animal cancer vaccine research has been discussed at length elsewhere.[34] Basically the process consisted of administering an immunosuppressive treatment (typically viruses, radiation, or drugs) to experimental animals followed by “challenging” the immunosuppressed animal subjects with various viruses. By measuring how cancer grew in immunosuppressed subjects, researchers were able to determine how the different types of immune system damage induced for the experiment influenced the effect of the challenging virus on the host.[35] Scientists could then begin searching for viruses or other treatments that would compensate for this immune system damage.[36]
In
one particular application of this type of “immunosuppression/challenge”
experiment involving mouse cancers, injections of murine leukemia and sarcoma
viruses were used. The murine leukemia viruses were injected to induce
immunosuppression as a means of increasing susceptibility to the injections of
murine sarcoma viruses as challenge viruses.[37] By monitoring the cancer growth resulting from deliberate
immune system damage, researchers determined what types of immune stimulation
might prevent cancer growth. This, in turn, provided researchers with enough
information about the immune response to cancer viruses to create vaccines
(consisting of modified versions of the cancer viruses under study) to certain
forms of murine cancer viruses.[38]
The
vaccine/challenge process described above could then be used to test the
effectiveness of vaccines developed in this destructive process. For example,
modified or attenuated cancer viruses developed to stimulate the immune
system response to cancer could be injected in test subjects. The usefulness of
these vaccines could then be evaluated by injecting vaccinated subjects with
challenging viruses.
Thus
cancer researchers invented a sophisticated system for developing and testing vaccines
to viruses they suspected of causing cancer. This system used immunosuppressive
viruses, vaccine viruses, and challenging viruses. Using the array of viruses
they invented, they could first inject test subjects with immunosuppressive
viruses in combination with “challenging” cancer viruses. This would help to
determine which immune system components appeared to control cancer growth.
Using this knowledge, they could formulate vaccines designed to stimulate these
components of the immune system. Then they could inject experimental cancer
vaccines (in some cases, modified versions of the cancer viruses) in
combination with challenging viruses to determine the effectiveness of the
vaccines. [39]
The Usefulness of Vaccinia for Covert
Immunosuppressive Research
The characteristics of the vaccinia virus that allow it to deliver experimental viruses and vaccines would also make it suitable for use in immunosuppressive cancer experimentation. For example, immunosuppressive viruses might be integrated within the vaccinia genome and delivered to an experimental organism. Once the immunosuppressive virus took effect, researchers could study the infection of the challenging viruses on the immunosuppressed subject. (The challenging viruses could also be introduced through separate injections of vaccinia virus containing “passenger” viruses.)
In even more sophisticated applications of this procedure, mixtures of immunosuppressive and cancer viruses might be simultaneously delivered through the vaccinia virus in the same way that multiple vaccine viruses or vaccine and challenge viruses could be delivered as proposed above. This method of using the vaccinia virus to deliver both an immunosupppressive and challenge virus could replace the necessity for separate injections in immunosuppressive experiments such as those that were conducted in mice.[40]
Once enough was learned about the immune system reaction to cancer viruses through this immunosuppressive process, a genetically engineered version of the original cancer-causing virus might be devised that would be capable of inducing immunity by stimulating the identified immune system components. The vaccinia virus might then also serve as a delivery vehicle for this modified version of the cancer virus in the form of a vaccine.[41] Additionally vaccinia might then be used as described previously to deliver challenging viruses to determine the efficacy of the vaccines. (A vaccine against the immunosuppressive virus itself might even be devised and delivered via a vaccinia virus.[42])
Use of a Vaccinia Hybrid for a Two-Part Immunosuppressive Experiment
In the most sophisticated form of a vaccine/challenge experiment, immunosuppressive and cancer agents might be combined in a vaccinia-based vaccine. Once the immunosuppressive viruses took effect, the cancer rates due to the cancer viruses could be measured. (Rates before and after the immunosuppressive viruses took effect could be compared to determine the role of immunosuppression in cancer development.)
In a simpler form, immunosuppressive viruses and challenging cancer viruses could be delivered in separate injections. Vaccinia might prove useful for administering these viruses covertly, under the pretext of vaccination. This would allow a two-part immunosuppressive experiment to be carried out under the pretext of separate vaccinations.
In other works by the author, it was proposed that the AIDS epidemic is the result of human cancer experiments involving deliberate exposure of human subjects to immunosuppressive viruses. The international smallpox vaccination program of the World Health Organization (WHO), which used the vaccinia-based vaccine, was implicated as the vehicle used deliberately to infect human subjects with immunosuppressive viruses.[43]
One is tempted to hypothesize that an experiment similar to the one proposed above using immunosuppressive and possibly cancer viruses integrated into a vaccinia-based smallpox vaccine was indeed implemented, resulting in the HIV epidemic and the associated epidemic of cancers that is proving so useful to cancer researchers.
Whether or not vaccinia was used to induce AIDS as described above,[44] vaccinia could be used in subsequent experiments as the second leg of a two-part immunosuppressive experiment. In this leg of the experiment, challenging viruses could be administered to immunosuppressed AIDS-victims using vaccinia-based vaccines containing such viruses. (The diseases resulting from AIDS would create a “natural” demand for such vaccines.)
The use of vaccinia hybrids in vaccinating HIV patients against secondary infections would provide an ideal pretext for medical researchers to probe the immune systems of immunosuppressed patients with various challenging viruses. Since the vaccinia virus has such an enormous carrying capacity, challenging viruses besides the vaccine virus could be covertly placed in the experimental vaccinia-based vaccines. This would allow researchers to observe how the suppressed immune systems of AIDS patients reacted to various viruses when specific components were impaired or not functioning properly, thus completing the second phase of the proposed two-part experiment described above.[45] Vaccines against the AIDS virus itself could also provide a vehicle for covert injections of challenging viruses. (As mentioned previously, vaccinia-based vaccines against HIV[46] and numerous forms of cancer have been developed and could be used in such experiments. Attempts to use the vaccinia virus against non-AIDS-related cancers and leukemias are already underway.[47],[48])
Vaccinia and Biowarfare
The properties of vaccinia that make it useful for covertly delivering experimental viruses to human subjects would also make it ideal for use in biological warfare applications. Additionally the same properties that make immunosuppressive viruses useful for cancer research (controlled immune system damage) also make them suitable for biological warfare.[49] The delay effects that would allow vaccinia to be used in combined “vaccine-challenge” studies or “immunosuppressive virus-challenge” studies would also make it useful for biological warfare. (The delayed infection would allow the role of the vaccine in inducing disease to be hidden.) Thus it can be seen that a biological warfare exercise could also double as an immunosuppressive cancer experiment conducted with vaccinia.[50]
Are such scenarios involving vaccinia and biological warfare agents with carefully timed infections realistic?
U.S. development of biological warfare agents with carefully controlled latency periods is not unprecedented. In the 1960s the U.S. made aggressive but unrealized plans to attack Cuba with combinations or “cocktails” of biological incapacitating agents. These cocktails were designed to induce successive diseases with carefully selected incubation periods and durations. The authors of the bestseller Germs wrote that one “special cocktail of two germs and one biological toxin [was] designed to work sequentially so that victims would come down with uncommonly long periods of sickness and debilitation. Exposure to the agents would debilitate Cubans within a few hours and the incapacitation would last up to three weeks. Jets would … spray … key towns, ports, and military bases, moving east to west with the trade winds. Havana, in the west, was to get special attention. The isolated Caribbean island of Cuba was seen as an ideal target for biological warfare.”
Plans were also made to attack Vietnam with the lethal smallpox virus, which seemed like an ideal biological warfare agent because it was not only deadly but had a delayed infectious effect and was naturally occurring. Moreover, U.S. troops had been vaccinated against the virus. “A boomerang effect seemed unlikely, since American troops were routinely vaccinated against the contagious disease. And 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.”[51]
The use of smallpox as a biowarfare agent has even made it past the planning stage. American history records the use of smallpox against the native populations of both North and South America with deadly results. (For example, both the British[52] and the Americans gave blankets deliberately infected with smallpox to the indigenous populations of North America.)[53]
These precedents for biological warfare with “primitive” disease agents such as smallpox are disconcerting in themselves. However, they are even more disturbing when considered in light of recent progress in the field of genetic engineering. This field would open up new avenues of destruction for the military. Indeed, a military journal warned in 1970 that advances in DNA research provided new opportunities for attacking “the functions of life”:
The enzymatic process for RNA production has been known for some years, but now the factors have been revealed which regulate the initiation and specificity of enzyme production. Not only the factors have been found, but their inhibitors. Thus, the functions of life lie bare to attack.[54] [emphasis added]
As has been shown above, genetic engineering of the vaccine virus used against smallpox—vaccinia—in the years following 1960s-era plans to use smallpox itself as a biowarfare weapon would open up new avenues for covert experimentation and biological warfare.
Summary
The properties of vaccinia virus that make it useful for delivering viruses to humans could be exploited to deliver vaccines that are reported to have numerous advantages over traditional vaccines. The ability of vaccinia to deliver multiple viruses covertly might be used in sophisticated “vaccine-challenge” experiments or “immunosuppressive virus-challenge” experiments. Additionally these same properties would allow viruses used as biological warfare agents to be delivered by vaccinia-based vaccines.
By creating a renewed demand for vaccinia-based vaccines at a time when scientists have exploited the ability of the virus to deliver multiple viruses with a single vaccine, the war on terrorism has opened up new possibilities for overt and covert research and biological warfare.