Biological alarm in Washington

[existentialist]

http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2005/10/18/tularemia/print.html



Biological alarm in Washington
Did terrorists attack Washington with a deadly pathogen?
By Mark Benjamin

Oct. 18, 2005 |



Unknown to the crowd, biological-weapons sensors, scattered for miles across Washington by the Department of Homeland Security, were quietly doing their work. The machines are designed to detect killer pathogens. Sometime between 10 a.m. on Sept. 24 and 10 a.m. on Sept. 25, six of those machines sucked in trace amounts of deadly bacteria called Francisella tularensis. The government fears it is one of six biological weapons most likely to be used against the United States.


. . .


However, Salon has spoken to numerous people who were at the Washington Mall on Sept. 24. Four say they got sick days later with symptoms that mirror Tularemia.

. . .


"One sensor, I'd say maybe," says biosecurity expert Stanhope of the dust theory. "Two sensors is a stretch. Six sensors? I'm sorry, you don't have enough money to buy enough martinis to make me believe that it is naturally occurring at six different sites. I don't think you could get me that drunk to believe that."

. . .


Several members of the women's peace group, Code Pink, also from North Carolina, who attended the march, say they got sick afterward. Stephanie Eriksen, a 46-year-old network engineer for AT&T, says she developed swollen glands and cold symptoms in her throat and chest. She developed a persistent cough that still lingers. "My throat has still not recovered completely," she says. Eriksen says her 14-year-old daughter marched in Washington and got sick. She was tested for strep throat. Eriksen said the results were negative.

. . .


-- By Mark Benjamin

[electropop]

1. State-sponsored terrorists perhaps.

That would be the same state that sponsored anthrax attacks against its opposition 4 years ago.

[Carolab]

2. Note to protestors: Bring masks. n/t

[Demeter]

3. So Is That Why the Flight to Texas?

So Bush could unlease disease upon the protesters?

This has gone beyond funny ha-ha, funny peculiar, and damned funny.

On the other hand, my daughter brought home from camp on July 18th a virus that lasted for 4 weeks of exhaustion, congestion, and impaired vocalization. It could just be something going around. Without some definitive tests, who knows what's really happening?

[DBoon]

4. They unleashed anthrax on democratic representatives

and a tabloid publisher bold enough to to print scandals about the Bush family.

This is just small potatoes in comparison.

Expect something really ugly should the anti-war movement start to weild some real clout.

[ToolTex]

5. Take it seriously. That many filters couldn't trap it naturally.

It doesn't even exist in nature in the DC area. These criminals are cowards and indeed left for the weekend. They are afraid of Gold Star Mothers and other thinking people. And they will kill dissenters when they believe they can get by with it.

[Kailassa]

6. But people don't want to believe it ...

And yet so many people would prefer to believe the impossible than risk letting something onto their minds that others might ridicule as a "conspiracy theory."
Or is it fear of accepting that this is what the world is really like now that stops so many people even in this forum from listening?