Geen evolutie en ecolutie zonder revolutie!

Albert Einstein:

Twee dingen zijn oneindig: het universum en de menselijke domheid. Maar van het universum ben ik niet zeker.
Posts tonen met het label antrax. Alle posts tonen
Posts tonen met het label antrax. Alle posts tonen

vrijdag 4 juni 2021

De FBI zoektocht naar de daders van de Antrax aanvallen in 2001 is belangrijk voor de vraag waar de COVID-19 uitbraak begon

Glenn Greenwald heeft een artikel geschreven waarin hij eerst aandacht besteedt aan de antrax aanvallen in de VS na de aanslagen van 9/11 (2001). Hij beschrijft hoe de FBI en anderen zochten naar de dader, waarbij men eerst de schuld in de schoenen van Saddam Hoessein probeerde te schuiven. Toen bleek dat de gevonden antrax, uit het VS militair laboratorium van Fort Detrick kwam, begon men een paar wetenschappers te beschuldigen, waarvan er één werkzaam was in dat laboratorium, met die beschuldiging werd de reputatie van deze mensen ernstig beschadigd, zoals die van dr. Steven Hatfill, een voormalig wetenschapper van de overheid, aan wie de VS overheid later 6 miljoen euro schadevergoeding moest betalen vanwege die valse beschuldiging...... 

Daarna werd microbioloog Bruce Ivins beschuldigd, deze wetenschapper was werkzaam in Fort Detrick, echter voor men hem kon aanklagen zou deze wetenschapper zich het leven hebben benomen...... Wat mij betreft discutabel, daar dit de FBI wel erg goed uitkwam: immers waarom zou Ivins zich het leven benemen als hij onschuldig was? Anders gezegd de kans is groot dat Ivins werd vermoord , waarbij men het op een suïcide liet lijken, dit om hem blijvend als schuldige aan te kunnen wijzen >> dergelijke 'suïcides' zijn een specialiteit van zowel de FBI als de CIA....... Overigens is het overgrote deel van de betrokkenen ervan overtuigd dat Ivins niets met de verspreiding van antrax te maken had: het zou zelfs onmogelijk zijn dat hij dit alleen zou hebben kunnen doen........

De militaire laboratoria van Fort Detrick

Greenwald vindt e.e.a. belangrijk gezien de vraag waar het Coronavirus vandaan kwam, onlangs door Joe Biden nog eens aangewezen als belangrijk onderzoeksproject. Uit onderzoek naar de antrax uit 2001 bleek dat deze was aangepast in het militaire laboratorium in Fort Detrick, zogenaamd om uit te zoeken of er een vaccin tegen deze vorm van antrax was te fabriceren...... Geheel terecht merkt Greenwald op dat de VS weliswaar verdragen tegen het fabriceren van biologische wapens heeft getekend, maar in feite nog steeds bezig is met het fabriceren van dodelijke virussen en bacteriestammen in het bewuste militaire laboratorium....... 

Jammer dat Greenwald niet het met spoed sluiten noemt van Fort Detrick in de zomer van 2019, dit daar er een gevaarlijk virus was ontsnapt....... Het zou overigens zeker zijn dat ook het Coronavirus in dat laboratorium onderwerp van onderzoek was, niet zo vreemd als je bedenkt dat dit virus al lang rondwaart, echter zonder de ernstige gevolgen zoals we die het laatste jaar hebben gezien >> alleen dat laatste is al verdacht en zou kunnen aangeven dat er inderdaad is 'gedokterd' aan dit virus (hoewel het Coronavirus nog steeds géén dodelijk virus mag worden genoemd zoals bijvoorbeeld Ebola....)..... Eén theorie is dat het militaire laboratorium van Fort Detrick samenwerkte met een laboratorium in Wuhan, de stad die onterecht werd aangewezen als plek waar het virus voor het eerst zou zijn gevonden, immers uit nader onderzoek vorig voorjaar van stalen bloed, afgenomen in november 2019 in Frankrijk, blijkt dat twee mensen in die maand al waren besmet met het Coronavirus dat intussen zoveel ellende heeft veroorzaakt.... Nader onderzoek heeft overigens uitgewezen dat al voor de ontdekking van de eerste Coronabesmettingen in China er in de VS al mensen waren besmet met het virus*.

Vergeet bij dit alles niet dat gezonde mensen amper last hebben van het virus en militairen zijn over het algemeen in goede conditie, dus de kans dat die ernstig ziek worden van het virus is zeer klein..... Tel daarbij op dat in oktober 2019 de militaire wereldspelen plaatsvonden in Wuhan, waar ook militairen uit de VS aan deel hebben genomen, ofwel het is heel goed mogelijk dat één of meer militairen dit virus onbedoeld hebben overgebracht naar Wuhan....... 

Afbeeldingsresultaat voor world military gamesbesmettelijk

Het is zonder meer een schande dat er ondanks de Coronacrisis nog steeds biologische wapens worden gemaakt, die duidelijk worden gefabriceerd om als wapen in te zetten.... Vorig jaar werd Fort Detrick weer geopend en ging men daar ondanks de 'pandemie' door met onderzoek naar biologische wapens als virussen om die in te zetten tegen een toekomstig vijandig land....... (en de bevolking van zo'n land.....)

Lees het schrijven van Greenwald en vorm je eigen mening over deze zaak....

The FBI's Strange Anthrax Investigation Sheds Light on COVID Lab-Leak Theory and Fauci's Emails

Mainstream institutions doubted the FBI had solved the 2001 anthrax case. Either way, revelations that emerged about U.S. Government bio-labs have newfound relevance.


Dr. Anthony Fauci, Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, speaks during a Senate Appropriations Subcommittee hearing May 26, 2021 on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C. (Photo by Stefani Reynolds-Pool/Getty Images)
 

One of the most significant events of the last two decades has been largely memory-holed: the October, 2001 anthrax attacks in the U.S. Beginning just one week after 9/11 and extending for another three weeks, a highly weaponized and sophisticated strain of anthrax had been sent around the country through the U.S. Postal Service addressed to some of the country's most prominent political and media figures. As Americans were still reeling from the devastation of 9/11, the anthrax killed five Americans and sickened another seventeen.

As part of the extensive reporting I did on the subsequent FBI investigation to find the perpetrator(s), I documented how significant these attacks were in the public consciousness. ABC News, led by investigative reporter Brian Ross, spent a full week claiming that unnamed government sources told them that government tests demonstrated a high likelihood that the anthrax came from Saddam Hussein's biological weapons program. The Washington Post, in November, 2001, also raised “the possibility that [this weaponized strain of anthrax] may have slipped through an informal network of scientists to Iraq.” Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) appeared on The David Letterman Show on October 18, 2001, and said: “There is some indication, and I don't have the conclusions, but some of this anthrax may -- and I emphasize may -- have come from Iraq.” Three days later, McCain appeared on Meet the Press with Sen. Joe Lieberman (D-CT) and said of the anthrax perpetrators: “perhaps this is an international organization and not one within the United States of America,” while Lieberman said the anthrax was so finely weaponized that “there's either a significant amount of money behind this, or this is state-sponsored, or this is stuff that was stolen from the former Soviet program” (Lieberman added: “Dr. Fauci can tell you more detail on that”).

In many ways, the prospect of a lethal, engineered biological agent randomly showing up in one's mailbox or contaminating local communities was more terrifying than the extraordinary 9/11 attack itself. All sorts of oddities shrouded the anthrax mailings, including this bizarre admission in 2008 by long-time Washington Post columnist Richard Cohen: “I had been told soon after Sept. 11 to secure Cipro, the antidote to anthrax. The tip had come in a roundabout way from a high government official. I was carrying Cipro way before most people had ever heard of it.” At the very least, those anthrax attacks played a vital role in heightening fear levels and a foundational sense of uncertainty that shaped U.S. discourse and politics for years to come. It meant that not just Americans living near key power centers such as Manhattan and Washington were endangered, but all Americans everywhere were: even from their own mailboxes.

Letter sent to NBC News anchor Tom Brokaw, along with weaponized anthrax, in September, 2001

The FBI first falsely cast suspicion on a former government scientist, Dr. Steven Hatfill, who had conducted research on mailing deadly anthrax strains. Following the FBI’s accusations, media outlets began dutifully implying that Hatfill was the culprit. A January, 2002, New York Times column by Nicholas Kristof began by declaring: “I think I know who sent out the anthrax last fall,” then, without naming him, proceeded to perfectly describe Hatfill in a way that made him easily identifiable to everyone in that research community. Hatfill sued the U.S. Government, which eventually ended up paying him close to $6 million in damages before officially and explicitly exonerating him and apologizing. His lawsuit against the NYT and Kristof were dismissed since he was never named by the paper, but the columnist also apologized to him six years later.

A full eight years after the attack, the FBI once again claimed that it had found the perpetrator: this time, it was the microbiologist Bruce Ivins, a long-time “biodefense” researcher at the U.S. Army’s infectious disease research lab in Fort Detrick, Maryland. Yet before he could be indicted, Ivins died, apparently by suicide, to avoid prosecution. As a result, the FBI was never required to prove its case in court. The agency insisted, however, that there was no doubt that Ivins was the anthrax killer, citing genetic analysis of the anthrax strain that they said conclusively matched the anthrax found in Ivins’ U.S. Army lab, along with circumstantial evidence pointing to him.

But virtually every mainstream institution other than the FBI harbored doubts. The New York Times quoted Ivins’ co-workers as calling into question the FBI’s claims (“The investigators looked around, they decided they had to find somebody”), and the paper also cited “vocal skepticism from key members of Congress.” Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT), one of the targets of the anthrax letters, said explicitly he did not believe Ivins could have carried out the attacks alone. Sen. Charles Grassley (R-IA) and then-Rep. Rush Holt (D-NJ), a physicist, said the same to me in interviews. The nation’s three largest newspapers — The New York Times, The Washington Post, and The Wall Street Journal — all editorially called for independent investigations on the grounds that the FBI’s evidence was inconclusive if not outright unconvincing. One of the country’s most prestigious science journals, Nature, published an editorial under the headline “Case Not Closed,” arguing, about the FBI’s key claims, that “the jury is still out on those questions.”


When an independent investigation was finally conducted in 2011 into the FBI’s scientific claims against Ivins, much of that doubt converted into full-blown skepticism. As The New York Times put it — in a 2008 article headlined "Expert Panel Is Critical of F.B.I. Work in Investigating Anthrax Letters" —  the review “concludes that the bureau overstated the strength of genetic analysis linking the mailed anthrax to a supply kept by Bruce E. Ivins.” A Washington Post article -- headlined: "Anthrax report casts doubt on scientific evidence in FBI case against Bruce Ivins" -- announced that "the report reignited a debate that has simmered among some scientists and others who have questioned the strength of the FBI's evidence against Ivins."

An in-depth joint investigation by ProPublica, PBS and McClatchy — published under the headline “New Evidence Adds Doubt to FBI’s Case Against Anthrax Suspect”concluded that “newly available documents and the accounts of Ivins’ former colleagues shed fresh light on the evidence and, while they don't exonerate Ivins, are at odds with some of the science and circumstantial evidence that the government said would have convicted him of capital crimes.” It added: “even some of the government’s science consultants wonder whether the real killer is still at large.” The report itself, issued by the National Research Council, concluded that while the components of the anthrax in Ivins’ lab were “consistent” with the weaponized anthrax that had been sent, “the scientific link between the letter material and flask number RMR-1029 [found in Ivins’ lab] is not as conclusive as stated in the DOJ Investigative Summary."


In short, these were serious and widespread mainstream doubts about the FBI’s case against Ivins, and those have never been resolved. U.S. institutions seemingly agreed to simply move on without ever addressing lingering scientific and other evidentiary questions regarding whether Ivins was really involved in the anthrax attacks and, if so, how it was possible that he could have carried out this sophisticated attack within a top-secret U.S. Army lab acting alone. So whitewashed is this history that doubts about whether the FBI found the real perpetrator are now mocked by smug Smart People as a fringe conspiracy theory rather than what they had been: the consensus of mainstream institutions.


But what we do know for certain from this anthrax investigation is quite serious. And because it is quite relevant to the current debates over the origins of COVID-19, it is well-worth reviewing. A trove of emails from Dr. Anthony Fauci — who was the government’s top infectious disease specialist during the AIDS pandemic, the anthrax attacks, and the COVID pandemic — was published on Monday by BuzzFeed after they were produced pursuant to a FOIA request. Among other things, they reveal that in February and March of last year — at the time that Fauci and others were dismissing any real possibility that the coronavirus inadvertently escaped from a lab, to the point that the Silicon Valley monopolies Facebook and Google banned any discussion of that theory -- Fauci and his associates and colleagues were privately discussing the possibility that the virus had escaped from the Wuhan Institute of Virology, possibly as part of a U.S.-funded joint program with the scientists at that lab.

Last week, BBC reported that “in recent weeks the controversial claim that the pandemic might have leaked from a Chinese laboratory — once dismissed by many as a fringe conspiracy theory — has been gaining traction.” President Biden ordered an investigation into this lab-leak possibility. And with Democrats now open to this possibility, “Facebook reversed course Thursday and said that it would no longer remove posts that claim the virus is man-made,” reported The Washington Post. Nobody can rationally claim to know the origins of COVID, and that is exactly why — as I explained in an interview on the Rising program this morning — it should be so disturbing that Silicon Valley monopolies and the WHO/Fauci-led scientific community spent a full year pretending to have certainty about that “debunked” theory that they plainly did not possess, to the point where discussions of it were prohibited on social media.

What we know — but have largely forgotten — from the anthrax case is now vital to recall. What made the anthrax attacks of 2001 particularly frightening was how sophisticated and deadly the strain was. It was not naturally occurring anthrax. Scientists quickly identified it as the notorious Ames strain, which researchers at the U.S. Army lab in Fort Detrick had essentially invented. As PBS’ Frontline program put it in 2011: “in October 2001, Northern Arizona University microbiologist Dr. Paul Keim identified that the anthrax used in the attack letters was the Ames strain, a development he described as ‘chilling’ because that particular strain was developed in U.S. government laboratories.” As Dr. Keim recalled in that Frontline interview about his 2001 analysis of the anthrax strain:

We were surprised it was the Ames strain. And it was chilling at the same time, because the Ames strain is a laboratory strain that had been developed by the U.S. Army as a vaccine-challenge strain. We knew that it was highly virulent. In fact, that’s why the Army used it, because it represented a more potent challenge to vaccines that were being developed by the U.S. Army. It wasn’t just some random type of anthrax that you find in nature; it was a laboratory strain, and that was very significant to us, because that was the first hint that this might really be a bioterrorism event.

Why was the U.S. government creating exotic and extraordinarily deadly infectious bacterial strains and viruses that, even in small quantities, could kill large numbers of people? The official position of the U.S. Government is that it does not engage in offensive bioweapons research: meaning research designed to create weaponized viruses as weapons of war. The U.S. has signed treaties barring such research. But in the wake of the anthrax attacks — especially once the FBI’s own theory was that the anthrax was sent by a U.S. Army scientist from his stash at Fort Detrick — U.S. officials were forced to acknowledge that they do engage in defensive bioweapons research: meaning research designed to allow the development of vaccines and other defenses in the event that another country unleashes a biological attack.

But ultimately, that distinction barely matters. For both offensive and defensive bioweapons research, scientists must create, cultivate, manipulate and store non-natural viruses in their labs, whether to study them for weaponization or for vaccines. A fascinating-in-retrospect New Yorker article from March, 2002, featured the suspicions of molecular biologist Barbara Hatch Rosenberg, who had “strongly implied that the F.B.I. was moving much more slowly in its anthrax investigation than it had any reason to.” Like The New York Times, the magazine (without naming him) detailed her speculation that Dr. Hatfill was the perpetrator (though her theory about his motive — that he wanted to scare people about anthrax in order to increase funding for research — was virtually identical to the FBI’s ultimate accusations about Dr. Ivins’ motives).

But the key point that is particularly relevant now is what all of this said about the kind of very dangerous research the U.S. Government, along with other large governments, conducts in bioweapons research labs. Namely, they manufacture and store extremely lethal biological agents that, if they escape from the lab either deliberately or inadvertently, can jeopardize the human species. As the article put it:

The United States officially forswore biological-weapons development in 1969, and signed the 1972 Biological Weapons Convention, along with many other nations. But Rosenberg believes that the American bioweapons program, which won't allow itself to be monitored, may not be in strict compliance with the convention. If the perpetrator of the anthrax attacks is who she thinks it is, that would put the American program in a bad light, and it would prove that she was right to demand that the program be monitored.

If the government is saying that the perpetrator was probably an American, it's hard to imagine how it couldn't have been an American who worked in a government-supported bioweapons lab. Think back to the panicky month of October [2001]: would knowing that have made you less nervous, or more?

Having extensively reported on the FBI’s investigation into the anthrax case and ultimate claim to have solved it, I continue to share all the doubts that were so widely expressed at the time about whether any of that was true. But what we know for certain is that the U.S. government and other governments do conduct research which requires the manufacture of deadly viruses. Dr. Fauci has acknowledged that the U.S. government indirectly funded research by the Wuhan Institute of Virology into coronaviruses, though he denies that this was for so-called “gain of function” research, whereby naturally occurring viruses are manipulated to make them more transmissible and/or more harmful to humans.

We do not know for sure if the COVID-19 virus escaped from the Wuhan lab, another lab, or jumped from animals to humans. But what we do know for certain — from the anthrax investigation — is that governments most definitely conduct the sort of research that could produce novel coronaviruses. Dr. Rosenberg, the subject of the 2002 New Yorker article, was suggesting that the F.B.I. was purposely impeding its own investigation because they knew that the anthrax actually came from the U.S. government’s own lab and wanted to prevent exposure of the real bio-research that is done there. We should again ponder why the pervasive mainstream doubts about the F.B.I.’s case against Ivins have been memory-holed. We should also reflect on what we learned about government research into highly lethal viruses from that still-strange episode.


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* Zie : 'Study Suggests Covid-19 Was In The U.S. Weeks Earlier Than Thought, Before First Public Cases In China' (dit artikel van 1 december 2020 stelt wel dat het virus al weken eerder in de VS werd gevonden, vóór de eerste melding in China, eind december 2020....)

Zie ook: 'VS universiteiten stellen na onderzoek dat het Coronavirus al 2 maanden vóór december 2019 rondging'

'Coronavirus: China door het slijk halen'

'Coronavirus: alles wijst erop dat dit virus uit een militair laboratorium van de VS komt'

'Coronavirus hysterie: de nieuwe anti-Chinese campagne in de VS bestaat (alweer) uit leugens'

'Coronavirus: hysterische en belachelijke beschuldigingen aan adres China

'Coronavirus: militaire laboratoria werken aan biologische wapens als virussen >> waarom heeft niemand daar commentaar op?' (en zie de links in dat bericht!!)

'VS loopt achter de 'Coronafeiten' aan en geeft nu zelfs Rusland de schuld van het manipuleren van de verkiezingen door haar humanitaire hulp' (humanitaire hulp aan de VS wel te verstaan, een beschuldiging van uiterst onbeschofte proporties., maar ja het gaat dan ook om de VS, de grootste terreurentiteit ter wereld......)

'Coronavirus tragedie misbruikt voor racisme en het zaaien van haat''

'Coronavirus? De intensieve veehouderij is een bron van gevaarlijke besmettelijke ziekten en antibioticaresistentie'

'Antrax 'aanvallen' na 911, de antrax kwam uit VS overheidsvoorraad, verspreid door.........'

zaterdag 4 juli 2020

Opwarming van Arctisch gebied laat besmettelijke ziekten vrijkomen uit de permafrost

De opwarming van het Arctisch gebied kan besmettelijke ziekten doen vrijkomen uit de permafrost: vorige week werd daar een record temperatuur gemeten van 45 graden Celsius.....

Gisteren kwam Unearthed (onderdeel Greenpeace) met een verontrustend artikel over de voortdurende hittegolf in het arctisch gebied, waar de temperatuur in het noorden 38 graden Celsius hoog was en de landtemperatuur zelfs de 45 graden C. aantikte, een temperatuur die men zelfs in Groot-Brittannië nooit heeft gemeten (en ik dacht ook niet in ons land of andere ons omliggende landen)

Een ernstige zaak daar door die hoge temperaturen de permafrost veel sneller ontdooit dan de gemiddelde wetenschapper ooit heeft durven dromen (nachtmerrie)..... Vandaar ook dat een intussen flink aantal wetenschappers ervan overtuigd is dat de temperatuur aan het einde van deze eeuw zelfs de 3 graden Celsius fiks te boven zal gaan...... Dit zal tot gevolg hebben dat gesmolten ijs en sneeuw van de beide polen de zeespiegel zover zal doen stijgen dat het vrijwel zeker is dat over 100 jaar een groot deel van ons land onder water zal staan...... 

Dat de temperatuur zelfs met meer dan 3 graden C. zal stijgen is zeker gezien het feit dat ontdooiende permafrost grote hoeveelheden methaangas bevat, een veel sterker broeikasgas dan CO2 (dat overigens ook tegelijk in grote hoeveelheden vrijkomt.....)..... Het vrijkomen van dat gas zorgt voor een cumulatief effect, ofwel doordat er meer methaangas vrijkomt stijgt de temperatuur nog verder, waardoor er nog meer permafrost ontdooit, waardoor de temperatuur nog verder stijgt..... enz. enz......

Gemiddeld is er de laatste 10, 20 jaar een halve meter permafrost 'ontdooit' (het is een iets ander proces dan gewoon ontdooien van ijs) en dat is volgens wetenschappers een niet misselijke hoeveelheid van grond die al duizenden jaren bevroren was..... Volgens een aantal wetenschappers loert er althans voor mens en dier een nog groter gevaar in de bevroren ondergrond en dat zijn besmettelijke ziekten die wij niet kennen, dan wel waarvan we dachten dat we die de baas waren...... Ziekten die enorme aantallen mensen- en dierenlevens kunnen eisen, mochten deze besmettelijke ziekten inderdaad vrijkomen en levensvatbaar zijn........ 

Waar men al bang voor was, blijkt de waarheid te zijn, bacteriën en virussen die werden ingesloten in de permafrost zullen vrijkomen, eerder was het nog de vraag of die bacteriën en virussen het proces kunnen overleven en beste bezoeker, dat kunnen ze...... Al is het niet zeker over welke termijn ze nog levensvatrbaar zijn na ingevroren te zijn geweest, dus na hoeveel jaar ingevroren te zijn geweest. Bacteriën diep uit de permafrost zijn levensvatbaar, al is het nog niet duidelijk na hoeveel jaar, voor virussen heeft men intussen berekend dat die tot 30.000 jaar oud levensvatbaar zijn, maar men vermoed dat dit nog veel verder gaat........

Voor bacteriën behoeven we voorlopig niet bang te zijn, daar we antibiotica hebben (zo lang het duurt; zo meer daarover) en een ziekte als de pest zal daarom niet veel slachtoffers eisen. De pest heeft in Siberië inderdaad een paar slachtoffers geëist, mensen die diepgevroren vlees uit de permafrost hadden gegeten..... 

Gevaarlijker is Anthrax of zoals wij het noemen Miltvuur, een ziekte die ook lang kan overleven, echter ook deze bacteriële ziekte is te bestrijden met antibiotica, met een heel belangrijke opmerking: zolang wij antibioticaresistentie de baas kunnen en dat wordt met onze doodsindustrie die men vleesindustrie noemt steeds moeilijker..... Voorts zijn farmaceuten niet geneigd verder te zoeken naar nieuwe antibiotica daar bacteriën zich razendsnel snel wapenen tegen een nieuw antibioticum, anders gezegd: daar kan de spuugrijke farmaceutische maffia te weinig aan verdienen en dan kan je sterven wat dat geteisem betreft.....

Dan blijft de vraag of de mens wel een gevaarlijk vrijkomend virus kan overleven, zo zal een pokkenepidemie (intussen door vaccinatie uitgestorven) tientallen zo niet honderden miljoenen slachtoffers maken......... Uiterst verontrustend, immers we hebben met de griepvirussen en nu weer met het Coronavirus gezien hoe snel deze ziekten zich kunnen verspreiden over de aarde.... En dan zijn de pokken nog maar één (en een bekend) virus......

De wetenschappers in het het artikel van Unearthed stellen dat het belangrijk is dat de mens zich wapend tegen deze ziekten, zoals het volgens hen met het Coronavirus niet de vraag was of dit zou kunnen gebeuren, maar wanneer en toch heeft men zich uitermate slecht voorbereid, wat zeg ik: niet voorbereid! Laat staan dat men zich zal wapenen tegen virusziekten die vrijkomen uit de permafrost.......

The permafrost pandemic: could the melting Arctic release a deadly disease?

The permafrost pandemic: could the melting Arctic release a deadly ...
Experts fear extractive industries in the Arctic may revive long-dormant diseases. Photo: Lev FedoseyevTASS, Getty Images

As the Arctic heats up, a group of scientists are interrogating the risk that deadly diseases from the distant past may return

Last week it was hotter in parts of the Arctic circle than it has ever been in the United Kingdom.

And the satellite data suggests that while the air in north eastern Siberia was a scorching 38C, the land surface temperature was even higher ⁠— a panic-inducing 45C.

This record-breaking heatwave – which is, make no mistake, linked to global heating – comes as the entire world remains gripped by the Covid-19 pandemic, a microscopic virus that has killed half a million people and paralysed the global economy.

The two crises may be less far removed than they first appear. 

The Arctic plays an important role in the story of climate change. Not only is it warming at least twice as fast as the rest of the world, what happens there reverberates everywhere. 
Rising sea levels? That’s the melting ice. Runaway climate change? That’s the methane and carbon stored in the permafrost. 

Less understood is the role the region may play in the release of long-dormant diseases, a veritable sci fi plot that fascinates journalists but is a pretty recent field of proper scientific research.

For decades only the Russians were really investigating whether and for how long microbes could survive in the permafrost, but the wider scientific community is now taking note.

Last November in Hannover, Germany, scientists from around the world covering all the relevant fields of study – climatology, geology, virology – met for the first major skillshare focusing on the threat of microbes revived by the thawing of the permafrost.

The vanishing permafrost 

The first speaker at the Hannover meet was Dr Vladimir Romanovsky, Professor of Geophysics, University of Alaska Fairbanks and an expert of the permafrost.

Because it’s important to understand that these mysterious microbes are frozen in the earth rather than the polar ice sheets, the melting of which is causing sea levels to rise.

What is the permafrost?
It’s any earth material at or below 0 degrees celsius for 2 or more consecutive years. Earth material can be anything: organic soil, mineral soil, sand, gravel. Glacier ice may fit this definition but permafrost scientists tend not to include it or sea ice.

The permafrost, Dr Romanovsky stressed to Unearthed, does not melt. It thaws. There’s ice in there but once it melts, the land remains. When that happens, it ceases to be permafrost and what’s been frozen is no longer.

That thawing could lead to the release of the permafrost’s enormous reserves of greenhouse gases CO2 and methane, one of the tipping points that could herald runaway climate change.

Permafrost is already thawing from the top down in many areas,” Dr Romanovsky said, explaining that though the permafrost further underground remains frozen year round, vast tracts of the upper permafrost –  up to ½ a metre deep – are experiencing a totemic shift.

We observed in the very north of the Canadian Arctic, where permafrost temperatures are still around -14C, it’s already thawing from the top. That means part of the material that has been frozen for thousands of years is no longer continuously frozen.”

That’s a recent development, only in the last 10 or 20 years.”

Rapidly rising temperatures in the region are increasing the depth of the permafrost’s active layer, the bit – most often near the surface – that for stretches of the summer has water instead of ice.

Dr Romanovsky said: “How much of the permafrost has already thawed? Not that much, because the process is just starting. 

The increase in the active layer started in the 1990s and the long-term thawing of the permafrost only started very recently, the last 10 years or so. It’s just the beginning. But it will accelerate with time, and we should expect the degradation of permafrost to pick up over the next few decades.”


Darker shades of purple indicate higher percentages of permanently frozen ground. Map: Philippe Rekacewicz, UNEP/GRID-Arendal, data from International Permafrost Association, 1998. Circumpolar Active-Layer Permafrost System (CAPS), version 1.0.

Life finds a way

The permafrost need not entirely thaw nor be thawed year round for microorganisms frozen in the earth to come to life or make their way to the talika layer above the permafrost that is rarely if ever frozen.

That active layer, ever larger and active for longer, becomes a new habitat, where “an increase in unfrozen water is enough to activate some biological processes.”

In fact, these microbes – awakened from their long slumber – may take the opportunity to move towards the taliks, where it’s less likely to refreeze.

After Romanovsky, the Hannover crowd was later addressed by Jean Michel Claverie, a virologist at Aix-Marseille University, who works with his wife Chantal Abergel, a celebrated expert in her own right.

The idea that bacteria can survive for very long I think is definitely accepted,” Dr Claverie told Unearthed, “the remaining debate is for how long? Is it a million years? 500,000 years? Is it 50,000 years?”  

But yes there are extremely good papers that say yes you can revive bacteria from deep permafrost.”

The couple uses DNA viruses (more on that shortly) retrieved from permafrost around the Kolyma River in northeastern Siberia and infects amoeba in order to safely determine whether they still function as they are meant to.

Dr Abergel said: “This is a proof of principle we are running in the lab. We are able to revive viruses out of ancient permafrost samples. So far we have not been able to go up to 30,000 years, but it may come at some point.”

The watchlist

So which are the dormant diseases being studied? Is there really permafrost pandemic we should fear? Scientists aren’t sure. 

According to Abergel and Claverie, DNA viruses are the greatest cause for concern. They are hardier than RNA viruses so more likely to emerge from their frozen state relatively intact.

RNA viruses seem to be much more fragile, normally they should not be able to survive that long. DNA viruses because they are more chemically stable are more robust to this kind of process,” Dr Claverie said.

Nobody has ever tried to revive RNA viruses from the permafrost because RNA viruses, for example, do not infect amoeba or other things. And the only way you can assess the survival of viruses is using hosts.” 

That would mean the microbes of Spanish Flu – which, like Covid-19, is an RNA virus – found in the graveyards in northern Alaska are extremely unlikely to jump out of the ice.

The best-known DNA virus, and one which the work of the married virologists relates to, is smallpox the deadliest disease in modern history, but one which has been eradicated due to vaccinations.

Dr Claverie is mostly dismissive of the threat posed by revived bacteria diseases – like Plague, for example – because “they will kill a couple of people but now we have 
antibiotics.”

Perhaps the most well-known outbreak of an Arctic disease was of the bacteria variety: Anthrax.

But the feverishly reported 2016 episodewhich killed thousands of reindeer in Siberia and infected around a dozen people – may not have actually emerged from the permafrost, a recent study suggested.

Romanovsky and his peers believe the outbreak was so severe because the Russian government had changed its policy on vaccinating animals, which they have since undone.

An outbreak of anthrax in Siberia killed thousands of reindeer in 2016. Photo: Denis Sinyakov, Greenpeace
Dr Brigitta Evengård, who led in putting together the historic Hannover event, was far less ready to dismiss the threat of frozen bacteria she sees the emerging antibiotic resistance crisis as a threat multiplier.

After returning from a brief hiatus practicing medicine as Sweden’s doctors were called in to support Covid-19 efforts, she told Unearthed: “My worst case scenario? What’s happening already every now and then, there was an outbreak in Madagascar just a few years back. 
And that’s antibiotic resistant Pasteurella pestis… plague.”

Though she admitted the risk of antibiotic-resistant diseases emerging is thin, it is not impossible.

The antibiotic resistance pandemic will kill annually more than the coronavirus pandemic.”

As for possible pandemics from the Arctic? “The two that we know could come out of the 
permafrost are anthrax and that’s pox viruses, other than that it’s pandora’s box.”

Finding a host

Once unfrozen, these permafrost microbes must find a host in order to survive. But they have a problem: there aren’t many people who live in the area, and those that do – often indigenous villages – are not in frequent contact with outsiders, meaning the spread of infection would likely be limited.

The real danger is not the thawing of permafrost per se,” Dr Claverie said, “it’s that humans – the Russians mainly – are now starting to exploit the Arctic regions, and are making big holes by which to excavate layers permafrost that are up to a million years old.” 

This is the recipe for disaster because you have humans here and you have the virus when it is fresh. When viruses are released from the permafrost in nature, what happens? They fall into the river. They are exposed to oxygen, which is bad for viruses. They are exposed to light, which is also bad for viruses. And so they will not be revived for very long if they don’t find a host very quickly.”

So it’s like the permafrost is the ocean, and the microbes the sharks. Don’t go surfing when there are sharks in the water and things should be alright.

Dr Abergel said: “If [the viruses] come into contact with a proper host then they will reactivate. So if you put a human in a place with frozen viruses associated with pandemic then those humans could be infected and replicate the virus and start a new pandemic.”

But as Dr Evengård pointed out, humans are not the only potential hosts out there.

With climate change, we have movement of animals. People, we tend to stay in our homes if we are well enough. If you are near the coastline of Bangladesh, let’s say, you may already be moving inland. The biggest migration of climate refugees is still inside their home countries. But animals, they move.”

She stressed that climate change has sent the global ecosystem into flux, and it’s nigh impossible to say where things will end up.

Moose and hares, for instance, are migrating north as vegetation crops up, and then of course there’s birds and fish and their sometimes globe-spanning migratory patterns. 

These animals can bring microorganisms into virgin areas,” Dr Evengård said, “and things will happen that we simply can’t predict. You can say the Arctic is spacious and not so populated but there are people coming and going – yes, miners – and there are microorganisms coming in there with animals and even coming up from the earth. The dynamic that is ongoing is new.”

The Coronavirus experience, she said, “has just reinforced my belief that what I’m doing is absolutely important.”

I’m not surprised, it’s not a question of if this was going to happen it was when. The only enemy we really have is our own ignorance that we’re not preparing for this. We have all this knowledge, it’s really not that new. This dynamic process that we’re getting into with the climate change era. We should be better prepared, instead we’re sitting here paralysed by fear.” 

This is a warning from nature and it’s going to happen again and again and again, I’m sure.”
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Zie ook:
'The Siberian plague' (ondanks het onderwerp met prachtige foto's)

'Hittegolf in Siberië: binnen de poolcirkel 38 graden Celsius'

'Siberië kampt al maanden met uitzonderlijk hoge temperaturen: "25,4graden, terwijl het gemiddeld 0 graden is"'

'Niet eerder getoonde satellietfoto's laten zien dat grote delen van Arctisch gebied in brand staan >> klimaatkantelpunt gepasseerd' (zie ook de links in dat bericht)

'Grote Arctische gebieden in Siberië, Groenland, Canada en Alaska branden: klimaatkantelpunt nadert met rasse schreden'

'Klimaatverandering: inwoners Bratsk (Siberië) stikken in de rook van bosbranden.......'

Wildfires Increasingly Consuming Siberian Forests, Scientists Warn

''Methaangasboer' ontsnappend uit de Oost-Arctische Plaat kan de wereld zoals wij die kennen vernietigen'

'Aantal CO2 deeltjes in de atmosfeer op voor de mens nooit eerder vertoond hoog niveau'