[Peace] U.S. supplied Iraq with West Nile virus (fwd)

[C. G. Estabrook]

Lisa raised this issue in conversation at the Taco Bell demonstration
yesterday (and perhaps at the meeting, which I missed, last night).

As always with the US business press, you have to read it with its goals
and assumptions in mind.  The present US propaganda offensive seeks to
justify war against Iraq by blaming it for everything from bad marriages
to tooth decay, so making it responsible for dead crows (and of course
some dead people) in Illinois seems a bit much.

What the article glides over is that S. H., much more powerful than he is
now, was a US ally and client in these years.

Regards, Carl


---------- Forwarded message ----------

Business Week - September 20, 2002

NEWS ANALYSIS

A U.S. Gift to Iraq: Deadly Viruses

A 1995 letter from the Centers for Disease Control lists all the
biological materials sent to Saddam's scientists for 10 years
 
As the West Nile Virus spreads nationwide, some congressional leaders are
asking whether the mosquito-borne illness could be linked to terrorism or
to Iraq's bioweapons program. If so, a more troubling question may be
whether Iraq's weapons efforts were unwittingly helped by U.S. scientists.

In a previously unreleased letter obtained by BusinessWeek, the Centers
for Disease Control & Prevention admitted that the CDC supplied Iraqi
scientists with nearly two dozen viral and bacterial samples in the 1980s,
including the plague, West Nile, and dengue fever. The letter, written in
1995 by then-CDC director David Satcher, was in response to a
congressional inquiry.

The CDC was abiding by World Health Organization guidelines that
encouraged the free exchange of biological samples among medical
researchers -- before Congress imposed tighter controls on biological
exports in 1995, says Thomas Monath, who headed the CDC lab where the
viruses came from during the period in which they were handed over.  "It
was a very innocent request, which we were obligated to fulfill,"  
recalls Monath. Plus, in the 1980s, Iraq and the U.S. were allies.

Scientists say the West Nile strain that so far has killed 46 people in
the U.S. is not the same strain provided to Iraq, and they find it
unlikely that it could have mutated. They also question whether terrorists
would even try to develop West Nile as a weapon when more virulent viruses
are available.

Still, some observers believe there should have been more prudence.  "We
were freely exchanging pathogenic materials with a country that we knew
had an active biological warfare program," says James Tuite, a former
Senate investigator who helped publicize Gulf War Syndrome.  "The
consequences should have been foreseen."

The CDC's 1995 Letter to the Senate

In 1995, the Center for Disease Control & Prevention provided to
then-Senator Donald Riegel (D-Mich.) a complete list of all biological
materials -- including viruses, retroviruses, bacteria, and fungi -- that
the CDC provided to Iraq from Oct. 1, 1984 through Oct. 13, 1993. Among
the materials on the list are several types of dengue and sandfly fever
virus, West Nile virus, and plague-infected mouse tissue smears. In his
letter to Riegel, then-CDC Director David Satcher wrote: "Most of the
materials were non-infectious diagnostic reagents for detecting evidence
of infections to mosquito-borne viruses."

Here's the complete letter and list of biological materials:

[The letter follows as a graphic. Not sure if it's available to
non-subscribers, but the URL is
<http://www.businessweek.com/bwdaily/dnflash/sep2002/nf20020920_3025.htm#LETTER>.