Letter to my Congressman and Senators about HR741
snappy
The Honorable ********
U.S. House of Representatives
Dear Representative *****:
Please co-sponsor "The Lyme and Tick-Borne Disease Prevention,
Education, and Research Act of 2007" (H.R. 741 Chris Smith/Bart
Stupak).
Tick-borne diseases (TBD), especially Lyme, are an increasing
worldwide problem,* with concerns expressed about Lyme disease by a
number of agencies, including the UN and the World Health
Organization, which are looking at global environmental and health-
related issues. Yet, funding is not forthcoming from government
sources and has even decreased for Lyme despite rising case numbers.
In fact, its funding is being vastly overshadowed by funding for other
less prevalent diseases like West Nile Virus (WNV). In 2005, the
government expended about $32.6 million (down from $33.6 million in
2004) on Lyme disease and $80.8 million (up from $77.6 million in
2004) on WNV, despite the fact that there were 8 times more Lyme cases
reported than WNV cases.
By contrast, funding for offensive bioweapons programs (approximately
$20 billion over ten years) has vastly exceeded funding for the
research on treatment for chronic neurological Lyme disease, which
paradoxically, may very well have originated as a part of early
bioweapons research on Plum Island, as asserted by author Michael
Carroll in his book Lab 257.
Billions of federal dollars have flowed into dangerous and wasteful
bioweapons programs, many of which are headed by Lyme experts who
curiously continue to deny the existence of chronic Lyme, despite the
fact that early Army medical researchers had identified as an
incurable brain infection.
For example, former NIH Lyme Disease Program Officer Edward McSweegan
is reportedly a biowarfare expert, and his successor, Dr. Phil Baker,
is reportedly an anthrax expert. Coincidentally, many scientists
setting Lyme treatment and diagnostic testing policy in the United
States have a history as Epidemic Intelligence Officers (EIS) in the
bioweapons field, and many have received lucrative bioweapons
grants, Lyme patients are now beginning to view this as a conflict
of interest-- since there is little current work being done on
treatment modalities for the hundreds of thousands of individuals in
the United States now suffering from chronic Lyme.
In 2004, for example, bioweapons researcher Dr. Benach, a Lyme
expert, was reportedly chosen as a recipient for a $3 million
biowarfare research grant, and in 2005, Dr. Barbour, another Lyme
expert, was reportedly placed in charge of a multi-million dollar new
biowarfare complex based at UC Irvine. In 2003, Dr. Klempner was
reportedly appointed head of the new $1.6 billion biowarfare top-
security facility at Boston University.
Why is so little effort being expended on finding accurate diagnostic
tests and proper treatment for this chronic neurological disease? Army
medical documents from as early as 1976 identify Borrelia as incurable
once it has entered the brain. Why is so little research being done
now? Why are doctors afraid to treat patients? Why do so many in the
bioweapons community deny the disease? Perhaps they have something to
hide about its history? The accidental release of this disease during
research activities on ticks conducted at Plum Island in the 1970s is
a very real possibility when one looks at the history of biowarfare
activities there.
For example, Dr. Erich Traub was a Nazi germ warfare scientist
smuggled into the United States in 1949 from the former Soviet Union
under the auspices of the top secret United States government program
called Operation Paperclip. Dr. Traub is known as the father of the
Plum Island biological warfare research lab, located 6 miles from Old
Lyme Connecticut. According to the book Lab 257 by acclaimed author
Michael Carroll, Dr. Traub was chief of of Insel Reims, a secret Nazi
biological warfare lab located on a crescent shaped island in the
Baltic sea. Traub worked directly for Adolph Hitler's second in
charge, Heinrich Himmler. At Insel Reims, Dr. Traub's interests
included personally collecting Rinderpest virus from Anatolia, and the
packaging of weaponized foot and mouth disease for dispersal onto
cattle and reindeer from planes over Russia. Dr. Traub also
experimented with the glanders bacteria and had a particular
fascination for organisms that voraciously devour the brain.
In the book, The Belarus Secret, by former Justice official John
Loftus, he states that Nazi germ warfare scientists had experimented
with poison ticks dropped from planes to spread rare diseases. Loftus
also states that he had received information that the United States
had tested some of these poison ticks on the Plum Island artillery
range off the coast of Connecticut during the early part of the
1950s.
Plum Island lab director, Jerry Callis, admits that ticks were used
for research there, as quoted in the book, Lab 257:
"Plum Island experimented with ticks, but never outside of
containment. We had a tick colony where you take them and feed them on
the virus and breed ticks to see how many generations it would last,
on and on, until its diluted. Recently they reinstated the tick
colony."
Given the recent scandal at Walter Reed Army Medical, the above quote
does not inspire confidence!
Also according to the book Lab 257, a 1978 USDA document titled
"African Swine Fever," further confirms the use of ticks as biowar
vectors on Plum Island, noting that "in 1975 and 1976 the adult and
nyphal stages of Ablyomma americanum (the Lone Star tick) and Ablyomma
cajunense (the Cayenne tick) were found to be incapable of harboring
and transmitting African Swine fever virus."
Coincidentally, the Lyme disease outbreak was identified about the
time of the Swine Fever tick study conducted on Plum Island. Also at
the time of the Plum Island Swine Fever experiments, the Lone Star
tick's range was limited to Texas. Today it is endemic in New Jersey,
New York State and Connecticut, and as Carroll states in [[Lab 257]],
no one can answer how the Lone Star tick migrated from Texas to New
York and Connecticut.
To sum up the history of Plum, Erich Traub's legacy of experimentation
using insects as disease vectors continued during the 1980s at Plum
Island under the jurisdiction of Entomologist Dr. Richard Endris, who
is reported to have nurtured over 200,000 soft and hard ticks of
varying species in tick nurseries on Plum Island, personally collected
from locations as far away as Cameroon, Africa. In a footnote in Lab
257, Carroll notes that Endris, while under contract with the US Army
lab at Fort Detrick had also conducted experiments in 1987 on Plum
Island, using sand flies as vectors of the fatal illness
Leishmaniasis. The work is alleged by Carroll to have been done in
secrecy, with few safety precautions. New Yorkers are lucky indeed
that no terrible accident flowed out of this secretive and unmonitored
research into this fatal disease.
Why are offensive bioweaponeers-- those who seek to create weapons of
destruction-- in charge of diagnostic guidelines and healing for
Lyme? There is an obvious conflict of interest in the current setup,
which is hurting thousands of people in the Hudson Valley.
.
Why aren't these bioweapons researchers using the billions they are
receiving to find a treatment and a cure for chronic Lyme and the
other diseases they weaponize? Our government needs to answer these
questions honestly, and then remind these bioweaponeers that they are
in the business of serving the American people, and that the American
people will not tolerate this sloppy misuse of billions of dollars in
the name of homeland security.-and that we will not tolerate the
accidental release of these organism and ensuing cover-up for mistakes
made..
There are 10 times more cases of Lyme disease that meet the Centers
for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) criteria than are reported.
In 2005, the final CDC reported numbers show 23,305 reported Lyme
disease cases nationally; translating into 233,050 actual new cases
that met CDC criteria. No one knows how many occurred that do not
even fit CDC surveillance criteria.
Lyme disease, the most common vector-borne disease in the United
States, is usually contracted by the bite from a bacteria-infected
tick. In humans, infection with Lyme disease bacteria can lead to
early symptoms such as severe headaches, debilitating fatigue, joint
pain, and skin rashes, while long-term symptoms can lead to problems
related to the central nervous system including the brain, heart,
joints and other musculo-skeletal problems. Symptoms of Lyme disease
vary for each individual patient, and also vary in intensity over the
course of the disease.
The long-term cost of Lyme disease to families, school systems, the
health care system, and the economy is astounding. According to a
study published in 1993 in Contingencies, an actuarial trade
publication, the cost to society for Lyme disease was about one
billion dollars per year. The average treatment and diagnosis and
lost wages related to Lyme disease was $61,688 per year per patient.
Cases have doubled since then, so today's costs are probably $2
Billion or more annually.
Despite the prevalence, severity, and economic costs of this illness,
patients with Lyme disease are having increased difficulty obtaining
diagnosis and treatment. Why? Many of us suspect some sort of coverup
flowing out of the bioweapons industry at Fort Detrick and Plum
Island.
You are in a unique position to right this wrong. Your co-sponsorship
and vote for H.R. 741 (Smith/Stupak) is essential. It will improve
surveillance and prevention of Lyme disease, the development of
accurate diagnostic tests, physician education, and it will fund
additional research to determine long-term course of illness and the
effectiveness of different treatments. It also sets up a federal task
force to coordinate the federal efforts to combat Lyme disease.
I am sure you agree that Lyme disease patients and the public deserve
more from our health care system.
Sincerely,
"snappy"
LunaTick
(yawn)
Like this will make it past the intern to his desk...lol
snappy
Hi Luna:
What have you done lately?
Yawn,
cheers,
snappy