Now
Available from
CounterPunch for Only $11.50 (S/H Included)
Today's
Stories
December 18, 2003
Harry Browne
Hail
Jim Hickey, the "Irish Hero" of the Colonial Occupation
of Iraq
December 17, 2003
Robert Fisk
Saddam's
Cold Comforts
Gideon Levy
"Don't
Even Think About the Children"
Marjorie Cohn
The Fortuitous
Arrest of Saddam: a Pyrrhic Victory?
Andrew Cockburn
Saddam's
Last Act
December 16, 2003
Robert Fisk
Getting
Saddam...15 Years Too Late
Mahajan / Jensen
Saddam
in Irons: The Hard Truths Remain
John Halle
Matt
Gonzalez and Me
Josh Frank
The
Democrats and Saddam
Tariq Ali
Saddam
on Parade: the New Model of Imperialism
December 15, 2003
Robert Fisk
The Capture
of Saddam Won't Stop the Guerrilla War
Dave Lindorff
The
Saddam Dilemma
Abu Spinoza
Blowback on the Stand: The Trial of Saddam Hussein
Norman Solomon
For
Telling the Truth: the Strange Case of Katharine Gun
Patrick Cockburn
The
Capture of Saddam
Stew Albert
Joy to the World
December 13 / 14, 2003
Bill and Kathleen Christison
Chickenhearts
at Notre Dame: the Pervasive Fear of Talking About the Israeli
Connection
Stan Goff
Jessica Lynch, Plural
Tariq Ali
The Same Old Racket in Iraq
Jeffrey St. Clair
The Map is not the Territory
Marty Bender / Stan Cox
Dr. Atkins vs. the Planet
Christopher Brauchli
Mercury Rising: the EPA's Presents to Industry
Gary Leupp
On Marriage in "Recorded History", an Open Letter to
Gov. Mitt Romney
Sasan Fayazmanesh
The Saga of Iran's Alleged WMD
Larry Everest
Saddam, Oil and Empire: Supply v. Demand
William S. Lind
How to Fight a 4th Generation War
Fran Shor
From Vietnam to Iraq: Counterinsurgency and Insurgency
Ron Jacobs
Child Abuse as Public Policy
Omar Barghouti
Relative Humanity and a Just Peace in the Middle East
Adam Engel
Pretty Damn Evil: an Interview with Ed Herman
Kristin Van Tassel
Breastfeeding Compromised
Ben Tripp
On Getting Stabbed
Susan Davis
"The Secret Lives of Dentists", a Review
Dave Zirin
Does Dylan Still Matter? an Interview with Mike Marqusee
Norman Madarasz
Searching for the Barbarians
Poets' Basement
Guthrie and Albert
Website of the Weekend
Dean on Race
December 12, 2003
Josh Frank
Halliburton,
Timber and Dean
Chris Floyd
The
Inhuman Stain
Dave Lindorff
Infanticide
as Liberation: Hiding the Dead Babies
Benjamin Dangl
Another Two Worlds Are Possible?
Jean-Paul Barrois
Two States or One? an Interview with Sami Al-Deeb on the Geneva
Accords
David Vest
Bush
Drops the Mask: They Died for Halliburton
December 11, 2003
Siegfried Sassoon
A
Soldier's Declaration Against War
Douglas Valentine
Preemptive
Manhunting: the CIA's New Assassination Program
John Chuckman
The Parable of Samarra
Peter Phillips
US Hypocrisy on War Crimes: Corp Media Goes Along for the Ride
James M. Carter
The
Merchants of Blood: War Profiteering from Vietnam to Iraq
December 10, 2003
Kurt Nimmo
The
War According to Newt Gingrich
Pat Youngblood / Robert
Jensen
Workers
Rights are Human Rights
Jeff Guntzel
On Killing Children
CounterPunch Wire
Ashcroft Threatens to Subpoena Journalist's Notes in Stewart
Case
Dave Lindorff
Gore's
Judas Kiss
December 9, 2003
Michael Donnelly
A
Gentle Warrior Passes: Craig Beneville's Quiet Thunder
Chris White
A Glitch
in the Matrix: Where is East Timor Today?
Abu Spinoza
The Occupation Concertina: Pentagon Punishes Iraqis Israeli Style
Laura Carlsen
The FTAA: a Broken Consensus
Richard Trainor
Process and Profits: the California Bullet Train, Then and Now
Josh Frank
Politicians as Usual: Gore Dean and the Greens
Ron Jacobs
Remembering
John Lennon
December 8, 2003
Newton Garver
Bolivia
at a Crossroads
John Borowski
The
Fall of a Forest Defender: the Exemplary Life of Craig Beneville
William Blum
Anti-Empire
Report: Revised Inspirations for War
Tess Harper
When Christians Kill
Thom Rutledge
My Next Step
Carol Wolman, MD
Nuclear
Terror and Psychic Numbing
Michael Neumann
Ignatieff:
Apostle of He-manitariansim
Website of the Day
Bust Bob Novak
December 6 / 7, 2003
Alexander Cockburn
The
UN: Should Be Late; Never Was Great
CounterPunch Special
Toronto Globe and Mail Kills Review of "The Politics of
Anti-Semitism"
Vicente Navarro
Salvador Dali, Fascist
Saul Landau
"Reality
Media": Michael Jackson, Bush and Iraq
Ben Tripp
How Bush Can Still Win
Gary Leupp
On Purchasing Syrian Beer
Ron Jacobs
Are We Doing Body Counts, Now?
Larry Everest
Oil, Power and Empire
Lee Sustar
Defying the Police State in Miami
Jacob Levich
When NGOs Attack: Implications for the Coup in Georgia
Toni Solo
Game Playing by Free Trade Rules: the Results from Indonesia
and Dominican Republic
Mark Scaramella
How to Fix the World Bank
Bruce Anderson
The San Francisco Mayor's Race
Brian Cloughley
Shredding the Owner's Manual: the Hollow Charter of the UN
Adam Engel
A Conversation with Tim Wise
Neve Gordon
Fuad and Ezra: an Update on Gays Under the Occupation
Kurt Nimmo
Bush Gives "Freedom" Medal to Robert Bartley
Tom Stephens
Justice Takes a Holiday
Susan Davis
Avast, Me Hearties! a Review of Disney's "Pirates of the
Caribbean"
Jeffrey St. Clair
A
Natural Eye: the Photography of Brett Weston
Mickey Z.
Press Box Red
Poets' Basement
Greeder, Orloski, Albert
T-shirt of the Weekend
Got Santorum?
December 5, 2003
Jeremy Scahill
Bremer
of the Tigris
Jeremy Brecher
Amistad
Revisited at Guantanamo?
Norman Solomon
Dean
and the Corp Media Machine
Norman Madarasz
France
Starts Facing Up to Anti-Muslim Discrimination
Pablo Mukherjee
Afghanistan:
the Road Back
December 4, 2003
M. Junaid Alam
Image
and Reality: an Interview with Norman Finkelstein
Adam Engel
Republican
Chris Floyd
Naked Gun: Sex, Blood and the FBI
Adam Federman
The US Footprint in Central Asia
Gary Leupp
The
Fall of Shevardnadze
Guthrie / Albert
RIP Clark Kerr
December 3, 2003
Stan Goff
Feeling
More Secure Yet?: Bush, Security, Energy & Money
Joanne Mariner
Profit Margins and Mortality Rates
George Bisharat
Who Caused the Palestinian Diaspora?
Mickey Z.
Tear Down That Wal-Mart
John Stanton
Bush Post-2004: a Nightmare Scenario
Harry Browne
Shannon
Warport: "No More Business as Usual"
December 2, 2003
Matt Vidal
Denial
and Deception: Before and Beyond Iraqi Freedom
Benjamin Dangl
An Interview with Evo Morales on the Colonization of the Americas
Sam Bahour
Can It Ever Really End?
Norman Solomon
That
Pew Poll on "Trade" Doesn't Pass the Sniff Test
Josh Frank
Trade
War Fears
Andrew Cockburn
Tired,
Terrified, Trigger-Happy
December 1, 2003
Fawzia Afzal-Khan
Unholy
Alliances: Zionism, US Imperialism and Islamic Fundamentalism
Dave Lindorff
Bush's
Baghdad Pitstop: Memories of LBJ in Vietnam
Harry Browne
Democracy Delayed in Northern Ireland
Wayne Madsen
Wagging the Media
Herman Benson
The New Unity Partnership for Labor: Bureaucratizing to Organize?
Gilad Atzmon
About
"World Peace"
Bill Christison
US
Foreign Policy and Intelligence: Monstrous Messes
November 29 / 30, 2003
Peter Linebaugh
On
the Anniversary of the Death of Wolfe Tone
Gary Leupp
Politicizing War on Fox News: a Tale of Two Memos
Saul Landau
Lying and Cheating:
Bush's New Political Math
Michael Adler
Inside a Miami Jail: One Activist's Narrative
Anthony Arnove
"They Put the Lie to Their Own Propaganda": an Interview
with John Pilger
Greg Weiher
Why Bush Needs Osama and Saddam
Stephen Banko, III
A Soldier's Dream
Forrest Hylton
Empire and Revolution in Bolivia
Toni Solo
The "Free Trade" History Eraser
Ben Terrall
Don't Think Twice: Bush Does Bali
Standard Schaefer
Unions
are the Answer to Supermarkets Woes
Richard Trainor
The Political Economy of Earthquakes: a Journey Across the Bay
Bridge
Mark Gaffney
US Congress Does Israel's Bidding, Again
Adam Engel
The System Really Works
Dave Lindorff
They, the Jury: How the System Rigs the Jury Pool
Susan Davis
Framing the Friedmans
Neve Gordon
Arundhati Roy's Complaint for Peace
Mitchel Cohen
Thomas Jefferson and Slavery
Ben Tripp
Capture Me, Daddy
Poets' Basement
Kearney, Albert, Guthrie and Smith
November 28, 2003
William S. Lind
Worse Than Crimes
David Vest
Turkey
Potemkin
Robert Jensen / Sam Husseini
New Bush Tape Raises Fears of Attacks
Wayne Madsen
Wag
the Turkey
Harold Gould
Suicide as WMD? Emile Durkheim Revisited
Gabriel Kolko
Vietnam
and Iraq: Has the US Learned Anything?
South Asia Tribune
The Story
of the Most Important Pakistan Army General in His Own Words
Website of the Day
Bush Draft
November 27, 2003
Mitchel Cohen
Why
I Hate Thanksgiving
Jack Wilson
An
Account of One Soldier's War
Stefan Wray
In the Shadows of the School of the Americas
Al Krebs
Food as Corporate WMD
Jim Scharplaz
Going Up Against Big Food: Weeding Out the Small Farmer
Neve Gordon
Gays
Under Occupation: Help Save the Life of Fuad Moussa
November 26, 2003
Paul de Rooij
Amnesty
International: the Case of a Rape Foretold
Bruce Jackson
Media
and War: Bringing It All Back Home
Stew Albert
Perle's
Confession: That's Entertainment
Alexander Cockburn
Miami and London: Cops in Two Cities
David Orr
Miami Heat
Tom Crumpacker
Anarchists
on the Beach
Mokhiber / Weissman
Militarization in Miami
Derek Seidman
Naming the System: an Interview with Michael Yates
Kathy Kelly
Hogtied
and Abused at Ft. Benning
Website of the Day
Iraq Procurement
November 25, 2003
Linda S. Heard
We,
the Besieged: Western Powers Redefine Democracy
Diane Christian
Hocus
Pocus in the White House: Of Warriors and Liberators
Mark Engler
Miami's
Trade Troubles
David Lindorff
Ashcroft's
Cointelpro
Website of the Day
Young McCarthyites of Texas
November 24, 2003
Jeremy Scahill
The
Miami Model
Elaine Cassel
Gulag
Americana: You Can't Come Home Again
Ron Jacobs
Iraq
Now: Oh Good, Then the War's Over?
Alexander Cockburn
Rupert Murdoch: Global Tyrant
Hot Stories
Alexander Cockburn
Behold,
the Head of a Neo-Con!
Subcomandante Marcos
The
Death Train of the WTO
Norman Finkelstein
Hitchens
as Model Apostate
Steve Niva
Israel's
Assassination Policy: the Trigger for Suicide Bombings?
Dardagan,
Slobodo and Williams
CounterPunch Exclusive:
20,000 Wounded Iraqi Civilians
Steve
J.B.
Prison Bitch
Sheldon
Rampton and John Stauber
True Lies: the Use of Propaganda
in the Iraq War
Wendell
Berry
Small Destructions Add Up
CounterPunch
Wire
WMD: Who Said What When
Cindy
Corrie
A Mother's Day Talk: the Daughter
I Can't Hear From
Gore Vidal
The
Erosion of the American Dream
Francis Boyle
Impeach
Bush: A Draft Resolution
Click Here
for More Stories.
|
December
18, 2003
Ebola is Good for
You
Bioterrorism
Lab Under Construction at NIH
By KARYN STRICKLER
Within one week of contracting the devastating
virus known as Ebola-Zaire, the relentless attack of the disease
liquefies all the victim's organs and tissue except bone and
skeletal muscle. It's also known as African hemorrhagic fever
because at the end stage as organs dissolve, blood sometimes
drains from the eyes, mouth and every other orifice in the body.
It leads to death in up to 90% of patients, usually within days.
Anyone who comes in contact with a person infected with Ebola
is at risk. An outbreak could turn into a national or international
epidemic if an infected person travels to other parts of the
world. Ebola emerged from the rainforests, as diseases do from
unique ecosystems under destruction.
In the leafy suburb of Reston, Virginia,
two outbreaks of the Ebola virus threatened the population of
the greater Washington, D.C., area. As government, public relations
flacks called for calm and assured the press and public that
a slight problem was being corrected, a space-suited US Army
decontamination team sealed off the Hazelton Research Products
laboratory and transformed it into the biological equivalent
of the lunar surface, a place where no living organism could
survive.
Behind the scenes, Army bio-war specialists
were at maximum pucker factor -- or kiss-your-ass-goodbye mode
-- knowing they were witnessing the outbreak of a Bio-Safety
Level (BSL) 4 contagion, the highest level of biological security.
It was a new strain of one of the world's deadliest microbes.
And this version of Ebola seemed to have learned a new trick:
airborne transmission -- no physical contact necessary to spread
the incurable, fatal infection. The crack of doom was in the
air.
As it happened, the strain of virus that
broke out in the Hazelton labs and came to be classified as Ebola-Reston
differed from the deadly Ebola-Zaire strain, which first crashed
into the world's consciousness in 1976, by a few random proteins
on one strand of DNA -- similar enough to the original to slaughter
every non-human primate in the lab but different enough to just
give a few humans some flu-like symptoms before going to ground.
The general populace and the seat of federal government were
spared by a microscopic roll of the dice.
Add a dose of Tuberculosis (TB) - a disease
with emerging, drug-resistant strains that is easily spread through
the air when infectious people cough, sneeze or talk and is expected
to kill 36 million people between 2002-2020 - a sprinkle of anthrax,
a dash of SARS and West Nile virus and you may have part of the
recipe for a new laboratory currently under construction at the
National Institutes of Health (NIH) in Bethesda, Maryland, just
outside of Washington, DC.
While there has been some local coverage
of the issue in the Montgomery Gazette, the region's leading
media including The Washington Post has been appallingly negligent
in it's coverage of the issue. The story is this: Under the guise
of the war on terror, the Bush administration has $10.6 billion
to give to those willing to work with deadly, live pathogens
-- vaguely classified as "known, new and reemerging infectious
diseases," through its biodefense program.
You can almost hear the chaa-ching of
the cash filling the coffers. A chunk of change so large - $1.2
billion - went to the civilian portion of the effort at NIH's
National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, that director
Anthony Fauci reportedly said, "This is the largest single
increase of any discipline in any institute, for any reason for
any disease in the history of NIH, including escalation of HIV
resources and the war on cancer."
The thick veil of secrecy that shrouds
this project makes it difficult to know exactly which pathogens
will be studied. Officials at NIH in Bethesda can't confirm what
agents might be studied at the new lab, a BSL 3 lab. They do
say that "exotic diseases" like Ebola will not be part
of the mix at the new lab. Faith is fleeting though, because
United Press International reports that there are six BSL level
4 labs "operating or nearly completed" in the United
States. One of those is at the National Cancer Institute in Bethesda.
So either there is an existing lab that studies Ebola in Bethesda,
or officials are not being honest about what will be studied
in the new lab.
Even if a lab starts as a BSL 3, bioterrorism
lab's safety levels are upgraded and guidelines changed without
notice to citizens. And all the new funding has accelerated the
pace of upgrading current BSL levels. Such an attempt was recently
stopped by New York Senators Hilary Clinton and Charles Schumer
when they blocked the Homeland Security Department from upgrading
a lab on Long Island to a BSL 4, so hemorrhagic fever could not
be studied there.
An advocacy group, Coalition Against
Bio-terror Labs, said that under the Public Health Security and
Bioterrorism Preparedness and Response Act of 2002, "it
would be illegal for them to release information about this research,
or about any thefts, accidental or deliberate release of contagions
or what agents are contained there."
With so much money available, there may
be a similar lab coming to a location near you. They've already
got the Washington metropolitan area surrounded by and speckled
with BSL 3's and 4's. New bioterrorism labs are being constructed
and old ones being upgraded as fast as the money can flow. Proposals
to place bioterrorism facilities in populated areas have sparked
citizen protests in other communities across the United States.
Call us NIMBY's (Not In My Backyard),
or, better yet, call us NIABY's (Not In Anybody's Backyard),
since such labs have no place in a highly populated, suburban
center a few miles from our nation's capital. The present location
at the outer edge of the NIH campus is a bomb's throw from the
corner of Cedar Lane and Rockville Pike, one of the busiest commercial
roadways in suburban Maryland. This location severely and unnecessarily
jeopardizes the lives and health of our children, families and
community. It threatens the security of our community and our
nation. "Building 33," as it is known, leaves us vulnerable
to attack, accidents and outbreaks of disease.
Coalition Against Bio-terror Labs claims
that, "If dangerous materials were to leak from [a] lab
or an infected animal [were to] escape, local residents - by
law - may never be told." A safety failure, whether malicious
or accidental, could be catastrophic given the NIH Bethesda campus's
proximity to heavily populated residential neighborhoods, schools
and businesses in Maryland, Washington DC and Virginia.
The lab is being built about 10 miles
from the United States Capital and is very close to federal and
military workplaces housing hundreds of thousands of employees
and a large part of the brain trust required in the event of
a national emergency. The lab is a short distance from the medical
infrastructure upon which the region would depend in the event
of a broad terrorist attack.
According to Dr. Elias A. Zerhouni, director
of NIH, there is no cause for concern. In a letter to U.S. Senator
Paul Sarbanes, Zerhouni, intoxicated by the lure of the Bush
administration's offer of big bucks said, "At the request
of NIH, Community Liaison Council (CLC), we have conducted a
Risk Assessment for Building 33. The results of the Assessment
indicate there is no risk of public harm posed by the operation
of Building 33."
While we're all snug in our beds - not
- visions of dollar signs are dancing in Zerhouni's head. He
couldn't allow safety concerns to impede the flood of money,
money, money to NIH. Despite the objections of citizens, neighborhood
associations, community representatives, and Maryland's State
and U.S. Senators and Representatives - NIH made the irrevocable
decision to build this lab in its present location -- THEN they
did their after-the-fact Risk Assessment.
Tom Gallagher, the guy on the inside
who is supposed to be the liaison and ombudsman to our community,
did not return phone calls for this article. He wrote to a neighbor
telling her to take comfort in NIH's assertion that the diseases
to be researched at this lab are only to be used defensively
against emerging infectious diseases, including those that may
be purposely spread by people seeking to do physical harm to
our nation. Did anyone tell the terrorists that this lab cannot
be targeted for an offensive, bioterror attack?
External fireworks by a truck or suicide
bomber or a rocket-propelled grenade launched from the busy intersection
of Cedar Land and Rockville Pike are not the only threats the
lab poses to Bethesda and surrounding communities. Word that
a scientist in Taiwan has developed SARS after working with the
virus in a high-security laboratory has renewed concerns that
a future outbreak of the disease could emerge not from the animal
markets, but from a lab in any part of the world, according the
Canadian Press. Scientists and personnel at NIH are the best
in the business and will make the lab as safe as possible. But
no facility is immune to accidents, and since this is a BSL 3
lab, any mishap could have dire consequences.
As an expert on the design of bio-safety
labs recently told the Los Angeles Times, "We are getting
as close to fail-safe as possible...as fail-safe as the space
shuttle." The shuttle's failure rate per number of missions
flown is downright pathetic. And when disasters happen on the
space shuttle, sadly, half a dozen people die. Translate that
to a safety failure of comparable magnitude at an NIH bioterrorism
lab in the middle of Bethesda. The nuclear power industry has
fail-safe systems, too. Is the bioterrorism industry promising
only a few Chernobyl's and Three Mile Island's in the
national capital area only once in while?
Citizens' reasonable request that the
lab be located elsewhere, away from population centers - or moved
to a less vulnerable location within the campus - are dismissed
as "impractical." Dr. Zerhouni, shunting aside citizen's
concerns, says "it would take an enormous amount of time
and money," and it can't be placed in the NIH's campus interior
because "there are no funds in NIH's current five year Buildings
and Facilities Plan" to move the bioterrorism facility into
"either new or renovated laboratory space."
Since concerns about our lives and health
present an impractical inconvenience, perhaps Dr. Zerhouni should
simply try to convince us: Ebola is good for you. If he thinks
we believe that he cannot find the money for a reasonable lab
location in this year's budget of $27 billion dollars, he obviously
thinks the people of the national capital area are the biggest
suckers since the Trojans let that gift horse through their gates.
The other possibility is that he does not have the management
skills that should be required of someone in his position. Either
way, the time for polite questions and debate is over. It's time
to put up our dukes and get down to it. Citizens and their leaders
should demand that the bioterrorism lab be relocated to a less
vulnerable place - and accept nothing less.
Karyn Strickler is
a political activist and writer. She is running as a petition
candidate for the national Sierra Club Board of Directors. Campaign
information can be found at: http://members.cruzio.com/~jbean/candidates.html.
Andrew Christie, an environmental activist
in Los Angeles, contributed to this article. Copyright 2003 by
Karyn Strickler.
Weekend
Edition Features for Dec. 13 / 14, 2003
Bill and Kathleen Christison
Chickenhearts
at Notre Dame: the Pervasive Fear of Talking About the Israeli
Connection
Stan Goff
Jessica Lynch, Plural
Tariq Ali
The Same Old Racket in Iraq
Jeffrey St. Clair
The Map is not the Territory
Marty Bender / Stan Cox
Dr. Atkins vs. the Planet
Christopher Brauchli
Mercury Rising: the EPA's Presents to Industry
Gary Leupp
On Marriage in "Recorded History", an Open Letter to
Gov. Mitt Romney
Sasan Fayazmanesh
The Saga of Iran's Alleged WMD
Larry Everest
Saddam, Oil and Empire: Supply v. Demand
William S. Lind
How to Fight a 4th Generation War
Fran Shor
From Vietnam to Iraq: Counterinsurgency and Insurgency
Ron Jacobs
Child Abuse as Public Policy
Omar Barghouti
Relative Humanity and a Just Peace in the Middle East
Adam Engel
Pretty Damn Evil: an Interview with Ed Herman
Kristin Van Tassel
Breastfeeding Compromised
Ben Tripp
On Getting Stabbed
Susan Davis
"The Secret Lives of Dentists", a Review
Dave Zirin
Does Dylan Still Matter? an Interview with Mike Marqusee
Norman Madarasz
Searching for the Barbarians
Poets' Basement
Guthrie and Albert
Website of the Weekend
Dean on Race
Keep CounterPunch Alive:
Make
a Tax-Deductible Donation Today Online!
home / subscribe
/ about us / books
/ archives / search
/ links /
|