- Hello, Jeff - This is an excellent historical documentation
of Plum Island's history even before it became the USDA Plum Island. The
history goes back to operation paperclip and to PROVEN tick research on
Plum Island dating back to the 1950s. Plum Island also worked with lone
star ticks. ...I wondered how lone star ticks from Texas would get to my
backyard in NY. The ticks had some help, i.e. germ scientists...and Plum
Island.
-
- Patricia Doyle
-
-
- FTR#480
http://www.spitfirelist.com/f480.html
-
- Plum Island, Lyme Disease and the Erich Traub File
(One 30-minute segment)
(Sources are noted in parentheses.)
(Recorded on 10/3/2004.)
-
- Note: FTR#'s 260-316, 317, 324, FTR#325 and succeeding
programs are streaming on Real Audio at www.wfmu.org/daveemory. FTR#'s
01-270, 316-324 are available for download only, also on Real Audio, on
their Archive Page.)
-
- Note: Users of this web site are emphatically encouraged
to create a word document out of the program descriptions and do a "search"
on individual subjects in order to more completely reference those items.
-
- Note: Users of this web site (as well as the two WFMU
web addresses noted above) are emphatically encouraged to use the internet
to disseminate as much of the audio and printed material as possible. It
is all FREE!
-
- Note: It is recommended that listeners print the program
descriptions for optimum readability. It is emphatically encouraged that
listeners use the printed files on the Spitfire web site and the audio
files on the WFMU web sites to create their own research/teaching databases.
-
- Summary of FTR#480-(Note: The massive volume of "For
The Record" programs about 9/11 and related topics is summarized and
analyzed in the periodically-updated description for FTR#391. FTR#'s 454,
455, 456 are compilations of much of the key documentation culled from
Mr. Emory's investigation into 9/11. Along with FTR#391, they should give
listeners/readers a substantive grasp of this momentous event. It is recommended
that listeners use this description and e-mail it to others. Also: The
book "Martin Bormann: Nazi in Exile" is available at About Paul
Manning. In addition, the professional history of the late Paul Manning,
the book's author, is presented in the description About Paul Manning.
This enables listeners to acquaint others with Mr. Manning's journalistic
credentials. Key material from the book is synopsized in an extended description
for FTR#305. Understanding the Bormann organization is essential to comprehending
the concept of "the Underground Reich." Note also that U.S. Government
documents proving Prescott Bush Sr.'s Money-Laundering on behalf of the
Third Reich before and after World War II are available at a linked website,
along with commentary by John Buchanan, who located the documentation.
This material is discussed in FTR#435. The website containing the documents
is www.debatecomics.org/BushFamilyFortune/ .) In the mid-1970's Lyme Disease
broke out in Connecticut and it has since spread through much of the United
States. This program examines the possibility that Lyme Disease may have
spread as a result of clandestine experimentation on biological warfare
on Plum Island-a Department of Agriculture facility that doubled as an
Army BW research facility. Dedicated to the study of animal diseases, Plum
Island appears to have been the site of experiments with disease-infected
ticks conducted by Nazi scientists brought into the United States under
Project Paperclip. One of the Nazi scientists who appears to have been
involved with Plum Island was Dr. Erich Traub, who was in charge of the
Third Reich's virological and bacteriological warfare program in World
War II. Was Traub involved with experiments that led to the spread of Lyme
Disease?
-
- Program Highlights Include: Examination of Traub's studies
in the US prior to World War II; Traub's pro-Nazi activities inside the
US before the war; John Loftus' discovery of references in the National
Archives to Nazi scientists experimenting with diseased ticks on Plum Island;
Lyme Disease activist Steven Nostrum's discovery of Loftus' findings and
his work investigating Plum Island; Details of Traub's involvement with
Plum Island; files about Tick Research and Erich Traub that have been purged;
Scientific American's dismissal of the Plum Island/Traub/Paperclip/Lyme
Disease link; the Nazi heritage of the Von Holtzbrinck firm-which owns
Scientific American; Plum Island experimentation with the disease-carrying
"Lone Star Tick"; the fact that the Lone Star Tick-native to
Texas-has somehow spread to New York, New Jersey and Connecticut!
-
- 1. In order to understand how Erich Traub came to the
United States, it is important to understand Project PAPERCLIP. The program
begins with a synoptic account of that project and how its prosecution
led to Traub's entry to the United States and his involvement with Plum
Island: "Nearing the end of World War II, the United States and the
Soviet Union raced to recruit German scientists for postwar purposes. Under
a top-secret program code-named Project PAPERCLIP, the U.S. military pursued
Nazi scientific talent 'like forbidden fruit,' bringing them to America
under employment contracts and offering them full U.S. citizenship. The
recruits were supposed to be nominal participants in Nazi activities. But
the zealous military recruited more than two thousand scientists, many
of whom had dark Nazi party pasts." (Lab 257: the Disturbing Story
of the Government's Secret Plum Island Germ Laboratory; by Michael Christopher
Carroll; Copyright 2004 by Michael Christopher Carroll; HarperCollins [HC];
p. 7.)
-
- 2. "American scientists viewed these Germans as
peers, and quickly forgot they were on opposite sides of a ghastly global
war in which millions perished. Fearing brutal retaliation from the Soviets
for the Nazis' vicious treatment of them, some scientists cooperated with
the Americans to earn amnesty. Others played the two nations off each other
to get the best financial deal in exchange for their services. Dr. Erich
Traub was troubling on the Soviet side of the Iron Curtain after the war,
and ordered to research germ warfare viruses for the Russians. He pulled
off a daring escape with his family to West Berlin in 1949. Applying for
Project Paperclip employment, Traub affirmed he wanted to 'do scientific
work in the U.S.A., become an American citizen, and be protected from Russian
reprisals.'" (Idem.)
-
- 3. The program sets forth Traub's work for the Third
Reich: "As lab chief of Insel Riems-a secret Nazi biological warfare
laboratory on a crescent-shaped island nestled in the Baltic Sea-Traub
worked directly for Adolf Hitler's second-in-charge, SS Reichsfuehrer Heinrich
Himmler, on live germ trials. . . ." (Ibid.; pp. 7-8.)
-
- 4. Traub had studied in the United States before the
war (at the Rockefeller Institute) and had been involved in Nazi activities
inside the U.S. prior to 1939 (the outbreak of World War II). " .
. . Traub also listed his 1930's membership in Amerika-Deutscher Volksbund,
a German-American 'club' also known as Camp Sigfriend. Just thirty miles
west of Plum Island in Yaphank, Long Island, Camp Sigfried was the national
headquarters of the American Nazi movement. . . .Ironically, Traub spent
the prewar period of his scientific career on a fellowship at the Rockefeller
Institute in Princeton, New Jersey, perfecting his skills in viruses and
bacteria under the tutelage of American experts before returning to Nazi
Germany on the eve of war. Despite Traub's troubling war record, the U.S.
Navy recruited him for its scientific designs, and stationed him at the
Naval Medical Research Institute in Bethesda, Maryland." (Ibid.; p.
8.)
-
- 5. Nominally under the jurisdiction of the USDA (Department
of Agriculture), Plum Island was also used for military biological warfare
research on animal diseases. In that regard, it was involved with Fort
Dietrick, the Army's top chemical and biological warfare facility. Note
that Traub was at the foundation of the Plum Island/biological warfare
nexus. "Just months into his PAPERCLIP contract, the germ warriors
of Fort Detrick, the Army's biological warfare headquarters, in Frederick,
Maryland, and CIA operatives invited Traub in for a talk, later reported
in a declassified top-secret summary: Dr. Traub is a noted authority on
viruses and diseases in Germany and Europe. This interrogation revealed
much information of value to the animal disease program from a Biological
Warfare point of view. Dr. Traub discussed work done at a German animal
disease station during World War II and subsequent to the war when the
station was under Russian control.' Traub's detailed explanation of the
secret operation on Insel Riems, and his activities there during the war
and for the Soviets, laid the ground work for Fort Detrick's offshore germ
warfare animal diseased lab on Plum Island. Traub was a founding father.
. . ." (Ibid.; pp. 8-9.)
-
- 6. It is interesting to note that the Third Reich's biological
warfare program had the cover name of "Cancer Research Program."
(In RFA#16-available from Spitfire-as well as FTR#'s 16, 73, we look at
the National Cancer Institute's Special Viral Cancer Research Program and
the evidence suggesting that the project was actually a front for the continuation
of biological warfare research. Erich Traub appears to have been involved
with the projects related to the SVCRP.) " . . . Everybody seemed
willing to forget about Erich Traub's dirty past-that he played a crucial
role in the Nazis' 'Cancer Research Program,' the cover name for their
biological warfare program, and that he worked directly under SS Reichsfuhrer
Heinrich Himmler. They seemed willing to overlook that Traub in the 1930's
faithfully attended Camp Sigfried. In fact, the USDA liked him so much,
it glossed over his dubious past and offered him the top scientist job
at the new Plum Island Laboratory-not once, but twice. Just months after
the 1952 public hearings on selecting Plum Island, Doc Shahan dialed Dr.
Traub at the naval laboratory to discuss plans for establishing the germ
laboratory and a position on Plum Island." (Ibid.; p. 10.)
-
- 7. More about how Traub came to be in a significant position
at Plum Island. "Six years later-and only two years after Traub squirmed
in his seat at the Plum Island dedication ceremonies-senior scientist Dr.
Jacob Traum retired. The USDA needed someone of 'outstanding caliber, with
a long established reputation, internationally as well as nationally,'
to fill Dr. Traum's shoes. But somehow it couldn't find a suitable American.
'As a last resort it is now proposed that a foreigner be employed.' The
aggies' choice? Erich Traub, who was in their view 'the most desirable
candidate from any source.' The 1958 secret USDA memorandum 'Justification
for Employment of Dr. Erich Traub' conveniently omitted his World War II
activities; but it did emphasize that 'his originality, scientific abilities,
and general competence as an investigator' were developed at the Rockefeller
Institute in New Jersey in the 1930's." (Idem.)
-
- 8. The push to employ Traub as the director of Plum Island
involved professional recommendations that omitted his work for the Third
Reich: "The letters supporting Traub to lead Plum Island came in from
fellow Plum Island founders. 'I hope that every effort will be made to
get him. He has had long and productive experience in both prewar and postwar
Germany,' said Dr. William Hagan, dean of the Cornell University veterinary
school, carefully dispensing with his wartime activities. The final word
came from his dear American friend and old Rockefeller Institute boss Dr.
Richard Shope, who described Traub as 'careful, skill, productive and very
original' and 'one of this world's most outstanding virologists.' Shope's
sole reference to Traub at war: 'During the war he was in Germany serving
in the German Army.'" (Idem.)
-
- 9. Traub declined the offer to lead the lab. There is
considerable evidence that he was involved with biological warfare research
at Plum Island. "Declining the USDA's offer, Traub continued his directorship
of the Tubingen laboratory in West Germany, though he visited Plum Island
frequently. In 1960, he was forced to resign as Tubingen's director under
a dark cloud of financial embezzlement. Traub continued sporadic lab research
for another three years, and then left Tubingen for good--a scandalous
end to a checkered career. In the late 1970's, the esteemed virologist
Dr. Robert Shope, on business in Munich, paid his father Richard's old
Rockefeller Institute disciple a visit. The germ warrior had been in early
retirement for about a decade by then. 'I had dinner with Traub one day-out
of old time's sake-and he was a pretty defeated man by then.' On May 18,
1985, the Nazis' virus warrior Dr. Erich Traub died unexpectedly in his
sleep in West Germany. He was seventy-eight years old." (Ibid.; pp.
10-11.)
-
- 10. "A biological warfare mercenary who worked under
three flags-Nazi Germany, the Soviet Union, and the UnitedStates-Traub
was never investigated for war crimes. He escaped any inquiry into his
wartime past. The full extent of his sordid endeavors went with him to
his grave. While America brought a handful of Nazi war criminals to justice,
it safeguarded many others in exchange for verses to the new state religion-modern
science and espionage. Records detailing a fraction of Eric Traub's activities
are now available to the public, but most are withheld by Army intelligence
and the CIA on grounds of national security. But there's enough of a glimpse
to draw quite a sketch." (Ibid.; p. 11.)
-
- 11. An important chapter in the story of how the inquiry
into the possible link between Plum Island, Erich Traub's work on behalf
of the US and the spread of Lyme Disease concerns the work of former Justice
Department prosecutor John Loftus. In his book The Belarus Secret, Loftus
referred to work done on Plum Island in the early 1950's in which Nazi
scientists were experimenting on diseased ticks. Might that have referred
to Traub?! " . . . Attorney John Loftus was hired in 1979 by the Office
of Special Investigations, a unit set up by the Justice Department to expose
Nazi war crimes and unearth Nazis hiding in the United States. Given top-secret
clearance to review files that had been sealed for thirty-five years, Loftus
found a treasure trove of information on America's postwar Nazi recruiting.
In 1982, publicly challenging the government's complacency with the wrongdoing,
he told 60 minutes that top Nazi officers had been protected and harbored
in America by the CIA and the State Department. 'They got the Emmy Award,'
Loftus wrote. 'My family got the death threats.'" (Ibid.; p. 13.)
-
- 12. "Old spies reached out to him after the publication
of his book, The Belarus Secret, encouraged that he-unlike other authors-submitted
his manuscript to the government, agreeing to censor portions to protect
national security. The spooks gave him copies of secret documents and told
him stories of clandestine operations. From these leads, Loftus ferreted
out the dubious Nazi past of Austrian president and U.N. secretary general
Kurt Waldheim. Loftus revealed that during World War II, Waldheim had been
an officer in a German Army unit that committed atrocities in Yugoslavia.
A disgraced Kurt Waldheim faded from the international scene soon thereafter."
(Idem.)
-
- 13. "In the preface of The Belarus Secret, Loftus
laid out a striking piece of information gleaned from his spy network:
'Even more disturbing are the records of the Nazi germ warfare scientists
who came to America. They experimented with poison ticks dropped from planes
to spread rare diseases. I have received some information suggesting that
the U.S. tested some of these poison ticks on the Plum Island artillery
range off the coast of Connecticut during the early 1950's. . . .Most of
the germ warfare records have been shredded, but there is a top secret
U.S. document confirming that 'clandestine attacks on crops and animals'
took place at this time." (Idem.)
-
- 14. More pieces of evidence on the tantalizing trail
of evidence pointing to a possible Plum Island/Traub/Lyme disease link:
"Erich Traub had been working for the American biological warfare
program from his 1949 Soviet escape until 1953. We know he consulted with
Fort Dietrick scientists and CIA operatives; that he worked for the USDA
for a brief stint; and that he spoke regularly with Plum Island director
Doc Shahan in 1952. Traub can be physically placed on Plum Island at least
three times-on dedication day in 1956 and two visits, once in 1957 and
again in the spring of 1958. Shahan, who enforced an ultrastrict policy
against outside visitors, each time received special clearance from the
State Department to allow Traub on Plum Island soil." (Ibid.; p. 14.)
-
- 15. If in fact Traub was involved with research on Plum
Island, this development would have been consistent with programs being
conducted at that time involving experimentation on unwitting American
citizens with biological and chemical warfare research agents: "Research
unearthed three USDA files from the vault of the National Archives-two
were labeled TICK RESEARCH and a third E.TRAUB. All three folders were
empty. The caked-on dust confirms the file boxes hadn't been open since
the moment before they were taped shut in the 1950's. Preposterous as it
sounds, clandestine outdoor germ warfare trials were almost routine during
this period. In 1952, the Joint Chiefs of Staff called for a 'vigorous,
well-planned, large-scale [biological warfare] test to the secretary of
defense later that year stated, 'Steps should be take to make certain of
adequate facilities are available, including those at Fort Detrick, Dugway
Proving Ground, Fort Terry (Plum Island) and an island field testing area.'
Was Plum Island the island field testing area? Indeed, when the Army first
scouted Plum Island for its Cold War designs, they charted wind speeds
and direction and found that, much to their liking, the prevailing winds
blew out to sea." (Idem.)
-
- 16. "One of the participating 'interested agencies'
was the USDA, which admittedly set up large plots of land throughout the
Midwest for airborne anticrop germ spray tests. Fort Detrick's Special
Operations Division ran 'vulnerability tests' in which operatives walked
around Washington, D.C., and San Francisco with suitcases holding Serratia
marcescens-a bacteria recommended to Fort Detrick by Traub's nominal supervisor,
Nazi germ czar and Nuremberg defendant Dr. Kurt Blome. Tiny perforations
allowed the germs' release so they could trace the flow of the germs through
airports and bus terminals. Shortly thereafter, eleven elderly men and
women checked into hospitals with never-before-seen Serratia marcescens
infections. One patient died. Decades later when the germ tests were disclosed,
the Army denied responsibility. . . . In the summer of 1966, Special Operations
men walked into three New York City subway stations and tossed lightbulbs
filled Bacillus subtilis, a benign bacteria, onto the tracks. The subway
trains pushed the germs through the entire system and theoretically killed
over a million passengers." (Idem.)
-
- 17. "Tests were also run with live, virulent, anti-animal
germ agents. Two hog-cholera bombs were exploded at an altitude of 1,500
feet over pigpens set up at Eglin Air Force Base in Florida. And turkey
feathers laced with Newcastle disease virus were dropped on animals grazing
on a University of Wisconsin farm." (Ibid.; p. 15.)
-
- 18. "The Army never fully withdrew its germ warfare
efforts against food animals. Two years after the Army gave Plum Island
to the USDA-and three years after it told President Eisenhower it had ended
all biological warfare against food animals-the Joint Chiefs advised that
'research on anti-animal agent-munition combinations should' continue,
as well as 'field testing of anti-food agent munition combinations. . .
.' In November 1957, military intelligence examined the elimination of
the food supply of the Sino-Soviet Bloc, right down to the calories required
for victory: 'In order to have a crippling effect on the economy of the
USSR, the food and animal crop resources of the USSR would have to be damaged
within a single growing season to the extent necessary to reduce the present
average daily caloric intake from 2,800 calories to 1,400 calories; i.e.,
the starvation level. Reduction of food resources to this level, if maintained
for twelve months, would produce 20 percent fatalities, and would decrease
manual labor performance by 95 percent and clerical and light labor performance
by 80 percent.' At least six outdoor stockyard tests occurred in 1964-65.
Simulants were sprayed into stockyards in Fort Worth, Kansas City, St.
Paul, Sioux Falls, and Omaha in tests determining how much foot-and-mouth
disease virus would be required to destroy the food supply." (Idem.)
-
- 19. "Had the Army commandeered Plum Island for an
outdoor trial? Maybe the USDA lent a hand with the trial, as it had done
out west by furnishing the large test fields. After all, the Plum Island
agreement between the Army and the USDA allowed the Army to borrow the
island from the USDA when necessary and in the national interest."
(Idem.)
-
- 20. A former employee at Plum Island in the 1950's has
personal recollection of a "Nazi scientist" releasing ticks outdoors
on Plum Island. "Traub might have monitored the tests. A source who
worked on Plum Island in the 1950's recalls that animal handlers and a
scientist released ticks outdoors on the island. 'They called him the Nazi
scientist, when they came in, in 1951-they were inoculating these ticks,'
and a picture he once saw 'shows the animal handler pointing to the area
on Plum where they released the ticks.' Dr. Traub's World War II handiwork
consisted of aerial virus sprays developed on Insel Riems and tested over
occupied Russia, and of field work for Heinrich Himmler in Turkey. Indeed,
his colleagues conducted bug trials by dropping live beetles from planes.
An outdoor tick trial would have been de rigueur for Erich Traub."
(Ibid.; pp. 15-16.)
-
- 21. Next, the program sets forth the case of Steve Nostrum-an
early Lyme Disease victim whose reading of Loftus' book spurred him to
begin inquiring about the Plum Island/Traub connection. "Somebody
gave Steve Nostrum a copy of John Loftus's The Belarus Secret at one of
his support group meetings. Steve had long suspected that Plum Island played
a role in the evolution of Lyme disease, given the nature of its business
and its proximity to Old Lyme, Connecticut. But he never publicly voiced
the hunch, fearing a loss of credibility; hard facts and statistics earned
him a reputation as a leader in the Lyme disease field. Now in his hands,
he had a book written by a Justice Department attorney who not only had
appeared on 60 Minutes but also had brought down the secretary general
of the United Nations. Nostrum disclosed the possible Plum-Lyme connection
on his own television show. He invited local news reporter and Plum Island
ombudsman Karl Grossman to help him explore the possibilities in light
of the island's biological mishaps. Asked why he wrote about Loftus's book
in his weekly newspaper column, Grossman says, 'To let the theory rise
or fall. To let the public consider it. And it seemed to me that the author
was a Nazi hunter and a reputable attorney-this was not trivial information
provided [and it was provided] by some reliable person.'" (Idem.)
-
- 22. "In October 1995, Nostrum, fresh off nursing
duty (having earned an RN degree to help Lyme disease patients), rushed
to a rare public meeting held by the USDA. In a white nurse's coat, stethoscope
still around his neck, Nostrum rose. Trembling, his blond beard now streaked
with gray, he clutched his copy of The Belarus Secret as he read the damning
passage out loud for the USDA and the public to hear. 'I don't know whether
this is true,' he said, looking at the dais. 'If it is true, there must
be an investigation-if it's not true, then John Loftus needs to be prosecuted.'
People in the audience clapped, and some were astonished. A few gawked,
thinking he was nuts. How did the official USDA officials react? 'If stares
could kill, I would have been dead,' remembers Nostrum." (Idem.)
-
- 23. "Hiding behind the same aloof veil of secrecy
they had employed for decades, the USDA brazenly cut him off. 'There are
those who think that little green men are hiding out there,' the officials
responded to Nostrum. 'But trust us when we say there are no space aliens
and no five-legged cows.' A few laughs erupted in the crowd. 'It did nothing
but detract from what I was saying,' says Nostrum. 'But I said it, and
I had the documentation to support it.'" (Idem.)
-
- 24. The author speculates about the deer and birds that
visited Plum Island, and the possibility that some of the infected ticks
may well have traveled to the mainland from the island on those vectors.
(Carroll explains that white-tailed deer regularly swim the two miles to
the island to forage and migrating birds stop on Plum Island on their way
North and South during their annual migrations.) " . . . If Dr. Traub
continued his outdoor germ experiments with the Army and experimented with
ticks outdoors, the ticks would have made contact with mice, deer, and
more than 140 species of wild birds known to frequent and nest on Plum
Island. The birds spread their toxic cargo to resting and nesting perches
atop the great elms and oaks of Old Lyme and elsewhere, just like they
spread the West Nile virus throughout the United States." (Ibid.;
p. 21.)
-
- 25. After noting that allegations of the discovery of
Bb (the bacterium that causes Lyme Disease) in the late 1940's coincides
with Traub's arrival on the island, the broadcast sets forth the denials
by a USDA spokesperson that there was any BW/Traub/Plum Island link to
the spread of the Lyme infection. Note that Scientific American dismissed
the possibility of a "Nazi scientist" link to Plum Island. In
FTR#240-part of the long FTR series about "German Corporate Control
over American Media"--it was noted that the Von Holtzbrinck firm controls
that magazine. Like its larger competitor Bertelsmann, the Von Holtzbrinck
firm is rooted firmly in the Third Reich. In FTR#226, we examined the Nazi
heritage of Von Holtzbrinck and the possibility that they may employed
the notorious SS officer and Goebbels protégé Werner Naumann.
The possibility that the Von Holtzbrinck/Scientific American link may have
had something to do with the magazine's casual dismissal of the Traub/Plum/Lyme
link is not one to be too readily dismissed. "Researchers trying to
prove that Lyme disease existed before 1975 claim to have isolated Bb [the
bacterium that causes the infection] in ticks collected on nearby Shelter
Island and Long Island in the late 1940's. That timing coincides with both
Erich Traub's arrival in the United States on Project PAPERCLIP and the
Army's selection of Plum Island as its offshore biological warfare laboratory.
The USDA's spokesperson, Sandy Miller Hays, is unconvinced about the possibility
of a link between Lyme disease and Plum Island: . . . A PR expert, Hays
had Scientific American eating out of her hand in June 2000, when they
reported her as saying, ' 'We still get asked about the Nazi scientists,'
. . . [with] the slightest trace of weariness creeping into her voice.'
In their feature story on Plum Island, the prestigious magazine dubbed
the intrigue surrounding the island as a 'fanciful fictional tapestry.'"
(Ibid.; pp. 21-22.)
-
- 26. The program concludes with examination of Plum Island's
work with the "Lone Star Tick"-native to Texas. The focal point
of experimentation on Plum Island in the 1970's, the Lone Star tick-like
Lyme Disease--is now spread throughout New York, New Jersey and Connecticut.
How did that happen? " . . . The lab chief [Dr. Charles Mebus] failed
to mention that Plum Island also worked on 'hard ticks,' a crucial distinction.
A long overlooked document, obtained from the files of an investigation
by the office of former Long Island Congressman Thomas Downey, sheds new
light on the second, more damning connection to Lyme disease. A USDA 1978
internal research document titled 'African Swine Fever' notes that in 1975
and 1976, contemporaneous with the strange outbreak in Old Lyme, Connecticut,
'the adult and nymphal stages of Abylomma americanum and Abylomma cajunense
were found to be incapable of harboring and transmitting African swine
fever virus.' In laymen's terms, Plum Island was experimenting with the
Lone Star tick and the Cayenne tick-feeding them on viruses and testing
them on pigs-during the ground zero year of Lyme disease. They did not
transmit African swine fever to pigs, said the document, but they might
have transmitted Bb to researchers or to the island's vectors. The Lone
Star tick, named after the white star on the back of the female, is a hard
tick; along with its cousin, the deer tick, it is a culprit in the spread
of Lyme disease. Interestingly, at that time, the Lone Star tick's habitat
was confined to Texas. Today, however, it is endemic throughout New York,
Connecticut, and New Jersey. And no one can really explain how it migrated
all the way from Texas. . . ." (Ibid.; pp. 24-25.)
-
- http://www.spitfirelist.com/f480.html
|
