US Company Sold Anthrax Bacteria to Iraq
By Frank Morales
"Anthrax is news" -- (Nightline, ABC-TV, 2/20/98)
shadow.mediafilter.org
"For the first time, some Persian Gulf War veterans have a
government study that backs up what they have said all along.
They're sicker than people who weren't there. What is making
them sick is still a mystery." -- (Associated Press, 2/27/96)
From 1985 to 1989, the United States government approved 70
shipments of anthrax and other disease-causing pathogens to
Iraqi scientists. The American Type Culture Collection (ATCC), a
73-year old nonprofit company based in Rockville, Maryland, was
the supplier-exporter of the anthrax and other "cultures" to
Iraq. These shipments were approved by the US Commerce
Department's Technical Advisory Committee, whose membership
included Robert Stevenson, then chief executive of ATCC. This
was reported by New York Newsday in a November 27, 1996 article
written by Patrick J. Sloyan, entitled, "Undisclosed
Connection." Sloyan revealed that ATCC's role as a supplier of
anthrax to Iraq became known on February 9, 1994, when Sen.
Donald Riegle (D. Mich.) delivered a Senate speech criticizing
ATCC's actions.
ATCC products, all 60,000 cultures in stock, can be grown to
produce bio-war munitions, although, according to Sloyan, "UN
Special Commission investigators in Iraq found no evidence that
Bagdad used biological weapons or even succeeded in developing
the pathogens into usable battlefield munitions." Nevertheless,
"150,000 frontline US combat troops got anthrax vaccine
injections." In other words, American soldiers were shot up with
anthrax, supposedly immunizing them against anthrax poisons,
supplied earlier, in some quantity, with the consent of the US
government itself! Dispersed as an aerosal, anthrax spores
can produce high fever, breathing difficulty, chest pain and
eventually, blood poisoning and death. Areas that are hit with
anthrax can remain lethal to humans for decades. The question
is, were "our boys" subject to these spores during Operation
Desert Storm, and possibly even used as guinea pigs in some kind
of bio-war scenario? In any case, by 1993, two 75,000 US Gulf
War veterans have complained of illness, fatigue, sore joints,
sleeping difficulty, chronic diarrhea, memory loss and
depression, all of which they claim are related to their
military service. Eventually, veterans groups brought sufficient
pressure to bear, forcing President Clinton to act. As expected,
the president appointed a commission to study (read: cover up)
the issue. He "ordered" the Pentagon itself to study the problem
and to determine whether any link exists between anthrax and
sick American soldiers.
The Pentagon, in turn, set up the Defense Science Board Task
Force on Persian Gulf War Health Effects. The results of their
study, released in 1994, dismissed any links between chemical
and biological weapons and Persian Gulf War related illnesses.
Despite this predictable Pentagon denial, coming from a task
force that pre-emptively ruled out biological weapons as a cause
of "Gulf War syndrome," thousands of Gulf War veterans have
participated in class action suits. According to Newsday, they
are "seeking damages from ATCC and other firms that exported
products that could have been used in Iraq's chemical and
biological warfare program." The Newsday article goes on to
state that "one possible source of a low level exposure to
biological weapons may have been the destruction of Iraqi
biological facilities by US warplanes."
Considering that "renowned geneticist" Joshua Lederberg headed
the Pentagon study, it was no surprise to some that it reached
the conclusion that it did. Lederberg, born May 23, 1925, is a
former President of Rockefeller University in Manhattan, a 1958
Nobel laureate for medicine and a member of the Defense Science
Board. He was chosen to head up the Pentagon study by then
Deputy Defense Secretary John Deutch, later head of the CIA.
Deutch had no problem with Lederberg, nor with the fact that at
the time of the 1994 Pentagon study, Lederberg was also one of
10 directors on the board of American Type Culture Collection!
Later, Deutch claimed that he didn't know of Lederberg's
connections to ATCC or that the firm shipped anthrax for four
years, to Iraq.
The Pentagon Task Force took seven months to issue its report.
In it, Lederberg devoted only a half-page to biological weapons.
He stated that "there is no scientific or medical evidence
that... there were any exposures of US service members to
chemical or biological warfare agents in Kuwait or Saudi
Arabia." Actually, a week after Senator Riegle's February 9,
1994 attack of ATCC on the Senate floor, Lederberg wrote Riegle,
as head of the Pentagon Task Force, on "Office of the Secretary
of Defense" stationary. With frothing innocence, Lederberg
stated that he was "intrigued by your recent suggestion that the
medical problems being exhibited by some Gulf War veterans might
be related to biological warfare, specifically, to the list of
biological materials sent to Iraq from the American Type Culture
Collection." He requested a "briefing" by Riegle's staff, who
then later testified before Lederberg's panel on February 25,
1994, supplying them with this information. None of the
testimony or details about ATCC's shipments were contained in
the final report.
The American Type Culture Collection, for whom Lederberg served
as a director from 1990 to 1994, is according to Newsday, "a
repository of bacteria, fungi and other products used by the
global scientific community as a standard of reference for
research." Author Sloyan notes that a Ms. Kay Sloan-Breen, "an
ATCC spokeswoman," defined ATCC as a "collection of scientists
wearing white hats." The direct predecessor of ATCC was the
creation, in 1911, of a repository of living bacteria at the
American Museum of Natural History in New York City.
ATCC was officially formed in 1925 by a committee of scientists
and others spearheaded by the National Research Council.
Relocating a number of times, ATCC settled in Rockville,
Maryland in 1964, although it is scheduled to move once again to
a "state of the art" facility at Prince William County,
Virginia, some time in early 1998. (ATCC is currently located at
12301 Parklawn Drive, Rockville, Maryland, 20852. Telephone:
(301) 881-2600.)
According to an ATCC promo, they are "a global bioscience
organization that provides biological products, technical
services, and educational programs to private, industry,
government and academic organizations around the world. The
mission of the ATCC is to acquire, authenticate and maintain
reference cultures, related biological materials, and associated
data, and to distribute these to qualified scientists in
government, industry and education." ATCC "culture distribution
policy" reads as follows: "ATCC distributes cultures only to
qualified organizations and scientists. Indication of adequate
facilities and expertise must be demonstrated to receive
cultures from ATCC. Government Permits, or Compliance
Agreements, or other forms may be required for the receipt of
certain cultures. Shipments to countries outside the US, or
their agents, are regulated by the US Department of Commerce.
Certain countries, specified by the Department of Commerce, are
prohibited from receiving cultures from ATCC." It is not
difficult for the intelligent reader to discern the loop-holes
in this "policy."
According to published reports, ATCC shipped Bacillus anthracis
twice--in May 1986 and September 1988. There were also two
shipments of Clostridium botulinum--a bacterium used to make
botulinum toxin--on the same dates. The batches, frozen in tiny
vials, were shipped to Bagdad's Ministry of Education. The CIA
and Defense Intelligence Agency knew in 1986 (or at least this
is implied in a recently declassified CIA document) that quite
likely there existed a "strictly controlled" area at Salman Pak
which served as some kind of bio-weapons facility in Bagdad.
Again, according to Sloyan, "the main production facility,
Salman Pak, was bombed from the outset of the war after an
extensive debate between George Bush and his military
commanders. They feared fallout from the air strikes could
pollute the battlefield." In other words, by 1991 and Operation
Desert Storm, the generals and others knew full well the
consequences of bombing such a bio-weapons facility, in effect
waging a chemical war.
Recently acquired documents related to the American Type Culture
Collection state that they are an "archive of living cultures
and genetic materials" in the business of developing "biological
model systems." ATCC is extensively involved in the Human Genome
Project, busily "analyzing the entire human genome," according
to Raymond H. Cypess, ATCC's CEO and President. ATCC is
extensively involved in genetic engineering and other areas,
including cloning.
One should not expect ATCC to mention their policy regarding
bio-warfare, counter-insurgency or the murder of innocent
people. These are medical people who expect us to trust in their
objectivity, compassion and skill. But like in Germany 50
years ago, have the healers become the killers? Doctor Lederberg
has refused interviews on this subject. And again, there is no
mention of utilitizing a "culture" like anthrax in the massive
genocide of people. The first allegations of the use of
biological agents in war were made in response to attempts by
the Germans to employ such agents during World War I. At one
point in 1916, the Germans were accused of inoculating horses
with anthrax in Bucharest. World War II produced more
accusations against Germany. According to the record of the
Nuremberg Tribunal, one of those involved in germ warfare
experimentation during the war was Dr. Walter P. Schrieber, who
was at the time head of the Scientific Department Group C of the
Military Academy in Berlin. In March 1952, Time Magazine
reported: "Dr. Schrieber, it developed, had been brought to the
US in a Defense Department scoop-up of German technical men
known as Operation Paperclip. His job: consultant to the (US)
Airforce in a division with the grandiloquent title Global
Preventive Medicine." Fort Detrick, near Frederick, Maryland, is
one of the main centers of biological warfare research in
America, set up in 1943. The facility, comprising some 1500
acres, wields a large budget, employing hundreds of
"scientists." In part, its efforts are directed toward breeding
into pathogenic (harmful) organisms with precisely the
characteristics--such as resistance to antibiotics--that real
medical researchers would like to see eradicated. Anthrax
disease is the object of considerable research at places like
Fort Detrick. Finally, among other institutions that come within
the influential sway of Fort Detrick, are the National Academy
of Sciences and the American Society for Microbiology. The
latter group, originally called the Society of American
Bacteriologists back in 1925, helped establish, as a charter
founding member, the American Type Culture Collection.
It's true. Anthrax is "news". |
