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Strategies & Market Trends : Trend Setters and Range Riders -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: debby who wrote (3671)	11/5/2001 5:01:38 PM
From: bobby is sleepless in seattle	Respond to of 26752

acam...yes on the smallpox a small brokerage company in the redmond area contacted many of their clients to buy during the 11th situation, very bullish... this birdie suggested i do the same and did not.. very good friend doubled this, but won't sell,,,suggested taking his initial investment off the table and let the profits run right now, touching, maybe broke, trendline and could bounce. or bounces off 30-32 area... .02

To: debby who wrote (3671)	11/6/2001 10:47:07 AM
From: bobby is sleepless in seattle	Respond to of 26752

Smallpox attack would create a worldwide crisis (Filed: 06/11/2001) Scientists say the disease could kill millions, reports Roger Highfield THE use of anthrax as a bioterrorist weapon is not nearly as frightening as the threat of attacks using smallpox, said Dr Jim Matthews of Northeastern University in Boston. "Anthrax is not easily transferred, so to develop it as a weapon is difficult, and in most cases it responds quite well to antibiotics," he said. "However, what I would be more wary of is smallpox." He said smallpox was contagious and there was no tested treatment. "Even as we speak, some federal officials have reason to believe that Iraq is developing it as a biological weapon." An attack using smallpox could create an international emergency, according to an article in the journal Emerging Infectious Diseases by Dr Tara O'Toole of Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore. A theoretical attack on April 1 had, by mid-June, led to 15,000 cases of smallpox and 2,000 deaths in America, while the disease had spread to four foreign countries. In June of this year, another exercise, Dark Winter, simulated the American reaction to the deliberate introduction of smallpox in three states during the winter of 2002. It predicted three million cases and one million deaths by the following February. Last month, the US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention warned doctors to watch for unusual outbreaks of disease that could be consistent with biological weapons. Smallpox was on a list of biological agents "of highest concern", including plague, tularaemia, an acute infectious disease of rodents transmitted by ticks or flies, and Lassa fever. The CDC told doctors to be vigilant in detecting unusual age distributions of diseases, such as a chicken pox-like illness in adults, which might turn out to be smallpox. The same week, the Public Health Laboratory Service in Britain also provided new information to doctors on smallpox. Stockpiles of the smallpox virus are now scheduled for destruction on June 30 next year after a vigorous debate among scientists. Some have long argued that smallpox specimens represent a potential biological warfare weapon for terrorists, particularly given the turmoil in the former Soviet Union. Others wanted a stay of execution. Smallpox would be low on the terrorists' shopping list, given that there was an effective vaccine, they argued. The cultures would also be of huge value if there was a resurgence of the disease. Destroying the virus did not erase this threat, they added. The fact that the genetic blueprint of several smallpox strains had already been published provided the means for reconstructing it or transferring part of it to a common-or-garden pox virus. Indeed, there is no telling whether a similar virus could evolve at some time in the future from closely-related monkeypox. There may even be other sources of the virus; for example, the corpse of a person killed by smallpox and preserved in the Arctic permafrost. In the 18th century alone, the brick-shaped virus killed around half a million people annually. When Europeans came to the Americas, it wiped out half of the Native American population who lacked any trace of natural immunity. Even in 1967 the disease was endemic in more than 40 countries, with 10 million cases. Overall, the virus has killed about a billion people and mutilated millions more. However, in the late 18th century smallpox suffered its first reverse. Edward Jenner showed a way to boost immunity by inoculation with a close relative, the cowpox virus. Effective vaccination followed and the last person to be naturally infected was a Somali cook who succumbed on Oct 26, 1977. Two years later, the world was officially declared free of the scourge. 1 November 2001: Saddam 'still ready to use germ warfare' 22 October 2001: Talks on medicines to fight bio-terrorism 12 March 2001: US blunder 'triggered global germ bomb race' Related reports Warning of smallpox terror risk External links Emerging Infectious Diseases US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention Public Health Laboratory Service © Copyright of Telegraph Group Limited 2001. Terms & Conditions of reading. Commercial information. Privacy Policy.