To: Logain Ablar who wrote (45597 ) 1/6/2014 4:08:45 PM From: longnshort Respond to they worked with other ticks on that Island"While the Army and the USDA are quick to deny the Plum Island tick experiments ever occurred, every few years the public learns of a top-secret germ warfare test whose existence the U.S. government had long denied. ...Plum Island previously worked on--and continued to work on--tick experiments on 'soft ticks' that transmitted heartwater, bluetongue, and African swine fever viruses, but aren't normally known for spreading the Bb bacteria. But that wasn't the complete picture. The lab chief failed to mention that Plum Island also worked on 'hard ticks,' a crucial distinction. ... 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. ... 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.
