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Biowar Weapon

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Technophobe View Drop Down
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    Posted: October 06 2018 at 1:43am

The Pentagon Wants to Make an Army of Virus-Spreading Insects. Scientists Are Concerned.
By Brandon Specktor, Senior Writer | October 5, 2018 12:57pm ET

Friend or foe? A new Pentagon program wants to make insects that spread viruses to food crops to ensure food security, but scientists say the "Insect Allies" program is a biological weapon waiting to happen.
Credit: Shutterstock

Can a task force of insects carrying genetically modified viruses save America's farms — or are they an uncontrollable bioweapon in the making?

This is the debate swirling around a controversial new Pentagon research project called "Insect Allies." Funded by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), the project involves using gene-editing techniques like CRISPR to infect insects with modified viruses that could help make America's crops more resilient. If a cornfield were hit by an unexpected drought or suddenly exposed to a pathogen, for example, Insect Allies might deploy an army of aphids carrying a genetically modified virus to slow the corn plant's growth rate.

According to the DARPA website, these "targeted therapies" could take effect in a single growing season, potentially protecting the American crop system from food security threats like disease, flooding, frost and even "threats introduced by state or non-state actors." [Biomimicry: 7 Clever Technologies Inspired by Nature]

Members of the scientific community are skeptical. In a letter published today (Oct. 5) in the journal Science, a team of five scientists voiced concerns that the project could be easily exploited as a biological weapon — or at least be perceived as one by the international community.

"In our opinion the justifications are not clear enough. For example, why do they use insects? They could use spraying systems," Silja Voeneky, a co-author of the letter and professor of international law at the University of Freiburg in Germany, told The Washington Post."To use insects as a vector to spread diseases is a classical bioweapon."

Blake Bextine, program manager for Insect Allies, is less concerned. "Anytime you're developing a new and revolutionary technology, there is that potential for [both offensive and defensive] capability," Bextine told The Washington Post. "But that is not what we are doing. We are delivering positive traits to plants… We want to make sure we ensure food security, because food security is national security in our eyes."

Insect Allies is still in the early stages of development, and at least four U.S. colleges (Boyce Thompson Institute, Penn State University, The Ohio State University and the University of Texas at Austin)have received funding to carry out research. Bextine told The Washington Post that the project recently achieved its first milestone — testing whether an aphid could infect a stalk of corn with a designer virus that caused fluorescence. According to the Washington Post, "the corn glowed."

Source:   https://www.livescience.com/63765-darpa-insect-allies-or-biological-weapon.html
How do you tell if a politician is lying?
His lips or pen are moving.
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Dutch Josh View Drop Down
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Dutch Josh Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: October 07 2018 at 6:58am
https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-10-06/declassified-cables-reveal-us-plan-nuke-vietnam

and

http://www.moonofalabama.org/2018/10/scientists-raise-alarm-over-us-bio-weapon-programs.html#:

The U.S. is running biological weapon research across the globe:

Bio warfare scientists using diplomatic cover test man-made viruses at Pentagon bio laboratories in 25 countries across the world. These US bio-laboratories are funded by the Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA) under a $ 2.1 billion military program– Cooperative Biological Engagement Program (CBEP), and are located in former Soviet Union countries such as Georgia and Ukraine, the Middle East, South East Asia and Africa.
Until the mid nineteen-seventies the U.S. military tested biological warfare weapons on U.S. people, sometimes over large areas and on specific races. After a Congress investigation revealed the wide ranging program such testing was moved abroad.
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The eminent U.S. magazine Science published their work. The scientists ask if the project is Agricultural research, or a new bioweapon system?

[A]n ongoing research program funded by the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) aims to disperse infectious genetically modified viruses that have been engineered to edit crop chromosomes directly in fields.
...
In the context of the stated aims of the DARPA program, it is our opinion that the knowledge to be gained from this program appears very limited in its capacity to enhance U.S. agriculture or respond to national emergencies (in either the short or long term). Furthermore, there has been an absence of adequate discussion regarding the major practical and regulatory impediments toward realizing the projected agricultural benefits. As a result, the program may be widely perceived as an effort to develop biological agents for hostile purposes and their means of delivery, which—if true—would constitute a breach of the Biological Weapons Convention (BWC).
It its response to the Science paper DARPA again insists that the program is for purely agricultural purpose. But the response does not answer the questions the scientists put up.

The mechanism of spreading infectious genetically modified viruses to genetically modify and 'heal' plants in the fields is itself full of problems and dangers. To use insects for distributing such viruses borders on insane.
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The idea that the real (and illegal) purpose of such U.S. research is biological warfare is not far fetched at all.

During the Korea War the U.S. dropped infected insects and rodents over north Korea and China to infect people with deadly diseases. Various pathogens, including anthrax, were used against the civilian population. During the Vietnam war the U.S. sprayed thousand of square miles with poisonous defoliants. It tested biological weapons on the people of Hawaii, Alaska, Maryland, Florida, Canada and Britain. In 2002 weaponized anthrax spores from the U.S. biological warfare laboratory in Fort Derrick were used to scare U.S. politicians into agreeing to the Patriot Act. At least five people were killed. And why is the U.S. Air Force looking for synovial tissue and RNA samples collected specifically from Caucasian people in Russia?

Biological warfare programs are extremely dangerous. Not only to 'the enemy' but to ones own population. Infectious diseases and pathogens can spread around the globe within a few days. Genetic modifications can have unpredictable secondary effects. Viruses can jump over the species barrier. These are the sound reasons why such weapons, and research into using them, are prohibited.

The U.S. government should follow the law and stop all such programs. Even if only in the self interest of protecting its very own people.

DJ-A Bio-weapons arms race would make this world even more unsafe.
https://www.veteranstoday.com/2018/09/20/100-years-ago-spanish-flu-epidemic-kills-more-than-world-war-1/ There are claims that "the Spanish Flu" was a vaccination programm gone wrong. Even when we think we know what we are doing we face many risks-bio-weapon-research (just like killer-robots etc.) is stupidity !
We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Dutch Josh Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: October 07 2018 at 7:27am
From the MoA-comments:

-A picture speaks a thoudsand words. There are 49 bio-weapons research labs in 6 countries in close proximity to Russia.

https://cont.ws/uploads/pic/2018/10/1538709227_349754.jpg

The UK Porton Down labs are also involved in this process. They have conducted experiments on the general public travelling on the London Underground. More recently, they have received a nice £47 million funding boost for all their good work on the Skripal case.

"Biological warfare programs are extremely dangerous. Not only to 'the enemy' but to ones own population."

This may explain the US BW research program interest in genetic material of RUssians. They may hope to produce some kind of narrowly targetted (in theory) pathogen. Given the ethnic diversity of the Russian Federation, Russian-ness is largely cultural rather than genetic. Genetic effects would only likely to succeed in populations with a narrow genetic spread.

-http://dilyana.bg/diplomatic-viruses/

-This makes why horrific mass-killing diseases like HIV/Aids and Ebola erupt on the continent of Africa including the occurrence of the Bubonic Plague in Madagascar last year, terribly suspect.

https://www.veteranstoday.com/2018/01/18/richard-e-lugar-body-of-evidence-suggests-new-us-biological-warfront-opening-column-politics-region-caucasus-country-georgia/, https://www.veteranstoday.com/2018/08/26/not-as-safe-as-you-think/ DJ-There are claims;
-The US is/was involved in outbreaks of Ebola, HIV etc.
-The US did use "tactical"nuclear weapons in Yemen, Iraq, Afghanistan
and of course it should not surprise anyone that
-The US was behind alquada, IS and other sunni-terrorist groups.

The US is not acting alone here, Israel, Saudi Arabia, most NATO countries are involved. Even if Russia, China, North Korea would be "doing bad things" would that give us an excuse to go beyond any moral rule ?
We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.
~Albert Einstein
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote CRS, DrPH Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: October 08 2018 at 9:38am
Man, talk about playing with fire!!

Why don't they devote these resources to finding a universal flu vaccine??

Mankind's habit of eating row crops (corn etc.) is likely to go away with climate change, we should be devoting resources toward new, sustainable methods of nutrition. I'm working on growing algae as an animal feed supplement, and we could easily grow algae for human food as well. With modern food technology, we could use these plant proteins to make vegetarian hamburgers that would be nearly indistinguishable from ones made from meat.

No Soylent Green wisecracks please!
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