Democracy Now-Featured Disease Testimony of a Curious Character

Americans have a Silly Soft spot for a British (or  favored foreign) Accent

A Briton (or Ukrainian) who graduated from a nondescript East London college with a technical degree, hopped over to the United States and landed gigs with one or another US university and government agency, such as the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), White House revolving door advisory,  and the questionable and shadowy US Agency for International development (USAID).

What is left out of the biographical brief accompanying his Democracy Now performance is this bit.

P

eter Daszak holds a Bachelor of Science in zoology from Bangor University in North Wales and a doctorate in parasitic infectious diseases from the University of East London (formerly West Ham Technical Institute).

His work is said to be “funded by [US taxpayers] the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Fogarty International Center, the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), the National Science Foundation (NSF), the US Agency for International Development (USAID), Google.org, Rockefeller, and other foundations.

Presumably an Englishman (Ukrainian…? Cossack…?), Peter Daszak, as far back as 1999, was “a guest worker at the CDC.”

He has been employed as

advisor on global health issues to the director for medical preparedness policy on the White House National Security staff; advisor to the World Health Organization “on pathogen prioritization for R&D” (research and development); and a member of the International Organization for Migration (IOM) Committee on global surveillance for emerging zoonoses [infectious diseases caused by a pathogen that has jumped from non-human animals (usually vertebrates) to humans].

Daszak currently heads the US-based EcoHealth Alliance (formerly Wildlife Trust), a nonprofit non-governmental global enterprise employing “a ‘One Health’ approach to protecting the health of people, animals, and the environment from emerging infectious diseases,” that partners with USAID in an emerging pandemic threats program.

Though he seems not to be an actual laboratory scientist or on-site research scientist either by experience, training, or education; it is, nevertheless, curious, given his access, that he waited two decades to broadcast his pathogen concerns to the American public.

Mr. Daszak today tells the Democracy Now interviewers that “there are viruses related to Ebola that we don’t know much about. We don’t know if they infect people. There are viruses related to influenza out there that we don’t know what they do in people.”

Y

et Daszak claimed:

“… [W]e’ve done the science on this. We’ve been working on this for 20 years. We tracked every known emerging disease to its origin, from the scientific literature. And then we tested, with mathematical models: what’s driving that, what are the causes that could underlie the emergence of these new diseases. And what we found is they emerge in places where human populations are very dense and growing. …”

I think everybody knows this last bit by now. What has he been doing for 20 years to just now arrive at this foregone conclusion?

“[T]he way to deal with this is not to wait for them to emerge and make us sick. The way to do this is to get out there ahead of the curve [curve has suddenly come into the American English language], find out what’s out there in wildlife, find out who’s at risk, work with the people on the frontline and reduce that risk.”

B

io labs everywhere

About bacteria escaping bio labs, of which the US has hundreds across the world and within United States, Daszak seems to be covering his and his connections’ negligence.

“We have a few hundred technicians and scientists working in these labs. They do not have a problem with staff or with security or with loose controls. These are very well-run labs.

They’ve been inspected by the US CDC [not much of an endorsement, given its privatized track record], by people working in BSL-4 labs, high-security labs, in the US, in France, and internationally.

They’re accredited by the US [still not much of an endorsement, given privatization protecting and securing private wealth].

So, it’s ironic that now we’re saying they’re not very well organized. We actually inspected them properly and allowed them to open. [Speaking of baloney]

[Bracketed Emphasis added]

B

SL-4 Clarification

A biosafety level (BSL), or Pathogen/Protection level, is a set of biocontainment precautions required to isolate dangerous biological agents in an enclosed laboratory facility.

Biosafety level 4 laboratories are used for diagnostic work and research on easily transmitted pathogens which can cause fatal disease. These include a number of viruses known to cause viral hemorrhagic fever such as Marburg virus, Ebola virus, Lassa virus, and Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever.

Biosafety level 4 (BSL-4) is the highest level of biosafety precautions, and is appropriate for work with agents that could easily be aerosol-transmitted within the laboratory and cause severe to fatal disease in humans for which there are no available vaccines or treatments. BSL-4 laboratories are generally set up to be either cabinet laboratories or protective-suit laboratories.

The levels of containment range from the lowest biosafety level 1 (BSL-1) to the highest at level 4 (BSL-4).

• At the lowest level of biosafety, precautions may consist of regular hand-washing and minimal protective equipment. 
• At higher biosafety levels, precautions may include airflow systems, multiple containment rooms, sealed containers, positive pressure personnel suits, established protocols for all procedures, extensive personnel training, and high levels of security to control access to the facility.

I

n the United States, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) have specified these levels. In the European Union, the same biosafety levels are defined in a directive. In Canada the four levels are known as Containment Levels.

Such facilities with these designations are also sometimes given as P1 through P4 (for Pathogen or Protection level), as in the term P3 laboratory.

Democracy Now! describes Daszak as a “disease ecologist,” a field of study for which there was no clarification. He concludes with an opinion that, perhaps, reflects his chosen field of study.  The disease ecologist concludes, again, with the obvious.  

“We’ve got to reassess our relationship with the environment and reduce our ecological footprint. It’s to the benefit of conservation. It’ll reduce climate change. It will also stop us getting sick. …”

Wait, here comes the parting shot.

“For folks on the right who aren’t interested in conservation or climate change, what about your own health? You know, we are making ourselves sick by making the planet sick.”

So there, you dummies!

W

e the people of the world have a problem, a big, complex, deadly serious problem, a whole bunch of problems; and all the baloney in the world—no matter who is slicing it up and spitting it out, Brit or Yank—is not going to solve our problems or save us.

“Baloney” was Daszak’s Democracy Now word captured and crafted as a headline. It seems this gentleman, too, has acquired a taste—for baloney.   

We’ve had our fill of the Brit-Yank performance— East to West, Columbia, Yale, Harvard, Chicago, Stanford via Wharton— it’s all the same: duck and blame.

Where were you, Peter Daszak, when the bats first flew?

Sources

National Center for Biotechnology Information, U.S. National Library of Medicine 8600 Rockville Pike, Bethesda MD, 20894 USA

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK114496/

https://www.mailman.columbia.edu/research/center-infection-and-immunity/peter-daszak-phd

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EcoHealth_Alliance

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zoonosis.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biosafety_level#Biosafety_level_4

Democracy Now! “’Pure Baloney’: Zoologist Debunks Trump’s COVID-19 Origin Theory, Explains Animal-Human Transmission.” April 16, 2020. https://www.democracynow.org/2020/4/16/peter_daszak_coronavirus

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West aggresses Eastward, East progresses Upward and Westward

A country neglects its own, A germ escapes a laboratory

One professor takes the view that the Coronavirus is an “offensive biological warfare weapon” that leaped from the Wuhan BSL-4 laboratory— in a world of Western “bio-safety” laboratories and a long, documented history of bio-warfare.   

V

irus Labs (biocontainment or biosafety laboratories)

• ·       Lowest biosafety levels: regular hand-washing, minimal protective equipment.

• ·       Higher biosafety levels: airflow systems, multiple containment rooms, sealed containers, positive pressure personnel suits, established protocols for all procedures, extensive personnel training, and high level security to control access

BSLs

U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention designations of lowest to highest BSL-1 -4 / biosafety levels 1 – 4; sometimes designated P1-P4 for Pathogen or Protection level “is a set of biocontainment precautions (containment levels) required to isolate dangerous biological agents in an enclosed laboratory facility.

Total labs USA — U.S. Government Accountability Office as of October 4, 2007 reported across the United States

• ·       BSL-3 facilities (registered): 1,356 CDC/USDA

• ·       BSL-3 labs: 36 percent (est. ) in higher education institutions

• ·       BSL-4 facilities: 15 identified (including 9 at federal labs)

BSL-4 facilities worldwide locations extending at least to 1928 (Hamilton, Montana, United States Rocky Mountain Laboratories NIAID laboratory; focus on vector-borne diseases):

Buenos Aires, Argentina, Geelong, Victoria, Australia, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, Pedro Leopoldo, Minas Gerais, Brazil, Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada, Wuhan, Hubei, China, Těchonín, Pardubice Region, Czech Republic, Lyon, Metropolis of Lyon, France, Franceville, Haut-Ogooué Province, Gabon,  Berlin, Germany, Hamburg, Germany, Isle of Riems, Greifswald, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Germany, Marburg, Hesse, Germany, Budapest, Hungary, Pécs, Hungary, Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh, India, Hyderabad, Telangana, India, Pune, Maharashtra, India, Rome, Lazio, Italy, Musashimurayama, Tokyo, Japan, Tsukuba, Ibaraki Prefecture, Japan, Koltsovo, Novosibirsk Oblast, Russia, Johannesburg, Gauteng, South Africa, Solna, Stockholm County, Sweden, Geneva, Canton of Geneva, Switzerland, Canton of Zurich, Switzerland,

National Defense University, Taiwan, Camden, Greater London, United Kingdom, Colindale, Greater London, United Kingdom, Mill Hill, Greater London, United Kingdom, Potters Bar, Hertfordshire, United Kingdom, Addlestone, Surrey, United Kingdom, Pirbright, Surrey, United Kingdom, Porton Down, Wiltshire, United Kingdom, Fort Collins, Colorado, United States, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Atlanta, Georgia, United States, Georgia State UniversityAtlanta, Georgia, United States, Kansas State University Manhattan, Kansas, United States, National Institutes of Health (NIH), Bethesda, Maryland, United States, Fort Detrick, Maryland, United States, Boston University Boston, Massachusetts, United States, Hamilton, Montana, United States, Galveston, Texas, United States, San Antonio, Texas, United States, Osong, North Chungcheong Province, South Korea

D

r. Francis A. Boyle is a professor of international law at the University of Illinois College of Law Francis (AM, PhD Harvard University, JD Harvard Law School, AB University of Chicago; Expertise Areas: Constitutional Law (U.S. Foreign Affairs), Human Rights, Jurisprudence, U.S. Foreign Affairs; Professor, College of Law, Professor, Unit for Criticism and Interpretive Theory

Some of Professor Boyle’s published works: The Criminality of Nuclear Deterrence (2013); Destroying Libya and World Order: The Three-Decade U.S. Campaign to Terminate the Qaddafi Revolution (2013); World Politics and International Law (2012);  Palestine, Palestinians and International Law (2009); Breaking All The Rules: Palestine, Iraq, Iran and the Case for Impeachment (2008);     Protesting Power: War, Resistance and Law (2007); Biowarfare and Terrorism (2006); Destroying World Order: US Imperialism in the Middle East Before and After September 11 (2004).
 

P

epe Escobar quoted Dr. Boyle in his February 21, 2020 article “No Weapon Left Behind: The American Hybrid War on China.”

Although there is … “‘no legitimate scientific reason to have BSL-4 labs,” the “‘United States, Europe, Russia, China and Israel” possess and use these labs to “‘research, develop, and test biological warfare agents.’”

His research shows that these labs and their “scientists” total in the thousands at costs in the hundreds of billions.

Professor Boyle takes the opinion, regarding the Coronavirus (aka 2019-nCoV or “Novel coronavirus” or “SARS-CoV-2) that the Chinese government covered up the germ leak until it was out of hand.

He also suggests, as other reports have suggested, that the World Health Organization has been compromised by private interests and cannot be trusted. 

The WHO, he said “‘works in cahoots with the CDC” (the U.S. government, though the CDC has also been compromised by private interests) and “‘in cahoots with Fort Detrick,’” the last “a cutting-edge bio-warfare lab (and) previously a notorious CIA (Central Intelligence Agency) den of mind control experiments.’”
 

C

hina rising

The People’s Republic of China in 2013 lays out a global development strategy involving infrastructure development and investments in nearly 70 countries and international organizations in Asia, Europe, and Africa.” It is called the “Belt and Road Initiative” (BRI or B&R).

• ·       Many nations of the Global South sign on to BRI (completion planned for 2049) and Chinese companies sign contracts totaling upwards of “$128 billion in large-scale infrastructure projects in dozen of nations.”

• ·       China is the key hub of the global economy and the leading trade partner of nearly 130 nations.

• ·       By 2014, the Chinese economy had overtaken the U.S. on purchasing power parity (PPP) and as one decade closes and another opens, the U.S. finds its “share of the global economy shrinking as China’s increases,” Pepe Escobar writes.

In May 2015, China’s Premier Li Keqiang and his cabinet issued “Made in China 2025,” a strategic plan to upgrade Chinese industries’ manufacturing capabilities into a “more technology-intensive powerhouse” — from being “the ‘world’s factory’ (producing cheap, low-quality goods due to lower labor costs) to producing higher-value products and services.” China is

• ·       Beating the U.S. on patent filings

• ·       Producing annually at least 8 times as many STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) graduates as the United States

• ·       Earning the status of top contributor to global science.

All the while U.S. officials have been engaging in governance and statecraft by blame and complain; corruption benefiting private interests; and neglect of American’s public health, education and welfare, and their foresight and great potential for innovation and progress. 
 

C

hina USA-Western cannot abide.

Pepe Escobar writes that after the People’s Republic of China managed “to reroute trade supply chains across Eurasia to its own advantage and to hollow out the American Heartland” leaving the Western elite “staring into a void … and the void staring back, it became clear that the “‘West’ led by the USA was faced with “irrelevance.”  And dirty ops were indicated.

The USA “system leader,” starting with stirring trouble across the periphery of Eurasia – from Ukraine to Syria to Myanmar— has refused to accept China’s advancement. And a pattern of bio-warfare research deeply etched in memory—from Dresden, Hiroshima and Nagasaki to Korea, Vietnam and Fallujah— is a possible tool. The United States government has never blinked “when it comes to unleashing weapons of mass destruction on innocent civilians,” Escobar recalls.  

The U.S. Defense Department’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), whose annual budget in 2019 was estimated at $3.427, has been in operation since the 1950’s. And it has wasted hundreds of billions of dollars on developing new technologies for offensive military uses— including, in Escobar’s words, “a fortune on researching bats, coronaviruses and gene-editing bio-weapons.”

Going tough, Results Rough

“…The targeted assassination of Maj. Gen. Soleimani plus coronavirus (the Wuhan flu) set the stage for the ‘Raging Twenties’”, Escobar concludes. And in view of the historic pattern, it seems —

instead of COVID-19 or 2019-nCoV or “Novel coronavirus” or “SARS-CoV-2” virus designation —

a better choice should have been “WARS – Wuhan Acute Respiratory Syndrome,” thus exposing “the game” for what it really is: “a War against Humanity” – regardless of where it originated.

Sources

Strategic Culture Foundation “No Weapon Left Behind: The American Hybrid War on China” by Pepe Escobar February 21, 2020 https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2020/02/21/no-weapon-left-behind-the-american-hybrid-war-on-china/

Francis Boyle https://law.illinois.edu/faculty-research/faculty-profiles/francis-boyle/

Wikipedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francis_Boyle

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Made_in_China_2025

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belt_and_Road_Initiative

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DARPA

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coronavirus_disease_2019

Wikipedia Biosafety level https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biosafety_level

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