HEALTH 03/21: Bird flu, Ebola virus accidents in Europe labs raise biosecurity concerns

[The Flying Dutchman]

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Bird flu, Ebola virus accidents in Europe labs raise biosecurity concerns


By Laura MacInnis and Debra Sherman
Reuters
March 19, 2009
www.vancouversun.com​

Lab accidents involving bird flu and Ebola viruses have increased biosecurity fears in Europe, where public health experts say research on dangerous pathogens needs to be more strictly monitored.

GENEVA/CHICAGO - Lab accidents involving bird flu and Ebola viruses have increased biosecurity fears in Europe, where public health experts say research on dangerous pathogens needs to be more strictly monitored.


A scientist in Germany last week pricked herself with a needle that was believed to be contaminated with a strain of the Ebola haemorrhagic virus with a mortality rate of around 90 per cent. She is still under observation in hospital.


That accident added to public health concerns following the recent disclosure that deadly H5N1 bird flu virus samples were mixed with seasonal flu samples at a Baxter International contracted laboratory in Austria.


Health authorities and industry groups reviewing European lab safety standards concluded in a new report that scientists and managers needed to be better trained in ways to prevent, handle and report such incidents.


While stressing that research on viruses and pathogens is important for vaccine, drug and diagnostic development, the group Biosafety Europe said "it also represents a risk to the population in case those organisms may spread in the environment due to a laboratory accident, poor laboratory practices or intentional removal and subsequent release (terrorist attack)."


"Adequate technical and physical containment measures and best biosafety and biosecurity practices must be implemented in those facilities to prevent accidental or intentional release of dangerous pathogens," it said in the recommendations, click here to see.


Security experts say viruses and other biological agents could be used as weapons, as occurred in 2001 in the United States when envelopes containing anthrax were sent to media outlets and U.S. lawmakers, kiling five people.


Baxter spokesman Chris Bona said the Illinois-based company learned in February about the H5N1 contamination, which was due to "a combination of process, technical and human error."


The flu virus samples were meant only for testing and not vaccine or product development, according to the spokesman, who said Baxter has "put corrective measures in place" after the accident but declined to give details "for proprietary reasons."


All 37 people exposed to the mixture at subcontractor sites in Germany, the Czech Republic and Slovenia, and at AVIR Greenhills Biotechnology, an Austrian company that bought the samples, tested negative for H5N1 bird flu, Bona said.


The World Health Organization (WHO) fears that virus, which has killed 256 people since 2003, could trigger a deadly flu pandemic if it mutates and starts to spread more easily.


Biosafety Europe's project coordinator Kathrin Summermatter said that better training and more collaboration on safety standards could help reduce pathogen risks in European labs.


"We found that even though there are European guidelines concerning biosafety, the awareness, the implementation and the control was not the same in the different European countries," she told Reuters by email.


The group's report, compiled before the recent bird flu and Ebola accidents, said that Northern European countries disclosed more laboratory-acquired infections than other parts of Europe, "which in part may reflect reporting differences."


Summermatter said greater transparency about incidents that do occur was essential to help identify and reduce risks: "It is important to learn from the experience of other laboratories."



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[The Flying Dutchman]

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America's Next Catastrophe is Brewing In Mexico

Politics / Mexico
Mar 21, 2009 - 12:01 AM
By: Pravda
http://www.marketoracle.co.uk/Article9555.html ​

As if there were not enough things to worry about for the US, what with a dying economy, a spend happy neo-Marxist government in power, a stalemated war in Iraq and a loosing war in Afghanistan, here comes one more issue and the one that may create the final perfect storm: Mexico. As I predicted , dear readers, Mexico is in the process of total collapse. The drug war violence has spun out of control so quickly that it is now a civil war and unlike the small time civil war with Mexico's southern Indians the Zapatistas, this one has the potential to topple the state government in very short order.




The American Department of Defense has come out with an estimate that the two largest mafia cartels field, between them, over 100,000 foot soldiers. Now, these are not just gang bangers and lowlifes, alright they are lowlifes, but many are former Mexican army and some even US trained special forces. To make maters worse, they are armed with heavy weapons, everything short of tanks and fighter planes. Regular large scale gun battles, involving grenades and RPGs are a common, almost daily occurrence in Mexico.

Last year, death tolls doubled to over 7 thousand killed in these battles and various murders and retaliations. This year is on par to double again, as the cartels (mafias), military and various other groups, battle it out. Add to this the recent addition of vigilantes attacking in the night, often tied to quieter, smaller cartels and you are living in absolute chaos. The death rate, last year, was higher than that of Afghanistan and Iraq put together. Further, the favorite forms of murder, are extremely brutal. Beheadings are the norm. This must hail back to the old Aztec customs.

Another favorite is to hang a tire around the victim's neck, douse it in gasoline and set it on fire. Amputations, mass murders, rapes, massacres of whole families and dissolving the living and screaming victims in acid are all the new norm of Mexico. So could this get worse? Well, it is. The two main cartels, who between them have over 100,000 soldiers, are forming an alliance.

Is the US government worried about this?​

Yes, but not enough. Besides this report, only the voices of governor Perry of Texas and the sheriff of Phoenix, Arizona, have come out loud enough to catch regional attention. The nation as a whole, remains blind and dumb to reality. Pictures of ostriches now come to mind.

Perry, in his frustration with his masters in DC, has called on 1,000 state guard (a form of militia) to take to the border, to protect a border that his police and the federal border patrol are not capable of dealing with. Drugs and guns flow both ways.

Phoenix , Arizona has the new distinct "honor" of being the 2nd kidnapping capital of the world, second only to Mexico and the victim of the same gangs. As a matter of fact, the US FBI (Federal Bureau of Investigations) in 2007, admitted that gangs in America numbered over 100,000 strong. Thus one can easily believe that there are at least, in reality, 150 to 200,000 gang members and almost half have direct ties to Mexico. Can the US army deal with this? Hardly, not in its present stretched out form, all over the world.

But there is worse to come.​

By summer of this year, Mexico will enter a full blown war with large scale gun battles in most of the cities. Most civil wars push out refugees. If even 10% of the 110 million living in Mexico, start running north, that will collapse the governments of the American border states, already bankrupt from the Bank Panic of 2008 and the Economic Collapse of 2009. Most civil wars actually push out closer to 30-40% of a population, thus anywhere between 30-50 million people could head north.

But it gets even worse. A large chunk of the former US industry is located in northern Mexico, already in the war zone. US companies suffering in the present economic climate, will further sink or collapse with the loss of these facilities and their closing will force even more economic and war refugees north. A large percentage of the US fruits and vegetables also come from Mexico, as does US oil . It is not difficult to imagine that small groups of Mexican bandits could easily take to the water in speed boats and begin raid the various oil platforms, freighters and cruise ships sailing in the Gulf of Mexico and the southern Caribbean Seas. Somalia has already proven how effective this is.

All of this would require a large amount resources that the US no longer has to spare and will push the Americans into a grave political crisis.

Stay tuned, dear readers, this is starting to get ugly.

Stanislav Mishin

The article has been reprinted with the kind permission from Stanislav Mishin and originally appears on his blog, Mat Rodina

Pravda.ru

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[The Flying Dutchman]

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Saturday, 03.21.09

MEXICO

U.S. eyes closer military ties with Mexico

The U.S. is trying to achieve closer ties with the Mexican military, but that may be difficult.

BY MARISA TAYLOR AND NANCY YOUSSEF
McClatchy News Service
http://www.miamiherald.com/news/nation/story/960802.html [/url]​

WASHINGTON -- As the Pentagon eyes a bigger role in Mexico's drug war, the military's efforts to open the door to a new relationship with its southern neighbor risks alienating the Mexican military, which has long had a strained relationship with its counterpart, experts said.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates has called for improved relations with the Mexican military in response to escalating drug violence along the border and in Mexico. On Meet the Press earlier this month, the secretary said: ``We are beginning to be in a position to help the Mexicans more than we have in the past. Some of the old biases against cooperation between our militaries and so on I think are being set aside.''

Most experts, however, say any military role should be limited to sharing intelligence or training Mexican troops.

''It's a mistake to say that the United States is going to address this problem of security in Mexico by increasing the Pentagon's role,'' said Armand B. Peschard-Sverdrup, a senior associate with the Center for Strategic and International Studies. ``It only would perpetuate the dysfunctional relationship between the two countries.''

During a recent trip designed to expand U.S. Mexican-military relations, Adm. Michael Mullen, the highest-ranking U.S. military officer, visited the graves of American troops who died during the Mexican-American war of the 1840s. Although the gesture appeared innocuous, Mexico observers say the visit undercut the military's message that U.S. Mexican military tensions were a thing of the past.

''Yes, Mullen was well-intentioned but he goes to pay homage to Americans . . . not realizing in a sense that he's also reinforcing the concerns that many in Mexico -- especially the Mexican military -- have'' that the U.S. military will try to once again dominate its land, Peschard-Sverdrup said.

Critics said the military also has not helped its efforts with a recent U.S. Joint Forces Command report that concluded Mexico and Pakistan were the world's two states most likely to fail.

''It's ridiculous comparing the Mexico situation to Pakistan,'' said Raúl Benítez, a professor at the National Autonomous University of Mexico who specializes in military and national security issues

Benítez also questioned why the administration chose to send a military official before Secretary of State Hillary Clinton or Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano traveled there.

On the Mexican side, the military has taken on an unprecedented role in fighting the drug cartels. President Felipe Calderón has dispatched troops to hot spots throughout the country to try to contain the violence. Drug cartel leaders have hit back with widespread kidnappings, murders and beheadings. The death toll since last year: 7,000.

The U.S. government has tried to help Mexico contain the violence by launching the Merida Initiative, an anticrime aid measure expected to total $1.4 billion over three years. Under the initiative, the Pentagon is providing five helicopters, a surveillance aircraft, personal protective equipment, inflatable boats and night vision devices, among other equipment. In addition, the Defense Department trained 150 Mexican officers Oct. 2006-Sept 2007.


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[The Flying Dutchman]

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North Korea to Close Air Routes for Rocket Launch

By VOA News
21 March 2009
www.voanews.com​

North Korea announced Saturday it will close two aviation routes through its air space from April 4 through April 8 during a planned rocket launch.


The North says it will launch a communication satellite. The United States, Japan and South Korea say Pyongyang intends to test a long-range ballistic missile.

They say the launch would violate a U.N. Security Council resolution imposed in 2006 after North Korea tested long range missiles and a nuclear weapon.

Japan and South Korea have warned North Korea it will face a strong international response if it goes ahead with the launch.

Japan has said it will attempt to shoot down missiles headed toward its territory.

Top U.S. military commanders told members of Congress this week the American military is probably capable of shooting down a long-range North Korean missile if it threatens U.S. territory.


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