foot & mouth virus released from government lab

Case mirrors 2001 outbreak, could signal new wave of agri-terrorism against farming community



Update: Russian news agency ITAR-TASS is reporting that the release of the virus came after an "international drill" last month that was held at Pirbright Laboratory, in which live virus was used. Real attacks are always shadowed by drills to provide culpable deniability.

from paul joseph watson: The strain of foot and mouth disease that has put Britain on high alert has been identified as originating from a government laboratory which is shared with an American pharmaceutical company, mirroring the deadly outbreak of 2001 and potentially signaling a new wave of agri-terrorism intended to cripple the farming community.

New Prime Minister Gordon Brown has chaired two Cobra emergency meetings and farmers nationwide have been ordered to halt movements of all livestock in response to the situation after after foot-and-mouth was confirmed at Wolford farm, near Guildford, on Friday night.

As was the case in 2001, when a vial of foot and mouth virus that was "stolen" from a government bio-weapons laboratory caused untold misery for thousands of farmers and devastated the industry, the origin of the latest outbreak traces directly back to a government research facility. The BBC reports:

The strain in infected cattle is identical to that used for vaccines at the Institute for Animal Health at Pirbright, three miles from the farm,...

The strain was used in a vaccine batch manufactured on 16 July by a private pharmaceutical company Merial Animal Health.

The firm shares Pirbright with the government's Institute for Animal Health (IAH), which conducts research into foot-and-mouth and where the strain is also present.

Merial Animal Health is an American pharmaceutical company that manufactures foot and mouth vaccines containing live virus and is already being blamed as "responsible for the foot and mouth outbreak in Britain" by some newspapers.

Whether the culprits are the pharmaceutical company or the government research lab, serious questions need to be asked about why routine levels of bio-security were not followed and how the virus managed to escape. Press speculation that the virus became airborne and got out through the air ducts doesn't comport with the basic composition of vaccines and how they would normally be stored.

For those who doubt the veracity of a British government plot to once again eviscerate the livelihoods of farmers (routinely the biggest power block opposing the Labour government) in an act of agri-terrorism, they should carefully consider what happened in 2001. The Sunday Express reported that the foot and mouth virus was released deliberately out of Porton Down bio-weapons facility and could have possibly been the source of the outbreak two months later.

The disease spread like wildfire throughout the country as many accused the government of not doing nearly enough to contain it and the spring of 2001 in England was characterized by apocalyptic images of burning pyres dotted all over the countryside as over four million animals were slaughtered.

Coupled with reports of the government making inquiries to timber merchants and sign makers (before closing public footpaths), it is inconceivable that an animal rights activist, as we are led to believe, could have penetrated a level 4 bio-weapons facility that also houses anthrax and ebola and is protected by armed guards of the Ministry of Defence Police and the Military Provost Guard Service. The individual who stole the vial must have had full security clearance to enter the facility. Why would an animal rights activist release a virus that would kill four million animals?

Patricia Doyle, PhD also reported that Foot and Mouth exercises were being run by the British government immediately before the outbreak was made public.

Experts are saying that the current outbreak is likely to be localized and we can only hope it remains this way, because Brown won't hesitate to turn huge swathes of the country into quarantine zones as a dry run for martial law just as his predecessor Tony Blair did six years ago.