Plum Island

Plum Island (to which much noteriety was attached in Silence of the Lambs) is real and it is now a top level bio-hazard lab.
http://www.gene-watch.org/genewatch/articles/14-3plumisland.html
Lyme disease is often said to have been created there (the city of Lyme, for which the disease is named, sits only 12 miles away). Now, rumors float that it was the genesis for West Nile virus. They, of course, poo poo that...I take no sides without more evidence. But today I heard on Pacifica Radio that this lab has been granted access to tissue from victims of the 1918 Flu pandemic in order to revive the virus (the corpses were naturally frozen by the elements until exhumation except for the lady who was buried in a lead-lined coffin) and bring it back to life (they say they can with many frozen viruses), ostensibly to infect monkeys, cats and pigs. Ostensibly to find a vaccine for it and study how it mutated into a deadly disease that killed millions. With the Avian bird flu now crossing over into humans and being passed from human to human contact( with a few deaths being recorded so far), concern is rising among medical professionals that a new pandemic is a matter of when and not if. However, it seems to me that reviving a virus that was so virulent it killed millions of humans is not the wisest thing to do considering that they will have no immediate way of killing it (ahem, no vaccine). Also, according to Pacifica Radio, Plum Island has had a variety of mishaps occur in the past, including: infected employees, virus escapes and laboratory meltdowns (or bio-hazard collapses in which the lab had to be shut down and quarantined). All this under the vigilant watch of the Department of Defense...maybe that was a bit of an oxymoron. I apologize.
Oh, by the way, Plum is not the only lab being given Flu victim tissue. There seem to be three or four that are going to be yelling "Frau Blucher" soon (if not already).
Also, I didn't know that the 1918 flu began here in the USA and is thought to have been transported abroad by soldiers of WW I. Now, I do.
And this is the man who found remnants of the virus in Alaska:
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2002/02/17/CM40502.DTL

I went further than I thought I would in looking for info on the virus being rejuvenated and ran into a website that is very fun, but not for that reason. It is fun, because these people are even wackier than I ever have been. Sylphs and chemtrails abound. It's damn fun reading about why those pesky chemtrails aren't actually being allowed to attack us:
http://educate-yourself.org/ct/

And, then, I find this blog, which I find interesting, but will have to look into. An Iraqi scientist was employed by Plum Island Large Animal Laboratory(which has a Bio Level 5 since 1970) to head up a project researching mycoplasma. He later left to go back to Iraq and work at the University of Baghdad before the first Gulf War and was murdered sometime later, supposedly by the Israelis. We all know now that our country provided Iraq with bioterrorism organisms and equipment with which to incubate and procreate them:
http://www.rense.com/general2/up.htm

Then, I stumble onto another blog, which names the Iraqi guy again and goes even further as it states that Plum Island (well, a "representative") denied any mycoplasma research, then admitted that it was done under the Iraqi scientist (I guess this type of research is supposed to be illegal in the US). Plus, it mentions 40 micro-biologists who have died mysteriously in the past few years, who were all somehow related to bio-weapons research:
http://www.rumormillnews.com/cgi-bin/forum.cgi?noframes;read=64146

Then, ConsumerHealth Canada weighs in about the those chemtrails. The fact that the writer won an award from Project Censored is an indication of possible credibility:
http://www.consumerhealth.org/articles/display.cfm?ID=20000830164825

but it leads me astray of the reason i started this blog, so I go back to looking for Plum Island and if there is any reason to believe that the 1918 flu virus is actively being resuscitated. And, somehow, I remembered that I had forgotten to mention that Plum Island now has a new owner: The Department of Homeland Security:
(excerpt)
On the face of it, DHS says it is "committed to positive community relations"; but in a recently-published notice in the Federal Register, it proposed to grant itself authority to make secret the environmental assessments of government activities that are required by the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). The change would make it possible for DHS to conduct activities on Plum Island (and other facilities) without divulging risks, effects or even their existence under NEPA. Plum Island is poised on the bleeding edge of DHS’ research program on biological weapons, a program that includes activities that independent observers conclude are practically indistinguishable from offensive biological weapons research.
Which brings us back to Plum Island’s institutional biosafety committee (IBC), the local committee that, according to the Bush administration, forms the government’s major line of defense to review dual-use research projects and to ensure their safety and security. Thus, if there is a place where the government might demonstrate that IBCs can in fact be an effective mechanism to review the conduct of dual-use bioweapons research, it is at facilities like Plum Island, which are under direct government control and which have missions that are focused on biodefense.
What has DHS done with the Plum Island Institutional Biosafety Committee? Nothing. Since DHS took over the facility more than a year ago, the Plum Island IBC has not met. Not once. The committee whose responsibility it is to ensure that research is safe and secure appears to be moribund. Not only has there been no committee review of Plum Island’s new and ongoing research projects, the committee has not met to review safety conditions in laboratories nor to perform any of the other duties incumbent upon it.
Bush administration biodefense policy leaders claim that IBCs can take responsibility for the conduct of dual-use research with biological weapons agents; but the Department of Homeland Security itself does not maintain an effective institutional biosafety committee at Plum Island.
http://sunshineproject.org/biodefense/bb.html#3

But, again, I feel I am still on a tangent. I want to know about the flu virus. Unfortunately, the beer is kicking in and I am beginning to giggle as I surf amid the detritus of the bottles and expended cigarettes. I am now feeling like Mel Gibson in Conspiracy Theaory except for the fact that I don't yet appear to have any ADD-like symptoms and there is no Julia Roberts for me to drool over...yet. So, I soldier on even as the dead soldiers pile up around me (no war is won without casualties, but this time I have gone to war with the army I want, not- like Rumsfeld- the army I have. My army is from Newcastle and it's coals they want to return).
Where was I? Oh yes.
Soldiering on and kicking the dead out of my way. So, then I run into the name Beth Lautner who became head of Plum Island Animal Disease Center (new name, I guess) in 2003. Previously, she had been involved with various organizations, including the USDA, and specialized in swine diseases. Which might be a good thing, because the most deadly flu viruses (to humans) come from pigs. The new avian flu is an exception. Evidently, the most virulent forms of human flu have had to transfer from bird to pig (where it was forced to mutate in order to survive, because the pig's immune system is extremely close to ours, but once it mutated it then had an inside track to infecting us). So, Lautner has spent a lot of time studying pig sickness and working through how it mutates. Promising...until I read this:
http://thehamptons.com/group/newsletter/fall04/plum_island.html
in which a local community group contacted Plum Island in order to express its concerns. They were eventually rewarded with a meeting with Lautner, but later found out that Plum Island had had another "accident" and failed to report it to anyone. Also, she was vice-president of the National Pork Board, which means she would have been instrumental in pushing the business-friendly side of the pig (which side I'm not sure, because I've been to pig farms and both ends of the swine can be dangerous).

But, then, I find this:
http://www.borrull.org/e/noticia.php?id=22711
which still has nothing to do with the flu. But it does mention the fact that Plum Island employees are owned by a private contractor and that Senators (including that hottie Hillary) are concerned. So, that was fun. However, after 2 and 1/2 hours my attention begins to wane and I begin to yawn and I suddenly remember what Generik told me about blogging: "welcome and get ready to give up of your free time". Hell with that, I'm going for a beer. I must really hate my internal organs. Then again, I always root for the underdog and skin is outnumbered by like a lot to one.

Maybe more later.