posted 08-28-2002 09:08 PM            

West Nile Probably NOT Being
Spread By Migrating Birds
8-25-2

The following two emails point toward an entirely unusual epidemiological spread pattern for West Nile Virus. -ed


From Mary Sparrowdancer 8-25-2

Hi Jeff,

There's a statement in the Reuters news article "Cuba Offers to Help US Contain West Nile Virus," that just doesn't seem quite clear to me.

" . . . West Nile virus, which is moving across the United States mainly through bird migration . . . "

From my observations as a former long-time wildlife rehabilitator, the summer months are primarily the breeding months for most of our birds (with a few exceptions, of course) - so, these would NOT be months of expected migration.

Even if they were migratory months, however, migratory routes are generally north/south in direction. It seems strange for the WNV to be blamed "mainly on bird migration" when the WNV appears to be following a more east-to-west course.

Kind regards,

Mary Sparrowdancer www.sparrowdancer.com

_____


From Patricia Doyle, PhD
dr_p_doyle@hotmail.com
8-25-2

Exactly! We would have expected some zigzagging effect from birds that normally stay within a 50 mile area this time of year. There might possibly be a slight cross area contamination, but by and large West Nile Virus should NOT have passed the 97th meridian. Most epidemiologists thought it would not pass the 97th.

Also, I have heard the theory that the birds were infected in Cuba and sent North. This really would not be the case because the infections would have been seen first in the south - in Florida and North Carolina, Carolina, etc., not FIRST in New York near Plum Island. As the writer shows, the virus is going due west along the interstates. Since when do birds migrate along interstates due west. Maybe they got tired this year and decided to vacation in California and they are hitchiking out in true "hippy" fashion of the 60s and 70s! grins!

Some epidemiologists thought that perhaps, WNV might hit California from birds migrating north from Central and South America. No one ever dreamed of a due west spread of the virus along major US Interstate highways.

That, to my mind, spells H-U-M-A-N. Whether by carlessness or plan, but human.

Patty


Patricia A. Doyle, PhD Please visit my "Emerging Diseases" message board at: http://www.clickitnews.com/emergingdiseases/index.shtml Zhan le Devlesa tai sastimasa Go with God and in Good Health

posted 08-28-2002 09:16 PM            

Nile Virus Spreads To Montana
And New Mexico

8-22-2

ATLANTA (AP) - The number of Americans who have contracted West Nile virus this year approached 300 Thursday as the mosquito-borne virus extended its reach to Montana and New Mexico.

The disease has now killed at least 14 people and infected animals or humans in all but seven of the lower 48 states. The death toll will rise if the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention confirm two fatal cases of West Nile reported Thursday in Georgia.

State officials said the victims were a 51-year-old Atlanta man and a 77-year-old man from Columbus, but did not say when they died.

``West Nile virus arrived in Georgia last year, and there is currently no way to eradicate it, so we expect it to be with us every summer for the foreseeable future,'' said Dr. Kathleen Toomey, director of the state's Division of Public Health.

At least 33 people have died since the virus appeared in the United States in 1999.

Most of this year's deaths and the 296 reported human cases have occurred in the South. Louisiana alone accounts for 147 illnesses and eight fatalities.

Dr. Lyle Petersen, a CDC expert on the virus, said it probably will always be worse in the South because warm weather means more mosquitoes.

``But outbreaks could eventually happen anywhere,'' he added.

Montana health officials on Thursday confirmed finding West Nile in a horse. New Mexico officials said two horses there were infected.

``I'm sure if we keep looking hard enough we'll find some more,'' said Thurman Reitz, assistant New Mexico state veterinarian. ``I don't have any reason to think it's going to quit at the Texas border.''

The virus can cause flu-like symptoms and encephalitis, a potentially fatal brain infection. Most people bitten by an infected bug never get sick.

The virus is most dangerous for children, the elderly and people with weak immune systems. There is no cure for humans.

West Nile is common in Africa and the Middle East. Since 1999, when the virus reached New York, mosquitoes have spread the virus south and west.

The CDC has repeatedly said the virus eventually will reach the West Coast.

``We fully expect that over time the virus will make it to the West. But the timing of that is unknown,'' Petersen said. ``Whether it's this year or next year or the year after that is just a matter of conjecture.''

posted 08-28-2002 09:22 PM            

Five New Cases of West Nile
Virus In Kansas Horses
8-22-2

Kansas Department of Health & Environment
Bill Graves, Governor
Clyde D. Graeber, Secretary
Contact: Sharon Watson, 785-296-5795

West Nile Update and Summary

The Kansas Department of Health and Environment (KDHE) has confirmed five new cases of West Nile Virus in horses. The following counties each have one horse infected with the virus: Barton, Pawnee, Reno, Washington, and Ford. Counties previously determined to have an infected horse include Cowley, Meade, Rice, Ottawa and Ellsworth. The laboratory testing for West Nile Virus in Kansas was done at Kansas State University Veterinary Diagnostic Laboratory. The virus is transmitted when a mosquito bites an infected bird and then bites another animal or human.

West Nile Virus has also been found in a mule in Montgomery County and a mule in Sedgwick County, as well as in a mosquito population collected from Barton County. Dead bird (crows or jays) surveillance revealed the virus in birds in eight counties: Douglas, Johnson, McPherson, Republic, Sedgwick, Shawnee, Reno and Wyandotte.

Kansas health officials have been monitoring mosquitos, birds and horses for several months in anticipation of the disease spreading into Kansas. Infected birds carry this disease for a short time, but mosquitos provide the only known method of transmission to animals or humans. People cannot get the disease from horses or from the birds carrying the virus.

West Nile Virus usually causes mild symptoms in humans but does not generally require medical treatment. In rare cases, patients with encephalitis may require hospitalization, and death can occur in very severe cases. Human testing for the disease is generally recommended only for hospitalized patients with severe symptoms, and medical treatment does not change for those who test positive. People more than 50 years old are most susceptible to serious illness as the result of West Nile Virus.

In monitoring for West Nile Virus, KDHE works with KSU, KU, the Kansas Department of Wildlife and Parks, the Kansas Department of Animal Health, the USDA, zoos, physicians and veterinarians. Kansas will continue ongoing monitoring and surveillance, and will provide Kansas citizens with public health information.

West Nile Virus originates from Africa, Asia and Europe. It was first found in the United States in late summer 1999 in New York City. Since then, West Nile Virus has spread down the eastern seaboard and westward. Evidence of the virus has been found in 37 states.

Kansas residents can report dead birds and get information about having birds tested by calling toll free: 866-452-7810. Information on West Nile Virus and Kansas activities can be found at: www.oznet.ksu.edu/westnilevirus

Mosquito control and protection is the best defense against West Nile Virus. KDHE recommends avoiding mosquito contact by wearing long sleeves and pants and using an insect repellent containing DEET as labeled. Outdoor activities at dawn and dusk, when mosquitos are most active, should be avoided. People should check for standing water around their homes and empty anything holding water such as tires, buckets, plant saucers or discarded containers to minimize mosquito egg laying habitat.

posted 08-28-2002 11:25 PM               

West Nile Virus: I Still Do Not Believe in Coincidences

John LeBoutillier
Monday, Sept. 25, 2000

Just Imagine:

The motorcade arrived well past midnight at the back door of an un-obtrusive middle class Baghdad house. Guards leaped out of the front and back cars and quickly surrounded the middle car.

The back door of the house opened and two more heavily armed soldiers appeared. One nodded in the silence of the night.

With another furtive glance around the street the lead bodyguard opened the right rear door to the black limousine. Out stepped a familiar looking figure who nodded and strode directly into the house.

Inside the former home of one of the regime’s supporters, the house had been transformed into the Iraqi equivalent of the White House Situation Room. Radio equipment squawked with military updates. A large electronic map of the Middle East showed deployments of military units, planes and mobile missile emplacements.

Taking a seat at the head of a long, rectangular table, the Iraqi strongman, Saddam Hussein, removed his turban and brought the meeting to order. "Diplomatic update!" he barked.

The only man dressed in a civilian business suit pulled himself up to the table and replied, "Eminence, the news from New York and Washington is not good. Our people tell us that there is no chance the United Nations will even relax the sanctions. Our expulsion of the CIA spy Ridder has angered Washington, as we expected. Furthermore, Israel, the Saudis and the Americans are in agreement: no one will even talk of lifting or relaxing any of the strictures on our economy."

Saddam’s mouth showed a cruel turn rarely seen in public photos. "The Saudis and the Israelis are working together on this?"

The diplomat nodded his silent assent.

Sadaam then growled, "Research update."

Two nerdy-looking young men wearing military uniforms with a patch indicating a special ‘scientific branch’ of the Republican Guards nervously opened their file folders and passed papers around the table. The senior of the two addressed the head of the table, "Eminence, we have made progress in the delivery system. We can deliver the package – but we still have trouble with the potency of that package."

"How lethal?"

The other of the two nerds coughed once and nervously replied, "Occasionally lethal. But not a very high percentage yet."

Sadaam scowled at this news. "What is the problem?"

"Eminence, we have been unable to pack a lethal dose into a mosquito and still have the mosquito able to deliver it. Such toxicity kills the messenger, so to speak."

The feared Iraqi tyrant actually smiled at this. "Understood." He swiveled in his chair and studied an electric world globe off to his left. Spinning it he scanned both hemispheres and thought in silence. Then he looked at yet another military figure sitting at the table. "Targets?"

The senior military officer, his chest decorated with medals won during conflicts against neighboring Iran, slid a single sheet of paper across to the Iraqi strongman.

Sadaam carefully read the document and then smiled. "Clever," he muttered.

Casually fingering the epaulet on his left shoulder, Saddam Hussein then ended the early morning meeting with a simple command, "Hit all four targets."

The meeting broke up. Saddam was escorted to yet another underground bunker for a safe night’s sleep. Each of the other military contingents hustled off to their HQs to implement their leader’s command.

Within days special teams of Iraqi scientists pre-positioned around the globe began a delicate – but deadly – process: releasing specially bred mosquitoes into the atmospheres of New York City, the Washington, D.C., suburbs, Israeli coastal regions and southern areas of Saudi Arabia.

The mosquitoes were loaded with the potentially deadly West Nile Fever.

The goal: inflict insidious damage to the civilian populations at the very centers of U.N. activity that were hurting the Iraqi civilian population through the continued imposition of sanctions against all aspects of Iraq’s economy.

By this week it has been reported that in parts of New York City, the Maryland suburbs surrounding Washington, D.C., the mid-coastal region of Israel and the southern Saudi coastal areas have all seen a precipitous rise of the incidents of West Nile Fever. Israel even calls it an epidemic.

Is it not odd that no such increase has been reported in, say, Seattle or Houston, or Paris or Moscow or Bangkok or Peking or Tokyo?

Is it just a coincidence these avowed enemies of Iraq have seen this sudden rise of West Nile, while no such increase has been reported anywhere else?

I don’t think so.

Four months ago I wrote a column entitled "I Do Not Believe In Coincidences."

I still don’t. Do you?
http://www.newsmax.com/articles/?a=2000/9/24/175244

____________________________________________________________________

Here's one of the earliest reports of the virus that I was able to find.

Deadly northeast U.S. virus a new strain

Sunday, October 10, 1999
By Robinson Shaw

A new virus strain related to the West Nile Virus was identified Oct. 7 as the cause of an encephalitis outbreak in New York City that has killed several people and many birds in the city and surrounding areas.

Until now, this strain of virus has never been seen in North America or any other area of the Western Hemisphere.

The virus, which is most closely related to the Australian Kunjin virus or African West Nile virus, was found in the brains of four people who died from the encephalitis outbreak that began in August in New York.

Dr. Ian Lipkin, director of the Emerging Diseases Laboratory at the University of California at Irvine, led the team that found the virus.

United States Geological Survey wildlife biologists issued a wildlife health alert Sept. 29 to federal and state wildlife conservation agencies, parks, refuges and other wildlife agencies east of the Mississippi River to be on the lookout for dead crows and other birds that may have been claimed by the mosquito-borne virus.

"We are getting lots of reports from people in the eastern U.S. with reports about sick or dead crows or those with unusual mortality," said Dr.

Linda Glaser, a wildlife disease specialist with the USGS National Wildlife Health Center in Madison, Wis.

Field teams from the USGS are in New York City capturing live birds, taking blood samples and releasing them. The samples are being sent to the NWHC and to the CDC laboratory in Fort Collins, Colo., for tests.

Crows seem to be very sensitive to infection by the virus and will offer a good indicator of the virus' presence, according to the USGS.

Results from laboratory tests could be complete as early as Tuesday.

"We're trying to map the distribution of this disease in birds both spatially and temporally. And we want to try to determine if it is expanding," said Dr. Robert McLean, a USGS wildlife biologist and NWHC director who is leading the study. "We're watching areas particularly south of New York for crows which have died from diseases and then try to determine if this virus was responsible. We would like also to determine what other bird species are involved and if species besides crows are at risk of dying from the disease."

If the virus is detected in the birds, the CDC will handle the public health warnings while the USGS will alert wildlife conservation agencies to be on the lookout for infected birds and possible migration patterns, said Butch Kinerney of the USGS.

The Center for Disease Control in Atlanta confirmed Oct. 5 that West Nile-like virus was detected in birds in New York City, New York State, Connecticut and New Jersey.

The virus has also been confirmed in mosquitoes in New York City and Connecticut. West-Nile virus is an arbovirus, a large group of viruses that cause encephalitis and yellow fever, transmitted through a mosquito bite.

Mosquitoes become infected with the sometimes-deadly virus by feeding on an infected bird.

West Nile virus is not transmitted from person to person or from birds to people.

Previously, Kunjin had not been known to kill people, but fatal West Nile virus outbreaks have been reported in Africa, Asia and Europe.

Most mosquito bites will not transmit the West Nile virus and most people who become infected with West Nile from a mosquito bite will not become ill or seriously ill, according to the CDC.

A hard freeze will significantly reduce mosquito activity this season, but until then, health officials are encouraging the public to limit time spent outside at dawn, dusk and early evening when mosquitoes are feeding.

If you must be outside, cover your skin with long sleeves and long pants and spray the outside of your clothing and exposed skin with mosquito repellent.

"We may be seeing these outbreaks because the world is becoming a smaller place, due to air travel and increased international trade," said Lipkin. "But viruses also mutate quickly, resulting in a new form of virus that's been around a long time.

posted 09-13-2002 08:34 PM               

Senator Eyes Terrorists for W. Nile

By DAVID GRAM

ASSOCIATED PRESS

MONTPELIER, Vt.- A senator who was the target of an anthrax-laden envelope sent to his Washington office last year has raised the possibility that terrorists may be responsible for the spread of another disease: the West Nile virus.

Sen. Patrick Leahy called on the government to examine whether terrorism is involved in a West Nile outbreak that has killed 54 people this year.

"I think we have to ask ourselves: Is it coincidence that we're seeing such an increase in West Nile virus or is that something that's being tested as a biological weapon against us?" Leahy, the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said Thursday.

The Vermont Democrat made the remarks on a radio talk show broadcast on WKDR in Burlington and WDEV in Waterbury. In a statement issued later by his office, Leahy said he could point to no specific evidence that the outbreak of the mosquito-borne virus was linked to terrorism.

A spokesman for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Thursday that there is no evidence to suggest an act of bioterrorism.

The spokesman, Tom Skinner, said the cycle of the disease and its transmission - from mosquitoes to birds and to people - is what one would expect with West Nile.

"All of that points to this being a naturally occurring outbreak," he said.

According to the CDC, nationally, 1,295 people have contracted the disease and 54 have died.

Leahy's office also released excerpts Thursday from previous news and congressional committee reports saying officials had downplayed the fear that the spread of West Nile virus might be the work of bioterrorists.

"In the times in which we live, questions about our vulnerabilities are unavoidable, and finding all the answers we can is more important than ever," Leahy said in the statement. "I have no way of knowing what the answers are, but some legitimate questions have been asked, especially before September 11 last year, and no doubt they are being asked anew by the agencies that are working on this."

West Nile first appeared in the United States in 1999 when an outbreak in New York killed seven people. That October, The New Yorker magazine published an article focusing on a book by an alleged Iraqi defector, who said Saddam Hussein may have developed a lethal strain of the virus to use as a biological weapon.

A report issued in July 2000 by the minority staff of the Senate Government Affairs Committee said "law enforcement, public health, and intelligence officials have investigated the possibility that West Nile virus resulted from a bioterrorist attack but believe that this is very unlikely."

posted 09-14-2002 07:06 PM            

To keep fear and terror at a high pitch to coerce the American people into demanding the establishment of the Department of Homeland Security when Congress reconvenes in September, 2002, the CIA under orders of the Bush Administration is now orchestrating another biological warfare attack against the American people. As with Anthrax, the West Nile Virus is now being spread to various selected areas of the U. S. to cause, if possible, a viral epidemic.

You can do several things to protect yourself against West Nile Virus. One, through your God-Spirit within, petition the Lighted Realms (Sananda, God Aton, etc.) for total and permanent protection from this and all other diseases. Two, use a natural insect repellant such as Shaklee Corporation's "Basic H" which is a natural "soap". Use it in pure form or dilute with water anywhere down to 50% water and rub it on the skin. Let it dry. It is very effective in repelling insects and especially flies and mosquitoes. It can be removed easily by washing with water-no soap needed!

Three, as with any virus, should you contract the West Nile Virus, a natural antibiotic such as colloidal silver, colloidal gold, or colloidal titanium can eliminate them. I refer you to my Update: February 12, 2002 (2. Anthrax) for further information concerning colloids. Viruses are being created and distributed under the direction of our infamous Center for Disease Control in Atlanta, GA. Remember to always "read it backwards" The CDC was established to produce and control the diseases the government wanted to be released upon the general populace.

What's next in the viral field? The KZB are planning to soon release a deadly flu virus on the world's population call H1N1 Influenza-A. These new viruses are produced with a crystalline head so that all known synthetic antibiotics used by the darkside's American Medical Association, etc., are rendered ineffective. This is done to assure that there is no "cure" for these viruses.

As with cancer and other diseases, to have a cure would defeat the darkside's plan of population reduction and control of the masses. Silver, gold and titanium have successively higher frequencies and titanium will kill any virus (including crystalline-headed) in existence today, and any that have not yet been released or produced! I remind you that God-Aton of Light has provided a cure for every disease present on Planet Earth Shan today, and as a Lighted Being you have the ability to cure yourself.

--The Phoenix Journal/Contact Newspaper Archive site is at-http://www.phoenixarchives.com

--The Bellringer Writings are at-- http://www.fourwinds10.com