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Deadly Deceit

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This information was never investigated further by anyone in the local press or any further reports published about this possibility. Nor was any evidence presented to back up the claims by the US Army that no spill had indeed taken place. The windy conditions of the spring of 1993, based on the proximity of the base to where the people died, raises instant suspicions about a possible military accident and subsequent cover-up.

THE HANTAVIRUS EXPLANATION And How The CDC Came up with It.

How did the CDC come up with the new hantavirus explanation? Were they given a perfect cover by the Navajo medicine men when they told the first CDC researchers that it was probably due to the mice and the increase of mice and pinon crop due to the wet spring? Dr. Kelly's biggest suspicion of the CDC's explanation is how they came about determining that it was conclusively the hantavirus. Dr. Kelly pointed out that he picked up a lot of clues of a cover-up from the New England Journal of Medicine's extensive article in their April 7, 1994, issue entitled "Hantavirus Pulmonary Syndrome: A Clinical Description Of 17 patients With A Newly Recognized Disease."

"In the description of their methods of testing it reads, 'Serum samples were tested for antibodies against a panel of heterologous hantaviral antigens and tissue samples were tested for evidence of hantavirus infection by means of the polymerase chain reaction in frozen lung-tissue specimens or immune-histo-chemical straining of formalin-fixed specimens.'" "But the key is the words in "CDC unpublished data".

"Again this same scenario shows up later in the article when they quote, 'An immunohistochemical analysis revealed widespread endothelial distribution of viral antigen in the lungs, kidneys, heart, pancreas, adrenal glands and skeletal muscle once again tagged with 'CDC unpublished data'.' My question is why isn't this published? This is the most significant data that should be made to outside scientists to determine if this thing called the hantavirus really was the cause." How are viruses determined to be the cause of death in epidemics like this?

Dr. Kelly pointed out that there is a universal standard for determining the causes of epidemics. It's called Koch's Postulates, from the man who discovered anthrax. "Epidemic diseases like typhoid, influenza and tuberculosis were thought to be from all manner of causes, but we know now they are caused by infectious organisms that people acquire from their environment. This was elucidated by Edward Koch (1843-1910), working with anthrax. We still use Koch's postulates today as the standard of causality of infectious disease. Koch received the Nobel prize in 1905 for this work."

Koch's postulates are:

1. The parasite occurs in every case of the disease in question and under circumstances that can account for the pathological changes and clinical course of the disease.

2. It occurs in no other disease as a fortuitous and nonpathogenic parasite.

3. After being fully isolated from the body and repeatedly grown in pure culture, it can induce the disease anew. "We are a long way from fulfilling Koch's Postulates and therefor we have not established that this epidemic is caused by hantavirus," Dr. Kelly said.

"The hantavirus explanation appeared less than three weeks after the epidemic was noted, and that suggests that this interpretation was a political response to a medical problem." As well as Dr. Kelly's questions about the hantavirus, there was evidence that there were other military health officials who couldn't believe that it was a mutant strain of hantavirus that was causing all of the damage.

Natalie Angier's story in the New York Times (June 5, 1993) raised serious doubts about the CDC's findings. "Some scientists who study hantaviruses, while express interest in the latest results, said that they have yet to be persuaded. Nobody would be more surprised than me if this turns out to be a hantavirus," said Dr. Connie Schmaljohn, chief of molecular biology at the United States Army Medical Research of Infectious Diseases at Fort Dietrick, Maryland. "We've isolated this virus all over the country from rodents, but it's never been associated with acute disease here. I still have my doubts."

"In earlier work different strains of hantaviruses had been detected in rats and mice in Baltimore, Houston, New Orleans, Philadelphia and several other areas," said Dr. George W. Korch, chief of rapid diagnosis at the Fort Dietrick center. But to my knowledge they've never been found before in the southwest. Nor has any type of hantavirus been associated with the most outstanding symptom seen in the latest epidemic, in which the lungs fill up with fluid, causing death by asphyxiation."

Also, according to the New England Journal of Medicine article, only "30 to 40 percent of patients who contacted the original form of hantavirus had minimal illness, and in only 20 to 30 percent is the illness moderate or severe. Respiratory symptoms are generally not pronounced, and pulmonary involvement has not been a prominent feature of the known hantaviral syndromes. Several species of rodents in the US have been shown to be infected with hantaviruses. Although seroprevalence studies have detected antibodies to hantaviruses in a small percentage of people in the US, there were no reports of acute illness resulting from hantavirus infections acquired in North America before the outbreak of cases described in this report."

Just these facts alone would raise a red flag upon any serious investigation of an illness, yet the public was told that the CDC had solid facts supporting their conclusions. The level of this outbreak, the speed by which it struck and the sudden decrease of cases immediately after the initial outbreak have given skeptics much more ammunition for doubt. The CDC explains in every article written about the subject that the only firm data they have was detecting antibody proteins directed against the virus in the blood of three survivors of the illness. The patients, the CDC said, began generating the antibodies in large quantities days after failing ill, indicating their immune systems were trying to fend off the pathogen.

First of all, all autopsies were performed by the CDC on 9 of the 13 deceased patients at the New Mexico Office of the Medical Investigator. Autopsies were performed in 12 patients elsewhere and the histopathological findings reviewed at the CDC. Most interestingly, all of this data is classified and stored on Epi-Info 5.01 system at the CDC and the World Health Organization computers in Atlanta (New England Journal of Medicine). None of this information has ever been made public.

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Journalist at Albuquerque Journal, Santa Fe New Mexican, Crosswinds Magazine, Santa Fe Sun and Radio host on KUNM-FM, KSFR-FM, KBAC-FM and many more. Investigative radio show on KSFR from 91-94 "Alternative Press Review"
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