Biology Reference
In-Depth Information
1952 have recently been subjected to genomic analysis, and all were
clearly indigenous to China. 56 It seems almost certain to us that this col-
lection includes isolates from victims and alleged BW fomites. Had this
been a US BW attack, the B. anthracis strain would have been Vollum or
Vollum 1B. That all isolates from the region and year of the alleged at-
tacks were indigenous, and not the strain used in the US BW program,
makes it certain that the outbreak was natural, despite its unusual fea-
tures. We suspect that the intensive civilian searches for unusual concen-
trations of insects, feathers, and the like, which characterized Chinese
civil defense activities, may have disturbed burial sites containing re-
mains of veterinary anthrax cases. While such an etiology has never been
reported for inhalational anthrax, it appears to be the most plausible ex-
planation for this unusual outbreak.
Allegations of US BW Use against Cuba, 1962-1997
Shortly after the Cuban revolution that installed Fidel Castro in early
1959, the CIA began supporting expatriate Cuban forces and dissident el-
ements within Cuba that for more than a decade mounted a campaign of
covert and overt attacks on Cuban targets. Support of covert sabotage ac-
tivities was approved in July 1960, 57 five months before the US broke
diplomatic relations with Cuba on 3 January 1961 (over restrictions Cuba
had placed on the size of the US diplomatic presence in Cuba). Within
this context, Cuba has suggested periodically that diseases were deliber-
ately introduced onto the island by the US. Formal presentation of a list
of allegations to the international community has occurred three times; 58
the most recent, in 2000, alleged 19 specific instances of biological aggres-
sion against domestic animals, crop plants, and humans. 59
No evidence other than purported unusual epidemiological features
was available to support most of these allegations; however, natural out-
breaks frequently display unusual epidemiology, so this feature by itself is
rarely definitive, and may not be even suggestive. 60 In most cases the epi-
demiological features that were claimed to indicate unnatural etiology
were not provided in detail, nor were they independently published. In a
few cases other evidence was adduced (such as confession of captured
perpetrators), but again there were no details and no opportunity for in-
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