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Ebolapox, Veepox Chimeras
Of Smallpox - What Next?
From Patricia Doyle, PhD
dr_p_doyle@hotmail.com
12-15-1

I guess that I am behind the times. Obviously the genetic weapons have ALREADY been in development.
 
Ebolapox, however, released into a society would eventually come back to the people who release it. Therefore, one would have to take it a step further and develope an ebolapox that would only infect a specific genetic target group. This would insure that the ethnic group releasing it would not become infected. Perhaps, that is the part of developing presently underway?
 
Patricia
 
Exerp from http://www.hackvan.com/pub/stig/articles/bioweapons.htm
 
"Russia has researched the genetic alteration of smallpox," Alibek told me. "In 1990 and 1991, we engineered a smallpox at Vector. It was found that several areas of the smallpox genome" -- the DNA -- "can be used for the introduction of some foreign genetic material. The first development was smallpox and VEE. VEE, or Venezuelan equine encephalitis, is a brain virus. It causes a severe headache and near-coma, but it is generally not lethal. Alibek said that the researchers spliced VEE into smallpox. The result was a recombinant chimera virus. In ancient Greek myth, the chimera was a monster made from parts of different animals. Recombination means the mixing of genes from different organisms. "It is called smallpox-VEE chimera," Alibek said. It could also be called Veepox. Under a microscope, Alibek said, the Veepox looks like smallpox, but it isn't.
 
According to Alibek, there was one major technical hurdle to clear in the creation of a workable Veepox chimera, and he says that it took the Vector researchers years to solve the problem. They solved it by finding more than one place in the smallpox DNA where you could insert new genes without decreasing smallpox's ability to cause disease. Many researchers feel that the smallpox virus doesn't cause disease in animals in any way that is useful for understanding its effects on humans. Alibek says that the Russians tested Veepox in monkeys, but he says that he doesn't know the results.
 
More recently, Alibek claims, the Vector researchers may have created a recombinant Ebola-smallpox chimera. One could call it Ebolapox. Ebola virus uses the molecule RNA for its genetic code, whereas smallpox uses DNA. Alibek believes that the Russian researchers made a DNA copy of the disease-causing parts of Ebola, then grafted them into smallpox. Alibek said he thinks that the Ebolapox virus is stable -- that is, that it will replicate successfully in a test tube or in animals -- which means that, once created, Ebolapox will live forever in a laboratory, and will not uncreate itself. Thus a new form of life may have been brought into the world.
 
"The Ebolapox could produce the form of smallpox called blackpox," Alibek says. Blackpox, sometimes known as hemorrhagic smallpox, is the most severe type of smallpox disease. In a blackpox infection, the skin does not develop blisters. Instead, the skin becomes dark all over. Blood vessels leak, resulting in severe internal hemorrhaging. Blackpox is invariably fatal. "As a weapon, the Ebolapox would give the hemorrhages and high mortality rate of Ebola virus, which would give you a blackpox, plus the very high contagiousness of smallpox," Alibek said.
 
Bill Patrick became exasperated. "Ken! Ken! I think you've got overkill here. What is the point of creating an Ebola smallpox? I mean, it would be nice to do this from a scientific point of view, sure. But with old-fashioned natural smallpox you can bring a society to its knees. You don't need any Ebolapox, Ken. Why, you're just gonna kill everybody."
 
"I suspect that this research has been done," Alibek said calmly.
 
 
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