- The following is the result of an in-depth investigation
into the current anthrax scare, the anthrax vaccine and the decoding of
the human genome.
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- While this writer was among the first to question the
ownership, motives and associations of the only U.S. manufacturer of the
anthrax vaccine (Bioport), credit must be given to other researchers who
have broadened the field of inquiry. Two in particular have opened up the
proverbial "can of worms" involved in the scientific progress
of biological weapons.
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- Dr. Leonard Horowitz and Patricia Doyle, Ph.D. have zeroed
in on a little publicized but powerful entity named Battelle Memorial Institute
(BMI). This relatively unknown (by the public) organization has its tentacles
spread into virtually every field of current scientific endeavor, in partnership
with the federal and state governments and the military.
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- But we are getting ahead of ourselves. First some background.
What are "GOCO's?"
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- At the end of the Second World War, the federal government
found itself with several secret laboratories involved mainly in nuclear,
chemical and biological weapons research and development. A decision was
made to utilize the labs, not only for further weapons research, but also
for "peaceful" inventions and discoveries benefiting private
industry and commerce.
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- A method was devised to keep the labs under government
ownership but allow maximum participation of private interests. Thus "GOCO's"
(Government owned contractor operated) facilities were born. This procedure
provides a means to fund projects with taxpayers dollars and transfers
of the resulting technology to selected private interests.
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- Various government agencies and the military (Department
of Defense) select organizations (through a Byzantine bidding process)
to control and operate the government owned facilities. There are currently
at least nineteen government owned national laboratories (that we know
of) being operated by private contractors. All but one of the contractors
is a "non-profit" organization or combination of two or more.
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- The one exception is the Sandia lab, which devolved from
the WWII atomic bomb Manhattan Project. The first contractor operator,
invited by President Harry Truman, was AT&T. It managed the lab until
October, 1993 in the first year of the Clinton Administration, when the
contract was awarded to Martin Marietta Corp. in Georgia (now Lockheed
Martin). Undoubtedly the influence of "Mr. Defense" Georgia Senator
Sam Nunn had something to do with that award. (Republican Congressman Newt
Gingrich of Georgia would not become Speaker of the House until two years
later.) However, the government got a "real deal" since Lockheed/Martin
Marietta has not charged a fee for its management of the lab. (Cui bono?)
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- Back to BMI (Battelle Memorial Institute) with headquarters
in Columbus, Ohio. The institute was the brainchild of industrialist Gordon
Battelle whose multi-millionaire father (John Battelle) had established
a coal and steel empire in that state. A bequest of one million dollars
in Gordon's will set up the institute in 1923. Named to the first board
of directors was then President of the United States, Warren G. Harding,
a close associate of Gordon's father John. Harding also died later that
year.
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- The mission of the Institute, described in the trust
is "the encouragement of creative and research work and the making
of discoveries and inventions." The trust also required that a share
of the institute's net earnings (20%) be given to charitable institutions,
needy enterprises or persons. In practice, the "needy" institutions
seem to be other research organizations (some indirectly related to BMI).
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- From its humble beginnings with one lab and 20 employees
BMI has grown to encompass over 10,000 employees (including 7,500 scientists
and engineers), six major technology centers and eight specialized facilities.
It has offices in 71 U.S. cities and four in foreign countries including
Russia and the Ukraine. BMI also has nine subsidiaries.
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- The BMI trust was set up as a "non-profit"
organization under the laws of the State of Ohio. However, according to
BMI's associate general counsel in congressional testimony, BMI does not
qualify as non-profit under IRS guidelines and is not tax exempt. (His
testimony was given in an apparently successful request that BMI and other
"non-profit" contract operators of government facilities be exempted
from collection of civil damages for "incidents" with nuclear,
chemical or biological materials causing damage or harm to people or the
environment.)
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- BMI's fiscal 2000 revenue was nearly one billion dollars,
mostly from government contracts and grants. During that year BMI had 6,783
projects in progress for 1,565 "clients." The institute manages
or "co-manages" four top secret facilities for the Department
of Energy (DOE).
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- The names of the nominal operators of many government
facilities do not tell one who is really running the show. One of the favorite
stratagems is for the real manager to join in a partnership with a university
or a third entity is created as a joint venture with a university or other
company.
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- The DOE's Brookhaven National Laboratory in New York
is operated by Brookhaven Science Associates a corporation consisting solely
of Battelle and Stoney Brook University.
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- BMI is co-manager of DOE's Oak Ridge laboratory with
the University of Tennessee. Battelle and other prime contractors have
no problem getting universities to "partner" with them in managing
laboratory facilities. Entering into such agreements with the favored contractors
virtually guarantees a steady flow of government research grants, the lifeblood
of many major universities.
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- Battelle has partnering agreements, in addition to the
Univ. of Tennessee, with the entire California State university system
and the same in Oregon. While details of the partnering agreements are
not made known to the public, occasionally a local newspaper will dig up
an interesting provision. One of the provisions in an agreement signed
last spring between Battelle and Ohio University for joint gene research
allows BMI to transfer any facet of the project to its own laboratories
at BMI's discretion. The import of a provision like that will become apparent
in part three of this report.
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- In addition to the management of entire facilities, BMI
supports (manages) an incredible variety of programs for various agencies.
It supports programs in at least 18 military installations including bioweapons
programs at Ft. Detrick in Maryland and the Army's Dugway facility in Utah.
It was recently disclosed that BMI also supports an anthrax program for
the CIA.
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- In part two of this analysis BMI's deep involvement in
anthrax programs, both weapons and vaccines, will be discussed. Part three
will explore BMI's involvement and the implications of the decoding and
deconstruction of the human genome as well as the murders and mysterious
deaths apparently connected to it.
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- Battelle and Anthrax
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- The anthrax controversy began years before the mailing
of the deadly toxin in October of last year. The issue was about an untested
vaccine that nearly a half million U.S. service men and women were forced
to take during and after the Gulf War.
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- A laboratory owned and operated by the State of Michigan
produced the vaccine. The vaccine was a much more potent version of one
that had been used successfully for several decades to protect against
cutaneous (skin) anthrax in veterinarians and others workers who came into
close contact with animals and animal products.
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- The vaccine has never been proved to be effective against
inhalation (pulmonary) anthrax and has not been licensed by the Food and
Drug Administration (FDA) for that purpose.
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- Despite overwhelming evidence that the vaccine has resulted
in the partial or total disability of a large number of the inoculated
troops and a few deaths, the government (Dept. of Defense and Center for
Disease Control) continues to insist the vaccine is safe and effective.
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- For decades, cultivation of anthrax as a military weapon
has been ongoing. The major countries involved were the USSR (now Russia),
The United States, the United Kingdom and South Africa. The South African
program under the direction of Wouter Basson also developed anthrax for
use in the assassination of individuals.
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- In the U.S. the major research and development of "weaponized"
anthrax was said to have been performed at the army's Fort Detrick installation.
However, we have recently learned that effort received substantial "support"
from Battelle Memorial Institute (BMI). (See part one for a detailed description
of BMI.)
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- At this point, the reader should be introduced to several
individuals who have played important roles in the development of anthrax
weapons and/or vaccines.
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- Two of the individuals the government relies on heavily
for expert advice are William C. Patrick and Ken Alibek.
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- Patrick was the director of the operation at Fort Detrick
and now has his own private consulting firm on defenses against chemical
and biological weapons. He still has close ties to the Dept. of Defense
(DOD), the intelligence community including the CIA and BMI. Patrick says
he taught army (and BMI) scientists how to aerosolize (weaponize) anthrax
powder at the army's facility at Dugway, Utah.
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- Curiously, more than two years ago Patrick was commissioned
by BMI to prepare a scenario where weaponized anthrax was delivered through
the mail. Whether deliberately or not, Patrick's report underestimated
the concentration of the hypothesized anthrax spores by a factor of twenty
to one. His report was based on a concentration of 50,000 billion spores
per gram The U.S. weaponized anthrax, for which Patrick holds five secret
patents, had a concentration of one trillion spores per gram. No other
country's program has reached higher than 500 billion per gram.
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- Ken Alibek (the Americanized version of his Russian name)
was deputy chief of the USSR's bio-weapon program. In 1992 he "defected"
to the U.S. The CIA asked William Patrick to "debrief" Alibek
who was then welcomed with open arms by the intelligence community and
other government agencies. Alibek was an employee of BMI for several years
before he was set up with his own consulting company as a subsidiary of
the notorious Hadron Corp. (a thinly veiled front for the CIA and other
government agencies). Another deputy chief of the Soviet program had defected
three years earlier to the U.K. where he was ensconced at Porton Down.
Porton Down is the U.K's counterpart of Ft. Detrick in bio-weapons development
and now vaccines. Then a consultant, he died suddenly and mysteriously
(said to be from a stroke) three weeks after the first mailed anthrax last
October.
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- Another player is Dr. Robert Myers. Myers was the head
scientist at the Michigan lab making the anthrax vaccine. When the lab
was sold to a private company (Bioport) Myers became the chief scientist
and part owner of Bioport. Myers is one of the prime movers in the army's
mandatory anthrax vaccine inoculation program (AVIP) along with BMI who
is said to be managing the program for DOD.
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- Myers also has ties to South Africa's anthrax weapons
program. He was a friend of scientist Larry Ford who worked with South
Africa's Wouter Basson in developing assassination weapons using deadly
germs. Myers was also an investor in Ford's company (Biofem). The ostensible
goal of Ford's company was to produce a birth control device for women
that would also protect against aids. Ford and his partner set up a network
of shell companies through which money was laundered to keep Biofem afloat.
The original source of that money has never been revealed. The company
never came up with a product and had no sales.
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- Ford is said to have committed suicide with his shotgun
although police had supposedly confiscated all of his firearms three days
earlier. Ford was a suspect in the attempted murder of his partner in Biofem.
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- Since the anthrax mailings last October, Patrick and
Alibek have been widely quoted in the media, sometimes in direct contradiction
to there own earlier statements. Their opinions on the possible source
of the anthrax have ranged from a sophisticated laboratory to a "loner"
with some knowledge and rudimentary equipment. The opinions seem to depend
on which scenario government officials are pushing at the time.
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- However, other scientists have determined that the mailed
anthrax has to have come originally from one of five known locations which
had access to one trillion spore per gram anthrax developed by Patrick.
It might have been narrowed down even further had not the University of
Iowa and Iowa State University destroyed their collections of the various
iterations of the "Ames" strain. The universities said they had
permission from the FBI and CDC (some say they were directed) to destroy
the collections.
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- The anthrax vaccine situation is just as muddled. Bioport
has not been able to ship any vaccine because the FDA found multiple problems
in the production of the vaccine. Another inspection by the FDA was made
last month and Bioport claims to have corrected all the problems of sterility,
contamination, etc. However, the increased potency issue is being avoided
like the plague (pun intended) by all the parties involved.
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- In the meantime, BMI has entered into a contract with
Bioport to develop a new anthrax vaccine. BMI also signed an agreement
with the CDC to test the new vaccine when produced. Evidently the CDC has
adopted the Bill Clinton concept of conflict of interest which is trying
to watch simultaneously two lovely ladies walking in opposite directions.
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- The Aerosol Engineering and Biological Defense facility
of BMI does FDA testing for licensing of drugs and vaccines assessing safety
and efficacy of medical counter measures against chemical and biological
agents.
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- BMI also has managed the Chemical and Biological Defense
Information Analysis Center (CBIAC) for the Department of Defense (DOD)
since its inception in August 1986. The CBIAC is a full service department
of DOD.
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- The Center for Disease Control (CDC) is set to try another
controversial treatment for anthrax attacks. An unnamed spokesman said
the CDC wants to extract blood from vaccinated soldiers and stockpile a
protein (immune globulin) obtained from the blood. The theory is that the
protein could neutralize the deadly toxin produced by the anthrax bacterium.
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- That theory might stem from discoveries made during the
production of weaponized anthrax. It was found that more virulent strains
of anthrax were obtained from the blood that had been through the immune
system. Successive tests were run on a series of monkeys with each subsequent
strain of anthrax more deadly than the one originally introduced into the
monkeys' systems.
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- At Fort Detrick, the phenomenon was further tested using
blood from two lab workers who had died from anthrax. This was kept secret,
even from relatives of the victims, until revealed by Baltimore Sun reporter
Don Shane in a series of articles last year on Fort Detrick and anthrax.
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- The CDC has another problem. The prestigious Jawaharalal
Nehru University in New Delhi, India has developed a new concept anthrax
vaccine that has passed initial testing. It requires fewer doses, no booster
shots, has virtually none of the side effects of the vaccines produced
by the U.S. and Britain. It will be available within six months at a fraction
of the cost of U.S. and British vaccines. So far there has been no reaction
from U.S. officials.
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- India also has a generic version of Cipro (ciprofloxacin),
the drug recommended by CDC for anthrax treatment. The Indian government
offered to supply the U.S. with 20 million tablets which was turned down
citing the Bayer patent on Cipro which doesn't expire until Dec. 31, 2003.
This despite the fact that Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Tommy
Thompson used the threat of buying generic drugs, bypassing Bayer's patent,
to get a reduction in price from over $3.00 per tablet to $.95. India is
offering the drug at a fraction of even that lower Bayer price. India even
offered a free gift of a million dollars worth of the drug to tide the
CDC over its temporary shortage. That offer was also turned down.
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- THE HUMAN GENOME
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- Two years ago, an expert panel of the British Medical
Association (BMA) warned, "Genetically engineered biological weapons
capable of targeting particular ethnic groups could become a reality within
10 years. Viruses and other micro-organisms tailored to detect the differences
in the DNA of races could offer warmakers and terrorists of the future
a new means to carry out ethnic cleansing."
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- The panel also declared that, while only a theoretical
possibility now, this capability adds urgency to the need to add verification
procedures to the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention signed by 140
nations including the U.S., U.K. and Russia.
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- To that end, a conference of the signatories was held
last year to discuss and implement verification procedures. Near the end
of the conference, the U.S. representative raised several new objections
resulting in postponing any action for a year.
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- Aside from the naivetÈ in believing a signature
on a treaty or convention is going to shut down weapons development programs,
the panel may have grossly underestimated the time frame in which the weapons
could become reality.
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- The two key elements in developing such weapons are the
decoding of the human genome (DNA) and advances in "gene therapy"
(altering of genes). Both disciplines are advancing at an accelerated pace
and the targeting capability may already be a reality.
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- Billions of taxpayer dollars and private funds are being
pumped into research and development in the two areas. While the findings
have tremendous potential in conquering various diseases, they also can
be used for nefarious purposes. Various universities and non-profit entities
are receiving grants to carry on studies.
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- Two approaches can be used in deploying the technology
as weapons. Super germs can be developed that are resistant to known treatments
along with development of vaccines that would protect only certain groups
with similar DNA properties from the germs. Alternatively, toxins could
be developed that attack only certain DNA groups.
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- To the casual observer it might seem, with all the entities
involved in the research and development programs, that coordination of
all the findings and results would be difficult to coordinate at best.
As we have shown in part two of this analysis with regard to anthrax vaccine,
the effort is quite controlled with Battelle Memorial Institute (BMI) exerting
maximum influence as surrogate for the federal government. The same is
true for the development of other vaccines.
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- BMI has "partnered" with a large, but unknown
number of universities and other organizations in the field of DNA research.
Such research requires the availability of significant funding for expensive
equipment and highly paid scientists. BMI appears to have some influence
in awarding of grants and its "partners" seem able to raise the
large amounts of money necessary to continue the research.
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- Most of the visible government grants in the field flow
through the Department of Energy (DOE) which is overseeing the human genome
project. BMI is the operator or "co-operator" of four of the
five national laboratories under the DOE. As such, BMI manages the collection
and collation of data on the human genome into one database comprising
the most comprehensive information available in the field.
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- Those who would pervert and convert the available information
for the development of weapons have a problem. Many if not most of the
scientists involved in the field are working for the betterment of mankind
in conquering diseases. If they were to become aware of efforts to pervert
the research, they might raise objections and expose those responsible.
(Some may already have reached that point.) This might be the explanation
of the recent mysterious deaths and murders of top scientists in the field.
Then again it might just be the concept of "compartmentalization"
where few are to be privy to the total picture.
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- Since the September 11 attacks on the Pentagon and World
Trade Center, no less than seven or eight top microbiologists have been
murdered or died under suspicious circumstances.
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- Dr. Benito Que, a cell biologist working on infectious
diseases at the University of Miami was found beaten to death outside of
his laboratory. Authorities say a mugging is suspected.
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- Dr. Robert M. Schwartz, a well-known DNA sequencing researcher
was found murdered in his secluded Loudoun County home in Virginia. Police
have arrested a teenager and two unidentified adults in the case.
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- Set Van Nguyen, a skilled microbiologist at the Commonwealth
Scientific and Industrial Research Center in Australia died in a low temperature
storage area where biological samples were kept. The cause was said to
be a leak of liquid nitrogen from the cooling system. It is probably just
a coincidence that Nguyen has the same last name as the quiet, 61-year-old
Vietnamese immigrant who died in New York from anthrax. She is the only
anthrax case where the source of the anthrax has not been determined.
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- Already mentioned (but not by name) was the soviet defector
who died, reportedly of a stroke, in Britain. Three weeks earlier just
after the Sept. 11 WTC and Pentagon attacks, Vladimir Pasechnik had communicated
with British officials about his knowledge on anthrax as a weapon.
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- An Israeli journalist has raised concern about the loss
of Israeli scientists involved in genetic and DNA research. Two have been
assassinated, supposedly by terrorists. Some other prominent scientists
were lost when the chartered plane they were on was shot down over the
Black Sea, reportedly by an arrant missile from a Ukranian training exercise.
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- Perhaps the most disturbing death is that of Harvard
scientist Don C. Wiley. Wiley was one of America's preeminent researchers
into infectious diseases and HIV in particular. After years of meticulous
research, Wiley had just scored a breakthrough by identifying the properties
of the HIV virus that make it infectious and how it avoids destruction
by the antigens in the human immune system.
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- In theory, the discovery has application to other viruses
that cause diseases. Viruses, as opposed to bacteria, seem to be immune
to treatment by antibiotics.
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- The dark side of the discovery, as Wiley himself discussed,
is that the same information could be used to change relatively benign
viruses into killers.
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- Wiley disappeared from his rental car in the middle of
a bridge over the Mississippi River when leaving after a dinner of the
St. Jude Children's Research Advisory Associates.
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- A couple of weeks later, his body was found far downstream
in the river. Although an autopsy was to be performed, no results have
been made public despite the passage of several weeks.
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- A number of scientists, journalists and others are concerned
about the direction this technology may take, however few are talking about
it publicly. This writer believes more, not less light should be put on
the subject.
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- Permission is granted to reproduce this article in its
entirety.
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- The author is a free lance writer based in Romulus, Michigan.
He is a former newspaper editor and investigative reporter, a retired customs
administrator and accountant, and a student of history and the U.S. Constitution.
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