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3500
Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd by
Tom Suber On Veteran’s
day November 2001, citizens were preparing to stage a demonstration in Lansing,
Michigan on a street appropriately named Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd., after
one of America’s most famous protest leaders. As citizens approached the
building numbered 3500, they were faced with a strange site previously unknown
in this small community. Armed soldiers from the Michigan National Guard
had surrounded the building providing protection from dangers not apparent
to anyone but President George W. Bush. The story
of how the Michigan National Guard had been activated for this duty by President
Bush in a face off with its own citizens, most of them former military veterans,
is the story of almost unimaginable greed involving the theft of hundreds
of millions of dollars of public resources for private gain. It is the story of the poisoning of the American
military with a worthless and debilitating Anthrax Vaccine by war profiteers
and politicians seeking cheap political and financial advantage. 3500 Martin
Luther King Blvd is the site of the former State owned Michigan Biologic
Products Institute that had been, now, transformed into the privately owned
Bioport Corporation. The hidden history of this transformation is critical
to understanding the events of giving rise to the Veteran’s Day March of
November 2001. The Michigan Biologic Products Institute of the Michigan
Department of Public Health had it origins at the turn of the century when
the State of Michigan established a biologics lab within the Health Department.
In the 1920’s, the state’s biologic lab began the
manufacture of vaccines for the public health of the state’s citizens. It
served this public purpose so well that its combination DaPT vaccine contained
the safest Whopping Cough vaccine available anywhere in the nation. The only other available commercial DPT vaccines
contained whole killed virus that caused greater adverse antigenic reactions
that resulted, many times, in unnecessary brain damage or death of young
children. Commercial vaccine developers made their whole virus vaccine cheaper
and with more profit than the publicly produced and safer vaccine made by
the State of Michigan with only viral parts. But as time
and history moved on, a retrogressive movement began to convert public resources
to private gain as corporate greed became bolder and more unrestrained. The first success in these efforts began in England
where Margaret Thatcher and the Conservative Party engaged in the wholesale
of virtually every conceivable public asset to privateers and plunderers. In 1993 the Thatcher government decided to engage
in one particular incident of what was euphemistically called privatization
but was more transparently the diversion of public resources to private
gain involving the Center for Applied Microbiology and Research (CAMR) at
Porton Downs, England. It is relevant to the story of 3500 Martin Luther
King, Jr. Blvd with its subsequent transformation from the public service
of children by the production of safe childhood vaccines to the Bioport
Corporation with its bio-warfare profiteers and its president Fuad El-Hibri.
The CAMR
labs at Porton Downs are the English equivalent of the American bio-warfare
labs at Fort Dietrich, Maryland. In particular,
they were the only source located outside the United States for the bio-warfare
Anthrax vaccine. In fact, the British Anthrax
vaccine has an advantage over the vaccine produced at the Michigan Department
of Public Health lab. The British version was
actually designed to work on inhaled Anthrax of the more deadly Ames strain
while the U.S. produced vaccine was for prevention of cutaneous Anthrax
skin infections of agricultural workers by the less virulent Vollum strain.
A group
of investors organized by Fuad El-Hibri formed a company that was at the
time the largest private biotechnology firm in the world, Porton International.
Fuad El-Hibri served as a director of the newly formed company. Porton was given the exclusive right to commercially
market the bio-warfare vaccines and other products produced by the British
government at its Porton Downs labs by the CAMR. The
most notable of these products were Botulinum Type A vaccine and Anthrax
vaccine. Fuad El-Hibri
immediately after winning control of the products produced at Porton Downs
arranged deliveries of biotech defense products to Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia had previously been rebuffed in its
attempts to purchase these agents. Saudi Arabia
desired the agents as protection against the possible use by Iraq of Anthrax
provided by then C.I.A. director, George W. Bush
Sr., to Iraq for possible use against Iran.
Fuad El-Hibri , prior to his creation of Porton
International , had worked in the mergers-and-acquisitions department of
Citibank in Jedda, Saudi Arabia, where he specialized in arranging investments
for large Saudi investors. Citibank and Fuad El-Hibri were bankers both for
the individual financial holdings of the bin Laden family group and the larger
$18 billion Carlyse Group of which includes participation of the bin Laden
family. Both the bin Laden family and the Carlyse Group are both reputed
to have had partnership interests with Fuad El-Hibri’s Porton, International
and Bioport investments. These embarrassing partnerships are the result
of complex web of interlocking private corporate holdings and are publicly
denied the El-Hibri family. The actual ownership relationships are deliberately hidden in a
labyrinth of smoke and mirrors involving private corporations and secret
partnerships typical of the dark world of international armaments, defense
industry, spying, and international intrigue. Publicly,
Porton, International is owned by Speywood Holdings Ltd., which, in turn,
is owned by I & F Holdings NV, a Netherlands Antilles corporate shell
owned by Fuad El-Hibri, a Lebanese Arab with both German and U.S. citizenship;
his father, Ibrihim El-Hibri; various Saudi and other unknown investors which
almost surely includes the Carlyse Group. The Carlyse Group is a semi-secret
financial organization that does not disclose its business affairs, as it
is a privately held corporation in the sensitive defense business. It is important to understand all of the involved personal and
financial inter-relationships in order to comprehend the political issues
that arise with the involvement of the Carlyse Group.
The Carlyse Group is company that achieves extreme profits through
investment in the defense industry. It is a
politically expedient and profitable money machine for its primarily Saudi
investors including the bin Laden family and various military, corporate,
banking, and government officials from the United States
and Western Europe. These include the former
President Gorge W. Bush Sr., James Baker III the former U.S. Secretary of
State, Frank Carlucci former deputy CIA Director
and U.S. Secretary of Defense, John Major former Prime Minister of the UK,
Eberhard Kuenheim former chairman of Bayer and
BMW, Dick Darman, Karl-Otto Pohl former President of Deutsche Bundesbank It is equally
important to digress just a bit from our story to explain that the involvement
of George Bush Sr. with the bin Laden family and Saudi business interests
is not of recent origin but has a very long history. Over thirty years ago,
Salem bin Laden, the eldest of Osama bin Laden's brothers
, invested in George H. W. Bush's Arbusto Energy. The bin Laden connection
was established through James Bath who represented the bin Laden interests
in Texas. Bath lived in Houston, Texas and was close friends with Bush. Bath handled the $50,000 bin Laden investment in
Bush's company Arbusto. Salem bin Laden also
purchased Houston Gulf Airport through James Bath. The Center for Public Integrity has stated that current President,
"George W. Bush could, some day, benefit financially from his own administration's
decisions, through his father's investments." Indeed,
somewhat of an understatement. By 1996, the rape of the public resources of Great Britain was
virtually complete. So the profit making interests
of the Saudi’s and the Carlyse Group began to look to the United States for
more promising plunder. They did not have to
look very deeply because Bush and company already owned Michigan Republican
Governor John Engler. Governor Engler was persuaded by his cronies to sell
off the state’s biologic products lab after nearly a century of service to
the citizens. The Governor removed the biologic
lab from the Department of Public Health established it as a new state agency,
the “Michigan Biologics Products Institute.” This new agency was limited
to a two-year term of existence. This action, along with the creation of
a three-person commission (Michigan Biologics Products Commission) was the
beginning of the privatization of Michigan’s vaccine facility by Fuad
El-Hibri. Governor Engler
gave the most respectable and profitable agency in Michigan government to
Fuad El-Hibri without any individual investment whatsoever. The new owners
of the Michigan biologics lab incurred no individual expense, made no investments,
and did not owe any individual promissory notes or obligations of any kind
for their new lab purchase. Receipt of a $180 million business for absolutely
nothing in return. Isn’t privatization grand? Isn’t
it really legalized theft. See the testimony
that Fuad El-Hibri, President and Chief Executive Officer, BioPort Corporation
presented to The Subcommittee on National Security, Veterans Affairs,
and International Relations of the House Committee on Government Reform June
30, 1999. The entire business with its enormously profitably sole source
contracts with the federal government were transferred wholly to Bioport
secured only by corporate promissory notes to be paid out of future income
in the amount of 25 million. Yet, State Rep. Lingg Brewer, D-Holt, estimated
the lab (MBPI) “ . . . to be worth up to $78 million, because the lab is
the only federally approved manufacturer of anthrax vaccine." The only out
of pocket expense incurred by Bioport was the indebtedness in the form of
a capital lease from Bank One for the purchase of a single blood plasma fractionation
centrifuge. The next hand out the company received was an unsecured, interest-free
loan of $18.7 million as an advance payment from the Defense Department.
That was on top of already promised subsidies from the Defense Department
that included improvements and renovations of its physical plant that were
originally to be a 29 million-windfall gift but quickly escalated as the
Bioport cabal were quick to seize their opportunities to pillage. In the end Bioport got the US Government to
give them $126 million ostensibly in the interest of national security. Additionally, the federal government agreed to pay triple the original
cost in the contract for vaccine, from $3.50 a dose, to over ten dollars
on vaccine that had been produced not by Bioport but by the State of Michigan
and turned over to Bioport as part of the sale of the MBPI lab. Fuad El-Hibri testified to The Subcommittee on National Security,
Veterans Affairs, and International Relations of the House Committee on
Government Reform on June 30, 1999 that: “Three companies currently hold voting equity in BioPort: Intervac
LLC and Intervac Management LLC, which are both Maryland limited liability
companies, and Michigan Biologic Products, Inc., a Michigan corporation.
Intervac LLC is the controlling shareholder. Intervac LLC is owned by Admiral
Crowe, my wife Nancy and me, and I and F Holdings N.V., a Netherlands Antilles
investment company owned by my father Ibrahim El-Hibri. As mentioned earlier,
I and F Holdings is an investment company in biotech operations, which previously
had invested in the management buy-out of Porton Products Ltd. Admiral Crowe
and I are the controlling members of Intervac LLC”.
While Fuad El-Hibri was needed no financing to take over
the State of Michigan biologic lab, he did need a front man to reassure
the military with respect to their Anthrax contract.
He already had the perfect front man in former chairman of
the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Adm. William J. Crowe Jr.
Adm. Crowe had a long history of involvement with the El-Hibri
family. Crowe owns 22.5 percent of Intervac shares, although he hasn’t
invested a penny in the venture. Why should he
invest real money when no one else has either? Assets are being obtained
at the public expense without even the myth of individual investment. MEDICAL ISSUES AND THE ATTENDANT SCANDALS But it was
not the hundred million dollar financial swindle of taxpayer resources that
had so aroused citizens on their Veterans Day march on Bioport. Instead
it was the medical scandals involving Anthrax vaccine. These scandals are
many and varied and we will attempt to address them but with the realization
that it is probably not possible to address all of them adequately without
writing a lengthy tome. The history of the production
of the Anthrax vaccine begins with the giant Merck pharmaceutical company.
Merck developed and produced an Anthrax vaccine that had been tested and
approved by the FDA for human use in a 1955-1959 study. The vaccine was for
used primarily to inoculate animals and veterinarians and others coming into
close contact with animal products. The vaccine was developed from the Vollum strain of Anthrax for use in the prevention of cutaneous Anthrax skin infections of agricultural workers. It was never
tested nor approved for the use in preventing Anthrax infection from inhaled
weaponized Anthrax from the more virulent Ames strain.
Merck stopped production of this vaccine because of its very
limited use and lack of profits. The Michigan Department of Public Health received a license from
the FDA to produce the orphan Merck Anthrax vaccine. The license was subsequently
transferred to the Michigan Biologic Products Institute (MBPI) upon the
Public Health Department lab’s transformation into an independent State
agency. From this point on, many of the parties have maintained a policy
of outright lies and obfuscation of the facts typical of the secrecy involved
in the illegal activities described below. The 1972 Convention on the Prohibition of the Development, Production
and Stockpiling of Bacteriological (Biological) and Toxin Weapons and on
Their Destruction, also known as the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention
or BWC, prohibits the development, production, stockpiling and acquisition
of these weapons. The BWC thus supplements the prohibition on use of biological
weapons contained in the 1925 Geneva Protocol. The United States is a signatory
to this treaty. But, like many other international
agreements by which the United States is bound, this treaty remains largely
ignored by the Untied States. While publicly
destroying stockpiles of nerve gas weapons and their delivery rockets, the
United States continued its illegal research and development of biological
weapons at Fort Dietrich, Maryland. One of the
illegal biological weapons, which the United States was engaged in research
and development was, weaponized Anthrax. Part of the development of biological weapons is the need to develop
and maintain antidotes to such weapons. As a
result of this need the Department of Defense in the late 1980’s ordered
large amounts of the Anthrax vaccine from the State of Michigan that was
the sole source manufacturer of the vaccine. The State of Michigan changed the process and chemical composition
of its vaccine to meet the Department of Defense need for a vaccine to counteract
inhaled Anthrax. The government needed a vaccine
that prompted a stronger immune response in order to be effective against
a virulent inhaled Anthrax. Michigan complied
by adding several ingredients needed to accomplish the Defense Department
objective. The DOD will later falsely claim that it did not have any knowledge
of the changes in the vaccine. . The vaccine changes included an increase in protective antigen (PA) 4,000 times greater than in lots of anthrax vaccine manufactured following the earlier FDA approved formula. This and the addition of other components is what give rise to the problems with vaccine safety.
One of the other ingredients included in the Anthrax vaccine is an additive
to boost its immune reaction in the hopes of making it effective
against inhaled Anthrax. It is Squalene which
is found in shark oil, the human liver, some vegetable oils and; as an additive
to enhance vaccine immune reactions. According to a 1999 U.S. Government
Accounting Office report Squalene is used to foster a faster, stronger or
longer protective reaction from vaccines. The Pentagon denied the presence of Squalene until that position
was publicly proved to be a lie as a result of a 1999 Tulane University
study of blood samples taken from sick gulf war veterans detected the presence
of antibodies to Squalene.. The Pentagon then quickly adopted the position
that the amount was so small as to be inconsequential. The FDA has not approved
the use of Squalene for use in the anthrax vaccine. Previously, Congress' watchdog agency, the General Accounting Office,
had reported that gulf war veterans were complaining of mysterious, undiagnosed
illnesses similar to patients with auto-immune disorders. A Tennessee immunologist,
Dr. Pamela B. Asa, concluded those illnesses were caused by exposure to
additives in vaccines, the GAO said. GAO investigators accused the Pentagon of a "pattern of deception''
with respect to vaccine additives. U.S. Rep. Jack Metcalf, R-Washington,
said his official inquiry concluded that Pentagon officials "stonewalled"
attempts to examine the Anthrax vaccine's additives. Metcalf distributed
his inquiry report to the House Subcommittee on National Security, Veterans'
Affairs and International Relations headed by U.S. Rep. Christopher Shays,
R-Conn. during an appearance in September 2000. The medical evidence is aptly summarized by Autoimmune Technologies
as follows: ANTI-SQUALENE ANTIBODIES LINK GULF WAR SYNDROME TO ANTHRAX VACCINE Data published in the February 2000 and August 2002 issues of Experimental and Molecular Pathology strongly suggests that Gulf War Syndrome is caused by a vaccine contaminated with squalene. The August 2002 article is entitled "Antibodies to Squalene in Recipients of Anthrax Vaccine" (Exp. Mol. Pathol. 73,19-27 2002). Gulf War Syndrome, or GWS, is the term which has been applied to the multi-symptom rheumatic disorder experienced by many veterans of the 1990-1991 Persian Gulf war. A similar disorder appeared in 1990-1991-era personnel who were never deployed to the Persian Gulf theater of operations and also in other military personnel, including participants in the Anthrax Vaccine Immunization Program, or AVIP, which was inaugurated in 1997. No data has ever suggested that the disorder experienced by the deployed 1990-1991 soldiers is different from the disorder experienced by the other groups of patients, but the other cases have not been considered to be cases of GWS. Squalene was found by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in five lots of the AVIP anthrax vaccine. The discovery of serum anti-squalene antibodies and the development of a test to detect these antibodies has made it possible to see that links appear to exist between the contaminated AVIP vaccine lots, the illness experienced by post-1997 vaccine recipients, the illness experienced by non-deployed 1990-1991-era patients, and the illness in deployed 1990-1991-era patients that has been referred to as GWS. The data establishing these links is presented in the peer-reviewed February 2000 and August 2002 articles. The published findings (1) strongly suggest that the GWS-like illness being reported by all of the various patient groups is the same illness, (2) strongly suggest that the contaminated vaccine caused the illness in the AVIP group, and (3) further suggest that squalene contamination of one or more 1990-1991-era vaccines accounts for the GWS cases from that era. The veteran's suffering from Gulf War syndrome or more appropriately
Anthrax vaccine poisoning were forced to do so needlessly. Not only was the vaccine not effective against
inhlation Anthrax but also was not even effective for the cutaneous Anthrax
skin infections for which it was designed. That
is because the 1990-1991 Gulf War military personnel were given only two of
the required six injections necessary for immunity. Perhaps the Pentagon thought and acted on the belief that if any
protection were to be afforded by the vaccine it would have to be as a result
of the additives and 4000 fold increase in the Gulf War era vaccine PA levels.
But it is clearly known that their reckless behavior resulted in thousands
of injuries. Another principal chemical component of the Anthrax Vaccine, formaldehyde,
is not approved for human consumption according to the U. S. Government
Material Data Safety Sheet. It is a known carcinogen. 2.4 mg of aluminum hydroxide as adjuvant is added to the vaccine
to increase antibody response. Aluminum is a cardiovascular
or blood toxicant, neurotoxicant, and respiratory toxicant. More hazardous
than most chemicals in 2 out of 6 ranking systems on at least 2 federal
regulatory lists. Some medical researchers note a link between aluminum hydroxide
and a condition called “Macrophagic Myofasciitis.” Muscle biopsies from
tissue samples of some patients who were experiencing muscle pain and fatigue
show unusual concentrations of macrophages, the immune system’s scavenger
cells. Remain Gherardi, a pathologist in Paris published an article in
the journal, BRAIN that suggests that the immune reactions that are triggered
by aluminum hydroxide could help explain some of the chronic fatigue and
associated symptoms known as GULF WAR SYNDROME. Gherardi explains that some
of the symptoms he finds in his MMF patients are “strikingly similar to those
reported by Gulf war veterans, citing an article published by Coker et. al.
(British Medical Journal 1999; 318: 290-294). He writes that multiple vaccinations over a short period of time
have been seen as a risk factor for Gulf War Syndrome. Keep in mind the
anthrax vaccine that uses aluminum hydroxide is a 6-shot regimen, followed
by annual boosters. Our military reacted with promptly and with more common sense then
the Pentagon leaders with mass resistance Thomas D. Williams reports in the The Hartford Courant of September
28, 2000 that: “more
than 1,500 service people have complained about side effects of varying
severity that they blame on the vaccine. Hundreds of service people have
refused to be inoculated and have been disciplined or discharged, while
hundreds more in the reserve and National Guard and at least 250 military
pilots have resigned rather than take the six shots required. At least 250
military pilots have resigned, raising questions about U.S. battle readiness.
Seasoned fighter pilots can cost as much as $3 million to train, according
to Air Force.” The Pentagon was well aware during the Gulf War that this vaccine
had not been approved as to efficacy or safety for inhalation Anthrax. That
is why the President was forced to waive the informed consent requirements
for administration of an unapproved drug. In 1984 a group of military experts recommended to the DOD that
an application to FDA be made to obtain that approval. The FDA claims it
was not aware of the Pentagon report until notified by the GAO on October
15th 2001. Perhaps the FDA failed to notice the use of the vaccine during
the 1990-1991 Gulf War. No doubt they missed the debate about the Presidential
waiver on informed consent also. In 1996, after the vaccine license had been transferred to the
MBPI, the institute filed the application for such a license change. Processing
of the application automatically throws a vaccine back into the category
of experimental or "investigational" drugs, which have to have the (informed)
consent of the person getting the inoculation. Only the president can waive
the informed consent requirement, which the first President Bush did in
the Gulf War. In 1998, President Bush, apparently more concerned about profits
for his father’s business cronies then the safety of our soldiers reinstituted
the previously suspended mandatory Anthrax vaccinations. That is the true story behind the Veteran’s Day march at 3500 Martin
Luther King Jr. Blvd. |