Marburg Surfaces Again

[The Old Man]

does anyone really believe that HIV is a naturally occurring virus??? lets see, a virus that stops your body from fighting other viral infections and common diseases, the perfect biological weapon....., if thats not man made, only humans could come up with something that dreadful and unleash it on fellow mankind...

That would be frightening if true...

[Guest fledgling666]

does anyone really believe that HIV is a naturally occurring virus??? lets see, a virus that stops your body from fighting other viral infections and common diseases, the perfect biological weapon....., if thats not man made, only humans could come up with something that dreadful and unleash it on fellow mankind...

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

um, yeah.

and i've done some research for the other side on this issue as well. the thing is, too many people can't seem to grasp the facts of life and death and the possibility that nature itself is the most perfect biological weapon of any sort. when the population in an area cannot sustain itself, mother will do something about it. many areas in Africa cannot sustain the human population that exists there. and, of course, i'm sure it's all America's fault somehow, IMF, blah, blah, blah, but the fact is, it can always be turned around, to a point, then beyond that point, it can't. i think some places on the globe may be reaching that point and some of those places are in Africa.

unfortunately sub saharan africa is a wonderful proving grounds for chemical and biological warfare, isolated tribes, natural suspicion of outsiders, almost no access to medical personnel or facilities, lots of people using same sources of food, drinking and bathing water....wonderful place to set up a observation post and document the horrific effects of a bio level 4 virus strain, not much chance of it spreading, no roads, no vehicles, and most importantly no media coverage, how many smaller outbreaks in places like kenya, zaire, ethiopia, do you suppose never get media coverage, this is how governments obtain their knowledge base of these terrible viruses, these viruses have been genetically mapped for years, is there any reason why they haven't been cured.....never know when you might need a doomsday virus.......this is who we are.

um, sub-saharan? Angola and neighboring countries are in the south, just north and west of South Afrika. mostly grasslands and hard, semi-deserts like Johnson Valley, Ca. not seas of dunes and whatnot. not really a place for roving bandits either as there is much more law and order in Angola and it's neighbors than in the barren wastes. not a place to test chemical or biological weapons at all. it would be less advantagious than dropping a bio-weapon on Mexico City.

i can't believe that there are so many people in this day and age that believe this sort of non-sense. the reason there is not a cure for virii, such as the common cold, HIV, Ebola, Marburg, etc. is that virii have still not been proven to be a living creature. how do you kill something that is not alive. well, the only thing one can do to fight it is prevention. as far as mapping it's genetics and using that against it, i doubt that that can work.

[Gunslinger]

um, yeah.

and i've done some research for the other side on this issue as well. the thing is, too many people can't seem to grasp the facts of life and death and the possibility that nature itself is the most perfect biological weapon of any sort. when the population in an area cannot sustain itself, mother will do something about it. many areas in Africa cannot sustain the human population that exists there. and, of course, i'm sure it's all America's fault somehow, IMF, blah, blah, blah, but the fact is, it can always be turned around, to a point, then beyond that point, it can't. i think some places on the globe may be reaching that point and some of those places are in Africa.

um, sub-saharan? Angola and neighboring countries are in the south, just north and west of South Afrika. mostly grasslands and hard, semi-deserts like Johnson Valley, Ca. not seas of dunes and whatnot. not really a place for roving bandits either as there is much more law and order in Angola and it's neighbors than in the barren wastes. not a place to test chemical or biological weapons at all. it would be less advantagious than dropping a bio-weapon on Mexico City.

i can't believe that there are so many people in this day and age that believe this sort of non-sense. the reason there is not a cure for virii, such as the common cold, HIV, Ebola, Marburg, etc. is that virii have still not been proven to be a living creature. how do you kill something that is not alive. well, the only thing one can do to fight it is prevention. as far as mapping it's genetics and using that against it, i doubt that that can work.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

yes, i realized the geographical locations of those countries, it was not a geographical or for that matter semantic argument i was making, if you think those countries are as well developed as mexico city you are mistaken, also when said governments are paying large sums of money to governments like angola, zaire, to "stay out of the way and let the professionals handle the outbreak" they can pretty much do whatever they want, as usual, the mighty dollar dictates policy and in this case how much help a group of people who need medical attention will receive.

[Guest fledgling666]

yes, i realized the geographical locations of those countries, it was not a geographical or for that matter semantic argument i was making, if you think those countries are as well developed as mexico city you are mistaken, also when said governments are paying large sums of money to governments like angola, zaire, to "stay out of the way and let the professionals handle the outbreak" they can pretty much do whatever they want, as usual, the mighty dollar dictates policy and in this case how much help a group of people who need medical attention will receive.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

you can't make this arguement without knowing SOMETHING about it. you just can't, it's basically lying.

i have seen photos of cities (don't recall names) in the general area that look much like some of the cities i've seen in Mexico (having relatives there and all), and maybe they can't be compared to Mexico City, as i also realize MC may be a bit more advanced (though the level of corruption is the same or worse). you can't bring up the argument that HIV is man-made, that it is a form of biological warfare, unless you will stand your ground and not cry about an argument that bothers with semantics. if you state your point as such, you have to back it up. you have to tell me that i am wrong for thinking that it is not a man-made virus. you have to tell me that you are right "and this is why, etc, etc, etc." you can't just say "semantics" and run.

in this case, geography has a lot to do with it. Angola isn't the freaking sand dunes where no one would care if large amounts of people died.

when one speaks of money being given away so that people in positions of responsibility will look away, one must have at least some small knowledge of what one is saying and some way to point out some facts that help to illustrate such a position, otherwise, it's hearsay, it's bogus, it's crap. it might as well be me blowing out my a$$.

either way, HIV is real, it COSTS our government much more money that it would have been worth to have developed it as a biological agent, in aid to countries in Africa, in grants to hospitals, in federal spending on research, in welfare-type medical care and other things. HIV is costing the world billions upon billions of dollars. if it were done on purpose, don't you think it backfired?

now, back to Ebola and Marburg. anyone think they were man-made? Marburg was discovered in 1967. Ebola in 1976. together they kill a thousand times fewer people than malaria. just because they cannot find a natural host, doesn't make them man-made, just means we aren't looking hard enough.

[4th Horseman]

you can't make this arguement without knowing SOMETHING about it. you just can't, it's basically lying.

i have seen photos of cities (don't recall names) in the general area that look much like some of the cities i've seen in Mexico (having relatives there and all), and maybe they can't be compared to Mexico City, as i also realize MC may be a bit more advanced (though the level of corruption is the same or worse). you can't bring up the argument that HIV is man-made, that it is a form of biological warfare, unless you will stand your ground and not cry about an argument that bothers with semantics. if you state your point as such, you have to back it up. you have to tell me that i am wrong for thinking that it is not a man-made virus. you have to tell me that you are right "and this is why, etc, etc, etc." you can't just say "semantics" and run.

in this case, geography has a lot to do with it. Angola isn't the freaking sand dunes where no one would care if large amounts of people died.

when one speaks of money being given away so that people in positions of responsibility will look away, one must have at least some small knowledge of what one is saying and some way to point out some facts that help to illustrate such a position, otherwise, it's hearsay, it's bogus, it's crap. it might as well be me blowing out my a$$.

either way, HIV is real, it COSTS our government much more money that it would have been worth to have developed it as a biological agent, in aid to countries in Africa, in grants to hospitals, in federal spending on research, in welfare-type medical care and other things. HIV is costing the world billions upon billions of dollars. if it were done on purpose, don't you think it backfired?

now, back to Ebola and Marburg. anyone think they were man-made? Marburg was discovered in 1967. Ebola in 1976. together they kill a thousand times fewer people than malaria. just because they cannot find a natural host, doesn't make them man-made, just means we aren't looking hard enough.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Does anyone remember the episode Sense and Anti-Sense where the drooling, seemingly infected black scientist is rambling on and on about Tuskegee? Read below:

The Tuskegee Study is just one of many experiments carried out on American people without their knowledge or consent. In 1994 the U. S. Senate Committee on Veterans' Affairs released a report that dealt with some of the other government experiments: "For at least 50 years, DOD (Dept. of Defense) has knowingly exposed military personnel to potentially dangerous substances, often in secret.

The U.S. General Accounting Office (GAO) issued a report on September 18, 1994, which stated that between 1940 and 1974, DOD and other national security agencies studied hundreds of thousands of human subjects in tests and experiments involving hazardous substances. GAO stated that some tests and experiments were conducted in secret . . . some work conducted for DOD by contractors still remains classified today. For example, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) has not released the names of 15 of the approximately 80 organizations that conducted experiments under the MKULTRA program, which gave psychochemical drugs to an undetermined number of people without their knowledge or consent. According to the GAO report, the CIA has not released this information because the organizations do not want to be identified." [11]

So it is very possible for the Government to manufacture situations whereby, unknown to the general population, dangerous and possibly lethal experiments were conducted for the benefit of "government".

Now, fledgling 666, i tend to agree with you. Aids is rampant and a new more deadly strain has been just recently been discovered in San Francisco that exhibits full blown symptoms in weeks, not years. Man-made? or an existing virus that has undergone antigenic drift? Most likely the latter, although a virologist, i am not..

Marburg and the new avian flu are spreading, slowly for now, but seem to be on the brink of a worldwide explosion. The lack of concern on the part of those involved, CDC, etc is only due to the fact that the outbreaks have been "contained" to "other locations". Gurananteed, if it was spreading here, a limitless amount of $$ would be spent on a vaccine, public information, etc..

But i tend to agree with you, i sincerely do not consider these to be anything more than sciences inability to isolate, and eliminate the ever changing viral world. And i am surprised that no one has mentioned prions in this discussion. Attach any of the previously mentioned viruses to a prion and you basically have an indestructable weapon of mass destruction on your hands. Prions are impervious to heat, vaccines, etc..if my information is correct

Anyway in closing, what i would like to ask everyone is the following question. In the days following the tsunami, i found a somewhat disturbing underlying current of belief that such things (AIDS, Ebola, Tsunamis, etc) were God's way of controlling the population in "those" countries. Whats your take? personally, i was somewhat appalled that people would carry those types of opinions around, but everyone is entitled to their own way of thinking..

I will leave you guys with a quote from Elie Wiesel:

Why do good men do wicked things? That question has plagued mankind since the dawn of civilization. Elie Wiesel understood evil. He lived through the Holocaust, and wrote about the men who managed the death camps: "Spring 1945: emerging from the nightmare, the world discovers the camps, the death factories. The senseless horror, the debasement: the absolute reign of evil. . . .

Yes, it is possible to defile life and creation and feel no remorse. To tend one's garden and water one's flowers but two steps away from barbed wire. To experiment with monstrous mutations and still believe in the soul and immortality. . . .

There was, then, a technique, a science of murder, complete with specialized laboratories,

business meetings and progress charts. Those engaged in its practice did not belong to a gutter society of misfits, nor could they be dismissed as just a collection of rabble. Many held degrees in philosophy, sociology, biology, general medicine, psychiatry and the fine arts. There were lawyers among them. And - unthinkable but true - theologians. . . ." [10]

FYI - I am as giddy as a schoolboy looking at his first issue of Playboy . My Frank Black 12' action figure just arrived. Hoo-Yah...i am now whole!!!!

did that outburst just ruin the sincerity of my post?

[Walkabout]

If a virus can mutate and jump from cats to dogs [ Parvo virus] is it so far fetched that a virus can mutate and jump from chimps and gorillas which are almost our genetic equals and that it was first documented in Africa??

[Gunslinger]

you can't make this arguement without knowing SOMETHING about it. you just can't, it's basically lying.

i have seen photos of cities (don't recall names) in the general area that look much like some of the cities i've seen in Mexico (having relatives there and all), and maybe they can't be compared to Mexico City, as i also realize MC may be a bit more advanced (though the level of corruption is the same or worse). you can't bring up the argument that HIV is man-made, that it is a form of biological warfare, unless you will stand your ground and not cry about an argument that bothers with semantics. if you state your point as such, you have to back it up. you have to tell me that i am wrong for thinking that it is not a man-made virus. you have to tell me that you are right "and this is why, etc, etc, etc." you can't just say "semantics" and run.

in this case, geography has a lot to do with it. Angola isn't the freaking sand dunes where no one would care if large amounts of people died.

when one speaks of money being given away so that people in positions of responsibility will look away, one must have at least some small knowledge of what one is saying and some way to point out some facts that help to illustrate such a position, otherwise, it's hearsay, it's bogus, it's crap. it might as well be me blowing out my a$$.

either way, HIV is real, it COSTS our government much more money that it would have been worth to have developed it as a biological agent, in aid to countries in Africa, in grants to hospitals, in federal spending on research, in welfare-type medical care and other things. HIV is costing the world billions upon billions of dollars. if it were done on purpose, don't you think it backfired?

now, back to Ebola and Marburg. anyone think they were man-made? Marburg was discovered in 1967. Ebola in 1976. together they kill a thousand times fewer people than malaria. just because they cannot find a natural host, doesn't make them man-made, just means we aren't looking hard enough.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

so just to recap, i know nothing about your first hand experiences, yet i refrain from calling you a liar as you did me, you find it hard to believe that any virus that deadly could be man made, ok, nice to know you have such faith in the basic goodness of our governments, have you ever worked for the government? served in the military that serves our government because if you had and had been stationed at other places outside the continental united states or for that matter, north america, yes im referring to mexico, if you have been to any of the aforementioned african or south american nations, being in mexico is like being in club med, i agree completely the level of corruption in mexico is extreme, but ive been there many times and as long as i was with friends i felt relatively safe, in somalia, haiti, thailand, especially in rural areas, the price of human life is measured in bullets and whatever cash you have in your wallet, citizens are so isolated from one another, if one village is devastated by some disease, dont count on members of neighboring villages to assist, if you dont have the same family name then dont come near them, this is not to say this is a bad thing, just a rich climate for eager governments with endless financial coffers to sit back and watch the effects of man made biological weapons, if you want to go on believing that 50 years of cold war biological and chemical warfare experiments are being shelved and disposed of think again, the premise that whoever has the most devastating weapons will survive is still in place, its not a peaceful world we live in, there are battles raging all over the planet, our government, china, great britain, and othe countries you would not belive still need concrete evidence that the terrible weapons they have in their arsenal still work effectively, and if these tests cost 200 or some odd number of lives in a far away distant country, then to them, it is worth it by the time the media, WHO, or whatever interested party gets there, said entity has already gathered what info it needs and departed, in closing i respect your opinion sir or ma'am as i do all posts on this forum, we just shall agree to disagree

[Guest fledgling666]

so just to recap, i know nothing about your first hand experiences, yet i refrain from calling you a liar as you did me, you find it hard to believe that any virus that deadly could be man made, ok, nice to know you have such faith in the basic goodness of our governments, have you ever worked for the government? served in the military that serves our government because if you had and had been stationed at other places outside the continental united states or for that matter, north america, yes im referring to mexico, if you have been to any of the aforementioned african or south american nations, being in mexico is like being in club med, i agree completely the level of corruption in mexico is extreme, but ive been there many times and as long as i was with friends i felt relatively safe, in somalia, haiti, thailand, especially in rural areas, the price of human life is measured in bullets and whatever cash you have in your wallet, citizens are so isolated from one another, if one village is devastated by some disease, dont count on members of neighboring villages to assist, if you dont have the same family name then dont come near them, this is not to say this is a bad thing, just a rich climate for eager governments with endless financial coffers to sit back and watch the effects of man made biological weapons, if you want to go on believing that 50 years of cold war biological and chemical warfare experiments are being shelved and disposed of think again, the premise that whoever has the most devastating weapons will survive is still in place, its not a peaceful world we live in, there are battles raging all over the planet, our government, china, great britain, and othe countries you would not belive still need concrete evidence that the terrible weapons they have in their arsenal still work effectively, and if these tests cost 200 or some odd number of lives in a far away distant country, then to them, it is worth it by the time the media, WHO, or whatever interested party gets there, said entity has already gathered what info it needs and departed, in closing i respect your opinion sir or ma'am as i do all posts on this forum, we just shall agree to disagree

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

there are 2 different Mexicos, my friend, the tourist Mexico and the real Mexico. having been to the real Mexico plenty of times with family, i can tell you that what you see in tourist Mexico is only that small patch of sand, the rest is not like that at all.

and i didn't call you a liar, i said to make that statement without backing it up is like lying. it tells me that either you have no idea what you're talking about or you don't want to bother proving it to me.

now, having said that, i apologize for sounding as if i DO know more than i do, as i don't really, i was merely trying to point out that you hadn't proved to me that you did, and in doing so, i may have overstepped my boundaries, making readers of this thread think i know more than i do. my point was and still is, that one cannot say that HIV was man-made unless one has something to back it up with. and one cannot use the vaccuous possibility that it is bio-weapons simply because there are bio-weapons on the planet that need testing, especially since the disease HIV causes is not one normally associated with the concept of the use of bio-weapons nor the purpose for the use of bio-weapons. i was, and still am, merely tired of people bringing this theory up without anything to support it.

i agree with your assumption that it is cost-effective to test bio-weapons on a secluded small number of people and that Marburg and Ebola might fit that bill due to their virulence and high death rate of infected individuals and their lack of continued transmission (meaning that both virri eventually cancel themselves out by killing their host and, in doing so, their chances to spread and thrive). i also agree that there is, in fact, the remote possibility that these 2 virii were man-made and possibly for this purpose, being that there is no known carrier host for either, BUT the fact remains there is no proof, and thus, i can't put an ounce of faith in that remote possibility. so when i say that you have no proof, what i am really saying is that i want you to prove it to me. i'm saying, in effect, "make me believe." if you can't, then don't try to lead me astray with conjecture and hearsay as it does nothing for your case and does nothing toward finding the truth about said virii. and as far as HIV is in that mix, well, it just isn't. it doesn't exibit the same characteristics of these virii or of use as a bio-weapon. it takes too long and costs too much to be cost-effective, if that is in fact, a limiting factor, and if it isn't, why test other bio-weapons in the manner described above? it can't be cost-effective once and then outrageously not cost-effective afterward. it would defeat its purpose.

i realize it's not a peaceful world we live in, but i think, also, that some want it to be more interesting than it actually is. art does not imitate life, life does not imitate art, they are wholly seperate and often have nothing to do with each other at all.

i'm a "sir" by the way, not as in "Sir blah blah blah" but as in the fact that i am male.

i have never served in the military, but my father did for 22 years. as i grew up and through my teens and early twenties, i would ask these sorts of questions of him and his responses coupled with a bit of research over the years has taught me that my government is no more clandestine than any other and less than some.

again, i apologize for overstepping my bounds in making it sound as though i had first hand experience that countered your unfounded statements. i don't. but it also goes without saying that those statements remain unfounded.

psst- edit*

Tuskeegee was an isolated incedent lead by racism. yes, it was real, and if i remember correctly, our government admitted its wrongdoing in the matter. why would they admit to testing of that sort on our own, but not on some small, unknown village in Africa?

[gravity well]

Tuskeegee was an isolated incedent lead by racism. yes, it was real, and if i remember correctly, our government admitted its wrongdoing in the matter. why would they admit to testing of that sort on our own, but not on some small, unknown village in Africa?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Precisely because it IS small and unknown. Easier to experiment with biological weapons in the ultimate out-of-sight, out-of-mind continent to the average pair of Western eyes.

[Raven Wolf]

Glad to see you guys getting along....fledge & slinger.... LOL *Feel the Love*