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This is a complementary diary to an article posted by Richard Silverstein at Tikun Olam this morning ..
Israeli WMD Institute Used Soldiers as Guinea Pigs in Untested Anthrax Experiment.
(Tikun Olam) – A six year struggle by a group of IDF soldiers and officers for justice has ended with the State agreeing to pay them $6-million (Yossi Melman’s Hebrew story and the English version, which has been replaced on the Jerusalem Post site by a far more IDF-friendly story by Yaakov Lapin) for their participation in a medical experiment conducted under false pretenses. Between 1999-2005, the ministry of defense, IDF, and the Israeli chemical and biological weapons institute at Nes Ziona collaborated with their American counterparts in research to find a suitable anthrax vaccine.
Read on for more …
Research and development of an anthrax vaccine started years earlier, see article!
Israel develops anthrax vaccine Dec. 24, 2001
The Israel Institute for Biological Research in Nes Ziona. Israel has recently completed development of an anthrax vaccine that would be more effective and safer than the vaccine currently in use in the United States. The vaccine was developed at the Nes Ziona Biological Institute over the course of nearly ten years at the cost of millions of dollars.
According to a report published today in Yediot Aharonot, the Israeli vaccine was developed in one of the country’s most secretive research programs and just finished initial clinical testing. The vaccine, given in the form of a shot, is not yet available for commercial use. But the minute approval is given, medical sources say, sufficient quantities of the vaccine could be produced for the entire Israeli population within a matter of months, the paper reported.
The vaccine was tested on volunteers from the IDF, who were not exposed to the disease but rather were checked for side effects from the drug. During testing the volunteers were inoculated with the vaccine, and weeks later were checked for the presence of anthrax antibodies in the blood. The presence of such antibodies was proof that the vaccine was successful.
Yediot Aharonot reported that the existence of an Israeli vaccine has surfaced in the media a number of times. According to media reports, the vaccine was developed through genetic engineering in cooperation with the IDF and the Israeli Ministry of Health.
Reports of the initial success of the Israeli vaccine appeared in the American Society of Microbiology’s journal, Infection and Immunity, in August 2000. A study conducted at Nes Tziona and led by institute director, Dr. Avigdor Shafferman, tested the affect of the vaccine on guinea pigs and concluded that it led to immunization against anthrax spores.
“We believe, therefore, that [the use of genetically engineered anthrax spores] represents a platform of a prototypic, safe, and efficacious recombinant vaccine for further development and evaluation against a variety of virulent B. [anthrax] strains,” concluded the abstract of the Nes Tziona study.
Continued below the fold …
The 9/11 Anthrax Mystery: Solved by Robert Pate
The group that was harassing the Arab-Americans called themselves the “Camel Club.” One of the “Camel Club” members was Dr. Philip M. Zack, Lieutenant Colonel in the United States Army. The apparent objective of the “Camel Club” was to drive the Arab-American scientists out of the bio-defense facility (USAMRIID).
The Hartford Courant has been the only paper to have covered this story in detail. They reported that “Zack left Fort Detrick in December 1991, after a controversy over allegations of unprofessional behavior….” The paper later reported Dr. Zack was observed entering the lab after hours on January 23, 1992. A surveillance camera recorded Dr. Marian Rippy, one of the “Camel Club” members, letting Dr. Zack inside the building.
Lab technicians noticed a late-night intruder was tampering with their equipment. A 1992 inquiry found someone was conducting unauthorized research involving anthrax during the evening hours. An audit of the lab showed 27 sets of specimens–including anthrax spores–were unaccounted for or missing. One former commander at the facility said he did not believe any of the missing specimens were ever found.
(Haaretz) July 26, 2007 – few weeks ago, the director of the Israel Institute for Biological Research (IIBR), in Nes Tziona, Prof. Avigdor Shafferman, currently on sabbatical overseas, had a home visit. Sharp differences of opinion immediately cropped up between him and senior figures in the defense establishment. Military officials said that in the wake of requests by the test subjects and their parents, the defense establishment was compelled to reveal the exact makeup of the Israeli vaccine, which until then was classified as top-secret. Shafferman, though, said he didn’t understand what all the fuss was about, because the information was never classified to begin with.
Shafferman is a world expert on anthrax vaccines. He conducted the study and the experiment in the IDF and also developed the Israeli vaccine. After receiving approval for a sabbatical in the U.S. to perform research, it became known that he is also doing scientific consulting for a U.S.-Canadian company, PharmAthene, which develops anthrax vaccines. Haaretz correspondent Yossi Melman, who has reported on this recently, noted that the case was reviewed by both the Defense Ministry and the Civil Service Commission. Now, Melman reports, the state comptroller is also getting involved.
Despite the fact that PharmAthene lists Shafferman on its Web site as a member of its scientific advisory board, it may be difficult to prove a conflict of interest or, more accurately, leakage of information from Israel to the U.S., because the sabbatical was approved at the highest levels. Haaretz has also learned that the area of research approved for the sabbatical is unrelated to anthrax. At the same time, it strains credulity to think he was invited to serve as an adviser to the company that recently bought Nexia Biotechnologies (the firm closed down by the FDA for manufacturing unauthorized vaccines) for reasons unconnected to his expertise in this sphere.
What goes on behind the walls of Israel’s Institute for Biological Research?
Top secret bio lab probes how info gets to Haaretz
(Haaretz) May 15, 2008 – Field security officials have launched an investigation to find out who leaked information about the highly-classified Israel Institute for Biological Research (IIBR) to Haaretz.
The information in question is still being reviewed by Haaretz and has not yet been published. It concerns IIBR General Director Avigdor Shafferman’s handling of one of the Nes Tziona institute’s developments.
The office of the defense establishment security chief (Malmab) and the field security officers of the Israel Institute for Biological Research (IIBR) in Nes Tziona have summoned several IIBR workers for questioning about their contacts with Haaretz.
Over the past year, Shafferman’s performance as IIBR chief – a post he has held for 13 years – has been the subject of several Haaretz articles.
Haaretz recently reported that Malmab launched an investigation into a suspected conflict of interest on Shafferman’s part, after he spent his sabbatical year working for an American pharmaceuticals company that was allegedly involved in fields of research similar to IIBR’s work.
The probe’s findings were transferred to the Civil Service Commission.
- ○ Countermeasures to the potential use of B. anthracis spores as a bioterror weapon
○ Biotechnologies at Ness-Ziona and the El-Al 747 disaster –sarin gas– in Amsterdam
