Date: Fri, 19 Oct 2001 05:14:09 -0400

My recent letter about smallpox

Dear Monart,

As I'm sure you noticed, I just sent you an email, forwarding an article by
an investment analyst about the threat of smallpox terrorism. I would like
to circulate something to this effect on the OWL list, to hear if anybody
out there knows anything more. What I would really like to hear is for
somebody knowledgeable to tell me that smallpox has been eradicated and
there is no threat, or that this horrible disease is really not so
threatening after all -- but I fear this will is not the case....

When I find a little more time, maybe I can edit this piece for the OWL
list, or if you feel up to it, I would be delighted if you cared to post
the high points here, e.g. that smallpox is highly contagious and lethal,
that it killed something like 300 million people in the 20th century, that
it was nearly eradicated, but stockpiles of it exist from which it is not
entirely impossible for some part to be stolen by the bad guys for possible
use as a weapon of terror and mass destruction; that if a single confirmed
case of smallpox appears anywhere in the world, it is a likely sign that
the cause is bio-terrorism, and we should all run for the hills -- buy
plenty of water and canned food, surgical masks, goggles, and shun human
contact for at least 10 days, to verify that our companions have not been
infected.

Once again, as a sitting duck, er, I mean an airline pilot who lives near
that throbbing target of Neanderthal hatred, New York City, the biggest
symbol of American civilization, I am feeling especially threatened and
vulnerable.

I hope you're well and happy.

Best,
Eric

* * * * *

My friends,

I do not want to spread misinformed panic.

I do want to share with you the following bit of potentially life-saving
information, which I came across from an investment analyst who specializes
in the emerging biotech sector. Porter Stansberry has consistently
impressed me as an informed, sober and reliable voice.

I am also eager to hear if any of you has any knowledge that might add
anything to this matter of how we might better protect ourselves. It would
be lovely if anyone could contribute any knowledge that might lower my
worry about this possibility of a smallpox threat.

Best,
Eric Nolte

"If smallpox really got going, people should be most
concerned about a lack of effective leadership on the part
of their government."
-- General Philip K. Russell, M.D.

"The first and last thing required of genius is the love of
truth."
-- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

WHAT YOU MUST KNOW ABOUT SMALLPOX
By Porter Stansberry

As long-time readers can attest, I'm no doom and gloomer.

The world is getting better all the time thanks to freedom,
new technologies and the expansion of literacy around the
globe. Even the poorest people in America live better
lives than the richest Americans 100 years ago. World Wars
not withstanding, the last 100 years saw the largest
creation of wealth ever in the history of mankind. This
process overcame communism, religious fundamentalism, the
concentration of political power and even the withholding
of income tax.

What I'm about to tell you - while scary - won't reverse
the trend toward greater wealth and freedom. But, the
government doesn't want you to know about the real
bioterror threat to the United States because they are
afraid that you will panic and that the panic will disrupt
our way of life and the social order. They also don't want
you to know how badly they are provisioning the armed
forces for the threat.

I'd rather you panic a little than die. And I don't think
the government is ever going to tell you how much danger
you are in. The problem isn't anthrax. Anthrax is a
child's toy compared to smallpox. Here's what you need to
know right now.

"I don't think there is any higher biological threat to
this nation than smallpox." - Peter Jahrling, principle
scientific advisor to the United States Medical Research
Institute of Infectious Diseases (USAMRIID)

Let me tell you a little bit about smallpox.

Smallpox is a complex virus that was thought to be
eradicated from humans in 1979. Despite its eradication,
smallpox remains the largest historical threat to mankind -
by far. In the 20th century alone, smallpox killed over
300 million people. It is explosively contagious - about as
contagious as the measles - and it travels through the
air.

If you're infected, you'll get smallpox by breathing it in
or absorbing it through the mucosal tissue of your eyes.
You'll feel totally normal for about ten days, during which
time you'll infect people you speak with or even breathe
near. After about ten days you'll suddenly come down with
a high fever, a backache and tiny red spots will appear all
over your body. The spots will turn into blisters and
they'll get bigger, filling with pressurized, opalescent
pus. This will cause your skin to separate horizontally,
something called the "splitting of the dermis." It's
extremely painful. You'll lose the ability to speak and
your eyes will be swollen shut. But you'll remain alert.
Death comes through shock, heart attack, by your own immune
system's reaction...or worse. In extreme cases, the virus
will destroy the linings of your throat, your stomach, your
intestines and your rectum, as well as your skin. In these
cases patients die of massive hemorrhaging.

The last major outbreak of Variola Major - the name of the
virus that causes smallpox - occurred in 1972. A
schoolteacher in Djakovica, Yugoslavia named Ljatif came
down with a fever on March 3rd. He developed classic
symptoms, like the kind I described above. He was
transferred by bus to Belgrade, to the hospital. On March
9th doctors showed Ljatif to students, believing that he
was having an allergic reaction to penicillin. On March
10th Ljatif suffered a catastrophic hemorrhage of his
intestines. He bled out and died hours later.

Ljatif infected eight people at the local hospital. He
infected 11 people on the way to Belgrade and 27 people at
the hospital in Belgrade. By the end of March 1972, more
than 150 cases had been confirmed. Each person infected
with smallpox infects an average of ten to twenty people.

The outbreak in Yugoslavia wasn't a lot worse because the
country was still very rural and because many people in
Yugoslavia had been vaccinated against smallpox. (A
vaccine for smallpox has been around for over 200 years.
Edward Jenner discovered immunology in the late 1700s by
vaccinating people with cowpox. Jenner discovered that
milkmaids that had been infected by cowpox never came down
with smallpox).

Researchers have discovered that smallpox requires a dense
human population base to grow. Smallpox needs 200,000
people living within a 14-day travel window. Otherwise the
virus will die out because it is so contagious and fatal.
Today our entire country, and in fact the world, is
reachable through air travel in far fewer than 14 days.
And, for the last 25 years, there have been no routine
vaccinations against smallpox. Worst of all, even if you
were immunized against smallpox (and if you were, there's a
telltale scar about the size of a nickel on your upper
shoulder) the vaccine wears off in about ten years. In
other words, smallpox could spread through the United
States - and around the world - in an epidemic unlike
anything the world has ever seen before because of our
population density, the lack of immunized people and a very
efficient global transportation network.

The 1972 outbreak of smallpox in Yugoslavia required 18
million doses of vaccine to be controlled. The entire
country was put under quarantine. And this outbreak was
naturally occurring, starting with just one man. A
biological attack would spread far faster because there
would be multiple points of origin.

Is there a real possibility of a biological attack on the
United States using smallpox, a scourge thought to have
been eradicated from the world? Absolutely.

Officially smallpox only lives in two places - in the
United States in a freezer at the CDC in Atlanta and in a
freezer at the Russian virology institute, which is located
in Novosibirsk, Siberia. But Ken Alibek, who used to build
anthrax for the Soviet Union before he defected, claims in
his 1992 book "Biohazard" that the Russians kept 20 tons of
smallpox ready for loading on missiles aimed at the United
States.

Smallpox is large, as viruses go. Much larger than the
common cold virus. But you could still fit 3 million
smallpox viruses in the space taken up by this period. I
can't imagine why you'd produce 20 million tons of the most
lethal viruses known to man. But that's apparently what
the Russians did. Alibeck's claims have been verified by
several sources, including other defectors, such as
Vladimir Pasechnik, and international weapons inspectors,
such as Frank Malinonski, M.D., Ph.D. Today Peter
Jahrling, who is the principle scientific advisor to the
United States Medical Research Institute of Infectious
Diseases (USAMRIID), says, "There were tons of small pox
virus made in the Soviet Union. We know that. The
Russians have admitted that to us."

And now? The Russians say that they can't account for
every ampule of virus. The United States government keeps
a list of countries known to be trying to buy or steal
smallpox samples. According to Richard Preston, whose
article "Demon in the Freezer" was my primary source for
this article, the list includes: Pakistan, Iraq, Iran,
Cuba, Serbia, North Korea and Israel.

Here's the real problem: the United States national
stockpile of smallpox vaccine lies in four cardboard boxes
inside a walk-in freezer in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania
at a facility owned by Wyeth-Ayerst, a division of American
Home Products. At most there's perhaps seven million doses
contained in the boxes, which have been ruined by moisture
contamination. And, this vaccine is the same type that
Jenner built 200 years ago. It's essentially cowpox pus.
Says a virologist who looked at it under a microscope: "It
looks like nose snot. It's all hair and wads of crap."

Modern technology can do a lot better. In 1991 Craig
Venter and Joe Esposito sequenced the entire genome of
Variola Major. They found 186,000 base pairs of DNA and
187 genes, making the genome extremely complex for a virus.
(HIV, for example, has just ten genes). Venter noticed
that Variola shares a gene that's used by mice to make
their placenta, hinting at the origin of the virus. This
genome could allow for a modern and safe vaccine to be
created. But that's not what is happening.

The Defense Department has contracted with a private firm
in Reston Virginia, Dynaport. The small firm has a
contract to provide 300,000 doses of a smallpox vaccine for
an incredible $22.4 million - $75 a dose - by 2006!
Pentagon sources have been quoted as saying the smallpox
vaccine acquisition program is "...a fucking disaster."
"Three hundred thousand doses is not enough vaccine to
protect anyone, not even our troops. It totally ignores
the fact that smallpox is contagious. These guys ought to
be buying tank treads and belt buckles. They know nothing
about vaccines."

(Investors might want to watch a company called
Immunotherapeutics, which trades on the NASDAQ under the
symbol AVAN. This company owns the intellectual property
rights to the technology that Dynaport is reportedly using
to produce its smallpox vaccine. But, I'd be very cautious
with my investment into AVAN because I don't believe that
Dynaport is the likely source of vaccine for the entire
U.S.)

So...let me summarize what we know about the threat of
smallpox.

First, we know that there is a large supply of smallpox
available in the world, more than enough to be used as a
weapon.

Second, we know that someone has acquired anthrax and is
willing to use it against Americans. The most likely
source of the anthrax is the same Russian labs that are
known to have made smallpox.

Third, we know that if someone were to begin spreading
smallpox in a public place, it would spread rapidly
throughout the United States and possibly the world - for
ten days before it would be discovered.

Fourth, we know that there is no readily available
vaccine. The entire stock of vaccine currently available
in the United States is less than 7 million doses. Until
1990 the World Heath Organization kept a stockpile of 10
million doses in Switzerland, but this was destroyed as a
cost cutting measure.

The people who work with me questioned whether or not I
should send this email to you. They don't want me to scare
you. So, let me reiterate that I don't know that any
terrorist group has smallpox. Or that anyone would decide
to release it in the United States.

But on the other hand, it seems plausible to me that a
terrorist group might have access to smallpox and might
decide to use it. Hey, after I saw those idiots fly two
planes into the World Trade Center, I'm not going to doubt
what lunacy they might be capable of...

Everyday when I drive to work, I don't think that I'll get
in a car wreck. But I fasten my seatbelt every time I
drive. I feel the same way about the threat of smallpox.
I don't think it's going to happen. But if it does, I want
to be prepared.

I think you should have a plan of action that you're ready
to take in the event that someone contracts smallpox. If
there's a single case, it won't be an accident. There
haven't been any cases anywhere since 1979, when the
last outbreak was contained with vaccine on a small island
off Bangladesh. If you hear about a confirmed case of
smallpox anywhere in the world, there has definitely been a
bioterror event. And if there's one case, there will be
thousands more. Remember: smallpox is spread through the
air, it is highly contagious and there's a ten-day
incubation period.

If I hear about a single case of smallpox, I'll immediately
get in my car and drive to my family's remote mountain
retreat. There's plenty of food and water there and very
few other human beings nearby. I'll treat every other
person I meet along the way as if they are infected,
because they might be. I'll wear a surgical mask and
goggles if I must go out in public and I'll make anyone who
joins me at the mountain house wear the same for a ten-day
period.

If I were you, I would buy a surgical mask and keep it
nearby. I'd keep a large supply of fresh water and plenty
of canned food on hand. If there's an outbreak of smallpox,
it will mostly likely be a global catastrophe. It will
spread beyond the U.S. And it will take several months for
vaccines to become available, if not much longer. It's
impossible to estimate how many people could die. And,
because there isn't nearly enough vaccine available
anywhere in the world, there's only one way for you to
protect yourself: make sure that you don't breathe any of
the virus into your mouth and make sure that none gets in
your eyes.

One final note: please don't take this warning as my
prediction. I don't know if smallpox will ever appear on
the earth again. I certainly hope it doesn't. But I think
you are better off understanding the real risk of bioterror
than not.

With my best regards,

Porter Stansberry

Hello all.

Please forgive the mailbox clutter, but since this letter has been sent
out already I wanted to respond to soothe some nerves a bit.

Yes, I read the letter, and I became frightened. Terrified even. Then I
did some research, and it's not that bad. The two main points I read that
were heartening were

1) Smallpox is most infectious when the patient is so sick that he is
bedridden anyway, thus most infection is spread to the family not to the
world at large. If the person next to you looks normal, you're not going
to get smallpox from that person.

2) Fatality rates for the most severe form of smallpox were only about
30%. So worst case, the world gets infected, you get infected, you still
have a 2/3 chance of surviving. Still beats nuclear war if you live near
a major city (remember when that was the main threat?).

So is smallpox a big deal? Yeah. Should the government be working on
getting vaccinations going again ASAP? Yeah, I think so. In the absolute
worst case scenario, though, you'll probably be okay.

But don't take my word for it. I got this from the Journal of the
American Medical Association. Read up on it yourself:

http://jama.ama-assn.org/issues/v281n22/ffull/jst90000.html

Take care,
--Justin