Pundita

The next post will be Tuesday, September 6 at 9:00 AM, EDT.

Best regards to all,
Pundita

"Pundita:
I've been reading your blog for more than a half year. A lot of the things you said came together for me last night as I realized we're facing the possible loss of New Orleans.

Pork barrel politics and wars between Democrats and Republicans about ideological issues took up a lot of energy and diverted attention and resources from fixing critical structural problems in cities and regions across America. Then around 2000 events started forcing Americans to deal with situations that we put off dealing with for decades, such as our aged electrical grid system, the policy on handling forest fires, the illegal immigrant situation, vulnerability of port cities to hurricanes and other natural disasters, our aged [oil] refinery system, the list goes on.

I think you looked at those situations as a whole and saw the end of an era approaching. That explains your tough line about development and aid policies and in general policy toward developing countries. You've been warning that other countries shouldn't assume that America's level of assistance over the past half century will remain the same.

My question is whether you think the government and the public will see the Katrina disaster as an interruption or a wake-up call, once the immediate crisis has passed.
Tom in Sioux City"

Dear Tom:
The "wakeup call" stage is long past; that stage came with Hurricane Andrew. At this moment the CEOs of US oil and refinery companies would prefer to face the entire remnants of al Qaeda rather than meet one insurance claims adjuster in a dark alley. CEOs at Lockheed and all other major corporations in the New Orleans area share the same preference.

This is what's known as increasing the R&D budget at the point of a gun. This is America, not Bangladesh. So 25% of a major US industry shouldn't be shot to hell for weeks because of a storm. A key American city shouldn't be 80% flooded within 24 hours of a storm and with no immediate way to deal with rising waters.

The only question now is whether to rebuild or move New Orleans. If they want to rebuild, Louisiana has to spend megabucks on existing technologies or ask for new ones, if they want to perch a key American city below sea level between a river and a lake in a hurricane alley.

If they don't have the bucks -- either the federal government pulls a rabbit out of the hat or New Orleans is removed from the map.

I think the American public understands that -- or they will, by the end of this week.

Regarding your comments, I hope I haven't given the impression that I see America tottering to the poorhouse. This is an incredibly powerful, wealthy and vital nation. Yet our level of assistance to other countries waxes and wanes according to our domestic needs and foreign policy emphasis. That's a self-evident fact many countries have come to ignore. They need to pay attention to the fact.

I don't see the line I'm taking as tough; I'm just squarely confronting realities and urging others to do the same. American aid and development policies were not overhauled when the Cold War ended, just as US defense policy was not overhauled until 9/11 forced a review. It's past time for the overhaul.

After a day spent praying, and a night spent studying the precarious situation of New Orleans....I think I'd rather plow through a week's worth of reports on pig disease, rather than wade through another explanation about why more hasn't been done to secure New Orleans against a direct hit from a big hurricane.

I have a bad feeling that all the explanations boil down to a statistic: since recordkeeping began in 1886, only two Category 5 hurricanes have made landfall in the United States of America.

However, Katrina didn't form off Africa or somewhere in Asia. It formed very close, very fast -- fed by record warm waters in the Gulf. That does not seem to be a blip; all the world's waters are now warmer. Warm waters help create powerful hurricanes.

Given the region's importance to the nation and global trade, should the federal government designate funds to rebuild/reinforce Big Easy?

The guest expert on Chris Core's show last night said the problem is that there are several important US cities perched precariously near water in hurricane alleys and all of those cities need modernization. However, New Orleans is the most precarious....

Pundita doesn't know what the answer is. One thing I know for certain: The people of New Orleans need to find the answer and act on it as quickly as possible.

I can't anymore click my tongue at the bad building codes and shoddy building practices in earthquake-prone regions in "developing" countries, not after learning what I did about the situation in New Orleans. From Miami Herald

[...] "There's a lot of older homes [in New Orleans that can't sustain winds higher than 85 mph], most of these homes are below sea level, most of these homes are termite-ridden," said Capt. Lou Robinson, a training instructor with the City of New Orleans Fire Department.

"The newer homes, construction-wise, they just meet minimum requirements. You know, just for cost-effectiveness, they scrimp. The roofs are manufactured with trusses or lightweight metal, but they just don't hold up under extreme conditions." [...]

The prevalent hurricane code in Louisiana has been what engineers consider the bare minimum -- that buildings be designed to withstand 100-mph winds.

In 2004, Louisiana approved a higher standard comparable to post-Andrew codes in Miami-Dade and Broward counties, the highest in Florida -- that buildings stand up to gusts of 146 mph.

But the legislature didn't require localities to adopt the new standard. New Orleans and Baton Rouge did, but many local communities have codes that haven't been updated in 10 or 15 years, LSU's Levitan said.

And, he added, the local building industry seems reluctant to adopt hurricane-resistant windows or shutters, which are now required for new construction in Broward and Miami-Dade. Levitan, for instance, is building a wood-framed home, but when his contractor told him he didn't need hurricane straps, he installed them himself.

In any case, New Orleans has seen little new development since adopting the new codes, meaning that most of its structures at best meet the inadequate old standard -- certainly no match for Katrina. And many of those are aging or have been damaged by a Formosan termite infestation.

Worst-case scenario? The city could lose half its homes, Robinson said. [...]

All day yesterday, while I was praying, the old saying kept coming to mind: "Pray, but row away from the rocks."

Once again, Pundita must rip herself away from reports about China's pig disease; this time to snap at Dave Schuler. Readers who have trouble following might want to stop at Dave's blog first and read his August 24 entry What's a credible source?"

Dear Pundita:
You might be interested in some of the items in the Strategy Page Prediction Market, particularly the avian flu items:

http://www.strategypage.com/
prediction_market/default.asp

Not dispositive, of course, but interesting.

Hope all is well and that you are happy, well, and resting.

Dave Schuler
The Glittering Eye
http://www.theglitteringeye.com

Dear Dave:
No of course we're not interested in a lame attempt at psyops. And how can Pundita be "happy, well and resting" when a loyal reader and contributor to this blog tries to discover what it's like to have cheese tostitos for brains? We all fall prey to these urges on occasion but we need to banish them before publishing to a blog. Do you not realize I stake my reputation on the intelligence of my readers? How could you do this to Pundita?

There is an easy way to gauge the weight of Chi's speech if you know that he's a has-been but in case I'm talking to cheese tostitos at the moment we'll break this into easy steps.

First, Chi Haotian is not China's defense minister. So you worked yourself into a dither for nothing. General Cao Gangchuan is China's defense minister, and has been since 2003 when he nudged out Chi, who is in Jiang Zemin's faction. This would be the same Jiang Zemin who was shoved out of the chairmanship of the Central Military Committee by none other than the same General Cao.

You would know these things if you paid attention to Pundita's entreaties to her readers to click on the link I have provided at least twice, and which was featured in the very first post I made on this blog and most recently in the Strange Days in China... essay.

This is the link to the November 2004 Epoch Times article that dishes the gossip on why Jiang left the CMC early. The gist -- that the power struggle in the top tier of the CCP pits a well educated cadre against a less educated one -- can be verified independently of ET's article.

I present again that blasted Epoch Times article on the real story of why Jiang Zemin decamped earlier than he'd planned. As I have done before, I urge anyone who wants a clue as to what's going on in China to read the article with full attention.

I interject that once you digest the writing and dig into the situations it refers to, you'll appreciate why so many have tried so hard during the past year to thoroughly discredit The Epoch Times. The bastion of objective reporting they ain't. But the bar is so low today that this is not an indictment, only a caution. ET can provide valuable insights into doings in China if you know how to read the paper.

http://english.epochtimes.com/
news/4-11-12/24330.html

It is well established that a changing of the guard took place in China in 2003, and that the change brought in a younger, well-educated, more 'modern-thinking' group, which includes Cao. It was really only a matter of time before the new guard shoved out the rest of Jiang Zemin's faction -- and Jiang himself.

I interject that the above hardly conveys the bitterness of the struggle and the certain fact that Jiang and his faction have not gone quietly into the night.

If you ask why, then, the Epoch Times describes Chi as defense minister in the introduction to the speech that initially angered you -- Ouija is in a snit just because I asked for the next winning Powerball lottery numbers. So I must fall back on guessing.

I'd say it's likely that the wrong description is a translator's oversight. I say this first because ET was careful to point out that Chi is the former defense minister in the background to the earlier speech of Chi's they recently published.

And second because ET's readership is presumed apprised enough about China's affairs to know that Chi is the former defense minister. Thus, I doubt ET was trying to get one over, in this case.

If you ask, 'Then presuming Chi actually gave the speech, why would ET give so much space recently to the scaremongering of a has-been?' -- now we come to the fun part. (This would be fun only for readers who have heroically slogged through every single post I've written on the "China pig disease" reports.)

It so happens that The Epoch Times published Chi's alleged biowar statements exactly one week after publishing an article about a reported Ebola virus outbreak in China. This is the August 1 article which quotes liberally from the Wong/Wang Boxun interview, and which mentions a March 25 ET story that discusses a report of an Ebola outbreak in February in Guangdong province.

The August 1 article is very clearly ET's way of disputing China's official explanation of strep suis as the cause of the "pig disease."

The question is how far they were willing to run with Wong's claim. So it was not so much what Chi reportedly said about biowar that merited a footnote in one of my posts about pig disease (the one in which you found the link to Chi's alleged speech). I wanted readers to note the timing of ET's publication of the Chi speech -- again, one week after the Ebola virus outbreak story.

Specifically, the question is whether ET's decision to publish the Chi speech in question relates to the ET August 1 article; i.e., whether ET was insinuating that the scary virus/bacteria combo Wong claimed to be the real cause of pig disease is actually a bioweapon.

Because ET knows that General Chi is a has-been and that his entire faction has lost power in China's military and top CCP leadership, my guess would be "yes."

As to whether this guess means I think there could be such a bioweapon -- there is still not a shred of evidence to support Wong's claim. That China has developed, bought and/or stolen bioweapons, I have no doubt. Yet to assume a link between this and the pig disease outbreak would be ridiculous because we don't have reliable data on the outbreak. Indeed, we don't even know whether the outbreak is a disease or a case of poisoning.

Next: You reported to your readers that you tried to learn whether Chi actually gave the speech in question. You expressed frustration at meeting a blank wall. In such cases one has to fall back on contextual analysis, not textual analysis. In figurative terms, you need to ditch the microscope and pick up a wide angle lens.

Chi's statements are consistent with the general tone of Unrestricted Warfare, which won praise from Jiang Zemin, and with the statements of superhawks who are connected with Jiang's faction in the military.

However, no one in China's military who has clearance to talk about China's war scenarios would make such statements. So if General Chi got away with making that speech, you can bet General Cao had a reason for letting Chi run off at the mouth.

Now because that particular over-the-top speech is quite recent, Pundita would place a small bet that the real target is Japan. China has not quite gotten to the saber rattling stage but recent statements suggest they are trying to Gaslight Japan.

(For readers who are unfamiliar with the reference: the movie Gaslight, which features Charles Boyer's character spooking Ingrid Bergman out of her wits.)

Whether or not the words were delivered by General Chi, there must be at least a grain of truth in them, just from what we know about contingency war planning. However, the most striking -- indeed, astounding -- part of General Chi's alleged speech is the starkly accurate depiction of China's environmental problems. The description is not one you'll find in the travel guides and it is a damning indictment of the Chinese Communist Party's long rule.

So I'd say that if anything the text of the speech is a window on the disenchantment in China with the CCP and the anger that has built among Chinese about foreign and domestic companies that are ruining the land.

I interject that the latter is a theme that has become dear to the heart of Jiang Zemin and his followers since losing power. They are trying to align themselves with the rural Chinese who have suffered most from pollution, deforestation, etc., brought on by rapid widescale industrialization.

Indeed, the biowar horror story that Chi's speech spins can be read as saying that if China doesn't reverse course the land will be so poisoned, so denuded of vegetation, so uninhabitable, the Chinese will have no choice but to invade another land. From that angle, he sounds as much a foaming Green as a Dr. Strangelove.

Next, if you had read Pundita posts About Boxun and the Epoch Times vs Xinhua News Agency, you could have spared yourself research time. However, there's a key you need, if you're trying to gauge the usefulness of Epoch Times articles. Pundita is trying to take some vacation time this coming week but I'll write up a post about the key as soon as possible.

For now, I'll observe that those who closely followed the 2002-2004 phase of the Beltway Wars, which flooded the major media with leaks, counter-leaks and "inside information," developed a rule of thumb:

If the news report has anything remotely to do with Washington, the first question to ask is, "You're telling me this because?"

These days, it is often the timing of a report's publication that is the first thing you want to note and try to analyze.

Do you remember when you wrote me about the Time cover issue that published excerpts from Jeffrey Sachs' latest book? Remember I warned that this had to be seen within the context of Sachs' consulting work for Kofi Annan and the upcoming G8 Summit, which was still months away at the time. Looking back on the weeks running up to Gleneagles, do you see why I gave that warning?

So while the rule of thumb is not a crystal ball, it will help you put innumerable headline stories in proper context. That provides a kind of guidewire while maneuvering through disinformation, misinformation, shaping, shading, smoke, omissions and lies.

This, from a battle-scarred veteran of fishing teeny bits of reliable data out of the flood of leaks that characterized the height of the Beltway Wars.

Finally, and if you'll pardon my being instructive, I've observed before on this blog that you have a....how shall we term it....a side of yourself that pops out on occasion. You won't allow yourself to arrive at a good point without first thrashing through brambles.

Your quest to line up ways to vet sources is a noble one and there must be more work done in this area. As soon as I have time I will check out the source-checkers you noted in your post.

But speaking quite frankly, the days are gone when one can complacently lean on a particular source(s) for guidance, no matter how authoritative the source. The best guide is to learn to automatically switch into a thinking mode that is one part intelligence analyst and one part bunko squad detective.

A seasoned cop or prosecuting attorney can tell you that there are many ways for a witness to shade the truth until it becomes a useful lie. What's harder to twist out of shape is the simple fact that people have a motive for providing information at a certain time and in a certain way. This observation holds as true for The New York Times editorial board (and the one at The Epoch Times) as it does for a police informant.

So again, whenever you're wondering how much or what to believe, it helps to start the investigation by thinking, "You're telling me this because?" And try to find a ballpark answer before proceeding.

If you don't like trying to think in the manner of a police detective or intelligence analyst when you study an important news report -- these are the times we live in, Dave. To improve standards in a profession that doesn't want to police itself (there is no accreditation for professional reporters) requires the news consuming public to become more alert about the way data can be manipulated. Speaking of which, now it is time for Pundita to return to reports about pig disease.

"Pundita:
Re Liz's comments about the limits of speculation in your August 21 and 22 posts. Does she get that national defense is not lab bench science or courtroom law? I think she's failing to see the difference between speculation and going outside a narrow area of speculation in order to understand why a situation has arisen.

I keep remembering your mention of the software program that Paul Wolfowitz used after 9/11 to assess the terrorist threat. The program analyzed data that went beyond the narrow set of questions that the intelligence community used to assess the threat. Once this was done, the true nature and scope of the threat became obvious.

One of your essays brought out that for decades the same blind spot was there when assessing the threat from China. Every year the Congress and the White House asked the Pentagon to asses the threat by analyzing China's military readiness in terms of classic military measurements. They never took into account the kind of strategies that are discussed in "Unrestricted Warfare."

My point is that just because there is no hard data served up on a plate you can't give up trying investigate, when it's a matter of life and death. The effort would include trying analyze statements about a situation. That's what we've been doing with the pig disease scare in China.

You can try to limit your own speculation about the statements but no matter how speculative or outlandish the statements under consideration, the statements have to be analyzed, particularly when that is all you have to go on. If I've learned nothing else from following your blog, that much has been drilled into me.
Jan in Reston"

Dear Jan:
"Liz" is a pen name; the reader behind the name has shared some of her credentials with Pundita. From that, I think I can say with assurance that Liz understands very well the points you've made and would agree with them.

With regard to the pig illness, those who have taken up discussion outside this blog have not done what you suggest. Instead, they stayed within their own little realm of knowledge, then spun speculations to the sky -- without even a smidgen of reliable data from which to launch!

My reading of Liz's comments is that this is just the type of speculation she drew a bead on; I think she's right to consider this dangerous when it finds a public platform. Perhaps the greatest danger is that it keeps attention glued to one spot, so that other ways of looking at a situation are hidden in plain sight.

The truth is that a microbiologist got hold of the China pig illness story early on, and from there shaped the public view and examination of the illness. That's a classic situation, well told in the tale of The Emperor's New Clothes.

However, what we know of the symptoms, the suddenness of their onset and the rapidity of death point first not to an infectious disease but to a case of poisoning. But Henry Niman's specialized knowledge told him that the symptoms could only mean a mutated strain of Ebola virus had combined with a mutated highly lethal form of Avian Flu virus.

I guess he is so focused on chasing down resortments of the A(H) virus that it never occurred to him how useful China's government would find his speculations, if they were trying to stew red herring. They would be highly motivated, once they realized that no one with a half a brain was buying the strep suis diagnosis. Yet given the nature of the symptoms, it would be hard to lead speculation away from poisoning -- unless they could perform a sleight of hand.

If that was their intention they pulled it off in the Dr. Wong/Wang interview published on Boxun. By gum Wong managed to go Niman one better: not only was the mystery pig ailment a case of Ebola, it was also a case Bubonic Plague mixed with some kind of virus too strange to name.

Pundita has a treat for new readers! I have rooted in the Golden Oldie file to bring you this essay!

Translation: The source who promised to get data to me by 10:00 AM at latest has not delivered, which means today's planned essay is not ready for publication.

Dr. Ernie, I hope you see this essay. The ultimate point I make is that it's just a bunch of people, whether they reside on the other side of the globe or right here in the USA. To never lose sight of that fact is to always have a bridge that is much stronger than academic analysis and policy and development language.

We might not always be 'right' in how we try to deal with the problems of the developing world, but the bridge allows us to keep refining communications.

So it is for dealing with misunderstandings that arise between neighbors, co-workers and family members, and so it is for "foreign" relations and development strategies.

I hate to break the news to those who cling to hope, but nobody on this earth is from another planet. That means we all have much in common.
* * * * *
April 10
An excellent account of the Kargil War and the larger Pakistan-India conflict is found in Pakistan: Eye of the Storm . The author, Owen Bennett Jones, was educated at the London School of Economics and Oxford University. He was the BBC correspondent in Pakistan between 1998 and 2001 and saw firsthand many of the events that brought Pakistan's President Pervez Musharraf to power.

Read the book to understand the importance for India, Pakistan, and the war on terror of two historic bus rides taken April 7 by 49 courageous Indians and Pakistanis.

Few Americans excepting those with Indian or Pakistani heritage know about the Kargil War and the conditions that led to it. Yet the war, and the escalating terrorism in Kashmir during that era, could be described as the dredges thrown up by the US decision to abandon Pakistan after the Soviets withdrew from Afghanistan. After helping to arm and prop up thugs, after training Pak and Afghan tribes and Middle Eastern Wahabists in aystemmetric warfare, the US turned its back on simmering hell.

For that reason the Kargil War should be viewed as a case study--or a morality tale, if you will--on the inherent limitations in the Cold War containment doctrine.

I remember the Kashmir region from a few years before the Kargil War. Even then, signs of escalating conflict were evident; I arrived in Srinagar to the sound of exchanged gunfire between police and a separatist group. But out on Dal Lake, strolling in the rose gardens built on houseboats, watching Kashmiri Muslim and Hindu children playing together, it was unthinkable that in a few years the region would be drenched in blood.

I remember Kargil from an overnight stop on a bus journey. I will burden the reader with a traveler's tale because it aptly illustrates a mistake the US government repeatedly makes.

BKW--Before the Kargil War--Pundita stupidly agreed to help nursemaid a group of cantankerous older Americans who had never been in India before, but who decided that instead of doing something intelligent for an American first-time visitor, they would travel from New Delhi to Leh, Ladakh.

The way the trip went, they would ask Pundita for advice, then do whatever they decided amongst themselves, which was the opposite of what Pundita advised. This included taking the bus route from Delhi to Leh instead of flying, on the argument that having camped in Yellowstone National Park they knew about roughing it.

That is how Pundita came to be sitting in a restaurant in Kargil at 8 o'clock at night, studying a menu that had several pages. There were German dishes, French dishes, Chinese dishes, American dishes--in short, food from every place around the world that famished foreign tourists landing in Kargil at 8 o'clock at night would love to eat.

During the tourist season, which even BKW was short because of rock avalanches falling onto the bus route, Indian troop maneuvers, bands of brigands, and snow-blocked mountain passes, Kargil is a stopover for the really fun next leg of the route. BKW, before the Indian military widened the road, was the leg about which one tour book advised consuming LSD to help stay calm if you were crazy enough to make the journey.

Much of the road through the mountains was not built for two-way bus and truck traffic but for single file one-way military jeep traffic. But in those days, the road saw heavy two-way traffic from tour buses and truck drivers going at fast speed. You could look out the window on a hairpin turn and see the truck that had just gone over the cliff, its wheels still spinning. Outside a hot war zone it was the world's most dangerous bus journey.

As for Kargil (see military map), there is a curse in northern India: "May you be reborn in Kargil." Kargil, post-British Colonial era, was reminiscent of the outpost town in Star Wars. A smugglers' route that became a hub for truckers delivering to Indian military dug in around the Line of Dispute with Pakistan. Then came the foreign tourists passing through on their way to trekking and visiting Buddhist sites in Himalayan regions.

The cavernous restaurant, large enough to hold more than a hundred, was packed with hungry, sleepy and jangled tourists from all over the globe who had spilled from buses.

Everyone at our table turned expectantly to me for advice after happily studying the menu. I knew it was useless but it was my duty to try. "Even if two cooks laboring over four kerosene stoves could produce coq a vin, lasagne, moo goo gai pan, filet mignon and fried chicken, look around you. You'll be here until 2:00 AM waiting for the orders to arrive and we have to get up at 4:00 AM."

After conferring among themselves, they put in their orders for their favorite food from the menu. "And what will you be having, Madam?" inquired the waiter.

"Whatever the cooks had for their dinner tonight."

Twenty minutes later my rice, dal and chapatis arrived. Two at the table--a Scottish couple who'd attached themselves to our group--grabbed the waiter and switched their order from fettuccine Alfredo to rice and dal.

An hour later, after the Scots polished off their dinner and the three of us ordered another round of beer, a division broke out in the ranks of the starving. One by one, they ran after the waiter and changed their orders to rice and dal. The lone holdout quavered with tears welling, "I want my egg drop soup."

Far from home in a land very foreign, hungry, exhausted, finally realizing he'd embarked on a journey he might reasonably not survive, he wanted comfort food.

Pundita found the waiter and explained the situation. Moments later he arrived at the table with a steaming bowl of dal watered down to the consistency of thin soup. Then, with a flourish, he produced a peeled hard-boiled egg and dropped it in the soup.

I'm not saying a couple master chefs can't do wonders with a few kerosene stoves and cooking pots, but the other Westerners at the table were lulled by their expectations into assuming that the kitchen staff and accouterments matched the menu offerings.

That, in one sentence, is the type of mistake behind much that goes wrong with US policy toward governments in less-developed countries. Such governments have learned to project the trappings of modernized administration but are in truth a long way from modern and informed.

A recent illustration is the US diplomatic blow-up with Russia. US administration officials were stunned to learn that Vladimir Putin assumed that President Bush had fired Dan Rather because of Rather's one-sided examination of Bush's service record in the National Guard.

One official commented that the US really must start building contacts within the Russian government, in order to learn exactly how much the Russian government knew about American democratic administration.

Gee whiz, what a brilliant idea. Better late than never, but it's a little late in the day for the American government to broaden their sources on the Russian government from a few oligarchs, foreign lobbies, business executives and policy institutes. A little earlier would have averted a foreign relations meltdown.

Pundita did not have a crystal ball with her when she entered the restaurant in Kargil. But before I joined the others at the table I stopped off to inspect the kitchen. US Department of State please take note: this exercise did not require spies, satellite technology, or trained foreign service officers. All it required was the decision to stop, look, and listen.

For more comments on the book by Owen Bennett Jones, see Yale University Press page:

http://yalepress.yale.edu/yupbooks/
Viewbook.asp?isbn=0300101473

"The sudden onset of symptoms sounds a lot like poison, but how on earth would the pig stay alive long enough for enough poison to reach the meat to pose a problem for humans?

One reason poison bait is restricted here in the US is that other animals die from eating the intestines of poisoned animals, not from eating the meat. You might be able to cross check with someone in animal control or the USDA.

A Google search on "animal control" trapping poison suggests Australia and New Zealand have the most current knowledge of the effects of poison on pigs.

A second problem is the weird distribution. That would have to be the result of humans moving products (such as hog feed or building materials), and I don't think there's all that much of that in China?

Yet the little I've heard does not sound exactly right for a disease, either. Less wrong, but not "right".

Cursed CYA politicians. [*]
[anonymous reader]"

Dear Reader:
I am not sure what you mean by "weird distribution" or "humans moving products." If you're asking how a poison could have traveled so quickly from village to village in Sichuan, I am afraid that's probably not a mystery. Reportedly several of the ill pigs did not die from illness or slaughtering. They died from drowning.

There are accounts that villagers threw sick pigs in rivers. Enterprising villagers downstream fished the drowned pigs from the rivers and sold them at markets, where individual customers and pork processors bought them. See this report for details:

http://english.epochtimes.com/
news/5-8-1/31051.html

Of course we have to consider the sources in the report. But I think throwing ill livestock in rivers to get rid of them has been done all over the world since anyone can remember, and surely the practice still exists in less developed regions. So I think the gist of the report rings true.

And butchering the pigs would have meant splattering blood. If the pigs were alarmingly sick -- those villagers know enough to fear getting contaminated by blood. It makes sense that many would have simply panicked and thrown the ill pigs in the river.

If so, that's possibly how the illness spread so fast in Sichuan: it floated down rivers.

With regard to your other question, keep in mind that Dr. Wong maintains the onset is not sudden, which pits his medical opinion against several reports. In any case, we don't know how long the pigs stayed alive after being infected (or poisoned). All we know is an anecdotal report that pigs were foaming at the mouth prior to slaughtering.

Other reports seem to suggest that the villagers who slaughtered ill pigs didn't realize the pigs were ill until they got sick from eating the pig meat. That suggests at least some of the ill pigs didn't immediately keel from illness or show obvious symptoms.

As to how poison could travel in the pig's body -- it would be important to take into account the question; however, your question skips a few steps.

First, find every published account of symptoms and circumstances pertaining to the onset in humans and pigs. Only then would it be possible to develop a tentative list of the kind of poison material that could produce the same symptoms.

Only after those preliminary steps would another step be to ask how quickly such poisons could be absorbed into a pig's blood stream and whether they could likely permeate the pig flesh sold for human consumption.

I will observe that there have been reports of villagers thoroughly cooking (i.e., boiling) pig meat from "infected" pigs before eating it and still getting sick. Yet these accounts describe that the same villagers slaughtered the infected pig, which they later boiled and ate. So they could have gotten sick from exposure to contaminated blood, not from consuming the boiled pig flesh.

But such an observation is one factoid in a data puzzle. We can't do anything with the fact; we have nowhere to fit it. So we have to throw it on the piles of factoids and anecdotal accounts, where it will sit until we get hard data.

And we have to hope that US intelligence agencies and the CDC are doing the kind of stepwise investigation I've outlined and keeping an open mind during the process. Because there is another way the "pig disease" could have appeared as if by magic around the same time in different parts of Sichuan.

[*] Pundita's search at Google turned up several possibilities for the CYA acronym. Yet in the context of the reader's observations I think we can safely exclude "Chinese Yacht Association" and settle on the colorful insult.

"Hi, Pundita:
I've been seeing a lot of press about the U.N. millennium challenge. I realize you're insanely busy, but whenever you have a moment I'd be interested in seeing your take on this approach:

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.
cgi?file=/c/a/2005/05/08/MNGLBCLRVP1.DTL

Sachs says the 1.1 billion people who currently live in extreme poverty - - defined as living on $1 a day or less -- would escape their misery by 2025 if only the U.S. government could be convinced that crime and terrorism feed on poverty and that the best route to national security would be to cut off this nourishment.

Best wishes, Dr. Ernie"

"I have made my position very clear on this issue in many posts (kindly see Pundita sidebar -- Pundita Essays by Theme -- or type in keywords (e.g., poverty, Africa, India, Sachs, etc., etc.) on Pundita search engine to pull up a list of posts that treat the issue).
Pundita"

"Pundita:
Ah, thanks. My browser does a lousy job of rendering your site, so I have a hard time seeing those articles; I apologize for the stupid question.

If I may summarize, it sounds like your position is that poverty is primarily structural, so we need to force or incentivize systemic change if we really want to cure poverty.

That would imply ground-level bottom-up assistance a la Sachs is better than top-down projects that breed corruption, but since [the former] still rely on handouts that would reinforce crippling paternalistic stereotypes.

Is that a fair characterization?
Dr. Ernie"

"Dear Dr. Ernie:
What makes Sachs or you assume that "ground level" projects don't breed corruption? The World Bank once funded a micro project to give high-tech stoves to villagers so the villagers wouldn't have to walk miles to obtain firewood for cooking. When they went back to check on the progress of the project, the Bank discovered that the slickest in the village had snapped up the free stoves then rented them to the other villagers.

Yet are we talking about the same Sachs? Forgive the question but I did not click on the link you provided. This is because my blood pressure is already elevated. This is due to giving up my vacation because people in the media, public health sector and medical/biomedical fields decided the best way to research reports on "pig disease" in China is to play Pin the Tail on the Donkey, with the fallback research method of studying the arrangement of dregs in the bottom of their coffee cup.

If you are referring to Jeffrey Sachs, I think his detractors might agree with the characterization that he is the Dr. Strangelove of development economics. And if one wanted to be truly unkind, one might describe him as a consultant to Kofi Annan, which I believe he is, when I last heard.

It's a vain hope, but Pundita is hoping that Mr. Annan will be fired from his job so that both he and his son hopefully face criminal charges in the coming year. That, I might add, would be infinitely kinder than turning them over to the Iraqi people with the recommendation that they be tried along with Saddam Hussein and Chemical Ali.

Mr. Sachs has a history, Dr. Ernie. He has a history of taking a blitzkrieg approach to solving the problems of people in poor countries. That approach pays no mind to the horrific consequences that occur when one treats large numbers of people like game pieces on a chess board.

So if by "ground-level bottom-up" assistance you mean financing microprojects à la Aga Khan Foundation or Grameen Bank, in a pig's eye -- pardon -- will Jeffrey Sachs support the small-is-beautiful approach. He might say he supports it, but his history suggests that what he means is now everybody must do microprojects or face a firing squad.

Sachs aside, it is not by any one way that the world's poorest nations got into their predicament. Thus, it is not by any one way that they extricate themselves. To help them do this takes a variety of approaches, administered on a case-by-case basis, as I indicated in my "Africa who?" essay.

This said, during the past half century there have been recurring patterns in the administrations that have presided over the world's poorest nations. And there are recurring patterns in how the richest countries (via outright aid and via the World Bank, IMF, ADB, etc.) have sought to solve these problems.

There have been great successes on both sides. However, there is also a pattern of catastrophic failures. So the question is the extent to which the rich countries can and should continue to intervene.

In other words, should the developed countries continue to take a "paternalistic" approach? Or should they take the position that no matter how poor an adult is, he's still an adult and thus he should act like one?

I've heard excuses from heads of state that are straight out of the Two-year Old's Manual of Manipulating the Big People. Many if not virtually all well-informed people in those poor countries are aware of these flimsy excuses and their implications.

Indeed, on the eve of the Gleneagles G8 meeting, an African economist pleaded to the world's development nations, "For God's sake, stop the aid to Africa!"

I wouldn't go that far but his point is well taken. It's gone beyond swallowing obvious lies. In many cases we have been actively encouraging criminal and even fiendish behavior.

Just one example among countless of where this has led: After that meth lab explosion, or whatever it was that horribly burned several North Koreans, Kim Jong-il demanded that color television sets be included in the emergency aid package. How does a national leader get to that point? Only after years of being encouraged to arrive there.

From what I have read of his mission to save the world's poorest, Jeffrey Sachs and the crew he represents are making a specious argument. They're implying that there is a cause-and-effect connection between poverty and crime/terrorism. Or as the quote you provided puts it, crime and terrorism "feed" on poverty.

That argument grossly insults human beings and it completely ignores character, not to mention facts on the ground. Many if not most of the world's poorest refuse to engage in crime, or terrorist attacks on civilians, because they believe it's wrong.

And most terrorism today is state-sponsored -- a fact that Kofi Annan and the lice he's spent years covering for at the UN know very well.

As for crime: the world's transnational crime syndicates arose out of a faction(s) in a government and/or were outright started by a government or receive tremendous support from a government.

Who do you think runs the Russian mobs? Potato farmers? The bosses are ex-Soviet military, ex-KGB and from other elements in the Soviet government. Who do you think runs China's crime syndicates? And Japan's? Go on down the list. These people are not the world's downtrodden.

The governments that sponsor and/or work with TOC and major terror organizations are run by people who have gained vast power and mean to hold onto it. Yet when you start digging into how they got all that power, in many cases the trail leads straight to government policies of the richest counties.

Thus, helping the poor in a way that doesn't line the pockets of thugs takes great creativity and great attention to the projects. Above all, it requires a demand for accountability that is backed up by punitive measures.

If you consider the example I gave about the stoves, it's easy to think of ways that could have avoided the situation. They shouldn't have given the stoves; they should have set up a program to rent them, with the proceeds to be spent on improvements for the village.

Even selling the stoves to the villagers wouldn't have worked because they would have turned around and resold them to people who would then rent them out! Double profit, in their mind, and face tomorrow when it comes.

That kind of thinking does not arise from poverty. It arises from no confidence in the long term, which goes hand-in-hand with living under governments that are run by thugs and riddled with corruption.

Also, before we tell others how to clean up their show, we should first get our own show in order. We can start by asking, "What is the real aim of a US-sponsored aid program?"

We need to make a sharp distinction between trying to help a country solve their problems and trying to help them fit into the WTO/globalized trade machine. Because the first is not necessarily the second, when looking for solutions.

A variation of the same tough question should be put to US companies and religious charitable organizations that throw aid money at the poor in the poorest countries. If you've spent billions over decades in bribe money so you can do business or proselytize in a country run by thugs, I don't want to hear that this is the way to help the world's poorest. What it's done is reinforce criminal behavior on the part of governments that take the bribes.

Good programs to help the poor start at home. Pundita has spent years trying to figure how to get parts of Ohio and Pennsylvania declared a Third World country so they can qualify for World Bank development loans. My point is that the best method of correcting others is by setting an example, isn't it so?

This said, the US government has started to wise up. But this unleashes a new set of problems. If the crooks can't flimflam money out of USAID, they'll just go weeping and wailing to a government that would love to stick it to the USA and/or needs a coveted natural resource. That is what happened with Robert Mugabe. When the US told him they weren't going to support his despotism, he got help from China's government.

Speaking of China, now Pundita has to return to matters of pig. It's Rugby, you understand -- or maybe not, if you haven't been reading Pundita for long. I've received at last count 58 emails from him. He suspects foul play against the pigs in Sichuan; no surprise, given his opinion of humans. Yet what would a laboratory rat know about pigs, beyond what he Googles?

Unless he's found a wing in the lab that experiments on pigs. That could mean he's figured out the master code for the security keypads, as he's been boasting for weeks.

Incidentally, Pundita would love to know the name of that lab because I want to drop a line to their suggestion box. In their quest to increase intelligence in rodents they should try to breed the ability to conceive of a Spell-Check computer function.

* * * * * * * * *
Noon Update
From three letters I received in response to today's essay, I should clarify that Guru David was not talking about life-or-death decisions. He created a dramatic metaphor to point out that I had already made a decision about how to proceed. That implied the options were less relevant to me than the time factor -- a point I hadn't noticed until I considered the metaphor.

David was saying, in effect, that actually I must have had a great deal of information, enough to be certain that delaying action was not an option! He was pointing out a common reasoning trap: If we say, "I can't decide but I must decide," that actually represents a decision.

Yet often we're not really looking for more information, as my initial reaction to the metaphor illustrates. We're looking for certainty that a path we choose will be the best one in the final wash. In the decades since that conversation with Guru David, I learned that often such certainty is found only in the heart.
* * * * * * * * *
The following exchange relates to remarks I made in yesterday's post, which include a guest essay by "Liz."

"Pundita:
I would have to agree that in the absence of useful amounts of data, we can only speculate. My concern is a slippery-slope problem: reasoned speculation becomes logical limits speculation (but are my logical limits the same as yours? probably not) which in turn too easily devolves into flights of fancy as ever-more improbable possibilities are explored. [...]"

Dear Liz:
I hope you won't find it rude but I will have to interrupt you because you're overlooking that there is another option: experimenting. The basic idea behind the experiment is that if there is no data you can figure a way to create some.

There are all kinds of experiments, I might add. Counterintelligence can be thought of as an experiment, for instance. You do something, then watch how the enemy responds. The response is data, which often translates to very useful information when viewed against other data.

However, my point was that in time-limited situations that demand a decision, we can neither afford to wait for reliable data or continue speculation.

Guru David once explained it all wonderfully. I told him that I was faced with the need for a decision yet didn't have enough information to decide between two courses of action. After laying out the situation I waited eagerly to hear which course he thought was best.

He answered, "Suppose you're being chased in unfamiliar territory by armed men who are trying to kill you. You come to a blind fork in the road. Which path should you take to save yourself?"

"I don't know," I wailed. "That's why I'm asking you."

"Let's go through this again. If the armed men catch you, they will kill you. So while you don't know whether one or both paths lead to escape or a dead end, is there anything you do know at that moment?"

The minutes ticked by while I sweated it out. Suddenly: "I know I will be dead if I stay at the fork in the road."

Guru David nodded. "So actually you have four choices, not two, if you must make a decision now."

More minutes. Slowly: "Okay, option A and option B: I don't know which one to take. Option C: I can decide to delay the decision in hopes of getting more information and try to deal with the consequences of the delay as they arise. Option D, I can decide to toss a coin about whether to pursue A or B, then deal with the consequences of my following A or B."

That last observation came out rather sullenly. So often we don't actually want advice. We want a fortune teller.

Perhaps sensing my disappointment David replied, "You'll be including yourself no matter which option you take."

At my blank stare he elaborated, "Everything you are, which includes everything you've learned up to this point in your life, and your character and intelligence."

In a perfect world we shouldn't have to make critical decisions in the face of a blind fork. Yet it can happen in the life of a person or a nation that we delay action so long that we are faced with great unknowns, no matter which course we take. At such times it is less the type of data and more the type of heart that illuminates the path.

Consider the widow in the movie, Places in the Heart. She knew so little about many things. She knew vastly what she needed to do. So much in life comes down not to irrational decisions but to places in the heart, which present a different order of knowledge than can be gained through data collection and experiment.

Is it a "higher" or "better" order of knowledge? It's an order that's always there to fall back on, when speculation leads in circles and there's no fresh data within shouting distance.

Now to continue with your reply:

"[...] Brainstorming can be quite useful, at times. But in the analytical process, a brainstorming mentality -- where uncritical acceptance of any possibility in order to not hinder the free flow of ideas -- is unwise. It is so easy, almost seductively so, to see the worst possibility as the most likely. The outrageous seems outrageously attractive, when the mundane, because it is mundane and so very ordinary, is far more likely. When police investigate a crime, especially a physical crime of violence against a person, the culprit is far more likely to be known to the victim than a total stranger who chose the victim at random.

Accepting the presence of danger in the mundane, of course, is uncomfortable; it means our lives are not as safe as we would like to think. It means, in fact, we have to think, all the time, and take fewer things for granted than we would like. "Home is where the heart is," goes the old saying. I submit it would be more fitting to say "home is where it's safe to let down our guard, to relax because we know there are no imminent threats." Home has smaller horizons than it used to, and I suspect they will shrink some more before they are able to safely grow again.

Donald Rumsfeld, in one of his more-often quoted pithy remarks, distinguished three types of information:

1. things that we know we know
2. things that we know we don't know
3. things that we don't know we don't know

To this list I would add a fourth (if indeed, he didn't -- it's been a while since I heard the news clip):

4. things that we know that ain't so

We need to beware speculation leading us into type 4, as it's the most dangerous of all.
Liz in USA"

I asked regular reader and contributor "Liz" to consider doing a guest essay on a topic of her choice. She responded with a writing that analyzes reporting on the mysterious 'pig illness' and teaches the difference between information and data and qualitative and quantitative data.

Dare I use the expression "hog heaven" to describe my delight at the topic she chose? I hope that news consumers, journalists and intel analysts take notes while reading. They'll be rewarded countless times over for their brain sweat.

Being clear on the differences Liz points out is a kind of magic lamp. The lamp illuminates the murkiest news reports, shines through the thickest smoke blown by officials, and spotlights the exit in a hall of mirrors built from half truths.

This said, there is a flaw in Liz's conclusion. In a world where information has become a powerful weapon, and during the course of a very hot war, we can't always eschew speculation in the face of unreliable or very incomplete data, any more than we can always delay strong action in the face of little knowledge.

What we can do, and what I've demonstrated in a series of recent essays, is to seek data that relates to goal orientation rather than acquistion of knowledge.

Thus, while we don't know much more about the mystery illness than when the story first broke, we now know a great deal about how China's government has responded to the outbreak and how they've chosen to communicate about it. From this we can conclude, at the least:

This makes the third time in two years that China's central authority has lied themselves blue in the face to the American government about a lethal outbreak of illness in Mainland China.

This makes the third time in two years that US congressionals have not called for a formal US protest to China because of Beijing's refusal to share critical health data with the CDC.

This makes the third time in two years that the US Department of State has not issued a ban on travel to China in response to Beijing's refusal to share medical data with the CDC about a lethal illness outbreak in China.

All this suggests a clear action path: at the voting booth, in letters to editors and congressionals, in calls to companies that do business in China, and while shopping for vacation spots and imported items.

For there must be some means to get across that we're not sending our soldiers to battle against suicide bombers only to see our Congress, foreign office and leaders of industry encourage suicidal behavior.

By all means necessary, Beijing and Washington must be brought to understand that there will not be a fourth time.

With that said, I give the floor to Liz.

Data != Information
The above statement is actually a misuse (or perhaps abuse would be the better term) of a numeric operator in the Perl scripting language, but it’s a handy way to make an important point: data does not equal information.*

What difference does it make? Consider the recent many posts from Pundita and others concerning the mysterious deaths in China. Were the deaths caused by a disease or combination of diseases; evolved or old disease? Or by industrial pollution or toxic wastes? Or some combination of the above?

Pundita has reminded us, early and often, not to assume too much from the limited reports we have, especially since later reports, like those from any totalitarian state, are manipulated to serve the purpose of the manipulators (who may or may not be those in power at the moment).

What we have is not information, it’s data, and it’s pretty darned sketchy data, at that.

The difference matters, because it profoundly affects what we ought to do. Data, to use the readily available Merriam-Webster On-line dictionary is:

1 : factual information (as measurements or statistics) used as a basis for reasoning, discussion, or calculation: "the data is plentiful and easily available -- H. A. Gleason, Jr.;" "comprehensive data on economic growth have been published -- N. H. Jacoby."

2 : information output by a sensing device or organ that includes both useful and irrelevant or redundant information and must be processed to be meaningful

3 : information in numerical form that can be digitally transmitted or processed

The term information, on the other hand, is not as crisply defined; it has several meanings, many related to mathematical values in measuring reliability of content. However, we do have one relevant definition:

2 a (1) : knowledge obtained from investigation, study, or instruction.

Information is data that has been analyzed, processed, and/or evaluated for the value of its content. Take ten students’ heights and weights -- data -- and average them, plot them on a graph (weight vs. height); collect more measurements, from more students, and separate by gender. Is that more important than height in predicting weight? Does their age matter?

You can answer those questions when you have sufficient observations, because you can legitimately mathematically manipulate the data -- meaning can be derived from it, turning it into information.

But the process is easy to misuse, just as I misused the Perl operator above, when we’re intellectually a little bit lazy. Here’s an example, all too common, from my early statistical analysis training:

We have all taken surveys which asked us to rate something on a scale, where "value_1" means Disagree Strongly, "value_2" means Disagree, "value_3" means Neither Agree nor Disagree, "value_4" means Agree, and "value_5" means Agree Strongly.**

There’s nothing inherently wrong with the construction of such a survey, though the wording of the statements you’re being asked about has a fundamental effect on how you’ll answer. The problem arises when we attempt to turn the survey data into information.

Suppose I used 1 for "value_1", 2 for "value_2", etc. That does not mean the responses have any numerical value. They cannot legitimately be summed, averaged, or have any other mathematical operation performed on them.

If that seems a little difficult to accept (and it is, initially, for almost everyone) think if it this way: we have a spectrum of colors, generally considered as running red-orange-yellow-green-blue-violet in a longer-to-shorter wavelength progression. I could just as easily have assigned red as "value_1", orange as "value_2", etc., through blue as "value_5" (and I could have used six values had I wanted, just to nicely map to the color spectrum).

How could I sum the responses, or average them, or take a standard deviation of the responses from the mean answer to a particular statement? Could I really say the average response to statement 1 was teal, and the average response to statement 2 was indigo? Where does burnt sienna lie on the scale? Of course, people mathematically manipulate these kind of results all the time, but that doesn’t make it right.

This kind of data is called qualitative, as opposed to quantitative; we know certain characteristics about the observations, but those known characteristics have no mathematical meaning.

Qualitative data may be represented as existing in a given category; you may count the observations in a given category and compare that to the number of observations in another category, but in the end, the data itself is nothing more than a “yes” answer to the question “does this fit in bucket A?”

The doctor asks if you have a headache; the answer is yes or no – it’s a qualitative answer. Your body temperature is quantitative – it’s measurable on a standard scale, with known reference points (which differ slightly, depending on where the observation is taken, orally/axially/anally, for instance).

Because temperature is quantitative data, I can take measurements -- data -- from many patients on admission and report a mean fever, with a standard deviation (a measure of how widely the observations vary from the mean).

With headache, I can only aggregate the observations into yes/no categories, and report how many or what percentage of patients fell into a category. I can’t report how strong or debilitating their headaches were.

The physical and biological sciences (and engineering) emphasize quantitative data, while the social sciences are forced to use qualitative data, since we frown on using humans as experimental subjects.

We have no quantitative data on the mystery deaths in China. We don’t have any source of measurable data, such as blood samples, because the Chinese government has chosen not to provide them to outsiders. We don’t even know how many deaths, much less the mortality rate of all those who experienced the illness.

Nor do we have any means of measuring the effect of intensity of exposure, or the existence of mitigating or exacerbating factors such as age, nutrition, or gum disease. (Open wounds in the mouth can be an entry vector for disease).

In short, we don’t know much of anything. We have some qualitative data: persons were reported to have experienced these symptoms or behaviors, in those conditions. But quantitative data (e.g., How many people infected? How long after exposure did they become ill? What was the extent of exposure?) as reported in the media is sketchy, missing or contradictory.

Nor has data been validated by proper scientific methods (and proper scientific methods may not arrive at the truth quickly every time, but they have a better track record than nonscientific methods).

If we have no quantitative data with which to use the usual methods of medicine (epidemiology, pathology, toxicology, as well as diagnostic tools), can we apply the methods used by the social sciences? After all, we have qualitative data, and that’s what the social sciences have to use.

The answer is essentially “no.” We have a few incidents, but we don’t even know, with any certainty, how many observations we have. We actually know relatively little about the incidents, and not enough to determine the categories into which to place the observations.

For instance if we knew always knew where, with any reliability, we could create a category for proximity to factories known to use certain chemicals, or proximity to animal rendering.

If we knew how many, we could estimate morbidity (how many got sick of the local possible number) as well as mortality. If we knew in all cases about the victims, such as occupation, we could categorize by exposure to possible sources.

But we have very little information of that kind. We know, in fact, very little. And while a little imagination can go a long way in the creative arts, it’s dangerous to make foreign policy based on imagination. It’s dangerous to do nothing based on imagination, too.

So we shouldn’t ban travel to China (foreign policy) and we shouldn’t ignore the problem (do nothing). We should be working to get more and better quality data --data we can legitimately turn into information.

One more thing: Until we have good data, in sufficient quantity to create information, we should refrain from speculation. There’s more than enough of that going around, already.

* Since I’m using strings, I should use “ne” instead of “!=”, which is properly used for numeric rather than string (written language) comparisons -- but it’s more attention-getting this way!

** This kind of answer system is known as a Likert Scale; it’s often misused by amateurs when conducting surveys -- a misuse often coupled with statements constructed to lead the response in a desired direction.

"Pundita:
I've been reading your series on the outbreak of 'pig disease' in China. Your post [on August 19th] got me thinking more and more that the cause for the outbreak may not be as complicated as initially supposed.

I think your suggestion about manufacturing plants, as a possible source of a poisonous substances leading to the outbreak, is a reasonable guess. I did a Google search on the chief symptoms: hemolysis, fever, rapid death.

My specialty (general biochemistry) caused me to suspect compounds which might "uncouple" or "turn off" the mitochondria in cells (cyanide is one and so is dinitrophenol; the former is lethal and the latter can be absorbed through the skin). These compounds would produce high fever and rapid death but not necessarily hemolysis (hemorrhaging). Vomiting is nonspecific so I punted on that. However, cyanide leads to other characteristic symptoms.

Then, I found this link at Emedicine, which addresses poisoning symptoms related to arsenicals; specifically, arsine, which is a derivative of arsenic:

http://www.emedicine.com/emerg/topic920.htm

Arsine compounds seem to fit the bill of the major symptoms you noted. I am not expert in this area by any means; a toxicologist is much more qualified to comment and my information goes back many years to a time when I worked in metabolic biochemistry. But it would seem that most industrial accidents should not cause such rapid death unless the compound is incredibly toxic (as arsenic would be). This is what led me to think of compounds which interfere with, halt or inhibit metabolic respiration (rotenone is one such classic inhibitor and it causes very high fevers as heat is given off as a waste product as I seem to recall).

The EMedicine article indicates that arsine compounds have a dual use. They can be used in certain biowarfare compounds. They are also used in certain industrial processes, such as cleaning semiconductor chips. It would be interesting to learn about the proximity of China's chip processing factories to Sichuan, which has been the main locus of the pig disease outbreak.

While arsine poisoning could be a real possibility, all pools of heavy metals would be possibles. Again, some of these compounds could perhaps derive from dual sources: bioterror research or simple toxic industrial waste. I believe an industrial chemist, given the list of human symptoms (including the rapidity of death), could come up with a list of candidate compounds based on the industry in the region. I think it might be important to discover the level and type of industry in Sichuan and any other provinces that have reported the disease outbreak.

Also, I think it would worthwhile to contact a poison control center to find which industrial compounds produce the symptoms reported with the pig disease. The fact is, the explanation for the illness may be more straightforward than is generally thought. Someone in poison control could perhaps come forward and say, for example, "That sounds like X, or Y!"

Yet it was you who pointed out that China's government may be trying to divert attention from the real cause; perhaps the domestic unrest caused by cases of frank poisoning would be too much to brook?
[Signed] 'Doc,' Ph.D. biochemist in USA"

Dear Doc:
Thank you for your suggestions but I venture you'd agree they are premature without a database on anecdotal accounts of the symptoms. I've been told that poison control centers can be a goldmine of information but we don't yet have good questions to put to them.

And it's too early to focus on heavy metal compounds. It's not for nothing that China is known as Counterfeit, Inc. They do a lot of counterfeiting of pharmaceuticals.

It's setting ourselves up to chase red herring until we have an exhaustive list of reported symptoms along with reported incidences of death and recovery, estimated onset of illness, and so on.

Granted, it would be an incomplete list because China's authorities have repressed accurate data on the number of cases of the mystery disease. That's all the more reason to be very thorough about tracking down published accounts of the symptoms.

Until someone does the ground work of going through medical message boards, Boxun reports and press reports, it's not possible to come up with a good profile of the symptoms to present to a toxicologist or industrial chemist.

However, if someone were intent on throwing sand in Dr. Wong's gears, here would be a shot at it: get a detailed list of all the symptoms of Ebola virus infection, then ring up an industrial chemist and without mentioning Ebola ask, "Got any idea what chemical compound could do this to the human body?"

But even if an industrial chemist came up with an exact match, the most victory you could claim would be sticking it to Wong. That's because the reported pig disease symptoms are not necessarily those of Ebola (or plague), no matter what Wong said.

I harp on the symptom profile because there's no use going from silly to silly. People have been chasing a biomedical explanation for the outbreak and trying to top each other with speculations based on the most tenuous data. Let's not repeat the error by chasing a biochemical explanation with nothing but wisps of data as our steed.

First let's chase down exactly what people recounted about the symptoms they experienced or observed in other people and afflicted swine and chickens.

This said, your observations about the connection between poisoning from arsenic derivatives and the major pig disease symptoms that have been reported by some Chinese are suggestive. Suggestive enough to galvanize Pundita to take a peek on Google. From this, I hate to tell you but it doesn't take a manufacturing process to poison Chinese villagers with arsenic.

There are 200,000+ entries in Google (under "arsenic-China") relating to arsenic poisoning in China in some regions from groundwater laced with arsenic -- and vapors released by arsenic-rich, low-cost coal or "briquettes" used for cooking and heating.

By the way, China is not the only country that has the latter problem; arsenic poisoning from burning cheap coal is endemic in many rural regions of the world. The problem is exacerbated by poor ventilation and faulty stoves, which is the case for rural Chinese.

When it comes to manufacturing in China that deals with arsenic and derivatives, Google shows 103,000 entries for "arsenic manufacturing process China."

According to this 1996 US government report, the United States imports all arsenic metal and compounds and chiefly from China:

http://minerals.usgs.gov/minerals/
pubs/commodity/arsenic/arsenmcs96.pdf

Money says the arsenic imports from China have increased since 1996 and that other developed nations import most of their arsenic compounds from China. The article notes, "In August, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) proposed treatment standards for the land disposal of wastes from wood preserving operations..." which use arsenic compounds.

So I think you'd hardly know where to start, if you wanted to find foreign and domestic companies in China that are involved in some aspect of arsenic compound manufacture.

As to whether any of these are located in Sichuan, Pundita doesn't know. I spent all of four minutes reading through the China arsenic entries at Google. Even those minutes were terribly depressing. And these are just entries about arsenic poisoning; let's not talk about entries with regard to plants in China using benzine, mercury and other poisons.

The US got rid of many of those manufacturing processes; surely the same happened in West Europe. Now we know where many of those plants went: to China. It's NIMBY: Not in my back yard. So we moved the really nasty manufacturing processes to someone else's living room.

The Chinese have worked so very hard to pull themselves up. A tragedy they've turned their land into a toxic dump in the process. Double tragedy is the ultimate consequence of China's open door policy for foreign companies seeking relief from stiff regulatory laws at home. The government report I cited mentions:

Substitutes for arsenic compounds exist in most of its major uses, though arsenic compounds may be preferred because of lower cost and superior performance. The wood preservatives pentachlorophenol and creosote may be substituted for CCA when odor and paintability are not problems and where permitted by local regulations.

This situation points to what is probably one of the most horrific aspects of trade globalization. By turning themselves into an industrial plantation for wealthy nations, countries such as China help to discourage R&D of less toxic compounds.

It's the same with petroleum. The stuff is in practically everything, including a lot of makeup and hand creams. Think of petroleum jelly. There's no need for that. But because petroleum has been cheap and readily available for such a long time, this discouraged industries from developing substitutes.

Same with petroleum for fuel. We should have moved decades ago beyond petroleum fuel for cars. But the stuff has been cheaply available and its use has been heavily promoted by what are surely the most powerful lobbies. Yet whose fault is that? Let's all go look in the mirror before cursing OPEC and the oil and car companies.

"Dear Pundita:
Thank you for replying to my letter yesterday. After thinking over your post I'm now looking at the outbreak from a completely different angle. It has occurred to me that if the disease is really a case of poisoning it needn't be from toxic waste. It could be from high levels of chemical fertilizer or insecticide or even a mixture of the two. Any thoughts on this?
Michelle in Toronto"

Dear Michelle:
How do you plan to test your theory? Michelle, listen to Pundita: you cannot play Erin Brockovich in this situation. Why? Because you cannot collect samples of fertilizer, pesticide, ground water and so on. You cannot review medical records. You cannot interview the villagers in the affected areas -- and even if you could get into the affected areas, the villagers would be silent or they'd lie like a trooper.

A BBC reporter managed to interview one family about the symptoms a member experienced. He wasn't speaking with them but a few moments when village officials showed up and yelled at the family. That ended the interview but even if he stayed on talking, it wouldn't have mattered. The family would have stayed silent.

You've heard of the Mafia's code of silence? That code is nothing next to the code that arose out of China's ancient Bao Jia system, which was dusted off and used to great advantage by Chiang Kai-shek's Nationalist party. It allowed the party to create a police state over the entire of Mainland China.

Ten families to one bao. One person errs, his family and the nine other families in the bao must be punished. Ten bao to one jia. So if one family errs, the jia must be punished -- in effect, the entire village. The official line is that the system was disbanded after Chiang Kai-shek's government was overthrown but that's a crock. The CCP (Chinese Communist Party) also found use for the system in order to maintain control in rural areas.

However, all is not lost because these villagers, many of them illiterate, are (like illiterate villagers the world over) on the whole very honest in their speech, if honesty is not met with punishment for the entire village.

So if you want to play detective you'd need to pay special attention to the earliest accounts of the symptoms and their onset. These would be accounts given before Beijing had mustered an official party line about the "pig disease" and sent 50,000 so-called health workers into Sichuan to go door-to-door with leaflets about the disease.

Translation: Your account had better match the symptoms of strep suis that the village boss reads out to you from this here leaflet, if you don't want the entire village to suffer.

But because this public health announcement was door-to-door and village to village, there was a lag time. That's what happened with the BBC reporter; by luck or design, he found a family that didn't know what was going on at the official level, even though by that time it was on the radio. They didn't listen to the radio except for entertainment.

The catch is that the reporter stood out like a sore thumb in the village: he was an outsider. Under Bao Jia, neighbors must keep watch on each other's activities and report them to local authorities. So he wouldn't have been in the village 15 minutes before the village boss knew about it.

The earliest accounts flagrantly contradict the government's line on step suis, and point to sudden onset of illness. Indeed, this point was brought up by the interviewer in the Wong interview. Wong then went to the back of beyond to discredit those accounts. In fact, he got himself tangled up in medical terminology in his effort to discredit the claim of sudden onset.

Why would he do that? When you place the earliest accounts of symptoms (vomiting, foaming at the mouth, severe shock, partial paralysis, hemorrhaging, etc.) next to sudden onset (and sudden death in many cases), it's possibile he wants to turn speculation away an inquiry about poisoning.

If you approach the outbreak by asking if it could be poisoning, you're in a new ball game. You're looking at an entirely different explanation for why some people survive the "disease," which has a high mortality rate -- over 70% according to some sources.

Yet because China's government terms the outbreak a disease, speculations about survival revolve around the strength of the immune system in pigs and humans. These speculations would be red herring if there is no disease. If the illness is due to poisoning, survival would depend on how much of the poison agent is consumed or how much contact the person has with the agent.

As I pointed out in yesterday's post, China's government would go a very long way to suppress that line of investigation. This is because it would lead to questions about industrial pollution and the kind of speculations you've raised.

To answer your direct question -- yes, it's a possibility. If the outbreak is poisoning, it's possible that chemical fertilizer, pesticide, disinfectant or even an unfortunate combination could have created the poison agent. As you pointed out, it doesn't necessarily need to be "toxic waste."

But again, if you're working blindfolded (without forensic samples and reliable medical records in hand), you're wasting your time speculating about the exact source of the poison agent and before you've established a working hypothesis that the outbreak is due to poisoning.

Do you see? You can't get there from here. The most you can do is attempt to exclude the target with the biggest bull's eye. That is why I suggested starting with companies that have been known to produce toxic waste and which have plants in China. You would have to do that first.

Up to a certain point this task could be done by any reasonably intelligent person who has access to a simple database program. First collect all the anecdotal accounts of symptoms you can find. These would include accounts given after China's government put out the strep suis explanation. But you'd want to give special attention to the earliest accounts.

Then go to a medical source for poisoning symptoms and see if you can find a match. Once you have a list of poisons that produce the same symptoms, exclude poisons that wouldn't reasonably show up in pigs or chickens in China; e.g., the venom of a spider only found in the Amazon.

Once you got to that point, it would make your life easier if you got help from an industrial chemist or even a law firm that specializes in cases of poisoning from toxic waste.

You'd be trying to match the list of poisons with firms that (a) manufacture such poisons or (b) whose industrial byproduct produces such poisons, and which has a manufacturing plant in China.

Here is where you would be hampered. As I warned in yesterday's post, it might be hard if not impossible (at least, for a private citizen) to obtain the names and locations of Chinese and/or Taiwanese plants that would fit the bill.

But at least you could look at foreign plants located in the biggest pork processing regions of China. The Taipei Times listed those provinces in the link I provide yesterday.

Not to encourage you in this project but it's not necessarily trying to find a needle in a haystack because no one has tried this approach -- at least, not that we know about. So you could hit it lucky after only a few hours of research and without looking at tens of thousands of companies.

It's entirely possible that a Western pharmaceutical or chemical company has been cited for toxic waste that produces just the kind of poisoning symptoms noted in pig disease. And that it's open knowledge in the trade that the company moved a plant to China to avoid paying a fortune in fines and retooling their entire manufacturing process.

In that event you would be very lucky indeed because then you have a possible source for reliable data on the 'pig disease' that circumvents China's health authorities. If the company clams up -- well, then we're talking about a court order to loosen their tongue.

In short, the journey of a thousand miles might turn out to be many tens of thousand of miles or only a few yards. Yet the power of suggestion has been so powerful in this case that nobody started the journey -- at least, not that we know about.

From the beginning, the outbreak was characterized as a disease by the official sources and anonymous reports posted to Boxun. These were picked up by media outlets in Asia and carried forward by Henry Niman, whose company does vaccine development and who is obsessively pursuing his theory about recombination of lethal viruses. And by Patricia Doyle, who is obsessively pursuing her theory that just about any incurable disease is the result of a biological experiment that jumped a laboratory.

This flood of media emphasis on an infectious disease was given the force of a tidal wave when it coincided with reports of mass deaths of migratory fowl at Qinghai Lake -- deaths reportedly due to H5N1. Discussion about the lethal form of the A(H) virus became entwined with speculations about the pig disease.

The tidal wave of suggestion drowned out the most simple and obvious possibility: At the processing or the raising stage, swine (and chickens in one region) were exposed to a toxin powerful enough to kill a human if ingested in sufficient quantity.

So you can continue to spin out speculations on very thin data. You can continue to attempt to badger China to provide reliable medical data. Or you can try to exclude the obvious before playing armchair biomedical scientist.

Keep in mind that you don't want to fall in love with the poison idea. There could be two factors at work: poison and infectious disease. And it could turn out that the outbreak is indeed solely due to viral and/or bacterial infection. Yet ground that needs to be covered has been ignored.

Setting aside the crummy job of investigative reporting we've seen from every major media outlet, it is bad science to speculate before attempting to exclude a likely possibility. In fact, it's not even science. It's hoodoo.

"Dear Pundita:
About your speculation that the mysterious pig disease is connected with an industrial pollutant or toxic waste, do you think it could be in feed that's been given to both chickens and pigs?
Michelle in Toronto"

"Dear Michelle:
You're trying to reason backward. First study the anecdotal accounts of symptoms in the pigs, chickens and humans that were reportedly infected with the mystery disease. There are reports that "infected" pigs were foaming at the mouth. There are reports of humans vomiting, losing consciousness, hemorrhaging, high fever, severe shock. There are reports of humans dying within hours of eating reportedly infected pork. What does that sound like to you? Sounds like poisoning to me; in any case that would be the first possibility you'd want to attempt to exclude.

Here we come to a snag. China refuses to share any medical data whatsoever about the infected pigs, chickens and humans. What we've gotten instead of data is official claptrap about strep suis and a backdoor report from the Ministry of Health (the Wong interview on Boxun) that characterizes the disease as bubonic plague, Ebola and a virus so weird that Wong confesses he is confounded.

That means we are blindfolded. To compound this problem, everyone is speculating from within their own specialty or area of particular interest. Thus, Henry Niman is looking at the pig disease for a possible connection to a mutated form of H5N1. Patricia Doyle is focused on the possibility of a connection to a biowar experiment. The US military is looking at the disease according to what satellite images show about unusual activity in Sichuan province. And so on.

If you want a ghost of a chance to form a sound working hypothesis about the nature of the outbreak, you first have to study from outside your particular knowledge base. What's needed here is to use a simple database program. It doesn't get more simple than Excel so use that. Then plug in all the symptoms as reported in Epoch Times, Taipei Times, Boxun, Xinhua outlets and so forth, going back to earliest reports. Then try to match those with symptoms of poisoning.

If you find matches, then it's a matter of asking whether the sick piggies could have snuffled up very deadly mushrooms or truffles or whatnot or drunk from a chemical spill, and so on. It's at that point where your question about feed might have relevance.

But one thing you need to keep uppermost in mind: China is one big Love Canal. Ever since they extended an Open Door with No Questions Asked policy to any company that wants to set up a plant there, China's Mainland has become the most toxic place on earth. There are no restrictions on chemical dumping. No restrictions on how to dispose of highly toxic industrial waste. None.

The No Restrictions rule applies to China's companies, as well. That means there is no way you can obtain a complete list of all China's chemical and pharmaceutical companies.

But if you find a match between symptoms and human-made poisons, you might hit it lucky if you then obtained a list of all the foreign chemical and pharmaceutical companies with plants in China and their exact location. And tried to match the list of poisons with the company products and the kind of waste the manufacturing process would likely create.

None of the above means that we're not looking at a true mystery disease. It means you want to attempt to exclude the most obvious possibility first. Yet it's hard to see the obvious from the narrow window of your own area of interest.

If you want to play around with Excel, you can start with one of the earliest newspaper reports to discuss symptoms: Taipei Times July 29 report found here:

http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/front/
archives/2005/07/29/2003265466

Here are descriptions of symptoms from the report:

"Six more towns in Sichuan Province reported cases on Wednesday, in addition to the two cities, Ziyang and Neijiang, where people first fell ill after slaughtering pigs foaming at the mouth last month, the ministry said. [...]

"After killing the pig, our entire family boiled three bowls of pork to eat. After eating just a few mouthfuls of the meat, I felt my heart pound, dizzy and nauseous," Jiang Suhua said.

"Later my legs were so weak I couldn't stand up. My arms and legs also had large blotches of blood under the skin."

Another farmer said that a relative gave him a slice of freshly cut pork and he became dizzy and weak just from taking the pork home.Other symptoms include high fever, vomiting and hemorrhaging, with many patients going into severe shock. Some of the victims died within 10 hours of showing symptoms, reports said.

This just in!

The sentences shown in boldface are from a native-Chinese speaker outside the USA who reviewed the original transcript of the Dr. Wong/Wang interview. The source (including the person who acted as go-between for the letters) is reliable:

[...] Did the interviewer and "Dr" Wang really say filovirus when referring to the disease in pigs? Yes. Also, please see my response in [boldface] in the email below.

There is much confusion over use of the word "virus" in the context of talking about bubonic plague, which is a bacteria. Yet throughout the two English translations available, the interviewer and Dr. Wang refer to plague as a "virus." I don't think so. The original context said the A3231, plague, and pig filovirus were three different virus and bacteria.

Ebola was translated as i-bo-la. That's it. It says that SZ77++A3231 virus is a type of ebola. When asked to describe, the doctor said that it's not appropriate to explain. It says that what happened in that location was not due to pig filovirus, it was a kind of ebola. The reason that the government wanted to say that it's pig filovirus was due to the politics -- they didn't want to admit that they had ebola. Pig filovirus may be passed on to human body, but the damage wouldn't be like the one from ebola. And filovirus won't spread among pigs that fast.

Could I impose on the friend once more to ask for a review of the original text again, just to be certain that the translation of the Mandarin word for "virus" is correct? In the interview, Dr. Wang used "virus" for the incident. He did mention that the death in the city might be caused by the virus (ebola) plus bacteria (plague). The combination made the symptom or the illness worse.

Also, if Wang and interviewer actually said "filovirus," rather than "virus," when referring to bubonic plague that would be very important to know. Dr. Wang didn't said pig filovirus was plague.

Update
Within minutes of publishing this essay I received a second opinon about whether Dr. Wong/Wang referred to bubonic plague as a virus; the second translator maintains he never did. Readers who have been closely following this story know much turns on the issue of that one word. For the second translator's additional (brief) comments about the original text, see today's Pundita post at:
http://pundita.blogspot.com/2005/08/dr-wongs-fan-club-rejoice.html
* * * * *
"Pundita:
I know you want to put a lid on speculation but even with the glaring errors Dr. Lisa spotted in the Wong discussion, the diseases he talks about are so alarming that it's hard not to speculate. What is your sense about the mystery disease outbreak in China? Do you think it could be a biological warfare experiment that got out of the lab? While I was plowing through Wong's interview I found myself wishing I'd majored in biology.
Ken in Boston"

Dear Ken:
Bah. If Henry Niman couldn't figure out what Dr. Wong was talking about, what makes you think a degree in biology would be a help in this?

However, a degree in chemistry might help. There is one scenario that could explain everything: the inconsistencies in Wong's discussion, bulldozing of villages, China's refusal to share blood/tissue samples with WHO, the elaborate cover-ups, the central government's decision to address the disease outbreak in the manner they did, and the bizarre virus/baceteria cocktail Dr. Wong described.

Before discussing the scenario, let's deal with the popular speculation that those who died from the alleged "pig disease" outbreak had a compromised immune system.

One thing to keep in mind is that the peasants in Sichuan live with their pigs and with all manner of barnyard gunk that would kill a city person. As Dr. Wong clearly indicated while pooh-poohing the strep suis story, they've got so many antibodies built up that it would have to be a pig from outer space to kill those peasants.

Unless it was a pig dipped in some kind of industrial pollutant or which had otherwise absorbed a chemical in high enough doses to wreak havoc with the human immune system if ingested.

Or unless the pig carried a virus that was unknown to the immune system of the peasants. A killer virus, such as H5N1, which had exchanged genetic material with a virus that made a pig sick. The birth of the Supervirus.

Or, as Dr. Wong stated, the afflicted were somehow exposed to a virus that represented Ebola with one other virus that he was shy about naming and some variant of bubonic plague.

But the alleged Ebola outbreak reported on Boxun in April was at a chicken farm in Guangdong province. It killed chickens and farmers exposed to the diseased chicken blood.

If we set aside Wong's imperfect understanding of Bubonic Plague, his most baffling remarks pertain to an industrial pollutant. He maintained that an unnamed pollutant was a factor at the disease treatment stage -- that, and using outdated medications (the "medical malpractice" he cited as another contributing factor in the deaths).

There have been a lot of deaths in China because of industrial accidents and indiscriminate dumping of toxic waste; indeed, many of the riots have been about this issue. Entire villages are being poisoned and now many villagers are fighting back -- more often during the past year with officials looking the other way.

If shipments of pork meat got poisoned by toxic waste I think both the local and central government officials would be intent on covering this up while hastily cleaning it up as best as possible. I mean -- pig meat. It's like China's apple pie. And it's to Sichuan what cheese is to Wisconsin.

The peasants would really go on a rampage if they heard that industrial pollutants had tainted their favorite staple meat. They'd rampage all over China. The final insult, and all that: Not even our pigs are safe anymore.

And from reports about the riots, a lot of Chinese are blaming foreign concerns as much as their government. Rage has built up about foreign companies polluting, forcing farmers off the land and bulldozing villages to make room for industrial complexes.

So while this might be hard for Americans to imagine, it could be the central government decided that the farmers would rather hear the spate of deaths was due to a weird virus as long as they weren't buying the strep suis story. After all, they are used to hearing about weird viruses and bacteria. But death from toxic waste is more like an invasion from outer space, or to be more precise the invasion of the Crazy Foreigners.

To stay with this line of speculation: Then why would Dr. Wong and the Interviewer (clearly it was a staged interview) even breathe a word about industrial pollutants -- at the treatment stage or any other? I can think of three possible reasons:

First, there's a rumor circulating that toxic waste is responsible for the deaths and Wong was trying to quash it.

Second, Wong was taking a whack at some faction or other in the central or local government by bringing up the topic of industrial pollutants.

Third, Wong was stating a bald truth in the attempt to be open about the disease outbreak; i.e., an industrial pollutant was somehow implicated in the treatment of several patients.

If you want to speculate about #1, a degree in chemistry might help. Is there any kind of toxic waste -- or mixture of wastes -- that when ingested or inhaled produces the array of symptoms reported in the disease outbreaks? Including Ebola-like symptoms?

If so, that would explain why China's government refuses to share data about deaths from Ebola virus: there are no deaths from Ebola. There are deaths from toxic waste poisoning that produce the appearance of Ebola-like symptoms.

That would explain why the government refuses to provide WHO or any outside agency with pathology samples/reports from the "pig deaths" -- the data would reveal chemical poisoning.

And if those wastes or an industrial accident could be traced to a foreign company -- that would explain the elaborate attempts to cover up deaths and the strewing of red herring about the true nature of the illness. The specter for China's government would be Bhopal-type class action lawsuits against industrial companies.

If we stay with this line of reasoning, the bizarre virus/bacteria cocktail that Wong described, and his tortured discussion of Bubonic Plague, also make perfect sense. He was using a scattershot method to cover a very wide range of symptoms that had occurred in a spate of deaths from toxic waste poisoning.

That would also explain why Wong claimed ignorance of the third factor in the mystery disease. Leaving a question mark gives room to come up with another weird virus or bacterium from the medical textbooks that could provide cover for another kind of toxic waste poisoning.

I mean -- if people report their teeth turning orange before they drop dead, there must be some disease listed in the materia medica to cover that. So why not leave things a little open-ended for the present? Who knows what symptoms the next industrial accident or toxic waste dump might present?

If this speculation is correct, China's authorities were caught in the crossfire when a mutated form of H5N1, a wild fowl version, exploded on the scene in May. By late June it was clear they couldn't keep the lid on anymore. About a month later came the Wong interview posted on Boxun.

As to how much money I'd put on my speculation -- none. However, if you want to pursue every avenue, that would be one to attempt to exclude before banging your head against tales of biowar experiments and bizarre viruses

"Pundita:
Re the Quoting Raven essay:
Now the clouds over the Yangtse valley are beginning to lift, grasshopper. What a surprise: It's all about politics! The people be damned! (Column B), or We really are here to help you, and are telling the truth. (Column A) Universal statist syntax.
Bruce Kesler"

"About your post yesterday with the letter from the MD (Lisa). She nailed a lot of points. I recall that under the Soviet Union when they needed more MDs they trained the specialty needed and skipped all the unnecessary stuff like basic biology, chemistry, physiology and general medicine.

An example of how this worked out in practice -- When an American MD consulted on an ophthalmic surgery case, he was shocked to learn that the Russian MD neither knew nor saw any reason to care about the patient's kidney malfunction. Not to mention what that would do to fluid balance and pressure in the eye.
Liz in USA"

Pundita's comment: If they have the same system of medical training in China, that might be another way to explain the errors in Wong's statements!

A reader with a steel trap memory (Boris in Jackson Heights -- the über cynic among Pundita readers) wrote to ask if yesterday's post was the one I really intended on Sunday to put up on Monday. And if not, when would I be finished nailing the Chinese military's hide to the wall so we could return to discussing other subjects, such as Gaza, the Six-Party Non-talks, Iraq, and so on.

Boris, Pundita would be a crummy detective if we started out with the preconceived notion that the PLA was running black propaganda against the US military.

And it could be China's embattled Ministry of Health ratting out, if you'll pardon the expression, leaks in the PLA's biowar program. After all, it's the MOH that has been on the firing line, what with the slow response to SARS and the 2003 H5N1 outbreak. I'll bet Boris didn't think of that.

And there is the food fight between two factions in China. On one side is Jiang Zemin's camp. On the other side -- well, it seems to be General Cao's camp but we can't say for sure whether we're looking at a shakeout in the PLA or Chinese Communist Party.

Then again, there could actually be a very weird highly lethal disease loose in China that may or may not be strep suis and/or a combination of Ebola, plague, mutated Bird Flu and the dog ate my notes. A disease having something to do -- or maybe not -- with pigs. Don't forget the Boxun.com China Ebola Chicken report posted on Agonist back in April by guess who the first two guesses don't count.(1)

Running alongside the mystery disease, and perhaps entwined with it, or perhaps just a different view of it, is the dance of the brilliant A (H) virus -- sort of the Rudolf Nureyev of viruses. Pirouetting and leaping into a dazzling array of recombinations as it does a pas de deux with genes from the world's wildlife, domesticated animals and occasional human partner.

As the spring of this year wore into summer H5N1 flew from China's gorgeous Qinghai Lake then to Tibet, Central Asia, Russia and now westward, leaving sudden death in its trail.

"Educate yourself, it's coming," snapped John Batchelor to his audience last night. This was after a Wall Street Journal reporter informed him that a Harris poll found that fully half of Americans didn't have a clue about H5N1 and a solid majority had only vague or erroneous ideas about how to prepare for the visit.

At some point in this tangled tale must be decisions:

Just how hard should the US government push Beijing about their habitual foot-dragging with regard to reporting highly infectious lethal disease outbreaks?

Just how much should the US military believe that the PLA has got a supervirus bioweapon and the vaccine for it under wraps?(2)

And just how much money, if any, should the US government cough up to fund vaccine development, seeing how US pharmaceutical companies are so worried about law suits and low profit margins that they are reluctant to invest whopping amounts in vaccine R&D?

But to arrive at sound decisions we'd have to untangle the tale, or at least parts of it that can be untangled. By many twists and tangles, the plot has come to revolve around a confounding interview with a mysterious Dr. Wong -- or Wang. Reader "Liz" cautioned:

Transliterations are always tricky: listen with a mental ear to the names John Wong, John Wang (the a as in ah, not bat)...I wouldn't make too much of the difference in how the doctor's name is spelled.

All right. Still a confounding interview, riddled with enough inconsistencies (whether through the fault of transliterations or Dr. Wong) to fill up online message boards with discussions about fleas and rats, bacteria and viruses and the Black Death.

To top it off, the only complete English translation of the interview is a poor one. Another Pundita reader to the rescue. Yet with a better translation it's just like clearing away underbrush: now the technical inconsistencies show up in sharper relief. A MD general practitioner reads the cleaned up translation and comments with poorly concealed contempt for Dr. Wong's -- or "Mr." as she pointedly lapses into calling him -- medical knowledge.

"Pundita:
Regarding the Dr. Wong Pig Sickness interview you published [yesterday].

First, the issue of Bubonic Plague and the research posted at the BBC, which you included in the second footnote of the new translation.

Plague is caused by Yersinia Pestis, a bacterium. The symptoms -- formation of bubos, which are grossly inflamed, black-colored lymph nodes filled with pus -- is to my knowledge unique to this illness. The description of bubos in the accounts from the black death are what give the diagnosis of this disease.

The bubonic form is acquired primarily from rats or their fleas, but may be found in other rodents as well, and may be passed between people via fleas or contact. [3] This form of plague generally kills on a time-scale of days.

In addition, humans infected with bubonic plague who develop significant numbers of the bacteria in the lungs during a disseminated infection (possibly also a genetic switch in the bacteria) can cough and sneeze bacteria-containing droplets. This is what is known as pneumonic plague; people who acquire plague by breathing it in understandably develop infection in their lungs first, thus continue to pass it on person to person pneumonically without need of fleas or rats, for sustained chains of transmission. This form of plague has a 90% mortality rate due to the afflicted losing their ability to breathe, and can kill within a day or two.

Thus the English researchers' observations [at BBC link] are in fact explicable by known behavior of Y. Pestis; a virus need not be implicated in the historical outbreak they studied.

The symptoms observed in China are not consistent with those usually observed for Yersinia Pestis. They do, however, vaguely resemble the symptoms of Yersinia Enterocolitica, which tends to manifest as vomiting and bloody diarrhea.

Y. enterolytica is usually self-limited, resolving in most cases without treatment in about three weeks, and is most commonly acquired by exposure to undercooked pork, especially pork intestines.

Severe cases may be treated with antibiotics. If a more dangerous mutation of Y. enterolytica is the cause of the illness, then it is possible that Mr. Wong mistook the discussion or diagnosis of Yersinia for Y. Pestis when in fact Y. enterolytica was meant.

Mr. Wong uses the word 'virus' to refer to two bacteria (Yersinia pestis and streptococcus suis), which severely undercuts his credibility, as does his claim to some kind of cross between "ebola" (a virus) and "plague" (a bacteria). If he was referring to a co-infection by two agents, then he should have explicitly said so.

The word translated as 'ebola' may in fact be a more generic word meaning 'filovirus'. You should find out if this is the case. So far as I know, Ebola has never been found in pigs. While it is possible the Chinese illness is due to a filovirus, I doubt that it is a form of Ebola. Also, the pig illness does not appear to be transmissible between people, whereas Ebola is transmissible in this fashion.

[Quoting interviewer's question to Dr Wong:]

"But how do you account for the 'bleeding under the skin' reported in this
illness?"

Hemorrhagic symptoms can occur in a variety of severe illnesses, via a syndrome of inappropriate clotting called 'disseminated intravascular coagulation.'

In DIC, people's clotting factors are activated by a strong ongoing immune response, and they form microscopic clots throughout the bloodstream. The result is infarcts --'strokes' in the brain and other organs as the tiny clots occlude small blood vessels.

And along with these clots there is bleeding, because the formation of the clots depletes the blood stream of the factors needed for clotting, so that abraded mucous membranes and small recent wounds or bruises leak blood continuously.

Thus the hemorrhagic symptoms seen in the pig sickness do not necessarily mean that a Hemorrhagic Fever (filovirus) is involved.

I don't know what the cause of the pig sickness is. But because of the multiple imprecisions and unlikely claims in the interview I do not believe Mr/Dr Wong is a reliable source for that information.
[Signed] Lisa the GP"

The heroic translator was unable to help with the filovirus word in Mandarin and more-or-less stood by the machine translation of virus as versus bacteria. My time wrestling with three different online English-Chinese medical dictionaries came up dry, except I learned that the Mandarin pictographs for "virus" and "bacteria" are very different.

I wrote Liz to ask if anything about the improved translation jumped out at her, which is how I learned Liz knew some Chinese in addition to Russian.

Pundita: I noticed a definite political slant to the translation up today. It reads like part-technical/part-political (spin) statement.

As for the question about repeated reference to "plague virus" -- yes, plague is a bacterium. I don't know enough Chinese to know how clear the Occidental distinction is in an Oriental language.

Different fundamental referents can lead to surprising mis-translations. I recall a machine (and therefore literal) English-to-Russian translation of "The spirit is willing but the flesh is weak." It became, "The vodka is good but the meat is rotten."

And "Out of sight, out of mind" became "Invisible idiot."

Well, we still have two strands of the tale firmly in hand:

One: Taiwan suffered greatly because of Beijing's foot-dragging and cover-ups with regard to the SARS and 2003 H5N1 outbreaks. Taiwan's military is watching China very, very carefully. Yet since the outbreak of the mystery disease and through all the reports about the disease, Taiwan has not suspended travel to and from China's mainland.

Two: There is no way Dr. Wong could have defined his role in the examination of the mystery "virus" sample as clearly as he did in the interview without giving away his identity to China's authorities. The improved translation makes this crystal clear.

Therefore, Dr. Wong gave the interview at the instruction of China's Ministry of Health. Of that much I think we can be certain.

But remember that Wong indicated to the interviewer that the person(s) who had earlier leaked the information about Ebola loose in China would be found and punished:

"(I): So that no one would even think of the Ebola virus?

(W): Correct. The classification of the Ebola virus is a national secret.

(I): So the previous information leak was --

(W): I don’t understand the main reason, but those in charge of information security have been segregated and questioned."

The question is why the MOH wanted to publicly admit that highly sensitive classified information had been leaked, thereby giving credence to the reports about deaths in China from Ebola infection.

Liz warned I should not ask that question.

"Why?" The question, of course. Like the Soviet Union before Gorbachev opened Pandora's Box (from a Party perspective), every piece of public information serves a political purpose. Whose, of course, is always open to question.

But Pundita is interested in open-ended questions only up to a point, which is decision time. Reader Bruce Kesler suggests a guideline for decision analysis:

"When confused by menu in Chinese restaurant choose from Column B."

All right. Here is what Pundita sees in B Column:

NIH should lobby Congress to throw a couple $100m at Henry Niman's vaccine development company so he'll stop publishing machine translations of anonymous Chinese reports on Boxun that scare us silly.

The US Department of State should ask Taiwan's leading bankers, who are keeping China's banking system afloat, to tell the PLA to make sure that whatever really weird happens in China stays in China.

Make sure to fully cook all pork and chicken dishes.

(1)
http://www.curevents.com/vb/showthread.php?t=18895
"Ebola China Chickens: From Agonist
Posted by Dr. Niman
Report from the 17th of April, and suggests--according to the key paragraph--that in late march a driver called Zhong became sick at a chicken farm and was taken away and not heard of again. By early April the chickens at the same place (Baoan in Mandarin, Po An in Cantonese) began to lose their feathers, develop red spots, and bleed from the eyes and the anus. Many of the dead birds were cleaned up and sold to markets in Shenzhen and nearby Dongguan. Some workers at the chicken farm have also gone missing. It alleges that chickens sent to Hong Kong for testing were not from the farm, which exports some 1.6 million chickens to HK annually.

http://www.peacehall.com/news/
gb/ch...504170032.shtml

This confirms that the authorities did indeed tell the authorities in HK about the dying chickens:

http://www.info.gov.hk/gia/general/...
11/04110241.htm

This report alleges that a man called Zhou Zhengbei was executed on June 28 in Fujian for leaking information about the Shenzhen incident:

http://www.peacehall.com/news/
gb/ch...507112336.shtml
"
(2) The Epoch Times August 8
War Is Not Far from Us...Leading CCP official argues for exterminating U.S. population

(3) Dr. Lisa clarified for Pundita that plague could also be transmitted by rat bite, thus giving Dr. Wong's fan club some hope to cling to. (See Footnote 2 in yesterday's post)

August 17 Update
I received a second opinon about whether Dr. Wong/Wang referred to bubonic plague as a virus; the second translator maintains he never did. Readers who have been closely following this story know much turns on the issue of that one word. For the second translator's additional (brief) comments about the original text, see today's Pundita post at:
http://pundita.blogspot.com/2005/08/dr-wongs-fan-club-rejoice.html
* * * * *
A Pundita reader who does not have a biomedical background but who is fluent in Mandarin offered to translate the text posted July 29 on Boxun.com, and which has been the subject of so much discussion on this blog and elsewhere. The translation result is below. Many thanks to the reader for dedicating a weekend to the task of translation!

For other readers fluent in Mandarin who would like to read the original text for comparison, it can be found at:

http://www.peacehall.com/news/
gb/china/2005/07/200507281438.shtml

For readers who want to compare this translation with the one found on the Agonist website, the Agonist translation can be found at:

http://discuss.agonist.org/yabbse/index.php?
board=6;action=display;threadid=22611

The Agonist translation is accompanied by extensive discussion about confusing and erroneous comments made during the interview with regard to bubonic plague.

I have made very minor edits to the text; e.g., replacing commas with semi-colons and beginning a new sentence when such could improve ease of reading, but only when I was sure this would not change the meaning of a sentence. I placed in brackets word substitutions or suggestions for a word.
* * * * *
Transcript of a recording of an interview of a doctor who had participated in the analysis of the Sichuan disease

Interviewer (I): Greetings, Dr. Wong, thank you for accepting our interview. [1]

Dr. Wong (W): Greetings to you.

(I): What is your work in the health department system?

(W): My main task is the identification and analysis of viruses.

(I): Like the genetic researchers featured in the movies?

(W): Kind of similar, yet not that exaggerated; that’s the movies.

(I): Dr. Wong, have you participated in the disease examination (or studies) of the Sichuan disease?

(W): I have.

(I): How do you evaluate the results of the viral examination?

(W): My answer is that the results of this study are more complicated than imagined. This also would explain why the study team leader has been replaced three times, each test yielded different results.

(I): You’ve mentioned the change of team leaders, why was that?

(W): There were three different examination results for each test, each result always overthrew the last, causing the removal of the team leader.

(I): Was it because of corruption?

(W): I could not understand whether or not it was because of administrative reasons; regarding corruption, it’s quite normal.

(I): Can you tell me more about the details of the Sichuan outbreak?

(W): On June 2nd we received a called from the Sichuan health department, they said that there [was] an appearance of unusual deaths in the local area and [would] send samples of the virus over for analysis.

(I): (Interrupts) So you are saying that, according to the report in July, the local disease prevention mechanism is sound?

(W): It is not sound. This process is not controlled by political systems. It’s a medical procedure, with regards to unusual deaths due to diseases must be reported, the responsibilities of the local leaders cannot be investigated; moreover, the concealment of truth will be punished -- where was I? Yes, we’d received the sample

(I): Sorry.

(W): It’s all right. After we had received the sample, we quickly examined the virus. From the sample we isolated the SZ77++A3231 virus.

(I): What sort of virus is SZ77++A3231?

(W): It is a type of Ebola virus.

(I): Can you explain it in a more simplistic way?

(W): This virus does not suit the concrete description.

(I): That’s understandable, but why is it that the Chinese Ebola virus [was] claimed to be low-infectious?

(W): That’s a good question, the reasons for the claim that the virus is low-infectious are that: the first is to reduce societal panic, the second is that the Ebola virus has evolved in China. Recombination of genetic material has appeared. The most prominent characteristic is that the positions to which the virus manifests itself are mostly in the Kleinen property [?]; there are also abrupt breaks in the genetic sequencing of the virus, leading to the endless changes in the incubation period.

(I): How were the viruses classified?

(W): Previously, categorization of the China Ebola virus was made by the model of EBO prefixes. Then for some unknown reasons, the news of the virus leaked, thus the method of classification was changed. The EBO prefixes were cancelled, with the increase of the speed of infection and intensity, such as the SZ777++A3231. Sometimes we don’t even use the name of the place of the discovery of the virus; instead we directly use the name of ++A3231.

(I): So that no one would even think of the Ebola virus?

(W): Correct. The classification of the Ebola virus is a national secret.

(I): So the previous information leak was --

(W): I don’t understand the main reason, but those in charge of information security have been segregated and questioned.

(I): You started to participate in the June investigation of the virus outbreak in Sichuan; did you participate in subsequent investigations?

(W): I need to point out that I was not the only one who participated in the investigational work in Sichuan. There were others from all over the country who had participated in the investigation, the country had specially set up three departments to process the examinational work.

(I): Can you tell me about the current situation regarding the outbreak of the virus in Sichuan?

(W): As I’ve mentioned earlier, the Sichuan outbreak is a very complicated matter. I will try to summarize it. How should I say it? Currently, there are many factors in the outbreak. There are three different diseases plus an industrial pollution incident and incidence of medical malpractice

(I): Are you saying that it is not completely the pig-strain streptococcus claimed by the officials?

(W): Pig-strain streptococcus can also infect humans, it can also cause death, but the level of impact is not at all dramatic. There are elements of pig-strain streptococcus in the Sichuan outbreak, but that’s not the main cause.

(I): Then why did the officials blame the outbreak on pig-strain streptococcus virus?

(W): You can understand that locally the residents, merchants, even the local private business sector rely heavily on the domestic animals. Pig-strain streptococcus virus is the most common virus in that region, and it will remain that way for a long period of time. Where there are pigs, there will definitely be pig-strain streptococcus virus.

(I): So you are saying that pig-strain streptococcus virus is one way to explain what is happening?

(W): You could explain it like that. Also, let’s look at it this way, not just saying that the deceased have the pig-strain streptococcus virus in their bodies. Even the healthy local population in the region has the same virus in their systems due to prolonged exposure to domesticated animals, pigs, goats, and the like. These animals also have within them the pig-strain streptococcus virus. Just because there are no symptoms doesn’t mean that the virus does not exist; I need to state that this is a characteristic of the virus, that it cannot be avoided.

(I): Can pig-strain streptococcus virus be infectious on a broad scale?

(W): You can reference information on the pig-strain streptococcus on the Internet.

(I): Some authorities have indicated that this outbreak may be due to mutations of the pig-strain streptococcus virus.

(W): The streptococcus is known to commonly exist amongst humans and domestic animals, pig-strain streptococcus virus II’s ability to infect is very weak. The criteria for the appearance of the virus is also very complicated; the rate of mutation is very low, because this virus’s structure is very stable unlike the rapid speed of mutation of the flu virus.

(I): How do you explain the qualitative nature of the human/pig strain streptococcus virus?

(W): I have stated that there is an element of this virus, but it’s not the main cause for the outbreak. Humans can be infected with the pig-strain streptococcus virus, but the strain is not sufficient to cause the kind of outbreak that we’ve seen. While pig-strain streptococcus virus can cause death in humans, it is not that serious.

(I): Then can you talk about the other factors surrounding the outbreak?

(W): I need to announce that I had participated in one part of the virus analysis and investigation. There are other departments at work in the investigations also. The result of my analysis is that in the samples there are the A3231 virus, or collectively, the SZ77++A3231.

(I): Are there many variants (strains) of the SZ77 virus?

(W): SZ77 is a set of sequence, basically including this model of the Ebola virus and the combination of Ebola viruses; it is a biggest classification in the country’s virus studies.

(I): That’s really very confidential information. What about the unending developing behind the letter A?

(W): About the last two digits, can be developed, as a marker; basically it stops at the 57th place.

(I): That means the sequence stops at A3257. Why?

(W): Correct, because anything above the numerical sequence of 57 [is] reserved for another type of virus. From next year on, we might stop classifying viruses by the location that they were discovered in, thus, canceling the SZ series.

(I): We’ve got the A3231. What about the other viruses?

(W): I don’t understand a lot of them; three of the viruses contain the A3231 bubonic plague. I don’t yet understand the other one.

(I): You mentioned the bubonic plague; why did that not involve widespread transmission?

(W): It was not that strange. Chinese have already been inoculated against the bubonic plague. Actually a lot of humans have immunity to the plague, but the living conditions in Sichuan was quite adverse, prompting decrease in immunity in some of the population, thus losing the desired effect of the plague vaccine.

(I): Yet why we did not see any reports from the officials and the local press about the outbreak of the bubonic plague?

(W): The bubonic plague that I am talking about is the sample in which we had detected the bubonic plague [as well as] the A3231 virus, the pig-strain streptococcus, and other germs.

(I): That’s scary.

(W): I’ve mentioned that the living conditions in the Sichuan region are very adverse.

(I): Why did all these viruses break out simultaneously? The officials said that there are no connections between them, and that they are not infectious.

(W): There was not a simultaneous outbreak; rather, they broke out consecutively. The timing of the breakout was more centralized. All viruses have incubation periods, at the end of the incubation period, the disease will break out. With regard to how the viruses are related and their transmissibility: if we define the transmission mechanism of a virus to be its ability to infect, via a medium, other humans or animals and cause them to develop similar symptoms, then, yes, essentially we have an infectious disease.

(I): The report from the affected area was that pigs are the vectors of the disease. What do you think?

(W): Pigs can be the vectors of the disease. Humans can also be the vectors of the disease; these possibilities cannot be eliminated. From what we know, there are distances between the herds of pigs, and that would create a lot of questions as to how the virus was transmitted.

(I): Pardon the interruption, but the explanation by the officials stated that the mode of transmission was human exposure to slaughtered diseased pigs, and not because of different humans being exposed to different pigs resulting in infection.

(W): That’s a method of propaganda, but looking from the angle of infection by pig- strain streptococcus virus, then that claim can be established.

(I): Do you not agree with the official explanation?

(W): From what I understood, the disease spread amongst the pigs is independent, as far as humans being infected by pigs --

(I): It seems there are discrepancies from our perspective [respective?] sources of information.

(W): I don’t really want to try to explain the phenomenon reported by the news media, since phenomena are just phenomena; the discovery of the virus is the most convincing.

(I): Agreed. You’ve mentioned before about the problems of medical malpractice and industrial pollution. Can you explain them to us?

(W): These are very important questions. I don’t really want to comment too much about them. In the beginning of the disease outbreak, the local medical authorities used various medications to treat the disease and instead of curing it, they instead sped up the worsening of the disease, leading to deaths. To try to control the spread of the disease, the local officials had stated that the disease does not have any effective medications [which] prompted the speedy cremation of the affected corpses.

In the process of medical treatment, some were also affected by environmental pollution, as were the patients who were affected by the virus seem to have very similar symptoms, also died because in part due to medical malpractices. [sic] Naming the [disease] as pig strain streptococcus was not the intention of the health department; it was the local government officials who had the control in handling this matter.

(I): We did not see anything in the media which mentioned the bubonic plague or the Ebola virus, and the officials stated that the symptoms of the deceased all matched each other.

(W): Propaganda is propaganda.

(I): How do you determine the disease of the Sichuan outbreak -- from your personal perspective?

(W): (Laughs) You’ve got me there! Since I do not have access to all the disease samples, my statement may be biased. I can only comment from what I had come to understand from the information available to me. I believe that this is a blood-borne virus with the Ebola and the bubonic plague virus as its main constituents. [2] I had arrived at this according to my research results.

The reason why I had arrived at this conclusion was that in the samples I analyzed there was a special strain of bubonic plague; it was drug resistant and can only be transmitted by blood. It can only be transmitted at a certain blood density; otherwise, the virus would not survive. The Ebola virus is one of the main components of the virus but not the main cause of deaths. I thought the Ebola virus sped up the worsening of the symptoms of the disease.

I need to make one thing clear, and that is I did not personally participate in the study which studied the combined effects of the Ebola and the bubonic plague viruses, so I don’t really understand the combined effects of those two viruses. Regarding the medical malpractice, it has to do with usage of expired medications as well as improper treatment of the disease.

(I): Can you reiterate that your explanation placed focus on the fact that there was bubonic plague virus in the sample? Will this prompt a greater transmission of this disease?

(W): The bubonic plague in this outbreak has taken on a certain mutation; it can be accounted for [the outbreak’s] widespread transmission. However, it would not be impossible for this strain to be passed from rats to humans. Since this mutation can only be blood borne. While rats are the carriers of the virus, they can only infect others by biting humans or other domestic animals, passing along a certain set amount of virus (the mutated virus), thus enabling the transmission of the virus to other humans and domestic animals.

However, there is something which we should take note of here regarding the infection of domestic animals by infected rats. When the virus is transmitted to other animals it mutates, and there is a distinct difference between this strain and the original strain found in the rat. Whether or not a greater outbreak will follow is actually within control. Keep in mind that there are three conditions that must be met. First, the body’s immunity to the bubonic plague must be lowered; second, there must be direct exchange or the contact of blood; and third, the virus must be present in sufficient quantities, otherwise, infection would be unlikely.

(I): The international communities have offered technical assistance yet it was rejected, what is your thought about it?

(W): We cannot accept any international assistance. With our participation in the World Health Organization, our national secret would be revealed. It would not be beneficial for the reputation of China in the international communities. Not only would problems in scientific research be exposed but also the local medical, living conditions, environmental pollution, and corruptions.

We have been slaughtering pigs on a large scale, but not the extermination of rats and one seldom reads of reports of humans being bitten by rats. Although rats and men live in the same environment, rats have always been scared of humans; therefore, the incidents of humans being directly bitten by rats are minimal. Even if humans are bitten by rats, the rats must carry a certain amount of the virus in order for it to fully become a transmittable disease.

Yet pigs are different; pigs are an integral part of the human diet, and when pork are being processed, it is inevitable that there are contacts with pig blood, and their contact period is significantly longer. Thus, if the infected pigs were slaughtered, the chances of infection would greatly increase. That is not saying that infection is a certainty, but the odds do shorten considerably. We also cannot determine which rats are infected, so we can only exterminate them all.

Once the bubonic plague has been ascertained to be the primary component of the virus, the appropriate prophylaxis can be found. Thus, even if this sort of outbreak happens again, there will not be any more need to worry, as the appropriate treatment would be available.

(I): This virus developed very rapidly; the victims die within 19 hours after the initial exposure.

(W): The virus does not develop very rapidly. What happened was that [the victims] were, in fact, infected much earlier than [19 hours prior]. [There] was the incubation period [during] which the virus developed quietly without presenting any symptoms; you did not mention the incubation period.

(I): Will we be infected by eating pork?

(W): (Laughs) Of course not, because after cooking the pork at high temperature, the virus would have been killed and the genetic sequence of the disease broken. Think about it -- the virus is blood borne, and if the blood has changed under heat, then how can the virus survive?

(I): Besides pigs, are other domesticated fowls susceptible?

(W): I am considering this question also. Yet from what I had understood, we found that it has a lot to do with the nature of the environment. There is a lot of rearing, slaughtering and processing of pigs and pork products in the area. The pork processing industry is a mainstay of their economy. Other animals might have been infected, but their numbers will be small in comparison. Infection of these animals can occur while being raised or from environmental factors. As to why there were no infections in large factories but rather in smaller households -- that can be easily explained.

(I): Do you think that the outbreak will come to an end?

(W): After we’ve isolated and ascertained the virus, the rest will be the manufacturing of the appropriate antiviral drugs and to start a vaccination program.

(I): We often see related reports of analysis and explanation for the outbreak.

(W): Medical reports and analysis can be easily organized, tampered, or falsified for the sake of economic concerns; that’s not unusual. We must keep in mind that the lead agency for this investigation is the Sichuan Provincial government, and not the Chinese Ministry of Health. The Ministry of Health is playing a supporting role, so we must follow the wishes of the provincial government. As to why the Ministry of Health is [only] playing a supporting role, I cannot explain

(I): You had mentioned about the third virus in the outbreak; what is it?

(W): I’m sorry; I cannot explain this because it’s beyond my knowledge. This was the result of the wrong treatment administered followed by the environmental pollution accidents. So I could not fully understand it. Also I have never been involved in the analysis of the Ebola and the plague virus synthesis and I don’t have any more ebola samples. I can only say that the Ebola and the third virus do play a part in this particular virus involved in this outbreak. Those killed by the third virus have since been cremated; we only have samples now, but it’s understandably very dangerous.

(I): Thank you so much for your time. Sorry for wasting your precious time.

(W): It’s not a problem.

(I): Good-bye.

(W): Good-bye.
* * * * *
Pundita’s notes:

(1) Clearly, according to this translator, the person is using the name of Wong, not Wang, as had been stated in other places.

(2) Bubonic plague is a bacterial infection not a viral one and the transmission of bubonic plague from humans to rats was via fleas, according to a dicussion thread on Agonist:

"[...] The person appears not to know that plague is a bacteria, the vector from rodents to humans is fleas, and plague is curable with cheap antibiotics."

Yet there is no mention of fleas in the interview. And throughout the interview both the interviewer and Dr. Wang refer to bubonic plague as a virus. This anomaly received much discussion on the Agonist discussion board and has led to various speculations. See Friday’s post.

There is one fascinating speculation presented during the Agonist discussion thread, which I missed during the first reading:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/
sci_tech/highlights/010801_blackdeath.shtml

"I found several links [see BBC link above] that say the Black Death and subsequent plagues were caused by an Ebola like filovirus and not bubonic plague bacteria. Maybe the person is referring to this virus, i.e. the virus is the one believed to cause 'bubonic plague.' [...]"

I was hoping a better translation might clear up the confusion about the word, yet this translation of the Mandarin word accords with the one by the “peter pan” translator on Agonist.

I learned from the translator that an online machine translation tool was used to help with medical terminology. In the effort to resolve the confusion once and for all, I have emailed the translator a link to an online English-"Chinese" dictionary, which shows two very different pictographs for the words "virus" and "bacteria," and asked for a comparison of these with the pictograph used in the text. I hope to hear back this evening or tomorrow and will edit this footnote according to the verdict.

However, because the pictographs are clearly very different, and because the word "virus" is used throughout the text in other contexts, right now I am leaning toward the machine translation of "virus" in reference to bubonic plague as the correct one.

If the word used to describe bubonic plague is indeed "virus," one is left to wonder. If the interview is a hoax then considering the highly technical discussion in parts, most likely a hoax carried about by someone with basic medical knowledge. So one would think a hoaxer would know enough to use the correct word. Yet there it is: the bubonic plague is repeatedly referred to as a “virus,” at least according to the translation posted here and on Agonist.

A possibility is that “Dr. Wong” is a lab technician who is not knowledgeable about bubonic plague. But of course that speculation grasps at a straw.

(This post was updated at 11:35 AM; see new paragraphs at end of the post.)

"Pundita,
Re your post yesterday: Dave Schuler said, "I'm not saying that Chinese people are dirtier or have more disease or anything of the sort. I wouldn't be at all surprised if they were cleaner and less disease-prone than us Westerners. I'm just saying that the conditions there -- particularly in rural China with large numbers of people living in close proximity to domestic livestock -- may make the development of new strains of diseases more likely."

Another factor is the rapid change in living environment for millions of Chinese. Those who grow up in a "dirty" environment have a stronger immune system (recall the recommendations from Joe Katzman and your own prior discussion).(1)

Apply that to the massive rural to urban migration in China. Children raised in relatively cleaner urban areas exposed to pathogens from rural areas (whether transported into the cities or the kids in a rural area for whatever reason). Apply the hardy infection in a population with lesser immune systems, densely packed as Chinese cities are, especially with illicit housing for unofficial migrants ... think London and the cholera epidemics.

Exposure of more than one pathogen in this kind of environment offers more mix-and-match opportunities, especially if the strain is adaptable to begin with, such as human influenza.

One comment also about Dave's discussion of sampling (When you roll the dice enough times you eventually get all the combinations...):

With diseases, permutations may be more important than combinations -- the order of occurrence may matter. On the macro level, a disease which weakens one aspect of the body makes a follow-on disease/condition more serious than if the order of events were reversed.

On the micro level, the order in which the changes occur may affect whether other changes can occur, and how they will occur. Recombinomics is still an art for that reason, among others. And the number of permutations of a given pair of numbers is far greater than the number of combinations. Example, 5 objects taken 3 at a time:

P = 5!/3! = (5*4*3*2*1)/(3*2*1) = 20
C = 5!/[3!*(5-3)!] = (5*4*3*2*1)/[(3*2*1)(2*1)] = 10

Note the difference in denominators. Food for thought.
Liz in USA"

* * * * * *
Yesterday a letter from a medical doctor galvanized Pundita to visit the Agonist website. Pundita asks Liz and all readers who have been following the H5N1/Virus X tangle to study the human (vs. machine) translation of "Dr. Wang's" interview that is published on Agonist. (This is the interview presenting Wang's claim that virus samples he examined revealed Ebola virus.)(2)

Also, I urge you to study the entire discussion thread that follows on Agonist.com, and which includes Henry Niman's (Recombinomics, Inc.) comments.

I'm not prepared to fully explain at this time why I'm asking you to undertake the chore; I'm waiting for more data. But to put you in the ballpark:

Readers who studied the "Strange Days in China..." essay and all the links I provided know that I believe there's a shakeout in the CCP, which I think heated up after General Cao and his faction ousted Jiang Zemin and his crew from power in September 2004.

In any case, there have been many signs during the past year to suggest Jiang has not gone quietly. I have speculated that his faction is behind the new 'openness' campaign in China; e.g., talking more openly about corruption, publicly sympathizing with rioters, etc.(3)

With the above in mind, it struck me while taking in the data on Agonist (which includes speculations about whether Wang is a "government puppet" or a hero of the people) that his interview could have represented a nod from highly placed officials in China.

Of course even if this speculation is correct, Wang's discussion of Ebola cases could be a fabrication or simply a misdiagnosis. However, if Dr. Wang got the green light from on high, that could just as well mean that he revealed true cases about Ebola that have been covered up because they suggest a biowar experiment that jumped the lab -- revelations designed perhaps to embarrass General Cao's faction in the PLA.

That's a lot of "ifs" and "perhaps." And maybe the most that could be wrung out of the Wang interview is that it's another window on a battle between two powerful factions. Note that Wang and the interviewer harp on the corruption theme. Jiang's faction is pushing the theme hard and it has great resonance with China's rural population.

Also, for readers with a background in medicine and/or biology: Get ready to fall off your chair about the translator's admission that his knowledge of biology is very limited.

Dave Schuler and others who can read Mandarin to one degree or another, get ready to fall off your chair about the translator's admission that his Mandarin isn't that good. (See below.)

Do you realize there is not an adequate published English translation of the Wang interview? Yet many speculations of a highly technical biomedical nature have spun off from the poor translations.

I note the mention in the Agonist discussion thread about finding a Taiwan translator. For heaven's sake, the USA is stuffed with Chinese-American MDs and biologists and who speak fluent Mandarin.

And look at just some of the confusion that has been caused by poor translations of the interview: the tendency has been to dismiss all Wang's statements or view them with great skepticism because he describes bubonic plague as a "virus" (it's a bacterial infection). However, the "bubonic plague virus" remark could arise from the translation, as some of the posters to Agonist observe!

Here's the reply from the translator ("peter pan") to queries from "pxb" and "quiet bill" (the latter an Agonist editor):

"pxb: there was probably a significant error in the translation. my biology background is minimal, and my mandarin is fairly rudimentary as well. i'm not sure he specifically referred to plague is a bacteria or virus, because to me, i can't differentiate the difference between them in mandarin. so that error could be attributed to me. hopefully, with the new translator from taiwan coming aboard, she could better clarify such discrepancies.

"but as to the fleas portion, to the best of my knowledge, there was no mention of fleas. as for the bubonic plague, i myself, i'm not too sure as i didn't study biology in mandarin, but i relied on the google translation, and google shouldn't have gotten it wrong if it's such highly technical terms. their only problem, google that is, is that they can't make the sentences flow and most of the individual terms are translated individually so it tends to create a rather stuttered sentence. so i, or google, may be wrong on this, but i'd genuinely doubt so. but the gist of it is that it is a disease found in rats that can infect humans via biting.

"the vaccination part, i'm certain this is right. vaccination against THAT particular rat borne disease is mentioned to be widespread. although immunity levels drop in poor environments.

"quiet_bill: you're somewhat right. at more basic levels - my chinese language is only up to GCE 'AO' level, there probably is minimal difference and i may not know that such differences exist. however, at times like this, i again deferred to the google translation.

"pxb: i suspect it is a novell combination. in fact, if the article is true of course, that was what the doctor / researcher was trying to hint at. a synthesis between the ebola and the plague. he said that he did not take part in the experiments that tried to fuse them both in together."

Talk about the gang that couldn't shoot straight; why don't they first get a good translation then speculate about stuff that could kill everybody on the planet?

But as long as this is By Guess and By Golly Time, Wang might been discussing attempts to fuse Ebola virus and bubonic plague bacterium. When confronted with biomedical questions Pundita's Ouija board lapses into what I've theorized is an archiac Upper Croatian dialect. But according to an explanation I received from a medical doctor (who is admittedly not a molecular biologist), success with any such attempt would be extremely hard if not virtually impossible.

Yet Wang could have been referring to a biowar experiment that was at the extreme edge of gene science and maybe over the edge; i.e., fooling around in the lab at the expense of the Chinese military's biowar budget.

However we have no clear idea about what he was referring to because we don't have an adequate translation of his statements.

1) See August 9 Pundita post for link to Katzman post at Winds of Change. (Also see Pundita blogroll on the sidebar for link to The Glittering Eye and Winds of Change blogs.)

2)
http://discuss.agonist.org/yabbse/index.php?
board=6;action=display;threadid=22611

3)
July 21 Pundita post "Strange Days in China: return to Mao Zedong era and a remarkable televised address to the mainland."

http://pundita.blogspot.com/2005/07/
strange-days-in-china-return-to-mao.html

* * * * *
9:45 AM Update:
To answer letters asking if intelligence gathering isn't science:

While intelligence gathering (IG) can make use of scientific methods, it's not science because IG is free to draw conclusions that are outside the results and paradigm of the scientific experiment.

IG relates to decisions in war and more broadly to strategies that are directly and immediately connected with survival decisions. Because so much news doesn't relate to your survival decisions, it can be hard to think of taking in the daily news as an intelligence gathering activity. That's why I've taken pains to note the connection between consuming news and IG and the difference between IG and scientific method.
* * * * *

"Pundita:
Here are two links: Flu mortality rates -- from a PBS Special (probably well-researched):

http://www.pbs.org/wnet/secrets/
case_killerflu/

The second one -- possibly valuable, but I'm a bit dubious (among other reasons, I have to wonder about the statistical validity of the measures -- how many people, were all cases under medical care and therefore counted, etc.):

http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/
medicalnews.php?newsid=5771

Glad to see your skepticism re the Ebola-H5N1 combo. I worry about quality blogs biting on something so juicy they fall prey to the MSM need-for-speed disease.
Liz in USA"

Dear Liz:
I appreciate your point about the speed disease. However, Pundita is not skeptical; indeed, I have warned against skepticism -- as I've warned against uncritical acceptance of the reports about Ebola and Virus X.

Yet I'm not sure my stance is fully understood because many Americans have been conditioned to accept 'general' scientific thinking -- and to such extent that often they often misapply it when trying to determine the validity of news reports.

At this time the lay public as well as medical/scientific professionals are foolish if they are weighted to accept or reject statements made about an Ebola outbreak in China and/or an Ebola-H5N1 strain. That is because they would be basing their conclusion on anecdotal reports (notably, the interview with "Dr. Wang.")

This doesn't mean the reports are necessarily in error or represent a fabrication; it means we're still where we've always been while examining Dr. Wang's statements: at a blank wall. We must remain there until reliable blood samples and accurate official reports relating to patient and cadaver disease symptoms can be obtained from China. Since it's more likely Hell will freeze first, speculation about an Ebola outbreak in China -- and the nature of "Virus X" -- is useless within a purely scientific context.

What we can do is place Wang's statements in a broader context; i.e., view his statements about Ebola as a 'mosaic' or piece of 'intelligence' about the recent appearance of an infectious disease in China and most notably in Sichuan and Guangdong provinces.

There are now several mosaics (or pieces in a jigsaw puzzle, if you prefer); notably:

1. Official Chinese reports about the number of human deaths they claim are associated with infected swine.

2. Official Chinese reports about the symptoms of the those exposed to the purported infected swine.

3. Official Chinese claim that the purported swine infection is streptococcus suis that was transmitted to humans.

4. Contradictions between the pathology of strep suis and the symptoms in humans noted by both the Chinese officials and the anonymous reports posted on Boxun.com and other Chinese 'underground' websites.

5. John Loftus report and reports on Boxun, etc., that there are many more deaths in Sichuan from a disease outbreak than Chinese officials have reported.

6. John Loftus report and other reports that China's military have recently used draconian means to halt the spread of a highly infectious lethal disease in Sichuan; e.g., bulldozing villages.

7. Chinese officials' refusal to share medical evidence on Virus X with outside health agencies, including WHO, and the use of draconian measures to silence medical opinion in China that questions or flatly contradicts the official Chinese version.

The best we can do at this point is continue to gather mosaics about Virus X and place them alongside another set of mosaics: evidence about the advance and mutations of H5N1 in Asia, including China, and Beijing's refusal to be transparent about evidence relating to H5N1 in China.

The question is whether both sets of mosaics are actually one. At this point, any answer would be highly speculative. Yet considering the gravity of the subject we must place both sets of mosaics within a larger context: public health and the threat of pandemic. Thus, for now and the foreseeable future, we should keep a close eye on the trend of news about Virus X and H5N1.
* * * * * * * * *
Dave Schuler replied on his blog, The Glittering Eye, to comments I made in yesterday's post regarding his observation that rural China is a special breeding ground for new diseases. Frankly, I suspect the Chinese military's tendency to dabble in biowar experiments has more to do with China being a special case, as distinct from other countries that have human overcrowding coupled with close human proximity to livestock. However, I thought Dave's additional comments on the subject were interesting enough to publish here:

"I continue to think that China is a special case from an epidemiological standpoint. There are a number of factors which have led to high population densities over long periods of time there including partible inheritance, rice cultivation, Confucian practice, and so on.

"Look at the development of a new strain of a disease as the results of rolling a pair of dice. Look at infection of each new person as a roll of the dice. If you roll the dice more often, more combinations show up. If you keep rolling the dice long enough, all possible combinations will show up eventually.

"I’m not saying that Chinese people are dirtier or have more disease or anything of the sort. I wouldn't be at all surprised if they were cleaner and less disease-prone than us Westerners. I’m just saying that the conditions there -- particularly in rural China with large numbers of people living in close proximity to domestic livestock -- may make the development of new strains of diseases more likely."

The letter from Dave Schuler at The Glittering Eye raises five points, so I have inserted my replies after each point.

Dear Pundita:
I'm back from my visit to St. Louis and trying to catch up. I've just finished reading your extremely interesting series on China and the potential avian flu pandemic. Here are my comments:

1. One small technical correction. The avian flu in question is caused by a virus. Antibiotics have no effect on viruses. Consequently, giving antibiotics to domestic fowl has little or no effect on the development of the avian flu virus. What is being claimed is that Chinese farmers have given anti-VIRALS to their domestic fowl:

http://www.cidrap.umn.edu/cidrap/content/
influenza/avianflu/news/june2005avflu.html

Re #1. Thank you for the link; the report throws some light on the murky reading of the law in China about the use of human anti-virals on chickens. I was unaware that anti-virals are still being used in China in this fashion, although I wasn't shocked to read about reports that this is still occurring.

I think one of my recent essays mentions the overuse of "medications" during past years; a better choice of words would have been "anti-virals." But yesterday's essay specifically mentions feeding human "antibiotics" to chickens (in the attempt to stave off an avian flu outbreak in 1997) because my understanding is that this happened -- even though, as you note, it would be useless to apply an antibiotic to a viral infection. So it seems many farmers in China didn't initially realize what they were up against; by the time they did, the "1997" strain of the A(H) virus had mutated.

This said, your comment and the information in the article you reference raises the question of whether antibiotics were indeed used in the manner I described; the practice might have been limited to anti-virals. Interested readers might want to research the question on Google.

2. You mention bulldozing of villages in China by the army. If it's actually going on, our intelligence community certainly knows about it: it would show up on satellite imagery.

Re #2: Your reasoning is correct.

3. Frankly, there's probably little we can do about avian flu. By the time we know that a virulent human-transmissible version has shown up it will be too late to actually stave off a pandemic. If we don't already have stores of anti-virals (and I'm pretty confident we don't), we probably can't ramp production up fast enough to make a significant difference and I can't imagine Western governments acting fast enough.

Re #3: Stop and think: Has H5N1 put a man on the moon? We're going to beat this little bit of protoplasm. What we might not beat, unless we put more energy into it, is the Chinese Communist Party's famous Denial & Deception program, followed by the D&D program of every government who believes that if you just sit there and make the sad eyes, the rich governments of the world will come rushing to your aid.

Since the start of this blog my message to people from such countries has been, "For your own sake don't keep counting on the help." Just a change in weather patterns could eat up all the spare financial resources of the world's rich nations by the end of this decade.

True, there is only a small window of opportunity to ward off a supervirus pandemic, but we shouldn't be thinking in terms of either-or. Every intelligent action that we take to limit the spread of pandemic would help brake its spread. Every bit of effort helps.

At the end of the day we will put H5N1 out of commission; what happens between then and now depends a great deal on human efforts. Those who would say it's all in God's hands aren't thinking straight. The human race can't strengthen and mature without facing trials. So the old saying, "Pray but row away from the rocks" applies greatly to dealing with the threat of pandemic.

4. To my jaundiced eye the real problem is the conditions of life in rural China. Large numbers of people living in very close conduct with domestic livestock in poor sanitary conditions. The practice of feeding the dung of domestic fowl to pigs aggravates the situation. Sort of a "perfect storm" for developing new strains of disease.

Re #4: Pundita nearly keeled at your news about the practice of feeding fowl droppings to pigs. I had assumed that the H virus was passed to pigs simply from their snuffling around infected bird poop inadvertently plopped in their midst.

This said, the general conditions you describe about rural China apply to virtually all "undeveloped" regions of the world. Yet the nature of the virus makes it just as likely that the supervirus could materialize from a human flu bug caught by a poultry worker in a very modern, clean plant in the developed world. The human carrier of the supervirus could be anyone who is exposed to a more easily transmittable version of H5N1 and a human flu bug.

That is why rapid response, good data collection and full reporting are the key to limiting the spread of a superpandemic. The warning applies to the developed countries as well.

If you want a stomach-churning experience, read about some of the foot-dragging that took place right here in the USA with regard to a less virulent strain of the A(H) virus that spread among some chicken farms in 2004.

Some of the affected chicken farms were not Mom&Pop enterprises. But no matter the size of the business the owners faced the same situation that chicken farmers battling H5N1 were facing in the poor countries: loss of their entire business. So at that time the tendency both here and abroad was to try for half-way measures at first, such as quarantine, instead of killing the entire flock. The excuse here was that the strain as not as virulent as H5N1.

There was other astounding stuff going on in the US while the H5N1 epidemic was raging in Asia. One news report was about sending a batch of diseased chickens to market and putting them in stalls along with other livestock for sale! If I recall this was in south Texas, where a large Mexican immigrant population likes to buy live chickens then slaughter them for food as they do in their country, instead of buying supermarket dead chickens.

Then I think some official read the headlines about H5N1 and yelled, "Holy Shit!" So then they went running around looking for the diseased fowl in the open-air markets to remove them. That was like looking for a needle in a haystack until of course the chickens keeled over dead.

Don't quote me on my recollection of that report but it's in the ballpark.

The moral of the story is that the bottom line is exactly that. With many business owners, if they can find a way to save their business they will. So, since 2004 a massive education program has been going on in the USA. The CDC and the chicken dealers' association and whatnot have given the direst warnings. We hope the warnings have sunk in.

Are conditions better in China than say the US for making and spreading diseases? Sure. But H5N1 is a very democratic virus -- rich nation, poor nation, it doesn't care. Nor does it have a preference for rural surroundings or antiquated chicken processing facilities. It can strike in the most modern facility and in the middle of a big city.

This said, one can and should heap blame on China's government for massive Denial & Deception about H5N1 in their country. More than the virus itself, China's attempt to cover up the situation has been the most deadly aspect of the situation -- although China can't be singled out in this situation. Across the board, poorer countries that export chickens have been slow to report on disease outbreaks among fowl -- and until virologists yelled and screamed and jumped up and down, slow to kill off flocks.

None of the above overturns your points. In a highly globalized trade environment, traditional rural practices with regard to livestock, whether in Thailand, India, the African continent or China, are indeed a laboratory for highly infectious diseases.

The other side of the story is that man, bird and animal have been living in close quarters since our time began. We have built up a lot of antibodies. So there is a certain artificiality about the present situation -- a sign that overuse of medications and powerful disinfectants might have have weakened human immune systems.

Did you ever read Agatha Christie's Come Tell Me How you Live? It's a fascinating account of her experiences while accompanying her second husband to an archeological dig in the Middle East. That was in the 1940s, if I recall. She told of the incredible strength of the immune system of Arab nomad tribes she encountered. When it came to recovering from illness, they were like supermen in comparison to modernized peoples who are born and raised with scads of medication and in "clean" enviornments.

However, another side of the story is the tragedy that befell Tibetans when they came down from the high altitudes in Tibet to live in refugee camps in India. They did not have a tradition of bathing or washing their clothes. That tradition allowed natural oils to build up on the skin, clothes and hair, thereby protecting them from skin cancer from the merciless sun at very thin altitudes. And the sun at that altitude quickly killed the kind of bacteria present in Tibet during that era.

But in the Indian climate the traditional daily bath of the Indian and the daily change into clean clothing is vital protection against a host of bacteria that live at lower altitudes and less intense sunlight.

The Tibetans refused the Indian doctors' pleas to bathe and wash their clothes. The Tibetans died in great number; probably more died that way than at the hands of the Red Guard in Tibet.

5. By the way, face masks won't do a damned thing. They won't filter out something as small as a virus.
Dave in Chicago"

Re #5: Good point; however, I stress this isn't an either-or situation. Estimates vary but assume that roughly half the people who are exposed to H5N1 survive the experience. Assume also it will be about the same for those exposed to a supervirus. So survival for many who face pandemic will come down to the strength of their immune system.

When it comes to beefing up the immune system, every little bit helps because the less strain on the system from other challenges, the more it can muster resistance to a killer virus.

To the extent a face mask can help protect the immune system against "nuisance" challenges -- common cold germs, allergens, pollutants and so on -- it is worth it to wear one when a flu epidemic sweeps through, even though the mask won't protect against inhaling airborne virus.

There is also psychological value to wearing a mask: a physical reminder to the wearer and a visual reminder to others to take precautions during a flu epidemic: not to cough indiscriminately, not to stand too close to others if it can be avoided, and so on.

Of course wearing a face mask is an extreme measure but if the flu season this year is a doozy not a useless one.

It's vital when thinking of strategies not to overlook routine and small things when trying to build up the immune system. Start now and throughout the coming flu season to:

> Pace yourself
> Get enough sleep, sunlight, and exercise
> Remove as many emotional stresses as you can
> Eat as healthily as possible

> Tend now to minor health problems; e.g., ingrown toenail, gum disease, etc. Every small stressor you can remove from your immune system is a help.

> Wear closed shoes -- give up sandals and going barefoot in all but the most pristine outdoor environments and inside the house.

> Observe the 30 second rule when washing your hands and keep your fingernails and toenails cut nearly to the quick.

> Build up healthy intestinal bacteria by eating yogurt, etc.

> Don't go overboard with antibacterial soaps but take special precautions when handling raw meat including chicken and be sure it's properly stored and cooked -- and the store wrappings carefully disposed of.

> And for heaven's sake get a flu shot even if you hate them and think they're useless.

All the above are simple things, things we've heard for years from health experts. Now is the time to put them into practice. However, Americans tend to have a boom-and-bust approach to health matters. We go overboard or we're lax. We should aim for balance.

We need to practice patience: take tiny, regular steps to better health so we don't feel overwhelmed by the task then ditch it. Remember the story I recounted about Félix Houphouët-Boigny's approach to restoring health?

I used to know many Houphouët stories by heart. The one I remember best, after all these many years, as how he got control of his ministers in his old age. He was slowing down, unable to walk without assistance. So he consulted with his doctor; he explained that his ministers were losing respect for him because they were seeing his physical decline.

The doctor observed that it was a matter of rebuilding stamina; with old age had come a very sedentary lifestyle. The doctor warned that too much activity after all those years of being sedentary could damage his health severely and to build up stamina slowly.

Houphouët took the advice to heart. In private, he began with counting out his steps, and adding a few more steps every day, until after months of this he could walk miles without tiring. But all the while he did this, he kept up his old man's gait in the presence of his ministers.

Until one day he called them to walk with him. To their astonishment he set off at a brisk pace, all the while issuing instructions and pelting them with questions of state. Very soon the ministers (who lived sedentary Limousine Lives) were huffing and puffing to keep up with him.

Above all, remember that this is our time. Sometimes on a night the raccoon and possum members of Pundita's foreign policy team gather and we sit together, and they tell me of their clan's memories. This causes me to remember that the ancestors in our own clan went through so much to bring us to this point and that this is our time, time to show what the human clan is made of.

Many challenges are ahead but never before has so much human wisdom appeared at once, all around the world. And just in the nick of time. This earth has her own maintenance schedule, which is not always kind to living creatures. In the coming decades we will need all our ingenuity, faith and character to insure that we do more than survive, that we survive with grace. We will rise to the test.

Speaking of pacing ourselves I am glad you got some time off. As you can see by my posts, I set aside my vacation when I learned about reports of an Ebola outbreak in China. That led me to catch up on news about the latest doings of H5N1. I felt it was vital to alert Pundita readers to the many-faceted story.

Now I must follow my own advice and get a much-needed break. I will put up one more post on Wednesday night to answer a few other letters relating to earlier posts about H5N1/Virus X. Then I am going on a real vacation, so there will be no more posts until Saturday and that one will be very brief.

Best regards to you, Dave and to your 'team' -- er, pack.

Yesterday I received a letter from Dr. Patricia Doyle* that contains sound recommendations:

"With regard to biopreparedness, I suggest using closed military bases and VA hospitals for use in bioattack or during a pandemic. We may need to use these facilities so they should be prepped. Buildings would have to be revamped; e.g., old ventilation changed into isolation type.

If the recent outbreak of highly infectious lethal disease(s) in China goes global we may need to have isolation treatment centers at these bases and the VA hospitals to ensure containment and to preserve our first responders and hospital personnel.

Some of the recent reports out of China indicate [swine 'mystery' disease] spreading in hospitals to personnel and other patients. The ideal is not to treat patients with highly infectious disease in the same hospital as the routine patients.

You can be assured that I am hoping Henry Niman and I are wrong [about the current threat from disease outbreaks in China]. I would much prefer "egg" on my face to an outbreak. Any day.
Patricia in New York"

Pundita heartily concurs with the advice but doubts Patricia will ever find egg on her face. China's latest mystery disease aside, humanity is now in a very dicey situation with regard to the spread of H5N1. During this critical period it is wrong to hope that a vaccine is all that's needed to dodge a superpandemic -- one brought on by a supervirus of mutated H5N1/human flu virus. This point is implicit in the caveat attached to the successful H5N1 vaccine trial:

...the strongest response [from the test subjects] was with two shots of the largest dose of the vaccine, 90 micrograms, higher than many experts had expected. That means that the amount the government has bought from Sanofi-Pasteur...would [only] suffice for 450,000 people...The [US] government is seeking...enough additional vaccine to inoculate another 4.5 million people.(1)

You may trust that if a pandemic is quicker on the draw than manufacturing capacity, there will be a clamor from the citizenry -- here and in other countries -- to cut the high required dosage so that more people can have at least 'some' protection.

If governments cede to the demand you don't want to think about what's in store. Ditto if governments refuse to cede; we'll be seeing watered down knockoffs of the vaccine sold on black markets.

And there could be only the smallest window of opportunity to stop a superpandemic.(2) So it's hard to go overboard with biopreparedness. If the superpandemic doesn't materialize we can chalk up the time and money spent to vital practice at quick coordinated civilian response to any kind of disaster. Sooner or later, practice at such response will be the deciding factor in how well a society survives a disaster, whether it's made by nature or humans.

Pundita was reminded of this while reading a July 27 essay by Joe Katzman at Winds of Change titled Playing Chicken with Avian Flu: Pandemic Rising?(3) The essay is stuffed with practical advice about biopreparedness, right down to the level of individual families. Katzman notes:

...begin building little islands of understanding and capability...Plan less. Experience and communicate more. Become a pack in motion, not a herd in wait.

In addition to the obvious reasons for such advice, American action to get prepared for a biodisaster is the best way to convince developing world governments of the need to expend more effort on dealing with killer viruses.

I observed in yesterday's essay that India and other countries have covered up deaths from H5N1 in their countries. It might be more precise to observe that they've covered up their lousy data collection and analysis relating to deaths from highly infectious diseases.

Given the H5N1 antibodies found in poultry workers and the lethality of the disease, it's a statistical certainty that a number of deaths in India (and other Asian countries) since 2003 have been from H5N1 but were reported only as influenza. Better analysis would have pinpointed spikes and anomalies in reported flu deaths and symptoms during the years 2003-2004. Yet developing-world governments view big spending on such programs as a luxury, in the same manner they view stringent anti-pollution measures as a luxury that only rich nations can afford.

The task is to convince such governments that they can't afford not to throw adequate resources toward warding off an epidemic in their country. They need to be very clear on the fact that if a superpandemic materializes they can't assume the rich nations will be in a position to bail out the poorer ones. This point is hard to impress on many governments, as the World Health Organization and the Centers for Disease Control learned the hard way in 2003.

The governments nod and say "Yes of course we understand."

As soon as there is a lull in a disease outbreak they return "Analysis of disease reports" to the bottom of the budget list. That's understandable; humans are by nature gamblers. However, those who have closely followed the career of H5N1 know that now is the time to sit on the gambling urge.

Americans can help get this point across while helping themselves. We should realize that no matter how much crabbing is done around the world about the USA, we are still looked upon as the leader by virtue of our great success as a nation. So, how Americans act has more weight than all the official speeches combined. You can shout about H5N1 data all you want; it's actions that count to convince that you're seriously concerned about the data.

This point also holds true when poorer nations hear they're supposed to work themselves into a lather about biopreparedness. If they see Americans busy at the task, it will sink in that we're not blowing hot air.

There is another reason Americans might want to get on a biopreparedness kick at this time: it is the best way to convince Beijing that a US demand for transparency about H5N1 cases in China is not a plot to overthrow China's Communist Party. The CCP's concern about US plotting is now well within the paranoid range.(4)

* For information on Patricia Doyle see Saturday's Pundita post.

1) The New York Times

2) FuturePundit: Prompt response might stop avian flu pandemic

3) Winds of Change: Playing Chicken with Avian Flu: Pandemic Rising?

4) Pundita: Strange Days in China...

This post is in answer to a letter from Stan in Canada.

For a moment assume the worst-case scenario: a mutation of airborne-transmitted Ebola mixed with a mutation of H5N1 and further, that the ghastly brew is a bioweapon experiment that jumped the lab. We'll call this virus Bogeyman X or BX for short.

What would BX have to do with the threat of a supervirus? Realize there's already a H5N1 pandemic underway. But that's not the supervirus, the megakiller.

What is a supervirus? It's H5N1 mixed with genetic material from a human flu virus. That will be the superkiller. It has not happened yet because you may trust that when it does, there will be no way to cover up the number of people dying.

So let's back up a few paces and look at the big picture:

Did you notice in Patricia Doyle's letter that now she's talking about what Henry Niman has said about "WSN/33 lab-developed genes" associated with Spanish Flu?

Do you see what's going on? A horse doctor got herself involved with a scientist who is working at the molecular level of existence. So of course when you take it down to that level, there are any number of genes that can display any number of characteristics that match all kinds of really deadly stuff.

This doesn't mean there is no Ebola loose in China, nor does it mean Niman is wrong. Nor does it mean there's not a bioweapon component.

It means that this entire story threatens to collapse from the sheer weight of hypothesizing and incomplete data emanating from (1) a gene scientist whose company has taken out God Knows how many patents relating to flu vaccine development and (2) anonymous people posting at Boxun.

It also means that there are now so many theories, claims, counterclaims and rumors that even the smallest wrong step leads to a quagmire. A good example is the report about the village bulldozings: evidentially one report is that this was done to cover up an outbreak of Ebola. Another report says it was done to cover up an outbreak of H5N1.

And note: once I served notice that a member of the blogosphere was questioning credentials, Doyle got very cautious about the Ebola angle in her letter to me:

Boxun reports that a physician [in China] treating pig disease patients isolated strains of Ebola...There is no verification of the report at this time. I sent the information to ... USAMRIID; as of this date I have not received an authoritative reply verifying the Boxun reports.

With regard to the mass fowl deaths at Qinghai Lake, Henry Niman's website sure isn't talking about Ebola -- at least, not as of the 6th of August. Here's what he's saying:

However, the sequence of the isolates from Qinghai Lake indicate that there will be a major problem using the new vaccine against the H5N1 being spread by migratory birds...The differences between 2004 H5N1 from Vietnam and 2005 H5N1 from Qinghai Lake are 18 amino acids in HA and 13 amino acids in NA.

He's talking about mutations of H5N1, plain and simple.

In 2004 there was a report of thousands of bramblings falling dead from the sky in mid-flight, in China. H5N1 as the cause of death was 'ruled out' by Beijing. They posited some kind of poisoning but I never heard anything more about promised tests and sharing the data.

In any case, the A-H virus is now incredibly lethal to birds/fowl. It got that way not from bioweapon experiments but from Mainland and Hong Kong chicken farmers illegally feeding their flocks antibiotics made for humans; this was back in 1997-1998 during the Hong Kong bird flu outbreak.* They were trying to stop the outbreak. But the virus simply mutated in response to the antibiotics and grew stronger and more clever.

So now we have H5N1.

As I noted earlier, the pandemic relating to that particular strain is already underway. Niman notes in a 7/31 post at Recombinomics:

Most countries have little incentive to report H5N1 cases. India claims to have never had H5N1 in poultry or people, although poultry workers in India have H5N1 antibodies. Thailand claims to have had no H5N1 cases in 2005 although the H5N1 isolated from birds closely matches the H5N1 in northern Vietnam isolated from patients. Indonesia claims their H5N1 infections in 2003 were due to New Castle Disease and the H5N1 in a Jakarta suburban family was a fatal bacterial infection.

That observation is a replay of what was going in 2003-2004 with the H5N1 outbreak.

The kill rate for H5N1 in humans is roughly 50% if I recall. So if people in Asia are demonstrating H5N1 antibodies -- meaning they've been exposed to the virus -- you can bet a lot of people have already died from the disease. The Indian government is covering it up. Ditto Indonesia, and go on down the list.

So it's counterproductive to just go after China's government for lying and not being forthcoming with data. WHO and the CDC went round the block with all those governments back in 2003-2004. The agencies stood on their head to warn that the only chance of the human race avoiding a super pandemic was if all those governments got very transparent very fast about data relating to suspected H5N1 illness.

There are many signs that mass wildlife fowl/bird deaths from H5N1 have been happening at least as early as 2003. My sense is that there was only one thing extraordinary about the mass deaths of the bramblings and the mass deaths of fowl at Qinghai Lake: the deaths occurred at very famous landmarks. The bramblings died at Hu Jintao's birthplace. Qinghai Lake is a world famous tourist spot. That means there was no way the PLA could cover up those two particular instances of mass death in bird/fowl wildlife.

As to how many other instances there have been -- H5N1 is 100% lethal to birds/fowl. And a very fast killer. So I assume there have been cases around the world of mass deaths in migratory birds when they touched down in an infected region. The shelf life of the virus is incredibly long -- it lives for many days in bird feces, even under freezing conditions or in hot sun.

Now let's return to BX Virus. Suppose it exists. What can we do about it? Stand around and accuse the PLA of conducting bioweapons research that got away from them? Then stand around arguing for another year while China denies until so many bodies pile up they have no choice but to confess they have a little problem? Then would come the excuses:

"We just poor developing country trying to make a buck. We won't let it happen again until the next time can we have a World Bank loan for $100 million dollars to modernize our health clinic reporting?"

Meanwhile, plain old H5N1 is galloping around the planet, looking to hook up with a cute human flu virus.

So, what are our options here, Stan? And what is the top priority? "Get Beijing" or "Get all the world's governments to be more cooperative about sharing data on H5N1?"

If #1, you just try proving that Beijing is conducting bioweapon research that got out of the lab. It can be done, I suppose, given time, but now we're in a race against time.

If #2, you get a better response out of China by including them with everyone -- including Canada, I might add, which dragged their feet on admitting to a SARS outbreak. And by keeping the discussion limited to H5N1. Then you have a fighting chance of quickly locating and isolating a disease outbreak that represents the appearance of a supervirus.

I doubt you need illustration but just to review what we're up against with the CCP: I think Beijing came up with the strep suis tale simply because it's a disease that doesn't have to be reported to health agencies in China. And because some of the symptoms of the mystery disease match those associated with strep suis.

However, the Hong Kong authorities (badly burned by the Mainland's foot-dragging on SARS and the 2003 H5N1 outbreak) wised up quickly on the heels of the June outbreak of the mystery disease. On July 1st Hong Kong authorities instructed that henceforth all strep suis cases had to be reported.

If you go back through all the stories, you'll note that from that time forward, Beijing became a little less insistent that the mystery disease was strep suis. And as July unfolded, some Mainland officials allowed as to maybe the disease could be something else, maybe, mixed with strep suis.

Translation: "We know Hong Kong isn't buying."

Behind closed doors, it's okay for the US government to tell Beijing that if they don't cut out the bioweapon experiments the US will make them sorry. But Face on the world stage is everything to the CCP right now. Use that instead of trying to make them fess up. Use it as leverage to get them to report all human and animal deaths from H5N1 in China. Use it to get blood samples of people ill with the disease. If the samples turn up really weird stuff such as Ebola -- yes, well, it's human to err and we know the PLA will do better next time with monitoring experimental labs.

I would take that attitude with Beijing until every man, woman and child on the planet has been vaccinated against H5N1. That won't necessarily stop a supervirus. It will slow it down.

* August 9 Update: A reader mentioned that the practice might not have been illegal in China at the time. I have not had the time to check into the situation but whether or not the practice was illegal, they had no idea how much disaster they were courting. This situation is not limited to China, nor is it limited to abusing antibiotics for humans by feeding them to fowl in the futile attempt to fight a virus. Antibiotics have been over-used, across the board. We're paying a very high price for this with many diseases that are now resistant to antibiotics.

John Loftus mentioned to John Batchelor's audience on 8/5 that the Intelligence Summit website now has an extensive news section about US homeland security/defense/ terrorism and that the summit's ambition is to be the best source for news on the topics.

From my pass-through this afternoon, the Intelligence Summit News Page is already a valuable central source for the general news-following public as well as those working in all areas of homeland security/defense.

So I am adding a link to the page on my sidebar under the "GWOT" category. I especially liked the data in the IS archives for earlier years.

Pundita was also glad to discover that the 8/2 Loftus broadcast report about an Ebola outbreak in China, and which I referenced in an August 3 post, is archived on the Intelligence Summit News Page! The report is archived in audio along with all other Loftus reports to Batchelor's audience since August 1, 2005.

To access the 8/2 report, go to Intelligence Summit News Page, then scroll down to 8/2 "John Batchelor Show, August 2, 2005, John Loftus, Chinese Ebola."

Because the website for John Batchelor does not yet archive his show's broadcasts, at least now there is a website that archives Batchelor's nightly Loftus Report. That's a boon for Batchelor listeners who are unwilling to attend dinner parties, wakes and wedding receptions with a little radio wire in their ear. (Pundita has long since adjusted to being asked by curious dinner partners if I work for the Secret Service.)

I consider it so important that I publish below the entire August 6 Recombinomics commentary (unsigned but surely written or at least reviewed by Henry Niman -- see yesterday's post). However, the original publication of the text contains 11 links that you will need to access via the Recombinomics site here: H5N1 Bird Flu Evolves Away From Pandemic Vaccine. I strongly recommend that you take the time to read through every link.

The commentary text omits the full name of a source quote and also has a few typos; minor errors I've corrected here, and which suggest the writing was hastily posted -- perhaps in response to the early edition of the August 7 New York Times report titled Avian Flu Vaccine Called Effective in Human Testing by Lawrence K. Altman.

I will have a second post up (related to the topic of this post) sometime this evening; I am waiting to receive comments on the text so I can't say with certainty what hour it will be published. I'd suggest checking back after 9:00 PM, EDT. Thanks.

"Recombinomics Commentary
August 6, 2005

An earlier human vaccine against A(H5N1) avian influenza virus was prepared after it first appeared in the world, in Hong Kong in 1997. That vaccine was never fully developed or used, and the strain has mutated since then.

In interviews over recent days, Dr. Fauci [1] has said that tests so far have shown that the new vaccine produced a strong immune response among the small group of healthy adults under age 65 who volunteered to receive it, although the doses needed were higher than in the standard influenza vaccine offered each year.

The above comments on the development of a pandemic vaccine are overshadowed somewhat by the rapid spread of H5N1 across Russia, Kazakhstan, and Mongolia. Although the sequence of the rapidly spreading H5N1 has not been published, descriptions of the sequence sound much like the recently published H5N1 sequences from Qinghai Lake. Those sequences suggest that the current pandemic vaccine being tested worldwide will not be effective against the H5N1 expected to spread throughout Asia and Europe in the upcoming weeks.

As noted above, the vaccine produced against the 1997 H5N1 that infected 18 people in Hong Kong was not developed because the 2004 H5N1 had evolved away from the vaccine. The pandemic vaccine uses 2 of the 8 genes from H5N1 and analysis of the HA and NA shows why the 1997 vaccine was not effective. There were 20 amino acid differences between 1997 and 2004 in the HA protein and 26 differences in the NA protein.

Consequently, the pandemic vaccine that is currently in clinical trials was developed. Sequences from HA and NA of some of the 2005 H5N1 from Vietnam have been deposited at the Los Alamos National Labs Flu Database and there are just 4 differences between 2004 and 2005 in HA and 3 differences in NA. Consequently an earlier announcement indicated that there was no need to switch vaccine targets.

However, the sequence of the isolates from Qinghai Lake indicate that there will be a major problem using the new vaccine against the H5N1 being spread by migratory birds. As noted above, the new vaccine requires more virus than the human vaccine. The new trial used several dosages to determine that a higher dose was required. In addition, a booster shot was necessary. Thus, the response was not robust and two shots were required. These data suggest that the vaccine requires a close match to be effective and thus far the effectiveness has only been tested in young adults. Although 2005 isolates out of Vietnam may be genetically close enough, isolates from Qinghai clearly are not.

The differences between 2004 H5N1 form Vietnam and 2005 H5N1 from Qinghai Lake are 18 amino acids in HA and 13 amino acids in NA. Thus, the number of differences between H5N1 in 2004 in Vietnam and 2005 in Qinghai Lake is almost as great as the number of differences between 1997 and 2004, which covers 7 years.

Moreover, as H5N1 migrates back to Vietnam and other Asian countries where H5N1 has become endemic, there will be more recombination and more change, further limiting the usefulness of the current vaccine.

Although the suspect cases in Kazakhstan have yet to be confirmed, and Russia has yet to report a human cases, the sequence data suggest that H5N1 from Qinghai will cause significant problems in the upcoming months. Boxun reports indicate that these isolates have already caused significant numbers of deaths in humans, and China has admitted to testing only two people exposed to H5N1 at Qinghai Lake.

The rapid spread of H5N1 across Asia and the expected spread through Europe dictate that a new pandemic vaccine effort be initiated, because it seems likely that the current vaccine will offer little protection to emerging recombinants in the upcoming months."

1) Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.

(Note to new readers: This post builds on consecutive Pundita posts over the last few days and in particular yesterday's post, in which I expressed reservations about the associations and credentials of Patricia Doyle and Henry Niman -- names that have been linked with recent reports about an outbreak of Ebola virus in China.)

"Hello Pundita:
With regard to your request for information about my credentials and the nature of my involvement with the topic of infectious diseases in China:

I was an equine veterinarian for 20 years until my retirement in 1992. I began researching infectious disease and anti-bioterrorism as a civilian layperson in my retirement. I took many USAMRIID bio-preparedness seminars. I decided to report from a layperson's perspective on biowar diseases and related topics when I learned there were great inadequacies in America's biodefense system.

I have made guest appearances on Jeff Rense's program for almost a decade. He has been instrumental in alerting the public about emerging diseases. However, I am neurologically impaired and speech is extremely difficult for me; I retired from my profession due to illness.

Therefore, if you wish to conduct a phone interview I would suggest you contact Dr. Henry L. Niman. And he is the expert about the topics under discussion. His expertise includes DNA sequencing. Henry has called the H5N1 virus progression quite accurately.

Also, he was the first to discover the WSN/33 lab-developed genes found in pigs in South Korea. I note the WSM/33 are of interest because the human genes were laboratory developed in association with H1N1 Spanish flu vaccine research in 1933. (As to why the genes would be found in present day Korean pigs is a mystery.)

Here is a summary of Dr. Niman's credentials:

Henry L. Niman

Recombinomics, Inc. Founder and President, Henry L. Niman earned a PhD at the University of Southern California in 1978. His dissertation focused on feline retroviral expression in tumors in domestic cats.

He took a postdoctoral position at Scripps Clinic and Research Foundation where he developed monoclonal antibody technology. He fused monoclonal antibody and synthetic peptide technologies and accepted a staff position at Scripps.

In 1982, he developed the flu monoclonal antibody, which is widely used throughout the pharmaceutical, biotech, and research industries in epitope tagging techniques. He also produced a broad panel of monoclonal antibodies against synthetic peptides of oncogenes and growth factors. These monoclonal antibodies were distributed worldwide to researchers by the National Cancer Institute. The antibodies identified novel related proteins which correlated with clinical parameters.

This technology was used to form ProgenX, a cancer diagnostic company that became Ligand Pharmaceuticals. Dr Niman subsequently identified protein expression patterns at the University of Pittsburgh. More recently, he became interested in infectious diseases while at Harvard Medical School. He then founded Recombinomics and discovered how viruses rapidly evolve. These latest findings are the subject of recent patent filings.

With regard to an Ebola mutation in China:

Boxun reports that a physician [in China] treating pig disease patients isolated strains of Ebola.[1][2] There is no verification of the report at this time. I sent the information to ... USAMRIID; as of this date I have not received an authoritative reply verifying the Boxun reports.

Dr. Niman has been concerned about H5N1 combining with WSN/33 and H1N1 (Spanish Flu). Moreover he is concerned about a H5N1/Ebola combination.

Quoting Dr. Niman: "Since both H5N1 and Ebola share a short region of identity, investigation of viral recombinants is warranted."

With regard to the spread of H5N1 [outside East Asia], it does look like Russia has now been hit with H5N1. Reportedly the Russian H5N1 displays some of the European signatures.

Also, I am convinced that China now has two types of H5N1: a new type that we saw in Qinghai and the Asian type close to the one that has spread in Vietnam.[3] [Dr. Niman] expects H5N1 to recombine and alter as it progresses through countries and infects people, birds, and animals, etc.

As for the so-called pig disease [what Pundita terms X Virus] that has been recently reported in China, my feeling is that the streptococcus suis is simply a byproduct or secondary infection. Many pigs have strap suis and it is endemic in China. The last outbreak in 1999 Hong Kong is on record. They did not have a 72 - 82% death rate [as has been reported with X Virus]. I believe that the death rate from strep suis is around 10%.

It is also possible that H1N1 (perhaps with the human WSN/33 genes) might be causing human infections of the pig disease.

Hemorrhagic symptoms have been noted with humans infected with the pig disease [not a symptom associated with strep suis]. I note that H1N1 (Spanish flu) displayed hemorrhagic symptoms in many cases. If the Spanish Flu and H5N1 recombine we could see the combined neurotropic symptoms as well as Ebola-like symptoms.

Boxun also reports entire villages razed.[4] If China's answer to this outbreak is to kill off the sick and contacts of the ill, we have a serious situation. China's government refuses to allow the [World Health Organization] into Sichuan to take samples of the pig disease. I think our government needs to implement some economic sanctions until the samples are shared. I would suggest that outside scientists observe the taking of samples and immediately take possession of the samples.

If you need more information please do contact me.
Dr. Patricia Doyle in New York"

1) Ebola outbreak in China: CCP cover-up... (This Pundita post quotes extensively from an Epoch Times article that mentions the report Doyle references.

2) See About Boxun if you are unfamiliar with Boxun.com

3) Boxun: China confirms Bird Flu in Quinghai is new type.

4) Qinghai Villages Razed

(AUGUST 6 UPDATE
Patricia Doyle responded to my August 5 request for information about her credentials. Her letter also presents Henry Niman's credentials and some eye-popping data about the appearance of genes associated with Spanish Flu in pigs in South Korea. With her permission I have published the letter. See August 6 post H5N1, Virus X....)

I wrote in my earlier post today:

When I observe, "not letting them near," I also mean that the Chinese military is bulldozing entire villages where the X Virus has broken out. Loftus reported last night on three such incidents.

Loftus indeed gave that report, but according to a published report by Henry Niman on Rense.com (which I linked to in the earlier post), the bulldozings were ostensibly related to an outbreak of H5N1, not X Virus.

I have decided to remove the paragraph from the earlier post because it is questionable and it's not central to my point, which is that China's authorities are not allowing WHO near sites where infections have recently broken out.

Also, it has struck me that four names in addition to Boxun keep popping up in relation to reports about X Virus: Patricia Doyle, Henry Niman, Recombinomics.com, and Rense.com and

So Pundita decided to visit Google.

Here, "Patricia Doyle, PhD" is convinced she caught SARS from an Asian grocery store clerk in the USA:

http://www.rense.com/general38/fight.htm

Here, she is telling a complex tale involving Plum Island and just about everything else except maybe sunspots:

http://www.earthchangestv.com/
biology/westnile/plumisland.htm

That doesn't mean that the data Doyle passed along about Plum Island is untrue; it means that all things considered, over time she has demonstrated a pattern of being drawn to sensational stories with a biowar component. That could possibly skew her perception of the X Virus.

No luck in nailing down the nature of Doyle's PhD, although I might make things easy on myself if I simply emailed her to ask.

After spending time on Google today and moseying around the site, I'd say that Rense.com and Rense's radio program are, how to put this...somewhat questionable, if we are trying to think from the viewpoint of a good detective. That doesn't mean Rense's site can't publish valuable data. But a word of caution.

Also, some background on "Dr. Henry Niman, PhD" as he signed himself on one of his articles for Rense.

http://www.the-scientist.com/news/20050520/01

"Henry Niman, founder of Recombinomics, a biotech firm set up to develop vaccine against flu. Niman analyzes data by looking for the possibility that flu viruses are evolving swiftly due to a recombination mechanism.

Niman has analyzed all 610 gene sequences from H5N1 isolates uploaded to Genbank in 2004. He's hopeful sequence data from at least one isolate will likely be made available on Genbank or on Influenza Sequence Database of the Los Alamos National Laboratory in coming weeks."

Not that someone with a vested interest in flu vaccines isn't a reliable source of information, and of course his firm's reputation is on the line. But as a general observation, this is why they have double-blind studies in science; the will to believe can influence even the most sincere people.

The observation should not be read as a description of Doyle, Niman or Rense. But again, a word of caution. And because Pundita is famously a fussbudget I would not want to disappoint my fans; therefore, I am removing Recombinomics from the sidebar blogroll, at least until I learn a little more about Henry Niman.

If readers are groaning at this point -- well, just a few days ago I warned that serious news consumers must learn to think like an intel analyst. One reader wrote to ask what thinking like an intel analyst means. You're looking straight at the meaning. Studying data is a process, not opening a package. Granted, it helps to be a fan of crossword puzzles, mystery novels, police blotters or treasure hunts. Preferably all four.

Sooner or later we will get close to the bottom of the X Virus story. It just takes time, patience, and the instincts of a hunter. However, the really important issue at this time is somehow galvanizing the US government to lean hard on China's government to be more forthcoming with data about H5N1.

The exact nature of the X Virus, which even the China's government virologists might not have figured out yet, is not quite so important at this moment as heading off a H5N1 pandemic. For that, complete transparency and fast communication about the number, type and pattern of H5N1 outbreaks are critical.

It's possible the CCP is in a panic about fresh outbreaks of H5N1 on the mainland; if so, it could take very strong language and threat of economic sanctions from other governments to help them to snap out of it. Frankly, we're now in a race against time when it comes to H5N1 -- whether or not the virus has mixed genetic material with a mutated Ebola virus.

(12:30 PM, EDT update is posted at the end of this essay. This post builds on discussion in earlier Pundita posts over the past few days.)

Rense.com has reprinted a translation of a BBS story about the three village bulldozings.

http://www.rense.com/general67/recomb.htm

These villages are in Qinghai region (site of mass duck deaths from H5N1 at Qinghai Lake in May) and seem to be connected with H5N1, not a mutated form of Ebola.

However, this is another indication of why the situation is so confusing: it reflects seemingly two different infectious diseases. Unless we are dealing with a mutated form of H5N1 mixed with a form of Ebola virus. I applaud Yale's courage in considering that possibility; Pundita is just not ready to run that far with reports of an outbreak in China of Ebola virus or a mutated form. In my view, the entire story is in danger of collapsing from confusing/ conflicting sets of data.

Rense.com isn't helping by putting up a story speculating that the Qinghai outbreak is connected with China's biowar program.

http://www.rense.com/general67/tweak.htm

One item that is not speculation: we're now just weeks from the date that the wild birds/fowl resting at Qinghai start their migration again, which can cross them with migrating flocks from US and Europe. See the (UK) Guardian piece: Avian flu casts shadow over beauty of China's bird lake.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/
story/0,3604,1539974,00.html

I would put nothing past China's military, including gross incompetance at managing their biowar experiments. But Rense's post about biowar makes it easy to dismiss as Tinfoil Hat any sober discussion about possible mutations of H5N1. That drains impetus for the US public to pressure Congress to pressure China to allow outside agencies to collect data on the most recent outbreaks. Yet pressure of this kind is the critical need at this time.

Ebola mutations aside, it is beyond question that H5N1 is on the loose. Attempts to stamp it out through flock cullings and vaccination of chickens have not worked to this date.

Thus far, no hard data that H5N1 has exchanged genetic material with a virus or bacteria infecting swine. But swine are the laboratory for mixing bird virus mutations that can readily exchange genetic material with human viruses. From there, we're looking at H2H (human to human transmission).

So unless China and all other countries fully cooperate in sharing data, H2H of mutated H5N1 (with or without mixture with Ebola virus) can get the jump on humanity, even as early as this fall.

UPDATE
Here is the link to the English version of Boxun.com.

Note the refreshing language attached to one update: "Unofficial messages (as people post the messages may face punishment, it is better to believe what they say)."

Well, if Pundita is not a believing sort, we do take the comments seriously.

One anonymous Boxun poster has this brief and somewhat cryptic news:

"Jingdezhen, JiangXi Province has this disease now."

Which disease? The X Virus or H5N1? We can only wonder.

But for readers who like to stick pins on maps, we have Guangdong and Sichuan provinces where pigs seem to be flying, and now possibly JiangXi.

And for readers who love to plow through message boards, you might want to plow through the recent messages relating to H5N1 and X Virus posted on the Pro Med message board, which is associated with the International Society for Infectious Diseases. One senses from some messages that at least some in the field are making an effort to wend their way through the tangle of China's official version of X Virus.

Readers sorting through the data presented in my two earlier posts today and the earlier ones I posted on the X Virus might want to keep two points in mind:

When you study the historical pattern of the Boxun reports -- the ones on SARS and Avian Flu -- it jumps out that

(1) They were way ahead of WHO and the CDC reports to the public, and

(2) The Boxun versions, not the official Chinese ones, turned out be correct when China's authorities could no longer keep a lid on the situations.

Thus, I would be weighted to give careful consideration to the recent Boxun reports on the X Virus -- which, it does not seem, is limited to Sichuan province.

To be sure, caution is needed while studying such complex, alarming data. Yet one does want to approach the data with an open mind rather than skepticism. The stakes are too high in this situation to warrant dismissal of the Chinese doctors' reports on Boxun on the grounds they are not supported by hard evidence.

Of course the reports can't be supported because China's authorities are not allowing WHO to take any kind of forensic samples from the diseased patients, according to John Loftus' report last night on John Batchelor's program. They're not letting WHO representatives near the infection sites.

As for leaving to laypersons the tricky task of analyzing medical data, I have bad news. If not laypersons -- who else should be analyzing the data while medical officialdom sits on its hands?

It took the World Health Organization until August 3 to even mention the outbreak in Sichuan. And the mention ignored glaring anomalies in the data they published on their website. In other words, WHO simply quoted China's official version about the outbreak.

Last night marked the third night that John Loftus reported on the X Virus. This does not mean he'll be reporting on the situation tonight, but Pundita is certainly tuning in for his usual report segment during John Batchelor's program, which is around 10:35 PM, EDT or 11:05 PM, EDT, right after the radio station break and news.

Someone posted a message at Current Events to note that yesterday the World Health Organization finally got around to mentioning the outbreak of virus in Sichuan. But there is something very odd about the WHO announcement when weighed against their own published description of Streptococcus suis.

Steve at Word Unheard picked up on the oddity in his first post today on the X Virus and questions surrounding it in Ebola Outbreak in China: More questions than answers. But then, who knows? Maybe Chinese pigs can fly. Could be a requirement for pigs living under a military dictatorship that caters to foreign business interests.

Steve's second post today continues his heroic attempt to sort through and untangle the data building up about the outbreak.

Yale Global Online joins the dicussion about the Ebola-like nature of the Sichuan outbreak. YGO quotes from a July 28 (Singapore) Staits Times story by Andy Ho titled China Bug – Is It Ebola-like Bird Flu?

Or cut and paste this URL:
http://yaleglobal.yale.edu/display.article?id=6077

A second Pundita post yesterday evening continues my discussion about reports claiming that the mystery Sichuan disease is a mutated form of Ebola virus. The second post quotes The Epoch Times, which mentions Boxun.

The Chinese-language Boxun.com medical website has been the primary source of several breaking stories about SARS, Avian Flu, and the Sichuan "X" Virus and Beijing's attempts to cover up the disease outbreaks.

Thus, I thought readers trying to following the fast-moving and highly complex medical news stories relating to the outbreaks might want to learn about Boxun. A website called Rense.com has republished a short South China Morning Post story about Boxun, which is itself a part of some important stories relating to investigations of the disease outbreaks.

Click here for the story titled Reports from China Point to Major H5N1 Coverup, or copy and paste the URL:

http://www.rense.com/general67/cover.htm

UPDATE December 25, 2008 2:45 PM Eastern time
I thought I had inserted in a note in this post back in 2005 to warn that the Ebola story was most likely a crock but clearly I'm just catching up with correcting my oversight. Apologies to readers who have come across this post 'cold' -- without the background provided by my later reports on the story, and who are unaware of how the story progressed.

It took me and several of my readers, who chipped in help, weeks to wend our way through the labyrinth of data connected with the mystery outbreak in China.

With regard to the Ebola angle, at the end of the maze was one doctor in Shenzhen City who was most probably unaware of the real symptoms of Ebola virus, and in any case wrongly identified a symptom he noted as similar to an Ebola symptom.

See my Chinese Puzzle post for a summary of my investigation and for links to all the Pundita posts about the outbreak and related issues, or go directly to the September 30 post, China's Ebola virus reports: finally, a break in the case to learn about the bizarre twist in the Ebola 'outbreak' story.

The true cause of the illness remains a mystery because China's health ministry continued to withhold hard data about it. But as you will see from reading the September 30, 2005 post, at least the dreaded Preston virus has been laid to rest -- until it once again strikes an unsuspecting news reader.

****************************************
Below are quotes from a 8/1 Epoch Times story Sichuan’s 'Mystery Disease' may be Ebola Virus according to Interview Transcript...

But first I caution the reader to take with a grain of salt any attempts to dismiss the doctor's report simply by attempting to discredit The Epoch Times. The paper, whatever it's connection to the Falun Gong, has become like The Washington Times (which has a very controversial founder, Reverend Moon) in that it is an opposition press outlet.

Indeed, The Epoch Times is China's only real opposition media to China's Communist Party media outlets.* The Epoch Times would gain nothing and loose much hard-won trust by passing on wild claims about the outbreak of a lethal disease. And, as I mentioned in the earlier post, the paper helped break the SARS story and Beijing's initial attempt to cover up the disease.

Okay; here is part of the 8/1 story. Italics emphasis mine throughout:

"[...] On July 24 the Sichuan Health Department’s materials reported that a disease of unknown origin had occurred in Sichuan’s Ziyang City [...]

"On July 29 the Mainland website “Free China Forum” BBS posted an interview transcript with Doctor Wang, who had examined the Sichuan mystery disease. Doctor Wang stated that he had received a phone call from the Sichuan Health Department on June 2, saying that an unusual death had been discovered in the local area, and that a sample of the virus would be delivered to him. This occurred 22 days before the July news report.

"Doctor Wang said that the virus sample specimen was examined as soon as it was received and a type of Ebola virus was extracted from the specimen. When asked why “low dissemination” was added to the name of the Ebola virus in China, Doctor Wang explained that it was done to reduce public concern, and also because a variation of the Ebola virus had actually occurred in China.

"Examination Results Show Ebola Virus
Doctor Wang explained: “They started the examination quickly after receiving the sample, they extracted SZ77++A3231 virus from the sample, which is a kind of Ebola virus.

"The previous classification of Ebola in the country used the EBO – location (where it was discovered) – model; later on, for unknown reasons, the news of classification leaked out. Therefore the classification method changed, [they] abandoned EBO, increasing the infection extent, infection speed, etc.

"The disease that occurred at the beginning of June is SZ77++A3231 virus, sometimes we do not specify the source region but directly use ++A3231, so that people will not think of the Ebola virus.”

"Doctor Wang has also participated in similar work in other areas of China besides Sichuan. The CCP formed three departments specifically to conduct these examinations, so obviously Sichuan is not the only area to have experienced the illness caused by the Ebola virus.

"Many Mainland Chinese recognize that the current mystery disease in Sichuan is the EB-SZ77 type Ebola virus. There is not yet an official name for the disease. It is difficult to give it an official name because the virus changes so fast, and may spread through a third medium

"First Case of Ebola in Shenzhen City Early this Year
The earliest occurrence of this Ebola virus disease can be traced back to Shenzhen city in Guangdong Province. On March 25, 2005, The Epoch Times published an article on the first appearance of the Ebola virus in Shenzhen during February. The virus had already caused several deaths and cases of ‘missing people’

"[Editor’s note: rather than accurately reporting the cause of death, the authorities simply claim that victims are ‘missing’.]

"This article mentioned that medical personnel who had been working in hospitals for years said that they had never seen an illness like it. The bodies of those who died of the illness appeared to be dissolved, much like the Ebola virus in Africa. The main spread of the virus was through blood, causing doctors to die after contact with infected blood.

"On March 26, Shenzhen Customs and related hospitals and government departments held a confidential meeting to pass an order from higher authorities to strengthen the hygiene-related work. An insider also disclosed that at dawn on March 26, another suspected Ebola virus death case occurred in Nanao Town, Shenzhen.

"There are indications that the Ebola virus was already spreading in Mainland China. The CCP blocked this information, telling the outside world that the deaths were caused by the advanced stages of AIDS. On March 29, China’s Ministry of Health announced that, “Presently, this virus has not been found in the mainland.”

"The source of the information regarding the death case in Nanao Town couldn’t be contacted further, and the company and hospitals denied the existence of the Nanao Town case or any existence of a patient record.

"All websites in mainland China have now started using official language to report this case. Although the Ministry of Health said that the (Ebola) virus has not been found on the mainland, according to inside information on July 14, frequent confidential meetings were held by the Guangdong Province government, Guangzhou military region, Shenzhen municipal government and Shenzhen Customs during late June and early July, discussing the slow spread of the Ebola virus in Guangdong Province.

"People were strictly prohibited from spreading information about the Ebola virus and bird flu that appeared in Guangdong and media reports were also forbidden.

"CCP Cover-up Under Threat Once International Organizations Involved
Why don’t CCP officials allow the World Health Organization to investigate and provide help? Veterinary pathology scholar Liu Zhenyi said that the CCP has always flaunted its “greatness, honor, and correctness”, and is most concerned about saving face. This appears to be a higher priority than people’s lives.

"Guan Yi, scholar and bird flu expert at Hong Kong University disclosed in Nature magazine that bird flu had infected southern China. Chinese officials subsequently shut down his laboratory, slandered him and said that his laboratory was “illegal.”

"Doctor Wang, quoted earlier, who examined this strange Sichuan disease, also believes that the CCP would not allow the involvement of the World Health Organization because it would be extremely disadvantageous for the international image of the CCP. It wouldn’t be just a medical question, but could lead to exposure on issues such as the local medical environment, survival conditions, environmental pollution and political corruption."

Pundita's only comment
Well. At least we now know the CCP's reasons for the cover-up! By gum, that's half the battle against a lethal infectious disease for which there is no cure. Now all we have to do is nail down in the name of what the US Congress, White House and State Department have remained silent in the face of the CCP cover-up.

* For more on The Epoch Times, see Pundita post Epoch Times vs Xinhua News Agency.

Now Pundita must return to her vacation before she catches h-ll.

NOTE
This post is the first in what turned out to be a series of essays and a great deal of investigation on the mystery illness. After a month of research, I was unable to find one shred of evidence that the illness was connected to any form of Ebola. What I found was a great deal of speculation about anonymous/anecdotal reports -- and one of the key reports about Ebola, while reportedly from a Chinese doctor, described symptoms that actually ruled out Ebola.

While this does not mean that Ebola can be entirely ruled out, it does mean that with no medical evidence whatsoever to back up anecedotal reports about the mystery illness, the reader should be cautious about any claims regarding the nature of the mystery.
Pundita
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I'm interrupting my vacation to report on this critically important story. John Loftus* first reported more than a week ago to John Batchelor's radio audience that the 'mystery virus' that broke out China's Sichuan province "seemed to be split -- half Ebola, half AIDS."

Given the seriousness of the implications I decided to sit on the story until I'd gotten some additional confirmation, even though Recombinomics had passed along Boxun speculations about Ebola in China as early as July 19.

Last night Loftus gave another report to John Batchelor's audience in which he reiterated that his sources confirm that at least eight Chinese scientists and/or physicians have reported:

The disease ostensibly transmitted to humans by contact with infected pigs in China's Sichuan province is a mutated Ebola virus. Loftus added about the virus, "Think part Ebola, part AIDS."

Here are the rest of my notes on Loftus' report last night:

> Reportedly there have been many more human deaths from the disease than China's authorities are acknowledging.

> There are reports that "large concentration camps" have been set up in Sichuan where Chinese with symptoms from the illness are being taken "to die."

> The disease has an 82% fatality rate among humans.

> The disease has spread to hundreds of villages in Sichuan.

> Loftus has gotten confirmation that eight Chinese scientists and/or physicians who initially passed their data (about the Ebola connection) to the World Health Organization (WHO) have been arrested by the authorities in China and are being held incommunicado.**

> China's authorities are not allowing WHO to take samples of the virus and have stated that the number of deaths from the virus is a "state secret." ***

> It can't be established at this point whether the X virus, shall we term it, has exchanged genetic material with H5N1. Loftus found it suggestive (or passed along what others have noted) that there is a possible link:

The X virus could be connected with hundreds of ducks who died in Sichuan and were eaten by villagers. Initially these ducks were reportedly infected with H5N1 but this situation is murky because China's authorities have withheld much data. Also, whether this situation could be connected with the reported swine deaths is unclear.

> Loftus passed along his sources' speculation that there has been a fowl to swine to human transmission of the X virus. As to whether there is human to human (H2H) transmission, this is not established because China's health agencies have not shared key data with outside health agencies.

> If the X virus is carried by migratory birds/fowl, as with H5N1, the disease could quickly spread to other countries even without H2H.

Pundita's observations on last night's report
As with several John Loftus reports, this one should be considered "intelligence" rather than evidence. The most I can say with certainty is that John's sources in Western intelligence agencies and militaries are excellent and that from his report, clearly they believe at this stage that the X virus is a mutated form of Ebola.

With regard to Beijing's covering up the extent of the outbreak -- the historical and present patterns are so well established, and verified from so many sources, that I consider it an established fact.

Other sources on the story
Check the Pundita sidebar for websites that report on Avian flu virus. Also, I recommend that readers regularly check The Epoch Times daily to look for updates on the X virus, H5N1 in China, and Beijing's moves to cover up the X virus outbreak and stonewall international health agencies. This July 31 Epoch Times story is focused on asking whether there is a H5N1 pandemic already underway
but it also provides background on the X virus outbreak.

Despite Beijing's ongoing attempts to discredit The Epoch Times, I found the paper's July 31 report to be well-sourced. It's to be noted that The Epoch Times helped break the SARS story, which Beijing also tried to cover up.

US foreign policy implications
Whatever the exact nature of the X virus, it is beyond question that the authorities in China have not provided the US Center for Disease Control with data about the extent of the H5N1 outbreak in China. It is past time for the US Department of State to issue a strongly worded demand for transparency and recommend sanctions if Beijing does not comply.

* If you have questions about John Loftus' reports on the mutated virus kindly direct them to him at: loftus@intelligencesummit.org

** Chinese reporters (I speculate these might include the above-mentioned scientists) who filed stories with Boxun about a possible Ebola connection to the virus have also been arrested by the Chinese authorities. See The Epoch Times story above.

*** China's authorities have also designated as a "state secret" the number of human deaths in China from H5N1. This means that WHO, CDC and other health agencies are lacking critical data to help them track the spread of H5N1 in humans.