Plagues, Boils And The New Smallpox Warnings

IS THE PRE-MESSIAH PLAGUE OF BOILS LURKING IN A MILITARY LAB WAITING TO GET OUT?

Adam Eliyahu Berkowitz

Then I heard a loud voice from the temple saying to the seven angels, “Go, pour out the seven bowls of God’s wrath on the earth.”

2 The first angel went and poured out his bowl on the land, and ugly, festering soresbroke out on the people who had the mark of the beast and worshiped its image. (Revelation 16)

The outbreak of the Coronavirus pandemic made the entire world hyper-aware of the threat of plagues. So it was especially disturbing when it was reported last week that an alert had been sent to the Department of Homeland Security leadership warning that 15 “questionable vials” labeled “smallpox” were found in a freezer at a Merck facility outside Philadelphia. 

Five of the vials were labeled as “smallpox” and 10 were labeled as “vaccinia.” The vials were secured immediately, the facility locked down, and the FBI and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are currently investigating the incident. 

“There is no indication that anyone has been exposed to the small number of frozen vials. The frozen vials labeled ‘Smallpox’ were incidentally discovered by a laboratory worker while cleaning out a freezer in a facility that conducts vaccine research in Pennsylvania,” a CDC spokesperson told Yahoo News. 

“CDC, its Administration partners, and law enforcement are investigating the matter, and the vials’ contents appear intact. The laboratory worker who discovered the vials was wearing gloves and a face mask. We will provide further details as they are available,” the spokesperson said.

After the World Health Organization (WHO) certified the global eradication of the disease in 1980, scientists debated whether to maintain samples of the devastating disease in order to continue research.  Those in favor of keeping samples have argued they are needed to develop new vaccines in response to a new outbreak.

There are now only two locations that officially store and handle variola virus under WHO supervision: the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, Georgia, and the State Research Center of Virology and Biotechnology (VECTOR Institute) in Koltsovo, Russia.

BILL GATES WARNED OF SMALLPOX BIOTERRORISM TWO WEEKS AGO

The revelation of the most recent mishandling of the virus samples comes less than two weeks after billionaire Bill Gates called for an international task force to prepare for a smallpox bioterror attack. In an interview with the former UK health secretary, Jeremy Hunt for the Policy Exchange think tank, Gates called for a billion-dollar WHO pandemic task force to carry out “germ games”. He justified the expense by warning of a possible threat of “bioterrorists releasing smallpox at 10 airports”.

Despite the care taken in handling the deadly virus, this is not the first time samples have been mishandled. In 2014, a scientist cleaning out a storage room at a lab on the National Institutes of Health’s Bethesda campus found vials dated from the 1950s. containing freeze-dried samples of the variola virus that causes smallpox. In 2019, an explosion at the Russian lab that studied the smallpox virus raised questions about the wisdom of maintaining these studies. 

In 2015, the CDC flagged one of the Department of Defense’s most secure laboratories located in Maryland that may have mislabeled, improperly stored, and shipped samples of potentially infectious anthrax and bubonic plague. The revelation led to an emergency ban on research on all bioterror pathogens at nine laboratories run by the Pentagon/ This came amid revelations that another Army lab in Utah had mishandled anthrax samples for 10 years.

It is important to note that the last known smallpox fatality was in 1978 and was caused by a lab leak. Janet Parker, a medical photographer at England’s Birmingham University Medical School. She worked one floor above the Medical Microbiology Department where staff and students conducted smallpox research. She became ill and died after one month.  An investigation suggested that Janet Parker had been infected either via an airborne route through the medical school building’s duct system or by direct contact while visiting the microbiology corridor.

It is also important to note that despite the WHO certifying the global eradication of smallpox in 1980, the FDA approved two drugs for the treatment of smallpox; tecovirimat (TPOXX) om 2018 and brincidofovir (TEMBEXA) in 2020. In September, the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response at the US Department of Health and Human Services ordered  $112.5 million worth of oral TPOXX smallpoix treatment courses.

By some estimates, smallpox, caused by the Variola virus, has killed more people than every other infectious disease combined. The risk of death after contracting smallpox was about 30%, with higher rates among babies. The disease historically occurred in outbreaks. In 18th-century Europe, it is estimated that 400,000 people died from the disease per year and that one-third of all cases of blindness was due to smallpox. Smallpox is estimated to have killed up to 300 million people in the 20th century and around 500 million people in the last 100 years of its existence. As recently as 1967, 15 million cases occurred a year. The last naturally occurring case was diagnosed in October 1977.

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