6 ms·

Pentagon Ordered to Tell Congress If It Weaponized Ticks and Released Them

71 points by yasp 7y ago

ceejayoz 7y ago
Sigh. Historical accounts of Lyme disease go back at least to the 1700s, predating the founding of the lab in question by a couple of centuries. This seems to be an offshoot of the anti-vax hysteria.
- gnulinux 7y ago
  Iceman Otzi possibly had lyme disease: > DNA analysis also showed him at high risk of atherosclerosis and lactose intolerance, with the presence of the DNA sequence of Borrelia burgdorferi, possibly making him the earliest known human with Lyme disease.[48][56] A later analysis suggested the sequence may have been a different Borrelia species.[57] He lived between approximately 3400 and 3100 BCE. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%96tzi https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%96tzi
- dwringer 7y ago
  I certainly know nothing of the motives of this investigation, but a quoted passage in the main article states that the inquiry is about "whether the Department of Defense experimented with ticks and other insects regarding use as a biological weapon between the years of 1950 and 1975" rather than the highly implausible and easily discredited characterization that the government may have somehow invented the Lyme bacterium.
  - pmoriarty 7y ago
    I wonder why they limited the inquiry to that date range.
RcouF1uZ4gsC 7y ago
This seems like a weird conspiracy theory. I mean if you are looking for a bio weapon, one that doesn’t have person to person spread, has a distinctive rash, doesn’t result in immediate death (but can cause chronic conditions) and is treated by fairly common antibiotics seems like a strange choice.
- deweller 7y ago
  The report does not look to determine if the defense department created Lyme disease. Rather it suggests that the Pentagon weaponized ticks. What if, for example, they enhanced the Lyme bacteria to make it more contagious as part of an attempt to make it a carrier of a more deadly pathogen?
  - RosanaAnaDana 7y ago
    Or they were just looking at the ticks themselves as a delivery mechanism of 'whatever'.
- mywittyname 7y ago
  If you're testing dissemination methods, then having something that would get people to the doctor seems like a reasonable requirement. But something that causes material harm raises the risks of the project significantly. So in that sense, lyme disease is in the Goldie Locks zone.
- SkyBelow 7y ago
  But if you were modifying a very dangerous disease to weaponize it and wanted to create a conspiracy that would make people look stupid and thus create a guilt by association for more reasonable conspiracies, then those same factors make it a good pick.
waffle_ss 7y ago
Tick researchers have refuted this myth that the military created Lyme disease or were responsible for its spread here: https://elemental.medium.com/what-its-like-to-be-a-creepy-crawler-field-researcher-32c635338989 https://elemental.medium.com/what-its-like-to-be-a-creepy-cr... > What’s the strangest sort of question you have to handle? > Keesing: The conspiracy theory that the government made the Lyme bacterium, that’s gotta be up there. I mean, really? > Ostfeld: There was a man at a public event where I was speaking a few years ago who, in the question and answer session, pontificated about how the Lyme disease bacterium was created by the CIA at Plum Island as a biowarfare weapon — which if you know anything about this bacterium is absolutely ludicrous. It would be the stupidest biowarfare weapon you could possibly imagine. In any event, I said that this was actually not true, the DNA of this bacterium has been amplified in museum specimens of mice that were collected around the turn of the 20th century. So that predates Plum Island. And I said, there was a recent discovery of a mummified human corpse in the Swiss Alps in a National Geographic expedition that was 13,000 years old and they amplified Borrelia burgdorferi DNA from this mummified frozen corpse. And this guy responded by saying, "Yeah, so, you think it’s far fetched that the CIA would take this frozen human corpse and dump it out of a helicopter in the Swiss Alps to cover up what they did?" So there’s no correcting the conspiracy theorists.
- calebm 7y ago
  Good example of people being unwilling to consider the facts. Minor nitpick: I'd like us to get away from using "conspiracy theorist" as an always-negative term. The truth is, many conspiracy theories have turned out true (people do, after all, conspire in secret to do evil). Additionally, there are conspiracy theorists who are reasonable and who have changed their opinions when corrected.
  - ben509 7y ago
    Yeah, every prosecutor who indicts someone on conspiracy charges is a conspiracy theorist, by the plain meaning of it. What crosses the line into "truther" territory is generally a fantastically organized coverup as explanation for a lack of corroborating evidence.
nsajko 7y ago
Could the return of that conspiracy theory be prompted by the recent spread of this invasive tick species: https://www.cdc.gov/ticks/longhorned-tick/index.html https://www.cdc.gov/ticks/longhorned-tick/index.html https://www.wired.com/story/the-terrifying-unknowns-of-the-asian-longhorned-tick/ https://www.wired.com/story/the-terrifying-unknowns-of-the-a...
gojomo 7y ago
Notably, the bill requests information about activity in the 1950-1975 timeframe – when there were other risky domestic biowarfare research projects involving the undisclosed release of disease-causing agents. For example, the SF bay area was dosed with military-delivered bacteria in ‘Operation Sea-Spray’: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Sea-Spray https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Sea-Spray
- lioeters 7y ago
  Scary stuff! "Open-air tests" is a nice way of putting it.. > Operation Sea-Spray was a 1950 U.S. Navy secret experiment in which Serratia marcescens and Bacillus globigii bacteria were sprayed over the San Francisco Bay Area in California. > From September 20 to 27, 1950, the U.S. Navy released the pathogens off the shore of San Francisco. Based on results from monitoring equipment at 43 locations around the city, the Army determined that San Francisco had received enough of a dose for nearly all of the city's 800,000 residents to inhale millions of particles each day during the week of spraying. > Between 1949 and 1969 open-air tests of biological agents were conducted 239 times.
tantalor 7y ago
That "If" is doing a lot of work in that title.
brodouevencode 7y ago
This reeks of conspiracy theory, however if one were to weaponize an insect, ticks would make sense. They're small and undetectable, evasive, bite you without you knowing it, and tough as nails.
- lioeters 7y ago
  While we're speculating, I imagine mosquitoes would be a good candidate as well - it's a natural vector of infections, common enough to be dismissed/ignored.. Oh, I see it also happens to be popular among conspiracy theory enthusiasts, and not without basis in some fact. http://www.hoaxorfact.com/technology/tiny-robot-mosquito-drones-being-researched-by-the-us-government.html http://www.hoaxorfact.com/technology/tiny-robot-mosquito-dro...
mywittyname 7y ago
Serious question: does the Pentagon actually have to comply? What authority does Congress have to compel the Pentagon to do such?
- yasp 7y ago
  Withholding funding?
spookybones 7y ago
Probably some good ol' Russian disinformation. And, it will probably work.
- dang 7y ago
  "Eschew flamebait. Don't introduce flamewar topics unless you have something genuinely new to say. Avoid unrelated controversies and generic tangents." https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

71 points by yasp 7y ago

Sigh. Historical accounts of Lyme disease go back at least to the 1700s, predating the founding of the lab in question by a couple of centuries. This seems to be an offshoot of the anti-vax hysteria.

gnulinux 7y ago
Iceman Otzi possibly had lyme disease: > DNA analysis also showed him at high risk of atherosclerosis and lactose intolerance, with the presence of the DNA sequence of Borrelia burgdorferi, possibly making him the earliest known human with Lyme disease.[48][56] A later analysis suggested the sequence may have been a different Borrelia species.[57] He lived between approximately 3400 and 3100 BCE. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%96tzi https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%96tzi
dwringer 7y ago
I certainly know nothing of the motives of this investigation, but a quoted passage in the main article states that the inquiry is about "whether the Department of Defense experimented with ticks and other insects regarding use as a biological weapon between the years of 1950 and 1975" rather than the highly implausible and easily discredited characterization that the government may have somehow invented the Lyme bacterium.
- pmoriarty 7y ago
  I wonder why they limited the inquiry to that date range.

RcouF1uZ4gsC 7y ago

This seems like a weird conspiracy theory. I mean if you are looking for a bio weapon, one that doesn’t have person to person spread, has a distinctive rash, doesn’t result in immediate death (but can cause chronic conditions) and is treated by fairly common antibiotics seems like a strange choice.

deweller 7y ago
The report does not look to determine if the defense department created Lyme disease. Rather it suggests that the Pentagon weaponized ticks. What if, for example, they enhanced the Lyme bacteria to make it more contagious as part of an attempt to make it a carrier of a more deadly pathogen?
- RosanaAnaDana 7y ago
  Or they were just looking at the ticks themselves as a delivery mechanism of 'whatever'.
mywittyname 7y ago
If you're testing dissemination methods, then having something that would get people to the doctor seems like a reasonable requirement. But something that causes material harm raises the risks of the project significantly. So in that sense, lyme disease is in the Goldie Locks zone.
SkyBelow 7y ago
But if you were modifying a very dangerous disease to weaponize it and wanted to create a conspiracy that would make people look stupid and thus create a guilt by association for more reasonable conspiracies, then those same factors make it a good pick.

waffle_ss 7y ago

Tick researchers have refuted this myth that the military created Lyme disease or were responsible for its spread here: https://elemental.medium.com/what-its-like-to-be-a-creepy-crawler-field-researcher-32c635338989 https://elemental.medium.com/what-its-like-to-be-a-creepy-cr... > What’s the strangest sort of question you have to handle? > Keesing: The conspiracy theory that the government made the Lyme bacterium, that’s gotta be up there. I mean, really? > Ostfeld: There was a man at a public event where I was speaking a few years ago who, in the question and answer session, pontificated about how the Lyme disease bacterium was created by the CIA at Plum Island as a biowarfare weapon — which if you know anything about this bacterium is absolutely ludicrous. It would be the stupidest biowarfare weapon you could possibly imagine. In any event, I said that this was actually not true, the DNA of this bacterium has been amplified in museum specimens of mice that were collected around the turn of the 20th century. So that predates Plum Island. And I said, there was a recent discovery of a mummified human corpse in the Swiss Alps in a National Geographic expedition that was 13,000 years old and they amplified Borrelia burgdorferi DNA from this mummified frozen corpse. And this guy responded by saying, "Yeah, so, you think it’s far fetched that the CIA would take this frozen human corpse and dump it out of a helicopter in the Swiss Alps to cover up what they did?" So there’s no correcting the conspiracy theorists.

calebm 7y ago
Good example of people being unwilling to consider the facts. Minor nitpick: I'd like us to get away from using "conspiracy theorist" as an always-negative term. The truth is, many conspiracy theories have turned out true (people do, after all, conspire in secret to do evil). Additionally, there are conspiracy theorists who are reasonable and who have changed their opinions when corrected.
- ben509 7y ago
  Yeah, every prosecutor who indicts someone on conspiracy charges is a conspiracy theorist, by the plain meaning of it. What crosses the line into "truther" territory is generally a fantastically organized coverup as explanation for a lack of corroborating evidence.

nsajko 7y ago

Could the return of that conspiracy theory be prompted by the recent spread of this invasive tick species: https://www.cdc.gov/ticks/longhorned-tick/index.html https://www.cdc.gov/ticks/longhorned-tick/index.html https://www.wired.com/story/the-terrifying-unknowns-of-the-asian-longhorned-tick/ https://www.wired.com/story/the-terrifying-unknowns-of-the-a...

gojomo 7y ago

Notably, the bill requests information about activity in the 1950-1975 timeframe – when there were other risky domestic biowarfare research projects involving the undisclosed release of disease-causing agents. For example, the SF bay area was dosed with military-delivered bacteria in ‘Operation Sea-Spray’: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Sea-Spray https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Sea-Spray

lioeters 7y ago
Scary stuff! "Open-air tests" is a nice way of putting it.. > Operation Sea-Spray was a 1950 U.S. Navy secret experiment in which Serratia marcescens and Bacillus globigii bacteria were sprayed over the San Francisco Bay Area in California. > From September 20 to 27, 1950, the U.S. Navy released the pathogens off the shore of San Francisco. Based on results from monitoring equipment at 43 locations around the city, the Army determined that San Francisco had received enough of a dose for nearly all of the city's 800,000 residents to inhale millions of particles each day during the week of spraying. > Between 1949 and 1969 open-air tests of biological agents were conducted 239 times.

tantalor 7y ago

That "If" is doing a lot of work in that title.

brodouevencode 7y ago

This reeks of conspiracy theory, however if one were to weaponize an insect, ticks would make sense. They're small and undetectable, evasive, bite you without you knowing it, and tough as nails.

lioeters 7y ago
While we're speculating, I imagine mosquitoes would be a good candidate as well - it's a natural vector of infections, common enough to be dismissed/ignored.. Oh, I see it also happens to be popular among conspiracy theory enthusiasts, and not without basis in some fact. http://www.hoaxorfact.com/technology/tiny-robot-mosquito-drones-being-researched-by-the-us-government.html http://www.hoaxorfact.com/technology/tiny-robot-mosquito-dro...

mywittyname 7y ago

Serious question: does the Pentagon actually have to comply? What authority does Congress have to compel the Pentagon to do such?

yasp 7y ago
Withholding funding?

spookybones 7y ago

Probably some good ol' Russian disinformation. And, it will probably work.

dang 7y ago
"Eschew flamebait. Don't introduce flamewar topics unless you have something genuinely new to say. Avoid unrelated controversies and generic tangents." https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html