Tag: anthrax

This news just confirms what everyone already knows, North Korea is equipped with biological weapons to include anthrax:

One of the North Korean soldiers who defected to the South in 2017 was found to have antibodies in his bloodstream, a sign Pyongyang possesses anthrax, the acute disease caused by bacteria.

South Korean authorities did not identify the soldier, who was either exposed to or vaccinated for anthrax, but did confirm he had developed immunity to the deadly disease before he defected, local news network Channel A reported Tuesday.

“Anthrax antibodies have been found in the North Korean soldier who defected this year,” a South Korean intelligence official told the network on the condition of anonymity.

The discovery of the antibodies is causing concern in Seoul.

The disease can kill at least 80 percent of those who are exposed to the bacterium in 24 hours, unless antibiotics are taken or vaccination is available.

But South Korea’s military has yet to secure an anthrax vaccine.

Defense Ministry spokeswoman Choi Hyun-soo has said an anthrax “vaccine is expected to be developed by the end of 2019,” but not sooner, for the South Korean military.  [UPI]

You can read more at the link, but it is pretty concerning that the US military has been getting vaccinated for anthrax for many years and the ROK military right across the border from North Korea has not been vaccinated yet.

The investigation into the live anthrax spores shipped to the US military in South Korea has uncovered numerous other shipments of anthrax.  However, those shipments featured dead spores unlike the one that was mistakenly shipped to South Korea that had live spores in it.  Fortunately no one who was exposed to the live spores has contracted anthrax:

A probe by Seoul and Washington into an erroneous shipment of a live anthrax sample to a U.S. military base in Korea revealed on Thursday that samples of the deadly bacteria have been brought into the country many more times over the past six years than initially known.

Since 2009, a total of 16 anthrax samples were brought into the country by the United States Forces Korea (USFK) without the knowledge of Korean authorities, according to the results of the joint investigation.

The USFK initially told the Korean government in May that only a single anthrax sample was shipped here and that it was the first time for such an occurrence.

A live anthrax sample was mistakenly shipped in late April to the Osan Air Base in Gyeonggi, where 22 personnel were possibly exposed to live anthrax spores.

These exposed researchers and staff took antibiotics and vaccines and have not contracted the disease so far, and the live bacteria sample was immediately destroyed. However, there was an outcry in Seoul over the potential risks.

In response, the United States and Korea in July formed a joint task force to investigate how live anthrax shipments entered Korea undetected. It was composed of military and foreign affairs officials.

The 15 other anthrax samples were shipped to the U.S. military base in Yongsan District, central Seoul, between 2009 and 2014 for biological testing purposes, according to the investigation.

Korean authorities said they were not aware of these anthrax shipments because customs officials here are not authorized to look into biochemical samples for the USFK that are labeled “inactivated.”  [Joong Ang Ilbo]

You can read more at the link.

This is actually pretty tame rhetoric compared to the racist and sexists remarks they have made before:

North Korea has challenged the entire US Congress to come and inspect a bio-tech institute in Pyongyang that US experts have suggested is a facility for mass-producing anthrax for the military.

A spokesman for the powerful National Defence Commission angrily stressed that the facility in Pyongyang was solely dedicated to the manufacture of pesticides, after a report published last week on the website of the US-Korea Institute at Johns Hopkins University suggested otherwise.

“A thousand pairs of ears cannot match a pair of eyes,” the spokesman said, accusing the US government of spreading wild rumours about the North’s biological weapons programme.

“Come here right now, with all the 535 members of the House of Representatives and the Senate as well as the imbecile secretaries and deputy secretaries of the government who have made their voices hoarse screaming for new sanctions,” the spokesman said.

“Then they can behold the awe-inspiring sight of the Pyongyang Bio-technical Institute,” he added.  [AFP]

You can read the rest at the link.

North Korea may have capacity to produce anthrax, analyst says http://t.co/btpWTu4hVN #NorthKorea #DPRK #WMD

— NorthKoreaRealTime (@BuckTurgidson79) July 9, 2015

It figures the SOFA would come up in response to the anthrax scare at Osan AB:

South Korea is considering revising its military agreement with the U.S. to prevent another accidental shipment of live anthrax to the South, a ruling party lawmaker said Monday.

Safety jitters over biological weapons flared up after the U.S. military said last month a U.S. Defense Department laboratory had mistakenly sent a live anthrax sample to the U.S. Forces Korea’s Osan Air Base, south of Seoul.

Public concerns did not subside despite the USFK announcement that the sample was destroyed before inflicting any damage.

“(The government and the ruling party) decided to review necessary enhancement and supplement measures after determining whether there is a problem in the management and process of the Status of Forces Agreement,” Saenuri Party Rep. Won Yoo-chul said after a policy coordination meeting with Vice Defense Minister Baek Seung-joo. Seoul will discuss any revisions at a joint SOFA committee meeting with the U.S., planned for July, the lawmaker said.  [Korea Herald]

You can read more at the link.

I bet the person that organized this exercise is now regretting it:

Osan Air Base halted operations at its laboratory biological defense program this week after 22 people were possibly exposed to live anthrax spores, U.S. military officials said Friday.

A statement issued by U.S. Forces Korea and the 51st Fighter Wing said that a review would be conducted while operations are stopped, but it did not say who would be conducting the review nor what exactly they would be reviewing.

The live anthrax spores had been mailed from Dugway Proving Ground in Utah to Osan as well as to labs in nine states. It appears that irradiation procedures failed to kill the live spores, Army Chief of Staff Gen. Ray Odierno said Thursday. The military has said the anthrax spores were to be used for training purposes.

“The purpose of the training being conducted was undertaken in Korea with the expectation that the materials sent from the United States would be inert and harmless, to be used for identification and detection capabilities,” a statement issued by U.S. Forces Korea and the 51st Fighter Wing said.

It was the first time the training at Osan’s Joint United States Forces Korea Portal and Integrated Threat Recognition Program (JUPITR) had been conducted. According to the military’s statement, the training was meant to improve the U.S. and South Korea’s ability to protect their troops and the South Korean population “by testing currently fielded equipment and new systems that could better identify toxins and pathogens in the environment.”  [Stars & Stripes]

You can read more at the link, but maybe it would be better to certify that these systems work in the US and not bring in something like anthrax even if it was dead spores.  That is because if it leaked to the media the anti-US groups would twist the facts to bash the US.  Remember these are the people that nearly toppled newly elected President Lee Myung-bak by spreading US beef lies back in 2008. Now due to the irradiation failure they don’t even have to twist the facts to push their anti-US agenda the US military did for them.

Members of civic groups stage a protest in front of the U.S. Embassy in Seoul on May 29, 2015, after U.S. Forces Korea said the previous day that a live anthrax sample that was accidentally sent to the U.S. Osan Air Base in the city of Pyeongtaek, south of Seoul, has been destroyed. (Yonhap)

The Chief of Staff of the Army is blaming a machine failure for the mailing of live anthrax spores to Osan AB:

The Army followed all appropriate procedures, but irradiation might have failed to kill live anthrax spores mailed to labs across the United States and a base in South Korea, Chief of Staff Gen. Ray Odierno said Thursday.

Odierno said an investigation by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is focused on why the gamma radiation used by the Army’s Dugway Proving Ground in Utah did not neutralize the spores before they were mailed. He said the Army is not aware of any other cases where irradiation did not work.

The Pentagon said Wednesday that Dugway mailed the spores to be used in training at labs in nine U.S. states as well as Osan Air Base, but there was no threat to the public. Anthrax is a potent biological weapon that is often deadly when inhaled; it was used in mail attacks after 9/11 that killed five people, wounded others and ratcheted up public anxiety over terrorism.  [Stars & Stripes]

If you are wondering why anthrax is being mailed to Korea here is the reason:

U.S. Forces Korea said the sample it received was meant to be used in a training lab as part of its Joint Portal and Integrated Threat Recognition program, which is designed to increase biological weapons readiness on the peninsula.

You can read more at the link.

https://twitter.com/USFKPAO/status/603744101578735616

I would love to see the risk assessment form done on this training exercise that some how involved real anthrax:

Twenty-two personnel at a U.S. Air Force Base in South Korea have been given emergency medical treatment after being exposed to a possible live sample of anthrax, the U.S. military said in a statement on Thursday.

The anthrax was destroyed on Wednesday when a sample initially expected to be inactive and destined for a training exercise was suspected of being live, according to a statement by the U.S. Air Force 51st Fighter Wing in the South Korean city of Osan, 35 kms (21 miles) south of Seoul.

None of the personnel in contact with the sample showed signs of exposure, the statement said, but were given “appropriate medical precautionary measures to include examinations, antibiotics and in some instances, vaccinations”.   [Reuters]