"The Human Genome Project may now open the door to the development and use
of genetic weapons targeted at specific ethnic groups. This project is
currently being conducted under the auspices of the U.S. Energy
Department, which also oversees America's nuclear weapon arsenal.

In October 1997, Dr. Wayne Nathanson, chief of the Science and Ethics
Department of the Medical Society of the United Kingdom, warned the annual
meeting of the Society that "gene therapy" might possibly be turned into
"gene weapons" which could potentially be used to target particular genes
possessed by certain groups of people. These weapons, Nathanson warned,
could be delivered not only in the forms already seen in warfare such as
gas and aerosol, but could also be added to water supplies, causing not
only death but sterility and birth defects in targeted groups.

Current estimates of the cost of developing a "gene weapon" have been
placed at around $50 million, still quite a stretch for an isolated band
of neo-Nazis, but well within the capabilities of covert government
programs.

On November 15, 1998, the London Times reported that Israel claimed to
have successfully developed a genetically specific "ethnic bullet" that
targets Arabs. When an Israeli government spokesman was asked to confirm
the existence of ethnic weapons, he did not deny that they had them, but
rather said, "we have a basket full of serious surprises that we will not
hesitate to use if we feel that the state of Israel is under serious
threat."

Some scientists worry that the modified genes that corporations have
spliced into fish, fowl, fruit and vegetables have permanently altered the
world's food supply. Some may be intended to reduce populations.

The U.S. has a long history of interest in such genetic research. The
current home of the Human Genome Project is the Cold Springs Harbor
laboratory on Long Island, NY—the exact site of the notorious Eugenics
Research Office that was started in 1910 by the Harriman family. The
project's 1910 agenda included governmental imposition of sanctions on such
human rights as reproduction, and on U.S. immigration, based on the
alleged inferiority of particular ethnic groups. The Eugenics Research
Project established medical and psychological conditions that would qualify
one for sterilization or euthanasia. Prominent advocates of the program
such as the Rockefeller family, Henry Ford, and Margaret Sanger helped
smooth the way for the passage of forcible sterilization laws in 25
states. These laws allowed the forcible sterilization of tens of thousands
of people, mostly of minority status, during the first half of the 20th
century.

The November 1970 issue of the Military Review published an article
entitled "Ethnic Weapons" for command-level military personnel. The author
of the article was Dr. Carl Larson, head of the Department of Human
Genetics at the Institute of Genetics in Lund, Sweden. Dr Larson wrote of
how genetic variations in races are concurrent with differences in
tolerances for various substances. For instance, large segments of
Southeast Asian populations display a lactose intolerance due to the
absence of the enzyme lactase in the digestive system. A biological weapon
could conceivably take advantage of this genetic variance and incapacitate
or kill an entire population.

Update by Greg Bishop

The ubiquitous nature of racism and the ruling power structure's history of
handling "undesirables," as well as dealing with an enemy (almost always
of different racial stock than a dominant aggressor) virtually assures us
that the more powerful countries and their allies are continuing to look
into new and better ways of subduing and killing whole (or major parts of)
foreign populations.

When the London Times broke the story of the Israeli bioweapons project and
interest in the development of pathogens that would disable or kill by
ethnicity, they quoted an unnamed British intelligence source that said
that these sorts of weapons were "theoretically possible." They were not
only "theoretical" but had been researched for nearly 50 years. The
lynchpin of the Times article was the writer's reliance on a specifically
genetic explanation for ethnic weapons.

Bioweapons have been used since at least the Roman Empire, when armies
dumped dead animals into an enemy's water supply to spread disease.
Research into ethnic-specific bioweapons was first broached publicly in
1970, when Dr. Carl Larson's article "Ethnic Weapons" appeared in the
Military Review. Larson discussed the possibility of utilizing differing
races' sensitivity or low resistance to specific compounds (such as lactose
intolerance among Asians) as either a bioweapon in itself, or as a
"vector" that would allow other poisons or microorganisms to more easily
enter a human body when defenses were lowered or destroyed. This method was
not as surgically accurate as the military might want it to be, since many
populations are not completely homogenous. The strange thing about the
Times coverage was that it completely ignored this history and the fact
that any technology for killing more of the enemy than your own would most
likely be (and has been) looked upon with interest by military strategists.

No updates have yet appeared (or I have been unable to locate any) on the
subject of Israeli ethnic weapons. In this country, continuing a historic
policy toward Native Americans, it has been revealed that the American
Indian Health Service (IHS—funded by the Federal Government, who employ the
doctors and nurses) coerced Native American men and women into forced
sterilizations in the early to mid 1970s. The General Accounting Office
(GAO) estimated that 3,400 people (mostly women) underwent the treatment,
but their study only covered four of twelve IHS regions for four years.
Activists put the estimate much higher, at 60,000 to 70,000. This, coupled
with the suspicion raised by the hantavirus outbreak in the Four Corners
region of Arizona/New Mexico/Colorado/Utah keeps suspicion and fingers
pointed at the federal government and at least some government policies
toward the American Indian population. (Hantavirus is one of many "new"
diseases that have come under suspicion of having their origins in genetic
engineering or biowarfare labs.) As reported in a 1994 Project Censored
update, Utah's Dugway Proving Grounds biowarfare research site was also
reopened despite local residents' protests over fears that the facility was
originally closed because of safety concerns. Fort Dietrick, the site of
the most notorious CIA drug and army biowarfare research in the United
States now houses major research facilities of the National Cancer
Institute, raising issues of conflict (or collusion) or interest.

No major press outlets were consulted about publication of the story. It
was written to appear on the Konformist.com website. Public awareness
spread from there. There appears to have been no followup in the mainstream
media on the original 1998 London Times story.
For more information on this story:

Cole, Leonard A. Clouds of Secrecy: The Amy's Germ Warfare Tests Over
Populated Areas, Rowman & Littlefield, Totowa, N.J. , 1988.
Hersh, Seymour M. Chemical and Biological Warfare: America's Hidden
Arsenal, Bobbs-Merrill, Indianapolis, 1968.
Murphy, Sean. No Fire, No Thunder: The Threat of Chemical and Biological
Weapons, Monthly Review Press, New York , 1984.
Piller, Charles. Gene Wars: Military Control Over the New Genetic
Technologies, Beech Tree Books, New York , 1988.
Spiers, Edward M. Chemical and Biological Weapons: A Study in
Proliferation, St. Martin's Press, New York, 1994.

Websites:

www.disinfo.com/pages/dossier/id293/pg1.html
Article by Preston Peet on U.S. biowarfare testing in Puerto Rico in the
1930s. Island population was deliberately infected with cancer in a program
run by Dr. Cornelius Rhodes, who went on to win seats on the Atomic Energy
Commission and the Rockefeller Institute, as well as running U.S. chemical
warfare programs in WWII. Many useful links.
www.ratical.org/ratville/sterilize.html
Long and detailed article on the American Indian sterilization program.
cns.miis.edu/pubs/reports/zilin.htm
This Center for Nonproliferation Studies site features text of threat
assessment presented to Congressional subcommittee in October 1999, by Dr.
Raymond Zilinskas. Includes information on bioweapons and ethnic weapons.
www.gene.ch/gentech/1999/J...b/msg00070.html
Genetech discussion list featuring exchanges on ethnic weapons.
Concentrates on possibility of genetically engineered versions.

Update by Robert Sterling, Editor of the Konformist

Let me add personal knowledge of response to the article of which the
author Greg Bishop was unaware. While the media response was predictably
non-existent, I did receive numerous comments that spoke volumes. The main
thrust of "Ethnic Weapons for Ethnic Cleansing" was reports of an Israeli
biowarfare program targeting Arabs. One of the key groups of readers of the
Konformist are Zionist Jews, courtesy of the promotion of the provocative
writings of Israel's Barry Chamish, a dedicated Zionist who has done
tremendous work investigating the Rabin assassination and the suppressions
involved with it. What is interesting is that, though I received quite a
few Emails from the Zionist community, none denied the accuracy of the
story. Instead, they brashly admitted it was true, then added it was
necessary because Israel needed to defend itself from its Arab neighbors.
What is most telling is that many letters included references to Arabs that
were derogatory and dehumanizing. That such a destructive philosophy is
accepted by so many uncritically in Israel explains much of the vicious
thuggery performed against the Palestinians over the last four months (not
to mention the last 33 years). This is why I submitted the story, because
it underscored an important point that no group has a monopoly of hatred
and oppression, and that authoritarian values of all flavors must be
rejected and battled with words.

Update by Robert Lederman

While the average person has no particular interest in nor any tangible use
for the
Human Genome Project it, more than the economy or whichever political party
is in power in Washington, will very significantly mold the future of human
life on this planet. Like its origin, Eugenics, the Human Genome Project
(HGP) has been presented to the public as an effort by our government to
help people live happier, healthier, and more productive lives. Nothing
could be further from the truth.

When I first wrote the article "The Human Genome Project and Eugenics" I
received a lot of correspondence from media people and scientists who felt
I was unfairly associating the HGP with Eugenics and its expression in Nazi
Germany during the Holocaust. Since then I've found on the HGP's own
website an introduction to the project that makes exactly the same
connection in no uncertain terms.

From vector.cshl.org/eugenics.html:

"Although it is easy to conceive of the Human Genome Project and genetic
engineering as an entirely new epoch in scientific history, this is not our
first-scale involvement with human genetics. Our current rush into the
"gene age" has striking parallels to the eugenics movement of the early
decades of the 20th century. Eugenicists sought an exclusively genetic
explanation of human development, neglecting the important contribution of
the environment. Their flawed data were the basis for social legislation to
separate racial and ethnic groups, restrict immigration from southern and
eastern Europe, and sterilize people considered "genetically unfit."
Elements of the American eugenics movement were models for the Nazis, whose
radical adaptation of eugenics culminated in the Holocaust."

As of this writing, the human genomes of the populations of Estonia,
Tonga, and Iceland have been bought and patented by private corporations
with many more such corporatized human lineages to follow. James Watson,
the discoverer of the structure of DNA and the project's first director,
has spoken publicly of his enthusiasm for human germline engineering—making
permanent inheritable changes in the human populations' DNA. In the brief
time since I wrote the article, insurance companies have publicly admitted
that they will use prospective clients' DNA in deciding whether to grant
them health insurance. Mayors and governors across America are following
NYC Mayor Rudolph Giuliani in demanding that DNA samples be taken from
every person arrested regardless of how minor their crime. Man-made
transgenic organisms are being introduced into the human food supply and
environment under the guise of distributing vaccines and improving
nutrition with what can only be described as either reckless enthusiasm or
an intent to do harm. In short, we will soon be living in a society in
which Eugenics science applied by government may play a greater role in
ones destiny than any other factor.

While all of this is happening the public is being misled into believing
that the Project's main purpose is to cure diseases and extend human life.
Once this genie is out of the bottle, it will never be put back in. While
it may seem like science fiction to most people, the Human Genome Project
represents the single biggest threat to human freedom that has ever been
devised.

The following websites contain a great amount of scientific, historical,
and propaganda material on Eugenics and the Human Genome Project. Some of
the sites are anti-eugenics and others, including a neo-Nazi site, are pro-
eugenics and blatantly racist. My including them in this list should not be
construed as an endorsement of any of the statements contained therein,
other than those in my own articles.

Baltech.org/lederman/spray/
www.hli.org/issues/pp/bcreview/index.html
www.georgetown.edu/research/n...es/sn28.htm
www.biol.tsukuba.ac.jp/~macer/SG.html
www.notdeadyet.org/eughis.html
www.techreview.com/articles/as96/allen.html
www.hli.org/issues/pp/bcreview/index.html
www.csu.edu.au/learning/ncg...cope.28.2.htm l
users.erols.com/straymond/EUGENICS2.htm
home.att.net/~eugenics/
www.sightings.com/general3/eugene.htm
www4.stormfront.org/posterity/"