This is from Dr. Patricia Doyle to Jeff Rense. I will soon post more of her comments about the deadly virus in Madagaskar and other things.
Patricia Doyle, PhD, dr_p_doyle@hotmail.com
8-9-2
Jeff -
As proposed during a 1998 Potomac Institute press conference: Body trains
capable of embalming and bagging 800 folks an hour.
Just what we need. What if the train was carrying victims of ebola or smallpox
etc? What about disposing of infected waste? Clipping down the tracks from
infected areas through uninfected areas. What infrastructure would be in place
to dispose of waste and where are the bagged bodies going? To think this guy
got paid for defense contracting of such an idea? The object of an infectious
outbreak would be to contain it, not spread it across the country. This is
where my selfcontained iso centers would take over. Closed military bases on
islands around NYC would be perfect for a NYC outbreak. There are a lot of
islands in the Long Island sound and off the coast. Maybe they can use Plum
Island. It does have an inhouse hospital. OOOOPS forgot, does not exist
according to Sandy Hays PR rep for the Plum.
Patricia
Suspect In Anthrax Letters Proposed Massive Network Of 'Body Trains'
The Disaster Train's Coming By Voxfux 8-9-2
Prominent government insider Dr. Steven Hatfill (Former Special Forces,
International Paramilitary soldier of fortune, National Institute of Health
official and leading bioterrorism expert) the leading suspect in the anthrax
letters was part of a group that included, defense heavyweights: Defense Week,
Northrop Grumman, and the Potomac Institute for Policy Studies, where a plan
was hatched envisioning a massive multi billion dollar network of rolling human
body processing railroad cars which, in the event of an anthrax attack, could
criss cross the nation, each train capable of embalming and body-bagging up to
800 persons per hour.
In a conference in June 1998, Think Tankers, Defense Contractors, Lobbyists,
military officials and Dr. Hatfill met. Hatfill spoke of contacts with Northrop
Grumman to build a nationwide network of rail cars specifically dealing with
the massive numbers of casualties associated with a widespread Anthrax attack.
It is unclear just how deeply "in contact" Hatfill was with Northrop/Grumman.
The conference was cosponsored with George Washington University (for
credibility). A few defense "News" insiders were there planting questions,
writing press releases. The prominent government scientist, Hatfill, provided
the expertise (Hatfill has a reference to child development issues in his title
- a nice touch) The questions get asked and the plan gets put into the
semiosphere. Then the minutes get written up and the lobbyists take over. It's
the same story with each and every defense contract. (The organizating
principle for a society is in its ability to make war) All over Washington
similar power plays are going on every day. This play was staged by The Potomac
Institute for Policy Studies and GWU. As you read the (Tran)script Know that it
is a script. See all the players sitting in their seats and speaking their
parts. Try to figure out who the players are. (Hint: pay attention to the guys
from Defense Week and Defense News, the good doctor, and some military folks)
And then feel the chill in your spine when your hear the Good Doctor describe
the details of his proposal.
Emerging Threats of Biological Terrorism: Recent Developments
Co-Sponsored by The Terrorism Studies Program at The George Washington
University and The Potomac Institute for Policy Studies
June 16, 1998
Excerpts, pp. 38-49
The Disaster Train
PROF. BRENNER: We'll now hear from Dr. Steven J. Hatfill. He's been connected
with the National Institutes for Health for some time, working on child health
development and the laboratory for cellular and molecular biophysics. He's a
medical doctor with certification in hematology and pathology. He has a Ph.D.
degree in molecular cell biology. He has a diploma in aviation medicine. He has
a diploma in diving and submarine medicine. He has served with the U.S. Army
Special Forces. He was on a 14-month duty as medical officer and science team
leader at the Antarctic research station. He also conducted research while
there for the NASA Johnson Space Center Solar System Exploration Division. He's
been involved in research involving serious problems such as Lyme disease,
Ebola and the Marburg virus. Dr. Hatfill.
[Slides cited were not in the original.]
DR. HATFILL: We've heard the threat today from Dr. Alibek, Dr. Patrick, and Dr.
Huggins for biological threats of biological terrorism. We've heard
conventional countermeasures. We've heard of a number of programs of advanced
countermeasures. It now becomes necessary to discuss worst-case scenarios and
that concerns ways of management, or possible ways of management, of large
areas covered by biological agent.
I've been working with Brigadier General [sic] Third Army Medical Command in
the United States Army Reserve to try to develop a system for flexible and
rapid transportation of mass casualties from a contaminated area to a rear area
while maintaining life support and critical care functions for the casualties.
When we're dealing with a large area of coverage event, this can be exceedingly
complex. A single area of a city may be affected or multiple areas of the city
at the same time or closely thereafter, and terrorists may be involved with
both chemical weapon release as well as with the biological agent.
One of the most dramatic open source experiments that have been described for a
large area of coverage occurred on September 21, 1950, where a naval vessel did
an open air simulation test releasing spores of the same size and weight as
anthrax, but nonpathogenic to humans, over the city of San Francisco. This was
conducted off a naval vessel two miles offshore and the results are illustrated
in this diagram. Had this occurred with actual anthrax, there's a possibility
that several hundred thousand people could have contracted a fatal pulmonary
infection.
These types of dispersal scenarios in the most part are covert. There's no
indication that a biological agent release has occurred until the incubation
period for the particular disease has expired. This is a typical case history.
An emergency department, normal operations and patients begin to appear. The
terrorist event has occurred the week before. The incubation period for the
agent is now open and these previously healthy individuals start coming in
requiring rapid intensive care including mechanical life support, mechanical
ventilation.
The situation of a large area of release in many ways would resemble a modern
battlefield, disrupted lines of communication, poor coordination. Any changes
that were apparent in peacetime would tend to be amplified during their affect
during the natural biological agent pattern.
Consequently it is illustrative to look at how massive casualties have been
handled on the battlefield before. In the 1850s, we saw the first large-scale
systematic development of ways of transporting casualties from a high
concentration on the battlefield to a low concentration in rural areas. This
was during the Crimean War. The British Army instituted an eight-mile railway
line during this conflict. This was also the time when the Florence Nightingale
nurses came into effect in the first early field ambulances.
This concept became so effective that by the early 1900s during the Boer War in
South Africa, the British army had prepositioned a number of specialized
hospital trains all along the areas of fighting. Each of these passenger cars
has been converted to handle up to 25 stretcher cases, and these were
prepositioned along different areas of the conflict. Patients were brought to
these trains and taken to various treatment centers.
The concept was further developed and by the onset of World War I, was in a
highly effective manner. Patients could be taken directly from the trenches in
the battlefields moved by an organized ambulance system, and deposited in what
had now become hospital trains.
Some of these cars contain surgery units or supporting care to stop bleeding,
regain respiration, and resuscitate the patient. There were also provisions for
walking cases and for other casualties. The system was so effective that during
the four days of the battle of the Somme, there were 13,392 cases that were
transported from the front-line battlefields to rural hospital areas in France.
Special frames were developed to cushion the patients as they rode on the
trains. This is one of the first hospital trains in operation.
By World War II, a number of trains were in operation both on the battlefront
and for cities, because of advances in air power, cities now became a target,
specifically London. Hospital trains were used to evacuate thousands of
casualties from London hospitals to outlying areas, in addition to receiving
casualties from across the channel and redistributing it within the country.
This is an interior of one of these trains. It's a three-tiered system to
provide adequate access to the patients for their transportation.
This was even continued up until the 1950s with the British Army of the Rhine.
This was the advent of federal medical transportation medication; the hospital
trains went into disuse. At this time there's only one in use in England which
is used by a reserve army medical unit.
With a biological attack, these patients are going to require even more
intensive care than trauma management. This is a slide of inhalational anthrax.
We only have a few hours once predominantly respiratory symptoms develop. The
patient needs to be intubated; they need to be mechanically ventilated. Their
blood pressure needs to be supported with medications.
Some cutaneous cases may appear. This is cutaneous anthrax, the vegetative
bacteria multiplying in the blood stream and the tissues release a number of
toxins, with a massive edema, malignant edema.
Over 50 percent of those exposed to the agent plume end up with inhalation
anthrax. Over 50 percent of the inhalation anthrax develop cases associated
with hemorrhagic meningitis. This is the membrane covering the brain. A great
deal of these patients will be brought in as casualties probably all having
epileptic fits. Surrounding area and surface contamination is possible as well
as intestinal cases may appear. This is hemorrhagic infection of the lymph
nodes and intestines and a small destruction section of the bowel through
disruption of his blood supply.
Until recently, the medical trains would not have been sufficient for the mass
evacuation of casualties from a high concentration attack area to rear
definitive area treatments. Recently, Northrop Grumman has come out with a
specialized stretcher. This is called LSTT stretcher. It stands for Life
Support and Trauma Transport. Essentially, this is a self-contained unit with a
giant ventilator I.V. fluid infusion pump and with full monitoring capability.
Patients put on the stretcher can be intubated, stabilized, and transferred.
The second concept that's become important is that of intermodal
transportation. This is the use of containers of goods or contents by a variety
of different methods.
This can be by land, air, and sea in standardized containers. There's a whole
subsection of the container transport industry, and they will make containers
how you want. If you want a bathroom in it, they'll put a bathroom in it. If
you want it a certain size, they'll construct it a certain size, economically
and standardized. There are some methods for unaccompanied freight, and at the
bottom slide you can actually have these on lorries, semi-trailer trucks, that
are driven on and then off again.
By combining the systems, it becomes possible to design a disaster car, a
disaster evacuation train. The train would look something like this. Head cars
are the ones that stay with the containers. They transport the rest of the
train. This is a locomotive, a container for medical personnel. Bulk stores,
which could feature antibiotic stores or injectors with deployable vaccination
stations. And a staff and manned control communications and intelligence
sections.
The staff car could act as the nucleus of a command center to coordinate
effectively with first responders.
For a proper coordinated response, it's envisioned that the first responders,
the fire, police, and ambulances need to be connected with military resources,
with government and state resources, and with satellite.
Currently, a piece of technology called the alert system has been developed by
the Texas Department of Transportation. Essentially, this is a laptop computer
built into the trunk of a patrol car. It's digital and operating on the mobile
system. Already digital images have been transmitted from a patrol car in
Florida to a patrol car in Alexandria. This allows some interoperatability
between all first response vehicles.
By linking into the Internet, a commonality can be provided. A previous mass
casualty or possible mass casualty incident such as the World Trade Center or
Oklahoma City bombing shows that the cellular system tends to go down right
after an accident. Everybody's trying to log on and use it, and the system
collapses. The train would carry a useful piece of technology with it.
Manufactured by Celltel, this is a mobile system. Unless you have a chip for
your cell phone, you cannot talk.
This entire system provides a satellite link to other federal responders in
transit to the site as well as coordinating local first responders. This will
cover about a 60-mile radius.
Maps of each area can be used so all response forces are clearly in contact
with each other. You can play road status, you can put meteorological and
weather information on these maps and GPS coordinates are part of the alert
system.
Defense Special Weapons Agency have an enormous amount of experience modeling
downwind areas. They have computer programs that can model fairly quickly
possible downwind affected areas.
The second section of the train would be the intensive care patient cars. The
intensive care ward coaches would be specially built containers with a shock
absorbing system able to handle the LSTT stretchers. It can be mounted on
lorries or it can be driven on and off with a semi-attached tractor-trailer.
Patients would be brought from out of the WMD site on the LSTT stretchers. They
would then be loaded into these special containers. A center monitoring
station, this has already been designed, and one doctor and five or six
orderlies could effectively monitor 40 or 50 patients. These things can be
driven off or taken straight to the facility.
The last portion of the disaster train would consist of cutout cars. These
would be left on-site. It features a security element, another command control,
communications information element, ambulance trucks with the LSTT stretchers
already loaded that can drive into the site and bring the patients back to the
side of the train and a deployable field hospital.
The inside of these hospital cars can be made to different sizes. Along with
this comes a mortuary embalming station. This was originally developed by Arms
Corps in South Africa with the concept that patients are embalmed onsite. This
negates mass burials or graves. The remains are preserved. It can handle 800
bodies an hour. The bodies are embalmed, put into body bags, and stored at room
temperature for later burial when the incident is over.
The system would work like this: If these trains are placed -- and we'll
estimate you'll need somewhere around 27 trains to cover the United States --
but if all other traffic is cleared off of the rails, you'll be no more than
four to six hours rail travel to a major metropolitan area.
Notification. We are estimating this will be the Reserves or the National Guard
handling these trains. The train would travel to the disaster site to a
predetermined spot. It will be loaded. Ambulances and a helipad will be set up
back on the train, and an on-site army field site hospital would be deployed.
The patients would be brought out on the LSTT stretchers and then loaded onto
the train. From there, the train would leave full.
This is an artist's conception of such an incident. This deploying field
hospital is covered with a charcoal and peroxide blanket. Patients are brought
out of the area by air or by ambulances on the train on the LSTT stretchers.
These can be at a positive pressure or negative pressure. We show the
assistants here in Level A gear because a chemical attack could have occurred
at the same time, and the patient is loaded onto the containers and we
distribute it out of the incident site.
The disaster train concept could provide a number of things. The ability to
rapidly transport large quantities of antibiotics, vaccines, personnel and
protective equipment to a WMD site within a matter of hours, the ability to
rapidly transform sitting stretcher and critical care patients on life support
from congested nonfunctional hospital areas to health care facilities outside
of the target area.
And this response capability would be independent of normal road
transportation. Some scenarios suggest that with a large area of coverage, one
third of the population may attempt to flee the city. This could mean both
sides of the beltway congested. Bringing these medical facilities in by train,
that avoids this traffic jam. The country could be at war at the same time.
There could be limited air assets. It provides, above all, a starting point to
coordinate other federal response forces. Thank you very much.
Questions and Answers
PROF. BRENNER: We now commence the discussion period.
Q. My question is to the last gentleman. I'm Dave Ruppe with Defense Week. How
much would this concept that you just described cost for the U.S. to place, and
also a more general question for the three of you: Who exactly, what agency is
in charge of developing or is currently advocating organizing civilian research
and development and equipment purchasing efforts, all of that? I see the
military has several agencies doing it for that side, but who's actually
responsible on the civilian side?
DR. HATFILL: Answer to the first part of your question, we've had some talks
with Northrop Grumman, and we estimate that each train would cost approximately
half that of an F-14 jet fighter. For two squadrons of fighters, it would cover
27 cities. We'll have 27 trains which would cover a number of cities. It would
be state-based. Each train would be responsible for four or five metropolitan
areas.
[Q&A provided only for the disaster train and Dr. Hatfill's comments.]
PROF. BRENNER: Other questions. I'll ask one of Dr. Hatfill. Can you give us an
explanation of what kind of chain of command we're looking at for these 27
trains? Who do the people report to and who controls them and what's the
organization structure? Is it civilian, military or hybrid?
DR. HATFILL: It would be hybrid with some qualifications on that. The DOD seems
intent in involving the National Guard in that with respect to the rapid
assessment teams. A pre-placed train on a siding would be an ideal place for
these RAID teams to operate from. You can move three people very rapidly
anywhere and in the midst of a WMD crisis in one of our metropolitan areas, it
would be useful if the top three people of the RAID team could advise, see what
the first responders are doing, is there a need for follow-on forces, is there
a need for greater federal intervention and this -- you're not going to do too
much with 22 men in a WMD incident. If it's a small-scale event, local
authorities should be able to handle it. If it's a large-area coverage, these
RAID teams would be trained in NBC reconnaissance detection and could very
rapidly call the disaster train in as a follow-on force.
PROF. BRENNER: Do we have additional questions or comments?
Q. Yes, David Mahoney with Defense News. I have a question. At certain levels
it seems with different asymmetric threats, bioterrorism, obviously, being one
of them, at what level is there a breakdown between sort of the traditional way
the military has looked at threats as over there somewhere before it's
projected to start being threats where we really have to start worrying about a
mix between civil defense as an aspect of military defense against outside
aggression? I'd like to open this up to any of the panelists who spoke today.
DR. HATFILL: We are living as a species at this time in population densities
that have never ever been seen before. This brings in the concept of emerging
diseases. We're seeing on the average every two to three years one new pathogen
we never really recognized before or a variant strain of a known pathogen. And
as we live in these terribly increased densities, which are projected to
increase even further in the next century, the whole concept of the emerging
infectious disease becomes a major public health problem. Anything that we
spend on biological weapons defense can have direct transference to the concept
of public health and infectious disease management.
PROF. BRENNER: Additional comments.
Q. Yes. Captain Lisa Forsythe, U.S. Army. My question is for any of the
panelists. Have you analyzed our existing plan such as the Federal Response
Plan and how the Emergency Support Functions and those Lead Federal Agencies
such as the Department of Transportation has an ESF leadership role and how DOD
fits into our current plans and how we support those plans, not necessarily DOD
taking a lead such as the railroad system but actually supporting Department of
Transportation in those leadership roles that have already been established?
DR. HATFILL: The National Security Council has formulated an interagency
working group to address these problems. When is the handoff from FBI to FEMA?
How will federal assets coordinate with state and local -- there is a working
group at present working on this.
VOXFUX ANNOTATION: He's been doing alot of research on the Ebola virus lately.
Hope he wasn't stashing any of that stuff. One of hatfill's select fear bombs
that he dropped at the conference was how there were new strains of viruses
appearing every day. (I wonder how?) and that unless we prepared ourselves with
this multibillion dollar defense contract.. er.. I mean, Disaster Train, that
the inevitable was going to happen... and soon. (apparantly not sooon enough
for him) Voxfux will update this story as it develops.
___
Link to Article Source
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Patricia A. Doyle, PhD Please visit my "Emerging Diseases" message board at:
Link to Article Source
sastimasa Go with God and in Good Health
Link to Article Source Link to Article Source
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