FM says China’s move ‘based on facts and reason’ as Japan complains of China tightening seafood imports due to nuclear-contaminated wastewater dumping plan
By Wang Qi | Global Times | July 20, 2023
The Chinese government puts people first, the Chinese Foreign Ministry said, noting that China’s opposition to Japan’s ocean discharge plan is based on facts and reason, after Japan recently complained that China had tightened radiation testing on its seafood imports, and some Japanese seafood had reportedly been “held up” at China’s customs due to Tokyo’s nuclear-contaminated wastewater dumping plan.
At a press briefing on Thursday, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning urged Japan to “heed the call of the international community, stop pushing through the discharge plan, engage in full, sincere consultations with its neighbors, dispose of the nuclear-contaminated water in a responsible way and accept rigorous international oversight.”
Japan’s chief cabinet secretary Hirokazu Matsuno said on Wednesday that there have been cases of Japanese seafood exports “being held up by China,” along with Japanese media reports saying that China has ramped up efforts to test “all seafood imports from Japan for radiation.”
Earlier on July 7, China’s customs announced a ban on imports of food from Japan’s Fukushima and nine other regions, as Japan makes final preparations to dump nuclear-contaminated wastewater into the ocean.
Mao said Thursday that “Our job is to be responsible for the health of our people and the marine environment. Our opposition to Japan’s ocean discharge plan is based on facts and reason, so are the measures that we have decided to take.”
According to Japanese media outlet Asahi Shimbum, China is Japan’s largest seafood destination, accounting for 87.1 billion yen ($624 million) in imports.
Many people from Japan and most of its neighboring countries, including China, are against Tokyo’s irresponsible plan to dump the nuclear-contaminated water from the Fukushima plant into the Pacific Ocean.
A recent Japanese poll by Kyodo News showed 80.3 percent of respondents said they felt the explanation provided by the Japanese government on dumping nuclear-contaminated wastewater was insufficient.
More than 80 percent of respondents in 11 countries in the Asia-Pacific region except for Japan said Japan’s plan to dump nuclear-contaminated water into the sea is “irresponsible,” a survey conducted by the Global Times Research Center found recently.
A Gallup Korea survey from June shows that 78 percent of those polled said they were very or somewhat worried about contamination of seafood, according to a CNN report.
The obstruction of Japan’s seafood exports is entirely self-inflicted, Lü Chao, the director of Institute of US and East Asian Studies under Liaoning University, told the Global Times on Thursday.
Trying to shift local fishermen’s anger toward the Japanese government to neighboring countries exposed Tokyo as having no sense of decency and its ill intentions, Lü noted.
The Japanese government recently used various multilateral diplomatic occasions, including the NATO summit, to justify its plan, and gave signs that it will not postpone the hazardous dumping.
Mao criticized Tokyo’s move as a global PR campaign. She said that the legitimacy and safety of Japan’s nuclear-contaminated wastewater dumpling plan have been questioned by the international community, and no matter how much the Japanese side tries, it cannot whitewash the plan, and the protests of neighboring countries and the voices of doubt in Japan are clear evidence of this.
“If the Fukushima nuclear-contaminated water is truly safe, Japan wouldn’t have to dump it into the sea—and certainly shouldn’t if it’s not,” Mao said.
Dumping nuclear-contaminated wastewater into the ocean will seriously damage Japan’s national image and its people’s interests, Lü said, “More countries may take more stricter measures or even reject Japanese seafood imports in the future, as it’s very obvious that radioactive elements can cause long-term damage to human.”
What’s the problem regarding radioactive water discharge from the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant? Part 2
A delegation of South Korean scientists visits the NPP
By Konstantin Asmolov – New Eastern Outlook – 12.07.2023
The disputable situation surrounding the safety of discharging water from the damaged Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant, which the author discussed in Part 1, prompted a team of 21 South Korean experts to visit Japan from May 21 to 26 to inspect the plant and the treatment of radioactively contaminated water that Japan plans to begin discharging into the ocean in the near future because the tanks are full.
Many Koreans are concerned about this because they believe the waters are still contaminated and will have a negative impact on the environment and health of the population of the area, especially South Korea. A presidential administration official stated that Seoul feels a real inspection of the nuclear disaster by South Korean experts is required in light of the rapprochement between Seoul and Tokyo on May 9, 2023. He reminded that the inspection of contaminated water quality is carried out by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) specialists. Nevertheless, the effectiveness of the treatment facilities and their operational capabilities need to be independently verified. On the same day, South Korean Prime Minister Han Duck-soo, visiting Europe at the time, met with IAEA Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi and noted the need for South Korean specialists and research organizations to be constantly involved in the process of monitoring the composition of contaminated water.
The idea was also supported in Washington. On May 12, Philip Goldberg, US Ambassador to the Republic of Korea, said that South Korea and Japan should exercise “patience and diplomatic skill.”
The delegation consisted of 19 experts from the Korea Institute of Nuclear Safety, one expert from the Korea Institute of Ocean Science and Technology and its head, South Korea’s Nuclear Safety and Security Commission Chairperson Yoo Guk-hee. Indeed, it was a serious team, but the preparation for the visit was fraught with a number of difficulties.
On the one hand, the parties defined the goals of the trip differently. The visit, the Foreign Ministry anticipated, would provide “opportunity to conduct a multilayered review and evaluation” of the water’s safety independently of the IAEA’s monitoring team. However, Japanese Industry Minister Yasutoshi Nishimura stated that the inspection is intended to “help deepen understanding” about the safety of the release, not to evaluate or certify its safety.
On May 17, South Korea and Japan held further consultations at the working level, but could not elaborate on the details of the upcoming inspection, despite many hours of talks.
On the other hand, the question arose as to whose representatives would go there. On May 12, Park Ku-yeon, the first deputy chief of the Office for Government Policy Coordination, stated that “the inspection team will be composed of top-notch experts in safety regulations,” and “the purpose of inspection activities is to provide an overall review of the safety of the water discharge into the ocean.”
But on May 19, Park Ku-yeon said that in addition to government experts, a separate group of about 10 civilian experts would be formed by Yoo Guk-hee to review and support the inspection team.
As a result, the government formed an advisory group of 10 civilian experts, some of whom strongly raised questions about the safety of radioactive water and called for a thorough review. But members of the advisory group were not included in the on-site inspection team.
This raised the question of objectivity, as the arguments of the critics were worth considering:
- Members of the expert group serve in government agencies; it may be difficult for them to express an opinion different from the government which supports Japan.
- Japan will not allow experts to take radioactive water samples at the power plant site and will not accept the results of the safety assessment of the Korean inspection team, a clear indication that Japan does not want a full objective inspection.
- Japan does not allow Korean journalists to accompany the inspection team. The lack of transparency and openness may cause concern.
However, the Yoon administration and the ruling People Power Party claimed that there is no need for the public to be alarmed because Japan will permit an additional inspection if a problem is discovered at the facility and the Korean delegation will have the chance to examine and assess the advanced cleaning system developed at the Fukushima plant.
On the third hand, the democratic opposition started its resistance right away. On May 10, opposition leader Lee Jae-myung called on the government to reconsider its plan to send an inspection team “that has no power to conduct a substantial and thorough inspection and verification,” saying that the visit could end up approving the planned discharge of contaminated water from the damaged plant. “It appears the government is trying to be a volunteer helper for Japan’s plan to dump contaminated water from the nuclear power plant into the ocean.”
On May 13, the Democratic Party called on the government to withdraw its plan to send an inspection team to Japan, saying it would only justify Japan’s plan. The Democrats pointed out that the Japanese government has no plans to allow the Seoul delegation to verify the safety of the discharge and will proceed with the plan in July, regardless of the team’s actions. This means that the inspection team is just a formality.
On May 21, the experts arrived in Japan. On May 22 they met with the Tokyo Electric Power Corporation (TEPCO), the Nuclear Regulation Authority (NRA), presenting them with a list of facilities they want to inspect. Before the meeting, Yoo Guk-hee noted that the experts will check with their own eyes the K4 tanks intended for storing and measuring the radioactive substance and will ask the Japanese authorities for the necessary data. Yoo also promised to study the ALPS treatment system, and assess whether the treated water is safe enough to discharge into the sea.
In brief, the purification process is as follows: contaminated water goes through the procedure of preliminary purification from suspended solids and then enters the ALPS unit, which removes radionuclides except tritium. Then its samples are evaluated, and if they meet the established safety parameters, the water is diluted with pure seawater in a separate facility to reduce the concentration of tritium. Later, it is supposed to be discharged into the ocean.
On May 23-24, experts inspected the damaged Fukushima Daiichi NPP. As Yoo Guk-hee noted, the main focus was on the radioactive water storage tanks and treatment system.
On May 23, the ALPS equipment, the central control room, the K4 tank for measuring water concentration before discharge, and the transportation equipment were inspected.
On May 24, the experts inspected the first power unit of the plant, including the radiological analysis laboratory. Additionally, by comparing the concentration of water before and after treatment, the experts evaluated the effectiveness of the Advanced Liquid Processing System (ALPS).
The team visited the nuclide analysis facility and inspected the seawater dilution system and discharge facilities, including the capacity of the dilution pumps and how they functioned. The experts took a close look at the shut-off valves that would be triggered if the water contamination level exceeded the norm.
Additionally, Tokyo gave them reports from IAEA officials it had invited to observe the procedure and data it had collected on water control.
After the inspection, Yoo told reporters that “we examined all the facilities we wanted to see … but we need to engage in additional analysis of their function and role.” Although the team was not able to collect water samples on their own, they analyzed those previously collected by the IAEA.
When asked whether the South Korean government would release its security assessment before the IAEA releases its final report, Yoo declined to comment.
On May 25, the delegation held consultations with Japanese counterparts, and Yoo Guk-hee reported that the commission had completed its task by requesting additional data to be sent from Japan and analyzed. Only then will the final report be made public.
On May 26, the group returned home. The opposition and some civil society organizations criticized the visit, calling it “government-led tourism,” saying that the Yoon Seok-yeol government was simply following Japan’s lead and risking the health of Koreans. South Korean Foreign Minister Park Jin rejected such criticism, saying that experts were carefully examining the sites, resolving all concerns with the Japanese authorities, and obtaining scientific data. “It is not right to devalue the work of our team that is working hard (in Japan).”
On May 30, Prime Minister Han Duck-soo asked the group of experts to present the results of their inspection transparently and comprehensively. On May 31, the group held a press conference to announce the main results of the visit.
The specialists spoke in detail about TEPCO’s procedure for cleaning and testing radiation-contaminated water, as well as the sites visited as part of the inspection. They also learned the procedures to stop water discharge in case of emergency and the process of maintaining the machinery used in water treatment. The unique cleaning technique and the equipment for assessing radiation levels received special attention.
In the process of familiarization with the water treatment facilities at the damaged Fukushima Daiichi NPP, the South Korean expert group received data from the Japanese side on the performance of the ALPS for the last four years. This includes data regarding the water’s chemical composition at the ALPS system’s input and exit, which made it possible to assess the system’s effectiveness and gauge the degree of pollution before and after treatment. The experts made sure that all major equipment was installed in accordance with current standards, and that the system for preventing leakage of contaminated water was operating normally. In particular, there are emergency valves to automatically stop water discharge in case of a sudden power and communication failure. In addition, equipment for double-checking the composition of water is in operation. However, there has not been a “yes or no” answer: significant progress has been made during the Fukushima inspection, but further analysis is needed for a more accurate conclusion.
This did not dampen the excitement, and on June 22, Hahn Pil-soo, a South Korean nuclear energy expert who formerly served as director of the IAEA’s radiation, transport and waste safety division, said that IAEA investigation reports have reliable objectivity and credibility. “The credibility of the final report is directly related to the status of the IAEA. Thus lawyers and experts are involved to ensure that not a single word is misspelled,” he said, stressing that the agency works hard to produce professional, objective and reliable results.
On June 26, Park Ku-yeon said that there is no alternative to Japan’s decision to release contaminated water from the Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant because there is no other way to dispose the water. In the mid-2010s, there were extremely complex discussions in Japan, with various options for water disposal (solidifying water in concrete or storing water in massive tanks), but “the current water discharge method was finalized as the most realistic alternative when scientific precedents and safety were fully taken into account.” Therefore, the IAEA approved the method to be implemented, taking into account its safety and based on scientific data.
Park Koo-yeon noted that the NRA would begin trial operation of the water dilution and pumping units on June 28.
On June 27, after a month of his group’s return, Yoo Guk-hee, reported that South Korea is in the final stages of analysis: “We have been scientifically and technologically reviewing Japan’s plan based on the results of the on-site inspection and additional data obtained afterward.” In addition, Yoo said six types of radionuclides have been detected in the water stored in the tanks at concentrations in excess of acceptable limits, even after treatment with ALPS, but most cases occurred before 2019, so “this is the aspect of radionuclide that we need to closely examine.”
The final report will eventually be published in early July. However, in a politicized environment, its meaning becomes a matter of trust, particularly because the opposition prematurely declared the commission’s findings invalid and launched a loud campaign, which the author will discuss in the section after this one.
Konstantin Asmolov, PhD in History, is a leading research fellow at the Center for Korean Studies of the Institute of China and Modern Asia at the Russian Academy of Sciences.
Plan to Build NIH-Funded Bat Research Lab in Colorado Sparks Fears of Lab Leak
By Michael Nevradakis, Ph.D. | The Defender | May 18, 2023
Colorado State University (CSU) is proceeding with controversial plans to construct a new research facility to study bat diseases with funding from the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Construction is slated to be completed sometime in 2024 or 2025.
University officials and proponents of the new facility argue the laboratory is necessary to enhance research capabilities looking into emerging diseases and viruses resulting from zoonotic — animal-to-human — transfer.
While CSU denies that gain-of-function research will occur at the laboratory, some researchers connected with the new facility previously were associated with actors involved with such research, including experiments conducted in Wuhan, China.
Francis Boyle, J.D., Ph.D., a bioweapons expert and professor of international law at the University of Illinois, is concerned about the facility.
Boyle told The Defender :
“It is well known that Colorado State University has a long and ongoing history of specialization in weaponizing insects with biowarfare agents for delivery to human beings.
“This new lab will magnitudinally increase CSU’s offensive biowarfare capabilities, in gross violation of the Biological Weapons Convention of 1972 and my Biological Weapons Anti-Terrorism Act of 1989 that provides for life in prison.”
Area residents, including a local grassroots group, and bioweapons experts, also have raised concerns over the potentially risky research, involving deadly viruses, that will be conducted at the facility and the risk of a lab leak akin to that which may have occurred at the Wuhan Institute of Virology in China, and may have led to escape of the SARS-CoV-2 virus.
Christine Bowman leads a group of local citizens who formed the Covid Bat Research Moratorium of Colorado (CBRMC), a grassroots initiative opposing the new facility. The group has launched efforts such as a yard sign campaign to raise local awareness.
In an interview with The Defender, Bowman described being “stonewalled” by state and local officials and by CSU.
“We need answers as to how COVID-19 was modified to transfer from human to human before I will be satisfied that it’s okay to raise diseased bats to study in my neighborhood,” Bowman said.
“Now that we know that the COVID pandemic likely started from a lab leak in Wuhan, China, we are questioning the safety of continuing such research,” she added.
CSU receives ‘tens of millions of dollars’ in NIH research grants annually
According to The Colorodoan, the Chiropteran Research Facility, as it will be known, “would serve as a breeding facility to raise and care for bats of various species that can be used as research models in studies on a wide range of human viruses that are believed to have originated with bats.”
The laboratory will be constructed on the south end of CSU’s Foothills Campus near Fort Collins, at 3105 Rampart Road, within the Justin Harper Research Complex and adjacent to the university’s existing Center for Vector-Borne Infectious Diseases (CVID). It will consist of a 14,000-square-foot stand-alone bat vivarium.
According to CSU, the university “is a world leader in research on zoonotic infections. The University’s scientists have been studying bats and other vectors that transmit dengue fever, Zika and West Nile viruses for more than 30 years.”
Construction is scheduled to begin by this summer. The Colorodoan reported the facility is expected to open in fall 2024, while CSU said it will be completed by 2025.
CVID, formerly known as the Arthropod-born and Infectious Diseases Laboratory, was founded in 1984. According to The Colorodoan, it “currently houses the only captive breeding colonies of two species of bats used in its research.”
CVID’s website describes the facility as “a longstanding multi-disciplinary research and training center” whose researchers “have been successful in defining mechanisms of pathogen persistence and transmission, and developing new surveillance, control, and prevention strategies for vector-borne and emerging zoonotic diseases.”
“World-class facilities, including BSL-3 [biosafety level 3] laboratories and large insectary complexes, provide an outstanding scientific environment for researchers inside and outside CSU wanting to manipulate pathogens in vertebrate hosts and arthropod vectors,” the CVID website states.
The BSL3 laboratory in question is CSU’s Regional Biocontainment Laboratory, which operates with the support of the National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) and is part of the university’s 120,000-square-foot Infectious Disease Research Center. It houses bats and samples of numerous deadly bacteria and viruses.
In October 2021, the NIH awarded a $6.7 million grant to CSU’s microbiology, immunology and pathology department at the College of Veterinary Medicine and Biomedical Sciences to construct the new bat vivarium.
Alan Rudolph, CSU’s vice president for research, told The Coloradoan the university will provide the remaining funds for the facility’s construction, the cost of which is expected to range between $8-9 million.
Rudolph said CSU receives “tens of millions of dollars” in NIH research grants annually.
‘Highly pathogenic’ agents will be housed at new facility
The CVID already conducts research involving viruses related to “chikungunya, dengue, malaria, Rift Valley fever, Zika virus, COVID-19, MERS, influenza [and] hantavirus disease.” The new facility will expand those capabilities.
According to the minutes of the Feb. 3, 2022, meeting of CSU’s Board of Governors, the new facility is justified due to the capacity it will have to study “emerging zoonotic viruses that originate in bats and cause high mortality in humans: SARS-CoV, MERS-CoV and SARS-CoV-2, Ebola virus, Marburg virus, Nipah virus and Hendra virus.”
It is unclear under what biosafety level the new facility will operate, but Bowman told The Defender :
“From what I understand, this facility is slated to be a BSL2. But what’s to keep that from increasing in the future without approval or informing the general public? What guarantee do the residents of Fort Collins have that the lab won’t increase from a BSL2 to BSL4, where even more dangerous viruses will be studied?”
CSU claims it “has no plans to conduct gain-of-function research of concern” there.
“Who decides what criteria we use for ‘concern’?” Bowman asked.
Rebecca Moritz, CSU’s biosafety director, said, “This will be the only facility like it in the United States,” and it will give students “the opportunity to learn directly from the researchers conducting this research in their classes.”
She added:
“CSU researchers have safely studied and worked with bats and other vectors for over 30 years. … Due to global warming and population growth, humans and animals are coming into contact more frequently and in ways not previously seen. This could result in an increased number of outbreaks and possibly pandemics.
“The main purpose of this facility will be to house bat breeding colonies for CSU researchers and researchers around the United States and the world. This facility will allow an expansion of CSU’s current work, including projects focusing on the role that bats play in disease transmission and the development of vaccines and therapeutics.”
“Personnel who will work in this facility will be highly trained and be required [to] adhere to strict biosafety and biosecurity practices,” Moritz claimed.
Moritz has spoken publicly about her involvement with gain-of-function research, including at the 2014 Gain of Function Symposium. At the time, Moritz was part of the Biosecurity Task Force at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Bowman said gain-of-function experiments are already being conducted at CSU and that the university is open about it.
“We are only aware that CSU is conducting gain-of-function on plants and mosquitoes because it is mentioned in the link they send to anyone who emails them or questions their research.”
Rudolph told The Colorodoan, “Bat research is not new to our campus; bat-research facilities are not new to our campus. It’s an expansion of existing work in existing facilities that have already made great impacts.”
Such research “helped us to develop vaccines, helped us to develop diagnostics to better determine who’s getting sick, why are they getting sick, when are they getting sick, and vaccines that help treat those people when they do get sick,” he added.
Some of the viruses for which research will be conducted at the new facility, including Hendra and Nipah, are considered “highly pathogenic BSL-4 agents,” classified “in the same biosecurity category as Ebola.”
The Nipah virus, for instance, has a high human mortality rate ranging between 40 and 75%. It “causes a rapidly progressive disease, which includes acute respiratory infection and encephalitis that can lead to coma or death.”
Earlier this month, the NIH reinstated a controversial federal grant, originally issued in 2014 under Dr. Anthony Fauci, then-director of NIAID, which operates under the NIH, to EcoHealth Alliance to study the risk of bat coronavirus spillover.
This involved gain-of-function research for the genetic manipulation of coronaviruses to make them more infectious to humans. Some of the NIH funds went to the Wuhan Institute of Virology, which collaborated with EcoHealth Alliance on this research.
EcoHealth is a New York-based nonprofit that says its mission is to develop “science-based solutions to prevent pandemics and promote conservation.”
Documents revealed by U.S. Right to Know (USRTK) indicate that some CSU researchers have previously collaborated with the EcoHealth Alliance.
Local activists ‘stonewalled’ by university, state, local officials
According to The Colorodoan, CSU’s campus planner, Gargi Duttgupta, told local authorities that the new facility would be approximately 316 feet north of the fence that marks the campus’ boundary with adjacent residential communities.
This may be too close for comfort for some area residents, who have attempted to engage with CSU and with local planning authorities to express opposition to the new facility and to obtain further information about its construction.
Their opposition led to the establishment of CBRMC, “a nonpartisan grassroots organization run on a budget of $0 by a group of concerned citizens from across the political spectrum.”
CBRMC says its mission is to put a moratorium on the construction of the new facility “until we first know what happened with the possible COVID bat lab leak and gain-of-function research in Wuhan, China.”
Some CBRMC members spoke at a Dec. 21, 2022, meeting of the Larimer County Planning Commission, expressing fears of a potential leak from the new facility, drawing comparisons with the suspected Wuhan lab leak.
But the planning commission unanimously approved the project. Lesli Ellis, Larimer County’s community development director, told The Colorodoan that no further approvals are needed before construction can commence.
According to The Colorodoan, “CSU officials insist that the new facility is merely an extension of work that has been done on its Foothills Campus for more than 30 years by the university and others, including the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and U.S. Department of Agriculture.”
The CSU Foothills Campus houses labs operated by the U.S. Department of Agriculture National Wildlife Research Center and the Rocky Mountain Prevention Research Center — described as the “second-largest CDC lab outside of Atlanta.”
“Strict safety protocols will be in place to prevent the escape of a virus or infected bat,” The Colorodoan also reported.
Rudolph told The Colorodoan the facility will need only dozens to hundreds — not thousands — of bats, which will be acquired by the U.S. government, “quarantined well outside the United States and deemed safe and not sick before they come to us.”
CSU does ‘not have a good track record’ on safety
A Jan. 11 CSU “Q&A on why CSU labs are safe” denies that illegal bioweapons research will take place at the institution and quotes Moritz, who said, “We do everything possible to decrease the risks of our research.” However, she acknowledged “there is no such thing as zero risk in research.”
Bowman said CSU alone will oversee safety at the new facility, and she questioned the lab’s safety record.
Bowman told The Defender :
“After letting chronic wasting disease [CWD] leak from their labs at CSU, hundreds of thousands of the deer population were killed from the disease. They do not have a good track record of ensuring the safety or containment of diseases.
“I personally do not have the data for this claim, but I have heard many people cite this as fact and no one at CSU is refuting the claim.”
CWD, “a contagious neurological disease that affects members of the deer family, causing erratic behavior and weight loss that eventually results in death,” was identified in 1967. It is described as “a mysterious malady intricately tied to Fort Collins.” The federal government declared a CWD state of emergency in 2001.
The Colorodoan reported that CWD “was related to scrapie in sheep and goats, mad cow disease in cattle and the fatal variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease in humans.”
As reported by Northern Colorado NPR affiliate KUNC, “Chronic wasting disease is not your garden variety infectious disease. It’s not bacterial, viral or even fungal. It’s caused by something we all have inside our bodies — something called prions.”
CSU is home to the Prion Research Center, which “studies the biochemistry, genetics, and pathogenesis of prions, the causative agent of incurable and often fatal diseases in humans and animals,” including bovine spongiform encephalopathy, classic Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, CWD and scrapie.
According to the Prion Research Center, “Growing evidence also links the prion mechanism to proteins involved in the pathogenesis of other common neurodegenerative diseases, including Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s, and forms an emerging area of the center’s studies.”
And in 2019, CSU reported that Prion Research Center scientists “have developed a new gene-targeted approach” to study CWS in mice. Described as a “real breakthrough,” the scientists “replaced the gene that encodes the prion protein in the mouse and replaced it with an exact replica of the code from either deer or elk.”
Researchers who spoke to The Colorodoan said that while it’s unclear if CWD originated in Fort Collins, it is hypothesized that it crossed species and spread there.
A U.S. Geological Survey map shows a significant cluster of CWD near Fort Collins and that cases identified elsewhere have been connected to the region.
A 2021 paper, “Text mining to identify the origin of chronic wasting disease,” published in the Issues in Information Systems journal, states:
“For the 16 [CWD] clusters in the first 40 years, the text mining process generated evidence supporting the trace back to Fort Collins for the first six clusters, five more clusters could be traced back to infected area linked to Fort Collins, and in 5 clusters the evidence supported an explanation for tracing the disease back to an area linked to Fort Collins.
“The evidence does not definitively exclude other theories for the disease origin. At minimum, Fort Collins was a primary catalyst in the widespread distribution of the disease.”
The paper noted, “As with COVID-19, government agencies can be reluctant to acknowledge potential culpability for releasing a devastating disease,” adding that “Ignoring the likely origin of this disease discounts the lax management of captive animals that has been the driving force for this biological disaster.”
Locals getting mixed messages from CSU officials
Local activists are concerned about a lack of communication between CSU officials, local authorities and the community, and contradictory statements they have received from CSU.
According to the CBRMC, CSU “gave citizens short notice on Nov. 30, 2022” about the public hearing, which was “held on the inconvenient date of Dec. 21, 2022 — snuck into holiday break.”
Since then, CSU has “not conducted any informational meetings with the public regarding their proposed research lab,” the CBRMC says on its website.
Bowman said a fact sheet about the facility was distributed at the meeting, stating that “SARS-CoV, SARS-CoV-2, MERS-CoV, Ebola virus, Marburg, Nipah virus and Hedra virus” would be studied at the lab, confirming information included in the February 2022 CSU Board of Governors report.
However, according to Bowman, Moritz said at the public hearing, “At this facility, we will not be able to study MERS, SARS-CoV-2 [or] Ebola viruses.”
“So, which is it, are they proposing to study these diseases in our backyard or not?” Bowman asked.
Bowman noted that the same fact sheet contains “a photo displayed prominently on the front with a person’s gloveless hand holding a bat.” She remarked:
“When you are touting the strength of your ability to do dangerous bat research with safety first and foremost, maybe you shouldn’t incorporate a photo of an irresponsible way to handle a bat.
“Couldn’t this be one way bat diseases transmit to humans and is proving our point that bats and humans shouldn’t mix, especially in a lab setting?”
An April 5 email from Greg Harrison, CSU associate vice president of Strategic Communications, to Bowman, said, “We do not have any public meeting about the facility scheduled at this time.”
This was despite a Jan. 24 email from Moritz to Bowman saying CSU was “working on a process to engage the public this spring to discuss the project and lab safety and security, as well as our commitment to the wellbeing of people in Colorado and around the world.”
Both emails are posted in CBRMC’s Facebook group. In the same group, Bowman referenced a March 15 Town Hall meeting with Sen. John Hickenlooper (D-Colo.) where the issue was to be raised. According to Bowman, “Sen. Hickenlooper chose not to answer any [questions] re: concern over CSU’s COVID bat lab.”
Bowman said this was not the only instance where elected officials ignored the concerns of local residents. She told The Defender :
“The community has been sending this information to our elected officials, who have also stonewalled us. I got no response from Sen. Hickenlooper.
“The response I got from Sen. Michael Bennet [D-Colo.] spoke about diversity, equity and inclusion and did not address the subject of bat research at all. The mayor of Fort Collins [Jeni Arndt] says that it is not in her jurisdiction and was uninterested.”
Bowman said that local residents deserve answers. She told The Defender :
“I believe that the residents of this county, state, and this country deserve answers to our questions regarding any potential danger to the public from this type of research considering the mayhem and destruction that the COVID virus unleashed on mankind.
“We do not want a repeat, and I think we should be allowed to have some say in what happens in our backyard. The fact that CSU is stonewalling their neighbors speaks volumes.”
Collaboration between CSU scientists, NIH, EcoHealth Alliance on bat viruses
Documents obtained by USRTK following several Freedom of Information Act requests indicate that plans for the new facility date back prior to receipt of the NIH grant in 2021, while key figures involved with the laboratory are connected to the EcoHealth Alliance and prior research involving SARS-CoV-2.
According to USRTK, the documents reveal that in February 2017, personnel of the U.S. Department of Defense’s Cooperative Biological Engagement Program “announced a new global bat alliance,” which would “build and leverage country and regional capabilities to generate an enhanced understanding of bats and their ecology within the context of pathogens of security concern.”
This new alliance was a collaboration between CSU, EcoHealth Alliance and the NIH’s Rocky Mountain Laboratories with the goal of building a bat research facility at CSU.
USRTK’s documents reveal that this original alliance grew into a group which became known as Bat One Health Research Network, whose scientists, including CSU and Rocky Mountain Laboratories researchers, were developing “scalable vectored” and “self-disseminating” vaccines to spread contagiously between bats.
These vaccines are purportedly aimed at preventing “emergence and spillover” of potential pandemic viruses from bats to humans. However, at least as far back as 2020, concerns were raised about the unintended consequences of releasing genetically engineered self-spreading “vaccines” into the wild.
Bat One Health also harkens to the “One Health” concept, which purports to serve as “an integrated, unifying approach that aims to sustainably balance and optimize the health of people, animals and ecosystems,” but which some experts have argued lowers human health to the level of animals and aims to surveil and control all life on Earth.
Notably, the term “One Health” is said to have first been coined by the EcoHealth Alliance, which today is a strong proponent of this concept.
A March 30, 2020, email obtained by USRTK, from Tony Schountz, Ph.D., associate professor in CSU’s Department of Microbiology, Immunology and Pathology, to Jonathan Epstein, vice president for Science and Outreach at EcoHealth Alliance, discusses the importation of bats and rats infected with dangerous pathogens such as the Lassa virus.
In another set of emails from 2018, Schountz communicated with scientists from the Wuhan Institute of Virology. In an Oct. 30, 2018, email, Schountz proposed a “loose association” between CSU and the Wuhan lab, involving “collaboration on relevant projects” involving bat-borne viruses and arboviruses.
Indicating the connection between the research planned to take place at the new facility, and COVID-19, Rebekah Kading, Ph.D., assistant professor in CSU’s Department of Microbiology, Immunology and Pathology, said, “This facility is especially timely considering the current COVID-19 pandemic, since some groups of bats have an evolutionary association with coronaviruses.”
According to CSU, the university has a partnership with Zoetis, which it describes as “the world’s leading animal health company,” “for the construction in 2020 of an incubator research lab in the Research Innovation Center on the Foothills campus.”
Zoetis was previously Pfizer Animal Health, before separating from Pfizer in June 2013.
Big Pharma, NIH interested in developing vaccines related to viruses to be researched at new CSU facility
Big Pharma has shown interest in developing mRNA vaccines targeting many of the same deadly pathogens that will be researched at CSU’s new facility.
For instance, in July 2022, Moderna announced the launch of its Phase 1 clinical trial of the mRNA-1215 vaccine candidate, “designed to fight the Nipah virus.” The vaccine was developed in collaboration with NIAID’s Vaccine Research Center.
In an NIH statement, Fauci said “Nipah virus poses a considerable pandemic threat because it mutates relatively easily, causes disease in a wide range of mammals, can transmit from person-to-person, and kills a large percentage of the people it infects,” adding that “The need for a preventive Nipah virus vaccine is significant.”
Efforts to develop a Nipah virus vaccine date back to at least January 2017, when CEPI (Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations) issued a call for proposals for the development of vaccines for the Nipah and Lassa viruses and MERS, soon after its official launch at that year’s meeting of the World Economic Forum.
EcoHealth Alliance researchers have long shown interest in viruses such as Nipah. A 2006 article in the Current Infectious Disease Reports journal titled “Nipah virus: impact, origins, and causes of emergence” was co-authored by Epstein, for instance.
At the time, Epstein was affiliated with the Consortium for Conservation Medicine, which later merged with the Wildlife Trust to become the EcoHealth Alliance.
Michael Nevradakis, Ph.D., based in Athens, Greece, is a senior reporter for The Defender and part of the rotation of hosts for CHD.TV’s “Good Morning CHD.”
This article was originally published by The Defender — Children’s Health Defense’s News & Views Website under Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. Please consider subscribing to The Defender or donating to Children’s Health Defense.
US Resumes Large-Scale Production of Plutonium Pits for Nukes
By Ilya Tsukanov – Sputnik – 27.04.2023
During the Cold War, the US produced thousands of “plutonium pit” detonators at the Rocky Flats Plant in Colorado. Production halted in 1989 after the FBI and the EPA uncovered massive violations of environmental regulations. A small handful of pits has since been produced at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico.
The United States will resume the large-scale production of “plutonium pit” detonators used in nuclear weapons, the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), a sub-agency of the Department of Energy responsible for nuclear weapons, has announced.
In a new report to Congress, the NNSA indicated that its 2023 Stockpile Stewardship and Management Plan includes resources to ramp up plutonium pit production to 80 units per year, in accordance with approval received in 2021 to “reestablish, for the first time since the early 1990s, the capability to produce War Reserve plutonium pits to ensure the US nuclear deterrent remains safe, secure, reliable, and effective now and in the future.”
Plutonium pits, also known as plutonium cores, are a key component in both tactical and strategic nuclear weapons, serving as a trigger – setting off a nuclear reaction that creates a large, secondary explosion of the main nuclear payload.
The 80 pits per year will be produced jointly at Los Alamos – the birthplace of the American nuclear bomb, and the Savannah River Site outside Augusta, Georgia. 30 cores will be produced at the former, and 50 at the latter by repurposing an existing facility “to meet this manufacturing capacity.”
Production is expected to ramp up gradually, with “not less than 10” pits expected in 2024, 20 in 2025, 30 in 2026, and “not less than 80” per year from 2030 onward.
The NNSA report also shed light on a number of other nuclear weapons-related plans, including a program to extend the service life of the B61 Mod 12 nukes which the US has stockpiled at home and across half-a-dozen sites abroad to address issues related to “multiple components that are nearing end-of-life,” as well as “military requirements for reliability, service life, field maintenance, safety and use control.” The report highlighted that the total estimated cost of the program has jumped from $8.3 billion to $9.6 billion.
The new information about the production of new plutonium cores, combined with the modernization of stockpiled weapons, comes amid the US’ ongoing modernization of it’s nuclear triad – a program expected to cost taxpayers up to $1.5 trillion over the next 30 years.
While scientists at Los Alamos built 31 plutonium pits between 2007 and 2013, large-scale production conducted at the far larger Rocky Flats Plant (which reached upwards of 1,000-2,000 per year during the Cold War) halted in 1989 after the FBI and the Environmental Protection Agency raided and closed the facility over a series of environmental safety violations.
According to the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation, plutonium pits – which are present in all of America’s estimated nuclear weapons, typically have a lifespan of 100 years or more. However, they are also subject to gradual degradation and corrosion, thereby “potentially affecting” their efficacy over time.
The 80 plutonium pits per year requirement was introduced in the Trump administration’s 2018 Nuclear Posture Review, with Congress allocating $1.37 billion for the job in 2020. However, the Congressional Budget Office watchdog says spending to expand plutonium pit production capacity could balloon to up to $9 billion over the coming five-year period.
Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. Running For President in 2024
By John Leake | Courageous Discourse | April 5, 2023
For the last three years, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. has been one of America’s strongest voices in defending our Constitutional Republic from public health officials and politicians wielding emergency power. In a series of rousing speeches reminiscent of his father’s famous University of Capetown address in 1966, RFK, Jr. has articulated why we should never allow our constitution to be compromised by fallible men who promise to keep us safe. Today, April 5, 2023, he filed with the Federal Election Commission to run for President of the United States in the 2024 election.
Mr. Kennedy was an environmental activist thirty years before it became fashionable. For decades, he worked as an attorney to protect the natural world from corporate industrial polluters. He has been especially troubled by the contamination of our waterways such as the Hudson River with hazardous waste, including mercury. In 2005 he became concerned about a mercury compound used as a preservative in childhood vaccines, which prompted him to conduct a thorough investigation of vaccine safety in general. He found it especially alarming that the 1986 National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act granted vaccine manufacturers immunity from all civil and criminal liability for injuries or deaths caused by their products.
In the absence of legal liability, he realized that the only thing likely to regulate their conduct is scrutiny from a public figure, and because no other public figures were stepping up to do it, he himself assumed the responsibility. No good deed goes unpunished, as the saying goes. Mr. Kennedy’s critical scrutiny of vaccine makers (coining billions while bearing zero product liability) has not been met with debate, but with vitriolic, ad hominem attacks and accusations of being a conspiracy theorist. Implied in these attacks is that no one should dare even question the safety of vaccines.
In 2021, he published his book, The Real Anthony Fauci, meticulously cataloguing the corruption, cronyism, and abuse of power rampant in the Bio-Pharmaceutical Complex in which Dr. Fauci has played a key role. Every statement in Mr. Kennedy’s book is documented with a citation of primary sources including federal agency documents, peer reviewed medical literature, and public records. Any reader can easily evaluate these sources. The Kindle edition features hyperlinks to the documents.
The sixty-nine year-old Kennedy was educated at Harvard College and the London School of Economics, graduating from Harvard in 1976 with a Bachelor of Arts in American History and Literature. He went on to earn a Juris Doctor from the University of Virginia and a Master of Laws from Pace University.
It seems to me that even Republicans and dedicated Donald Trump supporters should welcome this momentous event. Mr. Kennedy has repeatedly demonstrated his dedication to preserving the U.S. Constitution and the American way of life it sustains. More so than any public figure with presidential ambitions, he has fought to protect individual American citizens from federal mandates and other acts of state overreach. He may be the only Madisonian classical liberal left who has an affiliation with the Democratic Party. Against the Republican contender in 2024, Mr. Kennedy would be an honorable and worthy opponent.
Readers of this Substack are encouraged to register on his TEAM KENNEDY website, which will soon announce the details of his campaign kickoff ceremony in Boston on April 19.
Baltimore blocks East Palestine toxic water dump
RT | March 28, 2023
A Baltimore contractor has agreed to relocate the processing of hundreds of thousands of gallons of toxic wastewater from the site of last month’s Norfolk Southern train derailment after local officials mounted strong opposition to the disposal plan. Clean Harbors of Baltimore Environmental Services announced on Tuesday morning that approximately 600,000 to 800,000 gallons of water from East Palestine, Ohio would be processed elsewhere.
Local officials had only learned on Friday that Norfolk Southern had contracted with Clean Harbors to ship enormous amounts of contaminated water from the derailment site to Baltimore. From there, the water would have been piped into Baltimore’s aging, leaky sewer system, and from there it would travel to the city’s troubled Back River Wastewater Treatment Plant. Just last year, the state declared the plant to be on the brink of “catastrophic failure,” and less than a month ago one of the plant’s buildings dedicated to processing sewage sludge suffered a massive explosion requiring its closure.
While the Baltimore city council voted on Monday to implore the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to reconsider allowing the wastewater to be sent there, the agency has refused to hear any objections, having warned state environmental agencies in a letter earlier this month that blocking Norfolk Southern’s hazardous materials from their jurisdictions would be “impermissible” as a violation of the Interstate Commerce Clause of the Constitution.
However, Baltimore Mayor Brandon Scott concluded that the city did not have to accept the wastewater from Clean Harbor into the local sewer system once it was inside Maryland state lines. On Monday, he announced the city could “shield its sewer system from the Ohio wastewater by modifying the discharge permit issued to Clean Harbors to ‘safeguard Publicly Owned Treatment Works’.”
Last month’s Norfolk Southern train derailment in East Palestine spawned an environmental disaster of rare proportions after local authorities permitted the burning of highly toxic vinyl chloride that spilled from five of the cars, releasing numerous toxic substances including dioxins into the surrounding air, water, and soil. While the EPA attempted to reassure residents the pollution did not pose a health risk, numerous scientists have argued otherwise, pointing out that even small amounts of chemicals like dioxins can accumulate over years with deadly results.
Japanese environment economist says ALPS-treated Fukushima radioactive wastewater still contains radionuclides
Tokyo urged to stop dumping plan
By Xu Keyue | Global Times | March 27, 2023
While stressing that the so-called treated water from the destroyed Fukushima nuclear plant still contains radionuclides that are not able to be removed, a renowned Japanese environment economist said in an exclusive interview with the Global Times recently that we must persistently demand that the Japanese government and the Tokyo Electric Power Co (TEPCO) stop dumping the nuclear-contaminated wastewater into the ocean.
Kenichi Oshima, professor at Ryukoku University, told the Global Times that the Japanese government and TEPCO should not release the nuclear-contaminated wastewater.
The Japanese government and TEPCO plan to use ALPS – Advanced Liquid Processing System – to treat the nuclear-contaminated wastewater from the Fukushima nuclear accident and then release the treated water into the ocean. The treated water contains radionuclides including ruthenium, strontium-90 and iodine-129, in addition to tritium, Oshima noted.
Before the release, TEPCO developed a “Radiation and Environmental Impact Assessment Report on Ocean Discharge of ALPS Processed Water” to assess the impact of ocean discharge.
“Nevertheless, we believe it is impossible to accurately predict the ecological effects of ocean discharges over the next several decades,” the Japanese environment economist said.
Commenting on the so-called treated Fukushima water, Mao Ning, spokesperson for the Chinese Foreign Ministry, said on Monday that Japan has been claiming that ALPS-treated nuclear-contaminated water is safe and harmless and that it opposes calling the water “nuclear-contaminated”. The fact, however, is that the water contains over 60 radionuclides, many of which cannot be treated effectively with existing technologies.
Some long-lived radionuclides may spread with ocean currents and form a bioconcentration effect, which will multiply the total amount of radionuclides in the environment, causing unpredictable hazards to the marine environment and human health, Mao pointed out, noting that the discharge will last as long as 30 years or even longer.
Mao’s remarks are made in response to Japanese Minister of Economy, Trade and Industry Yasutoshi Nishimura, who claimed on Friday that the use of “nuclear-contaminated water” is a “misunderstanding of facts” after the heads of state of China and Russia expressed serious concern about Japan’s plan to dump the nuclear-contaminated water in a joint statement released on March 21.
The maturity and effectiveness of the ALPS technology has not been evaluated or certified by a third party, and the treatment of such large quantities and complex components of nuclear-contaminated wastewater is unprecedented, and its long-term effectiveness is in doubt, Mao said.
Oshima noted that in 2015, the Japanese government and TEPCO pledged in writing that they would never discharge the nuclear-contaminated water into the ocean without the understanding of fishermen and the public. The Japanese government and TEPCO have been explaining the situation to fishermen and local residents but have not obtained their consent.
However, the Japanese government and TEPCO are not listening to the voices of the people, including those involved in the fishing industry, Oshima revealed.
“We must persistently demand that the [Japanese] government and TEPCO stop discharging ALPS-treated water,” he stressed.
The Japanese professor raised two alternatives in dealing with the radioactive wastewater.
The first is to store the water in large tanks. The half-life of tritium is 12.3 years, so after 123 years of storage, the radioactivity will have decayed to 1/1,000 of its original level. Japan has experience in oil stockpiling, so this is feasible, said Oshima.
The second is mortar solidification. Mortar solidification can prevent leakage. Mortar solidification has been used in the US, Oshima noted.
What Japan needs to do now is to take seriously the legitimate concerns of the international community, faithfully perform its international obligations, handle the nuclear-contaminated water in the safest and most prudent way, including fully studying alternatives to ocean discharge, Mao urged.
Also, rather than whitewash its ocean discharge decision, Japan needs to fully subject itself to international oversight, and avoid, to the maximum extent possible, imposing unpredictable risks on the international community, Mao said.
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