>"When we first heard Soviet scientists were inserting the endorphin gene [for euphoria] into plague," says Dr. Henry Heine, a former U.S. Army bacteriologist, "we were appalled. That they would purposefully engineer the Y. pestis bacteria to behave this way... to make you want to go out and socialize... this was some horrifying stuff."

> . . .

> Former assistant secretary of defense Andy Weber agrees. "I grew up thinking Reagan’s phrase ‘Evil Empire’ was an exaggeration," he tells us. "Then I learned what the Russians were doing [with biological warfare]." He pauses for effect. "It was evil."

The accounts are from Annie Jacobsen's notes in "Biological War".

Yea you are definitely right about that. In Africa (specific countries I can’t currently recall) attempts at vaccination programs for example are often met with hostility or suspicion or even some people believing a vaccine causes the disease.

There was also vaccine skepticism during the COVID-19 pandemic in countries like China which refused first-to-market western vaccines out of fear and suspicion. It’s tragic all around.

Not really. While it was true for much of the last century that many “seasonal flu” viruses were direct descendents from H1N1 Spanish flu, the H1N1 that caused the 2009 “swine flu” pandemic was a distinct strain combining new genes of pig, avian, and human flu origins. Since then, derivatives of that virus have replaced earlier ones as the most common circulating H1N1 types.

And right now the most common circulating influenza is actually H3N2 from a completely different (avian) lineage with origins in the 1968 pandemic.

Perhaps the Russian military is overreacting with the blanket quarantines, but the odds are more likely that they understand the nature better than anyone else.

Again, normal pneumonic plague approaches 100% fatality rates. This is potentially a weaponized form.

This is an "oh, fuck" moment.

The reason we've haven't had more outbreaks of more diseases in the last century is because we had a lot of smart vigilant well-resourced people who very much felt the disease was the problem, and took steps to mitigate.

Classic late-stage civilization blunder is taking the fruits of civilization for granted. Sorry you're not aware of those things, but that's on you.

For example, Gene Hackman's wife, Betsy Arakawa, famously died from hantavirus. They lived in a wealthy gated community in Santa Fe.

Treating that low number like a low number is not "discounting" rural US citizens. The US - all populations included - does not really live with the hantavirus in any real sense. It's incredibly rare. 10x as many people are struck by lightening annually in the US.

Why pneumonic plague? Pneumonic plague is the form of infection that occurs when plague bacteria are inhaled in aerosolized form into the lungs, or when septicemic plague (plague in the bloodstreams) reaches the lungs. Like, for example, when a test tube breaks. Her method of infection was a pretty textbook vector for pneumonic plague. Other cases have been caused when tissue samples of infected rodents have been splayed open, for example, or when blood from an infected person splatters the respiratory tract. Plague bacteria spreads pretty poorly otherwise, which is why the main vector for bubonic plague is flea bites.

It’s bacteria, antibiotics work more generally than vaccines for viruses do.

There are of course, antibiotic resistant bacteria but we still have some exotic antibiotics in our arsenal.

If anything for a widespread bacterial plague I’d be more concerned about our ability to produce enough antibiotics rather than _if_ we could develop a cure

> If all states had imposed restrictions similar to those used in the 10 most restrictive states, excess deaths would have been an estimated 10% to 21% lower than the 1.18 million that actually occurred during the 2-year analysis period; conversely, the estimates suggest counterfactual increases of 13% to 17% if all states had restrictions similar to those in the 10 least-restrictive states. The estimated strong vs weak state restriction difference was 271 000 to 447 000 deaths, with behavior changes associated with 49% to 79% of the overall disparity.

I had forgot about that. God what a ridiculous time, my county judge Clay Jenkins in Dallas would drive around yelling at people walking their dogs to get inside. He was overjoyed with his little hobby authoritative regime. During the pandemic, I met him at a fundraiser once where, gasp, no one was wearing masks (it was very fancy). I was going to ask him about it but my wife's friend who was putting it on just asked me to leave.

Ever wonder what a country waging a grinding siege war could do with a plague lab?

That’s keeping me up. Threaten nukes and deploy the plague to show you aren’t kidding.

There was a news story yesterday about the Ukrainian government using drones to airlift medicine to occupied territories that have been cut off from pharmaceutical supply chains (the occupation forces said they would figure it out, but didn’t)

I agree, which is why it's important to realize that the means for the US administration to cause this are very remote, and the potential benefits of this situation (particularly on the elections as you mention) are even more obscure.

I'm not saying the US hasn't done its fair share of shady and immoral operations, probably more than any other country in the world, but the scenario you propose is more akin to a Rube Goldberg machine than any realistic covert operation.