← Autodidact Archive · Original Dissent · Ed Toner

Thread 6447

Thread ID: 6447 | Posts: 21 | Started: 2003-05-02

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Ed Toner [OP]

2003-05-02 12:28 | User Profile

I can't figure out WHY? Wher is the profit or motive?

Ed

-----Original Message----- From: Henry Ayre [mailto:henri@alaska.net] Sent: Thursday, May 01, 2003 1:19 PM

Bottom Line: WE ARE BEING CONNED BIG TIME! It is interesting to note that in the US during 2002, more than 26,000 people died of the flu, most of whom were elderly or very young. Yet with SARS – flu by any other name - we are awash with charged, emotional reports on a disease that to date, has claimed the lives of just 351 people worldwide.

To illustrate the laughably inconsistent nature of this latest ‘pandemic’, on the 27th April 2003, the UK ITV 10 O’Clock news announced with all gravitas that 23 people had died from SARS across South East Asia in a single day, 12 in Hong Kong and 9 in China alone! But pause a minute. Do the sums on the unreported death rate for flu in the US. That works out at 71 people a day dying of flu in a country of 290 million. So 9 people in China dying in one day with flu symptoms - a nation with a population approaching 1.7 billion, roughly 6 times more people than in the US, is hardly sensational.

COUGH AND AWE Just Another Day At The Forward-planning Dept.

From: Dude An article by Steven Ransom www.whatareweswallowing.com

“With this SARS, we have colleagues fighting for their lives. We have an invisible killer in our midst. We are professionals and we have a job to do. Now, as I sit at home with my young son quietly sleeping and my wife pottering in the background, I wonder what tomorrow will bring?” Professor Andrew Burd

  Bigger than Arnie and Sylvester, bigger than Catherine & Michael, bigger even than De Niro & Devito, SARS or Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome has been front-page news the world over. Now call me a stick in the mud, but has the whole world gone mad? Why all this upheaval over just another kind of flu? A good acronym for SARS in this instance could be Systematic And Ribald Scare-mongering. There really is insufficient cause for such widespread panic. On the strength of a few very un-extraordinary deaths related to breathing difficulties and wheezing problems, the World Health Organisation has issued a global warning that some kind of mutant pandemic could be imminent. But looking for the evidence to justify such an announcement, it seems more likely that SARS is turning into one of the most thoroughly convincing pharma/political scams constructed for many years. The strategists behind this latest Shock and Awe, or should I say Cough and Awe campaign must surely be congratulating themselves over the screen time and column-inches devoted so far to this particular venture. To the more seasoned observers however, alarm bells were ringing from the outset of this so-called ‘crisis’. A familiar template has been steadily taking shape from day one.

THE TEMPLATE

“OMIGOD! NOT A MUTATED VIRUS, PLEASE!”

From 14th March 2003 onwards, global news agencies began telling us of various health authorities struggling to contain some kind of ‘lethal’ pneumonia, being spread by air travellers across three continents. Interviewing Professor Andrew Burd, a surgeon in Hong Kong, one BBC report contained the following ridiculous hyperbole: “We are at war, but our enemy has no name, no identity. This reality easily eclipses the nightmare fantasies of Bush and Saddam. For the moment, Iraq is no longer an issue in Hong Kong[1] On the 19th March 2003, after a much-hyped race to track down this ‘strange, new killer virus’, researchers named a virus from the paramyxoviridae family, apparently also responsible for such conditions such as mumps and measles.[2] “Thank God!” we cried. “The virus has been identified!” Or had it? A few weeks later, the ‘expert’ diagnosis of paramyxoviridae was superseded by another ‘expert’ announcement from a different virus laboratory, now telling us that SARS was caused by a mutated form of the common cold virus, known as the coronavirus. “OMIGOD! Not a mutated virus, PLEASE!” Who’s on top of this thing? Is any area safe? When could we finally relax? Very soon, said the experts, very soon. But not just yet. You see, said the experts, because coronavirus is a mutated and therefore new virus, the only obstacle holding back a full return to health for the planet is the current lack of expensive testing kits, new antibiotics and new vaccines. Permission to research and manufacture these items must be granted to the relevant authorities as soon as possible. But could the legislative decrees and associated massive funding be rushed through in time? And to those master weavers, we replied, “Look, who cares? Just do it!”

JUST ANOTHER DAY AT FORWARD PLANNING

And that, my friends, is the standard business template. That is how the pharmaceutical gravy train rolls on. Just another day down at forward-planning. Create the need and meet the demand. As pharma-critic Michael Fumento noted in a recent edition of The National Post: “There’s fame, fortune, and big budgets in sounding the ‘emerging infection’ alarm and warning of our terrible folly in being unprepared.”[3] And true to form, in the supposed SARS epicentres of Beijing, Hong Kong and Thailand, there are now frantic requests for the necessary antibiotics to reach the ‘stricken’ areas as soon as possible. His ‘n’ hers matching facemasks, along with masks for the household pet are selling like wildfire. In many areas, facemasks and household disinfectants have tripled in price. ABC News recently reported what is perhaps the first SARS murder - a fatal stabbing. The victim sneezed. The assailant was afraid he might be spreading SARS.[4] The UK Sunday Times, dated 27th April 2003, featured an article on SARS by columnist Richard Leakey who tells us, “… people in Britain are terrified of the SARS virus.” Excuse me? Speak for yourself Mr Leakey. Don’t include me in your lemming-like statistics. Just as our witless emperor paraded himself stark-naked before his loyal subjects, so too the ridiculous broadsheet editorials are persuading the world and his dog (literally) to cry out for the full array of ‘urgently required’, anti-SARS paraphernalia to combat what is only simple flu. Simple flu, you say? What about the death toll so far?

THE FACTS ON THE ‘NEW’ DISEASE THAT NEVER WAS

Going almost completely unnoticed in the frantic fuss, the Hong Kong Health Minster was interviewed at the beginning of the ‘crisis’ by the BBC Newsnight team. He admitted there was no definitive test for SARS and that this illness is identified by a particularly vague set of symptoms. He also admitted that its description covers a multitude of existing syndromes related to flu.[5] It is interesting to note that in the US during 2002, more than 26,000 people died of the flu, most of whom were elderly or very young. Yet with SARS – flu by any other name - we are awash with charged, emotional reports on a disease that to date, has claimed the lives of just 351 people worldwide. To illustrate the laughably inconsistent nature of this latest ‘pandemic’, on the 27th April 2003, the UK ITV 10 O’Clock news announced with all gravitas that 23 people had died from SARS across South East Asia in a single day, 12 in Hong Kong and 9 in China alone! But pause a minute. Do the sums on the unreported death rate for flu in the US. That works out at 71 people a day dying of flu in a country of 290 million. So 9 people in China dying in one day with flu symptoms - a nation with a population approaching 1.7 billion, roughly 6 times more people than in the US, is hardly sensational. Where are all the headlines drawing attention to that particular figure? Where’s the urgency in the Beijing SARS pandemic now, Mr Demographer? While these latest SARS deaths will of course be upsetting for the families concerned, as far as any lead story goes, it is a dismally unshocking scoop.

Undermining these 351 supposed ‘SARS deaths’ even further, ‘confirmation’ of SARS is not definitive. SARS confirmation is carried out by visual assessment only – an assessment of symptoms shared by many other illnesses. This ground-level reality is leading to multiple misdiagnoses and immediately nullifies the mantra ‘thousands more infected’ – those three little words, chanted with such monotony by our BBC, ITN, Ch 4, CNN and CBS crews, working slavishly round the clock to bring us all the latest disinformation. Forgive the momentary descent into bitter and twisted mode, but isn’t it about time there was some sort of organised revolt against this nigh-on satanic media machine? Shouldn’t we be getting a lot more angry at all this utter nonsense? Does anyone out there have a game plan? Tackling the last of the SARS inaccuracies here (although there are many others), whenever there is a death attributed to SARS, no information is ever supplied on those all-important mitigating circumstances, such as the victims’ age, general health and accompanying environmental conditions at the time. As far as objective reporting goes, any journalist worth his salt should know that skirting these issues is a complete no-no.

COGNITIVE POWERS PROFOUNDLY CHANGED

But these are just trifling matters to our media outlets. None of these everyday realities bring any adjustments to official ‘SARS death’ statistics. Journalistically speaking, the SARS story has been mindless tripe from the very beginning. From a medical perspective, we encounter the same banalities and hype at every turn. Throughout this whole SARS campaign, there have always been plenty of ‘qualified’ experts available to comment on the ‘frightening’ spread of SARS and the ‘alarming’ vaccine/antibiotics shortage. But then tracking down qualified opinion in support of ‘the threat of deadly disease’ is never difficult. In fact, it’s a piece of cake. In the seven or more year’s training it takes to become medically qualified, even the sharpest of minds can soon become bent right out of shape. Is that too harsh a criticism? Not according to Dr Michael Greger. He has written his own account of medical school. Entitled Heart Failure, the book contains many passages from a number of doctors describing the pressures to conform and the expectation to toe the party line. The inside front cover has the following quote: “Besides medical school, there is probably no other four-year experience - unless it be four year’s service in a war - that can so change the cognitive content of one’s mind and the nature of one’s relationships with others.” [6] (Readers are recommended to visit the link to Dr Greger’s on-line book). And in the midst of any so-called ‘infectious epidemic’, many suitably-conditioned medical minds will always be available for interview, expounding their doom-laden beliefs with utmost sincerity. Dr Patrick Dixon is one such voice. Known for his seminars on ‘global trends’, Dr Dixon is pressing for stricter controls to ‘curb the threat’ of SARS and believes this latest ‘epidemic’ has the potential to become a real threat to global health. If allowed to spread much further, says Dr Dixon, SARS may become a wild-fire impossible to put out.[7] Interviewed on the 24th April 2003 BBC Breakfast News, Dr Dixon stated that the government should get properly prepared for an inevitable epidemic. His ‘Truth About SARS’ website contains the following: “We are in an urgent race against time, leading potentially to many tens of millions of deaths over the next two years.” [8] According to Dr Dixon, his web site received 5.5 million hits over the last twelve-month period.

THE SAME OLD HOLLYWOOD IMAGERY

   But haven’t we all been here before with the AIDS scare-stories? Weren’t our screens filled with similar catastrophic, Hollywood imagery? And Dr Dixon was also at the forefront of those early AIDS doom and gloom statistics with his publication ‘The Truth About AIDS’ – a book warning us of a pandemic of massive proportions on the horizon – but with none of his predictions materialising. The opening chapter entitled The Extent of The Nightmare speculated the UK could be witnessing 18,000 AIDS deaths a year.[9]  The same book warned against deep kissing, and suggested the pill and even sterilisation for women who had been tested HIV positive.

Telephoning Dr Dixon on this matter, I pointed out the physiological dangers of the contraceptive pill and also asked him to comment on the medical evidence sent to everyone at management level within his organisation, highlighting the fact that the HIV test can react false positively to some 60 different conditions unrelated to any virus. Given the potential for such a high rate of ‘false positives’ on the HIV test, should he really be suggesting the test at all, let alone suggesting that so-called HIV positive women consider such a drastic measure as sterilisation? What about the very real danger of false diagnosis and all the heartache that would entail as a result? Accusing me of being a flat-earther, Dr Dixon stood by both suggestions in his book and continues to do so today, repeating the same ghastly advice on his website.[10] Dr Dixon is aware of the inconsistencies in the HIV test and the ‘infectious AIDS’ theory, but is refusing to seek ways of professionally resolving these matters. What sort of societal control policies might emerge, should the emergency planning measures for SARS be left to minds such as this? While there are a number of well-intentioned, caring people involved with Dr Dixon’s AIDS care teams, following an incorrect path with the maximum of compassion occurs in all walks of life, especially medicine. Dr Dixon has since gone on record to say that SARS could be deadlier than AIDS: “AIDS spreads slowly so we can track it and plan for it. We have effective anti- viral drugs which can prolong life. But this is different, we don’t have the time. This is a far more serious epidemic potentially than AIDS.”[11] But Dr Dixon is not alone in his mistaken beliefs. As far as entrenched medical error is concerned, there is indeed a global trend. Just type the words ‘medical error’ into any search engine and be shocked and awed at the amount of respectable, highly qualified conventional medicine that has come crashing to the floor recently. That seven year medical school curricula has certainly got a lot to answer for. A wide range of ‘respectable’ conventional medicines and errant medical procedures are shortening the lives of thousands of unwitting patients on a daily basis.

THE MEDIA UNMASKED

The April 23rd 2003 Five PM News Hour contained an interview with a doctor who had recovered from SARS. The doctor was struggling to make his illness sound dramatic and during the interview, admitted that SARS is not the fatal disease it is being made out to be. Undaunted by the relative flatness of the interview or the admission by the doctor that SARS was not that dangerous, news anchorman Eddie Mayer summarised the world headlines five minutes later, continuing to describe SARS as ‘a deadly virus’. Perhaps the most glaring inconsistency in the SARS reporting lies in the fact that no television journalists reporting from the supposed ‘epicentres’ are ever wearing the ‘life-saving’ face masks. On this note, I contacted the BBC World Planning Department, where the coordinating supervisor for BBC Beijing conceded there was a certain inconsistency in maskless reporters announcing to millions across the world, the spread of highly contagious disease. She would send an email to Beijing, to find out why that was the case, but I should not be offended if I didn’t get a reply. “After all, we are dealing with an enormous and time-consuming story.” No we are not. We are dealing with a baseless, self-inflated media frenzy. Not surprisingly, I have received no reply to my request for information. More disturbingly though, it seems that SARS is paving the way for the introduction of some potentially quite sinister legislation. Enforced quarantine and restricted movement is being introduced into the populations with relative ease.

JAIL FOR THE IRRESPONSIBLE

In Canada for instance, within a few days of the supposed outbreak, more than a thousand healthcare workers had volunteered for home quarantine because of SARS. Otherwise, they faced legal arrest and incarceration as advised by the World Health Organization. Canadian officialdom has been closing hospitals, restaurants, schools, and workplaces with only two deaths reported at the onset of the media onslaught. The media has successfully whipped the population into a trembling mass of masked and quarantined ‘sheeple’. On 23rd April 2003, the BBC announced that police in Australia have been given new powers to round up and quarantine suspected SARS victims; Singapore’s prime minister has vowed to jail ‘irresponsible’ people who violate quarantine laws and, despite having no confirmed SARS cases, Japan has announced plans to install a thermal imaging camera at Tokyo’s international airport to screen passengers.[12] What’s really going on? Are we witnessing some sort of mass social experiment? Even as I write this, the latest UK radio bulletin is telling me that UK Health Secretary Alan Millburn is under pressure to bring in emergency powers to protect us from this SARS outbreak.

Personally speaking, the experts can tip all their expertise and medicines into the middle of the deep, blue sea. Worse for the fishes maybe, but on dry land, we would notice the benefits immediately. As far as SARS is concerned, just remember that disinformation is the main threat here. As far as flu and pneumonia in general is concerned, strengthen your immune system with good nutrition and exercise. Get informed on those ‘wheels within wheels’ and steer well clear of those flu and pneumonia ‘medicines’.

Achoo! Ahem! Oh no! A tickly cough at the back of my throat! Could I be infected? Might they shut down the M25? Will any of the news teams interviewing me be wearing masks, I wonder?

[1] ‘Invisible Killer in our Midst’ BBC News, 14th March 2003 at

[url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/2851487.stm]http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/2851487.stm[/url]

[2] ‘Hong Kong doctors 'identify killer disease’, BBC News, 19th March 2003 at

[url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/2862991.stm]http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/2862991.stm[/url]

[3] National Post, 28th March 2003

[4]‘ Scared of SARS, man slays sneezer’ at

[url=http://www.abs-cbnnews.com/abs_news_body.asp?section=Metro&oid=21493]http://www.abs-cbnnews.com/abs_news_body.a...Metro&oid=21493[/url]

[5] BBC Newsnight, 2nd April 2003

[6] Greger, Dr Michael, Heart Failure, 1999, online books at

[url=http://upalumni.org/medschool/preface.html]http://upalumni.org/medschool/preface.html[/url]

[7] The Truth About SARS at [url=http://www.globalchange.com/sars.htm]http://www.globalchange.com/sars.htm[/url]

[8] ‘The Truth About SARS Infection’ at [url=http://www.globalchange.com/sars.htm]http://www.globalchange.com/sars.htm[/url]

[9] Dr Patrick, The Truth About AIDS, Kingsway Publications, 1987. Dr Dixon’s ideas that Africa is dying ultimately of a sexually transmitted disease brought about by ‘rampant trans-African truck drivers’ etc., has attracted a particularly large and loyal church following - a following that has consistently refused to question Dr Dixon’s easily contestable beliefs. A survey carried out by Durex on national sexual practices for instance found that the UK was the most promiscuous nation by far. Yet where is the British AIDS pandemic? Dr Dixon’s adherence to these dehumanising and inherently racist ideas and the following they attract has severely impeded the path towards the correct and relatively simple treatment for the environmental affliction known as AIDS. Sound nutrition, clean water and a general education away from meddlesome western imperialism and well-meaning, misguided missionary zeal is the only triple therapy needed for Africa.

[10] Condoms are unsafe for HIV prevention at [url=http://www.globalchange.com/ttaa/ttaa%206.htm]http://www.globalchange.com/ttaa/ttaa%206.htm[/url]

[11] ONE BILLION TO BE INFECTED WITH SARS WITHIN 60 WEEKS, Daily Record, Wednesday 23rd April 2003 at

[url=http://www.indybay.org/news/2003/04/1603343.php]http://www.indybay.org/news/2003/04/1603343.php[/url]

[12] ‘SARS threat closes schools’, BBC News, 23rd April 2003 at

[url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/2968627.stm]http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-paci...fic/2968627.stm[/url]

Happy Hacker

2003-05-02 14:09 | User Profile

Some companies have already profitedly nicely from the SARs scare. But, the government always has something to gain from fear. Cowards want to pay higher taxes and give up their freedom.

Drakmal

2003-05-03 03:28 | User Profile

ATTENTION EVERYBODY!

SARS has been detected in this thread! Everyone present will go with the nice men in the white coats to the government quarantine facility. This is for your own good, and the good of your country! Hurry along now. And please roll up your left sleeve for the nice tattoo artist.

Avalanche

2003-05-03 18:08 | User Profile

Because it opens the door for some really interesting laws and govt powers... Smallpox has 'died down' as the biggie in the news -- people just weren't reacting strongly enough to herd easily. So along comes SARS. (And I think the CDC or someone governmental just announced it is ALSO a 'legally managed' illness" now -- so they CAN gitcha!)

**“However, the announcement of the government’s ambiguously worded plan for voluntary smallpox inoculations provides more reason to question government motives in its support of the Model Emergency Health Powers Act (MEHPA).

“MEHPA makes it a criminal offense to refuse a state-ordered vaccination or medical procedure. In some states where it has already become law, refusing a compulsory vaccination is a felony. States have some leeway in determining the severity of the penalties, but in all cases the act permits the immediate confiscation and/or destruction of any private property without any procedural review in the event of a health emergency.”

                Biowarfare: CDC Issues Plan for Mass Smallpox Vaccinations                 Questions Raised on MEHPA and Microbiologist Deaths                 From The Wilderness Publications, www.fromthewilderness.com**

**“Georgetown and Johns Hopkins’ Center for Law and the Public Health, the think tank where this state legislation model was created, reports MEHPA-like laws have been passed in 20 states, and 16 state legislatures have introduced measures dealing with public health emergencies caused by a terrorist attack.

“States where MEHPA laws have been enacted include: Arizona, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Maine, Maryland, Minnesota, Missouri, New Hampshire, New Mexico, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, and Wisconsin. Washington, D.C. has also enacted an emergency health powers law.

“State legislatures where MEHPA has been introduced include: California, Connecticut, Idaho, Illinois, Kansas, Kentucky, Massachusetts, Mississippi, Nebraska, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Washington, and Wyoming.”

                MEHPA Now Law in 20 States; Homeland Security Act                 Shields Vaccine Makers from Potential Litigation                 From The Wilderness Publications, www.fromthewilderness.com**

Oh, and did y'all know lots of these laws include CONFISCATION OF YOUR LEGALLY OWNED FIREARMS?! No, I'll bet you didn't...

DruidDude

2003-05-04 01:56 | User Profile

You are right--we are all being conned--please write me Ed: brainsbrawn2003@yahoo.com

DruidDude

2003-05-04 03:15 | User Profile

Please read and post regarding this athlete being framed: [url=http://www.letsrun.com/forum/flat_read.php?board=1&id=121911&thread=121911]http://www.letsrun.com/forum/flat_read.php...1&thread=121911[/url]

Roger Bannister

2003-05-04 04:09 | User Profile

So, I'm at another forum that concentrates on distance running, and I see silly posts stating that Hitler was a zionist amongst the legitimate posts. I then come on over to OD, and the first thing I see? Posts from the same guys that say Hitler was a zionist, great.

The athlete in question - in the link from DD, Combest, has had problems. Why? Because he was a very fast sprinter. White sprinter. Every time one comes along in the HS ranks, and starts mowing down the darker competition, he is beset with problems, and almost never recruited. I said I was going to take some time to put together some posts on the crap I saw and heard while working in TV sports for years, and as per Il Ragno's request, I'll get crackin' on them this week. But they don't belong in this thread. Neither do the accusations of Hitler 'really' being a zionist, and head of some roundabout master plan to aid his brothers.

TexasAnarch

2003-05-04 08:16 | User Profile

If you don't really know why, its because you haven't been reading my posts. Its the old 1-2 punch -- SHOCK -- the explosion (MOAB!! HIT!! EXPLODE! .... followed by AWE ...puncture, inject, put poison (=vaccines) in the blood to get people hooked forever, then die. Lots of profit in that and it seques so nicely from FIGHT WARS to FIGHT SARS.

 IT was the built-in segue, following 9/11 -- anthrax attack (same sources "investigate" bothn -- Julie GFerbering is moved from anthrax, because she can be depended on to cover up what happened -- to the CDC, so she can run the SARS show -- and the rest of Tommy (the Munchausean syndrom-by-provy man) Thompson's crew.

 How would YOU wipe an entire era of American history off the front page -- WWIII (IV, whatever) --unless you had a world wide epidemic to follow up? And note how it hits where Jews are, like Toronto -- which  would be one of two things.

      H   H                                              FIGHT              FIGHT
    Y   W                                                           WARS              SARS

DruidDude

2003-05-04 14:10 | User Profile

Sorry but Hitler was aJew--everyone knows that. He was a practicing devout Zionist Jew who killed millions of nonZionist jews and enjoyed sacrificing as many german lives as he could. Mein Kampf was written for him by his jewish buddies to launch his political career. He did not commit suicide as the jews tell us. But went in lived his final days in the lap of luxury in what was to become Israel. He is secretely regarded by the jews as their messiah. He is the Emmanuel Goldstien in the book 1984.

Casey Combest has been framed. He is 22 and still could beat all the world best in sprints--so don't give me any crap. You did not report this here---I did. Don't any of you other posters here fortget that.

Walter Yannis

2003-05-04 15:55 | User Profile

Originally posted by Avalanche@May 3 2003, 18:08 ** Because it opens the door for some really interesting laws and govt powers... Smallpox has 'died down' as the biggie in the news -- people just weren't reacting strongly enough to herd easily. So along comes SARS. (And I think the CDC or someone governmental just announced it is ALSO a 'legally managed' illness" now -- so they CAN gitcha!)

**“However, the announcement of the government’s ambiguously worded plan for voluntary smallpox inoculations provides more reason to question government motives in its support of the Model Emergency Health Powers Act (MEHPA).

“MEHPA makes it a criminal offense to refuse a state-ordered vaccination or medical procedure. In some states where it has already become law, refusing a compulsory vaccination is a felony. States have some leeway in determining the severity of the penalties, but in all cases the act permits the immediate confiscation and/or destruction of any private property without any procedural review in the event of a health emergency.”

                Biowarfare: CDC Issues Plan for Mass Smallpox Vaccinations                 Questions Raised on MEHPA and Microbiologist Deaths                 From The Wilderness Publications, www.fromthewilderness.com**

**“Georgetown and Johns Hopkins’ Center for Law and the Public Health, the think tank where this state legislation model was created, reports MEHPA-like laws have been passed in 20 states, and 16 state legislatures have introduced measures dealing with public health emergencies caused by a terrorist attack.

“States where MEHPA laws have been enacted include: Arizona, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Maine, Maryland, Minnesota, Missouri, New Hampshire, New Mexico, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, and Wisconsin. Washington, D.C. has also enacted an emergency health powers law.

“State legislatures where MEHPA has been introduced include: California, Connecticut, Idaho, Illinois, Kansas, Kentucky, Massachusetts, Mississippi, Nebraska, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Washington, and Wyoming.”

                MEHPA Now Law in 20 States; Homeland Security Act                 Shields Vaccine Makers from Potential Litigation                 From The Wilderness Publications, www.fromthewilderness.com**

Oh, and did y'all know lots of these laws include CONFISCATION OF YOUR LEGALLY OWNED FIREARMS?! No, I'll bet you didn't... **

My wife is convinced that SARS is a bio-war thing.

She thinks it might have been either the Russians or the Americans trying to kill the Chinese. She needs to calm the hell down, I say. I mean, nobody in their right minds would try to pull something like that on the Chinese. Those people play for keeps.

While history shows that our government is quite capable of doing such a thing to Americans (the Tuskeegee syphilis experiments and the CIA LSD trials in the 1950's leap to mind), they sure as hell wouldn't make an overt act of war against freeking Red China. Hey, those people have nukes and they know how to use them. Plus, they have throughly infiltrated the US security forces, so such a secret certainly wouldn't be safe for more than a couple hours. No way was it was us - because if it were the Chinese would have taken out Chicago by now.

That said, it might have been a monumental internal Chinese bio-warfare SNAFU.

That could be. In fact, I think that's probably the most likely scenario now.

Walter

Avalanche

2003-05-04 20:33 | User Profile

That said, it might have been a monumental internal Chinese bio-warfare SNAFU. That could be. In fact, I think that's probably the most likely scenario now.

It is the most likely, because they ARE doing such research (who isn't?) and they tried DESPERATELY to cover the SARS 'escape' up for nearly a MONTH before it surfaced in Hong Kong (or was it Singapore) and China had to admit it came from China...

Besides, America is MUCH more likely to join Israel in trying to make that Arab-specific bio-warfare agent -- we still don't SEE China as our next big enemy... (most favoured nation, anyone?) :gun:

TexasAnarch

2003-05-05 02:19 | User Profile

Originally posted by Walter Yannis@May 4 2003, 09:55 ** > Originally posted by Avalanche@May 3 2003, 18:08 ** Because it opens the door for some really interesting laws and govt powers...  Smallpox has 'died down' as the biggie in the news -- people just weren't reacting strongly enough to herd easily. So along comes SARS. (And I think the CDC or someone governmental just announced it is ALSO a 'legally managed' illness" now -- so they CAN gitcha!)

**“However, the announcement of the government’s ambiguously worded plan for voluntary smallpox inoculations provides more reason to question government motives in its support of the Model Emergency Health Powers Act (MEHPA).

“MEHPA makes it a criminal offense to refuse a state-ordered vaccination or medical procedure. In some states where it has already become law, refusing a compulsory vaccination is a felony. States have some leeway in determining the severity of the penalties, but in all cases the act permits the immediate confiscation and/or destruction of any private property without any procedural review in the event of a health emergency.”

                Biowarfare: CDC Issues Plan for Mass Smallpox Vaccinations                 Questions Raised on MEHPA and Microbiologist Deaths                 From The Wilderness Publications, www.fromthewilderness.com**

**“Georgetown and Johns Hopkins’ Center for Law and the Public Health, the think tank where this state legislation model was created, reports MEHPA-like laws have been passed in 20 states, and 16 state legislatures have introduced measures dealing with public health emergencies caused by a terrorist attack.

“States where MEHPA laws have been enacted include: Arizona, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Maine, Maryland, Minnesota, Missouri, New Hampshire, New Mexico, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, and Wisconsin. Washington, D.C. has also enacted an emergency health powers law.

“State legislatures where MEHPA has been introduced include: California, Connecticut, Idaho, Illinois, Kansas, Kentucky, Massachusetts, Mississippi, Nebraska, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Washington, and Wyoming.”

                MEHPA Now Law in 20 States; Homeland Security Act                 Shields Vaccine Makers from Potential Litigation                 From The Wilderness Publications, www.fromthewilderness.com**

Oh, and did y'all know lots of these laws include CONFISCATION OF YOUR LEGALLY OWNED FIREARMS?! No, I'll bet you didn't... **

My wife is convinced that SARS is a bio-war thing.

She thinks it might have been either the Russians or the Americans trying to kill the Chinese. She needs to calm the hell down, I say. I mean, nobody in their right minds would try to pull something like that on the Chinese. Those people play for keeps.

While history shows that our government is quite capable of doing such a thing to Americans (the Tuskeegee syphilis experiments and the CIA LSD trials in the 1950's leap to mind), they sure as hell wouldn't make an overt act of war against freeking Red China. Hey, those people have nukes and they know how to use them. Plus, they have throughly infiltrated the US security forces, so such a secret certainly wouldn't be safe for more than a couple hours. No way was it was us - because if it were the Chinese would have taken out Chicago by now.

That said, it might have been a monumental internal Chinese bio-warfare SNAFU.

That could be. In fact, I think that's probably the most likely scenario now.

Walter **

WY:

**My wife is convinced that SARS is a bio-war thing.

She thinks it might have been either the Russians or the Americans trying to kill the Chinese. She needs to calm the hell down, I say. I mean, nobody in their right minds would try to pull something like that on the Chinese. Those people play for keeps.

While history shows that our government is quite capable of doing such a thing to Americans (the Tuskeegee syphilis experiments and the CIA LSD trials in the 1950's leap to mind), they sure as hell wouldn't make an overt act of war against freeking Red China. Hey, those people have nukes and they know how to use them. Plus, they have throughly infiltrated the US security forces, so such a secret certainly wouldn't be safe for more than a couple hours. No way was it was us - because if it were the Chinese would have taken out Chicago by now.**

 Your wife is certainly on the right track, Walt;  too bad she has to listen to you.[code]  :sm:  [/code]

  The CIA etc, has planned and planted the entire thing.  You have no idea on earth what "they sure as hell wouldn't do" to set up the US-China conflict, now do you.  "Hey, those people have nukes and they know how to use them."  C'mon, man.  That's supposed to stop spooks from playing persecuted Christian?  (Checked your Christian martyrs industry, townhall.com link lately? -- Republicans l - u - u - v - e  persecuted, martyred Christians.  Jews, too, I might add.  Noone more fervently excoriated The People's Army of the Red Chinese Politburo more righteously -- even his Jewish friends chided him on being so messianic about the issue -- than (thankfully ex-) N Y Times editor, Abe Rosenthal.  No, the Jews are behind this "dumping" of the poison into (so that it could later be seen as emerging from)  China.  It is only the fertid brain of right-wing psychopaths, plus Zog, that sees the poison that has emenated from the US, sent to Saddam Hussein courtesy the USA and the Rockefellers.

  Since we prize information so much on this board, I thought I  would add the following pertinent item from L.G. Horowitz' ***DEATH IN THE AIR:  Globalism, Terrorism, and Toxic Warfare.*** p. 104.  It has never come out, mainstream; and, being overlooked, can cause mistakes in reasoning of a very serious order.

 "Linking AIDS and GWS to WNV issues, Ms. Doyle (Patty Doyle, "emerging disease reasearch; investigtive jourlalist, who "unearthed a Plum Island biological weapons laboratory contract that held direct relevance to the WNV outbreak.) learned that an Iraqi bioweapons investigator, Dr. Jawad Al Audaidi, worked with *Mycoplasma incognitas,* the agent largely responsible for the symptoms of AIDS and GWS, at Plum Island before returning to Baghdad preceding the Gulf War.  As detailed below, Dr. Joshua Lederberg, the President of Rockefeller University, and Director of the American Type Culture Collection (ATCC), was likewise exposed during the l994 U.S. Senate Hearings investigating GWS for having aided Iraq's biowarfare efforts by shipping a variety of lethal biologicals including WNV to Sadam Hussein's laboratories for years preceding the war."

 Now this book has been widely circulated, personally passed out to many elected officials, so it is known -- though what they think of it, or whatever happened to this Dr. Horowitz, who happens to have a thing against Germans who did medical experiments on humans, and has written definitively on the Kimberly Bergalis AIDS case of the '80's, I haven't a clue.  I just know, with many others, its cooking.  Since it will tie the anthrax attack, the $15 billion "fight-the-diseases-in-Africa" budget slot (forget the bleeding here), the "dumping" of **THEIR** poison-fantasies into American minds, in order to push poisonous vaccines into our very veins, then "fight the Chinese for bringing it on" --  it will further link **that**  act, with **that** motive,  to the particular set of individuals who have now historically linked America and Israel under common blood enemy; when, by spirit, history and way-of-being are not only not identical, but tend to be anti-thetical, the more so the more the religious/race issue is pushed.  (Bush* is not the way the Hegelian dialectic plays out, though I think some Jewish Hegelian philosophers suppose otherwise.) . . . it becomes a situation perceived as incapable of being otherwise.


 "That said, it might have been a monumental internal Chinese bio-warfare SNAFU."

 You don't want to say that, Walter.  That's all I'll say.

Walter Yannis

2003-05-05 05:31 | User Profile

Originally posted by wombatnine@May 5 2003, 02:19 ** The CIA etc, has planned and planted the entire thing. You have no idea on earth what "they sure as hell wouldn't do" to set up the US-China conflict, now do you. " **

Well, I admit that I don't know if they're actually crazy enough to commit an overt act of war on the PRC, but by the same token (I would assume) neither are you.

You bring no good evidence in support of your theory.

Also, there's no evident motive. They'd have to really want a war with China right now, and frankly I find that hard to believe given other priorities. Besides, if they wanted a war with China they could just admit it. Or perhaps better yet, let the Chinese "discover" it. Either way we'd have heard of it by now.

Also, the Chinese would hunt them down and kill them and their families personally. And they have the resources to do it. Remember, China has infiltrated the entire American intelligence network. Our spooks can't take a proper dump without the PRC knowing about it. Our spooks know it, and they're just risk-averse schmucks - else they would have done something about China's and Israel's control over them.

It's either a natural occurrence or a Chinese bio-warfare SNAFU that the PRC is taking pains to cover up.

Were it as you say, we'd all have heard of it by now.

Regards,

Walter

Drakmal

2003-05-05 05:31 | User Profile

You're all nuts. If SARS turns out to be anything but a naturally-occurring flu variant that cynical elements of our government and economy have seized upon for their own personal gain, I'll eat my hat. New diseases arise all the time without having to be biologically engineered. Bad diseases, like Ebola and AIDS. Here all we have is a variant of influenza/pneumonia, killing a few slants and Californians who probably would have died from the flu to begin with had they caught it instead.

As the hip young people say, "chill".

TexasAnarch

2003-05-05 13:47 | User Profile

Well, I admit that I don't know if they're actually crazy enough to commit an overt act of war on the PRC, but by the same token (I would assume) neither are you.

 No, it would not be an "overt act of war" to release some "made in the US" disease inside China through some persecuted Christian martyr's crotch (they are looking for that dang bug in people's urine and feces, now).  What?  religion bring in poison?  How dare you say that is an "overt act of war"?!  I demand retraction! ;)

 What about the CIA siccing the Northern Kurds onto assassinating Saddam Hussein after he wiped them out in '96, I think it was?  (lost the cite)   He had WMD up his twat, yessiree, Bush is still telling us, so they don't mind putting populations of any size, shape, skin color or magnitude under their gun.  With demonstrated intent to use.  In fact, I would say that is the Ace of Spades of their MO, wouldn't you?  How else are you going to rule the world?  Got to break some eggshells if you are're gonna eat ommellettes.

 Here was the local Sunday morning Gannet-owed and produced headline:  <b>Army Makes Progress on SARS"</b> :cowboy:   Accompanying article credited to one "Daniel Q. Haney, Associated Press reads:  (by-lline):  Biodefense scientists find drugs that may stop virus)  Fort Detrick, Md.--The rist strong evidence that medicine will eventually defeat the SARS virus has come to light in recent days at the Army&#39;s biodefense labs, where the world&#39;s most intensive and systematic search for a cure is going on around the clock."

 Whoa.  Aren&#39;t these the dudes who.....? nevermind

 I checked the AP "last 3 day" articles listed through Drudge -- no such article by Haney turned up, among some 40 on the SARS "search" list.  I suppose carrier pigeon sent word via Danny Pearle&#39;s ghost directly from our boys at Ft Deet -- Fart Dick, I say, but only because I automatically reverse every name-token alleged to convey some official gestapo death-certainty, on principle -- into Mr. Gannet&#39;s very, very Murdoch-conscious conservative ear phones.  The Army leading the fight against SARS?  Talk about elbowing your way into a piece of the action.  I thought they were suipposed to fight WARS.

 Well, no.  Not just, anymore.  Mr. Haney proceeds:  "USAMRID&#39;s usual work is finding defenses to the contagion troops can encounter, intentionally or by chance, anywhere on the planet.  These scientists&#39;  :rolleyes: expertise in handling odd, poorly understood  :ph34r: and dangerous bugs made them a natural choice :P for drug screening when SARS emerged in Asia as a never-before-seen form of pneumonia.  Yip-pur.  Sounds like Trotskyites in action, to me.  "By serendipity, they hope :D , something already in routine use will cure SARS.  But of the several dozen tested so far, mostly standard drugs for HIV and herpes, only interferon has shown more promise."  Problem:  As "the body&#39;s general purpose virus-stopper", interferon comes into play before the immune system gears up production (as if there were still an immune system to "gear up") production of more precisely targeted anti-bodies."  Sort of like vaccine-precursor.  Then this:  "Because the respiratory disease is brand new :D , no one knows exactly why it makes people so sick, in some cases destroying their lungs.  Certainly, the virus itself is capable of great damage.  But in some infections, the body&#39;s own over-the-top counterattack -- including vast production of interferon -- can be as bad as the bug itself."  In other words, once the pre-cursor is aroused, it massively over-defends, as in hysterical conversion (Freud).  Just processing **WARS** will convulse some into **SARS**.  Not to fear, however, the US ARMY WILL HELP&#33; (-not really the U.S. Army as a fighting force, you underztand; its front-line reps at Fart Geek):  "So before interfoeron becomes a SARS treatment, doctors will have to be sure patients are not already making more than enough interferon..." ...to? - keep the precursor-arousal level up so high it is already virtually causing tight-chest lung spasms (your lungs have feelings, too, you know&#33;)&#33; -- or else get an injection that will push it over that point.

 A large number of "false positives" are turning up in the early testing:  it can look like you&#39;ve got it when you don&#39;t.

 I think what we&#39;ve got is a lot of people gagging all over the place, creating an intra-systemic host culture favorable to viruses-of-opportunity -- hysterical hyper-reactions converted by a massive over-response, as if being constantly diddled -- the US government constantly diddling America -- to "defend against" something  not really there, except in their fantasy.  This country has never, in fact, been under any sort of bioattack; but since the danger of that was the pretext, planted like weaponized anthrax on liberal&#39;s menu-card to talk around, just like the danger of Sadam Hussein&#39;s Weapons of Mass Destruction was the pretext planted as a pretext for FIGHTING WARS in Iraq, and, in the fantasies of the diseased, it is under attack by somethnhg "poisoing the blood", a source must be "discovered" (read:  invented, confabulated, linguistically contrived as a sign-use link).  One recalls that it was poison blood-fantasies, focusing on Jews as excrement- poisoners through sexual enticement and intermarriage, that swept through Germany, while Hitler was trying to do the best he could to put things together to salvage that magnificent culture, and bring about an  Industrial Metal age efflourescence of breathtaking psychodynamic force.  Call it a Reality Precursor Purge, and let it begin in me, as the little Sunday School  song goes.

 I think that explains the motive.  That, and covering up the source of biochemical poisons to Iraq, which we hadn&#39;t heard about because it was covered up, like Bush&#39;s lies, necon&#39;s conspiracy, and who knows what else.  If the "China = poison source" link isn&#39;t forged quickly, now, terrible blow-back threatens.  If it is, the massive hysterical interforon over-response to war in general can be organized into a nascent, but permanent line-of-New World Order-defense.  Materializing in our midst, overnight.  A damned miracle.  How much motive do you want?

 I would like to hear what Mrs. Yannis thinks.  Could she please post?

Edana

2003-05-05 15:42 | User Profile

Here all we have is a variant of influenza/pneumonia, killing a few slants and Californians who probably would have died from the flu to begin with had they caught it instead.

Forgot about Canadians? Thanks to the government's "let's merge our country with China" policy, anything in Asia will come straight to the Great (formerly) White North.

Drakmal

2003-05-05 21:05 | User Profile

Originally posted by Edana@May 5 2003, 09:42 ** Forgot about Canadians? Thanks to the government's "let's merge our country with China" policy, anything in Asia will come straight to the Great (formerly) White North. **

My apologies. Like everybody else south of the 49th parallel, I forgot about Canadia. :)

Walter Yannis

2003-05-06 07:28 | User Profile

Originally posted by Drakmal@May 5 2003, 05:31 ** You're all nuts. If SARS turns out to be anything but a naturally-occurring flu variant that cynical elements of our government and economy have seized upon for their own personal gain, I'll eat my hat. New diseases arise all the time without having to be biologically engineered. Bad diseases, like Ebola and AIDS. Here all we have is a variant of influenza/pneumonia, killing a few slants and Californians who probably would have died from the flu to begin with had they caught it instead.

As the hip young people say, "chill". **

I agree that the most likely scenario is that SARS is a natural mutation.

The second most likely scenario is that SARS is a Chinese bio-warfare SNAFU, but it's a rather unlikely scenario.

The third most likely scenario is that SARS is an intentional act of agression by the United States against China as Wombatnine appears to believe, but that is clearly an extremely distant third.

I'm chilled, dude.

Totally tubular.

Walter

jeffersonian

2003-05-06 22:41 | User Profile

[/QUOTE]If SARS turns out to be anything but a naturally-occurring flu variant that cynical elements of our government and economy have seized upon for their own personal gain, I'll eat my hat.[QUOTE]

Much as I'd like to see that, I gotta believe that Drak is right. The only thing remotely interesting and/or strange about SARS is it's ability to live for reasonably long periods of time on cool, dry, surfaces.

This could be the worst thing since crabs, but no doubt more profitable for the drug companies. There will probably be a new variant of Xenopsillin or some such at $ 35.00 a pill which will handle this corona virus quite nicely.

TexasAnarch

2003-05-07 02:56 | User Profile

WY/Drak/Ed/Jeff

**I agree that the most likely scenario is that SARS is a natural mutation.

**

            Unless one believes that the HIV's "jumped species" from monkeys to humans, which I would have thought Aristotelians would resist on principle, the newly emergent viruses from Africa -- AIDS, Ebola, the earlier Marburg -- are the result of monkeys contaminated by the same kind of experiments I just posted up are still going on at Fort Detrick -- injecting them with viruses to see if they can be caused to grow cancer.  The viral link with cancer has yet to be proven, but it is predicated on and "back-filled" *ex post facto* everytime some bizarre symptomology can be lumped together, found to play culture host to a virus of opportunity that may have been around a long time, without species-jump; or. like ordinary flues, not particularly harmful.

        L.G. Horowitiz devotes an entire book, also cited, to arguing that the AIDS virus has an iatrogenic -- not natural, but human-assisted; perhaps an accidental mutation that escaped labs --origin.  There are, in fact, two competing I call them "right-wing" and "left-wing" theories of the origin of AIDS:  1.  the retrovirus "jumped species", as noted:  this is the "slowly smouldering spread" hypothesis:  "The current state of knowledge does not require the identification of some special process to explain the current array of HIV pandemic, epidemic and endemic inffections.  Retroviruses in humans are characterized by slowly smoldering spread, partly because it may take a long time for a sexually transmitted virus to generate a new host specie innovations that permit a high degree of transmissibility while avoiding immunilogical destruction...(to account for why these, now?)...If..the innovation that allows increased host exploitation co-occurs with golden opportunities for transmission*, then the new variant can spread rapidly out of the local pocket and keep on spreading globally.  According to this scenario, only the group M infections (tracing to the HIV, from inside  Africa for millenia) have had this conjunction of innovation and opportunity, and thus only the group M viruses have broken out of the typical retroviral mold and assumed a pandemic form."  ***Plague Time: The New Germ Theory of Disease.***, by Paul W. Ewald, Chapter Nine:  Diseases of Blood and Steel, p. 142,3.  The "left-wing" theory answerng the Why? Now?? questions (of the "old" new viruses -- whether SARS is a derivative or family-related, or not -- they could prove it, and show us the proof, if they wanted to) is:  a horrible by-product of the mass vaccinations in Africa in the 50-60's when (the) WHO (with friends in the US defense department etc.), left behind  trace-contaminants, later "re-configured" under "shock" of the accidentally re-introduced infected monkies from labs.  Many blacks see it as straight out genocidal population control.  I'm not that mean (in the sense of attributing inhumanity of motive).  I allow the "accidental" wiggle room.

  (*The "golden opportunities for transmission" would be creating a highly suggestible near-hysterial state in individual psyche's through communication)

   But I **know** some component or faction -- one can only assumje it is the same as has directed  American foreign policy into these wars -- is setting up permanent conflict between U.S. and China, by-passing anything that even counts as discussion required for democratic vote, to stop it.  It is a concept so bold, so grand, of such an appropriate millenial/Biblical scale;  so conveniently timed -- shifting now to SARS, if it is the seque into massive outbreak of epidemic group-hysteria here, as blow-back reaction to constant over-stimulation by false terror threats. (as in "WHOA! -- sucked-in breath-inhalation attitude as unconsciously sustained chronic chest-tightening -- all the Townhall.com articles have been called "news alerts" for the past few years).  This verbal setting up of China with spook-help leaks to Wm. Safine aplenty, began appearing around 1998, or before , with the Thompson Senate Commitee on campaign financing tracing donations to the dems and Clintons;  pursuing Los Alamos Chinese scientists; bringing charges against Doral corp. -- all grandstanding, but with an obvious message.  China was being established as a place to "dump" (projectively re-locate) poison-fantasies (otherwise directed toward Jews and other minorities, at home), so that "national defenses", front-line, would have a psychological disease-trail to follow, when it became necessary to take that "dump".

   Certainly, I do not know, nor do I claim these considerations prove, these things (I do favor the left-wing theory of AIDS origin; and that is a big domino).  They are, however, tightly connected with many indisputable facts, beyond that of alternative hypotheses IMHO.

  Pleaase don't KILL this MESSENGER.  This is as far as it goes, but it must go this far, or all is lost.

TexasAnarch

2003-05-10 00:44 | User Profile

More motive: It helps the unemployed, down and out, ain't-got-nothing-but-the-blues (and this damn disease) wretches:

** SARS Paradox: Virus Might Cure Deflation Fears Fri May 09, 2003 10:41 AM ET

  By Alan Wheatley, Asian Economics Correspondent SINGAPORE (Reuters) - Call it the SARS paradox: while the killer disease is set to depress prices across Asia, it could have the opposite effect globally and so help allay growing fears of deflation in the United States and Europe.

Anecdotal evidence suggests the spread of SARS has so far had little impact on the Asian factories that form the critical links in global supply chains.

But as long as the outbreak goes unchecked in China, the point of final assembly for a plethora of manufactured goods, economists see a risk of output disruptions that would push up prices worldwide of everything from toys to televisions.

'If you really do have low-cost China no longer being a major supplier, even for a temporary period, that may actually have a positive ripple effect on inflation in the rest of the world,' said William Lee, the International Monetary Fund's representative in Hong Kong.

Apart from Motorola Inc's closure of its main office in Beijing, the impact of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome on multinational corporations has been conspicuous by its absence.

Economists worry, though, that exports will start tailing off if foreign engineers are unable to travel to China to rejig production lines. A failure to prevent SARS spreading to the Chinese countryside is another fear.

'Disruption to China-based factories could cripple some Western companies and trigger surging prices for certain products, particularly PCs and related IT equipment,' Richard Martin, managing director of International Market Assessment Asia, said in a report.

AVOIDING JAPAN'S FATE

Such an effect, though not the cause, would probably be welcomed in industrial countries worried about following Japan into a deflationary spiral.

China's role as price-setter for a growing array of goods in a world glutted with supply is sure to be on the agenda when Chinese President Hu Jintao attends a forum on development issues with the Group of Eight leading nations in France next month.

European Central Bank President Wim Duisenberg on Thursday vowed to guard against the risk of deflation, two days after the U.S. Federal Reserve fretted about the dangers of an 'unwelcome substantial fall in inflation.'

SARS was not detected until mid-March, so it is too early to deliver a verdict on the disease's economic impact on Asia.

Beyond decimated sectors such as tourism and restaurants, though, data paint a picture of resilience. Singapore's purchasing managers' index, for instance, edged up in April even though it remained below the no-growth threshold.

Still, economists remain cautious.

'The signal we got from the Singapore PMI, though encouraging, is simply not enough to relieve the global anxiety over the potential for the production chain to be disrupted,' said David Fernandez of JP Morgan Chase.

Whereas a supply-side SARS shock remains only a possibility, the impact on Asian demand and thus on inflation is all too real.

Deutsche Bank expects consumer prices in China to rise 0.6 percent in 2003 assuming SARS is contained in three months. But an outbreak lasting nine months would result in deflation of 0.4 percent.

Prior to SARS, Citigroup economist Joe Lo expected prices in Hong Kong to fall 1.5 percent this year. His forecast now is two percent.

Although the tumbling U.S. dollar should push up prices because of Hong Kong's peg to the U.S. currency, Lo said demand is so weak that retailers cannot pass on higher costs.

'The SARS shock will extend and deepen Hong Kong's deflation trend,' Lo said. **