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This started out simple enough, but led into other information. Follow linksfor more information and do you own research. Open your mind to thelarger picture. This is a compulation of various articles I found.
Britain's 'Anthrax Island'
The island was quarantined for 48 years
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/1457035.stm 25 July, 2001
Anthrax is one of the best known agents of biological warfare - and possibly one of the most feared.The bacterium occurs naturally, in low levels, in some animals, but when it is inhaledby humans in the form of spores it is deadly.The killing power of anthrax was demonstrated by British scientists during theSecond World War when it was released on a tiny Scottish island to wipe out a flockof sheep.The island, Gruinard, just off the mainland, in Gruinard Bay, half way betweenUllapool and Gairloch in the Highlands, was so contaminated that it was deemed out-of-bounds for almost 50 years.Gruinard Island is inthe ScottishHighlandsThe 1942 test was sanctioned amid fears the Germans mightattack the UK with biological or chemical weapons.Anthrax can be contracted by skin contact, ingestion orinhalation, but it is through inhalation that it is at its mostdeadly and proves to be fatal in about 95% of cases, evenwith medical treatment.Experts on biological weapons have suggested that 100kg of anthrax sprayed on a major city could kill more than 3mpeople.When anthrax spores are inhaled death usually takes aroundseven days and will be as a result of symptoms like internalbleeding, blood poisoning or even meningitis.Initial symptoms after inhalation might include mild fever,
malaise, fatigue, coughing and, occasionally a feeling of pressure on the chest.
Decontamination project
It was previously not uncommon for animal workers to become infected with anthraxthrough skin contact - it was called woolsorter's disease at one point - when a boilwould appear which would eventually form a black centre.When scientists experimented with anthrax on Gruinard Island a film was made of their work and it remained classified until 1997.Sheep were taken to an open field, secured in wooden frames, and exposed to abomb that scattered the spores. The sheep started dying three days later.Despite attempts to disinfect Gruinard Island, the spores left by the experimentskept the island in quarantine for 48 years.The final WW II report on the Gruinard Island tests suggested anthrax could be usedto render cities uninhabitable "for generations".In 1986 an English company was paid half a million pounds todecontaminate the 520-acre island by soaking the ground in280 tonnes of formaldehyde diluted in 2000 tonnes of seawater.Topsoil was also removed in sealed containers.To prove that the clean-up was successful a flock of sheep wasallowed to graze the island at the behest of an independentwatchdog set up by the Ministry of Defence.
I would not gowalking onGruinard. If anthrax is stillactive at Soutra,there is no reasonto suppose it hasnot survived onmore recent sites.It is a veryresilient anddeadly bacteriumDr Brian MoffatArchaeologist
On 24 April, 1990, the then junior Defence Minister, MichaelNeubert, made the half-mile journey from the mainland todeclare Gruinard safe by removing its red warning sign.But at that time the Glasgow Herald newspaper reported thata leading archaeologist was unconvinced by official assurancesthe land was safe.
Vaccine
Dr Brian Moffat, archaeological director of an excavation of a medieval hospital nearEdinburgh, said his team had encountered buried anthrax spores which had survivedfor hundreds of years.He told the paper: "I would not go walking on Gruinard. If anthrax is still active atSoutra, there is no reason to suppose it has not survived on more recent sites. It is avery resilient and deadly bacterium."However, that was not the end of Britain's interest in anthrax because earlier thismonth it was announced that a team led by a Scottish scientist had produced avaccine.It was manufactured after two years work at Porton Down, the government'schemical and biological warfare research centre.
Sir William Stewart, who led the research group, said the vaccine should act as asafeguard for the future.
World
Anthrax: a deadly bacterium
The USDefenceSecretary,WilliamCohen,
provides an
analogy An attack using anthrax could be every bit as deadly as a one-megaton atomic bomb, according to an official US report.It is a deadly disease that can be spread by people breathing it in, itkills 90% of those infected and it exists in tiny quantities in cattlegrazing areas. Potential terrorists can produce anthrax withoutaccess to exotic chemicals.Books explaining how to manufacture a variety of poison gasses andother toxins can be bought in the US or ordered across the Internet.According to the report to the US Congress' former Office of Technology Assessment,an aircraft releasing 100kg of anthrax over a large city on a calm, clear night couldkill between one and three million people.Fortunately, according to Dr Jonathan Tucker, an expert in chemical and biologicalweapons who served on a UN weapons team in Iraq, using such weapons in aterrorist attack is not easy."Trying to produce 100,000 casualties is much more difficult than is often stated", hesaid.In March 1995, members of the Aum Supreme Truth cult in Japan made severalpoison gas attacks on the Japanese subway system - the first large-scale terroristuse of chemical or biological weapons.
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