Emerging Viruses-Aids & Ebola - By Leanard ... - preterhuman.net

Chapter 3Cold War, Biological Weapons, andWorld HealthTHE Francis Countway Memorial Library is a stone's throw fromHarvard's School of Dental Medicine where I had served on thefaculty. A modem structure of glass and concrete, the buildinglooks somewhat misplaced amid the grandeur of its centuries oldGothic marble neighbors.What seemed ironically amusing about the building is that thistribute to health science learning would be diagnosed as a "sickbuilding." After a couple of hours in the Countway, peoplecommonly became ill. Headaches and dizzyness were the mostfrequent symptoms. The graduate students next door at theSchool of Public Health always joked that the library wascontraindicated for women in their third trimester of pregnancy.Nevertheless, here's where I conducted most of my post-doctoralresearch.Access to Countway from Boston's Northshore was relativelypainless. An hour's train-ride dropped me off at the old BostonGarden. Two transfers and a half-hour later I disembarked theHuntington Avenue street car on Harvard medical turf. A brieftrek through two concrete corridors, a pair of glass doors, and aguarded gate, and I was at work.The first floor of Countway is mostly administrative offices,reference books, and on-line services. Computer literaturesearches are easily conducted here. The Index Medicus andcurrent stacks are located down an open stairway on the firstlower level. Current periodicals are neatly arranged on displayshelves filling the south side of the gymnasium-size floor. Workdesks line the walls and are in greatest demand on the samesunny side of the room.The older stacks and copy machines are all in the basement.There is no natural light here and barely any oxygen. At the heartof this floor are eight high-speed copiers. All are almost alwaysin use filling the room with heat and noise. Faculty and studentsalike await their turns seated uncomfortably at the center of theroom on cracked black vinyl love seats. The lights flicker like astrobe. This is Countway's dungeon-where I accessed thescientific literature dating to the late 1960s. Sweat and timequickly disappeared here.Prelude to a ProtocolAfter our cursory review of early 'WHO Chronicle' reports, mysearch was on for articles about biological warfare (BW). Therewere many.