| JWissmille 2004-10-24, 2:08 am |
| J Med Entomol 1999 Jul;36(4):526-9
Squalene: a naturally abundant mammalian skin secretion and long distance
tick-attractant.
Yoder JA, Stevens BW, Crouch KC
Department of Biology, Illinois College, Jacksonville
Squalene is a naturally occurring lipid on mammalian skin and is an
attractant to the lone star tick, Amblyomma americanum (L.). In this study,
we compared squalene to the standard tick-attractants, benzaldehyde,
isobutyric acid, methyl salicylate, nonanoic acid, and o-nitrophenol
identified as active ingredients of tick aggregation-attachment pheromones
and determined its effectiveness in field and laboratory settings at varying
distances. Squalene was detected from 1/4 m greater than the standard tick
attractants, attracted a greater percentage of ticks (75 compared with
0-43%) and featured a rapid response time (< 30 min). Thus, squalene
contributes more to the tick's ability to locate hosts at greater distances
than aggregation-attachment pheromones. These results have important
implications for improving tick monitoring and control programs by adding
squalene as a supplement to existing attractant baits.
___________________________________
Most U.S. Logs On Chemicals In Gulf Missing
Army Reports Tracked Iraq's Weapons Use
John Diamond
Associated Press --via Washington Post
02/28/97
More than three-quarters of the chemical weapons logs kept during the Persian
Gulf War are missing, far more than the eight days' worth previously
disclosed,
the Pentagon reported yesterday.
A computer virus imported by an officer who brought some computer games to
Gulf
War headquarters may have wiped out half the logs, the report said.
Two sets of the logs on disk and a paper copy shipped to U.S. Central Command
headquarters in Florida after the war appear to have been lost from a safe in
an
office move. A third disk set and another hard copy were lost from a safe at
Aberdeen Proving Ground, Md.
Gulf War veterans concerned about their unexplained illnesses are eager to
know
whether the logs mention the release of chemical weapons. Many say they
believe
that chemical weapons -- which the Pentagon says were not used by Iraq during
the war -- caused their illnesses. And some veterans charge the Pentagon with
covering up the full release of records.
"The Pentagon has botched not only the handling of the records but also the
investigation of the handling of the records," said Paul Sullivan of the
National Gulf War Resource Council, a veterans' group.
Matt Puglisi, director of Gulf War issues for the American Legion and a
veteran
of the 1991 conflict, said that having been in the military he can understand
the bureaucratic foul-ups that could lead to the loss of records.
"But there's certainly the appearance of a coverup, and that needs to be
investigated aggressively," Puglisi said.
The new Pentagon report, disclosed at a hearing of the Senate Armed Services
Committee, concludes that only 36 out of about 200 pages of the logs can be
found. "This expectation is based on an assumption that one page of log was
written for each day in theater from August 1990 to March 1991," the report
said.
_____________________________________
Vaccine link to Gulf War Syndrome
Wednesday, April 7, 1999 Published at 19:25 GMT 20:25 UK
http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/he...4000/314010.stm
Many veterans have complained of illness since the Gulf War
A fatty substance used in vaccines - and originally identified in sharks -
may be the cause of Gulf War Syndrome (GWS), researchers have said.
Blood tests on sick US veterans show that many produced high levels of
antibodies against a substance called squalene.
Those veterans who had not complained of illness since the 1991 war did not
produce antibodies.
This is considered normal, as the body does not contain enough squalene to
provoke an immune response.
The researchers suggest that GWS is caused by the body turning its immune
system against its own natural supply of squalene.
The findings are reported in New Scientist magazine.
Controversial illness
GWS is a mysterious illness that involves memory loss, thyroid disorders,
allergies, fatigue, rashes and persistent pain.
It affects 100,000 veterans of the war.
The substance was first identified in sharks
The government does not admit that it exists, but is researching the
possibility.
Some campaigners say the syndrome is caused by vaccines given to troops,
while others believe uranium used in weapons is the cause.
In January, researchers at King's College, London, found that exposure to
plague and anthrax vaccines was the factor that correlated most strongly
with GWS in British victims.
But the US Defense Department denies squalene was used in its vaccines.
Increased antibody levels
The latest research, however, suggests the sick veterans were exposed to
high levels of sqalene.
It was conducted by Dr Bob Garry, a virologist at Tulane university in New
Orleans.
He tested 400 veterans for antibodies to squalene and found that 95% of
those who claimed to have GWS had high levels.
In normal circumstances, squalene can be released into the blood by physical
injuries where it boosts the immune system's response to foreign antigens.
Dr Garry also tested two volunteers who had received experimental herpes
vaccines containing squalene in trials run by the US National Institutes of
Health.
Both had high levels of squalene antibodies and symptoms similar to GWS,
suggesting GWS could be caused by the body turning against its own squalene.
_____________________________________
Anti-HIV mix found in Gulf veterans
By Paul M. Rodriguez
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
August 11, 1997
A synthetic chemical compound used in cutting-edge
experimental inoculations against HIV has been
discovered in the blood of some ailing Gulf war veterans,
according to Insight magazine.
.. . . . Pentagon and U.S. government medical authorities say no
such such inoculations were administered during the Gulf war
but offer no explanation for the presence of the compound
called squalene in blood samples of hundreds of Gulf war
veterans who claim to suffer from so-called Gulf war
syndrome.
.. . . . But these veterans, representing a cross-section of the
uniformed services, including those who served overseas and
those who never left the United States, say
-- Continued from Front Page --
they were given unspecified or secret vaccinations.
.. . . . Adding to the mystery is the inexplicable disappearance
of as many as 700,000 service-related immunization records.
.. . . . The new information about squalene, an adjuvant
compound used to boost the effects of immunizations, comes
from a four-month investigation into the origins of Gulf war
illnesses by Insight, which is published by The Washington
Times Corp.
.. . . . Antibodies for this synthetic squalene were discovered in
laboratory tests on hundreds of blood samples taken from Gulf
war soldiers, some who became sick after the conflict and
others who have not.
.. . . . These laboratory results, some of which have been
separately reconfirmed (tests are continuing), show unusually
high antibody levels for squalene, which should not show up in
such tests.
.. . . . Squalene as an adjuvant is a synthetic polymer that
stimulates the body's immune responses when mixed with
vaccines to make medications more effective. It is not
approved for human use except in the most experimental tests
overseen by the government in research on cures for illnesses,
such as HIV and herpes.
.. . . . Government officials say emphatically that no
experimental HIV immunization tests were conducted on the
general military population. However, they say such tests have
been conducted by military- and government-backed research
laboratories on human volunteers. The tests have not been
publicized but have been conducted over a period of several
years.
.. . . . Spokesmen from the Veterans Affairs Department, the
National Institutes of Health and the Department of Defense
say they are unable to explain when asked why squalene shows
up in the blood of sick soldiers who have been, or decline to
answer questions about the phenomenon.
.. . . . Timothy Gerrity, a senior official at the VA and the only
top official investigating Gulf war illnesses willing to talk on the
record, told Insight magazine he "would be surprised" to find
out that squalene is in the bloodstreams of ill soldiers. All
vaccinations administered to Gulf war soldiers are publicly
known, he says, and that no experimental drugs involving HIV
or other immuno-stimulants were given to U.S. troops.
.. . . . Mr. Gerrity says that if the trial tests showing squalene are
confirmed, the government will investigate.
.. . . . Congressional oversight panels, including the Senate and
House Veterans Affairs committees, also plan to investigate the
squalene revelations and redouble efforts to find still-missing
immunization records for hundreds of thousands of veterans.
.. . . . Except for work with a few cutting-edge pharmaceuticals
--and then only with approval from federal authorities -- only
government agencies are involved in human experimental tests
using adjuvants. Agencies authorized to conduct human
experiments include the NIH Infectious Diseases and Allergy
Center and the Walter Reed Army Medical Center.
.. . . . The NIH and Walter Reed facilities have been
experimenting since at least the late 1980s with immunizations
that could be effective against the HIV virus, which causes
AIDS. Typically, the experimental "immunizations" are mixed
with adjuvants -- like squalene or alum -- to provide a boost to
experimental vaccines. Alum is the only U.S.-approved
adjuvant for general human use in a variety of vaccines and
immunizations.
.. . . . "I want to know how squalene, an adjuvant that's not
supposed to be in these vets, got into these vets," says a
leading medical specialist who studied lab results on blood
samples taken from Gulf war personnel.
.. . . . These tests, conducted at two prestigious laboratories
that prefer not to be identified until further standardized
double-blind testing is completed, surveyed fresh blood
samples of 200 soldiers and another 200 blood samples drawn
two to three years ago by the Defense Department from sick
Gulf war veterans. The older blood samples were taken for
unrelated tests.
.. . . . In nearly three-quarters of the blood from both testing
pools, tests showed positive for squalene antibodies.
.. . . . The test results were similar to those from experimental
test subjects in experimental HIV and sexually transmitted
disease studies at the NIH. In these cases, the medications they
received contained squalene.
.. . . . How then, the reasearchers want to know, did the tested
Gulf war soldiers get antibodies for an adjuvant whose only
known use is experimental?
.. . . . "We have found soldiers who are not sick that do not
have the antibodies," says one of the independent laboratory
scientists hired by Insight. "We found soldiers who never left
the United States but who got shots who are sick, and they
have squalene in their systems. We found people who served
overseas in various parts of the desert that are sick who have
squalene. And we found people who served in the desert but
were civilians who never got these shots [administered by the
federal government] who are not sick and do not have
squalene."
.. . . . In short, says a senior government official familiar with the
new blood tests, "I can't tell you why it's there, but there it is.
And I can tell you this, too: the sicker an individual, the higher
the level of antibodies for this [squalene] stuff."
.. . . . Says a high-level Defense Department official also familiar
with the tests: "I'm not telling you that squalene is making these
people sick, but I am telling you that the sick ones have it in
them. It's probably whatever was used [mixed] with the
squalene that's doing it, or in combination with the squalene.
You find that, and you may be on to something."
.. . . . Theories about adjuvants were first advanced about two
years ago by Pamela Asa, a Tennessee immunologist who
specializes in auto-immune diseases and symptomatology.
Military and civilian government authorities dismissed her
charges at the time.
.. . . . Air Force Col. Ed Koenigsberg, director of the
Pentagon's Persian Gulf war Veterans' Illness Investigation
Team, testified before the President's Advisory Committee on
Persian Gulf Veterans Disease in October 1995 that theories
such as Dr. Asa's were not plausible because no adjuvant other
than aluminum adjuvants (alum) had been used on U.S.
soldiers, and no secret immunizations were administered.
.. . . . However, the military did commission a study of so-called
"adjuvants disease" and possible unknown immunizations that
may have been given Gulf war soldiers.
.. . . . The study, prepared by the U.S. Army Medical Research
and Materiel Command and released in March 1996,
concluded that the only vaccines and immunizations
administered to soldiers were publicly known and were
alum-based and that nothing but alum was used as an adjuvant.
.. . . . But as the General Accounting Office noted in a recently
concluded study: "Six years after the war, little is conclusively
known about the causes of Gulf war veterans' illnesses. ...
.. . . . "None of the comments we received provide evidence to
challenge our principal findings and conclusions that (1) DoD
and VA have no means to systematically determine whether
symptomatic Gulf war veterans are better or worse today than
when they were first examined and (2) ongoing epidemiological
research will not provide precise, accurate, and conclusive
answers regarding the causes of the Gulf war veterans'
illnesses."
.. . . . The only way, according to the GAO, for the government
to begin finding out what's wrong with Gulf war veterans is to
begin a comprehensive study of the patients, including high-tech
laboratory work to explain, among other things, the presence
of antibodies for squalene.
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