http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/5189672/Polo-horses-may-have-been-poisoned.htmlBy Tom Leonard in New York
Last Updated: 6:38PM BST 20 Apr 2009
A horrified crowd at the International Polo Club Palm Beach in Wellington watched in silence on Sunday as vets tried desperately to save the animals after they collapsed or became dizzy as they were led out of their trailers.
The horses, all from the same Venezuelan-owned team and each worth around $100,000 (£69,000), died one after the other shortly before an important match in the US Open Polo Championship.
The team is owned by Victor Vargas, a Venezuelan businessman, close confidant of Hugo Chavez and one of the richest men in South America.Or theres this one...
Army Biodefense Lab Shuts Down to Check If Anything Is Missing (from 2/2009)
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/80beats/2009/02/10/army-biodefense-lab-shuts-down-to-check-if-anything-is-missing/The biodefense lab that was associated with the anthrax mailings of 2001 is temporarily shutting down most research to allow officials to make a thorough accounting of every germ, virus, and poison that’s being stored at the facility. The lab, at Fort Detrick in Maryland, has come under intense scrutiny since the FBI accused researcher Bruce Ivins of sending the 2001 letters laced with anthrax. (Ivins killed himself while under investigation.) Now, officials want to comb through storage rooms and refrigerators to ensure that every dangerous agent is listed in the lab’s inventory. The suspension started Friday, and the tedious process of counting thousands of vials could take up to three months, institute spokeswoman Caree Vander Linden said
.
The order to stop most work came after a spot check last month found 20 samples of Venezuelan equine encephalitis in a box of vials instead of the 16 that had been listed in the institute’s database , officials say. “I believe that the probability that there are additional vials of BSAT not captured in our … database is high,” Skvorak wrote in a memo to employees .
Researchers at the lab work with some of the most dangerous infectious diseases known, like anthrax and Ebola, but officials stressed that they do not know of any missing vials of lethal substances.
The lab could have lost track of some biological materials when it switched over to computerized record keeping in 2005, officials say. Counts could also have gone awry when researchers left the lab’s employment but their research materials weren’t reassigned to someone else. Such mundane errors in bookkeeping happen frequently in normal labs, but experts say they can’t be tolerated in a biodefense setting. The suspension will interrupt dozens of research projects at the institute, whose task is to develop vaccines, drugs and other measures to protect American troops from germ attacks and disease outbreaks. Ms. Vander Linden said some critical experiments involving animals — often used to test vaccines and drugs — would not be halted .
The suspension, which reportedly took researchers by surprise, has already caused some grumbling. Some lab workers have complained that the Army is trying to impose on biological research an inventory-control scheme developed for nuclear and chemical labs. They contend it’s a poor fit since a small amount of living material can be grown into a larger supply, making inventory reporting difficult and time-consuming. Brady acknowledged the challenge but said, “We have to do something. At the end of the day, we have to figure out the best way forward” .
Or...
Victor Vargas, 57 year-old owner of Venezuelan bank Banco Occidental de Descuento is infamous both for his lavish lifestyle and for his ties to Venezuela’s President, Hugo Chavez. He was born to powerful parents and then married young into an extremely rich Venezuelan family, through which he became related to Juan Carlos, the King of Spain. He was interviewed in the Wall Street Journal in January 2008 where he dropped this gem of a quote, “People write stories about me saying I have a Ferrari, a plane, a yacht. But it’s not true. I’ve got three planes, two yachts, six houses.” Nice.
It can at least be said that he has some sort of a heart, as onlookers reported that he had tears in his eyes and “held in his hands” as he watched so many of them sicken and die–although if we had just lost over $1.5 million (each of the 21 horses was worth around $100,000) we’d probably be crying too.
The horses, all from Vargas’ high-ranked Argentine polo team “Lechuza Caracas” started to get sick around 2:15 pm right before the match was scheduled to begin. Veterinarians on the polo ground said that the horses were starting to stumble and were having trouble breathing, until finally many of them collapsed despite the best efforts of vets and volunteers. None of the horses who fell ill survived. Vets on the scene said that the horses had suffered from fluid in the lungs and heart failure, and that the reaction was probably caused by a toxin in their food or bedding-the vets determined with certainty that it was not an infectious disease or anything that could have come from their origin in Venezuela. Palm Beach veterinarian Scott Swerdlin also dismissed the idea of intentional poisoning, saying there was “zero possibility” of that and calling the mere suggestion “very far-fetched.”
Just like in the GODFATHER???
Very Tin Foil hat like
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