If COVID-19 nearly broke civilization with a 1% fatality rate, can you imagine the pandemonium a more lethal pathogen would cause? According to national security journalist Annie Jacobsen — author of “Biological War: A Scenario” — society should be reckoning with that very question because genetically modified pathogens with a 100% kill rate are sitting in laboratories right now.
In an interview with Glenn Beck, Jacobsen explained that these pathogens aren’t theoretical — and that a real-world release would move far faster and more destructively than most people grasp.
The prospect of a pandemic that makes COVID-19 look like child’s play terrifies Glenn — not just because of the lethal implications of such an event but also because society has never been so skeptical of the government and institutionalized science.
If something truly deadly escaped, how many would even believe it?
“The trust is gone. It’s just gone,” Glenn says. “If an outbreak happened today, half of the country would not believe Donald Trump. If it was ... Kamala Harris, half of the country would not believe her.”
And then there’s the people who are so jaded, it doesn’t matter who’s in office — “they don’t trust the science,” Glenn says, because COVID-19 mistakes still have never been owned by the scientific authorities.
These skeptics, justified as their mistrust may be, would be in peril, however, if an invariably fatal pathogen were to escape.
“There are genetically modified pathogens out there that have a 100% case fatality rate. Everybody dies. And [in the book] I show readers what the government has planned for that kind of event,” Jacobsen says.
“I take the readers from outbreak to anarchy in six days ... and then you learn what happens after anarchy,” she adds.
“How convinced are you that we are near ... an accident in one of these labs?” Glenn asks.
“[Biological] accidents are listed in Defense Department nomenclature as having the same plan go into effect as an attack. ... So, a lab leak 100% is as deadly as an attack because the pathogen, if it’s airborne, the weapon system is the human lung set,” Jacobsen explains.
Glenn then pivots to gain-of-function research.
“I understand if we’re looking for, you know, cures for these weapons, but I just don’t know — it feels as though we have crossed a point to where we’re almost insane and will appear to be suicidal at some point down the road,” he says.
“You can’t use any of these biological weapons. It’s all against the law since Nixon, but how many countries are still doing this stuff?” he asks.
To understand just how prevalent gain-of-function research is, all you have to do, Jacobsen says, is “look at the labs.”
“There are 110 BSL-4 labs around the world. That’s the maximum containment lab. And BSL-3, by the way, is just right below that. You can work with plague, hantavirus, anthrax, rabies in a BSL-3 lab, and there are 3,500 of those labs around the world,” she explains.
“And so, the idea of an accident is, you know, we’re just right at that precipice.”
To hear more, watch the video above.
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