ANTHRAX TREATMENT DISPARITIES

Details are just now emerging about an outrageous medical experiment on human subjects conducted by the apartheid South African government before Black majority rule came to that nation.

It seems that the South African government had been  conducting germ warfare research, and lethal microorganisms escaped from one laboratory.  These highly refined and dangerous disease microbes wound up contaminating two buildings.

One building was utilized by wealthy, white apartheid government officials.  The structure was promptly shut down and the government leaders who worked there relocated.  Several different methods were tried to eliminate the toxic organisms from the building, and it took several months before the laborious and expensive process was completed.

The other building which was contaminated was a large processing center where many lower-level, government employees, mostly Black, worked.  The germ warfare unit of the apartheid government's powerful military convinced the South African president that the opportunity to study the effects of the disease on human subjects should not be passed up.

Accordingly, unlike the building housing the white officials, the processing center used by the lower-level Black workers was not closed.  The workers were told there was nothing to worry about, that the level of contamination did not really present a risk.  The workers were given two options, however, to ease their concerns.  They could begin a prophylactic course of antibiotics to ward off any disease.  And after that, they could be vaccinated against the disease.

The government knew that: some workers would not pursue either option; others would take the full course of antibiotics; still other workers would start taking the antibiotics but then fail to finish the regimen; and yet a different group of workers would opt for the vaccine.

The government chose to disclose that the vaccine was only experimental, with neither its safety nor efficacy established.  One government doctor even told the workers union that he himself would not take the vaccine because of its untested nature.  These government disclosures ensured that only a small percentage of workers would opt to be vaccinated.

So the South African government cleverly created a situation where it had a large number of workers exposed to the toxic microbes, with different groups of exposed workers undertaking different types of prophylactic measures, or none at all.  The government's germ warfare experts eagerly awaited the results to see how many workers in each group would get how sick...

As you may have guessed by now if you have been following the bumbling, incompetent and now class-and-race based response by the U.S. government to the anthrax attacks through the mail, this South African story never took place... in South Africa, that is.  But something much like it is taking place right now in the United States.

The highly-refined, weapons-grade microbes are anthrax.  The first building housing the wealthy, white government officials is the Hart Senate Office Building.  It has been closed since October 17, immediately after anthrax was discovered in the building.  Herculean efforts continue to be made to ensure that not a single anthrax spore remains in that structure.  Until then, no  Senator, well-to-do, white or otherwise, will be working there.

The other building housing the lower-level, largely minority workers is the Morgan mail-processing center in Manhattan.  After anthrax was found in that location, the building was never shut down to thoroughly cleanse it, despite a lawsuit by the postal workers union attempting to accomplish just that.  Now anthrax has just been found again there.  The postal union president, William M. Smith, angrily stated that

"It's obvious that building is still not safe.  I am advising workers not to go back inside that building.  We cannot believe the Postal Service anymore."

And regarding the proffered anthrax vaccinations, Mr. Smith said

"They want to treat us like sacrificial lambs and guinea pigs."

Oh, the government-employed doctors will tell you that the post office building is a different situation, it didn't suffer the same type of contamination as the Senate Office building, that the government wants to protect all its workers equally.

"We're not going to put anybody in any jeopardy," said Diane Todd, [a] Postal Service spokeswoman.

Who is going to believe that?

If the Hart Senate Office building had suffered precisely the same type of contamination as did the Morgan mail-processing center, you can be certain that the Hart building would be receiving the same immediate-shutdown/extensive cleansing treatment it is receiving now.  No Senator would go to work in there until it was completely free of microbes.

But of course, the government expects the postal workers to do just that -- work under conditions the Senate has made clear it will not tolerate for itself.  Class, race, I don't know which it is, or both.  But in any case, it's a sorry commentary on the way this country's elite treats those they obviously feel are their inferiors, who don't deserve of the same level of protection they readily afford themselves.