Plum Island Conspiracies by Allan S

 

What do you imagine when you hear the words "classified government disease laboratory"? Do you picture a heavily guarded research facility, teeming with dangerous and infectious pathogens and plagued with mysterious motives, or a noble research center where scientist learn to defend the western world against the perils of bioterrorism? These are the opposing views with which the Plum Island Animal Disease Center, or PIADC, is seen. One conspiracy about Plum Island regards it as the birthplace of Lyme Disease, while another claims that it creates deformed creatures through horrific experiments. Although seemingly implausible, the island is regarded by theorists as, “a biological ticking time bomb” (Carroll, 267). It's close proximity to the heavily populated city of Manhattan creates further concern about the center's operations. If there is truth to these sinister rumors, then the PIADC has the potential to do much more harm than good to Americans and people around the world.

Did Plum Island create and test bioweapons so close to populated Long Island? Could these experiments have initiated epidemics like Lyme Disease? The many conspiracies surrounding Plum Island boil down to one key character and his role in the center's development.  By understanding the motives of a scientist known as Dr. Erich Traub, we may be able to make a fair assumption of the type of work that Plum Island has done. What he did and the person he was hold important connections to Plum Island, and, unfortunately, are not knowledge the government seems keen on propagating. Not much information regarding Dr. Traub’s work at Plum Island is available, and even less can be found relating to his personality, motivations, and experience working under a Nazi regime. However, what we can discover about his intriguing life is enough to paint an alarming picture of the PIADC's history of dangerous disease research.

 

Dr. Erich Traub is considered by some to be a founding father of Plum Island. He allegedly oversaw the creation of the Animal Disease program there, and was offered the position of “Senior Scientist” in later years. Dr. Traub was well known throughout the world to be an exceptional scientist and researcher of infectious diseases. So well-known that, under Project Paperclip, he was brought to the United States from Soviet-ruled Germany in 1949 as a “high priority Intelligence target”; a move that would give Americans a scientific advantage over our Cold War rivals (everipedia.org). The controversial Project Paperclip was an attempt by the United States to take and utilize post-WWII German scientists and scientific assets to stay technologically ahead of the Soviet Union (Agostino). Understandably, these operations and the people it brought into the United States were kept confidential by the government. It is no small wonder that the PIADC does not associate itself with Dr. Traub, as most people would be alarmed to hear that he had worked for Hitler’s top military commander, conducting tests to weaponize none other than foot-and-mouth disease.

Dr. Traub's expertise in dangerous diseases, his relation to the Nazi Party in Germany, and his unfeeling, logical intellect all say something about the person he was. Digging deeper into the work he enjoyed paints an even more sinister picture. Although information is scarce, we can piece together enough details to create a concerning image. Dr. Traub specialized in foot and mouth disease, but it wasn’t the only contagion he experimented with. Sources indicate that he also took time to personally collect samples of Rinderpest Virus for use against allied soldiers in World War II. Another scheme he took part in was the development of a weaponized foot and mouth disease, to be packaged and dropped on enemy livestock. Lastly, and perhaps most concerning, is the fact that “Dr. Traub also experimented with the glanders bacteria and had a particular fascination for organisms that voraciously devour the brain.” (LUMITOS). All of these actions show that he was a particularly dispassionate scientist, intent on pursuing his task with expert tenacity. With a perverse interest in the harbingers of death, Traub fit the villainous stereotype quite well.

There are countless conspiracies surrounding the PIADC, but only a few substantiated by evidence and a compelling argument. The first is that Plum Island has been a site for biowarfare research and testing since the Cold War, and the second is that Plum Island is the origin and cause of the North American Lyme Disease outbreak.

Conspiracy 1

The foremost claim against Plum Island, that it was a facility for testing and producing sinister bioweapons, is one with historical connections. Considering the PIADC’s deep-rooted ties with germ warfare and known bioweapon scientists such as Dr. Erich Traub, it’s easy to understand the suspicion. By analyzing Plum Island’s origin, we can find further evidence against a peaceful PIADC.

 There are two sides to consider when analyzing the creation of Plum Island: What is documented by The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), and information dug up by reporters and individuals skeptical of the government's intentions. According to Ag. Research author and USDA spokeswoman, Sandy Hays, the PIADC was established after “[a severe foot and mouth disease outbreak in Mexico during the 1950s] prompted Congress to approve establishment of PIADC in 1954, when USDA acquired the island that was formerly Fort Terry from the U.S. Army” (Hays). This states that the PIADC started purely with domestic security in mind. Michael Carroll argues the contrary: that the PIADC and the Plum Island site were chosen with germ warfare in mind. He unearths a different aspect of the disease program when he finds a declassified army document that states “Plum Island will permit the Army Chemical Corps to execute required projects in connection with imported agents… that might become of Biological Warfare significance” (Carroll 41). Was it a coincidence that Plum Island was founded near the start of the Cold War? According to Smithsonian writer, Elliot Marshall, “This country built a massive arsenal that included anthrax, smallpox and botulinum toxin” during the early cold war era, which lines up with Plum Island's establishment surprisingly well (Marshall).

Even if the PIADC was created with the intention of preventing a livestock epidemic, it could very well have found a second purpose during the height of the Cold War. Michael Carrol reveals that an agriculturally oriented PIADC is exactly the type of facility the United States needed to wage war on an enemy nation. He explains by citing US military intelligence from 1957:

In order to have a crippling effect on the economy of the USSR, the food and animal crop resources of the USSR would have to be damaged within a single growing season to the… starvation level [for humans]. Reduction of food resources to this level… would produce 20 percent fatalities, and would decrease manual labor performance by 95 percent and clerical and light labor performance by 80 percent (Carroll 15).

This passage clearly indicates that the United States opted to develop bioweapons that targeted livestock and agriculture, not just people, during this time.

If the above evidence is not convincing enough, then consider what diseases the PIADC was prepared to study, and the list of US tested biological agents, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute:

According to SIPRI, the U.S. biological program studied the following agents: anthrax, glanders, brucellosis, melioidosis, tularemia, plague, yellow fever, psittacosis, typhus, dengue fever, Rift Valley fever, Chikungunya disease virus, ricin, rice blast, rice brown spot disease, late blight of potato, stem rust of cereal, rinderpest virus, Newcastle disease virus, fowl plague virus (Library of Congress Web Archives Collection, “Possession and Programs...”)

In comparison to a list of diseases held and investigated at Plum Island:

Plum Island studies more than 40 other foreign animal diseases, such as hog cholera and African swine fever. The freezers also hold polio, Rift Valley Fever (Frerichs, “Bioterrorism Fears…”).

 

Five top secret projects were approved for the germ warfare island;

4-11-02-051 Miscellaneous exotic diseases

4-11-02-052 Rift Valley fever

4-11-02-053 African swine fever

4-11-02-054 Foot-and-mouth disease

4-11-02-055 Rinderpest

(Carroll 46).

This shows that for the Cold War against the Soviet Union, Plum Island had a perfectly stocked facility to provide for the United States’ germ warfare needs.

 

Conspiracy 2

A second conspiracy surrounding Plum Island is that it created the modern Lyme epidemic in America. Lyme disease itself is riddled with conspiracies, and is still in early stages of being effectively cured. Caused by the infectious bacteria, B. Burgdorferi, it has many unpleasant symptoms such as joint pain, rashes, memory loss, muscle twitching, and even facial paralysis. Furthermore, Lyme is hard to fight off without the use of extensive antibiotics. Even after a successful antibiotic treatment, chronic symptoms may persist leading to what is known as “Chronic Lyme Disease” by sufferers (Ballantyne par. 16). This confounding virus is often misdiagnosed as a form of arthritis, and doctors continuously argue about how to effectively fight it. Jason Snavely states that "Lyme disease is not new.  While it's true that modern medical science only discovered and began researching Lyme disease in the mid-70s, it has been infecting humans for a very long time" (pg 22). This may seem to discount the theory of Plum Island creating Lyme Disease, but in 1975 an intriguing event occurred that suggests that Plum Island had a role in spreading it.

Lyme Disease was brought into the eye of the scientific community due to an outbreak in Old Lyme, Connecticut. Attorney and author of Lab 257, Michael Carrol explains what happened in the town of Old Lyme the midsummer of 1975:

Old Lyme, nestled on the banks of the Connecticut River, sits just a shade north of the Long Island sound [where Plum Island is located]. Polly Muray and Judith Mensch noticed something unusual about their children. Seemingly out of nowhere, they were showing signs of strange physical and mental ailments. Alarmed, the two mothers quickly phoned their neighbors, who were observing strikingly similar conditions in their own children. Many of the kids in the neighborhood—and some adults—were suffering from the same skin rashes, throbbing headaches, and painful swollen joints (Carrol 5).

This spontaneous outbreak is not characteristic of naturally occurring Lyme Disease, but instead suggests a drastic change in either the behavior or the number of infected ticks in the region. Were Plum Island farther away the PIADC may not have been suspect, but because of its relative proximity to Lyme and its dubious past in germ warfare, many have come to hold the PIADC responsible for the disaster. It can be assumed with reasonable confidence that Plum Island tested “hard ticks” (the type that are vectors of Lyme disease) and held tick colonies during the first year of the Lyme Outbreak in Connecticut. Former Plum Island Director Dr. Jerry Callis once said, “Plum Island experimented with ticks, but never outside of containment” (Carroll 23). Plum Island’s role in government research may yet again provide an answer to this puzzle.

The United States government has a dark and surprising past of conducting biowarfare experiments on unknowing citizen populations. These so-called “vulnerability tests” consisted of secret agents dispersing bacteria or other pathogens into a public space to assess the risk a bioterrorist attack might have on the general public. One side of the Lyme conspiracy claims that this is how Lyme Disease was started that fateful day in the town of Old Lyme. While it may be plausible that Lyme started as a vulnerability test “gone wrong”, there is evidence of another aspect of the PIADC that could have led to a pathogen escaping the facilities.

The PIADC has been proven to have experimented on ticks around 1951, conducting several outdoor tests in line with typical biowarfare testing. On one occasion, a Plum Island worker was recorded saying “when they came in, in 1951—they were inoculating these ticks” and identified a part of the island where "they released the ticks” (Carroll 15). If the PIADC truly fostered an entire tick colony, and released them onto the island to examine their effect on a control animal population, what is to say that some of them did not escape the island? Although surrounded by water, ticks have a variety of ways to leave the island. One way is by one of many coastal birds that flock to the island’s unpopulated shoreline. Retired scientist and avid birdwatcher Jim House once commented about the island’s bird population, “We made a list of a hundred and forty different species. One time I counted over two hundred brown creepers” (Carroll 19). Not only do birds flock to the island to nest, it is a regular stopping point on many birds’ migratory paths. Sparrows, for example both make regular trips from the island to the Connecticut mainland and use it to migrate across the states in massive groups.

It is not reasonable, nor is it right to the many sufferers of Lyme today, to dismiss Plum Island as a possible source of the Lyme Epidemic. By conducting outdoor tests with significant numbers of potentially infected ticks, Plum Island should be considered a top vector of this controversial plague.

In conclusion, it is worth noting that the Plum Island Animal Disease Center is not the stuff of legends. It plays a real and vital role in the defense of our country’s food sources against bioterrorism, and has helped to control the spread of harmful diseases. However, it is also not the innocent veterinarian lab that the government and the USDA has made it out to be. We can safely assume that the lab has been used for noble and devious purposes alike, and can be found guilty of decreasing national security as well as increasing it. Despite the mystery and suspicion surrounding Plum Island, it doesn’t need to be the target of a witch-hunt for Lyme disease culprits, ethically ambiguous biowarfare, or Nazi sympathizers. What needs to be done about the PIADC on Plum Island is simply a purging of unsafe practices and a more transparent regulation of their operations. These suggestions would help prevent accidents like the Outbreak of ’75, and reconcile the truth with wary critics of the disease center.

 

Works Cited

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"EDITORIAL: A Victory For Plum Island." Hartford Courant (CT), 15 Aug. 2017. Issues & Controversies, Infobase Learning, http://icof.infobaselearning.com.ezproxy.com.edu Accessed 17 Oct. 2017. S

Frerichs, Ralph R. “Bioterrorism Fears Revive Waning Interest In Agricultural Disease Lab on Plum Island.” Bioterrorism Fears Revive Waning Interest In Agricultural Disease Lab on Plum Island, Wall Street Journal, www.ph.ucla.edu/epi/bioter/bioterrorismplumisland.html. P

Ginzburg, Ralph. "Top-Secret Plum I. Beckons Public." New York Times, 28 Aug. 1994. Biography in Context, link.galegroup.com. Accessed 18 Oct. 2017.  S

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Marshall, Eliot. "GERMS: Biological Weapons and America's Secret War." Smithsonian, Dec. 2001, p. 111. Science In Context, go.galegroup.com. Accessed 27 Oct. 2017. S

"Plum Island Animal Disease Center." Encyclopedia of Espionage, Intelligence and Security, edited by K. Lee Lerner and Brenda Wilmoth Lerner, vol. 2, Gale, 2004, pp. 427-428. Global Issues in Context, ezproxy.com.edu/login?url=http://link.galegroup.com. Accessed 3 Oct. 2017. T

Snavely, Jason. "Lyme disease: the stealth illness." Petersen's Bowhunting, Oct. 2017, p. 22+. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?p=ITOF&sw=w&u=j084901001&v=2.1&it=r&id=GALE. Accessed 26 Oct. 2017. S

Von Hassell, Agostino. "Dark past, bright lights: how the U.S. got Nazi Germany's best scientists." Military History, Jan.-Feb. 2007, p. 30+. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com. Accessed 22 Oct. 2017. S