Saturday, April 25, 2009

Is the Current Flu Virus the Result of a High Tech Assassination Attempt on President Obama?

I realize that writing this current post will put me out on the outer fringe of conspiracy theorists, but hear me out. There are enough oddities here that at an investigation of some sort should begin.

Here's my case. It is based on four facts.

1.During President Obama's recent trip to Mexico, Obama was received at Mexico’s anthropology museum in Mexico City by Felipe Solis, a distinguished archaeologist who died the following day from symptoms similar to flu, Reforma newspaper reported.

Clearly, if the man died the next day, he was highly contagious when Obama met him, and could have infected Obama easily. That, it appears, he didn't infect Obama could just be a matter of luck for Obama.

2. Given that it is possible that Obama could have been infected and that the virus appears to kill the healthy, then it is clearly possible that this could have been lethal to Obama if he caught it.

3. This flu is appearing at an odd time, suggesting the possibility of a synthetic virus and not a natural virus.

NYT , for example, reports:

Mexico’s flu season is usually over by now, but health officials have noticed a significant spike in flu cases since mid-March. The W.H.O. said there had been 800 cases in Mexico in recent weeks, 60 of them fatal, of a flulike illness that appeared to be more serious than the regular seasonal flu. Mr. Córdova said Friday that there were 1,004 possible cases.


4. As a layman, this virus seems to me to be quite the combination. NYT again:

The new strain contains gene sequences from North American and Eurasian swine flus, North American bird flu and North American human flu, said the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
I have no idea if such a combination is likely to occur in nature, or is more likely synthetic. I would like to hear from a panel of experts on it.

Here's fully what I would like to learn from an investigation:

When was it decided that Solis would greet the President?

Who were the people that knew, and when did they know, that Solis would be greeting the President?

To the degree possible, determine who did Solis come in contact with, or where did he travel, that could have been the source of his catching the flu.

From a panel of experts:

What is the likelihood that the virus was synthetically created?

An investigation that attempts to answer these questions will go a long way to answering the question as to innocent answers to the above questions, or answers that suggest even further investigation is required.

Obviously, if this was an assassination attempt, it was done at a very sophisticated level and not some lone nut. Possibly a country that had the wherewithal to do it and was not happy with the direction the President is taking on certain issues.

They keep Obama in a bubble. I see the way he travels around D.C. I would think it's pretty near impossible for a gunman to get to Obama (unless it is someone already around him who has a gun-- a guard losing it type thing) But sophisticated planners, who can do the hit through a third person who will have the virus and will be able to pass through security, while the real perpetrators are not even at the scene, that could only be executed by very serious players.

Keep this in mind. The population of Mexico City, where Obama was greeted by Solis, is roughly 8.8 million people. If we assume all the 1,000 reported cases of the flu in Mexico are in Mexico City, the odds of any specific person in Mexico City having the virus is .0125%. And this guy ends up greeting the President, when he is highly contagious? It's investigation time.

UPDATE: Mexico's health secretary, Jose Cordova, said Solis had a pre-existing illness and died of pneumonia unrelated to influenza.

The guy has pneumonia and allowed to greet the president? Oh yeah.

UPDATE 2 White House press secretary Robert Gibbs says "the president's health was never in any danger," when asked about reports that Obama's host on a museum tour in Mexico City died the next day, and had flu-like symptoms. The flu has a 24-48 hour incubation period, he said and Obama left Mexico nine days ago and has not shown symptoms of the flu nor has he been seen by a doctor or received preventative treatment. 

There was no mention by Gibbs of what Solis died of, i.e. flu, pneumonia, etc., other than that Obama is past the incubation stage for the flu. Thus, suggesting that the White House may believe that Solis had the flu virus and not pneumonia.

13 comments:

  1. I pondered the synthetic possibility, but had no clue as to the Obama-Solis connection.

    You suggest country. If there is a plot, it's more likely corporate multinationals with ready access to black box programs. Isn't everything contracted nowadays?

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  2. Bloomberg News Reports: Obama's Mexico City Host Dies One Day After Meeting-- From Flu-Like Symptoms. According to Bloomberg News, "The outbreak coincided with President Barack Obama’s trip to Mexico City on April 16. Obama was received at Mexico’s anthropology museum in Mexico City by Felipe Solis, a distinguished archeologist who died the following day from symptoms similar to flu, Reforma newspaper reported. The newspaper didn’t confirm if Solis had swine flu or not." [Bloomberg News, 4/25/09, link]

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  3. I believe most evolutionary biologists would say that your suggestion that a virus could be designed is an unscientific statement.

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  4. Bob, you are being disenginous. NO scientist ANYWHERE would claim that the suggestion a virus was partially genetically engineered is unscientific. Genetic engineering is a well-established technology.

    The burden here is to prove that THIS virus was engineered.

    Fine difference: we have SEEN viruses being genetically manipulated by humans, and since then we accept it.

    The idea that genetic engineering would be possible would have been outright rejected two hundred yeras ago by the same types who today reject evolution.

    They would have said: disease is created by an intelligent being we cannot comprehend. Disease is irreducably complex, it cannot come about naturally.

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  5. Sometimes, a cigar is just a cigar, and sometimes, people die of diseases.

    Was he the first to die of the disease? If yes, then we have something interesting. If he was just one of many.... well....

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  6. @ James Rothfeld

    Playing Devil's advocate here, and you assume a sinister group at work, Solis would not have to be the first.

    To throw people off the track of thinking potential conspiracy theory, wouldn't you infect others first?

    The key is to find out, if possible, how Solis got infected, if he, in fact, did die of the virus.

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  7. The Bush administration played with the RNA from the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic. It is an H1N1 virus. The Mexico Swine flu is a variant of H1N1. It could be a simple coincidence.

    But anthrax came from America's bioterrorism labs.

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  8. For me, the timing doesn't work at all. The outbreak started weeks before Obama's visit.

    Solis certainly didn't have to be the first, but it would have helped if the spike in cases started closer to the time of Obama's visit.

    In the hypothetical where you turn loose a bug, if the bug is expected to be deadly enough, you do not want it running loose for a few weeks, killing people, with sufficient lead time to notice there's a nasty bug out there and change the logistics of the trip.

    I don't think you can count on Mexican public health people to just not notice or not say anything for weeks. The fact that they missed it as long as they did is surprising in retrospect, but I can't see how you could have timed the delay ahead of time. You certainly can't predict how long it will take for your bug to start hitting other cities in the US with the consequent public health alarms.

    However, for the conspiracy minded out there, I think it's worth bearing in mind what happened to the last President who shamed the intelligence corps: Public execution in Dealy Plaza.

    Nothing subtle is going to go on. It's going to be very public.

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  9. @ Annonymous

    Well, if it was an attempt. The facts as they played out suggest it was timed well enough so that the bug was noticed to the degree that the president's trip was

    A. not canceled

    B. people he came in contact with were not screened for fevers.

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  10. Robert, maybe... But, that's proving an assumption with another assumption. Now you'll have to prove either that a) such a conspiracy exists, or b) that the virus is artificial. :)

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  11. I recommend you stop now. Seriously. You push this idea too hard, and you'll end up looking as weird as weird can be.

    Just a friendly advice, since I really like your blog.

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  12. @ James Rothfeld
    But, that's proving an assumption with another assumptionI am not trying to prove anything by assumptions. Your argument was that Solis had to be the first infected as part of a conspiracy theory. I merely pointed out that this was not the case.

    I recommend you stop now. Seriously. You push this idea too hard, and you'll end up looking as weird as weird can be. I am aware of the dangers of pushing this. That said, the facts are the way they are. A very, very small percentage of people in Mexico contracted a very deadly virus, one of those ended up greeting the president. I am just calling for more examination of the facts.

    Thanks for the advice, though

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  13. It also makes it very hard for me to send people to your site for the economic information. I think it's hard enough to be an Austrian as it stands.

    Reminds me of the joke about the rabbi in the New York subway who says to a black guy reading Haaretz "Weren't you born with enough problems already?"

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