Munitions, Birth Defects, and Science Teachers

Capitalist ruling class systems and their political puppets and systems are not your protectors and they never will be. Your taxes build the systems and technologies that destroy working class health and enrich their pockets not yours.

Posting this in loving memory of Jason Johnson. (World’s best euchre partner and dear friend)

Jason was born with a cleft palate. The organochlorine munition technology responsible for that birth defect has precision sniper fire during fetal development. Most are unaware that that particular munition’s sniper fire also often hits other developing organs at the same time. It also struck his wonderful heart. Jason dropped dead of a heart attack while walking across campus. He was only 21-years-old and never got the opportunity to teach his own science class. He was my TA in my Elements of Earth Science class and he befriended me after my fall from grace at our small Lutheran University in River Forest, IL. It’s a hard social fall when you reject the church you were raised in and call off an engagement to one of the most popular men on campus. Jason softened my landing. Playing cards and catch in the courtyard while talking about science and life with Jason made life beautiful again. I didn’t like his favorite music but I tolerated listening to it because his company was what I appreciated more.

“Get out of here! Transfer to the University of Iowa and don’t be afraid. Don’t even be afraid of dying. Study the stars and learn about the world and its history. You’ve already outgrown this small minded place. The university is large but your mind is even bigger than that place because it’s opened wide,” he said. I listened to his wise advice. Jason’s life was struck painfully short. So very thankful that Jason was my dear friend. Friends like Jason make you stronger. I wish he were still here. I am sober and wide awake now, dear friend. I am so very thankful that his voice is still in my mind guiding me through my life. The people I have loved and been loved by have shaped me more than any human created institution. I’ve discovered that the same ruling class capitalists destroying our working class biological health are the ones that also control and destroy the institutions that should be explaining their technologies and systems that destroy our collective health. Our taxes fill their pockets and not the victims of their systems and technologies…

I know he would love knowing that I occasionally listen to Tool because it reminds me of him. I refused to not “rot in an apathetic existence.” I know Jason would be proud of all that I’ve learned.

Those who have cleft palates need to make certain that their hearts are healthy and strong. Infants born with cleft palates only have their hearts checked if they hear something that indicates that something is wrong. It is essential that Infants born with cleft palates have a thorough examination of their hearts as they grow. In a literate working class controlled world, we would not design our habitat systems that mass produce the organochlorine munition technology causes of the defects in the first place. We don’t even need these technologies or our capital ruling class parasites and their community destroying systems either.

An excerpt from Poisoned Profits: The Toxic Assault on Our Children by Philip Shabecoff and Alice Shabecoff.

“The small city of Dickson is in the middle of Tennessee, but it could be anywhere in America… (or our world)

Not God’s Fault

The attending physician kept up a cheerful, reassuring stream of talk as he assisted Jenny in her Labor. “Peyton came facedown. When Dr. Booker turned him over, he stopped talking,” Judy recalled. “He had his back to us, but when the nurse gave him a shove, he turned around and had tears running down his cheeks.”

The baby’s face was badly disfigured with a cleft lip and a bilateral cleft palate. And though they did not know it immediately, Peyton also had a damaged heart., a valve that failed to close properly. “I had never seen this defect except after it had been fixed,” Judy said of Peyton’s cleft palate. “My heart was in my throat. My husband walked into the room and put his arm around me, and we went into the hall. The first thing I said was, ‘Why would God do this to me, as much as I love children and worked with them all my life? Why would he do this?’ My husband said, “Honey, this is not God’s fault.’

“ Two weeks after Peyton was born, Jenny was given the name of another mother in Dickson whose child, born a couple months earlier, also had a cleft palate. Then a woman called Judy at her daycare center and asked if she could accommodate children with special needs because ultrasound tests found that her child was about to be born with a cleft palate. “That made three,” Judy said. She and the other mothers kept a tally. Soon they counted six. Judy placed a newspaper advertisement asking families with similar defects to contact her. And, as it turned out, nineteen children had been born in Dickson with a cleft lip and palate in a little over two years. The odds against such a series of identical birth defects were almost certainly too high to be coincidental. In a city the size of Dickson, perhaps as many as two cases of bilateral cleft lip and palate might be expected in the same period. Clearly, something was happening.

Cleft palates were not the only ills afflicting Dickson’s children. Within a brief period, four babies were born with a rare brain malformation, where the two hemispheres of the brain are not connected. There have been a large number of cases of hypospadias, a condition in male children where the urethra is inverted. There also has been a high incidence of heart problems in Dickson babies, as well as childhood leukemia, the families reported.

“When I realized how many children had defects, I called the Dickson County Health Department,” Judy said. “The registered nurse there said, ‘We’ll bring this up and call you back.’ They never did. I’m still waiting six years later. Then I called the Centers for Disease Control [and Prevention (CDC)] in Atlanta, but they said, ‘This isn’t what we do.’ ” Finally, on the advice of a public health official in Nashville, she contacted Betty Mekdeci, who runs a nonprofit organization in Orlando, Florida, that monitors birth defects around the nation. Mekdeci told her that there were as many babies with cleft palates born in Dickson during that period as in the entire state of Wisconsin and nine times the national average. Following Mekdeci’s advice, Judy got a map of Dickson County and put an “X” down to mark the location of each family with a cleft palate baby. What she found was surprising. Most of the families lived in the southwest quadrant of the county, where Dickson County landfill is located.

The landfill had opened in 1968 as the Dickson City dump. A decade later, the county brought the property and expanded it for use as a sanitary landfill; though the Tennessee Department of Public Health found the area suitable for use as a sanitary landfill, it recommended that no liquid wastes be disposed of there. Nevertheless, the landfill too began accepting industrial liquid wastes from manufacturing facilities in the area, including Scoville-Schrader, Inc., which made automotive parts. It would be another ten years, however, before tests were conducted to determine if water beneath and around the fill was contaminated, and then only after a nearby resident contacted the county to voice suspicion that a spring on her property might be contaminated.

It was. Tests conducted by private contractors working for the county and state, and later the federal Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), found that a brew of chemicals from the landfill had made its way to the groundwater under the dump and was spreading out through the karst rock, a geological foundation riddled with countless cracks, that underlies much of Dickson County. The pollutants included toxic chemicals such as benzene, toluene, xylene, and most ubiquitously, trichloroethylene (TCE), an industrial solvent widely used for degreasing machine parts and in the production of other chemicals. TCE had been heavily used and then dumped in the landfill and elsewhere by the Scoville-Schrader plant and other manufacturers in the area, Judy Code and other residents said. TCE is known or suspected of causing a number of chronic illnesses, including several forms of cancer and birth defects. There is evidence that it can be a specific cause of cleft palates, although the available data is limited.

Dumping and Denial

By 1975, the Tennessee Department of Public Health said that no more liquid wastes should be disposed of in the landfill, but Scovill continued to dump “trailer loads” of liquids into the facility, according to local residents. Residents told Judy Cude about the barrels carted away by private contractors and buried on farms in the area. One worker confessed to her, “I buried this shit all over the county.” Lynn Agee, a lawyer representing several of the families in lawsuits against Scovill, said that discovery had produced substantial documentation of dumping….

While there were fluctuations, test after test revealed high levels of TCE and other toxic contaminants in the water, including in wells use by families for drinking and bathing and in at least one well that fed Dickson’s public water supply….

Scovill-Schrader pulled up stakes and moved to North Carolina in 1984, resuming a company history of leaving a community and its workers when local conditions proved unpleasant… Don Corn, a UAW official in Tennesse, contends that “Schrader left the Dickson plant because the heat was on. The state environmental agencies were starting to look into their habits, and they were running out of space to put their industrial waste.” Confirming what Judy Cude had heard, Corn adds, “They filled up the area behind their plant and the county landfill and even contracted out to private firms to bury the TCE. Once the cat was out of the bag, many barrels were dug up and hauled to Emelle, Alabama.” – Poisoned Profits: The Toxic Assault on Our Children by Philip Shabecoff and Alice Shabecoff

(Portions from Chapter 1: Inquest.)

Drinking water supplies for 14 million Americans are contaminated with a cancer-causing industrial solvent made notorious by the book and film “A Civil Action,” according to a new EWG analysis of tests from public utilities nationwide. The chemical is trichloroethylene, or TCE.

https://www.ewg.org/childrenshealth/carcinogen-pollutes-tap-water-supplies-14-million-americans/

Most citizens are familiar TCE and W.R. Grace from this film

“A Civil Action is a film based on the true story of a group of families in a small town just north of Boston who sued major US companies in the early 1980s for leukemia deaths and other health problems caused by the dumping of poisonous chemicals that seeped into their community’s water supply. It is also the story of Boston lawyer Jan Schlichtmann, the unlikely hero who took up their cause.

The history of the legal case mounted by residents of Woburn, Massachusetts against chemical giant W.R. Grace and consumer goods conglomerate Beatrice Foods was chronicled in the 500-page 1995 bestseller of the same title written by Jonathon Harr. Twelve children contracted leukemia in the town of 36,000 from the late 1960s to the early ’80s. Of these, eight lived within a half-mile radius of each other and six lived in one east Woburn neighborhood of just 200 families. Cancer deaths in town during the mid-1970s increased by 17 percent.

A new water well had been opened in 1964 near an industrial park. Despite residents’ complaints of “foul, ill-smelling water,” the city refused to shut it down until 1979. Trichloroethylene (TCE) was later found in the well water. In 1979 a half-buried lagoon polluted with toxic chemicals was also discovered, contaminated with arsenic, chromium, lead and animal wastes.”

But few know that Otto Ambros, Hitler’s Director of Chemical Weapons and IG Farben’s Director of Chemical Operations, and J. Peter Grace worked collaboratively. J. Peter Grace worked to protect Ambros repeatedly and the two shared the same business practices of destroying their workers and the communities where their businesses were located as they expanded their munition technology markets.

“Concerning the firms abroad where I am a permanent co-worker advisor,” Ambros wrote, “I won’t name them [publicly] because I don’t want to tip off any journalists who might cause trouble with my friends. You know about W.R. Grace in New York… and I hope I can stay with Hibernia Company.

Concerning the firms in Israel,” Ambros wrote, “stating their names publicly would be very embarrassing because they are [run by] very public, well-respected persons in public positions that have actually been at my home and are aware of my position, how I behaved during the Reich, and they accept this.”

(Keep in mind that these monsters didn’t even use anesthesia when they completed liver biopsies on death camp victims in their research)

The “well-respected” public figures in Israel to whom Ambros referred have never been revealed. That Ambros also had worked for the American company W.R Grace would take decades to come to light. When it did, in the early 1980s, the public would also learn that Otto Ambros worked as a consultant for the U.S. Department of Energy, formerly the Atomic Energy Commission, “to develop and operate a plant for the hydrogenation of coal in a scale of 4 million tons/year at the former IG Farben industry.” That a convicted war criminal had been hired by the Department of Energy sparked indignation, and congressmen and journalists sought further details about Ambros’s U.S. government contract. In a statement to the press, the Department of Energy insisted that the paperwork had been lost…” – Operation Paperclip by Annie Jacobson (page 418.)

Sadly, no capitalist ruling class controlled institution will provide the truth about the biological destruction of their munition technologies and systems created by working class taxes and designed to destroy working class health and profit off that destruction.

A Civil Action Trailer

“Workers exposed to tricholorethylene (TCE), a chemical once widely used to clean metal such as auto parts, may be at a significantly higher risk of developing Parkinson’s disease, according to a study released today that will be presented at the American Academy of Neurology’s 62nd Annual Meeting in Toronto April 10 to April 17, 2010.”

https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2010-02/aaon-icl020210.php

Those long hot showers in communities with TCE water contamination have elevated risks for Parkinson’s disease and much more as well. Many tap water supplies are contaminated with over the health based limit (based on ingestion exposure) for Trichloroethylene.

Inhalation and dermal exposures are not factored into the health based limit. A ten-minute shower or thirty-minute bath contributed a greater internal dose than drinking half a gallon of tap water. http://ehp.niehs.nih.gov/docs/1996/104-1/weiselabs.html

Intolerance by Tool

A working class that accepts the munition sniper fire of our children’s epigenome and rejects learning the science that explain the destruction of our children’s development for capital ruling class profits have empty minds and hearts and cease having souls… they are willing participants in the extinction of our species!

Our children deserve far better

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Handy Genes and the Origin of Epigenetic Understanding of Birth Defects

Once upon a time I called myself an artist. I’ve learned much through books. I’ve learned the importance of looking far beneath the surface to understand life and the world I live in. There’s so much more beauty in complexity than only examining skin and it provides far more understanding.

An excerpt from “Your Inner Fish” by Neil Shubin – 2008

HANDY GENES

We begin with an apparent puzzle. Our body is made up of hundreds of different kinds of cells. This cellular diversity gives our tissues and organs their distinct shapes and functions. The cells that make our bones, nerves, guts, and so on look and behave entirely differently. Despite these differences, there is a deep similarity among every cell inside our bodies: all of them contain exactly the same DNA. If DNA contains the information to build our bodies, tissues, and organs, how is it that cells as different as those found in muscle, nerve, and bone contain the same DNA?

The answer lies in understanding what pieces of DNA (the genes) are actually turned on in every cell. A skin cell is different from a neuron because different genes are active in each cell. When a gene is turned on, it makes a protein that can affect what the cell looks like and how it behaves. Therefore, to understand what makes a cell in the eye different from a cell in the bones of the hand, we need to know about the genetic switches that control the activity of genes in each cell and tissue.

Here’s an important fact: these genetic switches help to assemble us. At conception, we start as a single cell that contains all the DNA needed to build our body. The plan for that entire body unfolds via instructions contained in this single microscopic cell. To go from this generalized egg cell to a complete human, with trillions of specialized cells organized in just the right way, whole batteries of genes need to be turned on and off at just the right stages of development. Like a concerto composed of individual notes played by many instruments, our bodies are a composition of individual genes turning on and off inside each cell during our development…

When we compare the ensemble of genes active in the development of a fish fin to those active in the development of a human hand, we can catalogue the genetic differences between fins and limbs. This kind of comparison gives us some likely culprits–the genetic switches that may have changed during the origin of limbs. We can then study what these genes are doing in the embryo and how they might have changed. We can even do experiments in which we manipulate the genes to see how bodies actually change in response to different conditions or stimuli…..We will begin by looking at the structure of our limbs, and zoom all the way down to the tissues, cells, and genes that make it.

MAKING HANDS

Our limbs exist in three dimensions: they have a top and a bottom, a pinky side and a thumb side, a base and a tip. The bones at the tips, in our fingers, are different from the bones at our shoulder. Likewise, our hands are different from one side to the other. Our pinkies are shaped differently from one side to the other. The Holy Grail of our developmental research is to understand what genes differentiate the various bones of our limb, and what controls development in these three dimensions. What DNA actually makes a pinky different from a thumb? What makes our fingers distinct from our arm bones? If we understand the genes that control such patterns, we will be privy to the recipe that builds us.

All the genetic switches that make our fingers, arm bones, and toes do their thing during the third to eighth week after conception. Limbs begin their development as tiny buds that extend from our embryonic bodies. The buds grow over two weeks, until the tip forms a paddle. Inside this paddle are millions of cells which will ultimately give rise to the skeleton, nerves, and muscles that we’ll have for the rest of our lives.

To study how this pattern emerges, we need to look at embryos and sometimes interfere with their development to assess what happens when things go wrong. Moreover, we need to look at mutants and at their internal structures and genes, often by making whole mutant populations through careful breeding. Obviously, we cannot study humans in these ways. The challenge for the pioneers in this field was to find the animals that could be useful windows into our own development. The first experimental embryologists interested in limbs in the 1930s and 1940s faced several problems. They needed an organism in which the limbs were accessible for observation and experiment. The embryo had to be relatively large, so that they could perform surgical procedures on it. Importantly, the embryo had to grow in a protected place, in a container that sheltered it from jostling and other environmental disturbances. Also, and critically, the embryos had to be abundant and available year-round. the obvious solution to this scientific need is at your local grocery store: chicken eggs.

In the 1950s and 1960s a number of biologists, including Edgar Zwilling and John Saunders, did extraordinary creative experiments on chicken eggs to understand how the pattern of the skeleton forms. This was an era of slice and dice. Embryos were cut up and various tissues moved about to see what effect this had on development. The approach involved very careful microsurgery, manipulating patches of tissue no more than a millimeter think. In that way, by moving tissues about in the developing limb, Saunders and Zwilling uncovered some of the key mechanisms that build limbs as different as bird wings, whale flippers, and human hands.

They discovered that two little patches of tissue essentially control the development of the pattern of bones inside limbs. A strip of tissue at the extreme end of the limb bud is essential for all limb development. Remove it, and development stops. Remove it early, and we are left with only an upper arm, or a piece of an arm. Remove it slightly later, and we end up with an upper arm and a forearm. Remove it even later, and the arm is almost complete, except that the digits are short and deformed.

Another experiment, initially done by Mary Gasseling in John Saunder’s laboratory, led to a powerful new line of research. Take a little patch of tissue from what will become the pinky side of a limb bud, early in development, and transplant it on the opposite side, just under where the first finger will form. Let the chick develop and form a wing. The result surprised nearly everybody. The wing developed normally except that it also had a full duplicate set of digits. Even more remarkable was the pattern of the digits: the new fingers were mirror images of the normal set. Obviously, something inside that patch of tissue, some molecule or gene, was able to direct the development of the pattern of the fingers. This result spawned a blizzard of new experiments, and we learned that this effect can be mimicked by a variety of other means. For example, take a chicken embryo and dab a little vitamin A (retinoic acid) on its limb bud, or simply inject vitamin A into the egg. and let the embryo develop. If you supply the vitamin A at the right concentration and at the right stage, you’ll get the same mirror-image duplication that Gasseling, Saunders, and Zwilling got from the grafting experiments. This patch of tissue was named the zone of polarizing activity (ZPA). Essentially, the ZPA is a patch of tissue that causes the pinky side to be different from the thumb side. Obviously chicks do not have a pinky and a thumb. The terminology we use is to the number of digits, with our pinky corresponding to digit five of other animals and our thumb corresponding to digit one.

The ZPA drew interest because it appeared, in some way, to control the formation of fingers and toes. But how? Some people believed that the cells in the ZPA made a molecule that then spread across the limb to instruct cells to make different fingers. The key proposal was that it was the concentration of this named molecule that was the important factor. In areas close to the ZPA, where there is a high concentration of this molecule, cells would respond by making a pinky. In the opposite side of the developing hand, farther from the ZPA so that the molecule was more diffused, the cells would respond by making a thumb. Cells in the middle would each respond according to the concentration of this molecule to make the second, third, and fourth fingers.

This concentration-dependent idea could be tested. In 1979, Denis Summerbell placed an extremely small piece of foil between the ZPA patch and the rest of the limb. The idea was to use this barrier to prevent any kind of molecule from diffusing from the ZPA to the other side. Summerbell studied what happened to the cells on each side of the barrier. Cells on the opposite side often did not form digits; if they did, the digits were badly malformed. The conclusion was obvious. Something was emanating from the ZPA that controlled how the digits formed and what they looked like. To identify that something, researchers needed to look at DNA.

THE DNA RECIPE

That project was left to a new generation of scientists. Not until the 1990s, when new molecular techniques became available, was the genetic control for the ZPA’s operation unraveled.

A major breakthrough happened in 1993, when Cliff Tabin’s laboratory at Harvard started hunting for the genes that control the ZPA. Their prey was the molecular mechanisms that gave the ZPA its ability to make our pinky different from our thumb. By this time his group started to work in the early 1990s, a number of experiments like the ones I’ve described had led us to believe that some sort of molecule caused the whole thing. This was a grand theory, but nobody knew what this molecule was. People would propose one molecule after another, only to find that none was up to the job. Finally, the Tabin lab came up with a novel notion, and one very relevant to the theme of this book. Look to flies for the answer.

Genetic experiments in the 1980s had revealed the wonderful pattern of gene activity that sculpts the body of a fly from a single-celled egg. The body of a fruit fly is organized from front to back, with the head at the front and the wings at the back. Whole batteries of genes are turned on and off during fly development, and this pattern of gene activity serves to demarcate the different regions of the fly.

Tabin didn’t know at the time, but two other laboratories–those of Andy MacMahon and Phil Ingham–had already come up with the same general idea independently. What emerged was a remarkably successful collaboration among three different lab groups. One of the fly genes caught the attention of Tabin, McMahon, and Ingham. They noted that this gene made one end of a body segment look different from the other. Fly geneticists named it hedgehog. Doesn’t the function of hedgehog in the fly body–to make one region different from another–sound like what ZPA does in making the pinky different from the thumb? That parallel was not lost on the three labs. So off they went, looking for a hedgehog gene in creatures like chickens, mice, and fish.

Because the lab groups knew the structure of the fly’s hedgehog gene, that had a search image to help them single out the gene in chickens. Each gene sequence; using a number of molecular tools, the researchers could scan a chicken’s DNA for the hedgehog sequence. After a lot of trial and error, they found a chicken hedgehog gene.

Just as paleontologists get to name a new species, geneticists get to name new genes. The fly geneticists who discovered hedgehog had named it that because the flies with a mutation in the gene had bristles that reminded them of a little hedgehog. Tabin, McMahon, and Ingham named the chicken version of the gene Sonic hedgehog, after the Sega Genesis video game.

Now came the fun question: What does Sonic hedgehog actually do in the limb? The Tabin group attached a dye to a molecule that would stick to the gene, enabling them to visualize where the gene is active in the limb. To their great surprise, they found that only cells in a tiny patch of the limb had gene activity: the ZPA.

So the next steps were obvious. The patterns of activity in the Sonic hedgehog gene could mimic those of the ZPA tissue itself. Recall when you treat the limb with retinoic acid, a form of vitamin A, you get a ZPA active on the opposite side. Guess what happens when you treat a limb with retinoic acid, then map where Sonic hedgehog is active? Sonic hedgehog is active on both sides–pinky and thumb–just as the ZPA does when it is treated with retinoic acid.

Knowing the structure of the chicken Sonic hedgehog gave other researchers the tools to look for it in everything else that has fingers, from frogs to humans. Every limbed animal has the Sonic hedgehog gene. And in every single animal we have studied, Sonic hedgehog is active in ZPA tissue. If Sonic hedgehog hadn’t turned on properly during the eight week of your own development, then you either would have extra fingers or your pinky and thumb would look alike. Occasionally, when things go wrong with Sonic hedgehog, the hand ends up looking like a broad paddle with as many as twelve fingers that all look alike.

We now know that Sonic hedgehog is one of dozens of genes that act to sculpt our limbs from shoulder to fingertip by turning on and off at the right time. Remarkably, work in chickens, frogs, and mice was telling us the same thing. The DNA recipe to build upper arms, forearms, wrists, and digits is virtually identical in every creature that has limbs.

How far back can we trace Sonic hedgehog and other bits of DNA that build limbs? Is this stuff active in building the skeleton of fish fins? Or are hands genetically completely different from fish fins? We saw an inner fish in the anatomy of our arms and hands. What about the DNA that builds it? ….”

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Eli Lilly’s Underground Bioweapons Lab and the Assassinations of John and Robert Kennedy

 

This is Dr. Mary Sherman. Please remember her face because she tried to save your children’s lives by blowing a critically important whistle. She was brutally murdered for trying to warn you all. And the men she warned were destroyed as well.

Book excerpt from Mary Ferrie and the Monkey Virus: The Story of an Underground Medical Laboratory.

Chapter 3: The Classroom

“In one of my classes there was a student named Nicky. His father was Dr. Nicolas Chetta, the Coronor of Orleans Parish who was involved with Garrison’s investigation. Dr. Chetta was somewhat of a local celebrity for us. Not only was he an elected politician whose name was frequently in the press, but he was the team physician for our football team. Once he even took our class to on a memorable field trip to the city morgue….

Nicky erupted and said in a loud, tense voice that Garrison had gotten a “raw deal.”….

Then Nicky started talking. He held the class spellbound for fifteen minutes with information about the investigation, much of which had either not been revealed to the press or which they had basically ignored. We all listened carefully. His points included:

– that someone, presumably the FBI or the CIA, had bugged Garisson’s office and conference rooms and had stolen and/or photocopied his files concerning Clay Shaw and had turned them over to Shaw’s attorneys.

– that ALL of Garisson’s extradition requests for witnesses from other states had been turned down, as had all of his requests to subpoena former federal officials, preventing him from assembling the pieces of his puzzle in a court of law.

– that an ex-pilot named David Ferrie and a former high-ranking official named Guy Banister had been training anti-Castro Cubans for paramilitary assaults against Cuba at a secret training camp across Lake Pontchartrain, and

– that Ferrie and Banister had stolen weapons for this operation from a company in Houma, Louisiana which was operating as a CIA front. Nicky said he couldn’t pronounce the name of the company, but said that the name “looked German, but sounded French.” (He was referring to the Schlumberger Tool Company, pronounced Slum-ber-jay.”)

Someone asked Nicky why we had not heard all this in the press. It was a fair question. We had been taught that the press was the “Watchdog of Government.” How could they have overlooked these obvious and important points. Nicky paused and said Garisson’s favorite saying was “Treason never prospers, for if it prospers, none dare call it treason….

Ferrie was an unusual man in many respects. Professionally, he was a pilot. Politically, he was a notorious right wing extremist. Personally, he was completely bald from head-to-toe and was a homosexual who favored teenage boys… Ferrie died several days after Garrison’s investigation was made public. Garrison, who was about to arrest Ferrie for conspiring to murder President Kennedy, thought that either Ferrie had been murdered to silence him or that Ferrie had silenced himself. But it was the Coroner’s job, not the District Attorney’s, to rule on the cause of death. Dr. Chetta, Nicky’s father, was the Coroner and said he found no evidence of foul play. Therefore, he ruled that Ferrie died of natural causes (a ruptured blood vessel in the brain) and noted that Ferrie had been under enormous stress.

Nicky continued: Ferrie had known Lee Harvey Oswald when he was a cadet at the Civil Air Patrol and had been with him that summer…

Nicky said the day they announced Ferrie’s death, Bobby Kennedy called his father to discuss the cause of death with his father. A murmur shot through the room. Nicky countered by saying that he had answered the phone himself. Thinking it was a prank, he hung up on the Senator, But Kennedy called back. This time Nicky’s father answered the phone himself.

Then Nicky started talking about Ferrie’s apartment which his father had seen the day Ferrie died. Ferrie lived alone. But in his closets they had found both women’s clothing and priest’s robes. They also found a small laboratory with a dozen mice in cages which he used for medical experiments. His medical equipment included microscopes, syringes, surgical tools, and a medical library. When he talked to Ferrie’s other landlords, they were told of a full scale laboratory in his apartment with thousands of mice in cages. He was inducing cancer! Ferrie claimed he was looking for a cure for cancer, but Garrison’s investigators thought he was trying to figure out a way to use cancer as an assassination weapon, presumably against Castro and his followers.

A student asked, “How could they induce cancer?”….

MONKEY VIRUSES! The room groaned. I rolled my eyes and dropped my forehead into my hand. Why did it have to be monkey viruses? Garrison was already misunderstood because his plot was stranger than jazz – too complex, too subtle, and too bizarre for the American TV audience. Why couldn’t it have been something simpler, like injecting rats with radiation. Cancer from plutonium? The public might follow that, but cancer from monkey viruses! The rest of the country would never buy it. The very words conjured up a dark college of alienating images – diseases imported from tropical jungles in the bellies of insects mixed with monkey heads boiled in voodoo rituals on the edge of the Louisiana swamp at midnight. It was all “so New Orleans.”

You could feel that everyone in the room wanted to believe Nicky, but it was hard to know what to say. Then somebody said, “I don’t get it. How could a monkey virus cause cancer?” Nicky said he didn’t understand that part either. My brain was about to burst, but I wasn’t about to bring Tulane into the conversation. Then another student blurted out that there was a “kid” down at Tulane Medical School who was dying from the total collapse of his immune system. They couldn’t figure out what was causing it. They gave him every antibiotic they had and nothing worked. He would get better for a while, and then he would get worse. While this comment was interesting, it sounded “off the wall.” Two thoughts raced through my head. First, what did the uncontrollable collapse of an immune system have to do with our discussion about monkey viruses? And secondly, I said to myself: I’m obviously not the only student at Jesuit that has a family member working at Tulane Medical School. I was certain that this was “insider” information. It was the first time I had ever heard it (But not the last!)…..

“But Mom,” I said in an exasperated and serious tone, “weren’t they researching monkey viruses down at Tulane Medical School? Don’t you think there could be a connection?”

“Well,” she said, “one of the doctors from Tulane was involved in that lab.”

Now, I was stunned. “Wait a second,” I countered and tried to get my bearings. “Are you telling me a professor from Tulane Medical School was involved in David Ferrie’s underground medical laboratory? The one with thousands of mice?”

“Oh, yes,” she said matter-of-factly. “Everybody down at the medical school was talking about it. It was in that Playboy interview with Garrison that you had around here a couple years ago. I took it to Boston with me that Christmas to see your sister.”

“Who was the doctor?” I muttered. I could barely get the question out.

“Her name was Mary Sherman. Daddy knew her. He had a lot of respect for her. I think she was a pathologist. You know, she was more of a researcher than a physician. A cancer researcher, I think.”

“What happened to her?” I asked, resigning myself to the fact that some terrible fate must have befallen her.

“She was killed. Murdered. A terrible thing. Slashed with a knife, dismembered, and set on fire. It looked like a sexual killing, you know. But the grapevine said that whoever killed her knew what they were doing with a knife… maybe even had a high level of medical knowledge, just judging by the way the cuts were done. What a terrible way to go!”

“Did they figure out who did it?” I queried hopefully.

“No. The investigation was shut down all of a sudden. It was all hush-hush, like it had been shut down from above. But they think she knew her murderer and probably let them into her apartment.”

“You said Daddy knew her?”

“Oh, yes. They worked together for years. She was older and considerably higher up the ladder than he was, but Daddy always said that she was one of the top people in her field. He had a lot of respect for her. Professional respect, I mean.”

“Did you ever meet her?”

“Yes, we had dinner at her apartment one night. A strange woman, but very sophisticated and very well traveled. And very into theatre and literature, I felt very out of place. All I could talk about was my children..”
“On July 23, 1964, however, the day after Mary Sherman’s murder, Oschner wrote a letter to his largest financial contributor saying “our government, our schools, our press, and our churches have become infiltrated with Communism.” – Page 185.

(It appears the communists must have forgotten to infiltrate “our hospitals” and we all know what the Nazis and the CIA did to “Communists” who attempted to destroy their for-profit hydrocarbon/munition model that profits from the sick and injured.)

“All of Mary Sherman’s scientific and medical books, treatises and equipment “of every kind, nature, and description” whether in her apartment, office or laboratory were given to the Alton Oschner Medical Foundation. The receipt for this bequest was signed by Dr. Alton Oschner himself.”… (on June 15, 1965.)

Chapter 13: What’s Wrong With This Picture?

… What of this fire? What was the temperature inside her apartment? And just how badly burned was Mary Sherman’s body?

The newspapers were of no help on this question. Other than generally describing her body as “charred,” all the press ever said about the damage to Dr. Sherman’s body was one quote which appeared on the last day of the 1964 press coverage. It read:

The fire smoldered for some time – long enough to denude an innerspring and burn away the flesh from one of the doctor’s arms.

It is interesting to consider that this was the only detail the public heard about the actual damage done to the victim’s body until the police reports were released nearly thirty years later.

The Precinct Report said:

From further examination of the body, it was noted by the coroner that the right arm and a portion of the right side of the body extending from the right hip to the right shoulder was completely burned away exposing various vital organs.

The cause of death was…. 5. Extreme burns of right side of body with complete destruction of right upper extremity and right side of thorax (chest) and abdomen.

The Homicide Report summarized these same autopsy findings and added:

The right side of the body from the waist to where the right shoulder should be, including the whole right arm, was apparently disintegrated from the fire, yielding the inside organs of the body.

Further, it describes the clothes which were piled on top of her body, some of which had never even burned.

The body was nude; however, there was clothing which had apparently been placed on top of her body, mostly covering the body from just above the pubic area to the neck. Some of the mentioned clothes had been burned completely, while others were still intact, but scorched.

According to the Criminologist, the mentioned clothes were composed of synthetic material which would have to reach a temperature of about 500 F before it would ignite into a flame; however, prior to this, there would be a smoldering effect.

Just to be clear, let me state what I think this saying. If the temperature in the bedroom reached 500 degrees Fahrenheit (260 degrees C) the clothes piled on top of Mary would have ignited and burned. Yet they did not. Therefore, the temperature in the room did not reach 500 degrees. The police, however, attributed the massive destruction to her body, including the disintegration of her right arm and the right side of her torso, to this less-than-500 degree fire.

Whatever burned off Mary’s right arm and right torso had to be extremely hot! how hot? Who would know what temperature it took to burn a bone? Perhaps someone who cremated bodies for a living. Since I did not know anyone in that line of work, I reached for the yellow pages and looked under “F” for funerals. After several calls, I reached a very personable and articulate man whose job it was to prepare cremated remains for burial.

“What temperature does it take to completely burn a body?” I asked promptly, expecting a quick answer with the precise number of degrees.

“Including bones?” he queried immediately.

“Well, that gets straight to the heart of the matter. Yes, including bones. I am writing a book about someone whose arm was completely burned off in a fire, and I am trying to figure out what temperature would be needed to do that.”

“Burned their arm off?” he exclaimed. “How unusual! What happened to the rest of the body?”

“It was more or less still intact,” I answered cautiously, concerned that he was going to get us off track.

“That’s bizarre,” he said. “I can’t imagine that. Are you sure it wasn’t cut off somehow?”

While he still had not given me the temperature number, I was impressed with how fast he got to the heart of the matter. I had not said anything about the nature of the death. It could have been a car wreck as far as he knew. But I was determined to get a cremation temperature from him before discussing any circumstantial evidence which might somehow color his answer. So I politely asked him to tell me the temperature of a cremation oven.

He said, “Well, the cremation machines are automatic nowadays so you don’t have to set them, but an average cremation takes about two hours at about 1,600 degrees. But when you are finished, there are still bones! Depending on body size and fat content, some take longer. I have seen them as high as 2000 degrees and for as long as three hours. But when you are finished, you still have bones, or at least pieces of bones like joints, skull fragments, and knuckles.

I now had my cremation number, but I was busy thinking about his answers. In the lull, he offered to give me some background on cremations and explained some popular misconceptions. The common belief, he said, it that you put a body in the cremation machine and get back ashes. No, that’s not how it works. Yes, it’s true that there are some ashes produced by burning skin and soft tissue, but that’s a relatively small portion of what remains. Most of what is left after cremation is a box of dry bone parts. The next step is to grind up those remains so that they are unrecognizable. The final product is bone dust, a powdery substance that resembles ashes. Hence, the term and the misconception. What cremation technically does is rapidly dehydrate the bone material so that it splinters. Then it can be ground into a powder more easily. But bones do not burn. To emphasize his point he explained that even the skull cap, which is in the direct path of flame during cremation frequently survives.

While he was being very helpful and I was learning more about cremation than I anticipated, my goal was still to get a temperature figure which would explain Mary’s missing right arm, so I pressed on. “Can you estimate what temperature it would take to completely burn off an arm?”

“Knuckles and all?” he countered.

“Everything,” I confirmed.

“Well, it’s hard to say. Before I got in the business, I saw a lot of burns. Some were military pilots who crashed their jets and got drenched in jet fuel. I would have to get the bodies out of the wreckage. Jet fuel burns at thousands of degrees, but there were still bones left. I also saw people who had been covered with napalm and the like. But there were still bones left. I can’t imagine how hot or how long it would take to completely burn a bone to the point of disintegration, but it’s way up there.”

I was getting his point. If Mary’s entire apartment building had been burning out of control and had caved on top of her body, it could not have produced the type of damage described in the police report. The smokey mattress and the smoldering pile of clothes with their less-than-500 degree temperature were certainly not capable of destroying the bones in Mary’s right arm and rib cage. Then a critical point hit me: The crime scene did not match the crime. It is impossible to explain the damage to Mary’s arm and the right side of her body with the evidence found in her apartment. Or to put it even more bluntly, the damage to Mary’s right arm and thorax did not occur in her apartment. It had to happen somewhere else. Her body was then quietly brought back to her apartment and deposited so it could be found there. A second fire was set to create an explanation, however tenuous, for the burns suffered earlier. It’s no wonder nobody heard anything.

Something else had happened to Mary earlier that evening. It would require something more violent than a common house fire to disintegrate her entire arm and right rib cage. It would take something that could generate thousands, if not millions, of degrees of heat for a fraction of a second, vaporizing and destroying everything in its path. Something more on the scale of lightening or a fireball from an extremely high voltage electrical source which would destroy any tissue in its path, but leave the rest of the body which did not hit relatively intact. Perhaps it was even an extremely powerful beam of high-energy electro-magnetic radiation just like the one that disintegrated electrical engineer Jack Nygard when he accidentally got stuck in the path of his 5,000,000 watt linear particle accelerator near Seattle, Washington….”

There was one lone survivor who worked in this underground bioweapons lab and she wrote a book about it.

Important excerpts from the 600 page book “Me and Lee: How I Came to know, love and lose Lee Harvey Oswald”

(A more accurate title would be “How we were deceived into building a bioweapon…”)

“Then Dr. Ferrie explained that their cancer project was getting results faster than typical research projects, because they did not have to do all the paperwork, and all this was under the direction of the great man himself, Dr. Alton Ochsner.

Dr. Ochsner again. So he was involved in this, too. Dr. Ferrie said Dr. Ochsner knew how to get things done.

He had access to anything needed and avoided red tape by bringing in some materials himself from Latin America. Ferrie described Ochsner’s Latin American connections in more detail, saying that he was the on-call physician for many Latin American leaders. He kept their secrets and got rewarded in return, including big donations to his Clinic. As a result, Ochsner had his own unregulated flow of funds and supplies for every possible kind of cancer research, with no oversight. “We’re using various chemicals, in combination with radiation, to see what happens with fast-growing cancers,” Ferrie said. “We’re using it to mutate monkey viruses too.”
Mutating monkey viruses! Radiation! Fast growing cancers!
“That’s exactly what I’ve been trained to handle,” I commented, noting how conveniently my skill set just happened to match their research.
“I was told you were,” Dr. Ferrie said, without explaining how he came by that particular piece of information, but I figured it had to be Dr. Ochsner… – page 140

The configuration of these labs was basically a circular process which repeated itself over and over. With each lap around the loop of laboratories, the cancer-causing viruses would become more aggressive, and more deadly. Originally, these viruses came from monkeys, but they had been enhanced with radiation. The virus we were most concerned with was SV40, the infamous carcinogenic virus that had contaminated the polio vaccines of the 1950s. But the science of the day was not terribly precise, and cross-infection between species was common in monkey labs. So it was impossible to know if we were working with SV40 only, or a collection of viruses.

We assumed there were probably other viruses traveling with it, but whether it was SV40 or SV37 or SIV did not really matter to us. What mattered was whether it produced cancer quickly. For our project, these cancer causing viruses had been transferred to mice because they were more economical than monkeys, and the viruses thrived just as easily, which is why mice are so widely used in medical research.

This loop included a large colony of thousands of mice kept in a house near Dave Ferrie’s apartment. I called it “the mouse house.” People connected to the Project handled the daily care and feeding of the mice, bred them to replace the population which was constantly being consumed. Several times each week, fifty or so live mice would be selected based upon apparent size of their tumors. These mice had tumors so large that they were visible to the naked eye. They would be placed in a cardboard box and quietly brought through he back door of Dave’s house for processing. Once in Dave’s kitchen, we would kill the mice with ether and harvest their tumors. Harvesting meant cutting their bodies open and excising the largest tumors. The tumors were then weighed, and their weights recorded in a journal. The odor was terrible The largest of the harvested tumors had a destiny. We first cut very thin slices from these tumors and examined them under a microscope. We had to be sure what kind of tumor we had, in each case. Bits of the “best” tumors were selected for individual treatment: each specimen was macerated, stained, mixed with RPMI medium, then poured into a carefully labeled test-tube. These were placed in Dave’s table centrifuge, and spun. Most cancer cells went to the bottom. The liquid on top was poured into a big flask, then more RPMI medium, with fetal calf serum, ad sometimes other materials, was added to each test tube. These were the beginnings of tissue cultures, to be grown elsewhere. – page 208
… Both Dave and Dr. Mary (Dr. Mary Sherman) began describing chilling experiments on human brains being conducted at Tulane by Dr. Robert Health…

Dave said, “Listen to this, J. ‘Dr. Health Tells New Technique. Electrical Impulses Sent Deep Into Brain… [a patient]… had tiny wires implanted into precise spots in his brain. The wires were attached to a self-stimulator box, which was equipped at a push button to deliver a tiny, electrical impulse to the brain…” Dave paused to let what he read sink in. “I wonder how many brains Health went through before he had success with these two. How long did it take to find those ‘precise spots’ in their brains with his hot little wires?”…

“I doubt John Q. Public will ever have a clue,” Dr. Mary replied. “They certainly have no idea they were getting cancer-causing monkey viruses in their polio vaccines,” she added bitterly. Seeing my expression of shock, Dr. Mary went on to explain that she and a few others had privately protested the marketing of the SV40-contaminated polio vaccine, but to no avail. The government continued to allow the distribution of millions of doses of the contaminated vaccine in America and abroad.
She said she was told that the new batches of the vaccine would be free of the cancerous virus, but privately she doubted it, noting that the huge stockpile of vaccines she knew were contaminated had not been recalled. To recall them would damage the public’s confidence, she explained.
I was speechless. Were they telling me that a new wave of cancer was about to wash over the world?
“The government is hiding these facts from the people,” Dave said, “so they won’t panic and refuse to take vaccines. But is it right? Don’t people have the right to be told the contaminant causes cancer in a variety of animals? Instead, they show you pictures in the newspaper of fashion models sipping the stuff, to make people feel safe.”
My mind raced. It was 1963. They had been distributing contaminated polio vaccines since 1955. For eight years! Over a hundred million doses! Even I had received it! A blood-curdling chill came over me…. – page 281

He is soft on Communism. He refuses to go to war. He lets his baby brother go after the Mob, and errant generals. He plans to retire Hoover and wants to tax “Big Oil.” He thinks he can get away with it, because he’s the Commander-in-Chief.”
I caught my breath, and glanced at Dr. Sherman as she began taking dishes from the table. The frown on her face told me they were deadly serious. Dave cleared his throat and coughed. “They’ll execute him,” Dave said, “reminding future Presidents who really controls this country… those who rise to the top will gain everything they ever hoped and look the other way.”
Dave’s hands trembled as he spoke. His nerves were as raw as his voice.
“If Castro dies first, we think the man’s life might be spared.”
“How?” I asked, as the weight of his comments began to sink in.
“If Castro dies, they’ll start jockeying for power over Cuba,” Dave said, “It will divide the coalition that is forming. It may save the man’s life.”
“Where… how did you get this information?” I pursued.
“You’re very young,” Dr. Sherman said. “But you have to trust us, just as we have to trust you. If we were really with them, you wouldn’t be privy to this information. These people have motive, the means, and the opportunity. They will seem as innocent as doves. But they’re deadly as vipers.”
“What about Dr. Ochsner?” I asked.
“I don’t know,” Dr. Sherman said. “I can’t tell, Perhaps…”
“He’s an unknown element,” Dave broke in. “But we know he’s friends with the moneybags. He thinks Mary and I hate ‘the man,’ just as he does.”
“I think he might aid the others,” Dr. Sherman said. “Perhaps without even knowing it. He functions as a go-between. His interest was originally to bring down Castro, because he’s anti-Communist to the core. But he’s remarkably naive.”
Dr. Sherman explained that in the past, Cuban medical students came to the Ochsner Clinic to train. Now Castro was sending Cuba’s medical students to Russia. Ochsner resented this rejection. Some of those medical students realized that studying with Ochsner had made them rich and famous, so they were bitter about Castro’s denying them that right. Some of them were bitter enough to help kill Castro. Dr. Sherman’s comments called to mind Tony’s similar degree of hatred.
“The clock is ticking,” Dave said. “It’s going to require a lot of hard work if we’re going to succeed where all the others failed.”
“We believe we have something,” Dr. Sherman said. “But we want to see what you make of it,” soliciting my opinion and gently stroking my ego with her words. “Dr. Ochsner says you have serendipity.”
“Yes,” I replied. “He told me that.”
“It’s a rare compliment,” Dr. Sherman went on. “You induced lung cancer in mice faster than had ever been done before, under miserable lab conditions. Dr. Sherman reached over and took my hand, squeezing it warmly. “That’s what Ochsner likes about you. Your serendipity. And we know you’re a patriot. That’s why you’re here.”
“This is lung cancer we’re talking about,” Dave said as he began smoking his third cigarette in five minutes. “Your specialty.”
“That’s what they wanted me to work with, ever since Roswell Park,” I admitted.
“You’re untraceable,” Dave continued. “With no degree, nobody will suspect you, because you’re working at Reily’s, and you’re practically a kid.
“We have only until October,” Dr. Sherman said.
“Maybe the end of October,” Dave amended, as he snubbed out his half-smoked cigarette.
“You can choose not to participate,” Dr. Sherman told me.
“Yeah, we’ll just send you over to Tulane to see Dr. Heath. A few days in his tender care, and you’ll never even remember this conversation took place,” Dave said.
“You’re not funny! Sherman snapped at Dave, seeing my face. “Of course, nothing will happen to you, Judy. Dr. Ferrie and I are the visible ones, not you.
“Hell, I was joking,” Dave said.
“She is so young,” Dr. Sherman said reproachfully. “You frightened her.”
“I’m sorry, J.” He said. “What are you, nineteen?”
“I will be twenty, on the 15th,” I said softly.
Dr. Mary saw that I was trembling. She poured me a little glass of cordial and offered it to me, saying that it would relax me, but I declined to drink it.
“All I came here for was to have an internship with you, Dr. Sherman,” I said, adding that I still wanted to go to Tulane Medical School in the fall.
“Don’t worry, you’ll be there,” Dr. Sherman said. “Dr. Ochsner said he’ll sponsor you. That’s set in stone. – page 283 – 284
With the early-week crunch over, I took myself over to Dave’s lab and Mary Sherman’s apartment on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday to continue our work on the Project. When I finished, as per instructions from Dr. Mary, I wrapped the specimens in newspaper to insulate them and dropped them in a car parked near Eli Lilly on my way back to Reily’s. That was usually Lee’s job, but this week I did it. Once the product was dropped off a driver would get into the car and whisk it away for another round of radiation, presumable at the U.S. Public Health Service Hospital. – page 315

Dr. Ochsner wanted to speed up the Project. He called me at Reily’s several times to ask for ideas. I offered him several. One recommendation was that we try to transfer from mice to monkeys again, but this time the monkeys should be exposed to radiation beforehand to suppress their immune systems. Ochsner liked the idea and noted that they had concentrated their radiation efforts on tissue cultures, not living hosts. I was surprised they had not done this earlier, since I had told them back in 1961 that I had used this method to develop cancer in mice more rapidly. So I recommended irradiating the monkeys to expedite things, and Dr. Ochsner agreed. – page 320

As an Executive Director at the International Trade Mart, Clay Shaw was at the center of the international trade community in New Orleans. Shaw’s mentors, Ted Brent and Lloyd Cobb, had deep connections to both Dr. Ochsner and the CIA. Connections between Dr. Ochsner and Ted Brent were so strong that Brent left the fortune he had amassed during his lifetime to Ochsner Clinic upon his death. The hotel on campus of Ochsner Clinic is named Brent House, in his honor. – page 325

That afternoon, Mr. Monaghan agreed to clock me and Lee out, so we could meet at 4:30 near Eli Lilly..

“Nobody should be denied medical care,” he said. “It’s a basic human right! Just as the right to own a house. The people in this country are serfs and slaves… And hell, if they get sick and are new in town, they can drop dead. Nobody cares. We’re living in a world as barbaric as ancient Rome!”

“Maybe Rome had some things better,” I offered, noting Rome had heated floors and trained doctors two thousand years ago. That led to Lee’s taking out the book, Everyday life in Ancient Rome, from the library for us to study.

About the same time, Lee created a fake health card for himself so he’d have vaccination ‘proof’— necessary for travel to backward countries. His vaccinations were up-to-date, thanks to Dr. Ochsner, but he couldn’t put that name on his health card. Instead he used the fake name “Dr. A.J. Hideel.” There was that name again! I’d seen it on the third floor at Banister’s, and a variation on a fake FPCC membership card Lee carried. “Hidell,” Lee told me, was a ‘project name’ used on fake ID’s to access certain funds. Further, he said he was not the only person using the name….
“Dr. Mary noticed me staring at the equipment.

“The marmosets are dying,” she told me somberly. “All of them, including our control group.”

I pondered the implications. Our bioweapon had migrated between the two groups of monkeys, presenting the terrifying possibility that our mutated cancer was not only transferable, but actually contagious. We both knew that from this moment on we needed to be concerned about being exposed to a contagious, cancer-causing virus.

For the next hour, I worked with the microscopes, until Dave showed up. As my eyes were tired, I decided to help Lee, whose hands were now thrust inside the clean box’s gloves, and leave the microscope work to Dr. Mary. I bent down and kissed his perspiring forehead.

“You shouldn’t touch me,” he said, through his face mask.

“I’m going to help,” I told him, putting on my lab coat. I could see a book in Lee’s pocket through the clear plastic apron. “I see you brought along Profiles of Courage,” I said to Lee, hoping he was finished with it, and I could borrow it from him.

“I’m trying to get my hands on everything I can about ‘The Chief,’” Lee answered… – page 386

Wednesday, July 10, 1963

I received an important call at Reily’s from Dr. Bowers, who told me Dr. Ochsner had asked him to relay the good news to me. He said that cells isolated from two of the lymphoma strains from the mice had produced dramatic results in the marmoset monkeys. They suffered from not one, but two variations of a galloping cancer. We had broken the barrier between mouse and monkey. Now we could move on to specific types of lung cancers, but would need to keep the mouse cancers going, in case a failure occurred, when we moved from marmoset monkeys to African Green monkeys. – page 383

“All right,” I said. “What agency do you really work for, and who is your most important handler?”

“You little spy!” he said, smiling. “Here’s the answer: I’m loaned to the CIA, and must sometimes help the FBI; but who my main handler is, not even God knows the answer to that. Certainly, I don’t. I call him “Mr. B.”

“As for me,” I told him, “I’m just a pair of hands belonging to Ochsner.”

“They don’t belong to Ochsner anymore,” Lee said. “They’re mine now.”

I asked him if I had a “handler.” Lee said, smiling, “Of course you do. It’s me.” He said I was a lucky woman. “I shall be your protector,” he said. “I won’t let any of them hurt you.”

I asked why would anybody want to hurt me? I was on the ‘good’ side. Lee explained: if you’re no longer useful, you could be thrown out, unless you were educated.

“You’re safer than I am,” he told me. “Officially, you were supposedly an unwitting asset. A good position to be in… – page 389

Lee asked if there was anything he still didn’t know about the cancer research project. “Well, you should know about the etiology of the cancer,” I told him. “I’ve never discussed it with you.”

“Etiology? What’s that mean?”
“Etiology means origins. This is no ordinary cancer, as you know,” I reminded him He agreed.

“It’s probably contagious,” I went on. That startled him, since Dr. Mary and I had not really discussed this point explicitly in front of him. I told him that the monkey virus, now altered by radiation, had moved spontaneously from the deliberately infected marmoset monkeys to the control animals. With it came cancer and all the marmoset monkeys were now dying. That’s why there were suddenly all the extra precautions in Dave’s lab.

“Remind me not to eat or drink anything over at Dave’s,” Lee said soberly as he pondered the idea of working around a contagious cancer virus…

“We’ve created a galloping cancer,” I went on. “I think a bacteriophage could be altered to take out even these cancer cells. But nobody’s going down that road. We’re developing this weapon to eliminate a head of state. But what if we get Castro? Will they really just throw this stuff away? I asked, shivering at the thought.

“It could be used as a weapon of mass destruction,” Lee answered simply…

Lee asked how many people understood the science behind the Project. I told him Ochsner, Sherman, Dave and I surely knew how it was made and that I knew there were some other doctors involved, but once the bioweapon was created, it could be kept frozen for years and used by anyone who had access to it at some point in the future. We sank into deep silence as we contemplated the dimensions of what we had just said. How had my dream to cure cancer gone so wrong? – pages 390 – 391

July 19, 1963 Friday

That morning, Lee was on the Magazine Street bus with me in time to arrive at Reily’s before 8:00 A.M…. I clocked in shortly before 8:00 A.M., but I needed Lee to run an errand to Eli Lilly’s for the Project, so despite his efforts to be on time, he clocked in late again and got chewed out. For the rest of the day, Lee’s supervisors were all over him.

Lee advised Dave to keep an eye on me, but not to say a word—unless I got up to leave— until he got there. I gave Dave Lewis a grateful hug, then followed Lee to an old car that he had access to for the day, due to his training film project. This was an unusual car called a Kaiser-Frazer, which was discontinued in 1951. It was a roomy and surprisingly luxurious dark green 4-door sedan. I had seen it parked near the Eli Lilly office several times.

“You might want to take me to take you straight home,” Lee said, “if you’re too tired. But if you come along with me, you’ll get to see Carlos Marcello’s plantation.”…

This meeting was necessary, because it was time to test the Project’s biological weapon on primates. It had worked on the Marmoset monkeys, so it was time to try it on African green monkeys, which were closer to humans but considerably more expensive. These next steps involved the precise work that needed to be done in the monkey laboratory, so others would do that.

I had to discuss the details with Dr. Ochsner. After much of this technical talk, Ochsner said, “By the way, your boy Oswald is going to be a movie star.”

“I know he’s working on a film,” I said cautiously, not knowing how much Ochsner was privy to.

“I don’t mean out there,” Ochsner said suggesting that he knew about the training camp. “I mean here in New Orleans, on TV. Do you have a TV set?”…

“Sir,” I said proudly, “he doesn’t spend a dollar of the Project’s money unless he has to. He’s a patriot of the first order.”

“Well, he’s all of that,” Ochsner agreed. “I don’t deny it. I’ve taken the trouble to look into his records. And I’m thinking about better ways to use his talents.”

“He wants to go to college, sir,” I said. “Can you help him?”

“Young lady, we want him to stay put a while, where he’s most useful.” Realizing that he was clearly talking about using Lee as a spy, I realized that Ochsner thought of himself as part of the management of that operation, not just a technical resource working for Lee’s spymasters.

“So, who am I really working for?” I asked Ochsner bluntly. He shook his head from side to side in dismay and said that I was asking a lot of questions today, as if talking to a wall.

Then, he turned to me and said: “You’re working for the foes of Communism.” After a short pause, he smiled and added, “I’m not ashamed to say that I would spill every drop of blood I have for my country. And I have always known that you feel the same way.”

Ochsner then glanced at his watch, cut me off with a wave of his hand, and handed me a stack of new material to read. “Read these for us, and give us your input as soon as possible. The final step will be with our human volunteer.”

“Have you already found one?” I queried.

“You would be surprised,” Dr. Ochsner replied, standing up and learning me to the door. “There are many unsung heroes who have bravely stepped forward to accomplish the impossible.” Then he added, a little sadly. “There are risks that must be taken for great causes.”

“Am I doing alright, sir?” I asked meekly. “It feels strange, not preparing for Tulane yet. I mean, all I’ve looked at for months now are cancer cells.”
As for Lee and me, we wanted to abandon the rat race to others. “We’ll leave their money and corruption behind,” Lee said. “We’ll be like Lord and Lady Blakeney. We’ll play the old part… “Maybe I could talk to Dr. Diehl,” I said hopefully. Dr. Harold Diehl had been fond of me, and I knew I could talk to him in private. He had concerns for safety in cancer research. I found his card in my black purse.

But Lee pointed out that Diehl, the Senior Vice President for Research for the American Cancer Society and Ochsner the former ACS President, had been pals for years. Their friend, “Wild Bill” Donovan (who died of cancer despite Ochsner’s efforts) had been a leading ACS official, too, and was the founding father of the CIA. Diehl would probably do nothing. – page 457 – 458

I personally trained Lee and Dave to handle the materials and prepared the bioweapon for safe transport to the mental hospital, but I did not accompany them on this first trip, so what I report here is what Lee and Dave told me…

Lee and Dave were both qualified to instruct other technicians as to how to handle and work with the bioweapon. At Jackson, Dave gave the injections and explained to those involved how further injections should be given, and when. Lee watched and listened, so he would be able to deliver similar instructions when he handed off the Product in Mexico City or Cuba. Lee left after viewing the first round of injections, and one saw one prisoner, because he needed to go to the Personnel office. There, Lee filled out an employment application to establish a motive for his planned return to the hospital in about 72 hours, when he would have to drive me there to check on the progress of the experiment. Afterwards, Shaw drove Lee and Dave home.

But here was the problem: I was originally told that the prisoner was terminally ill and had “volunteered” to be injected with cancerous cells, knowing his days were numbered. But, a simple fact remained: in order to do my blood test, I had to know what kind of cancer the volunteer had so I could distinguish between “his cancer” and “our cancer.” Right before the Team left for Jackson, I asked Dave to find out what kind of cancer the prisoner had.

“Oh, don’t worry about that,” Dave said matter-of-factly. “He doesn’t have cancer. He’s a Cuban who is about the same age and weight as Castro, and he’s healthy.”

I felt a chill sweep through my body. My heart turned over. This revelation was sickening to me. We would be giving cancer to a healthy human with the intention of killing him. This was not medicine, it was murder. It was wrong, morally, ethically, and legally. They had gone too far….

My note to Dr. Ochsner simply stated: Injecting disease-causing materials into an unwitting subject who does not have a disease is unethical. I signed it with my initials, J.A., and hand delivered it to Dr. Ochsner’s office at his Clinic…

“I’m so sorry,” she told me. “He’s making a mountain out of a molehill.” This was a hint that Dr. Mary was still on my side, which was a huge relief to me. I hoped she would give me good references to a medical school in Latin America, which was one of the plans Lee and I considered. The only positive note she had to offer was that Dr. Ochsner had agreed to a civil exit interview… – page 470

When Dr. Ochsner entered the room, the look on his face was unforgiving. Without a word, he handed me some important blood work code sheets, with which to make my reports. Then, rising to his feet, he exploded into a flurry of unrestrained verbal abuses. It was unlike anything I had ever encountered…

“When you finish your assignment at Jackson,” he said, “Give us the results and consider your work with us over. After his ruse burned a little further, he said, “Consider yourself lucky you’re walking out with your teeth still in your head. Now get out.” – page 472 – 473

“This was the same old Kaiser-Frazer that Lee (as in Lee Harvey Oswald) had used to drive me to Churchill Farms for Marcello’s gathering. I thought of it as the Eli Lilly car, because I had seen in parked near their building several times. Lee said it was more reliable than Dave’s car and it had no known mechanical problems.” – Me and Lee page 476.

The plan to kill Castro depended on two to three people: First, a doctor to influence diagnostics for the required x-rays, then an x-ray technician to rig the machine to temporarily deliver a dangerous dose, (creating symptoms of an infection and pulling down the immune system) and someone to contaminate the penicillin shots given to overcome the presumed ‘pneumonia’ or ‘infection’, with the deadly cancer cocktail. Reactions to the foreign material would bring on fever, with more x-rays to check for ‘pneumonia’ —and more penicillin or similar shots. Only one shot had to reach a vein, and it was over, if the X-rays had been used. For this was a galloping cancer: Castro’s chances, if it worked in humans as it did in monkeys, were zero. It had killed the African green monkeys in only two weeks. Castro’s death by cancer would be ascribed to “natural causes.”

Lee told me that after the cancer cells were removed from their glass container, he then observed the volunteer being x-rayed and injected. After that, Dave asked him to leave. Why? This made Lee suspicious… – page 477

I checked the blood work data while a centrifuge spun down the rest of the freshly-drawn blood samples to pellets, inspecting slides and the blood counts already prepared for me. My task was to match the recorded data with the slides, and to look for any cancer cells there. A few were present—an excellent sign that the bioweapon worked. The original cancer cells had been tagged with a radioactive tracer. If any of those were also found in the pellets, the volunteer was surely doomed. But there were too many blood samples for just one client. …

Having done that, I insisted that I needed to observe the prisoner’s current condition to see how he was physically reacting. The orderly reluctantly took me to the door of the prisoner’s room, but said that I was not allowed past the door. The room was barred, but basically clean. Several storage boxes sat on the floor and some flowers sat on a stand next to the bed. The patient was tied to the bed and was thrashing around in an obvious fever. It was very sad and I felt sorry for what I had done, but I played my part and pretended to be pleased with his status.

We had spent no more than forty-five minutes at the hospital, and once back in the car, Lee and I discussed what I had seen. I told him that I was almost sure there was more than one “volunteer.” Lee asked me to describe the patient to him, which I did. Lee then pointed out that the hairline and nose were different from the patient that he had seen injected. Between Lee’s comments and the number of variety of blood samples, I became convinced. More than one “volunteer” had been injected to test the effectiveness of the bioweapon. – page 479 – 481

A car and driver was waiting outside of International House to take Lee and Hugh Ward to an airport in Houma, Louisiana (about an hour southwest of New Orleans). But first, they had to pick up a package from the nearby offices of Eli Lilly that needed to be delivered to someone in Austin. After getting the package from Eli Lilly, the trio headed to the Huoma-Terre-bonne Airport, known to locals as “the blimp station.” Lee said they reached the blimp station without undue delay. – page 495

It said that Alex Rorke had “run into some trouble,” and he and his pilot might be “missing.”

This was instantly a concern to Lee because, not only was Alex Rorke one of his trusted friends from his nefarious anti-Castro world, he was also the man who was going to fly me from Florida to Mexico when it was time for Lee and me to disappear, which might be this week.. The Latinos, meanwhile were eating lunch with some anti-Castro friends and had promised to seek news about Alex Rorke. When they returned, they dropped Lee at the Trek Cafe on South Congress Avenue, where he waited for about forty-five minutes while they dropped off the package from Eli Lilly in the biology building at St. Edward’s University – page 496 & 497

He deposited one of his two suitcases in a locker in the bus station, so he would have some clothes to wear when he returned to Mexico. It was now obvious to Lee that he had been betrayed, and his actions at the consulate would further stain him as a pro-Castro fanatic, making him an even more convincing patsy in Kennedy’s murder.

“They think I’m a blind fool!” Lee told me soon after. “If they don’t want me for Cuba anymore, I’m better off dead than alive to them.” – page 501

“You’ll be working a lot of hours,” Dave warned me.

“So what?” I mused, thinking I’d be happy creating exotic chemicals for esoteric scientific projects. Dave had told me that some of these would be sent to New Orleans via such routes as the Mound Park Hospital in St. Petersburg, Eastman Kodak, and our familiar chemical supplier, Eli Lilly, including materials similar to antifreeze, which could be used to safely deep-freeze the deadly cancer cell lines, keeping alive virtually forever. page 503- 504
When I heard his strained voice, I realized that something sinister was blowing in the wind…

“I won’t live to see another birthday cake,” he said quietly, “unless I can get out of here. And if I don’t do it right, we’ll all get killed.”

To my gasp of horror, he added, “I’m sorry. You have to hear it.” I now learned that upon his return to Dallas, Lee had been invited to be an actual participant in the assassination plans against JFK.

“You know what that means,” he warned me. I did.

“So, you’re going to go through with it?”

“I’m going to have to go through with it. Who else is in position to penetrate this, and stop it?”

I started to cry, feeling both hopeless and helpless.

“Don’t cry,” he said. “It’s killing me! I can’t stand your crying like that.”

I suddenly felt faint, and accidentally dropped the phone. When I picked up the phone again, we tried to comfort each other. But then Lee revealed that he had decided to send on any information he could about the assassination ring. He was convinced that his information could make a huge difference.

Lee was spending evenings with men who were plotting the death of the President of the United States— men who would stop at nothing to gain more power. They might even be able to blame it on Castro, impelling Americans to war against Cuba, and thus killing two big birds with one big stone. Lee and I both believed that an invasion of Cuba could trigger WWIII, if Russia moved in to defend her Communist ally in the Caribbean.

“I know you think I’m a good shot,” he told me. “Truth is, I’m not that good. So why would they recruit me?”

Lee made a bitter laugh. “They’ll set me up. You see how they hung me out to dry in Mexico City?” he went on. “Now they’ve put off my return to Mexico until after Christmas. I’m going to be snuffed, just as I told you, way back.”

But he felt he had to stay on, with so much as stake. There was now no way to persuade Lee to save himself. In fact, he would have thought it immoral of me to suggest it at the expense of President Kennedy. – page 505

The plot against President Kennedy thickened in November. By now, Lee had convinced me that Kennedy was a great president who sought peace, and I shared Lee’s fear that his life would soon end. Lee had been recruited in the Baton Rouge meetings into the Dallas plot. He had penetrated the ring. Now, he was meeting with one or more plotters on a regular basis. “But I’m meeting too many people,” he told me…

Lee said the motorcade would turn at the 3600 block “because the plotters want to show their power… that they are in charge of their trophy. They would also be taking trophy photos of the assassination.

At this time, Lee believed the kill site would probably be the Dallas Trade Mart—if Kennedy wasn’t terminated earlier in Chicago or Miami. Sickening to me and Lee was their plan to circulate a photo of JFK’s head, “dead, with his eyes left open.” – page 515

Saturday, November 16, 1963

Lee met with an FBI contact at a location unknown to me, revealing that a right-wing group was planning to assassinate President Kennedy during his visit to Dallas on November 22nd. Someone in the FBI took the information seriously and sent out a teletype message to field offices that night. William Walter, a clerk in the FBI office in New Orleans, saw this telex the following morning and later affirmed he had seen this document to Jim Garrison when he investigated the JFK assassination in the late 1960s. The FBI claimed it could find no copies of such a document, but that hardly surprises me. – page 516
“Know how we wondered who my handler was?” Lee whispered. “Mr. B? Benson, Benton, or Bishop? Well, he’s from Fort Worth, so it has to be Phillips. His is the traitor. Phillips is behind this. I need you to remember that name,” Lee said, repeating it with cold anger. “David Atlee Phillips.”

Lee then said there were two other names I needed to remember: Bobby Baker and Billy Sol Estes. He said the assassination itself was not their doing, but it was because of them, and I was never to forget their names…

“They’d just get another gun to take my place,” Lee said. “If I stay, that will be one less bullet aimed at Kennedy.” – page 521

“Maybe I can still do something,” he added, grasping at a straw, “but what bothers me the most is that they’re going to say I did it. They’re going to pin it on me. And what will my babies think of me, when they grow up?” – page 523

I went to work at PenChem, as I’d done every day for the previous six weeks….

Shortly after 1:30 P.M. Florida time (12:30 P.M. Dallas time), the television erupted with an announcement that the President had been seriously wounded by gunfire in Dallas. Soon, the network cut away from its regular programming. I can’t remember the words; I only remember my horror. About a half-hour later, we heard news that a priest had given his last rites. The news was greeted with cheers and whistles of approval in the lab. Tears started running down my cheeks, despite my efforts to hide them…

Mr. Mays noticed. “Are you a God-damned Communist?” – page 526 – 527

The phone rang as soon as I reached it. Dave was as nervous as I was and apologized for calling a few minutes early. I told him I was glad he did. Then I heard Dave make a sound as though he were choking. I realized he was swallowing back his tears. “Oh, my God, J,” he said to me. “I won’t hide it from you.”

Dave was crying. I started crying, too. I didn’t think I had any tears left, but there they were, stinging my eyes. I was so anxious to hear what he had to say.

“It’s hopeless. If you want to stay alive,” Dave warned me, with a strained voice, “it’s time to go into the catacombs. Promise me you will keep your mouth shut!” he added. “I don’t want to lose you, too,” he said, his voice choking on his words. I felt weak all over. “If there is any chance to save him, we’ll get him out of there, I swear to you. So play the dumb broad, and save yourself. Remember, Mr. T will watch every step you make.

Dave meant I was being watched by “Santos” Trafficante, the Godfather of Tampa and Miami. He was also a good friend and ally of Carlos Marcello. Fortunately, Marcello liked me, which is why I believed that I had a chance to survive any threats from that direction.

“I’ll call you one more time. After that, I can’t call anymore,” Dave said “And now I have other calls to make. So, Vale, Soror” (“Be strong, sister.”) – page 530 – 531
“The Texas Court of Appeals overturned Jack Ruby’s conviction and on December 7, 1966 ordered a new trial to be held outside of Dallas. Two days later, Ruby became ill and entered Parkland Hospital where doctors initially thought he had pneumonia, but quickly changed their diagnosis to lung cancer. Before the week was over, the Parkland doctors announced that Ruby’s lung cancer had advanced so far that it could not be treated (meaning it had spread to other parts of the body—Stage IV). The median survival time of a patient with Stage IV lung cancer is eight months, but twenty-seven days after the onset of his initial symptoms of cough and nausea, Jack Ruby was dead. Deputy Sheriff Al Maddox was Ruby’s jailer at the time. He later told researchers that Jack Ruby told him of being injected with cancer and handed him a note making that claim. Maddox also remembered what he described as a “phony doctor” had visited Ruby shortly before he became sick. A second law enforcement officer said Ruby had been placed in an x-ray room for about 15 minutes with the x-ray machine running constantly, an action that would have certainly compromised his immune system. The autopsy found the main concentration of cancer cells to be in Ruby’s right lung, but noted that cancer cells had spread throughout his body. These cells were sent to nearby Southwest Medical School for closer scrutiny using an electron microscope. Bruce McCarty, the electron microscope operator that examined Ruby’s cells had microvilli (tentacle-like extensions that grow out of the main cell), since microvilli were normally not seen in lung cancers. A decade later, however, cancer researchers at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York noted that when cancer cells of various types and origins were suspended in specialized liquids they would form microvilli extensions “when settling on glass.” This is consistent with my description of the need to separate their suspended cancer cells from the sides of the glass thermos every couple days.” – page 561

Former CIA Asset Antonio Veciana independently confirms what Lee told Judyth in his book, “Trained to Kill: The Inside Story of CIA Plots Against Castro, Kennedy, and Che.”

Preface
Bishop knew I was responsible for the arsons that destroyed some of Havana’s best-known department stores, which led to something I could never forgive myself for, the death of an innocent mother of two,… Bishop knew I was responsible for sparking the mass exodus of thousands of Cuban children known as “Operation Pedro Pan”— disguised as orphans, and with the help of the Catholic Church. Bishop knew I came close to collapsing Cuba’s economy with a rumor campaign meant to sow panic….. My name is Antonio Veciana. I am an accountant by training, a banker and businessman by trade. Some call me a patriot. Some call me a terrorist. Only one knew I was a spy, with a single mission—destroy Castro. My CIA handler, the man I knew as Maurice Bishop. The man whom congressional investigators later identified as master spy David Atlee Phillips. The man whom I saw meeting with Lee Harvey Oswald in Dallas.

Chapter 3: The Bearded Ones

When Fidel Castro came to power in Cuba on January 1, 1959, David Atlee Phillips was already there…
I had left the Banco Nacional before Fidel declared victory. I went to work for Julio Lobo, the richest man in Cuba. Lobo was Cuba’s first millionaire and, at the time of the revolution, its richest man. His personal fortune was so immense, people in Havana and Miami still wistfully exclaim, “To be as rich as Julio Lobo!”….
As my trial drew closer, my attorney had more questions… I remember thinking how curious it was that someone would conspire to smuggle drugs with someone they thought worked for the government—especially someone with the CIA.. I was convicted on all three counts on January 14, 1974. The judge sentenced me to two concurrent terms of seven years, plus three years of probation…
They released me after twenty-six months. I got home in February 1976, just as the House Select Committee on Assassinations was beginning its work. Soon after my return, committee investigator Gaeton Fonzi started calling my house, asking to see me. We met for the first time at the beginning of March. He didn’t mention the Kennedy assassination. He said he wanted to ask about connections between groups like Alpha 66 and U.S. Intelligence agencies.
I ended up telling him about Bishop. The whole story. About Cuba and the attempt to kill Castro with the bazooka, about Bishop telling me to found Alpha 66, about Chile. And I told him about meeting Lee Harvey Oswald.
Gaeton tried not to look surprised. He tried not to let his excitement show in his voice. But as he himself told it later, “In my mind, I fell off my chair.”
That’s because he hadn’t been fully honest with me when he introduced himself. He was investigating links between anti-Castro groups and the CIA. That was true. But he was actually interested in the assassination. AS an HSCA investigator, he was precisely charged with looking into whether U.S. intelligence agencies had anything to do with Kennedy’s death.
And I had just given him the thing so many suspected, and so many feared, but no one had found before—a direct link between a significant CIA figure and John Kennedy’s alleged assassin, or at least the “patsy” for the crime, as Oswald called himself…
Before the House Select Committee on Assassinations finished its work, someone tried to silence me. With a bullet.
I had testified in secret before a congressional panel. I told them about the assassination attempts against Castro and about El Che’s diary. I told them about Alpha 66 and about Oswald. And I told them how a man I knew only as Maurice Bishop had been responsible for it all…. Fonzi and other committee investigators were able to confirm much of what I told them. The committee had also determined that, even though the CIA insisted I had never been one of its operatives, the agency’s records contained a “piece of arguably contradictory evidence—a record of $500 in operational expenses, given to Veciana by a person with whom the CIA had maintained a long-standing operational relationship.”..
Police said the gunman used a .45-caliber silencer. The first shot had come through the side mirror, splintering on its way through. A piece of it had hit me. It lodged above my ear… The doctors said the bullet that grazed my belly was the one that could have killed me.
“You’re lucky they used a .45,” one of the cops told me. “The .45 comes out of the barrel slower. If they used a 9 mm you’d be dead.”
Epilogue
I knew who “Bishop” really was the instant I saw David Phillip’s photograph.
Why didn’t I say so then?
I was afraid.
I believe there was a conspiracy to kill Kennedy. And I believe that even if David Atlee Phillips wasn’t part of it, he knew about it. He had to. Why else would he have met with Oswald in Dallas, less than three months before the assassination? And why else would he have asked me to help connect Oswald with the Cuban Embassy in Mexico?…

Eli Lilly was instrumental in creating the bioweapon intended to kill Fidel Castro. They provided all the supplies. They also held exclusive rights to the US distribution of thalidomide that John F Kennedy warned women about on national TV. (Eli Lilly acquired Distillers in 1962.) Kennedy had an actual scientist heading the FDA who rejected the approval of thalidomide in the US. Didn’t stop Eli Lilly from distributing 2 million pills directly to physicians who gave them out like candy to pregnant mothers. Eli Lilly was also the last supplier of DES and were fully aware that it was banned for chickens in the 50s for causing massive biological harm. Eli Lilly is still the last distributor of rBST or rRBGH the petroleum-based synthetic hormone chemical pumped into poor cows that destroys their health and contaminates our dairy supplies…

“Thimerosal is an organic compound that is 49.6 percent ethylmercury. Eli Lilly and Co., the Indianapolis-based drug giant, developed and registered thimerosal under its trade name Merthiolate in 1929 and began marketing it as an antibacterial, antifungal product. It became the most widely used preservative in vaccines….

By 1935, Eli Lilly’s Jameison had further evidence of thimerosal’s toxicity when he received a letter from a researcher who had injected it into dogs and saw severe local reactions, leading him to state: “Merthiolate is unsatisfactory as a preservative for serum intended for use on dogs.”

http://inthesetimes.com/article/649/eli_lilly_and_thimerosal

“Lilly’s patent on thimerosal is about up, Kirby said, and it is still used in flu shots administered to children in doses that “contain 25 micrograms of mercury, which is more than what a 500-pound person could handle, according to the EPA.”

The Mystery of the Eli Lilly Rider

The Eli Lilly rider was attached to the Homeland Security Act for a reason… zero liability for damages..

“… the Dick Ammey “Lilly Rider” slipped into the 2002 Homeland Security Act, and the FDA’s approval to double the doses of aluminum adjuncts in several vaccines.” – Master Manipulator: The Explosive True Story of Fraud, Embezzlement, and Government Betrayal at the CDC by James Ottar Grundvig (Page 257)

Researchers show where the aluminum travels to in the body and stays after vaccination

https://nexusnewsfeed.com/article/human-rights/researchers-show-where-the-aluminum-travels-to-in-the-body-and-stays-after-vaccination/

Deadly shots: the polio vaccine saga

The eight scientists gathered in the meeting room at the Commonwealth Serum Laboratories in Melbourne included the key researchers who had helped turn the tide in the fight against polio in Australia.

But the mood was far from celebratory as the meeting started on May 1, 1962. The team responsible for developing and producing the local version of the Salk polio vaccine in 1956, which had been given to millions of Australians during the following years, was faced with a crisis.

Four days earlier CSL biochemist John Withell had completed laboratory tests that confirmed what had been feared: the latest batch of polio vaccine was contaminated with a newly discovered virus that came from monkey kidneys used to produce it.

The virus had been designated SV40 – the 40th simian virus that had been identified – but this virus, first discovered by British researchers the previous year, was different. Tests in the United States had shown it could cause aggressive cancers in small animals and was not killed in the normal process used to manufacture polio vaccine.

In the words of Withell, who went on to become head of the government’s Therapeutic Goods Administration laboratories in Canberra, SV40 “was recognised straight away as a fairly nasty virus”.

https://www.smh.com.au/national/deadly-shots-the-polio-vaccine-saga-20041023-gdjz1z.html

“In April, more than 60 scientists met in Chicago to discuss the controversial virus and how it works to defeat certain cells’ natural defenses against cancer.

“I believe that SV40 is carcinogenic (in humans),” said Dr. Michele Carbone of Loyola University Medical Center in Maywood, Ill. “We need to be creating therapies for people who have these cancers, and now we may be able to because we have a target – SV40.”

For four decades, government officials have insisted that there is no evidence the simian virus called SV40 is harmful to humans. But in recent years, dozens of scientific studies have found the virus in a steadily increasing number of rare brain, bone and lung-related tumors – the same malignant cancer SV40 causes in lab animals.

Even more troubling, the virus has been detected in tumors removed from people never inoculated with the contaminated vaccine, leading some to worry that those infected by the vaccine might be spreading SV40.

“How long can the government ignore this?” asked Dr. Adi Gazdar, a University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center cancer researcher. “The government has not sponsored any real research. Here’s something possibly affecting millions of Americans, and they’re indifferent.

“Maybe they don’t want to find out.”

https://www.sfgate.com/health/article/Rogue-virus-in-the-vaccine-Early-polio-vaccine-2899957.php

You should ask yourself how exactly is polio transmitted?

Virus particles are excreted in the feces for several weeks following initial infection.[23] The disease is transmitted primarily via the fecal-oral route, by ingesting contaminated food or water.

Then you should ask yourself how does this contaminated poo get in water and food supplies in the first place?

American citizens should seriously ask themselves do you really want to inject a Gates created fast track vaccine into your babies and children from someone with this track record and business partners?

A reminder about Gates….

BILL AND MELINDA GATES FOUNDATION KICKED OUT OF INDIA

Yes, the Microsoft founder and the icon of the Third-World Humanitarianism has been kicked out of India as his fraud was called out. He came to India posing as a philanthropist and humanitarian helping the Third-World poor people by alleviating their conditions and yes, of course, “VACCINATING” their children.

But, only a couple of years earlier suspicions started to emerge. As, reports of their themselves being heavily invested in the companies which were manufacturing those vaccines started to appear. Native Indian doctors and health activists started raising objections as the illegality of the testing of those vaccines on poor children started to come out into the open. Suspicions arose that he may have committed a crime against humanity by illegally testing vaccines on poor innocent children. Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation had been facing trials in the Supreme Court of India since then and a couple of months earlier they were kicked out of this country. So that, they could no longer kill innocent poor Indian children by illegal vaccine testing.

https://steemit.com/life/@pranavsinha/bill-and-melinda-gates-foundation-kicked-out-of-india?fbclid=IwAR2yrmbRT7DNJbNbPe_sCAlswV9bNjzRfCu6kTmYUU_vlojJB9eSiT5Mx3Y

(Merck, Bayer, Johnson & Johnson, Dow Chemical, and Company won’t be disseminating that information in their US media and education controlled systems…)

“Controversial vaccine studies: Why is Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation under fire from critics in India?

The vaccine used was Gardasil, manufactured by Merck. It was administered to around 16,000 girls in the district, many of whom stayed in state government-run hostels meant for tribal students….

When a team of health activists from an NGO that specializes in women’s health named Sama visited Khammam in March 2010 on a fact-finding mission, they were told that as many as 120 girls experienced adverse reactions such as epileptic seizures, severe stomach ache, headaches and mood swings. The Sama report also said there had been cases of early onset of menstruation following the vaccination, heavy bleeding and severe menstrual cramps among many students. The standing committee pulled up the relevant state governments for the shoddy investigation into these deaths. It said it was disturbed to find that “all the seven deaths were summarily dismissed as unrelated to vaccinations without in-depth investigations…”

https://m.economictimes.com/industry/healthcare/biotech/healthcare/controversial-vaccine-studies-why-is-bill-melinda-gates-foundation-under-fire-from-critics-in-india/articleshow/41280050.cms

‘Globally-supported company is funding fatal polio shots’

ISLAMABAD:

A government inquiry has found that polio vaccines for infants funded by the Global Alliance for Vaccination and Immunisation are causing deaths and disabilities in regional countries including Pakistan.

The startling revelation is part of an inquiry report prepared by the Prime Minister’s Inspection Commission (PMIC) on the working of the Expanded Programme on Immunisation (EPI). The PMIC, headed by Malik Amjad Noon, has recommended that Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani immediately suspend the administration of all types of vaccines funded by the GAVI.

The commission also recommended launching an inquiry to find out facts leading to the agreement with GAVI without examining the safety of the vaccines. The report also established that the GAVI-funded vaccines are not only causing deaths in many countries but are also very expensive.

There have been reports of deaths of a number of children and occurrence of other side-effects soon after the vaccination is administered in Pakistan, India, Sri Lanka, Bhutan and Japan.

Geneva-based officials of GAVI, Jeffrey Rowland and Dan Thomas, were contacted by e-mail but they did not respond.

The report stated that five deaths have been reported in Japan this year soon after the vaccination was administered while 25 serious adverse reactions, including five deaths, were reported in Sri Lanka in 2008. Consequently, the vaccine was withdrawn. Bhutan also withdrew the vaccines after the deaths of children. The Association of Parents of Disabled Children from Bosnia and Herzegovina filed criminal charges after the GAVI-funded vaccines caused disabilities.

The report states, “The procured vaccines are not tested in laboratories to confirm their efficacy and genuineness..

GAVI’s partners include certain countries, the Bill and Melinda Gates Children’s Vaccine Programme, International Federation of Pharmaceutical Manufacturers Association, Rockefeller Foundation, United Nations Children’s Fund, World Health Organisation and the World Bank, the report says.

The government of Switzer­land may be requested to investigate GAVI’s activities to find out whether it is really a non-profit organisation, as it professes.

https://tribune.com.pk/story/293191/vaccine-nation-globally-supported-company-is-funding-fatal-polio-shots/?amp=1

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Silent Spring by Rachel Carson (Excerpt Regarding Benzene and Organochlorine Technologies and Chromosome Damage)

Silent Spring by Rachel Carson

Excerpt From Chapter 13: Through a Narrow Window 

Plants treated with benzene hexachloride (BHC) or lindane became monstrously deformed with tumorlike swellings on their roots. Their cells grew in size, being swollen with chromosomes which doubled in number. The doubling continued in future divisions until further cell division became mechanically impossible.

The herbicide 2,4-D has also produced tumor like swellings in treated plants. Chromosomes become short, thick, clumped together. Cell division is seriously retarded. The general effect is said to parallel closely that produced by X-rays.

These are but a few illustrations; many more could be cited. As yet there has been no comprehensive study aimed at testing the mutagenic effects of pesticides as such. The facts cited above are by-products of research in cell physiology or genetics. What is urgently needed is a direct attack on the problem.

Some scientists who are willing to concede the potent effect of environmental radiation on man nevertheless question whether mutagenic chemicals can, as a practical proposition, have the same effect. They cite the great penetrating power of radiation, but doubt that chemicals could reach germ cells. Once again we are hampered by the fact that there has been little direct investigation of the problem in man. However, the finding of large residues of DDT in the gonads and germ cells of birds and mammals is strong evidence that the chlorinated hydrocarbons, at least, not only become widely distributed throughout the body but come into contact with genetic materials. Professor David E. Davis at Pennsylvania State University has recently discovered that a potent chemical which prevents cells from dividing and has had limited use in cancer therapy can also be used to cause sterility in birds. Sublethal levels of the chemical halt cell division in the gonads. Professor Davis has had some success in field trials. Obviously, then, there is little basis for the hope or belief that the gonads of any organism are shielded from chemicals in the environment.

Recent medical findings in the field of chromosome abnormalities are of extreme interest and significance. In 1959 several British and French research teams found their independent studies pointing to a common conclusion—that some of humanity’s ills are caused by a disturbance of the normal chromosome number. In certain diseases and abnormalities studied by these investigators the number differed from the normal. To illustrate: it is now known that all mongoloids have one extra chromosome. Occasionally this is attached to another so that the chromosome number remains the normal 46. As a rule, however, the extra is a separate chromosome, making the number 47. In such individuals, the original cause of the defect must have occurred in the generation preceding its appearance.

A different mechanism seems to operate in a number of patients, both in America and Great Britain, who are suffering from a chronic form of leukemia. These have been found to have a consistent chromosome abnormality in some of the blood cells. The abnormality consists of the loss of part of a chromosome. In these patients the skin cells have a normal complement of chromosomes. This indicates that the chromosome defect did not occur in the germ cells that gave rise to these individuals, but represents damage to particular cells (in this case, the precursors of blood cells) that occurred during the life of the individual. The loss of part of a chromosome has perhaps deprived these cells of their “instructions” for normal behavior.

The list of defects linked to chromosome disturbances has grown with surprising speed since the opening of this territory, hitherto beyond the boundaries of medical research. One, known only as Klinefelter’s syndrome, involves a duplication of one of the sex chromosomes. The resulting individual is a male, but because he carries two of the X chromosomes (becoming XXY instead of XY, the normal male complement) he is somewhat abnormal. Excessive height and mental defects often accompany the sterility caused by the condition. In contrast, an individual who receives only one sex chromosome (becoming XO instead of either XX or XY) is actually female but lacks many of the secondary sexual characteristics. The condition is accompanied by various physical (and sometimes mental) defects, for of course the X chromosome carries genes for a variety of characteristics. This is known as Turner’s syndrome…

An immense amount of work on the subject of chromosome abnormalities is being done by workers in many countries. A group at the University of Wisconsin, headed by Dr. Klaus Patau, has been concentrating on a variety of congenital abnormalities, usually including mental retardation, that seem to result from the duplication of only part of a chromosome, as if somewhere in the formation of one of the germ cells a chromosome had broken and the pieces had not been properly redistributed. Such a mishap is likely to interfere with the normal development of the embryo.

According to present knowledge, the occurrence of an entire extra body chromosome is usually lethal, preventing survival of the embryo. Only three such conditions are known to be viable; one of them, of course, is mongolism. The presence of an extra attached fragment, on the other hand, although seriously damaging is not necessarily fatal, and according to the Wisconsin investigators this situation may well account for a substantial part of the so far unexplained cases in which a child is born with multiple defects, usually including mental retardation.

This is so new a field of study that as yet scientists have been more concerned with identifying the chromosome abnormalities associated with disease and defective development than with speculating about the causes. It would be foolish to assume that any single agent is responsible for damaging the chromosomes or causing their erratic behavior during cell division. But can we afford to ignore the fact that we are now filling the environment with chemicals that have the power to strike directly at the chromosomes, affecting them in the precise ways that would cause such conditions? Is this not too high a price to pay for a sproutless potato or a mosquitoes patio?

We can, if we wish, reduce this threat to our genetic heritage, a possession that has come down to us through some two billion years of evolution and selection of living protoplasm, a possession that is ours for the moment only, until we must pass it on to the generations to come. We are doing little now to preserve its integrity. Although chemical manufacturers are required by law to test their materials for toxicity, they are not required to make the tests that would reliably demonstrate genetic effect, and they do not do so.

(That’s because manufacturers were already well aware of the biological impacts of the technologies they were expanding. Make certain to read my excerpts from the book, “Asperger’s Children: The Origins of Autism in Nazi Vienna,” by Edith Sheffer)

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The Lake Effect by Nancy Nichols (An excerpt)

The Lake Effect by Nancy Nichols

By the time the PCB problem was isolated in January 1976, the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency believed that Outboard Marine was delivering approximately nine to ten tons of PCBs to the harbor each day. The PCB content of the sludge at the bottom of the harbor ranged from 240,000 to 500,000 parts per million depending on when and where the sample was taken. That means that either one in two or one in four grains of sand or silt at the bottom of the harbor was not actually sand or silt, but was a PCB instead. page 43

Waukegan would take its turn on the national stage two years later, in 1984,when a U.S. Environmental Protection official, Rita Lavelle, was accused of secretly meeting with lakefront polluters in an effort to strike a cleanup deal that heavily favored industry… In the aftermath of the scandal, the full extent of Waukegan’s chemical contamination was revealed… Eventually, three separate Superfund sites, named after the 1980 federal legislation that allocated funds to clean them up, were designated in Waukegan. Two of the sites are adjacent to the lake… In addition, more than a dozen other sites form what federal and state regulators call an expanded study area, which stretches along the lakefront from one end of town to the other. These smaller sites contain the waste products from a tannery, a steel company, a paint factory, a pharmaceutical company, and a scrap yard. Together these sites contain not just PCBs, but an alphabet soup of pollutants. “Just about every chemical we know to be dangerous to human health is in one of those sites,” Says Margaret Quinn, a professor at the University of Massachusetts, Lowell, who specializes in human exposure assessment. In addition to PCBs, these chemicals include benzene and other volatile organic compounds, arsenic. lead, asbestos, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), dioxins, vinyl chloride, and ammonia. Various chemicals among these have been associated with reproductive diseases, learning and attention deficits in children, birth defects, immune system deficiencies, and some forms of cancer.

Was there a relationship between my sister’s cancer and the toxins of our childhood? My sister certainly thought so. And many other people have suspected, often correctly, that elements in their environment have had an effect on their health. Yet because of the long time it takes for a cancer to develop and because of relative mobility of our lives today, it can be challenging to establish a casual link between a disease and its origin.

pages 5 -6

“Ovaries are approximately three centimeters long by one and one-half centimeters wide by one centimeter thick,” writes Ethel Sloan in, “The Biology of Women.”… Whichever edition you consult will tell you that the ovary is about the size of an almond and that it produces the female hormone estrogen. During the monthly menstrual cycle, each ovary forces an egg through a wall of tissue and afterward repairs that rupture in a process called ovulation. “The ovary is no beauty,” writes Natalie Angier in “Woman: An Intimate Geography, “It is scarred and pitted, for each cycle of ovulation leaves behind a blemish where an egg follicle has been emptied of its contents. The older the woman, the more scarred her ovaries will be. It is this continual bursting and repairing–part and parcel of the ovarian life cycle–that makes the ovary vulnerable to cancer.

Scientists have long theorized that as cells multiply each month to repair the breach in the ovarian wall, more opportunities are created for mistakes in the DNA copying process, which in turn increases the chances of a malignant mutation. More ovulations, in other words, mean more chances for mistakes.

Risk factors for the disease therefore include never giving your ovaries a break by being pregnant or having a child. The other risk factor is having a close relative with the disease. That would be my sister, of course, and that would bring our story back home….

Doctors at this hospital and elsewhere have long speculated that there were significant environmental factors associated with ovarian cancer. The vagina provides a runway to the ovaries not simply for sperm but for many other substances as well. Significantly, women who have their tubes tied experience a lower rate of ovarian cancer than those who do not. Some have theorized that this may be because the pathways to the ovaries has been blocked, keeping outside agents at bay.

For example, some researchers have found a link between talcum powder and ovarian cancer–though several other studies have produced conflicting results. Some early forms of talcum may have contained asbestos and thus given researchers their positive findings. Indeed, at least one retrospective study found a much higher disease rate among women who used talc prior to 1960 than those who used is after–giving at least some credence to the idea that the use of asbestos-laden talc increases a woman’s risk of ovarian cancer.

My sister speculated that asbestos had contributed to her illness. A group of naturally occurring fibrous materials that are fire-resistant, asbestos has been thought to cause adverse health effects since the first century. Yet, as writer Paul Brodeur tells us in his book on asbestos, Outrageous Misconduct, its role in causing the disease asbestosis, a noncancerous condition in which the lungs scar so badly that they won’t expand and contract properly, was not well established in medical literature until the 1970s.

In the years before my sister died, when I was an editor for the Harvard Business Review, I worked on a piece written by Bill Sells, the man who had run the Johns-Manville plants in Waukegan in the early 1970s–a time when deaths from asbestosis and other asbestos-related diseases were beginning to occur in the workforce at an alarming rate. After noting that his job included the unenviable task of visiting his sick and dying employees at the local hospital, he offered this description of his first visit to the factory: “The plant lay at the back of a sprawling complex built in the 1920s. Its view of Lake Michigan was obscured by a landfill several stories high. A road wound through this mountain of asbestos-laden scrap, and as I drove through it for the first time I stopped to watch a bulldozer crush a 36-inch sewer pipe. A cloud of dust swirled around my car.” Inside the plant, he said, he found “asbestos-laden dust coating almost every visible surface.”

An EPA official charged with overseeing the cleanup of the Johns-Manville plant, Brad Bradley, has a similar recollection. Standing at the edge of the 350-acre Superfund site that overlooks Lake Michigan, Bradley recalled his first visit there in 1982. He remembers asking an asbestos expert where he thought they would find the fibers. “I think they are everywhere,” said the expert. Indeed, virtually anywhere on the site that Bradley scuffed the ground with his boot, he found the telltale fibers.

People are more likely to connect the fiber with asbestosis than with ovarian cancer. However, a thirty-year study of nearly two thousand women who worked with asbestos while manufacturing gas masks during World War II showed these women to be seven times more likely to die from ovarian cancer than a control group. My sister’s medical history seems to tell a different story, though, and the link between asbestos and ovarian cancer in general does not appear to be a strong one. The ovarian cancer specialist I saw at the clinic was quick to point out that my sister’s record indicated that her cancer was preceded by endometriosis.

The phrase “painful periods” does not begin to describe the torture that my mother and sister endured during menstruation. White and sweating, doubled over with pain, they retreated to the bed or the couch until the pain and the bleeding passed. When I recounted my mother’s experience, the ovarian cancer specialist suggests that my mother also likely suffered from endometriosis.

Endometriosis is a once rare disease that is now common. When the disease was first named and discovered in 1921 by a New York physician, there were only twenty reports of the illness in the medical literature. Today, the National Institutes of Health estimates that roughly 5.5 million women suffer from the disease in the United States, and as many as 89 million women may have it worldwide. An exact number is hard to come by, since the disease can only properly be diagnosed during surgery. Still, about one-third of women of childbearing age suffer some symptoms–including pelvic pain and infertility–and in the United States at least, the average age of onset has been declining…

Endometriosis is a complex condition, and no one is certain what causes it. Some scientists believe it is an immune system disorder. Others believe that women with endometriosis lack the ability to shed cells that have migrated and are growing where they should not be. Other scientists have focused on a genetic component of the disease since it can run in families. A woman with a sister or mother with endometriosis, for example, is three to seven times more likely to get the disease.

The mechanisms of endometriosis are not that different from those that create cancer: they involve cell proliferation, the migration of cells, and a change in their cellular nature. Endometriosis grows unchecked and invades surrounding tissues, and the body’s immune system fails to rid itself of the misplaced lesions. In the same way, the body fails to rid itself of cancerous lesions.

It is often but not always the case that the kind of cancer my sister suffered from, ovarian clear-cell adenocarcinoma, is preceded by endometriosis, and many believe that there is a relationship between the two diseases. Some scientists believe that endometriosis–in certain cases–is a kind of precancerous condition, and others believe that the two diseases spring forth in unison. Other experts theorize that the endometrial cells themselves drive the proliferation of cancer once it has started by producing their own estrogen. Each lesion is capable of increasing the local production of estrogen, so that once the disease takes hold it is capable of feeding itself.

In my sister’s case, cancerous growths arose within her endometrial lesions. Whatever the exact mechanism of disease development, women with the type of ovarian cancer that my sister suffered from have higher rates of endometriosis that the general female population. In one study, about 70 percent of the women with clear-cell ovarian cancer also had endometriosis.

Scientists have long suspected that chemicals of the type found in Waukegan–dioxins, PCBs, and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs)–play a role in human endometriosis.

pages 75 – 81

Carson died in 1964, but her work and her life serve as a warning to everyone who struggles with cancer. “As we pour millions into research and invest all our hopes in vast programs to find cures for established cases of cancer,” she wrote, “we are neglecting the golden opportunity to prevent, even while we seek to cure.”

Carson’s favorite quote, from Abraham Lincoln, can be found snuggled into her almost daily letters to Freeman, where she explains what keeps her going through her treatments and on to finish her groundbreaking book. It reads: “To sin by silence when they should protest, makes cowards of men.”

page 122

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How a Big Agribusiness Firm Infiltrated the EPA and Made a Mockery of Science By Kamil Ahsan for AlterNet

How a Big Agribusiness Firm Infiltrated the EPA and Made a Mockery of Science By Kamil Ahsan for AlterNet

Expensive coverups have kept a dangerous chemical in America’s water supply.

June 5, 2014

Earlier this year, in an exposé in The New Yorker, Rachel Aviv detailed the story of Syngenta, an agribusiness firm that was sued by the community water systems of six states in a class-action lawsuit over the firm’s herbicide atrazine.

Atrazine is the second most commonly used herbicide in the US and is used on more than 50% of all corn crops. It is one of Syngenta’s most profitable chemicals with sales at over $300 million a year. Banned in the EU, atrazine remains on the market in the US despite scores of scientific publications demonstrating its role in abnormal sexual development. Almost insoluble in water, atrazine contaminates drinking water supplies at 30 times the concentration demonstrated to cause severe sexual abnormalities in animal models.

Recently unsealed court documents from the lawsuit have disclosed how Syngenta launched a multimillion-dollar campaign to disrepute and suppress scientific research, and influence the US Environmental Protection Agency to prevent a ban on atrazine.

Tyrone Hayes, a professor of Integrative Biology at UC Berkeley has demonstrated in his research that atrazine leads to health problems, reproductive issues and birth defects. Hayes is a vocal proponent of legislative action to ban the dissemination of atrazine in water supplies. The court documents showed that Syngenta specifically attacked Hayes’ work with its smear campaign.

In addition to smear campaigns, Syngenta hired a private detective agency to look into the personal backgrounds of scientists on an advisory panel at the EPA, the judge presiding over the lawsuit, and Hayes. The documents also reveal a host of third-party organizations and independent “experts” who were on Syngenta’s payroll and supplied with Syngenta’s data in order to make public statements or write op-ed pieces in support of atrazine. Often, these experts were supplied directly with material that company employees edited or wrote.

Syngenta’s Coverup

It all started in 1997 when Hayes was employed by Syngenta to study atrazine, which was under review by the EPA. Hayes’ experimental research on the developmental growth of frogs began to reveal that even at levels of atrazine as low as 0.1 parts per billion (ppb), the chemical was capable of causing males to develop as hermaphrodites. Some males developed female organs and were even capable of mating with normal males and producing eggs. As reported in top peer-reviewed journals such as PNAS and Nature, at exposure to 0.1 ppb atrazine the frogs showed extremely reduced levels of testosterone and feminized voice boxes.

As Hayes amassed data, Syngenta downplayed his results, citing problems with statistics or asking him to repeat studies, often nitpicking or questioning his credibility or scientific skills.

In 2000, Hayes resigned from the panel. He continued to speak at conferences, publicizing his ongoing research in the lab. Meanwhile, Syngenta employees began to show up at conferences to publicly besmirch his data. Sporadically, the campaign turned into threats of violence. In a Democracy Now interview with Amy Goodman, Hayes said:

“Tim Pastoor, for example, before I would give a talk, would literally threaten, whisper in my ear that he could have me lynched, or he said he would send some of his ‘good ol’ boys to show me what it’s like to be gay,’ or at one point he threatened my wife and my daughter with sexual violence.”

Shockingly, even though Syngenta settled the lawsuit for $105 million in late 2012 after eight years of litigation, it still maintains that amount of atrazine present in the water is much lower than would be required to cause damage. In an article in Forbes published a week after the New Yorker story, Jon Entine criticized Hayes and claimed that “after numerous follow up studies by the EPA and a score of scientists… evidence of endocrine related problems Hayes claimed to have identified… are nowhere to be found.”

This is a patently false assertion. A mere scientific literature search shows dozens of peer-reviewed articles showing atrazine-induced defects in animal models. A number of papers on salmon and fish find similar results to those in frog: fish exposed to atrazine showed major reproductive abnormalities in both males and females, low sperm counts and low testosterone levels in males. Similar defects have been observed in reptiles. Research in rats has demonstrated decreased fertility, effects on sperm count, increased prostate disease in males and poor mammary development. A collaborative effort of an international team of scientists confirmed these studies by demonstrating feminization of male gonads across vertebrate species.

All signs point toward the same being true for humans. Said Hayes:

“A number of epidemiological studies in humans have associated atrazine with impaired reproduction and a decline in sperm count and fertility. Another study looking at increased prostrate disease in workers who are exposed to atrazine in the production plant in St. Gabriel, Louisiana. A number of studies now show birth defects in humans exposed to atrazine: gastroschisis where the intestines are on the outside of the baby when it’s born, choanal atresia, an effect where the oral cavity and the nasal cavity close up. Most recently, there’s been work showing atrazine associating with three different types of genital abnormalities in males.”

Corruption Within the EPA

Interestingly, the scientific advisory panel to the EPA recognizes this wealth of scientific data. In a memo from the 2012 review the advisory panel repeatedly calls attention to the biased methodology employed by the EPA. In fact, the advisory panel disagreed with almost every conclusion the EPA made.

Hayes explained: “The panel was only making recommendations, they don’t make decisions and so the EPA doesn’t need to listen to them. This really undermines the role of the scientific advisory panel.”

Syngenta was closely involved with the EPA’s decision. The EPA mainly considered just one study that found inconclusive effects of atrazine. This was the sole premise for the EPA’s decision. It was based on the research of a group led by Kloas Werner. Said Hayes:

“Kloas Werner was originally on the EPA scientific advisory panel that I presented my data to. He at that time was hired by Syngenta and subsequent to being on the panel he conducted a study in collaboration with the EPA and Syngenta and reported back to the panel that he was on. The panel’s conclusion was that more work needed to be done, and then he presented back to that panel. Essentially, his previous decision helped him get the money for his study. Furthermore, they selected a strain of frogs that don’t respond even to estrogen, which was acknowledged by the advisory panel which reviewed their work.”

But Syngenta wasn’t satisfied with bad science and corruption within the EPA. As Syngenta was hiring Werner, a scientific advisory panel member who could sway the EPA review process, it also held scores of closed-door meetings with panel members. As the documents reveal, Syngenta also hired a communications consultancy, the White House Writers’ Group, to set up meetings with members of Congress and Washington bigwigs to discuss upcoming EPA reviews.

The information about Syngenta’s misdeeds has had little to no effect. The fiction that Hayes is a scientific hack continues to pervade the work of pro-Syngenta writers like Entine. These columnists, who write from corporation-apologist perspectives, bolster the fiction by glossing over critiques of the EPA and pretending like its conclusions represent uncontroversial scientific consensus.

Time and time again, these “third-party allies” of Syngenta hyperbolically talk about the “scientific method,” and suggest that science is science, regardless of the angle of the investigator (none have much to say about Werner’s estrogen-insensitive frogs). For them, it seems, there is no conceivable way Syngenta employed techniques that would furnish them with results to protect its multimillion-dollar profits.

In other words, for them, “conflict of interest” means nothing. Scientific publishing is uncompromising about this: journals require the disclosure of conflicts of interest in publications. Obviously, political and financial incentives are sufficient criteria to change scientific results because they deeply influence the way experimenters do science.

Unsurprisingly, the Kloas paper failed to declare any conflict of interest.

“How can you declare no conflict of interest when clearly the manufacturer benefits from the conclusions drawn by that paper as well as benefits from the decisions made by the EPA advisory panel?” Hayes said. “Especially when the member was both on the panel and was paid by Syngenta.”

Corporation v. Science

Syngenta frequently alleges that Hayes never made his data on atrazine publicly available, a damning indictment that makes it seem like his data could have been fabricated. Hayes said this is not the case.

“The work that I did for Syngenta, Syngenta owns all that raw data,” he said. “This includes the generated raw data, the transcribed typed data, and really everything. The EPA actually visited my lab. Members of the EPA actually were in my laboratory, they observed all of our processes and data collection. Mary Frankenberry, a statistician, actually analyzed the data herself.”

Syngenta and its supporters also rely heavily on the vitriol that Hayes hardly seems like a disinterested, objective scientist. Rich criticism from a company that hires people to obtain the scientific results it wants.

Hayes has spoken widely, set up a website AtrazineLovers.com and rapped about Syngenta’s powerful lobbying to keep atrazine on the market. There is, however, a fundamental distinction between a company lobbying to get its favored scientific result, and a scientist who vocally defends his scientific results. Hayes’ response isn’t surprising or unusual. Scientists often claim ownership over their results and will doggedly defend them at conferences.

The actions of big corporations like Syngenta, especially when dealing with highly profitable products, reveal a broader truth about the nature of corporate power. There is a dangerous trend in which corporate fiat is used to call scientific research into question and sway governmental policy. This trend puts millions of lives at risk as hazardous products avoid regulation and remain on the market.

One wonders why the burden isn’t on Syngenta for proving without a doubt that atrazine has no effects before plying the entire population with a highly dangerous chemical. Even if it wasn’t a near-certainty that atrazine causes birth defects, why wouldn’t we require regulatory bodies such as the EPA to err on the side of caution?

Today, atrazine remains legal and in the water supplies of millions of Americans, despite evidence from scores of labs outside Tyrone Hayes’ showing it to be hazardous.

“In the 15 plus years that I’ve had experience with the EPA, I don’t really have a lot of faith that we’re going to get an objective review that’s really going to focus on environmental health and public health with regards to atrazine, or any other chemical for that matter,” Hayes said.

Who can blame him?

http://www.alternet.org/personal-health/how-big-agribusiness-firm-infiltrated-epa-and-made-mockery-science?paging=off&current_page=1#bookmark

The Expose

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2014/02/10/140210fa_fact_aviv?currentPage=all

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Scientists discover DNA body clock by Ian Sample, science correspondent

Scientists discover DNA body clock

Newly discovered mechanism could help researchers understand ageing process and lead to ways of slowing it down.

by Ian Sample, science correspondent

A US scientist has discovered an internal body clock based on DNA that measures the biological age of our tissues and organs.

The clock shows that while many healthy tissues age at the same rate as the body as a whole, some of them age much faster or slower. The age of diseased organs varied hugely, with some many tens of years “older” than healthy tissue in the same person, according to the clock.

Researchers say that unravelling the mechanisms behind the clock will help them understand the ageing process and hopefully lead to drugs and other interventions that slow it down.

Therapies that counteract natural ageing are attracting huge interest from scientists because they target the single most important risk factor for scores of incurable diseases that strike in old age.

“Ultimately, it would be very exciting to develop therapy interventions to reset the clock and hopefully keep us young,” said Steve Horvath, professor of genetics and biostatistics at the University of California in Los Angeles.

Horvath looked at the DNA of nearly 8,000 samples of 51 different healthy and cancerous cells and tissues. Specifically, he looked at how methylation, a natural process that chemically modifies DNA, varied with age.

Horvath found that the methylation of 353 DNA markers varied consistently with age and could be used as a biological clock. The clock ticked fastest in the years up to around age 20, then slowed down to a steadier rate. Whether the DNA changes cause ageing or are caused by ageing is an unknown that scientists are now keen to work out.

“Does this relate to something that keeps track of age, or is a consequence of age? I really don’t know,” Horvath told the Guardian. “The development of grey hair is a marker of ageing, but nobody would say it causes ageing,” he said.

The clock has already revealed some intriguing results. Tests on healthy heart tissue showed that its biological age – how worn out it appears to be – was around nine years younger than expected. Female breast tissue aged faster than the rest of the body, on average appearing two years older.

Diseased tissues also aged at different rates, with cancers speeding up the clock by an average of 36 years. Some brain cancer tissues taken from children had a biological age of more than 80 years.

“Female breast tissue, even healthy tissue, seems to be older than other tissues of the human body. That’s interesting in the light that breast cancer is the most common cancer in women. Also, age is one of the primary risk factors of cancer, so these types of results could explain why cancer of the breast is so common,” Horvath said.

Healthy tissue surrounding a breast tumour was on average 12 years older than the rest of the woman’s body, the scientist’s tests revealed.

Writing in the journal Genome Biology, Horvath showed that the biological clock was reset to zero when cells plucked from an adult were reprogrammed back to a stem-cell-like state. The process for converting adult cells into stem cells, which can grow into any tissue in the body, won the Nobel prize in 2012 for Sir John Gurdon at Cambridge University and Shinya Yamanaka at Kyoto University.

“It provides a proof of concept that one can reset the clock,” said Horvath. The scientist now wants to run tests to see how neurodegenerative and infectious diseases affect, or are affected by, the biological clock.

“These data could prove valuable in furthering our knowledge of the biological changes that are linked to the ageing process,” said Veryan Codd, who works on the effects of biological ageing in cardiovascular disease at Leicester University. “It will be important to determine whether the accelerated ageing, as described here, is associated with other age-related diseases and if it is a causal factor in, or a consequence of, disease development.

“As more data becomes available, it will also be interesting to see whether a similar approach could identify tissue-specific ageing signatures, which could also prove important in disease mechanisms,” she added.

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Methylomic analysis of monozygotic twins discordant for autism spectrum disorder and related behavioural traits – Open/Public document

Methylomic analysis of monozygotic twins discordant for autism spectrum disorder and related behavioural traits
Open – Molecular Psychiatry advance online publication 23 April 2013; doi: 10.1038/mp.2013.41

C C Y Wong1, E L Meaburn1,2, A Ronald1,2, T S Price1,3, A R Jeffries1, L C Schalkwyk1, R Plomin1 and J Mill1,4

Abstract

Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) defines a group of common, complex neurodevelopmental disorders. Although the aetiology of ASD has a strong genetic component, there is considerable monozygotic (MZ) twin discordance indicating a role for non-genetic factors. Because MZ twins share an identical DNA sequence, disease-discordant MZ twin pairs provide an ideal model for examining the contribution of environmentally driven epigenetic factors in disease. We performed a genome-wide analysis of DNA methylation in a sample of 50 MZ twin pairs (100 individuals) sampled from a representative population cohort that included twins discordant and concordant for ASD, ASD-associated traits and no autistic phenotype. Within-twin and between-group analyses identified numerous differentially methylated regions associated with ASD. In addition, we report significant correlations between DNA methylation and quantitatively measured autistic trait scores across our sample cohort. This study represents the first systematic epigenomic analyses of MZ twins discordant for ASD and implicates a role for altered DNA methylation in autism.

Introduction

Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) defines a collection of complex childhood neurodevelopmental disorders affecting ~1% of the population and conferring severe lifelong disability.1 ASD is characterized by a triad of impairments: (1) deficits in social interactions and understanding, (2) non-social impairments, such as repetitive behaviour and interests, and (3) impairments in language and communication development. Quantitative genetic studies indicate that ASD has a strong heritable component,2 which is supported by the recent identification of several susceptibility loci and an emerging literature implicating the relevance of de novo and inherited copy number variants (CNVs) in the disorder.3 Despite intense research effort during the past decade, however, no definitive biological or clinical markers for ASD have been identified. This can be partly explained by the highly heterogeneous nature of ASD, both clinically and aetiologically. The clinical manifestation of ASD displays considerable individual variability in the severity of impairments and quantitative genetic studies also report genetic heterogeneity between the three trait domains of ASD.4, 5, 6

Despite the high heritability estimates for ASD, there is notable discordance within monozygotic (MZ) twin pairs for diagnosed ASD, and often considerable symptom severity differences within ASD-concordant MZ twins,2 strongly implicating a role for non-genetic epigenetic factors in aetiology. Epigenetic mechanisms mediate reversible changes in gene expression independent of DNA sequence variation, principally through alterations in DNA methylation and chromatin structure.7 Epigenetic changes in the brain have been associated with a range of neurological and cognitive processes, including neurogenesis,8 brain development9 and drug addiction.10 Emerging evidence implicates epigenetic modifications in several neuropsychiatric disorders, including ASD.11, 12 In particular, epigenetic dysregulation underlies the symptoms of Rett syndrome and Fragile X syndrome, two disorders with considerable phenotypic overlap with ASD.11 Although few empirical studies have systematically examined the role of altered epigenetic processes in ASD, recent analyses provide evidence for altered DNA methylation and histone modifications in disease pathology.13, 14, 15

The use of disease-discordant MZ twins represents a powerful strategy in epigenetic epidemiology because identical twins are matched for genotype, age, sex, maternal environment, population cohort effects and exposure to many shared environmental factors.16, 17 Recent studies have uncovered considerable epigenetic variation between MZ twins,18, 19, 20 and DNA methylation differences have been associated with MZ twin discordance for several complex phenotypic traits, including psychosis21 and Type 1 diabetes.22 In ASD, Nguyen and co-workers23 recently examined lymphoblastoid cell lines derived from peripheral blood lymphocytes collected from three ASD-discordant MZ twin pairs, reporting several ASD-associated differentially methylated loci.23 Two loci (RORA and BCL2) reported as hypermethylated in ASD were found to be downregulated in RNA from post-mortem autism brains. These findings support a role for DNA methylation in ASD and highlight the successful use of peripherally derived DNA from discordant MZ twins to identify disease-associated epigenetic changes. Given the highly heterogeneous nature of ASD, however, more comprehensive genome-wide analyses across larger numbers of samples are warranted to investigate the extent to which ASD-associated epigenetic variation is individual- and symptom-specific.

Materials and methods

Samples for methylomic analysis

Participants were recruited from the Twins’ Early Development Study (TEDS), a United Kingdom-based study of twins contacted from birth records.24 For this study, a total of 50 MZ twin pairs were identified within TEDS using the Childhood Autism Symptom Test (CAST), which assesses dimensional ASD traits, at age 8 years. The CAST25 is a 31-item screening measurement for ASD, designed for parents and teachers to complete in non-clinical settings to assess behaviours characteristic of the autistic spectrum. Items within the CAST are scored additively and a score of 15 (that is, answering ‘yes’ on 15 items) is the cutoff for identifying children ‘at risk’ for ASD. On the basis of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fourth Edition criteria for autism, CAST items can be divided into three subscales: impairments in social symptoms (12 items); impairments in non-social symptoms (that is, restricted repetitive behaviours and interests (RRBIs); 7 items); and communication impairments (12 items).6 The CAST has been widely used in population-based studies of singletons25 as well as in twin studies.26 Within TEDS, the CAST has been shown to have good reliability and validity.27 Supplementary Figure 1 shows the distribution of total CAST and its three subscale scores within samples selected using parent ratings. Supplementary Table 1 provides a summary of the samples included in the analyses. Whole-blood samples were collected from subjects at age 15 years by a trained phlebotomist for DNA extraction and blood cell-count analysis. Blood cell counts were assessed for all collected samples and found to be within the normal range.

Genome-wide analysis of DNA methylation

For each individual, genomic DNA (500 ng) extracted from whole blood was treated with sodium bisulphite using the EZ 96-DNA methylation kit (Zymo Research, Irvine, CA, USA) following the manufacturer’s standard protocol. The bisulphite conversion reaction was performed in duplicate for each sample to minimize potential bias caused by variable conversion efficiency, and pooled bisulphite-treated DNA was used for subsequent array analysis. Genome-wide DNA methylation was assessed using the Illumina Infinium HumanMethylation27 BeadChip (Illumina, San Diego, CA, USA), which interrogates the DNA methylation profile of 27 578 CpG sites located in 14 495 protein-coding gene promoters and 110 microRNA gene promoters, at single-nucleotide resolution.28 Illumina GenomeStudio software (Illumina, San Diego, CA, USA) was used to extract signal intensities for each probe and perform initial quality control checks, with all data sets (except two individuals) being considered to be of high quality and included in subsequent analyses. To ensure stringent data quality, probes with a detection P-value >0.05 in any of the samples were removed across all individuals (N=1161 probes) in addition to a set of probes (N=2923) that were reported as nonspecific and potentially unreliable in a recent survey of all probes on the microarray.29

Methylation microarray data processing

All computations and statistical analyses were performed within the R statistical analysis environment (http://www.r-project.org), and all analysis scripts are available on request from the authors. A customized pipeline was used for the analysis of Illumina 27K methylation data as described in a previous study of psychosis-discordant MZ twins.21 Briefly, signal intensities for each probe were normalized using quantile normalization to reduce unwanted interarray variation. The relative methylation level of each interrogated CpG site was calculated as the ratio of the normalized signal from the methylated probe to the sum of the normalized signals of the methylated and unmethylated probes. This gave an average DNA methylation value, described as average ‘β-value’ for each CpG site, ranging from 0 (unmethylated) to 1 (fully methylated). A density plot of β-values for every sample revealed that, as expected given the known distribution of probes on the array, the data followed a bimodal distribution (Supplementary Figure 2). An empirical variance stabilizing transformation was used to adjust for the bimodal distribution of the data.21 Raw microarray data are available for download from http://epigenetics.iop.kcl.ac.uk/ASDTwins/.

Identification of ASD-associated DMRs

Two major analysis strategies were used to identify DMRs associated with ASD and related traits. First, DNA methylation differences within pairs of MZ twins were examined in MZ twin pairs discordant for ASD and ASD-related traits. Second, case–control comparisons of DNA methylation were performed between groups of individuals scoring high and low for ASD traits. With the aim of identifying real, biologically relevant within-twin and between-group DNA methylation differences, we used an analytic approach that incorporates both the significance (that is, t-test statistic) and magnitude (that is, absolute delta-β (Δβ)) of any observed differences to produce a ranked list of DMRs.21 A summary of the analysis strategy is presented in Supplementary Figure 3. This combined approach, where data are interpreted based on the combination of fold change and statistical significance, is routinely used in genome-wide gene expression studies and has been shown to produce gene lists of higher reproducibility and biological relevance.30 We recently used a similar approach successfully to identify disease-associated epigenetic changes in a psychosis-discordant MZ twin study.21 Given the known phenotypic and aetiologic heterogeneity, we also screened for large Δβ-values within each discordant MZ twin pair to examine the possibility that disease-associated epigenetic changes are potentially private and not consistent across all families. Finally, we examined whether quantitative CAST scores are correlated with DNA methylation at specific loci. The association between each of the quantitatively rated CAST subscale variables and DNA methylation at each CpG site was assessed using Pearson’s product–moment correlation.

Global DNA methylation analysis

Global levels of DNA methylation were quantified using the LUminometric Methylation Assay (LUMA).31 This method relies on DNA cleavage by methylation-sensitive and -insensitive restriction enzymes, followed by the quantification of the resulting restriction fragments using pyrosequencing.31 Positive controls, including both artificially methylated and artificially unmethylated samples, were included in all experimental steps to ensure unambiguous restriction enzyme digestions and to calibrate the experimental data, with each sample being processed in duplicate.

Fine mapping of DNA methylation using bisulphite pyrosequencing

Although the Illumina 27K array has been well validated for detecting differences in DNA methylation, we further tested specific regions nominated from the genome-wide microarray analysis using bisulphite pyrosequencing. Independent verification analyses were performed on two CpG sites (cg16474696, MGC3207; cg20507276, OR2L13) that demonstrated a large significant ASD-associated difference from the case versus control analysis. In each case, the assay spanned multiple CpG sites, including the specific CpG interrogated on the Illumina 27K array. Briefly, 500 ng DNA from each individual was independently treated with sodium bisulphite in duplicate using the EZ 96-DNA methylation kit as described above. Bisulphite-polymerase chain reaction amplification was performed in duplicate. Quantitative DNA methylation analysis was conducted using the PyroMark Q24 pyrosequencer (Qiagen, Valencia, CA, USA). The correlation between DNA methylation estimates obtained from Illumina 27K array and bisulphite pyrosequencing was assessed using Pearson’s moment–correlation coefficient. In addition, Sanger sequencing using BigDye v.3.1 terminator mix (Applied Biosystems, Foster City, CA, USA) was performed on the regions targeted by the MGC3207 pyrosequencing assay to ensure that the Illumina probe sequences and the primer binding sites for the pyrosequencing assay were free of any DNA sequence variation. The primers and assay conditions are given in Supplementary Table 2.

CNV analysis using genotyping arrays

Genomic DNA (200 ng) extracted from whole blood was genotyped using the Illumina HumanOmniExpress BeadChip (Illumina) targeting >730 000 single-nucleotide polymorphisms and Illumina GenomeStudio software was used to call genotypes based on predefined genotype cluster boundaries to denote cluster positions (HumanOmniExpress-12v1_C.egt). CNVs were identified from the genotyping data using two independent algorithms, PennCNV32 and QuantiSNP,33 with default parameters, and GC content signal preprocessing was applied. Stringent quality control steps were used to ensure that only high-confidence CNVs, that is, those >1 kb in size, covered by >5 probes and detected by both programs, were included for further analysis.

Results

ASD is not associated with systemic differences in global DNA methylation
As expected, within-twin patterns of DNA methylation were highly correlated across all MZ twin pairs (average within-twin r across all probes=0.99), indicating that ASD and related traits are not associated with systemic changes in epigenetic programming. Supplementary Figure 4a shows the correlation between genome-wide DNA methylation across all probes on the array and one example ASD-discordant MZ twin pair; data for the other ASD-discordant MZ pairs are available for download from http://epigenetics.iop.kcl.ac.uk/ASDTwins/. These data were corroborated by global DNA methylation analysis using LUMA, which identified no significant difference between affected ASD twins and their co-twins (affected ASD twins mean=65.1%, unaffected co-twins mean=65.9%; P=0.817) (Supplementary Figure 4b).

Site-specific DNA differences are widespread in MZ-discordant ASD twins

In contrast to global levels of DNA methylation, DNA methylation at individual CpG sites demonstrated considerable variability within ASD-discordant MZ twin pairs. Figure 1a shows the distribution of average absolute differences in DNA methylation (Δβ) within all MZ twins discordant for ASD and ‘control’ MZ twin pairs concordant for low autistic trait score (unaffected). The overall distribution of average within-pair DNA methylation differences showed a highly significant skew to the right in ASD-discordant twins (P<2.2e−16, Kolmogorov–Smirnov test), with a higher number of CpG sites demonstrating a larger average difference in DNA methylation. Using an analysis method designed to identify the largest and most significant differences in DNA methylation at individual CpG sites, we identified multiple CpG sites across the genome exhibiting significant ASD-associated differential DNA methylation (Table 1). Of note, variability at these sites appears to be specific to ASD-discordant twin pairs; for the 50 top-ranked ASD-associated DMRs, we observe significantly higher average within-pair differences for MZ twin pairs discordant for ASD (P<0.01; see Figure 1b). The top differentially methylated site (cg13735974) across all ASD-discordant MZ twin pairs located in the NFYC promoter was consistently hypermethylated in affected individuals compared with their unaffected co-twins (mean Δβ=0.08, range=0.04–0.10, P<0.0004). For the top 10 DMRs, Figure 2 indicates highly consistent differences across all six ASD-discordant twin pairs.

Large DNA methylation differences are observed at specific loci within individual ASD-discordant MZ twin pairs

Because ASD is a highly heterogeneous disorder,3 it is probable that many disease-associated DMRs are family-specific. We therefore screened for the largest family-specific DNA methylation differences within each discordant ASD twin pair, identifying numerous loci (average=37.4 per twin pair) showing large DNA methylation differences (Δβ0.15) within each discordant twin pair (Supplementary Figure 5 and Supplementary Table 3). Although the majority of DMRs of large magnitude are family-specific, several are common across two or more discordant twin pairs in the same direction: cg12164282, located in PXDN promoter, showed ASD hypomethylation in twin pair 2 (Δβ=−0.19) and twin pair 4 (Δβ=−0.28); cg04545708, located in exon 1 of C11orf1, showed ASD hypermethylation in both twin pair 3 (Δβ=0.23) and twin pair 6 (Δβ=0.35); cg20426860, located in exon 1 of TMEM161A, showed ASD hypermethylation in twin pair 4 (Δβ=0.21) and twin pair 6 (Δβ=0.27); and cg27009703, located in HOXA9 promoter, showed ASD hypermethylation in twin pair 1 (Δβ=0.19) and twin pair 4 (Δβ=0.21).

DNA methylation differences are observed in MZ twins discordant for ASD-related traits

We detected significant DNA methylation differences between MZ twin pairs discordant for the three ASD-associated traits: that is, social autistic traits (N=9 MZ pairs), autistic RRBIs (N=9 MZ pairs) and communication autistic traits (N=8 MZ pairs). The top-ranked DMRs for each trait are shown in Supplementary Figure 6 and Supplementary Table 4. Interestingly, these included several genes previously implicated in the aetiology of ASD, including GABRB3, AFF2, NLGN2, JMJD1C, SNRPN, SNURF, UBE3A and KCNJ10.
As ASD is composed of a triad of all three impairments, we also examined if any CpG sites are differentially methylated across all discordant twin pairs (N=32 pairs, 64 individuals), regardless of their focal impairment. The top DMRs across all discordant twin pairs are shown in Supplementary Figure 7 and Supplementary Table 5. The top-ranked DMR located in the promoter region of PIK3C3 (cg19837131) was significantly hypomethylated in affected individuals compared with their unaffected co-twins (mean Δβ=−0.04, P<0.00004). Interestingly, while the overall average difference at this locus is small, the range of within-twin methylation difference is much greater (Δβ ranges from −0.12 to 0.6) and that the direction of effect is strikingly consistent across the majority of individual twin pairs, with 25 out of 32 discordant pairs (78%) demonstrating trait-related hypomethylation (Supplementary Figure 7).

Between-group analyses identified additional ASD-associated DMRs

Our study design also permitted us to examine group-level DNA methylation differences between ASD cases and controls. Unlike the within-pair discordant MZ twin design, between-group DNA methylation differences can be attributable to both genetic and environmental factors. Given the known gender difference in DNA methylation across the X chromosome, these analyses were restricted to probes on the autosomes (N=22 678) to minimize gender-induced biases.

Numerous DNA methylation differences were observed between ASD cases and controls. Supplementary Table 6a and Supplementary Figure 8 highlight the CpG sites showing the largest absolute DNA methylation differences (mean Δβ0.15) between ASD cases and unrelated control samples. The top case–control ASD-associated DMR was located upstream of MGC3207 (cg16474696), which was significantly hypomethylated in ASD cases compared with control samples (mean Δβ=−0.24, P<0.0002). In addition to MGC3207, large significant ASD-associated differences were observed in several other loci, including CpG sites near OR2L13 (cg20507276; mean Δβ=0.18) and C14orf152 (cg20022541; mean Δβ=−0.16, data not shown). Verification experiments were conducted on MGC3207 and OR2L13 using bisulphite-pyrosequencing confirming a high correlation (r=0.91 and 0.86, for MGC3207 (total N=33) and OR2L13 (total N=35), respectively) in DNA methylation levels, detected using the Infinium microarray and pyrosequencing platforms. Although our list of DMRs was stringently filtered to exclude probes containing known polymorphic SNPs,29 several of the top-ranked case–control DMRs, including cg16474696 and cg20507276, demonstrated patterns of DNA methylation consistent with DNA sequence effects, suggesting that they may be mediated by cis effects on DNA methylation34 or potentially reflect technical artefacts caused by uncatalogued sequence variation in probe binding sequences. To exclude the latter for MGC3207, we sequenced genomic DNA across the DMR in a range of samples showing differential methylation and identified no obvious polymorphic DNA sequence variation in the immediate vicinity of the probe.

Epigenetic differences identified between sporadic and familial ASD cases

ASD is an aetiologically heterogeneous syndrome and can occur both as a sporadic and a familial disorder. Recent CNV analyses report considerably higher frequencies of de novo variation in simplex compared with multiplex ASD families,35 suggesting that they represent genetically distinct classes. To test whether these are epigenetically distinct, we compared DNA methylation between individuals with sporadic ASD (where ASD is reported in only one member of the MZ twin pair; N=6) and individuals with familial ASD (as observed in concordant ASD MZ twin pairs; N=10). The genes most proximal to the 50 top-ranked differentially methylated CpG sites from this analysis are listed in Supplementary Table 6b. The top differentially methylated CpG site (cg07665060) is located upstream of C19orf33, which was significantly hypomethylated in individuals affected by sporadic ASD compared with those affected by familial ASD (mean Δβ=−0.12, P<0.0008) (Supplementary Figure 9). Interestingly, significant DNA methylation differences were also observed near several genes that have been previously implicated in ASD, including MBD4, AUTS2 and MAP2.

There is some overlap in DMRs across analytical groups

Table 2 provides a full list of top-ranked DMRs demonstrating overlap between analytical groups and highlighting their potential relevance to different autism-associated phenotypes. Interestingly, the top-ranked locus from the ASD-discordant twin analysis, located near NFYC, was also differentially methylated in the case–control analysis (mean Δβ=0.04, P<0.003). Furthermore, we identified significant DNA methylation differences in the MBD4 promoter in both ASD-discordant twin analysis and sporadic versus familial ASD analysis, suggesting that MBD4 methylation may have functional relevance to sporadic ASD. For each of the 50 top-ranked probes in each analysis category, Supplementary Table 7 lists their corresponding rank across the other analysis groups; although there is some overlap across groups (and each ranked list is positively, although modestly, correlated; Supplementary Table 8), few CpG sites are consistently altered across multiple analytical groups.

Quantitative autistic trait scores are correlated with DNA methylation at multiple CpG sites

Supplementary Figure 1 shows the distribution of total CAST and its three trait subscale scores across our samples. Initial analyses highlighted a strong correlation between DNA methylation and CAST score at multiple CpG sites (Supplementary Table 9). Further analysis showed that many of these correlations are influenced by extreme DNA methylation levels and phenotypic scores exhibited by one male ASD-concordant MZ twin pair (Figure 3a and Supplementary Figure 10). These twins are extreme outliers for CAST score (both scored 29 out of a maximum score of 31) and DNA methylation at multiple CpG sites (Supplementary Figure 11), and both have a history of pervasive developmental problems, with severe behavioural phenotypes and early-appearing IQ deficits, with special deficits in language. Given the existing link between highly penetrant CNVs and severe ASD, we tested whether the extreme patterns of DNA methylation in these two twins were associated with the presence of genomic alterations. Interestingly, high-density SNP microarray analysis revealed significant structural genomic alterations at multiple loci, with CNVs detected in regions previously implicated in ASD (Supplementary Table 10).

DNA methylation at multiple CpG sites remained significantly correlated with CAST scores even after this extreme twin pair was excluded from analyses (Supplementary Table 11 and Figure 3b), suggesting that they do not necessarily represent epigenetic/phenotypic ‘outliers’ but have DNA methylation levels (and phenotypic scores) at the extreme end of a true quantitative spectrum. For example, there is a strong correlation between DNA methylation at cg07753644 in P2RY11 and total CAST score in both analyses (with extreme twin pair: r=0.44; P=0.000009; without extreme twin pair: r=0.35; P=0.0006). Furthermore, DNA methylation at cg16279786 in the known ASD susceptibility locus, NRXN1, is significantly correlated with social autistic trait score in both analyses with (r=−0.41; P=0.00003) and without (r=−0.28; P=0.007) the extreme twin pair.

Discussion

This study represents the first comprehensive analysis of DNA methylation differences in MZ twins discordant for ASD and autism-related traits using a genome-wide approach. We report ASD-associated DNA methylation differences at numerous CpG sites, with some DMRs consistent across all discordant twin pairs for each diagnostic category and others specific to one or two twin pairs, or one or two autism-related traits. Although sporadic cases of ASD appear to be epigenetically distinct to familial cases of ASD, some DMRs are common across both discordant MZ twin and case–control analyses. We also observed that DNA methylation at multiple CpG sites was significantly correlated with quantitatively rated autistic trait scores, with our analyses identifying one MZ twin pair, concordant for a very severe autistic phenotype, that appear to represent epigenetic outliers at multiple CpG sites across the genome. Interestingly, both individuals harbour numerous CNVs in genomic regions previously implicated in autism. Given the important role of epigenetic mechanisms in regulating gene expression, it is plausible that, like CNVs, methylomic variation could mediate disease susceptibility via altered gene dosage. Our hypothesis-free experimental design allowed us to identify disease-associated DNA methylation differences at loci not previously implicated in ASD, although we also found evidence for epigenetic changes at several genes previously implicated in autism.

Our findings have several implications for our understanding about the aetiology of ASD. First, they document the presence of numerous DNA methylation differences in MZ twins discordant for ASD and ASD-related traits, as well as between autistic individuals and control samples. This concurs with findings from a previous ASD-discordant twin study23 and further supports the association of variable DNA methylation with phenotypic differences between genetically identical individuals.21, 22 Second, the observed DNA methylation differences in MZ twins discordant for ASD and ASD-related traits, who are otherwise matched for genotype, shared environment, age, sex and other potential confounders, highlight the role of non-shared environmental and stochastic factors in the aetiology of autism. These findings concur with mounting data suggesting that environmentally mediated effects on the epigenome may be relatively common and important for disease.36 Third, our data suggest that although DNA methylation at some CpG sites is consistently altered across the entire set of discordant twins, differences at other CpG sites are specific to certain symptom groups, with considerable overall epigenetic heterogeneity between the three domains of autistic traits. These findings are in line with recent genetic research demonstrating significant genetic heterogeneity between the three core symptoms of ASD.4, 6 Fourth, the analysis of individual ASD-discordant twin pairs suggests that there is also considerable familial heterogeneity, with rare epigenetic alterations of large magnitude being potentially associated with ASD. These findings are not entirely surprising given the known heterogeneous nature of ASD revealed by molecular genetic studies,3 with an important role for highly penetrant rare genomic alterations, especially de novo mutations. Fifth, the identification of significant correlations between DNA methylation and autism symptom scores across our sample cohort suggests that there is a quantitative relationship between the severity of the autistic phenotype and epigenetic variation at certain loci. This reinforces the view of autism as the quantitative extreme of a phenotypic spectrum and highlights the potential use of epigenetic biomarkers as a predictor for severity of symptoms, although the accuracy, sensitivity and specificity of such predictors would require extended investigation. Finally, in addition to implicating a number of novel genes in the aetiology of ASD, we identified ASD-associated differential DNA methylation in the vicinity of multiple loci previously implicated in the pathogenesis of autism in genetic studies, including AFF2, AUTS2, GABRB3, NLGN3, NRXN1, SLC6A4 and UBE3A (see Supplementary Table 12 for a comprehensive list).

This study has several strengths. First, our unique sample consisted of MZ twin pairs discordant for autism and ASD-related-traits, in addition to age-matched concordant MZ twin pairs (for both ASD and low CAST score). It allowed us to perform a comprehensive analysis of the role of DNA methylation in ASD and ASD-related traits controlling for genotype, age, sex and other potential confounders. Second, by undertaking a genome-wide approach using a robust and reliable array platform, we were able to uncover phenotype-relevant differentially methylated loci in genomic regions that are both novel and have been previously associated with ASD. Third, our analysis of 32 discordant MZ twin pairs is relatively large compared with other discordant twin studies performed for other complex disease phenotypes; in this regard, for example, the only other ASD-discordant twin study assessed only three MZ twin pairs.23 Finally, we were able to complement our discordant-twin analyses by assessing group-level differences between ASD cases and controls, and also examining the relationship between DNA methylation and quantitatively rated trait scores across our entire sample cohort.

This study also has a number of limitations that should be considered when interpreting the results. First, although this is the largest and most comprehensive study of epigenetic variation in ASD performed to date, the sample size for each subgroup is small, in part because truly discordant MZ twin pairs are relatively rare. Although none of the reported differentially methylated loci reached a Bonferroni-corrected P-value cutoff (P=2.13E–05 for discordant-twin analysis and P=2.20E–05 for between-group analysis), this statistical approach is likely to be too conservative, especially given the non-independence of CpG sites37 and the small numbers of samples tested in each group. In this study, a combined analytic approach, taking into account the significance and the extent of methylation change, was used to identify differentially methylated loci that have potentially real, biological relevance to ASD. This analytic approach is widely used in genome-wide gene expression studies and is reported to produce gene lists of higher reproducibility and biological relevance compared with the convention method that relies solely on statistical significance.30 This notion is supported by the identification of differentially methylated loci near numerous genes previously implicated in ASD. Nonetheless, given the relatively small subgroup sample size, replication in larger samples is needed. Second, genome-wide DNA methylation profiling was performed on DNA extracted from whole blood, controlled for cell count, rather than the brain. Unfortunately, there is no archived collection of post-mortem brain samples from ASD-discordant MZ twins. Although there are known tissue-specific differences in DNA methylation profiles, recent studies suggest that disease-associated epimutations may be detectable across tissues,38 and our recent work suggests that some between-individual epigenetic variation is conserved across brain and blood.39 Furthermore, ASD-associated epimutations have been demonstrated to be detectable both in the brain and in peripheral tissues (that is, blood).13, 23 Moreover, our identification of DMRs in the vicinity of genes previously implicated in autism supports the notion that disease-relevant gene network and pathways can be identified from peripheral samples. Nonetheless, it would be informative for future studies to assess whether disease-associated epimutations reported from this study are also present in brain samples from ASD patients. Third, informations pertaining to the amniotic and chorionic status of our twin samples are unavailable, preventing us from further dissecting the epigenetic similarity/dissimilarity between twins sharing their placenta and/or amniotic sac. Fourth, the genome-wide platform used for this study (the Illumina 27K array), although robust and highly reliable,28 has a somewhat limited density of probe coverage, assaying only one or two CpG sites per gene. Future studies should take advantage of recent advances in genomic profiling technology and perform a more in-depth examination of methylomic differences associated with ASD. Finally, it is difficult to draw conclusions about causality for any of the ASD-associated DMRs identified in this study, in part, because we do not have corresponding RNA expression data, or DNA samples from the twins taken before they became discordant for ASD. It is thus plausible that many of the identified changes have occurred downstream of ASD, for example, resulting from exposure to medications commonly used to treat autistic symptoms. In fact, there is mounting evidence that many drugs used to treat neuropsychiatric disorders induce epigenetic changes.40 Such medication-induced changes could still be interesting; an understanding of the pathways via which these drugs work may provide information about the neurobiological processes involved in disease. The ideal study design, however, would assess DNA methylation changes in the brain longitudinally during individuals’ transition into ASD, although such a study does not appear feasible at present.

In summary, this is the first large-scale study to examine the role of genome-wide DNA methylation in ASD and ASD-related traits. Our findings show that: (1) there are numerous DNA methylation differences between MZ twins discordant for ASD and ASD-related traits, as well as between autistic individuals and control samples; (2) many of these DMRs are located in the vicinity of both novel genes and loci that have been previously implicated in ASD; (3) the nature of ASD-associated epimutations is complex with high heterogeneity between individuals; (4) there is high epigenetic heterogeneity between the triad of impairments that define ASD; and (5) there is a quantitative relationship between the severity of the autistic phenotype and DNA methylation at specific CpG sites across the genome. Overall, our findings from this study provide further support for the potential role of DNA methylation in ASD and ASD-related traits.

To review the figures you can access the full study here http://www.nature.com/mp/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/mp201341a.html
Methylomic analysis of monozygotic twins discordant for autism spectrum disorder and related behavioural traits

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“Some women actually have men on the brain,” By Melissa Healy, Los Angeles Times 9/27/2012

Some women actually have men on the brain By Melissa Healy, Los Angeles Times
http://www.latimes.com/health/boostershots/la-heb-women-brain-microchimerism-20120926,0,6446716.story
For the Booster Shots Blog
September 27, 2012

For decades after a woman has carried a male child in her womb or shared her mother’s womb with a brother, she carries a faint but unmistakable echo of that intimate bond: male fetal DNA that lodges itself in the far recesses of her brain.

That astonishing finding, published Wednesday in the journal Public Library of Science One (PLoS One), suggests that the act of having a child is no mere one-way transmission of genetic material and all that goes with it: There is an exchange of DNA that passes into the part of us that makes us who we are. That, in turn, may alter a woman’s health prospects in ways her own DNA never intended.

In the study, researchers from the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center and the University of Washington examined, post-mortem, the brains of 59 women. In 63% of the brains, they found fetal DNA that could only have come from a male. While scattered throughout the brain, the genetic traces of this other individual were clustered heavily in the brain’s hippocampus — a region crucial to the consolidation of memories — and in the parietal and temporal lobes of the brain’s prefrontal cortex, areas that play roles in sensation, perception, sensory integration and language comprehension.

When a person takes on the DNA of another, as happens, for instance, in bone marrow transfusions, she is called a “chimera” — in mythology, a beast that is the fusion of two or more creatures. The discovery that a person can carry the fetal DNA of another person has given rise to a variant: This is dubbed microchimerism.

This line of research, says rheumatologist J. Lee Nelson, coauthor of the study, “suggests we need a new paradigm of the biological self” and how it is formed. We think of ourselves as the product of two biological parents and a one-time roll of the genetic dice. That, says Nelson, appears to be wrong: In the womb, we may also pick up the DNA of older siblings left over from their stay, or of a fetal twin who never made it to daylight. In the course of our lives, we may take on the DNA of the sons we bear, or even of the sons we conceived and miscarried. And that DNA can stay with us long after our big brothers have moved on and our sons have grown up and moved away.

The sources of our DNA “are much more diverse than we know,” said Nelson in an interview. And these exchanges of DNA may play an evolutionary role far greater than we have ever imagined, she added. Walt Whitman once wrote, “I contain multitudes,” and Nelson says she and her colleagues now glean new meanings from the observation.

The new study shows that this evolutionary X-factor is also at work in the brain.

It hasn’t been many years since scientists first learned that a baby’s DNA could cross the placental barrier from baby to mother and lodge itself in her blood and organs. The current study finds that it can also penetrate the vaunted “blood-brain barrier,” which is thought to protect the brain from toxins and foreign invaders.

Once there, Nelson said, the DNA of another person may alter a woman’s propensity to certain brain diseases — conferring protection in some cases and vulnerability in others. It may carry the switches that turn brain cancers on — or off. It may harden the brain against trauma or psychiatric disease — or make it less resilient. Future research will need to determine how, say, carrying a male fetus may influence a mother’s likelihood of developing Alzheimer’s disease or auto-immune diseases such as multiple sclerosis.

http://www.latimes.com/health/boostershots/la-heb-women-brain-microchimerism-20120926,0,6446716.story

Male Microchimerism in the Human Female Brain
http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0045592

William F. N. Chan1¤*, Cécile Gurnot1, Thomas J. Montine2, Joshua A. Sonnen2, Katherine A. Guthrie1, J. Lee Nelson1,3
1 Clinical Research Division, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, Seattle, Washington, United States of America, 2 Department of Pathology, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, United States of America, 3 Division of Rheumatology, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, United States of America

Abstract

In humans, naturally acquired microchimerism has been observed in many tissues and organs. Fetal microchimerism, however, has not been investigated in the human brain. Microchimerism of fetal as well as maternal origin has recently been reported in the mouse brain. In this study, we quantified male DNA in the human female brain as a marker for microchimerism of fetal origin (i.e. acquisition of male DNA by a woman while bearing a male fetus). Targeting the Y-chromosome-specific DYS14 gene, we performed real-time quantitative PCR in autopsied brain from women without clinical or pathologic evidence of neurologic disease (n = 26), or women who had Alzheimer’s disease (n = 33). We report that 63% of the females (37 of 59) tested harbored male microchimerism in the brain. Male microchimerism was present in multiple brain regions. Results also suggested lower prevalence (p = 0.03) and concentration (p = 0.06) of male microchimerism in the brains of women with Alzheimer’s disease than the brains of women without neurologic disease. In conclusion, male microchimerism is frequent and widely distributed in the human female brain.

Introduction

During pregnancy, genetic material and cells are bi-directionally exchanged between the fetus and mother [1], following which there can be persistence of the foreign cells and/or DNA in the recipient [2], [3]. This naturally acquired microchimerism (Mc) may impart beneficial or adverse effects on human health. Fetal Mc, which describes the persistence of cells and/or DNA of fetal origin in the mother acquired during pregnancy, has been associated with several different autoimmune diseases as well as implicated in tissue repair and immunosurveillance [4]–[6].

Although there is a broad anatomical distribution of Mc in humans that varies in prevalence and quantity [7]–[13], whether the human brain harbors fetal Mc and with what frequency is not known. Fetal Mc has recently been described in the mouse brain [14], [15]. In limited studies, maternal Mc was described in the human fetal brain [9].

In this study, we performed real-time quantitative PCR (qPCR) to detect and quantify male DNA in multiple brain regions of women, targeting the Y-chromosome-specific DYS14 gene sequence as a marker for Mc of fetal origin. Deceased female subjects had no clinical or pathologic evidence of neurologic disease. We also tested brain specimens from women with Alzheimer’s disease (AD) for Mc. This is because AD has been reported as more prevalent in parous vs. nulliparous women [16], [17], increasing with higher number of pregnancies that also correlated with a younger age of AD onset [17], [18].

Methods

Subjects and Specimens

This study was approved by the institutional review board of the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center (Number 5369; Protocol 1707). Subjects of the study were women without neurologic disease or with AD, totaling 59 deceased individuals. Twenty-six women had no neurologic disease. Thirty-three women had AD (Table 1). Brain autopsy specimens from these women came from one of two institutions: the Department of Pathology at the University of Washington in Seattle, Washington, or the Harvard Brain Tissue Resource Center established at McLean Hospital in Belmont, Massachusetts. Specimens from the University of Washington were obtained from adult women who had no clinical history of neurologic disease within two years of death and whose brain histology showed no evidence of disease, and from women who were diagnosed with probable AD during life [19] and met the National Institute on Aging-Reagan Institute consensus criteria for a neuropathologic diagnosis of AD [20]. Similarly, specimens from the Harvard Brain Tissue Resource Center were obtained from adult women without neurologic disease or who met clinical and pathologic criteria for AD. Age at death ranged from 32 to 101 (Table 1). Age at disease onset was known for subjects with AD from the University of Washington (median: 77 years; range: 64–93 years). Following autopsy, brain specimens were either formalin fixed or frozen in liquid nitrogen. Depending on availability, samples from two to twelve brain regions were obtained from each subject. Brain regions investigated included frontal lobe, parietal lobe, temporal lobe, occipital lobe, cingulate gyrus, hippocampus, amygdala, caudate, putamen, globus pallidus, thalamus, medulla, pons, cerebellum, and spinal cord. Subjects with AD contributed more specimens per person than subjects without neurologic disease, but this was not statistically significant (means: 3.6 vs. 2.5, respectively; p = 0.05). Combining subjects from both institutions, subjects with AD were significantly older at death (p<0.001); the post-mortem intervals (PMIs) were not significantly different (p = 0.06; Table 1). The most likely source of male Mc in female brain is a woman’s acquisition of male DNA from pregnancy with a male fetus. Limited pregnancy history was available on the subjects; pregnancy history on most subjects was unknown. Nine women were known to have at least one son, eight with AD and one without neurologic disease. Two women were known to have no history of having sons, one with AD and one without neurologic disease.

DNA Extraction

Genomic DNA was extracted from brain tissues using the QIAamp® DNA Mini Kit (QIAGEN, Valencia, CA) according to the manufacturer’s tissue protocol.

Real-time qPCR

Male DNA was quantified in female brain tissues by amplifying the Y chromosome-specific sequence DYS14 (GenBank Accession X06325) [21] using the TaqMan® assay and the ABI Prism® 7000 Sequence Detection System (Applied Biosystems, Foster City, CA). Primer and probe sequences for quantifying DYS14 [22], as well as preparation of standard curves, composition of the qPCR mixture and thermal profile [23] have all been described previously. Square of the correlation coefficient for all standard curves was always greater than 0.99. Every experiment included no template controls to test for male DNA contamination during plate setup and all controls were negative. A minimum of six wells was tested for each specimen. Mean Ct was 36, with a range between 30 and 39 for all specimens except those of B6388, which was between 26 and 29. A representative amplification plot is provided in (Figure S1). Only wells in which amplification occurred at Ct0.5 gEq/105. Thus, estimates of male Mc might be lower than the true values. On the other hand, since detection of male DNA did not account for Mc potentially contributed by female fetuses, this could result in underestimation of the overall Mc in the brain. HLA-specific qPCR, as previously reported [25], [26], is another approach to Mc detection that is not sex-dependent. It requires participation of family members which was not possible for the current studies. As a supplementary study, we tested autopsied brain from a female systemic sclerosis patient by HLA-specific qPCR for whom we had familial HLA genotyping, targeting the child’s paternally transmitted HLA as previously described [26], [27]. These data are provided in (Tables S1 and S2). All qPCR data were analyzed using the 7000 System Sequence Detection Software.

Statistics

Subject and Mc measurement characteristics were compared across groups by Chi-squared test for categorical data and t-test for continuous data. Mc prevalence and concentrations were analyzed according to disease status. A logistic regression model was used to estimate the association between Mc prevalence and disease status, with adjustment for total gEq tested, age at death, and PMI. The estimates were also adjusted for possible correlation between repeated measures from the same subject via generalized estimating equations. Association was reported as an odds ratio (OR) along with p value to indicate significance. As an example, OR of 0.30 could be interpreted to say that the odds of having AD for a subject who tested positive for Mc was 70% lower than the odds for a subject who tested negative. We also analyzed Mc concentrations as the outcome in Poisson log-linear regression models, assuming that the number of gEq detected as Mc was directly proportional to the number of total gEq tested. By definition, Mc occurs rarely, thus the data distribution is skewed to the right. We utilized negative-binomial models to account for the high degree of over-dispersion in the data; interpretation of the resulting estimates is identical to those of a Poisson model. Adjustments for potential confounders and for possible correlation between repeated measures were made as described above. The rate ratio (RR), along with p value to indicate significance, was used to compare the observed rates of Mc detection in the two groups. As an example, RR of 0.30 could be interpreted to say that the rate of Mc detection in subjects with AD was 70% lower than the rate of Mc detection in subjects without neurological disease. Secondary analysis was conducted to determine whether disease status was associated with Mc prevalence or concentration in a subset of samples from brain regions thought to be most affected by AD. Furthermore, we investigated whether Mc prevalence or concentration correlated with the Braak stage, which describes the extent of neurofibrillary tangles in subjects with AD [28], or with HLA-DRB1*1501, a human leukocyte antigen allele that has been reported in association with AD [29]. Two-sided p-values from regression models were derived from the Wald test. Analyses were performed on SAS software version 9 (SAS Institute, Inc., Cary, NC).

Results

Mc Prevalence and Concentration According to Brain Regions

he median number of specimens tested per subject was three, with a range of one to 12. Table 2 summarizes the specimen-level prevalence of male Mc according to brain region for all subjects. Per brain region, between two and 35 specimens were tested for male DNA. Although there were few specimens available, we did not detect male DNA in the frontal lobe and the putamen, and found the highest prevalence in the medulla. Considering all subjects together, Mc concentrations ranged from 0–512.5 gEq/105, with a median value of 0.2 and a 90th percentile of 3.7 gEq/105 (Figure 1). One subject from the Harvard Brain Tissue Resource Center who was without neurologic disease (coded as B6388; age of death 69 years) had three specimens with the highest concentration values in our dataset (296.1, 481.8, and 512.5 gEq/105 in the temporal lobe, cingulate gyrus, and pons, respectively). Using fluorescence in situ hybridization, we indeed found rare male cells in the brain of B6388 (Figure S2). The remaining concentration values in the dataset were 29.4 gEq/105 or less. Regarding the relationship between pregnancy history and Mc prevalence, five of nine subjects who were known to have at least one son harbored male Mc in at least one of their brain regions (Table S3). All positive individuals had AD; among the negatives were three with AD and one without neurologic disease. One of two women without history of having sons was also positive for male Mc in her brain and without neurologic disease; the negative individual had AD.

Prevalence and Concentration of Male Mc in Human Brain: Women without Neurologic Disease or with AD

Of 183 specimens, 64 (35%) tested positive for Mc (Table 2). Eighteen of 26 subjects without neurologic disease (69%) had at least one positive value, with 30 positive results in 65 specimens (46%). Nineteen of 33 subjects with AD (58%) had at least one positive value, with 34 positive results in 118 specimens (29%). The estimated OR from a univariate model was 0.47 (95% confidence interval (CI) 0.21–1.08, p = 0.08). After adjustment for total gEq tested, age at death, and PMI, AD was significantly associated with lower Mc prevalence: OR 0.40 (95% CI 0.17–0.93, p = 0.03). Thus, the odds of having AD for a subject who tested positive for Mc was 60% lower than the odds for a subject who tested negative. When Mc concentrations were analyzed according to whether subjects had no neurologic disease or had AD, the estimated RR from an adjusted model was 0.05 (95% CI 0.01–0.39, p = 0.004). However, exclusion of brain specimens from subject B6388, who was without neurologic disease and whose level of male Mc was 10-fold greater than the next highest concentration from a different subject, changed the estimate dramatically: RR 0.41 (95% CI 0.16–1.05, p = 0.06). Thus, the rate of Mc detection in subjects with AD was 59% lower than the rate of Mc detection in subjects without neurological disease, but was not statistically significant. Age at death was also not statistically significantly associated with Mc prevalence, either in univariate or adjusted models (adjustments for disease status and total gEq tested; p = 0.79). However, any relationship between age at death and male Mc from prior pregnancies with a male fetus could not be evaluated because pregnancy history and the time interval from pregnancies to death were generally unknown from our subjects.

Prevalence and Concentration of Male Mc in Brain Regions Affected by AD

We conducted a secondary analysis considering specimens only from the five brain regions thought to be most affected by AD: amygdala, hippocampus, frontal lobe, parietal lobe, and temporal lobe [30], [31]. Considering only these regions, 12 of 24 subjects without neurologic disease (50%) had at least one positive value, with 12 positive results in 24 specimens (50%). Thirteen of 33 subjects with AD (39%) had at least one positive value, with 15 positive results in 44 specimens (34%). The adjusted OR describing the association of Mc prevalence and disease status was 0.48 (95% CI 0.14–1.62, p = 0.23). Therefore, the odds of having AD for a subject who tested positive for Mc in brain regions most affected by this disease was 52% lower than the odds for a subject who tested negative, but was not statistically significant. However, none of the subjects without neurologic disease contributed specimens of the amygdala or the frontal lobe. Comparing Mc concentrations across groups, excluding one specimen from subject B6388, the adjusted RR was 0.27 (95% CI 0.13–0.56, p<0.001). Thus, the proportion of positive specimens was not significantly different between groups, but Mc concentrations in this subset of brain specimens from subjects with AD tended to have lower values than those found in subjects without neurologic disease. In other analyses, there was no significant association between Mc prevalence or concentration and the Braak stage (Table 1; p = 0.99 and 0.93, respectively), and no significant association between Mc prevalence and HLA-DRB1*1501 (8 of 11 DR15-bearing subjects positive for Mc (73%) vs. 16 of 31 subjects without DR15 who also had Mc (52%); p = 0.13).

Discussion

n this study, we provide the first description of male Mc in female human brain and specific brain regions. Collectively with data showing the presence of male DNA in the cerebrospinal fluid [32], our results indicate that fetal DNA and likely cells can cross the human blood-brain barrier (BBB) and reside in the brain. Changes in BBB permeability occur during pregnancy [33] and may therefore provide a unique opportunity for the establishment of Mc in the brain. Also unique to our study are the findings that male Mc in the human female brain is relatively frequent (positive in 63% of subjects) and distributed in multiple brain regions, and is potentially persistent across the human lifespan (the oldest female in whom male DNA was detected in the brain was 94 years).

That Mc can penetrate the human BBB and reside in the brain was first indicated by murine studies that showed the presence of both foreign cells and DNA in mouse brains [14], [15]. However, prevalence of brain Mc in mice has not been well defined, as the frequency reported varies depending on the study [14], [15], [34]–[36], and in one investigation, Mc was not observed [37]. Similar to mouse data, our study of humans found that brain Mc was not present in all individuals tested. Even in those who showed positivity overall, not all of their brain regions had Mc. Mc concentration also showed considerable variability. Overall, our data complement and extend on other reports describing Mc in the general human population, in peripheral blood and at the level of the tissue/organ studied within and between subjects [9]–[13]. It is currently not possible to meaningfully compare Mc prevalence or concentration in human brain to other tissues because other tissues were not available from our subjects. Moreover, prior studies that evaluated Mc in other organs used diverse methods, some of which were not quantitative.

The most likely source of male Mc in female brain is acquisition of fetal Mc from pregnancy with a male fetus. In women without sons, male DNA can also be acquired from an abortion or a miscarriage [22], [23], [38]–[40]. The pregnancy history was unknown for all but a few subjects in the current studies, thus male Mc in female brain could not be evaluated according to specific prior pregnancy history. In addition to prior pregnancies, male Mc could be acquired by a female from a recognized or vanished male twin [41]–[43], an older male sibling, or through non-irradiated blood transfusion [44].

Because AD is more prevalent in women than men and an increased risk has been reported in parous vs. nulliparous women and correlated with younger age of onset [16]–[18], we also investigated male Mc in women with AD. AD is a neurodegenerative disease characterized by elevated levels of amyloid plaques, cerebrovascular amyloidosis, and neurofibrillary tangle [30]. Our results suggesting women with AD have a lower prevalence of male Mc in the brain and lower concentrations in regions most affected by AD were unexpected. However, the number of subjects tested was modest and, as discussed previously, pregnancy history was largely unknown. The explanation for decreased Mc in AD, should this observation be replicated in a larger study, is not obvious. In other diseases, both beneficial and detrimental effects of Mc of fetal origin have been described depending on several factors including the specific type and source of Mc [6]. A significant limitation of the current study was the inability to distinguish the type and source of male Mc, and further studies that distinguish genetically normal from abnormal Mc would be of potential interest.

At present, the biological significance of harboring Mc in the human brain requires further investigation. Mc appears to persist in the blood, bone, and bone marrow for decades [2], [45] and is present among different hematopoietic lineages [46]. Moreover, Mc appears to integrate and generate specific cell types in tissues [10], [11], [47]–[49]. In murine studies, fetal Mc in the maternal brain has been observed to resemble perivascular macrophages, neurons, astrocytes, and oligodendrocytes both morphologically and phenotypically and occupy the respective niches [15], [36]. Thus, it is possible that Mc in the brain is able to differentiate into various mature phenotypes or undergoes fusion with pre-existing cells and acquires a new phenotype, as suggested by murine and human studies in which bone marrow-derived cells circulated to the brain and generated neuronal cells by differentiation, or fused with pre-existing neurons [50]–[53]. Lastly, a few studies have reported an association between parity and decreased risk of brain cancer, raising the possibility that Mc could contribute to immunosurveillance against tumorigenic cells as has been suggested for some other types of malignancy [6], [54]–[56].

In conclusion, male Mc is frequent and widely distributed in the human female brain. Although the relationship between brain Mc and health versus disease requires further study, our findings suggest that Mc of fetal origin could impact maternal health and potentially be of evolutionary significance.

For more on this important study http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0045592

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Unnatural selection: How humans are driving evolution by Michael Le Page

Unnatural selection: How humans are driving evolution by Michael Le Page
New Scientist – 27 April 2011

Humans are not only causing a mass extinction – we are also the biggest force in the evolution of the species that will survive

THE Zoque people of Mexico hold a ceremony every year during which they grind up a poisonous plant and pour the mixture into a river running through a cave (pictured below). Any of the river’s molly fish that float to the surface are seen as a gift from the gods. The gods seem to be on the side of the fish, though – the fish in the poisoned parts of the river are becoming resistant to the plant’s active ingredient, rotenone.

If fish can evolve in response to a small religious ceremony, just imagine the effects of all the other changes we are making to the planet. We are turning grassland and forests into fields and cities, while polluting the air and water. We are hunting species to the brink of extinction and beyond, as well as introducing new pests and diseases to just about every part of the world. And that’s not to mention drastically altering the climate of the entire planet.

It is no secret that many – perhaps even most – species living today are likely to be wiped out over the next century or two as a result of this multiple onslaught. What is now becoming clear is that few of the species that survive will live on unchanged.

Far from being a slow process, evolution can occur extremely rapidly when the environment changes (New Scientist, 2 April, p 32). So, as we alter the planet ever faster and more drastically, we are becoming the main force driving evolution. “The intensity of the ecological effect of man is pretty obvious,” says Stephen Palumbi of Stanford University in California. “There is an amazing amount of evolutionary change as a result.”

Some of the fastest rates of evolution ever measured in the wild are in plants and animals harvested by humans. The few populations for which we have data are, on average, evolving three times as fast as populations subject only to natural pressures, for example.

Over the following pages, we look at the many ways in which plants and animals are already evolving in response to human pressures. Some of these changes, such as animals evolving to survive in highly polluted areas, can be seen as a positive thing. Others are bad from our point of view, such as animals we hunt losing the traits we value most in them, or pests becoming immune to poisons. What is clear is that whether the issue is growing enough food, conserving wild animals or keeping our beds bug-free, human-driven evolution is a factor we can no longer afford to ignore.

Unnatural selection: Hunting down elephants’ tusks

Most predators target the young or the weak. We are different, targeting the biggest and best, or those with characteristics we desire, such as large antlers. Combine this with our ability to kill in great number and the result is extremely rapid evolution of our prey.

The first clear evidence was published in 1942, and since then many examples have emerged of how hunting can transform the hunted. The targeting of large animals has resulted in a fall in the average size of caribou in some areas, for instance, while trophy hunting has led to bighorn sheep in Canada and mouflon in France evolving smaller horns.

Perhaps the most dramatic example is the shrinking of tusks in elephants, or even their complete loss. In eastern Zambia, the proportion of tuskless female elephants shot up from 10 per cent in 1969 to nearly 40 per cent in 1989 as a result of poaching (African Journal of Ecology, vol 33, p 230). Less dramatic rises in tusklessness have been reported in many other parts of Africa, with some bull elephants losing tusks too.

Humans have had an even bigger impact in Asia. Only male Asian elephants have tusks, and the proportion of tuskless bulls has soared in many areas. In Sri Lanka, where there has been a lot of poaching, under 5 per cent of males now have tusks, says Raman Sukumar of the Indian Institute of Science in Bangalore, who studies Asian elephants. Simulations by Ralph Tiedemann of the University of Potsdam in Germany and colleagues suggest that female elephants’ preference for tuskers has partly counteracted the effect of hunting. However, even if all poaching stopped, it would take a very long time for the percentage of tuskers to rise again.

It’s not just animals that are being shaped by human preferences: the harvesting of wild plants can have a similar effect to hunting and fishing. In Tibet, for example, the height of the snow lotus at flowering has nearly halved over the past century as a result of the flowers being picked for use in traditional medicine (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, vol 102, p 10218).

To even the balance, some biologists are now promoting the idea of counteracting the evolutionary pressures of hunting through “compensatory culling” – killing animals with undesirable traits. This has actually long been done in some places. In Germany and Poland, for instance, there is a tradition of shooting yearling deer with poor antlers to prevent a decrease in the antler size of mature stags.

Private reserves in countries such as Zimbabwe have a similar policy. They typically charge hunters a smaller “trophy fee” for shooting tuskless elephants – $3000 versus at least $12,500 for a tusker, for example. This is partly because tuskless animals are less valuable, but it is also a deliberate attempt to eliminate the trait.

Unnatural selection: The race against climate change

In Finland, the tawny owl used to be mainly grey. But since the 1960s, the proportion of a brown subtype has risen fast. “The frequency averaged around 12 per cent in the early 60s and has increased steadily to over 40 per cent nationwide,” says Patrik Karell of the University of Helsinki, whose findings were published earlier this year (Nature Communications, DOI: 10.1038/ncomms1213).

His team found that grey owls (pictured above right) have an advantage over brown ones only when there is lots of snow. As winters have become milder, the brown subtype has thrived. It is possible that this is because brown owls are better camouflaged when there is less snow, but it could also be because brown coloration is linked to another characteristic, such as higher energy needs.

There are countless examples of how global warming is affecting life, from plants flowering earlier in spring, to species spreading to areas that were once too cold for them to survive, to birds becoming smaller. The vast majority of these changes are not genetic but due to plasticity: organisms’ built-in ability to change their bodies and behaviour in response to whatever the environment throws at them. At least a few species, however, like the owls of Finland, are already changing genetically – evolving – in response to climate change.

In North America, for instance, pitcher plant mosquitoes lay their eggs in pitcher plants and the larvae enter a state of dormancy in the winter months before resuming development in spring. Dormancy is genetically programmed, triggered not by falling temperature but by the shortening days. As the growing season has lengthened, mutant mosquitoes that keep feeding and growing for longer have thrived. Northern populations now go dormant more than a week later than in 1972, when studies began.

The earlier breeding of red squirrels in North America is also thought to be partly a result of genetic changes. Some families emerge earlier in spring, and they are doing better as the climate shifts.

Plants are changing too. When seed collected from field mustard plants (Brassica rapa) in California in 1997 and 2004 were grown in identical conditions, the 2004 strains flowered 9 days earlier on average (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, vol 104, p 1278). The change was a result of drought – the plants have evolved to reproduce before they run out of water.

Rapid evolution is thus already helping some species adapt to a warming world, but it is no “Get out of jail free” card. For instance, so far pied flycatchers in the UK seem unable to shift to laying eggs earlier in spring. And according to one model that specifically takes rapid evolution into account, global warming will kill off 20 per cent of all lizard species by 2080. The problem for lizards is that as the climate warms, they have to spend more time in the shade and less time feeding.

Organisms with long generation times and slow reproductive rates are the least able to evolve, says Stephen Palumbi at Stanford University. “And they are the ones that are already threatened. It’s a double whammy.”

Even species whose evolution has kept pace with the slight warming so far will not necessarily keep up as the global temperature soars by another 4 °C or more. Rapid evolution generally depends on the existing variation within a population, rather than on new mutations. “It is limited to the kind of changes that can happen quickly,” Palumbi says.

In fact, there is a catch-22 to very rapid evolution – the faster organisms evolve, the less able they are to evolve further. This is because fast change occurs when only a small proportion of each generation manages to reproduce, resulting in a dramatic loss of genetic diversity – the fuel for further evolution. In many cases, the size of populations will also plummet, rendering them vulnerable to extinction. “You could evolve really fast but just not make it,” says Michael Kinnison of the University of Maine in Orono.

Unnatural selection: Living with pollution

Between 1947 and 1976, two factories released half a billion kilograms of chemicals called polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) into the Hudson river, in the north-east US. The effects on wildlife weren’t studied at the time, but today some species seem to be thriving despite levels of PCBs, many of which are toxic, remaining high.

At least one species, the Atlantic tomcod – an ordinary-looking fish about 10 centimetres long – has evolved resistance. “We could blast them with PCBs and dioxins with no effect,” says Isaac Wirgin of New York University School of Medicine.

Many of the ill effects of PCBs and dioxins are caused by them binding to a protein called the hydrocarbon receptor (Science, vol 331, p 1322). The Hudson tomcod all have a mutation in the receptor that stops PCBs binding to it, Wirgin and colleagues reported earlier this year. The mutation is present in other tomcod populations too, Wirgin says, but at low levels.

The most famous example of evolution in action was a response to pollution: as the industrial revolution got under way, cream-coloured peppered moths in northern Britain turned black to stay hidden on trees stained by soot. As the tomcod shows, though, most evolutionary changes in response to pollution are invisible.

The spoil heaps of many old mines, for instance, are covered in plants that appear normal, but are in fact growing in soil containing high levels of metals such as copper, zinc, lead and arsenic that would be toxic to most specimens of these and other species. The evolution of tolerance has occurred extremely rapidly in some cases, sometimes within just a few years of the soil being contaminated.

With very widespread pollutants, it is much harder to show that organisms are evolving in response, because all populations change at once. The comparison has been done with a common weed called plantain (Plantago major), though. Ground-level ozone, produced when sunlight strikes car exhaust fumes, greatly impairs the growth of plants. When researchers grew plantain seeds collected in 1985 and 1991 from a site in northern England where ozone pollution reached very high levels in 1989 and 1990, they found that the plants from the 1985 batch grew nearly a third more slowly when exposed to ozone, whereas the growth of those from 1991 fell by only a tenth (New Phytologist, vol 131, p 337).

Since even the remotest parts of the planet are now polluted in one way or another, it is likely that many plants and animal populations have evolved some degree of tolerance, even though few cases have been documented. “Nobody looks for resistance,” says Wirgin. “My guess is that if you look you will find a lot of it.” His own discovery was entirely accidental: the team had set out to study liver cancers, and they only noticed the tomcod’s resistance when blasting the fish with PCBs failed to produce any tumours.

However, there are obviously limits to what evolution can achieve. This is especially true for small populations that reproduce slowly and have few offspring, such as the Yangtze river dolphin. Pollution is thought to have contributed to its extinction.

What’s more, pollution resistance in one species can have unexpected consequences for others. The tomcod’s tolerance allows it to accumulate extraordinarily high levels of PCBs in its body, for instance, which are a threat to animals higher up the food chain – such as humans with a taste for these reportedly delicious fish.

Unnatural selection: Spreading sickness

Perch in Lake Windermere in the UK used to live to a ripe old age. While the average age of fish caught and released by researchers was around 5 years, a few individuals were as old as 20. Then in 1976, an unidentified disease wiped out 99 per cent of adult fish and continued to preferentially kill older fish for years afterwards. Since then, no fish older than 7 have been caught.

According to Jan Ohlberger of the University of Oslo, Norway, the perch (Perca fluviatilis) evolved very quickly in response. They now become sexually mature at an earlier age, which increases their chances of breeding before they get killed by the disease (Proceedings of the Royal Society B, vol 278, p 35).

While the disease is thought to have spread naturally in the lake, Ohlberger points out that many devastating disease outbreaks in plants and animals are a result of human activity. To mention just a few: Dutch elm disease was caused by fungi introduced from Asia; lions were hard hit by canine distemper spread by village dogs, and corals are far more susceptible to diseases when water temperatures are abnormally high, which is happening often as a result of climate change.

Anything that kills a significant proportion of a population has the potential to bring about very fast evolution. In frogs there is now some evidence of this: last year several research groups reported that some populations appear to be becoming resistant to a fungus that has decimated many amphibian species. It is also clear that human populations have sometimes evolved rapidly in response to diseases such as kuru, which attacks the nervous system.

So it seems plausible that by spreading diseases or creating the conditions in which they thrive, humans are indirectly forcing many organisms to evolve. “I think this is a common phenomenon and has not yet been described because it is simply hard to prove,” says Ohlberger. He points out that the long-running capture-and-release programme at Lake Windermere, which began in 1943 and just happened to coincide with the disease outbreak in perch, is pretty unique. In most cases we know too little about what populations were like before disease outbreaks to be able to tell if and how they have evolved in response.

Unnatural selection: The arms race against pests

Had any strange itchy bites or rashes recently? You might have fallen victim to bedbugs. The little bloodsuckers are back in a big way, thanks in part to the fact that, like head lice and human fleas, they have evolved resistance to many common pesticides.

Whatever their drawbacks, there is no doubt that pesticides have made a huge difference to our lives. They have helped eliminate diseases like malaria from some areas and made possible the switch to intensive farming. As soon as we started using them, though, resistance began to evolve.

“Insects that succumb readily to kerosene in the Atlantic states defy it absolutely in Colorado [and] washes that easily destroy the San José scale [insect] in California are ridiculously ineffective in the Atlantic states,” wrote entomologist John Smith in 1897 – the first known report of insecticide resistance.

The use of synthetic pesticides like DDT took off in the 1940s. Resistant houseflies were discovered in 1946. By 1948, resistance had been reported in 12 insect species. In 1966, James Crow of the University of Wisconsin-Madison reported that the count had exceeded 165 species. “No more convincing examples of Darwinian evolution could be found than those provided by the development of resistance in one species after another,” he noted at the time.

It’s not just bugs. Rats and mice around the world have become resistant to the poison warfarin, and in Europe some have even become resistant to warfarin’s replacement, superwarfarin (Journal of Toxicological Studies, vol 33, p 283). In Australia, meanwhile, rabbits are becoming resistant to the poison used to control their numbers, called Compound 1080.

Because of its economic importance, pesticide resistance has been studied far more closely than other kinds of ongoing evolution. In many cases we know which mutations are involved, how they make organisms resistant and sometimes even how the mutations spread through populations.

Resistance often arises due to mutations that alter the shape of proteins and thus prevent insecticides binding to their targets. For instance, DDT and pyrethroid compounds kill insects by opening sodium ion channels in nerve cells, but in the malaria-carrying mosquito Anopheles gambiae, variants of the channels that cannot be opened this way have evolved on at least four separate occasions (PLoS One, vol 2, p e1243).

The other main mechanism of resistance involves enzymes that inactivate pesticides before they can kill. Some resistant strains of A. gambiae, for instance, produce large quantities of an enzyme called CYP6Z1 that can inactivate DDT.

Pesticide resistance is becoming such a serious problem that strategies for preventing it evolving in the first place are taken increasingly seriously. One approach is to alternate the type of pesticide applied, to try to avoid applying sustained selective pressure in one direction.

At present, though, the pests seem to be evolving faster than we can develop new pesticides. In one region of Burkina Faso, A. gambiae has become resistant to all four classes of insecticides used for malaria control.

Unnatural selection: Introducing invaders

In 1935, the South American cane toad was introduced to Australia to control pests feeding on sugar cane. The cane fields were not to the toad’s liking, but the rest of the countryside was. The toad has spread rapidly at the expense of many native species.

The highly poisonous animals are having a big effect on predators. Some, such as the Australian black snake, are developing resistance to cane toad toxins. Others, such as the red-bellied black snake and green tree snake, are changing in a more surprising way – their mouths are getting smaller. The reason is simple: snakes with big mouths can eat large toads that contain enough toxin to kill them.

The toads themselves are also changing. Some are now colonising regions that were too hot for the founder population, suggesting that they are evolving tolerance to more extreme conditions. What’s more, the toads leading the invasion are becoming better colonisers: they have bigger front legs and stronger back legs than toads living in the areas already colonised. Radio tagging has confirmed that these “super-invader” toads can travel faster, as you might expect. They are probably evolving because the first toads to reach new areas benefit from more food and less competition, and thus have more offspring. The changes are likely to be transient, though – once the toads stop spreading, the “super-invader” traits will gradually be lost.

Ships and planes have turned the natural trickle of species spreading to new islands or continents into a raging torrent, and the new arrivals sometimes have a dramatic effect. In areas of the US that have been invaded by fire ants, for instance, native fence lizards have evolved longer legs. They need them: given the opportunity, a dozen fire ants can kill a lizard in minutes.

Rather than simply study the results of invasions, Michael Kinnison of the University of Maine in Orono and colleagues have been actively experimenting. In one experiment, his team moved juvenile chinook salmon from one river in New Zealand to another. The salmon were introduced to the country around a century ago, and Kinnison wanted to assess the extent to which they had adapted to conditions in individual rivers. He found drastic differences in survival, even though the fish appear identical (Canadian Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences, vol 60, p 1). “When a population was locally adapted, it performed twice as well,” he says.

Kinnison suspects that lots of small changes can add up to make a huge difference to a population’s success. “Contemporary evolution may be relatively modest on a trait-by-trait basis, but its overall contribution to the performance of populations may be immense,” he says.

Such findings help explain why there is often a lag between the introduction of new species and their rapid spread. A newly arrived species is likely to find itself in an environment that is not quite ideal, and its population may be very small, meaning there is little genetic diversity. In these circumstances, a species will spread only slowly, if at all.

As the population begins to adapt to local conditions, though – perhaps via invisible changes such as mutations in immune genes – it is likely to start to grow and spread. Because more mutations occur in larger populations, it will then evolve faster, enabling it to spread quicker and further. If this turns out to be common, it is bad news. It suggests that many introduced species that seem to be behaving themselves could yet start spreading explosively and cause serious problems.

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Unnatural selection: How humans are driving evolution by Michael Le Page

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