“The U.N.’s 15-nation Security Council voted down on Wednesday a proposal by Russia to create a commission to investigate Moscow’s … claims of a joint U.S.-Ukrainian “military biological” program. Russia has leveled allegations since March that programs in Ukraine sponsored by the U.S. Defense Department were in violation of the Biological Weapons Convention, an international law regulating weaponized toxins.
Moscow has offered … proof of such work, … The U.N.’s disarmament chief, Izumi Nakamitsu, said in March that while the global body did not have the capacity to investigate, the U.N. was not aware …
Inside the Ukrainian facility at the heart of Russia’s “biological war lab” disinformation ploy
Kyiv — From cholera to anthrax, Ukraine’s Virology Reference Laboratory in Kyiv has housed some of the most infectious diseases known to humankind. Dr. Natalia Vidayko, the lab’s chief researcher, led us through a maze of white walls and stainless steel equipment. Researchers in lab coats hovered over petri dishes, each containing genetic samples of diseases sent in for analysis.
If you ask the Kremlin, the vials and Bunsen burners at the Ukrainian Health Ministry facility are all part of a sinister plot.
On February 27, three days after President Vladimir Putin launched his invasion of Ukraine, Russian officials claimed one reason they did it was because the U.S. was “filling Ukraine with biolabs, which were — very possibly — used to study methods for destroying the Russian people at the genetic level.”
…
Which is what brought us to the laboratory in Kyiv. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has called it a “biological war lab.”
But when we arrived at the entrance, the only security in sight was a geriatric German Shepherd named Rambo, who graced us with a lugubrious walk outside of his doghouse, and then walked back in.
We were told we were the first journalists allowed inside since Russia’s invasion. But the facility is routinely inspected by international agencies including the World Health Organization.
Dr. Vidayko showed us state-of-the-art equipment for containing dangerous pathogens — not to make weapons, she told us, “but to test for diseases in patients.”
But that all changed when Russian forces invaded Ukraine on February 24, she said, when the shelling began.
“They bombed a building right nearby,” the scientist told CBS News.
From that day, the Ukrainian government ordered the lab, and others, to destroy all particularly dangerous strains, she said.
“Because it was a very high biological risk,” she said, noting that if the building was attacked, dangerous pathogens could have been released into the environment.
She walked me over to the machine that technicians used to kill the diseases, known as an autoclave.
“They’re completely destroyed,” she repeated. …
Nevertheless, a poll found that 26% of Americans believed Russia’s … claim, and that includes some members of congress, like Republican representative Marjorie Taylor Green, who introduced a bill in March to ban U.S. funding of “bioweapons” in Ukraine.
…
Vidayko said. “But we’re not laughing anymore.” SOURCE
Marjorie Taylor Green introduced a bill
‘Evil and Wrong’: Marjorie Taylor Greene Introduces Bill to Ban U.S. Funding of ‘Bioweapons’ in Ukraine
By Kipp Jones March 17th, 2022
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) introduced a bill Thursday to ban U.S. funding of “biolabs” and “bioweapons” in Ukraine and other countries.
Much has been made of American involvement with … “biolabs” overseas. Such labs have been … connected to biological weapons.
The U.S. government has confirmed the existence of labs across Ukraine. Experts have stated their anxiety over the fact that Russian troops who have invaded the country might compromise them, but not because such labs contain anthrax or other potentially infectious diseases. The facilities have been likened to CDC labs, or labs which are found in county health departments which study endemic illnesses.
Much of the furor surrounding the labs has subsided since one week ago. They were the talk of innumerable … theories, which Russia has seized on …
Apparently(,) … Greene introduced a bill Thursday to prevent taxpayer dollars from funding such facilities.
“So, here’s what we need to discuss, we need to be asking the questions, what is happening in these U.S.-funded labs,” Greene said on the House floor.
After some commentary about “vaccine injuries,” she said it is ok to ask “questions.”
Greene said,
When we’re talking about biolabs, we do know for a fact that the U.S. has funded the contracts, not only to take over the labs, reconstruct them, but also build them. And this goes through grants, through private companies, at millions and millions of dollars. Now, what if these biolabs are handling very dangerous pathogens that may lead to the deaths in people in the areas? There are reports of possibly deadly pathogens escaping these biolabs in places like Ukraine, Georgia, Kazakhstan. That is responsible for killing people, what if that’s true?
Greene concluded that “no American citizen wants to be held morally and ethically responsible” for accidents, and said government “should not be funding something that’s killing people in a country that’s not even our own, let alone here at home.”
“These are worthy questions,” she said. “And so for that reason, because it’s become such an issue, and because it upsets so many people that I talk to constantly, I have introduced a bill to stop taxpayer funding for bioweapons.”
“Because no government should be creating bioweapons,” Green concluded. “That’s evil and wrong.”
Green then introduced the Stopping the Spread of Taxpayer Funded Bioweapon Act.” (Text Below)
Stopping the Spread of Taxpayer Funded Bioweapon Act.
117th CONGRESS
2d Session
H. R. 7125
To amend the Department of Defense Cooperative Threat Reduction Act to prevent the proliferation of biological weapons under the Cooperative Threat Reduction Program, and for other purposes.
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
March 17, 2022
Mrs. Greene of Georgia introduced the following bill; which was referred to the Committee on Foreign Affairs, and in addition to the Committee on Appropriations, for a period to be subsequently determined by the Speaker, in each case for consideration of such provisions as fall within the jurisdiction of the committee concerned
A BILL
To amend the Department of Defense Cooperative Threat Reduction Act to prevent the proliferation of biological weapons under the Cooperative Threat Reduction Program, and for other purposes.
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled,
This Act may be cited as the “Stopping the Spread of Taxpayer-Funded Bioweapons Act of 2022”.
SEC. 2. PREVENTING THE PROLIFERATION OF BIOLOGICAL WEAPONS UNDER THE COOPERATIVE THREAT REDUCTION PROGRAM.
(a) Prevention Of The Proliferation Of Biological Weapons.—
(1) IN GENERAL.—Section 1331(a) of the Department of Defense Cooperative Threat Reduction Act (50 U.S.C. 3731(a)) is amended by adding at the end the following new paragraphs:
“(6) Cooperative biological engagement.
“(7) Activities that facilitate the detection and reporting of highly pathogenic diseases or other diseases that are associated with or that could be used as an early warning mechanism for disease outbreaks, regardless of whether such diseases are caused by biological weapons.”.
(2) CONFORMING AMENDMENTS.—Such Act (50 U.S.C. 3701 et seq.) is further amended as follows:
(A) By striking “, nuclear, or biological weapons” each place it appears and inserting “or nuclear weapons”.
(I) in paragraph (1), by striking “, biological,”;
(II) by striking paragraph (4); and
(III) by redesignating paragraphs (5) and (6) as paragraphs (4) and (5), respectively; and
(ii) in paragraph (4), as so redesignated, by striking “, chemical, and biological” and inserting “and chemical”.
(C) In section 1344, by striking “, nuclear, and biological weapons” and inserting “and nuclear weapons”.
(b) Prohibition On Availability Of Funds.—
(1) PROHIBITION ON AVAILABILITY OF FUNDS.—Notwithstanding section 1681(a)(4) of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2022 (Public Law 117–81), none of the funds authorized to be appropriated for the Cooperative Threat Reduction program under the Department of Defense Cooperative Threat Reduction Act (50 U.S.C. 3701 et seq.) for fiscal year 2022 or any fiscal year thereafter may be obligated or expended for cooperative biological engagement.
(2) RESCISSION OF FUNDS.—Any unobligated funds available for the Cooperative Threat Reduction program for cooperative biological engagement as of the date of the enactment of this Act are hereby rescinded and deposited into the general fund of the Treasury.