deBriefings

MORE PHARMACEUTICAL POLLUTANTS FOUND IN A. Ternes, documented unexpectedly high concentrations of

WATERWAYS AND GROUNDWATER IN US & CANADA drugs, many of which "measured in parts per billion (ppb)", both
by J. Raloff © 2000 in raw sewage and in water leaving treatment plants in Germany.

O
ver the past decade, European chemists have been docu- The chemist, who is based at the Institute for Water Research and
menting widespread pharmaceutical contamination of Water Technology in Wiesbaden, Germany, now finds that these
their lakes, streams and groundwater. In early April, US drugs enter groundwater.
and Canadian scientists offered preliminary confirmation that Sewage effluent can amount to at least half the water in many
traces of drugs, excreted by people and livestock, similarly pol- of Germany's smaller rivers, Ternes notes. Groundwater fed by
lute American and Canadian waters. They presented their find- streams carrying relatively undiluted effluent can be tainted with
ings at the first major American symposium on pharmaceuticals 1 ppb of carbamazepine, an anticonvulsive drug. Ternes has also
in water, held as part of the American Chemical Society's Spring detected similar amounts of the anti-inflammatory drug
national meeting. diclofenac, and up to 2.4 ppb of iodine-based drugs used to
Water pollution by drugs "is a newly emerging issue", observes improve contrast in X-rays.
Christian G. Daughton, symposium co-organiser and chief of Because people discard their excess drugs, the town dump can
environmental chemistry at the US Environmental Protection also be a source of pharmaceutical pollution. Under one landfill,
Agency's National Exposure Research Ternes found groundwater tainted with 12
Laboratory in Las Vegas, Nevada. By offer- ppb of clofibric acid and 1 ppb of
ing a US venue for the meeting "and partici- phenazone, an analgesic. The latter med-
pation by many European leaders in this ication also turned up in groundwater—
field", he hoped to awaken domestic interest "but at far higher concentrations"—under a
and catalyse research on the topic (Science leaking dump in Zagreb, Croatia, notes
News, 21 March 1998, p. 187). The symposium's Marijan Ahel of the Rudjer Boskovic
Ironically, Daughton notes, EPA scientists Institute in Zagreb. Some of his water sam-
who examined the sludge from a US sewage scientists note that, ples had the drug at as much as 50 times
treatment plant 20 years ago found that the
incoming sewage contained excreted
to date, few if any the concentration detected by Ternes.
In the United States, federal scientists
aspirin, caffeine and nicotine. Daughton toxicological studies recently began probing another source of
says that the findings were written off as a drug pollution: large feedlots for livestock.
curiosity and were all but forgotten. have evaluated risks An estimated 40 per cent of the antibiotics
At about the same time, recalls Herman posed by chronic produced in the United States is fed to live-
Bouwer of the US Agricultural stock as growth enhancers.
Research Service in Phoenix, Arizona, exposure to trace Geochemist Mike Meyer, of the US
the cholesterol-lowering drug clofibric Geological Survey in Raleigh, North
acid turned up in a groundwater reser-
concentrations of Carolina, and his colleagues have
voir being tapped to meet the Phoenix pharmaceutical begun looking for antibiotics in hog-
community's thirst. The drug had waste lagoons. Three drugs frequent-
entered with treated sewage which the drugs. ly show up, one in concentrations
city had been using to replenish the approaching one part per million. The
aquifer. same three antibiotics, which are also
"At the time," Bouwer recalls, "we prescribed for people, often appear in
didn't pay attention to the finding." It local waters—though, as Meyer notes,
should have been a wake-up call, he "usually only at one-tenth to one-hun-
now argues, because if clofibric acid dredth the concentrations in the
could pass through a sewage treatment lagoons". "So, it appears we're get-
plant and percolate through soil unscathed, so could a host of ting transport of these antibiotics into surface and ground waters,"
other drugs. he told Science News.
And they do, as new studies show. Meyer says that colleagues at the Centers for Disease Control
Chris Metcalfe of Trent University in Peterborough, Ontario, and Prevention in Atlanta, Georgia, have begun sampling bacteria
Canada, reports finding a broad mix of drugs, including anti- from the tainted waters to investigate their responses to the
cancer agents, psychiatric drugs and anti-inflammatory com- antibiotics present. Their findings could begin to resolve a long-
pounds. "Levels of prescription drugs that we have leaving standing question: what is the contribution, if any, of livestock to
sewage treatment plants in Canada are sometimes higher than potentially dangerous reservoirs of bacteria resistant to common
what's being seen in Germany," he says. He explains that many antibiotics (Science News, 5 June 1999, p. 356)?
North American cities employ more rudimentary sewage treat- Traces of drugs are sometimes making it all the way into tap
ment methods than do those in Germany. water. Thomas Heberer, of the Technical University of Berlin,
Daughton also observes that a million US homes send their reported finding traces of at least three pharmaceuticals in sam-
essentially untreated sewage directly into the environment. ples from his home tap. The concentrations, however, were near
Two years ago, the symposium's other co-organiser, Thomas the limits of detection—a few parts per trillion. Moreover, he

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 deBriefings
found that running this water through an activated carbon filter PROMIS SOFTWARE: A LINK TO THE ECHELON
removed all vestiges of the drugs. SPYING SYSTEM?
Ternes's studies confirm that two disinfection agents, "activat- by Kenn Thomas © 2000

T
ed carbon and ozone", which are used in many European drink- he research of Danny Casolaro, the writer who died in
ing-water plants, generally remove any traces of drugs. It's Martinsburg, West Virginia, in August 1991 while investi-
because these relatively costly technologies aren't employed for gating an intelligence cabal called The Octopus, continues
treating sewage, he notes, that a large share of the drugs flushed to contextualise current events in ways that the mainstream media
down toilets can reach open waters. fail at daily. For instance, it seems more than likely that the vast
The symposium's scientists note that, to date, few if any toxi- spy satellite system known as Echelon, now emerging as a major
cological studies have evaluated risks posed by chronic exposure topic in international public debate about the surveillance society,
to trace concentrations of phar- relies on some permutation of the
maceutical drugs. However, PROMIS software—a system that
most of the participants suspect was crucial to Casolaro's research.
that the biggest risks face aquatic ... it seems more than likely that the PROMIS was stolen from the
life, which may be bathed from Inslaw company by Ed Meese
cradle to grave in a solution of vast spy satellite system known as cronies in the US Justice
drugs of increasing concentration Echelon, now emerging as a major Department under Ronald Reagan.
and potency. It became infamous for its "back
David Epel, of Stanford topic in international public debate door", allowing the Octopus
University's Hopkins Marine
Station in Pacific Grove,
about the surveillance society, cronies to spy on clients who had
bought PROMIS illegally.
California, is especially con- relies on some permutation of In addition to high-resolution
cerned about new drugs called
"efflux-pump inhibitors". These
the PROMIS software ... visual monitoring, the E c h e l o n
satellites—maintained and utilised
drugs, he says, are designed to by such US intelligence groups as
keep microbes from ejecting the the National Security Agency
antibiotics intended to slay them, (NSA) and the National
and also impede the cellular pumps that nearly all animals use to Reconnaissance Office (NRO)—monitor phone calls and e-mail
get rid of toxicants (Science News, 12 February 2000, p. 110). transmissions for key words like "bomb" and "assassination" that
Epel is concerned that if pump-inhibiting drugs enter the aquat- ostensibly might expose terrorists. A growing body of indepen-
ic environment, they might render wildlife vulnerable to concen- dent researchers, however, have come to understand that the sys-
trations of pollution that had previously been innocuous. tem has been used for industrial espionage and for the tracking of
(Source: By J. Raloff, Science News, vol. 157, no. 14, 1 April private citizens and political dissidents. The Echelon satellites
2000, p. 212, website www.sciencenews.org/20000401/fob1.asp, use advanced software-hardware technology that mystifies
posted 8 April 2000) researchers. Amidst official denials that it can be done at all,
these researchers are beginning to focus
on the real question of how it can be
done. The answer to that may rest with
PROMIS and Danny Casolaro's
research.
The development and use of Inslaw's
PROMIS, to the extent of Casolaro's
research, are detailed in The Octopus:
Secret Government and the Death of
Danny Casolaro , the book I co-
authored with Jim Keith. However, the
permutations and evolutionary muta-
tions of PROMIS have since become
the gist of much further speculation and
research. At the start of the Clinton
Administration, for instance, PROMIS
illuminated the death of White House
aide Vince Foster with suggestion that
it has been introduced into international
banking systems. According to one
theory, Foster's Swiss bank accounts
were made vulnerable in this way and
may have led to his suicide or murder.

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PROMIS came up again on the periphery after the Heaven's The standard consumer computer and its Internet connection
Gate cult incident, when it became apparent that the last signifi- may contain the means by which Echelon spies on the world. Last
cant news from the area where the cult lived, in Rancho Santa Fe January, a "glitch" in the protocol for removing phone listings
near San Diego, involved the murders of Ian Spiro and his fami- from the Yahoo! site gave private address listings when phone
ly. Spiro was a British intelligence spook who had been helping numbers were punched in. Glitches found in the Netscape
Danny Casolaro's main informant, Michael Riconosciuto—the browser in 1995—one that allowed Netscape to extract the history
creator of the PROMIS back door. of a user's session, and another that subverted encryption/
Even the death of Diana, Princess of Wales has a tentacle decryption operations—won $1,000 from a bug bounty hunter
reaching back to PROMIS in the person of Adnan Khashoggi, group for two young hackers in Australia and San Francisco,
Dodi Fayed's uncle. Khashoggi's signature appeared on a docu- USA. Perhaps it is not surprising that two years later, presumably
ment that had Casolaro excited on the day that he died. That very long after it fixed these other bugs, Netscape awarded another
night, he was due to meet with someone named "Ibrahim" who $1,000 plus a T-shirt to Danish software company Cabocomm
would have shed more light on Khashoggi's role in the Iran- when it discovered another glitch. This one allowed a website
Contra scandal. Khashoggi is a notorious arms merchant respon- operator to read anything stored on the hard drive of a computer
sible for developing supra-legal contracts that sustain Middle logged on to the site. Implications of a more advanced technology
East defence and oil industry corruption. no doubt employed by Echelon are onerous.
Those politics certainly played a role in whatever happened to Encryption security and the "Clipper chip"—a "front door"
Diana and Dodi in the Pont de l'Alma tunnel. They came into strategy for keeping tabs on the Internet—served as issues with
play again with the tragic death of my the general public in preparation for the
Octopus co-author, Jim Keith, in September coming Echelon debate. Philip Zimmerman
1999. Keith died of a blood clot after reluc- used a public domain algorithm to create the
tantly going into a Reno, Nevada, hospital Pretty Good Privacy encryption software,
for minor knee surgery. Rumours were rife and he publicised it freely, bringing that
that the odd death had to do with Keith's protection to the masses. However, even
reporting on the possibility that Diana was cybernerds have trouble dealing with
pregnant at the time of her death. In a col- The standard PROMIS/Echelon possibilities that may not
umn for the website Nitro News (now
defunct), Keith said he would name the
consumer computer even exist, as some have argued.
Daniel Brandt, producer of CIABase/
physician who told Diana she was pregnant. and its Internet NameBase, a renowned data engine on
Word had it that Keith was killed before he intelligence literature and personalities,
could name that name. A thorough investi- connection argues: "...a 'back door' to get around pass-
gation of Keith's death—a tremendous
loss to the conspiracy information
may contain the word protection is easy for any pro-
grammer... [but] you still need physi-
underground—has yet to be made.
Of paramount interest to the desk-
means by which cal access to the computer, either
through a direct-connect terminal or a
top conspiracy student, however, is Echelon spies on remote terminal through the phone
the ongoing development of lines, in order to utilise a back door.
PROMIS-like back doors that have the world. [It is difficult] to believe that foreign-
been popping up to spy on average ers allow technicians from another
personal-computer users. These are country to install new computer sys-
the most likely suspects as somehow tems in the heart of their intelligence
being linked to the Echelon system. establishments, and don't even think to
Rumour had it that when the origi- secure physical access to the system
nal versions of Windows 95 appeared, before they start entering their pre-
they contained a back door that sur- cious data...claims that PROMIS...can
reptitiously read the user's hard drive suck in every other database on Earth,
and reported it back to someone—Bill Gates? Echelon? In the such as those used by utility companies, and correlate everything
trans-global corporate state, the distinction hardly needs to be automatically...needlessly discredit [whistleblowers] by their own
made. This rumour came with the story that pressing some key high-tech gullibility."
combination during the opening "clouds" sequence of Windows Bill Hamilton, the owner of Inslaw—the company which origi-
95 brought to the screen a photograph of a prized Palamino nally developed PROMIS—maintains that the software could run
owned by Gates. The first draft of Casolaro's book on the on "any UNIX machine, Hewlett Packard UNIX, RISC 6000,
Octopus was entitled "Behold, A Pale Horse". The "back door" AT&T, AS400, under its own operating system, and on main-
feature ostensibly was removed from later versions of Windows, frames under MVS"; that it was comprised of 88 program mod-
and today the software has a voluntary registration that does the ules; and that the source code, replete with the Inslaw name
same thing, only with the consent of the spied-upon. Presently, throughout the code commentary, was kept by any government
there is no indication of how it works with the pre-installed soft- which had it. When asked how a foreign country could modify
ware often bought by many non-computer-savvy people. the source code without discovering the back door, Hamilton was

JUNE – JULY 2000 NEXUS • 13

 deBriefings
explicit about the connection to Echelon: "I don't know what's It is the same with remarks about further criticism from Daniel
meant by the 'back door'. What we've been told is that not only Brandt, penned by Riconosciuto, which have circulated among
the software was sold, but computers with extra chips... What conspiracy researchers. For example, Riconosciuto states: "As
the chips do, we've been told—the extra chips—is to broadcast far as the requirement of special hardware to transmit data [is
the data inside PROMIS to satellites owned by the NSA...but we concerned] ...the example that Mr Brandt uses, that software can
don't know enough about it as they've never shared anything with alone supply various combinations of ones and zeros to the CPU,
us." This possibility addresses Daniel Brandt's objection that only shows Mr Brandt's lack of knowledge of what Walsh func-
physical access is required for a back door to work. tions are... Brandt's comments start out that computers radiate
Writer J. Orlin Grabbe elaborated on the idea in a recent col- electromagnetic energy unless they are shielded. This is an
umn: "Since intelligence computers are, for security reasons, insult. Anybody who has been around knows what Van Eyck
usually not connected to external networks, the original back backing is (decoding from a distance what is displayed on a CRT
door was a broadcast signal. The PROMIS software was often screen). An active phased array antenna is superfluous at the
sold in connection with computer hardware (such as a Prime short distances he describes. A high-performance surveillance
computer) using a specialised chip. The chip would broadcast receiver such as those made for Vatkins Johnson corporation,
the contents of the existing database to monitoring vans or collec- Stoddarts/Singer or Fairchild, will do the job quite nicely with a
tion satellites, using digital spread spectrum techniques whenever standard biconical antenna... Brandt will find that if an arbitrarily
the software was run. Spread spectrum techniques offer a way to small section of a sine function is known, the function is known
mask, or disguise, a signal by making it appear as 'noise' with everywhere. This feature of the sine wave is referenced to sinu-
respect to another signal. For example, one may communicate soidal waves that transmit information at a net rate of zero!... Mr
covertly on the same spectrum as a local TV broadcast signal. Brandt's statement that software can only provide combinations
From the point of view of a TV receiver, the covert communica- of 1s and 0s to the CPU totally misses the point that Walsh func-
tion appears as noise and is filtered out. From the point of view tions are inherently suited to binary operations. This is one rea-
of the covert channel, the TV signal appears as noise. In the case son why such tight, compact code can be written around opera-
of the PROMIS broadcast channel, the signal was disguised as tions with Walsh functions. This is why it is so difficult to find
ordinary computer noise..." Thereafter, unfortunately, Grabbe's these routines and differentiate them from routines normally used
discussion—which includes correspondence with PROMIS archi- at the RTL (register transfer logic) level. This is at a level of pro-
tect Michael Riconosciuto—becomes more technical than is use- gramming that is one jump lower than machine language."
ful to a non-technical person's understanding of how PROMIS Which, again, is several steps above the average person's ability
works. to follow these technical possibilities. It seems almost inarguable
that the PROMIS software has properties and applications
compatible with the Echelon military-industrial spy satellite
system.
In addition to being a bell-ringer for the dangers PROMIS
poses to the average person, Casolaro—and perhaps Jim
Keith—died in part trying to uncover its other, more sinister
capacities. Echelon has almost become the ultimate expression
of the global conspiracy culture, and certainly the most obvi-
ous example of the encroaching surveillance society.
The developing interest in and protest over Echelon's exis-
tence is the best legacy of those who made sacrifices in trying
to understand the role of The Octopus and the possibilities of
PROMIS. This part of the story is still unfolding.

About the Author:

Kenn Thomas is co-author of The Octopus: Secret
Government and the Death of Danny Casolaro (Feral
House) and author of the prequel, Maury Island UFO
(IllumiNet Press). He has edited two volumes of
Cyberculture Counterconspiracy (Book Tree) (see review
this issue), and produced five other books on conspiracy
topics, including NASA, Nazis & JFK. He publishes the
conspiracy magazine Steamshovel Press. (For a copy of the
current issue, send USD$6 [USD$8 foreign]; for a four-
issue subscription, send USD$23 [USD$28 foreign] to:
POB 23715, St Louis, MO 63121, USA.) Steamshovel Press
maintains a website, www.steamshovelpress.com. For
further information, e-mail Kenn Thomas at
[email protected].

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MMR VACCINE LINK TO AUTISM NOW CLEARER the 12 children—and subsequently, hundreds more like them—
by Lorraine Fraser © 2000 were ignored by the UK Government and dismissed by "experts"
Strong evidence for a link between MMR (mumps-measles- from the Medical Research Council. He was ordered by his
rubella) vaccination and autism and bowel disease in children bosses at University College London not to speak to the Press.
was announced by UK doctors in February 1998. In a further Now, says Professor O'Leary, a leading independent patholo-
study, led by Professor John O'Leary, the measles virus was gist from the Republic of Ireland, the new evidence from his lab-
found in the intestines of 24 out of 25 children who developed oratory must change all that. He is doubly concerned because
autistic enterocolitis after an apparently healthy infancy. another independent research group in Japan has also found the

S
peaking under oath before a hearing of the powerful US measles virus in the blood of three of Dr Wakefield's patients—
Congress Committee on Government Reform, Professor and they say the genetic fingerprint is "consistent" with the strain
John O'Leary told how his state-of-the-art laboratory had used in MMR vaccine; so further studies are now imperative.
identified the measles virus—something which certainly should "The findings that I presented to Congress," said Professor
not have been there—in samples taken from the intestines of no O'Leary, "are the results of independent work carried out by my
fewer than 24 of the 25 patients studied. laboratory on material referred to us by Andrew Wakefield. The
The findings of his vitally important study, reported for the material that was given to us was sent in a blinded fashion. We
first time on 6 April at the congressional hearing on autism, pro- did not know the name of the patients, the diagnosis or age before
vide compelling new evidence linking measles virus infection our tests were completed. There was no bias in terms of chang-
and this terrible affliction. And they raise urgent new concerns ing diagnosis or changing results to suit a particular hypothesis."
over the safety of MMR vaccine—the combined mumps, measles He said that of the 25 children with autistic enterocolotis whom
and rubella vaccination given routinely to hundreds of thousands his laboratory screened, 24 harboured the measles genetic finger-
of children in Britain (and around the world) every year. print. Only one of the 15 control-group children—those who do
It is more than five years since not have autism—contained the virus.
Rosemary Kessick, desperate to find out "That is 96 per cent compared with 6.6
why her previously healthy baby had The findings raise urgent new per cent, which is highly statistically
developed terrible bowel problems and significant and implies an association
was suddenly behaving uncontrollably, concerns over the safety of between the measles virus and this dis-
first sought out the man who provided MMR vaccine—the combined ease," said Professor O'Leary. "Measles
Professor O'Leary with those crucial virus is present in the gut of these chil-
biopsies from the autistic children. She
mumps, measles and rubella dren. It shouldn't be there. The next
approached Dr Andrew Wakefield, an vaccination given routinely to question is to find out what it is doing
honorary consultant gastroenterologist at hundreds of thousands of there, and there needs to be a full inves-
the Royal Free Hospital in London and tigation of this with proper funding."
an acclaimed researcher on inflammatory children every year. Parents in the UK came under enor-
bowel disease. mous pressure from health visitors and
Dr Wakefield had never before seen a GPs to have their children vaccinated
child like William, whose autism had descended on him almost with MMR, with some families thrown off doctors' medical lists
overnight. When he examined the lining of William's bowel with for refusing. The Government blocked the import of measles-
a fibre-optic camera, he was stunned to discover an inexplicable only vaccine last year. Parents who want the single vaccine are
abnormality. In February 1998, having seen 11 more patients forced to go overseas. If measles virus infection—from whatever
with identical symptoms, he dared to suggest that parents such as source—is confirmed to be causing the chronic bowel changes
Rosemary, who believe their children developed autism after and brain damage in at least this group of autistic children, it may
receiving the MMR vaccine, should now be taken seriously. be possible to find a treatment. Indeed, many parents have found
In a scientific paper published in the leading medical journal that a strict diet can help their children.
The Lancet, Dr Wakefield and his colleagues described how they The UK Department of Health has poured scorn on Professor
discovered this same pattern of inflammation of the bowel— O'Leary's study, yet, at the beginning of April, the Medical
which they believed was part of a new disease, autistic Research Council announced a massive survey of two million
enterocolitis—in all 12 children. They reported that parents of people across the UK, which is aimed at finding out more about
eight of the children said that the youngsters' behaviour began to autism and which would "be able to examine any possible associ-
deteriorate after their MMR vaccinations. While there was no ation between autism and the MMR vaccine". The potential
direct evidence of a link, Dr Wakefield said it must be properly importance of Professor O'Leary's results will not be lost on
investigated. He stressed he was not anti-vaccine and only solicitors for some 200 children—large numbers of them autis-
wanted safe vaccination programs for children. tic—who are already suing the makers of MMR vaccine.
But within the medical establishment there is no greater heresy Professor O'Leary, who has now decided to widen his
than to question the safety of a childhood vaccine. Dr Wakefield collaboration with Dr Wakefield, commented: "The time now is
was quickly accused of undermining parents' confidence in MMR for real research. We need to work out what is going on."
and of putting children's lives at risk because large numbers of For the hundreds of parents like Rosemary Kessick, that
parents had decided to shun the vaccine. From that day on, he was research cannot be done soon enough.
ostracised by the medical community. His meticulous studies on (Source: The Mail on Sunday, UK, 9 April 2000)

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