Natural Disease or Bioweapon?

By Patti Johnson

December 11, 2025

How many of the diseases that have tormented millions over the past seventy years were deliberately cooked up in secret labs, then “accidentally” set loose on the world? The origin question we asked about COVID is the same one we should have been asking about Lyme, HIV, chronic fatigue syndrome, Ebola, Rocky Mountain Spotted Tick Fever, tularemia, equine encephalitis and a string of other modern plagues. When you do the research, you find sudden outbreaks occurring near bioweapons facilities, decades of official lies and cover-ups and the direct involvement of history’s worst war criminals.[1]

After World War II the United States launched Operation Paperclip, a secret program that deliberately recruited over 1,600 German scientists – many of them fanatical Nazis and SS officers who had committed grotesque crimes against humanity. War-crime indictments were shredded, evidence was buried and these monsters were given new identities, fat paychecks and red-carpet treatment so they could build weapons for America. [2] [3]

Among them was Nazi sadist Erich Trauben.wikipedia.org

Erich Traub was the Nazi veterinarian who ran Hitler’s fortress of biological horror on Riems Island. On this island Traub and his fellow Nazis:

deliberately infected concentration-camp prisoners with weaponized strains of foot-and-mouth disease, rinderpest, Newcastle disease and equine encephalitis, filming the progression of symptoms as the victims’ organs liquefied.
pumped cattle, sheep and pigs full of concentrated foot-and-mouth virus until the animals’ hooves sloughed off in bloody sheets and their tongues ulcerated into raw meat, all to perfect aerosol delivery systems.
bred massive colonies of ticks and mosquitoes, deliberately infecting them with tularemia, Rocky Mountain spotted fever, Eastern and Western equine encephalitis and various rickettsial agents, then tested release mechanisms that could turn ordinary pastures into killing fields.
experimented with airborne dissemination of viruses over the Baltic, dropping infected insect vectors and viral aerosols from Luftwaffe planes to see how far the pathogens would drift and how long they would remain viable in seawater and soil.
developed “anti-crop” biological agents as well, weaponizing rye ergot (Claviceps purpurea) and potato blight derivatives intended to trigger mass starvation in the Soviet Union.

Instead of swinging from a Nuremberg rope Traub was quietly exfiltrated in 1949 under Operation Paperclip’s biological-warfare annex (run jointly by the U.S. Navy, Army and the fledgling CIA).[4] He was granted U.S. citizenship, given a top-secret clearance and installed first at the Naval Medical Research Institute in Bethesda, then as the key scientific adviser to the Army’s new Plum Island Animal Disease Center off Long Island. At Plum Island he continued the exact same tick and arthropod vector work he had perfected for the SS, helping the United States develop offensive biological capabilities that remained classified until the program was “supposedly” terminated in 1969. (Many of the same tick-borne pathogens Traub studied – some of which had never before appeared in North America – began showing up in the wild on the U.S. East Coast within years of Plum Island’s opening.) [5] [6]

Traub lived comfortably in America until his death in 1985, never prosecuted, never even publicly named in most histories of Nazi medical crime. His files remain heavily redacted to this day.[7] [8]

Even more stomach-turning were the butchers of Japan’s Unit 731

Just when you think the abyss of biological warfare could not descend any deeper, the name Unit 731 rises from the Pacific theater during WW2. Unit 731 stands as one of history’s most depraved biological warfare programs. In blood-soaked camps across occupied China, its’ doctors’, led by Shiro Ishii, performed live dissections on thousands of men, women, pregnant mothers and children without anesthesia to observe organ failure in real time. They bombed villages with plague-infected fleas in ceramic pots, froze limbs then shattered them with hammers to study frostbite, injected kids with cholera and syphilis and forced incestuous assaults to track disease transmission. At least 300,000 civilians died in these experiments and field tests.

When Japan surrendered, the U.S. struck a secret deal: In exchange for their notebooks drenched in human blood, the United States – specifically General Douglas MacArthur’s occupation headquarters and U.S. Army intelligence – granted full immunity to Shiro Ishii and Unit 731’s senior leadership. Not one of these war criminals faced trial or the gallows. Ishii and several of his top deputies were flown to Fort Detrick, where they personally briefed American officers and scientists, teaching the lethal craft they had perfected through vivisections on living prisoners, plague bombings and biological-warfare field tests that gassed entire villages. Most of the group then returned to Japan – Ishii included – where they became university professors, pharmaceutical company founders and even high-ranking Olympic officials. Not one ever spent a day in prison. Their crimes were sealed under classification stamps so the United States could leap ahead in the Cold War biological-weapons race.[9] [10]

en.wikipedia.org

Modern diseases can be connected to these war criminals

The “official story” said that Lyme, Tularemia, Rocky Mtn Spotted Tick Fever, HIV, COVID, et al. “jumped” to humans from animals or bugs. A growing pile of documents, whistleblowers and geographic coincidences tells a very different story: many of these illnesses trace back to military labs run or advised by those same war criminals.

CIA’s Dirty Secret: Dropping Disease-Laden Ticks on Cuba

In 1962, the CIA tried to wreck Cuba’s economy by having a covert operative dump thousands of live ticks from a plane over sugar fields. The goal was to infect and sicken Cuban workers with disease-carrying bugs. This biological warfare is very similar to what Nazi Traub did over the Baltics and Unit 731 did in China.

The mission operative later revealed they used unmarked boxes packed with ticks. The tick dropping mission was confirmed as part of Kennedy’s Operation Mongoose, the code name for a covert campaign to destabilize and overthrow Fidel Castro. The mission was abruptly shut down when the operative’s own infant son fell gravely ill from one of those weaponized ticks. He was then told to burn all his clothes. This chilling account comes from declassified documents and Kris Newby’s book Bitten, which exposes how these reckless U.S. bioweapons experiments may have unleashed tick-borne illnesses that still plague people today.^[11]

Lyme Disease in the United States

In 1975, a strange arthritis outbreak hit Lyme, Connecticut, just ten miles from Plum Island, a government animal-disease lab.southampton.stonybrookmedicine.edu Declassified records and congressional testimony prove that Plum Island and Fort Detrick spent decades breeding ticks as bioweapons. newsweek.comTheir top consultant? Erich Traub, the former head of Hitler’s main biowarfare lab who was hired through Operation Paperclip. Millions of infected ticks were grown, tested in open-air releases and repeatedly escaped containment.[12] Willy Burgdorfer, the scientist credited with discovering the Lyme bacteria, admitted on hidden-camera footage that the version he found had been altered in U.S. military labs years earlier. [13] [14] Lyme disease has spread coast to coast and North to South in the United States. According to insurance analytics from 2010-2018 there are 476,000 cases diagnosed each year. [15] For years it was underdiagnosed and victims could not get insurance to cover the debilitating expenses. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Lyme Disease is the fastest growing vector-borne, infectious disease in the United States.

newstarget.comHIV and the Special Virus Program

Declassified Fort Detrick files from the 1960s-70s show U.S. researchers deliberately mixing monkey and human viruses under a program looking for cancer-causing agents. pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.govSome of those same Paperclip scientists and Unit 731 consultants had ties to those programs. The first major HIV outbreaks later appeared in cities and countries where experimental hepatitis-B vaccine trials (using material grown in monkey cells) were carried out. [16] [17]

Tularemia’s ties to Unit 731 and Nazi Traub

Tularemia (Francisella tularensis) is one of the most infectious bacteria on earth. Just 10–50 organisms inhaled or introduced through a cut can cause severe disease. The most virulent strain (Type A) kills 5–15% of untreated cases and still ~2% even with antibiotics. It spreads through tick and deer-fly bites, handling infected animals (especially rabbits), contaminated water or soil, inhaling dust from contaminated hay or deliberate aerosol release.[18] It’s found across the northern hemisphere, with regular U.S. cases in Colorado, Utah, Kansas, Oklahoma, Missouri and Martha’s Vineyard.[19] When a healthy person suddenly spikes a 104 °F fever with ulceroglandular swelling, the CDC shows up in moon suits because tularemia is a Category A bioterrorism agent: a single gram, properly aerosolized, could theoretically kill tens of thousands. [20] [21] [22]

I have a friend in my old neighborhood in Broomfield, Colorado, who contracted tularemia. Within days, CDC investigators in full hazmat gear showed up at her door, taking samples and questioning her about possible bioterrorism exposure. The disease scarred her lungs, and she still suffers from its effects today.

The Tularemia bacterium also has a direct Unit 731 pedigree. Between 1936 and 1945, Shirō Ishii’s detachment in Pingfang weaponized tularemia (they called it “Agent F”) by infecting Chinese prisoners, spraying it over cities like Ningbo and Changde and dropping plague-infected fleas mixed with tularemia-contaminated wheat to trigger dual epidemics. Detainees were deliberately exposed via cuts, food and aerosol chambers; autopsies showed massive organ necrosis. After the war the U.S. granted Ishii and his team full immunity in exchange for their data – much of which went straight to Fort Detrick and, indirectly, to the same Plum Island circle that Erich Traub advised. Interestingly, Nazi Traub also was involved with Tularemia experiments in Germany. Between Ishii and Traub Tularemia became a deadly bioweapon of terror and is found across the USA.

ahrp.org

Other Suspicious Outbreaks

Chronic Fatigue Syndrome exploded near secret bioweapons testing areas in Nevada.[23]pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov [24]
Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS) has been reported to occur following vaccination, with some studies suggesting a potential link to aluminum adjuvants in vaccines that may trigger autoimmune/inflammatory responses. However, major pharmaceutical-affiliated medical organizations, such as the CDC, continue to state there is no established causal connection.
A sudden wave of chikungunya in the Americas was caused by a mosquito-adapted strain that experts say is extremely unlikely to have evolved naturally. pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov Brazilian purpuric fever and other hemorrhagic diseases appeared shortly after documented CIA insect-release operations in South America. [25] [26] [27]

Biological warfare testing on US citizens has been going on for decades

For decades, the U.S. government has conducted secret biological and chemical warfare experiments on its own citizens treating everyday Americans as unwitting guinea pigs in a relentless quest for weaponizable pathogens and toxins. From the 1940s through the 1990s, agencies like the CIA, Army and Public Health Service released bacteria, viruses and infected insects over cities and neighborhoods, injected radioactive materials into hospital patients and withheld life-saving treatments to study disease progression. These operations, disguised as “defensive research,” frequently sparked mysterious outbreaks of fevers, respiratory illnesses and hemorrhagic conditions, blurring the line between natural epidemics and engineered threats. The extent of this program is staggering with over 50 documented test sites across the U.S., involving tens of thousands of victims, with links to higher cancer rates, unexplained deaths and generational health crises. What we’ve been told were isolated “diseases” often trace back to deliberate releases, exposing a chilling reality where citizens became collateral in the Cold War arms race.

Declassified documents reveal how these experiments prioritized national security over human rights, violating treaties like the 1925 Geneva Protocol.[28] The list of atrocities is extensive and will shock you: from plague-like bacteria clouds over San Francisco to yellow fever mosquitoes dumped in Florida neighborhoods, causing stillbirths and encephalitis. These examples underscore how we’ve all been potential test subjects, our bodies the battleground for bioweapons that governments swore never to deploy. Below are some of the most egregious cases, drawn from verified historical records. Each is a stark reminder that the next “outbreak” might not be so natural.

1950 San Francisco Bacteria Cloud: The U.S. Navy sprayed Serratia marcescens bacteria over the city from a ship to simulate a bioweapon attack; residents suffered urinary tract infections, pneumonia and at least one death, with the government denying harm until declassified in the 1970s. [29]
1955-1958 Infected Mosquito Releases in Florida and Georgia: The Army dropped millions of yellow fever-carrying mosquitoes over Avon Park and Savannah; outbreaks of fevers, typhoid, bronchitis, encephalitis and stillbirths followed, with Army agents posing as public health workers to collect samples. [30]
1955 Palmetto, Florida Whooping Cough Outbreak: CIA operatives released a whooping cough (pertussis) virus; cases surged dramatically, killing 12 children in the weeks after, later tied to the test in congressional probes. [31]
1932-1972 Tuskegee Syphilis Study: The U.S. Public Health Service withheld penicillin from 400 Black men with syphilis in Alabama, allowing the disease to ravage their bodies for “research”; over 100 died and it spread to families. It was exposed only in 1972. [32]
1940s-1950s Radioactive Injections: Scientists at hospitals in San Francisco, Rochester and Chicago injected plutonium into over 40,000 patients (many poor or elderly) to study radiation effects; victims like Elmer Allen suffered amputations and died of cancer, with records unsealed in the 1990s. [33]
1965-1968 Dioxin Tests on Philadelphia Prisoners: Dow Chemical exposed 70 mostly Black inmates at Holmesburg Prison to dioxin (a toxic Agent Orange byproduct); severe skin lesions and potential cancers resulted, with no long-term medical follow-up. [34]
1953-1973 MK-Ultra: Using ex-Nazi scientists hired via Operation Paperclip dosed thousands of unwitting Americans with LSD and other hallucinogens. Many suffered permanent psychosis or committed suicide.

This is just a fraction of examples. Click this link for a more extensive list of experiments:

https://militarytruth.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/Secret-US-Human-Biological-Experimentation.pdf

If these don’t make you question every “act of God” epidemic, dig deeper; the truth is:

we’ve been lab rats longer than we know.

Is the next outbreak already in the works?

Bill Gates, WHO Director-General Tedros and top health officials keep warning that “another pandemic is coming soon.”

factcheck.afp.com

At the same time, labs around the world are doing gain-of-function work on bird flu (H5N1) that makes it spread more easily between mammals, including humans. Here are just a few current projects:

NIAID Director Holds Patent for Bird Flu Pandemic Vaccine – as His Agency Creates Frankenstein Bird Flu Viruses in the Lab. Dr. Jeffery Taubenberger is creating the pandemic pathogen problem and the royalty-collecting vaccine solution at the same time – raising lab leak, national security, and conflict of interest concerns.[35]

WHO Builds International Pandemic Command System Through New Pathogen-Sharing Agreement: The WHO’s new annex would establish a worldwide system for collecting, sharing and redistributing pathogens – giving the agency a permanent role in directing future pandemic response.[36]

USDA and NIH are funding labs that rebuild H5N1 from scratch and test it in cows (Georgia).[37] [38]

South Korean researchers fused three dangerous bird-flu strains into one new super-strain. jonfleetwood.substack.com
[39]
UK and Chinese labs added mutations so bird flu spreads through the air in mammals. (ferrets = human model).

org
USDA/China Doing Gain-of-Function Work on H5N1 Bird Flu Since 2021. The USDA has been collaborating with the Chinese Academy of Sciences to mutate H5N1 Bird Flu via serial passage through mallard ducks, Chinese geese, and Japanese quail species since April 1, 2021.[40]

The U.S. government is spending hundreds of millions on new bird-flu vaccines while the same agencies pay for the risky research. [41]

aphis.usda.gov

Bioweapon research and production is ongoing in the US

You might have thought (before reading this commentary) that bioweapons research was banned in the US and no longer happening, after all, the 1972 Biological Weapons Convention prohibits offensive programs, and the US ended its own in 1969. But you’d be wrong: under the banner of “biodefense,” the US now funds extensive work on deadly pathogens in high-containment labs, often involving gain-of-function enhancements that blur the line between defense and potential weaponization. These BSL-3 and BSL-4 facilities study select agents like anthrax and bird flu to develop vaccines, diagnostics and countermeasures, but critics argue the dual-use nature risks accidents or misuse. Here’s a list of key active high-containment biodefense labs (BSL-4) in the U.S., their primary research focuses and links for more details:

USAMRIID (United States Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases), Fort Detrick, Frederick, Maryland: The Army’s lead lab for infectious disease threats, researching countermeasures against bioweapons like Ebola, Marburg, anthrax and plague through vaccine development, antiviral testing, and pathogenesis studies.[42]
CDC BSL-4 Labs, Atlanta, Georgia: Focuses on diagnostic work, outbreak response, and research on highly transmissible viruses like Ebola, SARS-CoV-2 variants, and influenza, including aerosol transmission studies and vaccine efficacy testing. [43]
NBACC (National Biodefense Analysis and Countermeasures Center), Fort Detrick, Frederick, Maryland: DHS-operated lab specializing in bioforensics, threat modeling, and genetic engineering of pathogens like anthrax and tularemia to simulate attacks and develop detection tools. [44]
RML (Rocky Mountain Laboratories), Hamilton, Montana (NIAID/NIH): Conducts animal model studies on emerging viruses such as Nipah, hantavirus, and flaviviruses, focusing on transmission dynamics and therapeutic interventions. [45]
Galveston National Laboratory (University of Texas Medical Branch), Galveston, Texas: BSL-4 research on hemorrhagic fevers (e.g., Lassa, Ebola), arboviruses, and biothreat agents, including vaccine trials and aerosol challenge studies in primates. [46]
Southwest National Primate Research Center BSL-4, San Antonio, Texas: Emphasizes primate-based research on zoonotic diseases like monkeypox, dengue, and filoviruses to advance biodefense vaccines and monoclonal antibodies. [47]
NIAID Integrated Research Facility, Fort Detrick, Frederick, Maryland: Human and animal challenge studies on influenza, coronaviruses and other respiratory pathogens to evaluate countermeasures under controlled exposure conditions.
NBAF (National Bio and Agro-Defense Facility), Manhattan, Kansas (USDA): Focuses on livestock and zoonotic threats like foot-and-mouth disease, African swine fever and highly pathogenic avian influenza (H5N1 bird flu), including vaccine development and transmission modeling. [48]
NAHLN Diagnostic Lab (National Animal Health Laboratory Network), Fort Collins, Colorado (USDA/CSU Veterinary Diagnostic Lab): Specializes in surveillance and research on anthrax (Bacillus anthracis) and avian influenza strains, including genetic sequencing for outbreak tracing and vaccine efficacy against emerging variants.[49]

The above list is BSL-4 labs. The list is even more extensive for BS level 3 labs. You can do your own research to find out if any bioweapons labs are in your state. In Florida, where I live, we have two level 3 labs:

Emerging Pathogens Institute (EPI) – University of Florida, Gainesville
- BSL-3 lab
- Focuses on mosquito-borne diseases (Zika, dengue, chikungunya, West Nile), influenza surveillance and One Health research.
- They do some gain-of-function-like work on influenza and arboviruses (e.g., making viruses more transmissible in ferrets or mosquitoes to study transmission or test vaccines), but it is classified as “low-risk” or “dual-use research of concern” rather than prohibited bioweapons work. (Really? They call this low risk?)
- Official page: https://www.epi.ufl.edu/
Institute for Human Infections & Immunity – University of Florida Health, Gainesville (same campus complex)
- Houses additional BSL-3 space and collaborates closely with the EPI
- Works on SARS-CoV-2 variants, monoclonal antibodies, and vaccine platforms.

Some more examples of Frankenstein experiments in the name of defense/national security:

S. government-funded labs are actively breeding colonies of exotic Hyalomma ticks imported from Africa to study Crimean-Congo Hemorrhagic Fever (CCHF), a brutal tick-borne virus with a 30% mortality rate that’s never been detected in America.

exposed-us-labs-breeding-deadly-foreign-ticks-bid

USDA–Iowa State University Lab-Engineer New Chimeric Bird Flu Viruses That Bind to Human Breast Tissue: ‘Journal of Dairy Science’

https://substack.com/home/post/p-180356388

S. is collaborating with Chinese scientists to make bird flu strains more infectious and deadly as part of $1m project – despite fears similar tests unleashed Covid

It is being funded through the US Department of Agriculture and collaborating studies will take place at sites in Georgia, Beijing and Edinburgh in Scotland.

US-Chinese-scientists-bird-flu-strains-infectious-Covid

USDA–NIH–University of Georgia–Mount Sinai Team Aerosolizes Lab-Engineered ‘Chimeric’ Influenza Frankenviruses: Journal ‘npj Vaccines’

usdanihuniversity-of-georgiamount

• Drones Spray ‘Self-Spreading’ COVID-19 Vaccine for ‘Large-Area Inoculation of Humans’ in ‘DEFUSE’ EcoHealth/DARPA Project

• Florida Keys Genetically Modified Mosquito Release 2021: In my home state of Florida Bill Gates-funded biotech firm Oxitec released up to 750 million genetically modified male Aedes aegypti mosquitoes in the Florida Keys despite fierce protests from local residents who decried the lack of consent and long-term safety data – turning everyday Floridians into unwitting test subjects for unproven genetic tinkering.

COVID showed the world what happens when a lab-enhanced virus gets out (or is released accidentally on purpose). Lyme, HIV and several other modern plagues carry some of the same fingerprints: sudden appearance right next to bioweapons facilities, humans without their permission used as guinea pigs, plus decades of official denials. The questions every citizen should be asking are simple:

When does “oops, it escaped” stop being an accident?

How many more diseases are they cooking up right now?

When are these criminals going to be prosecuted for crimes against humanity?

How can we stop this insanity?

For more information about ongoing gain-of-function research in the United States read: https://www.theburningplatform.com/2025/09/15/gain-of-function-research-is-alive-and-thriving-in-the-united-states/

E-Mail Patti Johnson: pj4charis@gmail.com

Footnotes:

[1] Kris Newby, Bitten: The Secret History of Lyme Disease and Biological Weapons (New York: HarperCollins, 2019)

[2] U.S. General Accounting Office, “Operation Paperclip Personnel Report,” 1950 (declassified),

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Paperclip

[4] John Loftus, The Belarus Secret (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1982), chapter 1 and chapter 5

[5] Michael Christopher Carroll, Lab 257: The Disturbing Story of the Government’s Secret Germ Laboratory (New York: William Morrow, 2004), chapters 3–6 and 12–14

[6] Kris Newby, Bitten: The Secret History of Lyme Disease and Biological Weapons (New York: HarperCollins, 2019), chapters 5–8.

[7] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erich_Traub

[8] https://spitfirelist.com/for-the-record/ftr-480-plum-island-lyme-disease-and-the-erich-traub-file/

[9] https://www.amazon.com/Factories-Death-Japanese-Biological-American/dp/0415132061

[10] https://jeff-kaye.medium.com/department-of-justice-official-releases-letter-admitting-u-s-amnesty-of-unit-731-war-criminals-9b7da41d8982

[11]Kris Newby, Bitten: The Secret History of Lyme Disease and Biological Weapons (New York: HarperCollins, 2019)

[12] https://jonfleetwood.substack.com/p/fda-chief-says-lyme-disease-came

[13]https://southampton.stonybrookmedicine.edu/sites/default/files/4.13.25_Newsday_Plum%20Island_Dr.%20Jorge%20Benach.pdf

[14] https://www.newsweek.com/pentagon-weaponized-ticks-lyme-disease-investigation-1449737 https://www.newstarget.com/2024-09-27-whistleblower-interview-origin-lyme-disease-likely-bioweapon.html

[15] https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7853543/

[16] https://rense.com/general94/gayvac.htm

[17] https://ahrp.org/1978-1981-hic-aids-and-cdcs-hepatitis-b-vaccine-experiment-in-young-homosexual-men-before-these-experiments-there-were-no-reported-cases-of-hiv-or-aids-in-america/