1976: Fear of a great plague
By PAUL MICKLE / The Trentonian
On the cold afternoon of February 5, 1976, an Army recruit told his drill instructor at Fort Dix that he felt tired and weak but not sick enough to see military medics or skip a big training hike.
Within 24 hours, 19-year-old Pvt. David Lewis of Ashley Falls, Mass., was dead, killed by an influenza not seen since the plague of 1918-19, which took 500,000 American lives and 20 million worldwide.
Two weeks after the recruit's death, health officials disclosed to America that something called "swine flu" had killed Lewis and hospitalized four of his fellow soldiers at the Army base in Burlington County.
The ominous name of the flu alone was enough to touch off civilian fear of an epidemic. And government doctors knew from tests hastily conducted at Dix after Lewis' death that 500 soldiers had caught swine flu without falling ill.
Any flu able to reach that many people so fast was capable of becoming another worldwide plague, the doctors warned, raising these questions:
Does America mobilize for mass inoculations in time to have everybody ready for the next flu season? Or should the country wait to see if the new virus would, as they often do, get stronger to hit harder in the second year?
Thus was born what would become known to some medical historians as a fiasco and to others as perhaps the finest hour of America's public health bureaucracy.
Only young Lewis died from the swine flu itself in 1976. But as the critics are quick to point out, hundreds of Americans were killed or seriously injured by the inoculation the government gave them to stave off the virus.
According to his sister-in-law, John Kent of President Avenue in Lawrence went to his grave in 1997 believing the shot from the government had killed his first wife, Mary, long before her time.
Among other critics are Arthur M. Silverstein, whose book, "Pure Politics and Impure Science," suggests President Gerald Ford's desire to win the office on his own, as well as the influence of America's big drug manufacturers, figured into the decision to immunize all 220 million Americans.
Still, even the partisan who first branded Ford's program a fiasco, says now that it happened because America's public health establishment identified what easily could have been a new plague and mobilized to beat it amazingly well.
To understand the fear of the time you have to know something about the plague American soldiers seemed to bring home with them after fighting in Europe during World War I.
The Great Plague, as it came to be called, rivaled the horrid Black Death of medieval times in its ability to strike suddenly and take lives swiftly. In addition to the half million in America, it killed 20 million people around the world.
It got its name because it was a brand of flu usually found in domestic pigs and wild swine. It was long thought to have come, like so many flus, out of the Chinese farm country, where people and domestic pigs live closely together.
Recent research has shown, however, that the post-WWI flu was brought to Europe by American troops who had been based in the South before they went to war. Medical detectives, still working on the case in the 1990s, determined that a small group of our soldiers took swine flu to Europe and that it spread to the world from there.
How the swine flu got to Fort Dix in 1976 still hasn't been tracked down. At the time, Dix military doctors knew only that a killer flu had made it to the base and that they were lucky more men hadn't died or been sickened seriously.
Weeks after Lewis died, doctors from the Centers for Disease Control and other federal public health officials were meeting in Washington, trying to decide if they should recommend the government start a costly program of mass inoculations.
One doc later told the authors of "The Epidemic that Never Was" that he and others in on the meetings realized there was "nothing in this for the CDC except trouble," especially because a decision had to be made fast to get the immunizations manufactured by the fall.
"...The obvious thing to do was immunize everybody," the doctor said. "But if we tried to do that ... we might have to interrupt a hell of a lot of work on other diseases."
The doctors knew they faced complaints if the epidemic broke out and vaccines weren't ready, as well as criticism if they spent millions inoculating people for a plague that didn't happen.
"As for 'another 1918,' 1 didn't expect that," the doctor continued in the book. "But who could be sure? It would wreck us. Yet, if there weren't a pandemic, we'd be charged with wasting public money, crying wolf and causing all the inconvenience for nothing ... It was a no-win situation."
By mid-March, CDC Director Dr. David J. Sencer had lined up most of the medical establishment behind his plan to call on Ford to support a $135 million program of mass inoculation.
On March 24, one day after a surprise loss to Ronald Reagan in the North Carolina Republican presidential primary, Ford decided to make the announcement to the American public.
Congress still had to appropriate the money, of course, and that wasn't going to be easy. Even before official congressional consideration of the plan was taken up, there were forces arguing against it.
Another big hurdle was the drug makers, who were insisting the government take liability for any harmful side effects from the vaccine. During congressional hearings in the spring and early summer, lawmakers heard some naysayers who noted that the swine flu of last winter never got beyond Dix and that only one death had been reported.
The president and his experts prevailed, however, and on Aug. 12 Congress put up the money to get the job done. The mighty task was put into the hands of a charismatic 33-year-old physician for the Department of Health, Education and Welfare, Dr. W. Delano Meriwether, a world-class sprinter who still competed in track meets.
Now he was in a race for life, or so he thought. Meriwether was given until the end of the year to get all 220 million Americans inoculated against swine flu.
By Oct. 1, the makers had the serums ready and America's public health bureaucracy had lined up thousands of doctors, nurses and paramedics to give out the shots at medical centers, schools and firehouses across the nation.
Jim Florio, then an ambitious rookie Democratic congressman supporting Jimmy Carter for president, didn't use the situation to take a shot at Ford. He lined up and was the first Jersey resident to take the inoculation.
Within days, however, several people who had taken the shot fell seriously ill. On Oct. 12, three elderly people in the Pittsburgh area suffered heart attacks and died within hours of getting the shot, which led to suspension of the program in Pennsylvania.
Jersey pressed on with inoculations, however. Through the fall, even as more bad reports about the side effects of the vaccine came out, thousands of mostly older people in Greater Trenton lined up outside health centers, schools and firehouses to get the shot, sometimes waiting for an hour.
One of them was Lawrence's Mary Kent, a 45-year-old mother of two teenage boys who couldn't tie the ribbons on Christmas presents only days after she got her shot at the Trenton War Memorial in early December.
On Dec. 16, increasingly concerned about reports of the vaccine touching off neurological problems, especially rare Guillain-Barre syndrome, the government suspended the program, having inoculated 40 million people for a flu that never came.
By year's end, Jack Kent knew his wife was seriously ill and started reading all about the side effects of the president's flu inoculation, especially nerve problems like those his wife was experiencing.
Even before Mary Kent died an invalid at age 51 in January 1982, Kent had joined the hundreds of Americans who filed suit against the government on behalf of children left without a parent due to fatal side effects from the swine flu vaccine.
Kent's sister-in-law, also named Mary Kent, recalled the other day that Jack Kent died in 1997 still angrily blaming the government for giving his wife Guillian-Barre, leading to her death.
The swine flu case of 1976 forever reduced confidence in public health pronouncements from the government and helped foster cynicism about federal policy makers that continues to this day.
Citing the swine flu fiasco, for instance, one scholar recently authored a report suggesting the threat of AIDS has been similarly overblown.
Yet Joseph Califano, one of the earliest to use the word "fiasco" in describing the swine flu affair, came to the conclusion that it all couldn't have been avoided. Califano, whom President Carter appointed Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare after beating Ford in the November election, said the doctors had no choice but to err on the side of the caution.
In "The Epidemic That Never Was," Califano said that faced with the threat of another killer plague with the potential to end millions of lives, the doctors were right to seek an inoculation program. Capital Century
Friday, May 1, 2009
CDC: New Virus Does Not Have Genes That Made 1918 Flu So Deadly
A U.S. health official says the new swine flu virus lacks genes that made the 1918 pandemic strain so deadly.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Friday the new virus is "a very unusual" four-way combination of human genes and genes from swine viruses found in North America, Asia and Europe.
CDC flu chief Dr. Nancy Cox said the good news is "we do not see the markers for virulence that were seen in the 1918 virus."
U.S. authorities are pledging to eventually produce enough swine flu vaccine for everyone but the shots won't begin until fall at the earliest.
Scientists are racing to prepare the key ingredient to make a vaccine against the never-before-seen flu strain — if it's ultimately needed.
10 Ways to Prevent Swine Flu
But it will take several months before the first pilot lots begin required human testing to ensure the vaccine is safe and effective.
"We think 600 million doses is achievable in a six-month time frame" from that fall start, Health and Human Services Assistant Secretary Craig Vanderwagen said.
"I don't want anybody to have false expectations. The science is challenging here," Vanderwagen told reporters. "t's a question of can we get the science worked on the specifics of this vaccine."
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have reported 141 cases of swine flu in 19 states. Some 300 schools have closed in communities across the country as health authorities work to contain the virus.
On Friday, the World Health Organization raised its tally of confirmed human cases to 331, up from 257.
Cox said the manufacture of a vaccine for the new virus would not interfere with the manufacture of a seasonal flu vaccine for the upcoming flu season. She said that, if it becomes necessary to make a supplemental swine flu vaccine, that vaccine would be prepared "in parallel" with the seasonal vaccine.
Because of this, world scientists are in agreement, for now, that the seasonal vaccine offers no protection, she said.
"We have no doubt making a successful vaccine is possible," Kieny said.
The reason why the vaccine will take so long to produce is because scientists must first isolate the virus and then adapt it to be made into a vaccine. It is believed that the adapted virus should be ready by the end of May. After this, the virus is injected into eggs where it will grow. From there, scientists will remove it, kill it and then formulate it into a vaccine.
After that, clinical trials in humans must be performed to ensure it's safety and effectiveness. Later, it will need to receive approval by national regulatory authorities, Kieny said.
The WHO is now reporting 11 countries have confirmed cases, including Germany, which confirmed Friday the first case of swine flu transmission within the country. This does not include Hong Kong and Denmark, which confirmed cases mid-morning Friday.
Federal officials had to spend much of Thursday reassuring the public it's still safe to fly and ride public transportation after Vice President Joe Biden said he wouldn't recommend it to his family.
"There's not an increased risk there," Dr. Richard Besser, acting director of the CDC, said Friday. "If you have the flu or flu-like symptoms, you shouldn't be getting on an airplane or you shouldn't be getting in the subway, but for the general population that's quite fine to do," he said.
Clinics and hospital emergency rooms in New York, California and some other states are seeing a surge in patients with coughs and sneezes that might have been ignored before the outbreak.
Until a vaccine is ready, the government has stockpiled anti-viral medications that can ease flu symptoms or help prevent infection. The medicines are proving effective.
Reassurances from top health officials didn't stop the questions from coming.
An estimated 12,000 people logged onto a Webcast where the government's top emergency officials sought to cut confusion by answering questions straight from the public: Can a factory worker handling parts from Mexico catch the virus? No. Can pets get it? No.
And is washing hands or using those alcohol-based hand gels best? Washing well enough is the real issue, Besser said. He keeps hand gel in his pocket for between-washings but also suggested that people sing "Happy Birthday" as they wash their hands to make sure they've washed long enough to get rid of germs.
The Numbers
Although the CDC has tallied just 141 swine flu cases in the U.S., state health experts say the count is likely much higher. Among the U.S. cases confirmed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are 51 in New York, 16 in Texas and 14 in California, as well as scattered cases in Kansas, Illinois, Florida, Massachusetts, Michigan, Arizona, Indiana, Nevada, Ohio, Maine and South Carolina.
State officials also confirmed cases in Minnesota, Georgia, Delaware, Utah, New Jersey, Virginia and Colorado.
About 300 of the nation's 132,000 schools have closed, while high school, college and professional sporting events have been called off nationwide due to increasing fears.
Nebraska's chief medical officer says federal tests have confirmed the first case of swine flu in the state. It involves a California man in his 40s who's vacationing in the Omaha area. Health officials have said the infection ultimately will be reported as a California case because the CDC counts cases of infectious disease by residence. Nebraska also has suspected cases of the flu.
Wisconsin Gov. Jim Doyle declared a public health emergency after two more probable cases of swine flu were identified in Wisconsin Thursday.
Thirty-nine Marines were confined to their base in California after one came down with the disease.
A pediatrician in Washington state saw 22 patients with flu-like symptoms before she developed serious symptoms and went to the emergency room. The Pennsylvania Department of Health says it continues to find people who it considers to be probable swine flu cases. It is investigating three new possible cases.
Illinois health officials say the number of probable swine flu cases in the state has more than doubled to 41.
A security aide helping with arrangements during President Barack Obama's recent trip to Mexico became sick with flu-like symptoms and three members of his family later contracted probable swine flu, the White House said Thursday.
White House press secretary Robert Gibbs remained steadfast that the president was never at risk of contracting the flu.
It was also learned that a Mexican toddler who visited Texas with his family and died Monday night in Houston, spent a day with his family shopping at a huge Houston indoor mall the day before he began to show symptoms, said Cameron County Judge Carlos Cascos, who interviewed the boy's family.
Slippery Rock University in Pennsylvania will hold a separate graduation for 22 students who recently returned from Mexico.
So far, the students are in good health, but school officials fear they could have been exposed to the swine flu. Commencement falls in the middle of an incubation period during which the students have been advised to limit contact with others. The students were in Mexico completing their student-teacher requirements.
Even though scientists say the new virus is more pig than human, the WHO said it plans to no longer call it "swine flu" to avoid confusion over the risk from pigs and eating pork. Health officials have stressed repeatedly that the disease is being transmitted human to human and that there is no risk from eating pork.
WHO spokesman Dick Thompson says the name change comes after the agriculture industry and the U.N. food agency expressed concerns that the term "swine flu" was misleading consumers and needlessly causing countries to order the slaughter of pigs.
He told reporters in Geneva "we're going to stick with the technical scientific name H1N1 influenza A."
Several countries have put a ban a pork imports. Hog futures fell for the sixth time in seven sessions on Thursday because of continued speculation that people will stop eating pork.
On Wednesday, the WHO boosted its alert level to one level below a full-fledged pandemic. The new Phase 5 alert, indicating a pandemic could be imminent as the virus spread further in Europe, prompted Mexico to announce the partial May 1-5 shutdown, Mexican Health Secretary Jose Cordova said late Wednesday.
The virus, a mix of pig, bird and human genes to which people have limited natural immunity, has also spread to Canada, New Zealand, Britain, Spain, Israel and Austria.
The U.S., the European Union and other countries have discouraged nonessential travel to Mexico. Some countries have urged their citizens to avoid the United States and Canada as well. Health officials said such bans would do little to stop the virus.
Where Did Virus Originate?
Medical detectives have not pinpointed where the outbreak began. Scientists believe that somewhere in the world, months or even a year ago, a pig virus jumped to a human and mutated, and has been spreading between humans ever since.
California is now being eyed as the potential source of the virus.
China has gone on a rhetorical offensive to squash any suggestion it's the source of the swine flu after some Mexican officials were quoted in media reports in the past week saying the virus came from Asia and the governor of Mexico's Veracruz state was quoted as saying the virus specifically came from China.
Swine Flu Timeline
One of the deaths in Mexico directly attributed to swine flu was that of a Bangladeshi immigrant, said Mexico's chief epidemiologist Miguel Angel Lezana.
Lezana said the unnamed Bangladeshi had lived in Mexico for six months and was recently visited by a brother who arrived from Bangladesh or Pakistan and was reportedly ill. The brother has left Mexico and his whereabouts are unknown, Lezana said. He suggested the brother could have brought the virus from Pakistan or Bangladesh.
By March 9, the first symptoms were showing up in the Mexican state of Veracruz, where pig farming is a key industry in mountain hamlets and where small clinics provide the only health care.
The earliest confirmed case was there: a 5-year-old boy who was one of hundreds of people in the town of La Gloria whose flu symptoms left them struggling to breathe.
The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report. FOX
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Friday the new virus is "a very unusual" four-way combination of human genes and genes from swine viruses found in North America, Asia and Europe.
CDC flu chief Dr. Nancy Cox said the good news is "we do not see the markers for virulence that were seen in the 1918 virus."
U.S. authorities are pledging to eventually produce enough swine flu vaccine for everyone but the shots won't begin until fall at the earliest.
Scientists are racing to prepare the key ingredient to make a vaccine against the never-before-seen flu strain — if it's ultimately needed.
10 Ways to Prevent Swine Flu
But it will take several months before the first pilot lots begin required human testing to ensure the vaccine is safe and effective.
"We think 600 million doses is achievable in a six-month time frame" from that fall start, Health and Human Services Assistant Secretary Craig Vanderwagen said.
"I don't want anybody to have false expectations. The science is challenging here," Vanderwagen told reporters. "t's a question of can we get the science worked on the specifics of this vaccine."
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have reported 141 cases of swine flu in 19 states. Some 300 schools have closed in communities across the country as health authorities work to contain the virus.
On Friday, the World Health Organization raised its tally of confirmed human cases to 331, up from 257.
Cox said the manufacture of a vaccine for the new virus would not interfere with the manufacture of a seasonal flu vaccine for the upcoming flu season. She said that, if it becomes necessary to make a supplemental swine flu vaccine, that vaccine would be prepared "in parallel" with the seasonal vaccine.
Because of this, world scientists are in agreement, for now, that the seasonal vaccine offers no protection, she said.
"We have no doubt making a successful vaccine is possible," Kieny said.
The reason why the vaccine will take so long to produce is because scientists must first isolate the virus and then adapt it to be made into a vaccine. It is believed that the adapted virus should be ready by the end of May. After this, the virus is injected into eggs where it will grow. From there, scientists will remove it, kill it and then formulate it into a vaccine.
After that, clinical trials in humans must be performed to ensure it's safety and effectiveness. Later, it will need to receive approval by national regulatory authorities, Kieny said.
The WHO is now reporting 11 countries have confirmed cases, including Germany, which confirmed Friday the first case of swine flu transmission within the country. This does not include Hong Kong and Denmark, which confirmed cases mid-morning Friday.
Federal officials had to spend much of Thursday reassuring the public it's still safe to fly and ride public transportation after Vice President Joe Biden said he wouldn't recommend it to his family.
"There's not an increased risk there," Dr. Richard Besser, acting director of the CDC, said Friday. "If you have the flu or flu-like symptoms, you shouldn't be getting on an airplane or you shouldn't be getting in the subway, but for the general population that's quite fine to do," he said.
Clinics and hospital emergency rooms in New York, California and some other states are seeing a surge in patients with coughs and sneezes that might have been ignored before the outbreak.
Until a vaccine is ready, the government has stockpiled anti-viral medications that can ease flu symptoms or help prevent infection. The medicines are proving effective.
Reassurances from top health officials didn't stop the questions from coming.
An estimated 12,000 people logged onto a Webcast where the government's top emergency officials sought to cut confusion by answering questions straight from the public: Can a factory worker handling parts from Mexico catch the virus? No. Can pets get it? No.
And is washing hands or using those alcohol-based hand gels best? Washing well enough is the real issue, Besser said. He keeps hand gel in his pocket for between-washings but also suggested that people sing "Happy Birthday" as they wash their hands to make sure they've washed long enough to get rid of germs.
The Numbers
Although the CDC has tallied just 141 swine flu cases in the U.S., state health experts say the count is likely much higher. Among the U.S. cases confirmed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are 51 in New York, 16 in Texas and 14 in California, as well as scattered cases in Kansas, Illinois, Florida, Massachusetts, Michigan, Arizona, Indiana, Nevada, Ohio, Maine and South Carolina.
State officials also confirmed cases in Minnesota, Georgia, Delaware, Utah, New Jersey, Virginia and Colorado.
About 300 of the nation's 132,000 schools have closed, while high school, college and professional sporting events have been called off nationwide due to increasing fears.
Nebraska's chief medical officer says federal tests have confirmed the first case of swine flu in the state. It involves a California man in his 40s who's vacationing in the Omaha area. Health officials have said the infection ultimately will be reported as a California case because the CDC counts cases of infectious disease by residence. Nebraska also has suspected cases of the flu.
Wisconsin Gov. Jim Doyle declared a public health emergency after two more probable cases of swine flu were identified in Wisconsin Thursday.
Thirty-nine Marines were confined to their base in California after one came down with the disease.
A pediatrician in Washington state saw 22 patients with flu-like symptoms before she developed serious symptoms and went to the emergency room. The Pennsylvania Department of Health says it continues to find people who it considers to be probable swine flu cases. It is investigating three new possible cases.
Illinois health officials say the number of probable swine flu cases in the state has more than doubled to 41.
A security aide helping with arrangements during President Barack Obama's recent trip to Mexico became sick with flu-like symptoms and three members of his family later contracted probable swine flu, the White House said Thursday.
White House press secretary Robert Gibbs remained steadfast that the president was never at risk of contracting the flu.
It was also learned that a Mexican toddler who visited Texas with his family and died Monday night in Houston, spent a day with his family shopping at a huge Houston indoor mall the day before he began to show symptoms, said Cameron County Judge Carlos Cascos, who interviewed the boy's family.
Slippery Rock University in Pennsylvania will hold a separate graduation for 22 students who recently returned from Mexico.
So far, the students are in good health, but school officials fear they could have been exposed to the swine flu. Commencement falls in the middle of an incubation period during which the students have been advised to limit contact with others. The students were in Mexico completing their student-teacher requirements.
Even though scientists say the new virus is more pig than human, the WHO said it plans to no longer call it "swine flu" to avoid confusion over the risk from pigs and eating pork. Health officials have stressed repeatedly that the disease is being transmitted human to human and that there is no risk from eating pork.
WHO spokesman Dick Thompson says the name change comes after the agriculture industry and the U.N. food agency expressed concerns that the term "swine flu" was misleading consumers and needlessly causing countries to order the slaughter of pigs.
He told reporters in Geneva "we're going to stick with the technical scientific name H1N1 influenza A."
Several countries have put a ban a pork imports. Hog futures fell for the sixth time in seven sessions on Thursday because of continued speculation that people will stop eating pork.
On Wednesday, the WHO boosted its alert level to one level below a full-fledged pandemic. The new Phase 5 alert, indicating a pandemic could be imminent as the virus spread further in Europe, prompted Mexico to announce the partial May 1-5 shutdown, Mexican Health Secretary Jose Cordova said late Wednesday.
The virus, a mix of pig, bird and human genes to which people have limited natural immunity, has also spread to Canada, New Zealand, Britain, Spain, Israel and Austria.
The U.S., the European Union and other countries have discouraged nonessential travel to Mexico. Some countries have urged their citizens to avoid the United States and Canada as well. Health officials said such bans would do little to stop the virus.
Where Did Virus Originate?
Medical detectives have not pinpointed where the outbreak began. Scientists believe that somewhere in the world, months or even a year ago, a pig virus jumped to a human and mutated, and has been spreading between humans ever since.
California is now being eyed as the potential source of the virus.
China has gone on a rhetorical offensive to squash any suggestion it's the source of the swine flu after some Mexican officials were quoted in media reports in the past week saying the virus came from Asia and the governor of Mexico's Veracruz state was quoted as saying the virus specifically came from China.
Swine Flu Timeline
One of the deaths in Mexico directly attributed to swine flu was that of a Bangladeshi immigrant, said Mexico's chief epidemiologist Miguel Angel Lezana.
Lezana said the unnamed Bangladeshi had lived in Mexico for six months and was recently visited by a brother who arrived from Bangladesh or Pakistan and was reportedly ill. The brother has left Mexico and his whereabouts are unknown, Lezana said. He suggested the brother could have brought the virus from Pakistan or Bangladesh.
By March 9, the first symptoms were showing up in the Mexican state of Veracruz, where pig farming is a key industry in mountain hamlets and where small clinics provide the only health care.
The earliest confirmed case was there: a 5-year-old boy who was one of hundreds of people in the town of La Gloria whose flu symptoms left them struggling to breathe.
The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report. FOX
North Korea Threatens Nuclear, Missile Tests
North Korea Threatens Nuclear, Missile Tests
Wednesday, April 29, 2009
SEOUL, South Korea — North Korea warned Wednesday it will fire an intercontinental ballistic missile — or even carry out another nuclear test — unless the U.N. apologizes for condemning the regime's April 5 rocket launch.
By flaunting its rogue nuclear and missile programs, Pyongyang has raised the stakes in the escalating diplomatic tit for tat with the outside world. North Korea also said it would start generating nuclear fuel — an indication the regime will begin enriching uranium, another material used to make an atomic bomb.
North Korea is known for its use of brinksmanship and harsh rhetoric to force the West to react, but the threat of a nuclear test is significant.
Pyongyang conducted its first atomic test in 2006, and is thought to have enough plutonium to make at least half a dozen nuclear bombs. There are no indications, however, that scientists in the North have mastered the technology needed to make a nuclear warhead small enough to fit onto a missile.
Still, North Korea's April 5 rocket launch drew widespread international concern. Pyongyang claims the liftoff was a peaceful bid to send a communications satellite into space, but the U.S., Japan and others saw it as a furtive test of a delivery system capable of sending a long-range missile within striking range of Alaska.
The U.N. Council denounced the launch as a violation of 2006 resolutions barring the North from missile-related activity, and later imposed new sanctions on three North Korean firms.
Within hours of the sanctions, the North claimed it had begun reprocessing spent nuclear fuel rods at its Yongbyon nuclear complex to harvest weapons-grade plutonium — a clear setback to years of negotiations on disarming the communist country.
The Security Council must apologize for infringing on the North's sovereignty and "withdraw all its unreasonable and discriminative resolutions and decisions" against the North, the Foreign Ministry said in a statement carried by the official Korean Central News Agency.
Otherwise, the regime "will be compelled to take additional self-defensive measures," including "nuclear tests and test-firings of intercontinental ballistic missiles," the ministry said.
"Let me just say very clearly that these threats only further isolate the North," said U.S. State Department spokesman Robert Wood. "We again call on the North Koreans to come back to the (negotiating) table ... We've heard these types of threats before."
South Korea's Foreign Ministry expressed "serious concerns" about the warnings, and criticized Pyongyang for challenging the international community.
"We make it clear that the international responsibility for worsening the situation will be entirely on North Korea," the ministry said in a statement.
Prof. Kim Yong-hyun at Seoul's Dongguk University called the North's threat rhetoric designed to trigger a response from the Obama administration, which has yet to fully reveal its North Korea policy.
"The North is trying to maximize the stakes as the United States keeps ignoring it," he said. But the expert also said the regime could gradually put the threat into action if Washington fails to respond as it wishes.
Yang Moo-jin, a professor at the University of North Korean Studies, said the North appears to have begun preparations for nuclear and missile tests, noting its "unrealistic, unprecedented" demand: a U.N. apology.
He said North Korea's statement Wednesday that it will begin building a light-water reactor — another way of producing fuel — undoubtedly means Pyongyang will begin enriching uranium, a material used to make atomic bombs.
Yang said Pyongyang is angling for direct talks with Washington, with which it currently has no diplomatic relations. He said that offer would convince the North to withdraw its nuclear and missile threats.
The current nuclear standoff flared in late 2002 after Washington raised allegations that Pyongyang had a clandestine nuclear program based on enriched uranium in addition to a separate one based on plutonium. The North has strongly denied the allegations.
Since 2003, five nations — China, Japan, South Korea Russia and the U.S. — have been negotiating with North Korea on a disarmament-for-aid deal.
Months after its 2006 nuclear test, North Korea agreed in February 2007 to disable its main nuclear complex in Yongbyon north of Pyongyang in return for 1 million tons of fuel oil and other concessions. Disablement began in November of that year.
By June 2008, North Korea had completed eight of 11 steps toward disablement, and blew up the Yongbyon cooling tower in a dramatic show of its commitment to denuclearization.
But the process came to halt weeks later as Pyongyang wrangled with Washington over how to verify its past atomic activities. The latest round of talks, in December, failed to push the process forward.
North Korea formally walked away from the talks after the Security Council condemnation of its rocket launch.
Wednesday, April 29, 2009
SEOUL, South Korea — North Korea warned Wednesday it will fire an intercontinental ballistic missile — or even carry out another nuclear test — unless the U.N. apologizes for condemning the regime's April 5 rocket launch.
By flaunting its rogue nuclear and missile programs, Pyongyang has raised the stakes in the escalating diplomatic tit for tat with the outside world. North Korea also said it would start generating nuclear fuel — an indication the regime will begin enriching uranium, another material used to make an atomic bomb.
North Korea is known for its use of brinksmanship and harsh rhetoric to force the West to react, but the threat of a nuclear test is significant.
Pyongyang conducted its first atomic test in 2006, and is thought to have enough plutonium to make at least half a dozen nuclear bombs. There are no indications, however, that scientists in the North have mastered the technology needed to make a nuclear warhead small enough to fit onto a missile.
Still, North Korea's April 5 rocket launch drew widespread international concern. Pyongyang claims the liftoff was a peaceful bid to send a communications satellite into space, but the U.S., Japan and others saw it as a furtive test of a delivery system capable of sending a long-range missile within striking range of Alaska.
The U.N. Council denounced the launch as a violation of 2006 resolutions barring the North from missile-related activity, and later imposed new sanctions on three North Korean firms.
Within hours of the sanctions, the North claimed it had begun reprocessing spent nuclear fuel rods at its Yongbyon nuclear complex to harvest weapons-grade plutonium — a clear setback to years of negotiations on disarming the communist country.
The Security Council must apologize for infringing on the North's sovereignty and "withdraw all its unreasonable and discriminative resolutions and decisions" against the North, the Foreign Ministry said in a statement carried by the official Korean Central News Agency.
Otherwise, the regime "will be compelled to take additional self-defensive measures," including "nuclear tests and test-firings of intercontinental ballistic missiles," the ministry said.
"Let me just say very clearly that these threats only further isolate the North," said U.S. State Department spokesman Robert Wood. "We again call on the North Koreans to come back to the (negotiating) table ... We've heard these types of threats before."
South Korea's Foreign Ministry expressed "serious concerns" about the warnings, and criticized Pyongyang for challenging the international community.
"We make it clear that the international responsibility for worsening the situation will be entirely on North Korea," the ministry said in a statement.
Prof. Kim Yong-hyun at Seoul's Dongguk University called the North's threat rhetoric designed to trigger a response from the Obama administration, which has yet to fully reveal its North Korea policy.
"The North is trying to maximize the stakes as the United States keeps ignoring it," he said. But the expert also said the regime could gradually put the threat into action if Washington fails to respond as it wishes.
Yang Moo-jin, a professor at the University of North Korean Studies, said the North appears to have begun preparations for nuclear and missile tests, noting its "unrealistic, unprecedented" demand: a U.N. apology.
He said North Korea's statement Wednesday that it will begin building a light-water reactor — another way of producing fuel — undoubtedly means Pyongyang will begin enriching uranium, a material used to make atomic bombs.
Yang said Pyongyang is angling for direct talks with Washington, with which it currently has no diplomatic relations. He said that offer would convince the North to withdraw its nuclear and missile threats.
The current nuclear standoff flared in late 2002 after Washington raised allegations that Pyongyang had a clandestine nuclear program based on enriched uranium in addition to a separate one based on plutonium. The North has strongly denied the allegations.
Since 2003, five nations — China, Japan, South Korea Russia and the U.S. — have been negotiating with North Korea on a disarmament-for-aid deal.
Months after its 2006 nuclear test, North Korea agreed in February 2007 to disable its main nuclear complex in Yongbyon north of Pyongyang in return for 1 million tons of fuel oil and other concessions. Disablement began in November of that year.
By June 2008, North Korea had completed eight of 11 steps toward disablement, and blew up the Yongbyon cooling tower in a dramatic show of its commitment to denuclearization.
But the process came to halt weeks later as Pyongyang wrangled with Washington over how to verify its past atomic activities. The latest round of talks, in December, failed to push the process forward.
North Korea formally walked away from the talks after the Security Council condemnation of its rocket launch.
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