Two years ago, I investigated an alleged laboratory accident at the Lugar Center, the Pentagon biolaboratory in Georgia’s capital Tbilisi, which had resulted in the death of two Filipinos working in the laboratory. The death cases were hidden by the local authorities but I recorded on camera witnesses who testified about this tragic incident.
However, what then seemed to me to be a local story, turned out to be much worse. The Lugar Center in Georgia is just one of the many Pentagon biolaboratories in 25 countries across the world. They are funded by the Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA) under a $ 2.1 billion military program – Cooperative Biological Engagement Program (CBEP), and are located in former Soviet Union countries such as Georgia and Ukraine, the Middle East, South East Asia and Africa. Much of their work is classified and includes projects on bio-agents and pathogens with pandemic potential.
The first known case of use of biological weapons in our history was 250 years ago when the British gave blankets infected with smallpox to the indigenous people of North America. As a result, a great many of them died and the British Empire gained control over the whole continent. Biological weapons are definitely much more effective than nuclear weapons. The use of nuclear weapons leaves traces: an airplane taking off from an aerodrome and launching a rocket, a large number of participants in preparation of an attack. Therefore, the perpetrators can be easily detected and held to account. Conversely, viruses can be used as weapons, though, they do not leave such immediate or discernible traces and it takes only a few crazy people who have decided to kill millions.
According to some scientific estimates, biological weapons can potentially destroy up to two thirds of the global population in just a year. Our world is one big metropolis and even one virus engineered in a laboratory would be able to fulfil this goal in a short period of time, at a minimal cost and without leaving traces to the perpetrator.
Below, I am presenting information about what I have discovered while investigating Pentagon biolaboratories abroad.
Genetic Study on Bats
The Lugar Center, a $161 million Pentagon-funded biolaboratory in Georgia’s capital Tbilisi, discovered coronaviruses in bats with presumably pandemic potential as early as 2014, documents have revealed.
Furthermore, in 2018 the Pentagon launched a $2.9 million program at the Lugar Center involving genetic studies on coronaviruses in 5,000 bats collected in Western Asia.
Coincidentally, the same Pentagon contractor tasked with the US DoD bat-research program – Eco Health Alliance, USA, also collected bats and isolated coronaviruses along with Chinese scientists at the Wuhan Institute of Virology. Eco Health Alliance received a $3.7 million grant from the US National Institute of Health (NIH) to collect and study coronaviruses in bats in China from 2014 to 2019.
Novel Coronaviruses
The Lugar Center sparked controversy about possible dual-use research in 2018 when leaked documents revealed that US diplomats in Georgia were involved in trafficking of frozen human blood and pathogens for a secret military program.
Documents reveal that the Lugar Center also studied coronaviruses in bats.
In 2012 the US Center for Disease Control (CDC) collected and sampled 236 bats for research in Georgia in cooperation with the Lugar Center. The project was funded by the US DoD Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA). Part of the samples were shipped to CDC (Atlanta), for screening for multiple pathogens, another part was stored at the Lugar Center for further studies.
In 2014 the US Center for Disease Control (CDC) launched a second project “Emerging zoonotic pathogens in Georgian bats” along with Georgian scientists at the Lugar Center. The project was funded by the International Science and Technology Center (ISTC).
