This is continued research from my previous post: https://voat.co/v/pizzagatewhatever/3658332

The tunneler Harrison Gray Dyar, William Crawford Gorgas (Southern blue blood family and head of the Panama Canal Zone Sanitation Commission), and David du Bose Gaillard (Southern blue blood family, Captain in the Army Corps of Engineers in charge of building the central portion of the Panama Canal, and original owner of the Rock Creek Park mansion now owned by Jay Rockefeller) are all connected by the building of the Panama Canal. This was a huge Globalist project, financed by the American taxpayer. There was a large malaria and yellow fever death toll on workers (former Caribbean slaves) under France's first attempt at building the canal. They got the U.S. to buy their bankrupt project, however the Americans, under the direction of William Gorgas, were able to greatly reduce the death rate by controlling the disease carrying mosquitos through innovative hygiene methods.

Dyar's extensive knowledge of mosquitos would be invaluable to the project.

FAST FORWARD TO A 1995 ARTICLE : "Bioprospecting/Biopiracy and Indigenous Peoples"

Is this what became of the beginnings of tropical disease research for the Panama Canal project? Are the Rockefellers still involved? (BTW, Jay Rockefeller is an expert on China and on Asian languages.)

"Submitted by ETC Staff on Tue, 1995-12-26 18:00

Bio-Prospectors Hall of Shame...or Guess Who's Coming to Pirate Your Plants?! Pros and Cons of Bilateral Bioprospecting Agreements

"ISSUE: Biodiversity prospecting is the exploration, extraction and screening of biological diversity and indigenous knowledge for commercially valuable genetic and biochemical resources. Bilateral bioprospecting agreements are sanctioned by the multilateral Convention on Biological Diversity. In the vast majority of cases, however, commercial bioprospecting agreements cannot be effectively monitored or enforced by source communities, countries, or by the Convention, and amount to little more than "legalized" bio-piracy.

IMPACT: A growing number of pharmaceutical corporations, biotechnology companies (and their intermediaries) are stalking the forests, fields and waters of the developing world in search of biological riches and indigenous knowledge. Northern-based institutions seek access to tropical biodiversity for the primary purpose of developing patented and profitable products. No matter how convincing the rhetoric, conservation and equity are secondary issues. Under the vast majority of current bioprospecting agreements, when indigenous peoples share information or genetic materials they effectively lose control over such resources, regardless of whether or not they are compensated.

FINANCIAL STAKES: RAFI estimates that medicinal plants and microbials from the South contribute at least $30 billion a year to the North's pharmaceutical industry.(1) It is conservatively estimated that the market for natural product research specimens (samples or extracts of biological materials) within the U.S. pharmaceutical industry alone is (US) $30-60 million per annum. Not surprisingly, biological bounty hunters are in feverish pursuit of the South's "green gold."

WHAT IS BIOPROSPECTING and How Does it Relate to Indigenous Peoples?

Biodiversity prospecting is the exploration, extraction and screening of biological diversity and indigenous knowledge for commercially valuable genetic and biochemical resources. While it is true that biodiversity prospecting does not always involve the use of indigenous knowledge, it is clear that valuable chemical compounds derived from plants, animals and microorganisms are more easily identified and of greatest commercial value when collected with indigenous knowledge and/or found in territories traditionally inhabited by indigenous peoples. The following are just a few examples(2):

Between 1956 and 1976 the U.S. National Cancer Institute screened over 35,000 plants and animals for anti-cancer compounds. The program was terminated in 1981 because of its failure to identify a greater number of new anti-cancer agents. A retrospective study conducted on the project concluded that the success rate in finding valuable species could have been doubled if medicinal folk knowledge had been the only information used to target species.(3)

Scientists have found that 86 percent of the plants used by Samoan healers displayed significant biological activity when tested in the laboratory.(4)

Crude extracts of plants used by one healer in Belize, gave rise to four times as many positive results in lab tests for anti-HIV activity than did specimens collected randomly.(5)

It is generally acknowledged that about one in 10,000 chemicals derived from mass screening of plants, animals and microbes eventually results in a potentially profitable drug. By contrast, Shaman Pharmaceuticals, Inc., the U.S.-based company that collects plants by talking to indigenous healers and watching them work, claims a success rate of 50%. Shaman's formula for success: Where three different communities are found to use the same plant kind for medicinal purposes, Shaman targets the plant for further study. About half the plants collected by Shaman's researchers come up positive in screening tests, making the "filter" of indigenous knowledge 5,000 times more effective than random collection.

Today, there is greatly renewed interest in natural product screening--especially for medicinal compounds. In 1980, none of the U.S. pharmaceutical industry research budget was spent on research into higher plants. Today, it is estimated that over 200 companies and research organizations worldwide are screening plant and animal compounds for medicinal properties.

The renaissance of natural product screening and recognition of the value of indigenous knowledge is fueled, in part, by the realization that species, their genetic material, and the ecosystems of which they are a part are rapidly disappearing from the face of the earth. In the mid-1980s, pharmaceutical industry analysts warned that each medicinal plant lost in the tropical rainforests could lose drug firms possible sales of more than $200 million.(6)

With advances in molecular biology and the availability of more sophisticated diagnostic tools for screening, it is increasingly cost effective for pharmaceutical corporations and others to conduct natural product research. In high-technology laboratories, extracts from biological specimens undergo rapid and precise screening procedures that allow for the isolation of chemicals displaying a specifically targeted activity. As a result, the market for buying and selling exotic biological specimens is expanding rapidly. It is conservatively estimated that the market for natural product research specimens within the pharmaceutical industry alone is (US) $30-60 million per annum.(7)

Biodiversity prospecting is not new, of course. For decades, plant collectors from industrialized countries have ventured southward in search of valuable genetic material for agricultural plant breeding. But no money changed hands in the process, nor was recognition given to the indigenous farming communities who selected, maintained and improved traditional crop varieties. As recently as 1991, Monsanto Inc. (a U.S.-based agrochemical corporation) was recruiting company employees "who are traveling somewhere exotic and wouldn't mind digging up a few soil samples for the sake of science" to volunteer to pick-up specimens for Monsanto's agricultural screening programs. "You never know what you're going to find or where you're going to find it...Nothing's off limits," according to Monsanto spokesperson, Margann Miller-Wideman.(8)"

READ ALL!

https://www.etcgroup.org/content/bioprospectingbiopiracy-and-indigenous-peoples