Did Porton Down Agents Obtain Novichok from Northwestern University Lab?
A week ago we asked if ‘Novichok’ poisons are real. The answer is now in: It is ‘yes’ and ‘no’. Several Russian scientist now say that they once researched and developed lethal poisons but they assert that other countries can and have copied these.
‘Novichok’, they say, is a just western propaganda invention. They see the British accusations as a cynical plot against Russia. The people who push the ‘Novichok’ accusations have political and commercial interests.
The British Prime Minister Theresa May insinuated that the British-Russian double agent Sergej Skripal and his daughter Yulia, who collapsed on March 4 on a public bench in Salisbury, were affected by a ‘Russian’ nerve agent:
It is now clear that Mr Skripal and his daughter were poisoned with a military-grade nerve agent of a type developed by Russia. It is part of a group of nerve agents known as Novichok.
Theresa May’s claims are highly questionable.
Maria Zakharova, spokeswomen of the Russian Foreign Ministry: “‘Novichok’ has never been used in the USSR or in Russia as something related to the chemical weapon research” – larger image
A highly potent nerve agent would hurt anyone who comes in contact with it. But the BBC reported that a doctor who administered first aid to the collapsed Yulia Skripal for 30 minutes was not affected at all. Another doctor, Steven Davies who heads the emergence room of the Salisbury District Hospital, wrote in a letter the London Times:
“… no patients have experienced symptoms of nerve agent poisoning in Salisbury and there have only been three patients with significant poisoning.”
The name ‘Novichok’ comes from a book written by Vil Mirzanyanov, a 1990s immigrant to the U.S. from the former Soviet Union. It describes his work at Soviet chemical weapon laboratories and lists the chemical formulas of a new group of lethal substances.
AFP interviewed the author of the ‘Novichok’ book about the Salisbury incident:
Mirzayanov, speaking at his home in Princeton, New Jersey, said he is convinced Russia carried it out as a way of intimidating opponents of President Vladimir Putin. The only other possibility, he said, would be that someone used the formulas in his book to make such a weapon. “Russia did it”, says Mirzanyanov, “OR SOMEONE WHO READ MY BOOK”.
A ‘Novichok’ nerve agent plays a role in the current season of the British-American spy drama Strike Back which broadcasts on British TV. Theresa May might have watched this clip (vid) from the series. Is it a source of her allegations?
The Russian government rejects the British allegations and demands evidence which Britain has not provided. Russia joined the Chemical Weapon Convention in 1997. By 2017 it had destroyed all its chemical weapons and chemical weapon production facilities. Under the convention only very limited amounts of chemical weapon agents are allowed to be held in certified laboratories for defense research and testing purposes. The U.S. has such laboratories at Fort Detrick in Frederick, Maryland, the British lab is in Porton Down, a few miles from Salisbury. The Russian lab is in Shikhany in the southern Saratov Oblast. The Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) audits these laboratories and their declared stocks “down to the milligram level”.
Please go to Moon of Alabama to read the entire article.
Editor’s Note: Northwestern University’s Metal organic frameworks for the catalytic detoxification of chemical warfare nerve agents [including VE, VG, VM, VP, VR, VX, Novichok agents] US20170128761A1. This invention was made with government support under HDTRA1-10-1-0023 awarded by the Defense Threat Reduction Agency and DE-AC05-060R23100 (SubK No. 10-20903 DOE Oak Ridge, Tenn.) awarded by the Department of Energy. The government has certain rights in the invention.
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