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Showing posts with the label outbreak

The Sverdlovsk Event

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In April 1979 , a sudden outbreak of a deadly disease hit a large Russian city located 1400 kilometers east of Moscow. Today, the city is called Yekaterinburg; back then, it was known as Sverdlovsk. Hundreds of people and unknown numbers of pets and livestock were collapsing of fatigue, fever and shortness of breath. The black lesions that began appearing on their skin identified the illness even before the doctors confirmed it: it was anthrax. TASS, Russia’s chief news agency, reported the outbreak in a terse note which identified the reasons: tainted food sold in a local market illegally, without veterinarian approval, and, of course, taxing. Criminally amoral dealers had fed people meat from illegally butchered animals – most likely sheep, the press added – that were infected with anthrax, or possibly had even died of it. "Сибирская язва!" , warned the posters and placards posted all over the city. Сибирская язва , Siberian sore, was the commonly used nam

Meth Prairies

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A word of introduction: this article narrates the story of the silent plague that has been creeping across the United States for almost four decades, consuming and corrupting everything it touches like an unstoppable river of acid and filth, taking away lives, livelihoods and hope. It is the story of the American meth epidemic, and its blight upon rural and small-town America. It is, in fact, a chapter taken out of a book which I'm writing. The book tells the tale of a decade-long spree of serial killings in a small American town, which - like so many others - fell victim to the meth invasion at one point. It was a backdrop to the story of the murders, and one of the reasons why the serial killer was able to operate in his rural environment for so long. As such, I decided that it was a tale worth being told in full on its own, and I chose to devote a chapter to the phenomenon, from its earliest roots to its grimmest effects. I n the America of the 1970s and the 19