A major Liberian newspaper, the Daily Observer, has published an article by a Liberian-born faculty member at Delaware State University saying the Ebola epidemic in West Africa is the result of bioterrorism experiments conducted by the U.S. Department of Defense and others, according to the Washington Post.
The article, written by Delaware State University associate professor Cyril Broderick, accuses the U.S. Department of Defense of “funding Ebola trials on humans, trials which started just weeks before the Ebola outbreak in Guinea and Sierra Leone,” the report says.
The piece describes alleged scientific findings from various “reports,” which are not cited in detail, and even references the best-selling fiction thriller The Hot Zone.
Although some comments were critical of the article, the number who praised it was surprising. “They are using” Ebola, wrote one, “for culling the world population mainly Africa for the … purpose of gaining control of the Africans resources criminally,” the Post says.
The piece comes at a critical time in the global fight against Ebola, which has killed thousands. Doctors and health workers face challenges against rumors that spread fear of quarantine measures and medical treatment. Several medical workers have been murdered in Guinea—throats slit, bodies dumped in a latrine, the Post reports. Then six Red Cross volunteers were attacked this week while they tried to collect the body of an Ebola victim, according to the Post.
The report did not include comments from Delaware State University officials after publication of the article in the Observer.
Read more at the Washington Post.