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© Miller and Hanley
There seems to be an incredibly deadly strain of the E-coli bacteria in Germany at the moment.

It is a very virulent strain, and according to some doctors and researchers, the most virulent they have ever seen.
"Helge Karch, the director of the RKI's EHEC consulting laboratory at the Münster University Hospital in western Germany, has devoted almost his entire life as a researcher to EHEC bacteria.

"But I've never encountered something like this," he says.
The bacterium that is currently being experienced in Germany is an enterohemorrhagic strain of the bacterium Escherichia coli (EHEC), a close relative of harmless intestinal bacteria, but one that produces the dangerous Shiga toxin. All it takes is about 100 bacteria -- which isn't much in the world of bacteria, which are normally counted by the millions -- to become infected. After an incubation period of two to 10 days, patients experience watery or bloody diarrhea.

Scientists are also wondering WHY the bacteria does not affect children as much as adults...

Perhaps this bacteria only targets a certain population group?

Snips from here:
"In the email, Karch speculated over why the disease wasn't happening in children, as is normally the case, but only in adults. And why was the infection striking more people that ever before in Germany -- so many, in fact, that dialysis stations in several hospitals were almost full?
And the "cause" of this outbreak seems to be blamed on Spanish cucumbers???

Here is a snip found here about this.
Berlin - An unusually lethal strain of E. coli bacteria has infected more than 1,500 people in Germany, mystifying public health officials, ravaging Spain's agricultural heartland, and touching off panic in Europe as people weighed whether it was safe to eat raw vegetables.

Scientists are at a loss to explain why this little-known organism, identified as E.coli 0104:H4, has proven so virulent.
and from here we also See that.
"The E. Coli outbreak that has sickened 1,000 and killed 16 so far in northern Germany involves one of the rarest strains of the disease known to science.

The outbreak has already been called the world's largest, and without a cause identified it's likely to increase."
Also observed is that this E. Coli bacteria produces horrible and very unusual symptoms and reactions.

The eeriest thing of all, according to Rolf Stahl, is the way patients change.
"Their awareness becomes blurred, they have problems finding words and they don't quite know where they are," says Stahl. And then there is this surprising aggressiveness.

"We are dealing with a completely new clinical picture," he notes.
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© HowStuffWorks.com
There have also been tests using E-Coli, as a BIO WEAPON...

from here we see that:
"While the malleability of E. coli's genetic material renders it a valuable bacterium for genetic researchers, this malleability also makes E. coli a potentially deadly biological weapons agent.

In the late 1980s, US scientists inserted into harmless E. coli bacteria the gene that produced lethal protein in anthrax.

In E. coli, the gene was active and produced the same deadly proteins as anthrax.

The Iraqi biological weapons program demonstrated interest in the possibilities of altered E. coli bacteria as a biological agent, and it was reported shipments of E. coli was shipped to Iraq from the United States."
From here we also see that:
Secret UK 'bio-weapon' tests revealed

Defence scientists secretly tested E.coli bacteria as a possible biological weapon in and around two British towns, documents revealed today.

The experiments are detailed in the 1966 Ministry of Defence report on the Microbiological Research Establishment at Porton Down, Wilts.

It is being released for public viewing for the first time today at the National Archives in Kew, south west London.

The paper discusses the "production of micro-organisms for weapons systems", suggesting that the "excellent quality and reproducibility" of E.coli indicated "highly satisfactory results" could be achieved.

The tests were designed to establish how well the bacteria would survive in different climate and atmosphere conditions.

Porton Down has previously been at the centre of controversy over its tests of chemicals on humans in the 1950s.
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© Unknown
So it has been done before.

So WE must keep in mind, as Der Speigel reports,
"On Tuesday, the German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung reported that Karch had discovered that the O104:H4 bacteria responsible for the current outbreak is a so-called chimera that contains genetic material from various E. coli bacteria. It also contains DNA sequences from plague bacteria, which makes it particularly pathogenic".
We must all keep these possibilities in mind.

Could this be a mutated, developed killer bacteria?

Created in a secretive hidden ambiguous lab somewhere?

Bioweapon + Israel seem a possibility, see here:
"Israel has not signed the 1972 Biological and Toxin Weapons Conventions (BTWC), nor explained the reasons behind its refusal to sign. Moreover, Israel has revealed virtually nothing about its activities and capabilities in the BW field; it has never issued a public policy statement on the question of BW. For all practical purposes, Israel acts as if it maintains a policy of biological ambiguity."
and
"As long as Israel as a nation has no policy statement on the matter of BW, the objectives behind IIBR's capabilities remain obscure - even suspicious - as well."
Plus, from here:
Israel is Developing 'Ethnic Bomb' for Growing Biological Weapons Arsenal

The goal is to use the ability of viruses and certain bacteria to alter the DNA inside the host's living cells.

The scientists are trying to engineer deadly microorganisms that attack only those bearing the distinctive genes.

The secret Israel program is based at the Institute for Biological Research in Nes Tsiona, a small town southeast of Tel Aviv, the main research facility for Israel's clandestine arsenal of chemical and biological weapons.

Victor Ostrovsky, a former case officer of Israel's Mossad intelligence agency, recalled in his book The Other Side of Deception how he first learned of the Zionist state's secret weapons center:
"It was Uri who enlightened me regarding the Nes Zionna [Tsiona] facility. It was, he said, an ABC warfare laboratory -- ABC standing for atomic, biological and chemical. It was where our top epidemiological scientists were developing various doomsday machines. Because we were so vulnerable and would not have a second chance should there be an all-out war in which this type of weapon would be needed, there was no room for error. The [captured] Palestinian infiltrators came in handy in this regard. As human guinea pigs, they could make sure the weapons the scientists were developing worked properly and could verify how fast they worked and make them even more efficient."
and this from here:
"During the 1948 Israel War of Independence, Red Cross reports raised suspicion that the Jewish Haganah militia had released Salmonella typhi bacteria into the water supply for the city of Acre, causing an outbreak of typhoid among the inhabitants."
Looks like they have had many years of practice.

See the Twelfth Bough here for some interesting thoughts on weaponised viruses and bacteria...