Special Hearings — Chemical And Biological Warfare Hearings — 1998-06-08

MR VALLY: I would like to finish, it all depends on the cross-examination.  I'd like to finish and at the very most I'd be twenty - twenty five minutes.

CHAIRPERSON: Mr Vally then we'll take it 08h30 tomorrow morning.  Some of the members of the panel have got other commitments.  And may I just indicate that maybe we should now endeavour to pace ourselves in the sense that we should devote and provide for so much time for each witness.  We have been fairly liberal, but we have wanted to conduct the hearing over five days, and we must either choose whether we want to have all the witnesses called, or have half a hearing.  I'm just wanting you see how you can accommodate each other, otherwise you'll have to have place structures with the panel that beyond a certain hour a certain witness can no longer continue to be heard.  You have an experience of that sort of thing in the - last year in Gauteng, and I'm sure I am not speaking a language you are not familiar with.

MR VALLY: There's two items here, or three items here.  Hopefully the complaint by Mr Arendse has fallen away, so that's gone away.  The other item is the witness presently before us and I respectfully suggest that we be allowed to finish him.  I think if we allow to finish him we would have more time for other witnesses.  It think it's unnecessary to call him back tomorrow, and I'll promise to go fast and cut ...(intervention)

CHAIRPERSON: Mr Vally, we would have come tomorrow in any event for cross-examination.

MR VALLY: If we can get an indication if there's going to be cross-examination.

ADV POTGIETER: Mr Chairman, I can just put it at this point in time I don't have any questions to ask the witness.  Mr Vally indicated there is some more evidence, but at this point in time I won't have any questions for him.

CHAIRPERSON: Mr Valley, I'm seriously considering allowing you only for the next 10 minutes.

MR VALLY: I'll restrain myself, Mr Chairman.

CHAIRPERSON: 10 minutes.  Mr Vally?

MR VALLY: Thank you, Mr Chairman.  Dr Odendal, besides Anthrax are there any other items that were produced by you that would have an impact on the environment?

MIKE ODENDAL: The organisms that produce gastro enteritis will have a limited impact, although something like the organisms that we mentioned as - could have a sort of a - if it lands in the rivers and in the estuaries and in the environment, it may have a, and we're talking of months, you know, an effect of months on the environment ...(intervention)

MR VALLY: Which items are we talking about?

MIKE ODENDAL: Cholera for instance.

MR VALLY: Alright.

MIKE ODENDAL: Perhaps Salmonella.

MR VALLY: So cholera could stay in the environment for months?

MIKE ODENDAL: Yes.

MR VALLY: Yes, perhaps Salmonella?

MIKE ODENDAL: Salmonella, yes.

MR VALLY: Botulism?

MIKE ODENDAL: No, that's a toxin and it will disappear in 24 - 48 hours from the environment if you happened to contaminate the water supplies or the environment.

MR VALLY: Any of the other items?

MIKE ODENDAL: No.

MR VALLY: No.  Alright, just very briefly, when you started making these items, which year?

MIKE ODENDAL: Well, when I arrived at Roodeplaat in 1985 it took us about two years to get ourselves organised.

MR VALLY: So shall we say from 1987 until the end of 1993?

MIKE ODENDAL: Yes, I don't think it lasted all that long, although we had - I was responsible for the culture collection until the company dissolved in 1993, but we did not produce larger quantities than normal in the latter of, or in the beginning of the 90's.

MR VALLY: You see, we only have one "verkope" list that we have.  I assume that simply because we have this list covering the period 19th of March 1989 to 21st of October 1989, that there may be many other lists, with many other deliveries, is - the items listed here, would that be just a minority of the total amount of substances produced by you?

MIKE ODENDAL: You see, Dr Immelman had in his large safe in his office, he had a small bar-room fridge in which he kept all these freeze-dried cultures, so it was not really possible to - we weren't geared to produce large quantities and we were not geared to hold large quantities of these organisms, so it didn't mean that we went into a large-scale production of these organisms to ...(intervention)

MR VALLY: The point I'm making is very simple, this shopping list starts on the 19th of March 1989 and goes on to the 11th of October '89.  You started in '87.  There would have been many more items produced from '87 to February '98, and subsequently from mid October '89 till towards the end of 1993.  Is that a factually correct statement to make?

MIKE ODENDAL: No, I don't think so.  I think we did not continuously produce these organisms, for the simple reason, it takes quite a time to produce them, and we were also involved in many other projects, so I think, you know, in all fairness, we did not - this was not the only type of work we were involved in.  This was only a very small portion of our activities.

MR VALLY: Let's go on to another issue, is the treatment for Anthrax if someone has been infected by Anthrax, is the treatment - a person being treated by antibiotics, is that how you would treat it?

MIKE ODENDAL: There's only one antibiotic which will have guaranteed efficiency, and that would be penicillin.

MR VALLY: Right, so when you were trying to develop an antibiotic resistant Anthrax, were you trying to ensure there was no treatment for the Anthrax?

MIKE ODENDAL: Well, that could have been the one.  The other reason is that we wanted to see if those strains could be induced because that would be one of the first things that we would treat with, and if we don't find any obvious effect, you know, what could the possible causes be.  So, if we make a diagnoses of Anthrax in the laboratory, one of the cultural characteristics of this organism is it's susceptibility to penicillin.

MR VALLY: We've passed this stage about the defensive side.  Once you've started putting Anthrax on cigarettes it was a different ball game, it wasn't a test situation any longer.  Where you trying to produce a culture which was not treatable?

MIKE ODENDAL: Well, it goes both ways, yes.

MR VALLY: You carried out various tests and if you look at your documents, I'm trying to get through them quickly, so I won't go through them all, but if you look at documents 98 - Anthrax, 99 - Brucella, 100 - Cholera, 101 - typhoid, 102 - para-typhoid, sorry can you just quickly tell us the difference between para-typhoid and typhoid?

MIKE ODENDAL: Well, I think the typhoid is more specific - typhoid affects humans more specifically, whereas Typhemorium is a cross species type organism.  It can infect cattle, sheep, humans, chickens ...(intervention)

MR VALLY: I see, so it goes in animals.

MIKE ODENDAL: Yes and typhoid is more restricted to humans.

MR VALLY: And the first item you talked about, is it - can the disease be spread from animals to humans and vice versa?

MIKE ODENDAL: Typhemorium, yes.  It's ...(indistinct)

MR VALLY: Were you also responsible for paraoxon?

MIKE ODENDAL: No.

MR VALLY: Alright, if you look at - let's talk about Brucella, document 99.  Now, this kind of report, was this done by you?

MIKE ODENDAL: Yes, with each batch of organisms I produced I had to supply sort of a list of instructions and of safety precautions that had to be taken when this organism was handled.

MR VALLY: Fine, and this was done for all these items I've mentioned?

MIKE ODENDAL: Yes, that's correct.

MR VALLY: You had in there, if you look at 2.5 of 99, TRC 99, do you have it in front of you?

MIKE ODENDAL: Yes.

MR VALLY: "Any liquid which is suitable for
oral intake will be suitable for the
suspension of the organisms.  5 - 
10ml will be sufficient."
Sufficient for what?