(End of the American Dream)—Pneumonic plague is extremely deadly and it is the only form of the plague that can spread from person to person. If it were to start spreading around the globe, the level of panic that we would witness would be off the charts. The death of a Russian scientist that worked at the Irkutsk Anti-Plague Institute is fueling a tremendous amount of speculation at the moment. But the Russians are now claiming that there was no lab accident and that nobody died of pneumonic plague.
Hopefully that information is correct. U.S. experts are telling us that even if there is an outbreak of pneumonic plague, it wouldn’t become a global pandemic because we could easily treat those that get infected with common antibiotics. But what if a genetically-modified form of pneumonic plague that was weaponized by the Soviet Union starts spreading? Would our antibiotics work against that?
According to Wikipedia, the Soviet Union possessed “the world’s largest and most sophisticated known biological weapons program”. For years, dozens of highly sophisticated biological research facilities operated under the umbrella of a Soviet organization known as Biopreparat…
The Soviet Union covertly operated the world’s largest and most sophisticated known biological weapons program.[1] The Soviet program began in the 1920s and lasted until at least September 1992 but has possibly been continued by the Russian Federation after that.[1][2] Under a civilian cover organization named Biopreparat, 40 to 50 military-purposed biological research facilities existed throughout the Soviet Union. An anti-agriculture program, Ekologiya, also targeted crops and livestock.
Just like we are witnessing all over the world today, Soviet scientists were monkeying around with some of the deadliest bugs known to mankind.
One of those bugs was Yersinia pestis, a bacterium that caused the Black Death.
We know that they successfully weaponized Yersinia pestis in at least a couple of different ways…
During the mid to late 1980’s, Russian scientists at Biopreparat made a major breakthrough. They had begun to upgrade their arsenal of biological weapons via genetic modification. One of the first steps of such modifications included making a primitive sort of chimera. A chimera is a biological organism which has been altered so that the ‘new version’ also has characteristics of another biological organism. Russian scientists were experimenting with the idea of taking Y. pestis and inserting various other known toxins into the cells. One day, the announcement was made at Biopreparat that such a design had been successfully made. They inserted a plasmid containing the gene for myelin toxin into Y. pestis . The design was simple and disturbing. If a patient were diagnosed with pneumonic plague in time to be treated, the antibiotics would attack and lyse the plague cells, thereby releasing the plasmid coding for myelin toxin which would cause paralysis, high blood pressure, irregular heartbeat, and changes in behavior. Heralded as a major triumph for Mother Russia, Alibek explained, “A toxin-plague weapon was never produced before the Soviet Union collapsed, but the success of this experiment set the stage for further research on bacteria-toxin combinations.” (Alibek 1999).
The next step was initiated by Deputy Director Sergei Netesov who suggested putting Venezuelan Equine Ecephalitis (VEE) into Y. pestis . The was based on the same idea of treating plague with antibiotics, thereby releasing something else. This time, however, the result would have more dramatic consequences. By the time VEE would have lysed from the bacterium, it would have bypassed most of the body’s defenses, allowing it to travel directly to the brain. The patient, being treated for plague, would be dead from encephalitis within 7 to 10 days. US intelligence combined with information gleaned from Russian defectors made the picture very clear for the US: Russia was creating superbugs for the purpose of biological warfare and among them were superversions of Y. pestis.
Please pay special attention to the two sections that I have put in bold.
In both of those instances, Soviet scientists were counting on the fact that pneumonic plague would be treated using antibiotics.
Of course we would treat any outbreak of pneumonic plague in our time the exact same way, because it would be the only defense that we have.
There was also a Russian defector in 1989 that spectacularly claimed that Soviet scientists had genetically-modified Yersinia pestis so that it would be completely immune to antibiotics…
In 1989 the defector Vladimir Pasechnik convinced the British that the Soviets had genetically engineered a strain of Yersinia pestis to resist antibiotics.[26] This triggered George H. W. Bush and Margaret Thatcher to pressure Gorbachev into opening for inspection several of his facilities. The visits occurred in January 1991.[26]
That was almost four decades ago.
What advances have Russian scientists made since that time?
In her latest book, Annie Jacobsen envisioned a scenario which “is remarkably similar in some ways to what occurred in real life in Irkutsk”…
In Biological War, Jacobsen asks readers to imagine what would happen if a sophisticated, genetically engineered form of pneumonic plague were accidentally released from a Biosafety Level 4 (BSL-4) facility in Siberia called the State Scientific Center of Virology and Biotechnology VECTOR—or simply Vector for short. Jacobsen’s scenario is remarkably similar in some ways to what occurred in real life in Irkutsk on October 2: a single lab worker releases a strain of genetically engineered Y. pestis, and soon dies. But the ensuing consequences are far worse than what has so far occurred in real life.
Since it was a genetically-modified form of pneumonic plague that got released in Jacobsen’s book, global health authorities were not able to stop it from spreading.
By the end of Jacobsen’s book, nearly all of humanity had been wiped out…
Soon, the infected population swells beyond the control of medical responders and even police. In Jacobsen’s account, society itself soon breaks down, as thousands of incipient plague victims riot through the streets of Los Angeles, burning and looting everything in their path. As the plague spreads, it kills thousands, then millions, and as it does so, the infrastructure of modern society collapses.
In the end, only the Federal Government’s very last lines of defense hold: the “Devolution of Operations Plan” goes into effect to preserve continuity of government from bunkers and secret locations, while the Pentagon’s 18,730-strong Weapons of Mass Destruction Response Forces tries to maintain order amid the catastrophe.
In Jacobsen’s scenario, things don’t work out well for America—nearly everyone dies. Hopefully the results of the recent incident at Irkutsk won’t be quite as terrifying.
For now, health officials in the western world are assuring us that we don’t have anything to be concerned about, and the Russians are continuing to do their best to keep everyone calm…
Russia’s government played down concerns Monday sparked by media reports that a female scientist in Siberia might have died of exposure to the plague after a lab accident.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov stressed that the state health watchdog known as Rospotrebnadzor was the “lead agency with expertise in this area,” and he urged Russians to “listen to official information” from its “highly qualified professionals.”
I would be far more comforted if the Russians were not taking measures that indicate that they truly believe that there is some sort of a threat.
It is being reported that at least 5 hospitals in Siberia have been shut down and placed under quarantine…
Several hospitals have been shut down and placed under quarantine as the so-called ‘black death plague’ begins to take hold across Russia. A total of five hospitals have been closed for quarantine purposes in Siberia, following a suspected plague outbreak. The medical facilities have reportedly been shut for a minimum three-week quarantine period after a laboratory worker lost her life to an “unspecified form of plague”.
At one of those hospitals, pregnant women are actually being given pamphlets that discuss the plague…
We also learned today that Russia has initiated mandatory temperature checks for all passengers that are flying into Moscow from Irkutsk.
Why would they do that if there is no threat?
In addition, why were all public events in Irkutsk canceled if there is nothing to be concerned about?
Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, and Kyrgyzstan all seem to think that there is something to be concerned about, because each one of them has heightened border and sanitary controls for travelers coming over from Russia.
I don’t think that we are being told the truth.
Let us just hope that they can contain this outbreak before it gets out of control.
All forms of the plague are deadly, but pneumonic plague is the only form that can spread through the air from person to person…
- Pneumonic plague differs from bubonic plague, which can result from flea bites, and septicemic plague. All three can be transmitted via flea bites or coming into contact with infected bodily fluids.
- Pneumonic plague can also be transmitted through respiratory droplets expelled when a person, or an infected animal, sneezes or coughs.
- “Pneumonic plague is the most serious form of the disease and is the only form of plague that can be spread from person to person,” according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
If you get infected and you do not get antibiotics within the first 24 hours of showing symptoms, you will almost certainly die.
And if what has gotten loose in Russia is a genetically-modified version of pneumonic plague from the Soviet days, treating it with antibiotics might not even work.
So let’s see what happens.
The good news is that pneumonic plague has a very small incubation period.
If there are no more cases or deaths by the end of this week, we are probably in the clear.
But if more cases or deaths start popping up, we could be in very big trouble.
Michael’s new book entitled “10 Prophetic Events That Are Coming Next” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com, and you can subscribe to his Substack newsletter at michaeltsnyder.substack.com.
Two Storms, One Harvest
Every food crisis in living memory has been a one-shock event. The 2008 price spike was a commodity bubble. The 2020 shortages were a logistics failure. The 2022 grain scare was a war on one exporter’s ports. Each time, the system bent, adjusted, and recovered, and each time the experts assured us afterward that global markets are simply too big and too diversified to fail.
What nobody in Washington seems eager to discuss is that 2026 is shaping up to be something the modern food system has never actually faced. Two independent shocks, one climatic and one geopolitical, are converging on the same harvest cycle at the same time. Not sequentially. Simultaneously.
Start with the weather. The Pacific Ocean is currently building toward what forecasters now openly call a record event. NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center puts the odds of at least a strong El Niño near 88 percent, with roughly two in three odds it reaches “very strong” status, the tier reserved for perhaps three or four events in the entire satellite era. Every major global model now projects a median peak in Super El Niño territory, and most of them project it exceeding the 2015-16 event, which until now held the modern record. Sea surface anomalies were already brushing the super threshold in mid-July, months before these events normally peak. The atmosphere has already shifted into El Niño mode, and the event is forecast to crest in late fall and early winter.
This is not about “climate change.” It’s about the standard cycles of weather, and the cycle we’re currently in is one that has likely devastated societies in the past. We’re better prepared as a society today, but not all Americans are equally prepared.
Serious households have started doing the quiet math on their own. Grocery bills tell part of the story, and the forecast maps tell the rest, which is why long-term food storage has moved from fringe hobby to mainstream line item in the family budget, with established suppliers like Heaven’s Harvest seeing demand from people who five years ago would have rolled their eyes at the idea. That instinct is not paranoia. It is pattern recognition, and the pattern is worth walking through carefully.
Editor’s Note: Heaven’s Harvest IS a sponsor, but the warnings of this article are real and would be written even if we didn’t have a survival food sponsor. With that said, those who take advantage of what they offer can use promo code “Patriot” for 15% off.
The Fertilizer Clock Is Already Running
While the Pacific warms, the second shock has been unfolding in the Strait of Hormuz. The conflict with Iran turned the world’s most important energy chokepoint into a contested waterway, and the consequences reach far beyond the gas pump. Roughly a third of global fertilizer trade moves through Hormuz, and the disruption sent urea prices up 86 percent year over year by March, with a 53 percent jump in a single month.
The World Bank projects energy prices rising about 24 percent in 2026 and fertilizer about 31 percent. By its own accounting, fertilizer prices ran 35 percent higher in the first five months of this year than the same period last year.
Here is the mechanism the nightly news will not explain. Fertilizer is not a grocery item. It is a time-delayed input. The nitrogen a farmer in Iowa or Punjab could not afford to apply this spring does not show up as a problem this spring. It shows up as a thinner harvest six to twelve months later.
The World Bank’s own food security brief concedes that the effects of reduced applications earlier this season “are likely to become visible only later in harvest outcomes.” Translate that from institutional language into plain English and it means this. The damage is already done, it is already in the ground, and we are simply waiting for it to arrive on the shelf.
Now check the calendar. Six to twelve months from the spring planting season lands us squarely in late 2026 and early 2027. Which is precisely when the strongest El Niño in the instrumental record is forecast to peak, bringing its signature droughts to Southeast Asia, Australia, southern Africa, northern Brazil, and South Asia, the very regions that grow the world’s rice, sugar, and oilseeds.
The World Bank warns openly that a strong El Niño “could disrupt multiple crop belts simultaneously” on top of the conflict-driven input costs. Their baseline projection assumes the Middle East disruptions ease by autumn. What in the last two years of Middle East history suggests that assumption is safe?
The System Has No Slack Left
The comfortable answer is that global markets always adjust. But adjustment requires slack, and the slack is gone. Global cereal production is expected to decline from last year’s records even before El Niño does its work. The UN World Food Programme, hardly a den of right-wing preppers, is calling this the most significant disruption to its supply chains since Covid and the invasion of Ukraine, and its supply chain director put the stakes bluntly.
Today’s supply chain challenges are tomorrow’s hunger crisis.
There is also a political dimension that markets cannot price. When food gets scarce, governments do not behave like economists. They behave like politicians. Export bans, hoarding mandates, and panic buying at the national level turned the modest rice shortfall of 2008 into a global crisis, and analysts are already warning that import-dependent nations are the first dominoes.
The 2015-16 Super El Niño, a far weaker event than what is now forecast, threw tens of millions into food stress across Africa and Asia. This one is projected to be stronger, and it arrives with fertilizer already rationed by price and shipping lanes already contested by missiles.
What Joseph Knew
Scripture does not treat preparation for lean years as faithlessness. It treats it as wisdom delivered in advance to those willing to act on it.
Behold, there come seven years of great plenty throughout all the land of Egypt: And there shall arise after them seven years of famine; and all the plenty shall be forgotten in the land of Egypt.
Joseph did not respond to that warning with a hashtag or a committee. He stored grain during the years of abundance, and when the famine came, Egypt stood while its neighbors begged. The lesson is not that famine is certain. It is that the time to prepare is precisely when preparation still looks optional.
Nobody who filled a pantry in a year of plenty has ever regretted it, and nobody standing in an empty aisle has ever been glad he waited for certainty.
None of this calls for panic, and panic is the enemy of sound judgment anyway. It calls for the same unglamorous prudence our grandparents considered ordinary. Keep some cash margin, know your local growers, and put real food in deep storage while it is cheap and available, because the entire arc of this story is that cheap and available is a closing window.
Families looking for a straightforward place to start can visit Heaven’s Harvest and use promo code Patriot for 15 percent off long-term storable food. The forecasts may yet soften, the strait may yet reopen, and we should pray they do. But hope is a fine thing to hold and a foolish thing to eat.
