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EXPERTS WARN RESURRECTED FLU VIRUS WILL PROVE DISASTROUS
Thu Oct 6, 2005 14:58
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EXPERTS WARN THAT RESURRECTED FLU VIRUS WILL PROVE DISASTROUS
Here's an excerpt from today's issue of NATURE magazine on the Bush administration's resurrection of the 1918 flu virus:
"One biosecurity expert told Nature that the risk that the recreated strain might escape is so high, it is almost a certainty. And the publication of the full genome sequence gives any rogue nation or bioterrorist group all the information they need to make their own version of the virus....
This would be extremely dangerous should it escape, and there is a long history of things escaping," says Barbara Hatch Rosenberg, a molecular biologist and member of the Federation of American Scientists' Working Group on Biological Weapons. "What advantage is so much greater than that risk?"
Ebright agrees that there is a significant risk, "verging on inevitability", of accidental release of the virus into the human population, or of theft by a "disgruntled, disturbed or extremist laboratory employee". And there is the danger that a hostile nation might reconstruct its own version of the virus, he says, pointing out that any of these scenarios could result in a large number of deaths." -
(see rest of article below)
FROM NATURE MAGAZINE, Oct. 6, 437, 794-795 (6 October 2005) | doi: 10.1038/437794a
Special Report: The 1918 flu virus is resurrectedThe recreation of one of the deadliest diseases known could help us to prevent another pandemic. Or it might trigger one, say critics. Andreas von Bubnoff investigates whether the benefits outweigh the risks.
It is thought to have killed 50 million people, and yet scientists have brought it back to life. In this issue of Nature, scientists publish an analysis of the full genome sequence of the 1918 human influenza virus. And in this week's Science, researchers describe how they used that sequence to recreate the virus and study its effects in mice.
Some scientists have already hailed the work as giving unprecedented insight into the virus. Working out how it arose and why it was so deadly could help experts to spot the next pandemic strain and to design appropriate drugs and vaccines in time, they say.
But others have raised concerns that the dangers of resurrecting the virus are just too great. One biosecurity expert told Nature that the risk that the recreated strain might escape is so high, it is almost a certainty. And the publication of the full genome sequence gives any rogue nation or bioterrorist group all the information they need to make their own version of the virus.
Jeffery Taubenberger of the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology in Rockville, Maryland, is the lead author of the sequencing study. He says the work was necessary and the risks were low. The paper on page 889 gives details of the final three genes; the sequences of the rest have already been published.
The full sequence is strong evidence that the 1918 flu virus is derived wholly from an ancestor that originally infected birds. In contrast, the viruses that caused the flu pandemics of 1957 and 1968 arose when human and avian flu viruses infected the same person at the same time, allowing their genes to mix.
All eight of the genome segments from the 1918 virus differ in important ways from other human flu sequences, suggesting that none of the genome came from a strain that had previously infected people. "It is the most bird-like of all mammalian flu viruses," says Taubenberger.
Pinpointing exactly which genetic mutations allowed the virus to jump to humans will enable scientists to recognize other bird viruses that could trigger a pandemic. Taubenberger's team has already identified 25 changes in the protein sequences of the 1918 strain that have been present in subsequent human flu viruses. These mutations are likely to be particularly important, he says. One such change, in the polymerase gene PB2, was found in the virus isolated from the only human fatality in a 2003 outbreak of H7N7 bird flu in the Netherlands.,,,"
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v437/n7060/full/437794a.html
Of course the "researchers" on the Bush payroll all think that the project is "helping humanity." Yeah, right - for six figures a year, Bush can get "scientists" to claim just about anything.
Meanwhile, the media has put in it's usual half-assed, irresponsible performance by reporting the "breakthrough" as a "medical advance," without researching or even questioning what the signifcance may be, thereby aiding and abetting what may prove someday lead to one of the worst disasters in human history. The only ones who will have benefitted from this "breakthrough" as usual are Bush's pals in the pharmaceutical industry, who will make billions on flu vaccines that are likely to be useless after the first wave.
Here's an excerpt from today's issue of NATURE magazine on the Bush administration's resurrection of the 1918 flu virus:
"One biosecurity expert told Nature that the risk that the recreated strain might escape is so high, it is almost a certainty. And the publication of the full genome sequence gives any rogue nation or bioterrorist group all the information they need to make their own version of the virus....
This would be extremely dangerous should it escape, and there is a long history of things escaping," says Barbara Hatch Rosenberg, a molecular biologist and member of the Federation of American Scientists' Working Group on Biological Weapons. "What advantage is so much greater than that risk?"
Ebright agrees that there is a significant risk, "verging on inevitability", of accidental release of the virus into the human population, or of theft by a "disgruntled, disturbed or extremist laboratory employee". And there is the danger that a hostile nation might reconstruct its own version of the virus, he says, pointing out that any of these scenarios could result in a large number of deaths." -
(see rest of article below)
FROM NATURE MAGAZINE, Oct. 6, 437, 794-795 (6 October 2005) | doi: 10.1038/437794a
Special Report: The 1918 flu virus is resurrectedThe recreation of one of the deadliest diseases known could help us to prevent another pandemic. Or it might trigger one, say critics. Andreas von Bubnoff investigates whether the benefits outweigh the risks.
It is thought to have killed 50 million people, and yet scientists have brought it back to life. In this issue of Nature, scientists publish an analysis of the full genome sequence of the 1918 human influenza virus. And in this week's Science, researchers describe how they used that sequence to recreate the virus and study its effects in mice.
Some scientists have already hailed the work as giving unprecedented insight into the virus. Working out how it arose and why it was so deadly could help experts to spot the next pandemic strain and to design appropriate drugs and vaccines in time, they say.
But others have raised concerns that the dangers of resurrecting the virus are just too great. One biosecurity expert told Nature that the risk that the recreated strain might escape is so high, it is almost a certainty. And the publication of the full genome sequence gives any rogue nation or bioterrorist group all the information they need to make their own version of the virus.
Jeffery Taubenberger of the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology in Rockville, Maryland, is the lead author of the sequencing study. He says the work was necessary and the risks were low. The paper on page 889 gives details of the final three genes; the sequences of the rest have already been published.
The full sequence is strong evidence that the 1918 flu virus is derived wholly from an ancestor that originally infected birds. In contrast, the viruses that caused the flu pandemics of 1957 and 1968 arose when human and avian flu viruses infected the same person at the same time, allowing their genes to mix.
All eight of the genome segments from the 1918 virus differ in important ways from other human flu sequences, suggesting that none of the genome came from a strain that had previously infected people. "It is the most bird-like of all mammalian flu viruses," says Taubenberger.
Pinpointing exactly which genetic mutations allowed the virus to jump to humans will enable scientists to recognize other bird viruses that could trigger a pandemic. Taubenberger's team has already identified 25 changes in the protein sequences of the 1918 strain that have been present in subsequent human flu viruses. These mutations are likely to be particularly important, he says. One such change, in the polymerase gene PB2, was found in the virus isolated from the only human fatality in a 2003 outbreak of H7N7 bird flu in the Netherlands.,,,"
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v437/n7060/full/437794a.html
Of course the "researchers" on the Bush payroll all think that the project is "helping humanity." Yeah, right - for six figures a year, Bush can get "scientists" to claim just about anything.
Meanwhile, the media has put in it's usual half-assed, irresponsible performance by reporting the "breakthrough" as a "medical advance," without researching or even questioning what the signifcance may be, thereby aiding and abetting what may prove someday lead to one of the worst disasters in human history. The only ones who will have benefitted from this "breakthrough" as usual are Bush's pals in the pharmaceutical industry, who will make billions on flu vaccines that are likely to be useless after the first wave.
- List of Dead Scientists —Steve Quayle, Thu Oct 6 16:02
- SHACKLED BOXCARS in OR,TX,,MT,NH, NC; —Tecknolab1a, Thu Oct 6 15:49
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