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blue print for doomsday virus published in Science !!!!!!
- Thread starter anewbeginning
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This happened before with mousepox (concern that it would be applied to make vaccine-resistant weaponized smallpox) and we're all still alive.
http://www.nature.com/embor/journal/v11/n1/full/embor2009270.html
Although smallpox is not as readily available as bird flu (hopefully not at all available), both papers were similar in the applicabilty of the information to nefarious purposes. My point is that this is not an uncommon thing. The media just decided to get all fired up about this one.
http://www.nature.com/embor/journal/v11/n1/full/embor2009270.html
Although smallpox is not as readily available as bird flu (hopefully not at all available), both papers were similar in the applicabilty of the information to nefarious purposes. My point is that this is not an uncommon thing. The media just decided to get all fired up about this one.
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"Some of the early alarm was fed by Dr. Fouchier speaking at conferences and giving interviews last fall in which he boasted that he had "done something really, really stupid" and had "mutated the hell out of H5N1" to create something that was "very, very bad news." He said his team had created "probably one of the most dangerous viruses you can make."
After the controversy erupted, he claimed the news media had overblown the danger."
...wanker.
After the controversy erupted, he claimed the news media had overblown the danger."
...wanker.
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dammit....I want my zombie virus!
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I believe the 1918 Spanish Flu virus also got published to no public acclaim as well, 15 or so years ago (they found the virus in the remains of some lady in France i think). And the Spanish Flu has been proven to be extremely destructive, while the strain published here has not been demonstrated to be airborne infectious in humans yet.
This virus has been demonstrated to infect ferrets if you swab their respiratory tracts with the virus. As far as I understand it, that's the only significant result from this particular mutation. While ferrets are pretty close approximations of humans in terms of immune systems, and swabbing onto respiratory tracts is a decent approximation of an airborne infection, it's not an actual demonstration of either. Furthermore, a fair fraction of the ferrets didn't even get infected from this (I forget the number, you should look it up).
On the flipside, there is the concern that this paper has now made any halfway decent bio lab a potential WMD factory (with the sequence out, it really wouldn't be that hard to produce the virus). However, all of these bio labs were already potential WMD factories, so this particular development isn't really a development in terms of national security.
This virus has been demonstrated to infect ferrets if you swab their respiratory tracts with the virus. As far as I understand it, that's the only significant result from this particular mutation. While ferrets are pretty close approximations of humans in terms of immune systems, and swabbing onto respiratory tracts is a decent approximation of an airborne infection, it's not an actual demonstration of either. Furthermore, a fair fraction of the ferrets didn't even get infected from this (I forget the number, you should look it up).
On the flipside, there is the concern that this paper has now made any halfway decent bio lab a potential WMD factory (with the sequence out, it really wouldn't be that hard to produce the virus). However, all of these bio labs were already potential WMD factories, so this particular development isn't really a development in terms of national security.
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