Nuke the research center from orbit, it's the only way to be sure.
http://www.doctortipster.com/6952-dutch-researcher-created-a-super-influenza-virus-with-the-potential-to-kill-millions.html
QuoteDutch Researcher Created A Super-Influenza Virus With The Potential To Kill Millions
Posted in: Medical News by Andrei Riciu 77 Comments on November 28th, 2011
A Dutch researcher has created a virus with the potential to kill half of the planet's population. Now, researchers and experts in bioterrorism debate whether it is a good idea to publish the virus creation "recipe". However, several voices argue that such research should have not happened in the first place.
The virus is a strain of avian influenza H5N1 genetically modified to be extremely contagious. It was created by researcher Ron Fouchier of the Erasmus Medical Center Rotterdam, Netherlands. The work was first presented at a conference dedicated to influenza, that took place in September in Malta.
Avian influenza emerged in Asia about 10 years ago. Since then there were fewer than 600 infection cases reported in humans. On the other hand, Fouchier's genetically modified strain is extremely contagious and dangerous, killing about 50% of infected patients. The former strain did not represent a global threat, as transmission from human to human is rare. Or, at least, it was before Fouchier genetically modified it.
Fouchier and his team used a pair of ferrets for testing because they react in similar ways as humans, when exposed to the flu virus. Researchers transmitted the deadly virus from one ferret to another, in order to make the virus more adaptable to a new host. After 10 generations, the virus has mutated allowing it to spread through air. The result was that ferrets could get sick just being near another infected animal.
A genetic study showed that new virus strain presented five mutations, and all could be also observed in nature - but only separately, not all five combined. Fouchier's strain is as contagious as seasonal human influenza, which kills tens of thousands of people, just that, much more lethal.
"I can not think of a pathogenic organism to be more dangerous than this one", commented Paul Keim, a specialist in microbial genetics who worked for many years with the anthrax bacillus. "I think the anthrax is not at all scary, when compared with this virus" , he added.
Keim is the coordinator of the U.S. National Committee dedicated to biosecurity issues and now he has to make a decision. If Fouchier wants to publish his study detailing how the virus was created, Keim's and his committee must approve.
Many scientists are concerned about possible negative consequences that could precede the publication of this research. There are many fears regarding bioterrorists that might find useful tips or a whole 'recipe' to plan biological attacks. Demands are beeing made for the establishment of an international institution to oversee such dangerous research projects.
"It's just a bad idea for scientists to turn a lethal virus into a lethal and highly contagious virus. And it's a second bad idea for them to publish how they did it so others can copy it," believes Dr. Thomas Inglesby, a bioterrorism expert
On the other hand, if the study becomes available for the scientific community, it could allow researchers to "be prepared" for a potential H5N1 pandemic. Since Fouchier's study suggests that the risk for this to occur is greater than previously thought. Some researchers believe that banning the paper will leave mankind helpless if the virus naturally mutates and becomes contagious.
So which one is it? Millions or half the worlds population?
I knew I should have moved to Madagascar.
QuoteFouchier's genetically modified strain is extremely contagious and dangerous, killing about 50% of infected patients.
:hmm: Were these "patients" rats, perhaps?
I think the time to panic is now.
Time to stock up on ferrets.
Quote from: Kleves on November 29, 2011, 11:14:45 AM
QuoteFouchier's genetically modified strain is extremely contagious and dangerous, killing about 50% of infected patients.
:hmm: Were these "patients" rats, perhaps?
Ferrets :contract:
Quote from: Tyr on November 29, 2011, 10:55:19 AM
I knew I should have moved to Madagascar.
Close the ports!
Tim, your headline is far too biased. I suggest "Dutch Researcher Solves World Hunger."
Quote from: Ideologue on November 29, 2011, 12:04:11 PM
Tim, your headline is far too biased. I suggest "Dutch Researcher Solves World Hunger."
^_^
Quote from: Ideologue on November 29, 2011, 12:04:11 PM
Tim, your headline is far too biased. I suggest "Dutch Researcher Solves World Hunger."
:lmfao:
(https://languish.org/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.heroesassemble.com%2Fekmps%2Fshops%2Fmarkashley%2Fimages%2Fthe-stand-captain-trips-2-2008-stephen-king-marvel-comic-book-6524-p%255Bekm%255D196x300%255Bekm%255D.jpg&hash=30f6240c685602f93aabc5a9b839547794a20899)
Ridicuolous.
Damn, I already got my flu shot this year! And I doubt it covered this monstrosity that the Flying Dutchman created.
What a horror, to create one of, or perhaps the world's worst, virus strains. <_<
Surely James Bond will put an end to this.
Quote from: Josephus on November 29, 2011, 07:20:41 PM
Surely James Bond will put an end to this.
I think Sean Connery retired....
Who will stop the Army of the Twelve Monkeys then?
They didn't even do it. Weren't you paying attention?
Yeah, it was this guy:
(https://languish.org/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg80.imageshack.us%2Fimg80%2F3956%2Fclipboard04i.png&hash=9433014739b53c8b19ed03656394e4c6e9cb02e2)
http://www.thereadystore.com
Some of the best prices for MREs in bulk.
We have like three cases of those. :showoff:
Quote from: Caliga on November 30, 2011, 07:30:56 AM
We have like three cases of those. :showoff:
I've already had three cases from eating that crap. :showoff:
Quote from: grumbler on November 30, 2011, 12:30:40 PM
Quote from: Caliga on November 30, 2011, 07:30:56 AM
We have like three cases of those. :showoff:
I've already had three cases from eating that crap. :showoff:
Well, at least in the event you have to eat that stuff in the post-apocalyptic future, you won't have to worry about toilets.
Regarding modern MREs, I mostly hear about how they keep one constipated.
Dunno about the weevil-infested hardtack from grumbler's day.
Modern MREs are way better than C-rations, yeah.
Quote from: Caliga on December 01, 2011, 07:58:45 PM
Modern MREs are way better than C-rations, yeah.
How about K Rations?
http://www.costco.com/Browse/Product.aspx?Prodid=11487214
The US govt. asks Nature and Science to censor his research.
http://video.msnbc.msn.com/nightly-news/45744142/#45744142
EDIT: Also Nature comments.
http://www.nature.com/news/fears-grow-over-lab-bred-flu-1.9692
QuoteNature | News
Fears grow over lab-bred flu
Scientists call for stricter biosafety measures for dangerous avian-influenza variants.
Declan Butler
20 December 2011
It is a nightmare scenario: a human pandemic caused by the accidental release of a man-made form of the lethal avian influenza virus H5N1.
Yet the risk is all too real. Since September, news has been circulating about two groups of scientists who have reportedly created mutant H5N1 variants that can be transmitted between ferrets merely breathing the same air, generally an indicator that the virus could also spread easily among humans.
The work raises the spectre of a disease that spreads as fast as ordinary seasonal flu, but with a fatality rate akin to wild-type H5N1 — an order of magnitude greater than the mortality rate of roughly 2.5% seen during the catastrophic flu pandemic of 1918.
Until now, debate about the new variants has focused on whether the research poses too great a security risk to be published — even if partially redacted — a question currently under consideration by the US National Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity (NSABB).
A number of scientists argue, however, that the NSABB's deliberations have come far too late. Because further research on the new variants now seems inevitable, a far more important question, they say, is whether the labs that hold samples of the virus — and those who will seek to work with them in the future — have sufficient biosafety protection to make sure it cannot escape.
"This horse is out of the barn," says Richard Ebright, a molecular biologist and biodefence expert at Rutgers University in Piscataway, New Jersey. "At this point, it is utterly futile to be discussing restricting the publication of this information," he adds, pointing out that the results have already been seen by many flu scientists, including referees, and are probably spreading through the flu grapevine faster than a speeding neutrino.
Sources say that one of the studies, led by Ron Fouchier of Erasmus Medical Center in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, has been submitted to Science, and that the other, led by Yoshihiro Kawaoka of the University of Wisconsin, Madison, has been sent to Nature. (Nature's journalists do not have access to submitted manuscripts or the journal's confidential deliberations on them.) Fouchier also presented his results in September at the annual European Scientific Working Group on Influenza conference in Malta.
The mutant strains were not born out of a reckless desire to push the boundaries of high-risk science, but to gain a better understanding of the potential for avian H5N1 to mutate into a form that can spread easily in humans through coughing or sneezing. Some virologists have suggested that any genetic changes that made it more transmissible would probably blunt its deadliness. The new work seems to contradict that comforting idea. The studies should also help boost surveillance for similar changes in wild-type strains, and to develop diagnostics, drugs and vaccines.
Both experiments were conducted in labs rated at 'biosafety level 3 (BSL-3) enhanced' (see ' Safety by degrees'). Such labs require scientists to shower and change clothes when leaving the lab, and include other safety features such as negative air pressure and passing exhaust air through high-efficiency particulate air filters. This should be quite sufficient to provide protection against an accidental release of the virus, some virologists say.
"Current biosafety rules are adequate for safely doing such transmission experiments with H5N1 viruses or any other influenza virus," says Peter Palese, a virologist at Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York.
Requiring the more stringent protocols of BSL-4 facilities would hamper the research needed to develop countermeasures against an H5N1 pandemic, says Masato Tashiro, a virologist at the National Institute of Infectious Diseases in Tokyo, because it would limit the number of researchers able to work with the virus. As such, he believes that the work should be done in BSL-3 enhanced facilities.
High security
But others say that to protect not only the researchers working on the viruses, but also society at large, the new H5N1 variants must be restricted to BSL-4 labs. These labs have far tougher safety and security measures, such as requiring workers to wear positive air pressure suits and undergo more rigorous decontamination; some also have additional security measures, such as video surveillance and bomb-proofing. Corralling this research in BSL-4 facilities would also immediately limit the proliferation of the viruses in labs, because only a few dozen such facilities exist worldwide, says Ebright. Indeed, one regulatory official, who requested anonymity, says that he is most concerned about the H5N1 mutants being handled in BSL-3 labs in countries with weak biosafety cultures or competences.
Deborah Middleton, an H5N1 researcher at the high-containment facilities at the Australian Animal Health Laboratory in Geelong, says that the characteristics of the new variants "fulfil the criteria of a BSL-4 pathogen", adding that she believes they would probably be handled as such in her institution. Indeed, the original experiments to create the viruses should also have been conducted in a BSL-4 facility, argues Hervé Raoul, director of the Jean Meriéux-INSERM BSL-4 lab in Lyons, France.
Past experience suggests that the risk of the new variant H5N1 escaping from a lab is far from negligible. Over the past decade, severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) has accidentally infected staff at four high-containment labs in mainland China, Taiwan and Singapore, variously rated as BSL-3 and BSL-4. A US National Research Council report released in September detailed 395 biosafety breaches during work with select agents in the United States between 2003 and 2009 — including seven laboratory-acquired infections — that risked accidental release of dangerous pathogens from high-containment labs.
And the rapid spread of an escaped flu virus would make it more dangerous than other deadly pathogens. "When SARS or BSL-4 agents get out, their potential for transmission on a global basis is quite limited," says Michael Osterholm, who heads the University of Minnesota's Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy in Minneapolis, and is a member of the NSABB. "Influenza presents a very difficult challenge because if it ever were to escape, it is one that would quickly go round the world."
Fouchier declined to comment on these biosafety issues, saying only that his experiments had been reviewed by authorities in the Netherlands and the United States where "H5N1 virus is a class-3 agent because antivirals and vaccines are available". Kawaoka did not respond to interview requests.
Some scientists say that they are looking to the World Health Organization (WHO) to provide timely leadership in this biosafety debate. But Gregory Hartl, a spokesman for the WHO in Geneva, Switzerland, says the agency is unable to comment, because it has not yet seen the written studies. Meanwhile, the NSABB has not said when it will publish its advice. In a statement to Nature, the US Department of Agriculture said that it (and the US Department of Health and Human Services) will conduct any appropriate technical review of the new H5N1 variants.
Ebright laments that important questions of biosafety and biosecurity are largely left to the discretion of individual researchers. "In the United States, there is only voluntary oversight for biosafety, and with the exception of the select agents rule, there is no oversight of biosecurity," he says. Given the choice, says Middleton, flu researchers often resist working in higher biocontainment levels simply because they would no longer have the convenience of doing their research in BSL-3 labs at their own institutes, and because working in a BSL-4 lab is inherently more difficult.
The situation contrasts sharply with the barrage of legislation to regulate research that involves placing human subjects at risk, notes Ebright, where proposed projects are rigorously reviewed before they can start. "What's remarkable," says Ebright, is that for dual-use research of this type on H5N1, "which puts at risk not one individual but potentially hundreds, thousands or millions of individuals, there is no oversight whatsoever"
QuoteIt is a nightmare scenario
What needless editorializing.
Quote from: Ideologue on December 20, 2011, 09:00:55 PM
QuoteIt is a nightmare scenario
What needless editorializing.
You're a needless editorializing.
Quote from: Ideologue on December 20, 2011, 09:00:55 PM
QuoteIt is a nightmare scenario
What needless editorializing.
A artificially-mutated deadly flu superstrain which can be transmitted via ambient air qualifies as a nightmare scenario to me.
Quote from: Darth Wagtaros on December 20, 2011, 09:26:58 PM
Quote from: Ideologue on December 20, 2011, 09:00:55 PM
QuoteIt is a nightmare scenario
What needless editorializing.
You're a needless editorializing.
Your mom goes to college.
Quote from: The Brain on November 29, 2011, 11:21:26 AM
Time to stock up on ferrets.
Isn't this your answer to everything? :rolleyes:
Anyway, it's winter and tamiflu manufacturers need a profit boost. Since we did not come up with a new "deadly" flu virus this year (remember the billions who died from swine flu or avian flu?) we needed to invent one. :rolleyes:
Quote from: Martinus on December 21, 2011, 03:20:41 AM
Anyway, it's winter and tamiflu manufacturers need a profit boost. Since we did not come up with a new "deadly" flu virus this year (remember the billions who died from swine flu or avian flu?) we needed to invent one. :rolleyes:
It won't get out anytime soon. The current discussion is to transfer the research on these mutated strains from biohazard level-3 to level-4 security to make it even less likely to get out through accidentally-infected researchers, or through a terrorist attack.
As for "censuring" Nature and those kinds of peer-review papers, I'm torn on this issue. It infringes on the inherent need to circulate information and research results in the scientific community, but the potential hazards if these are known for terrorists or rogue states that DO have the facilities to manipulate and mutate the strain might make it "acceptable" to severely limit this circulation, at least among a very tightly-knit circle of researchers and facilities. After all, the American and immigrant scientists in the Manhattan Project certainly did not publicize all their research work on how they build the A-Bomb and made it work, for obvious security reasons, so there are precedents.
As for the swine flu, it's not because it was a hoisted petard in hindsight that it wasn't potentially dangerous, and Tamiflu was quite effective on those mild-to-moderately severe cases of infection. We got VERY lucky this time that the random mutations didn't make it more dangerous that it was, but it certainly was the pandemic that was long overdue for this generation.
Should we revisist this thread a year from today? December 21, 2012? :ph34r:
I'll tell you what though, I'm gonna be playin more Pandemic 2 as a result of this thread. Good on you Timmay.
Quote from: Darth Wagtaros on December 21, 2011, 06:24:36 PM
I'll tell you what though, I'm gonna be playin more Pandemic 2 as a result of this thread. Good on you Timmay.
close the port.
(https://languish.org/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fpicturesmove211.files.wordpress.com%2F2010%2F09%2Fkazans_panic_in_the_street_trailer_screenshot_20.jpg&hash=cff9e3b08d265e9a76897584f56931c959375305)
Where's Richard Widmark when you need him, goddamit? <_<
Quote from: Drakken on December 21, 2011, 01:42:06 PM
It won't get out anytime soon. The current discussion is to transfer the research on these mutated strains from biohazard level-3 to level-4 security to make it even less likely to get out through accidentally-infected researchers, or through a terrorist attack.
As for "censuring" Nature and those kinds of peer-review papers, I'm torn on this issue. It infringes on the inherent need to circulate information and research results in the scientific community, but the potential hazards if these are known for terrorists or rogue states that DO have the facilities to manipulate and mutate the strain might make it "acceptable" to severely limit this circulation, at least among a very tightly-knit circle of researchers and facilities. After all, the American and immigrant scientists in the Manhattan Project certainly did not publicize all their research work on how they build the A-Bomb and made it work, for obvious security reasons, so there are precedents.
Listened to some eggheads (including the head of the NSABB) discussing the virus mutation research on the Diane Rehm show yesterday. They were pretty confident that the problem wasn't the accidental spread of the virus, as the security at the facilities was plenty good enough. The issue was how to get the relevant data (what the resulting virus looks like) out to virus strain, and that any competent biologist with an appropriately equipped lab can duplicate it in 3-5 years even without knowing any of the steps in the two successful projects (and could, indeed, have done so before this particular research was carried out). The issue, as they saw it, was really whether a virus could be developed before some sinister types could create the virus. Of course, the sinister types have much more incentive to do the research now that they know the virus can be produced (if, indeed, this virus actually does transmit from human to human), but all agreed that this was research that needed to be done, and that it was done responsibly.