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donnay
05-03-2013, 06:56 AM
'Appalling irresponsibility': Senior scientists attack Chinese researchers for creating new strains of influenza virus in veterinary laboratory

Experts warn of danger that the new viral strains created by mixing bird-flu virus with human influenza could escape from the laboratory to cause a global pandemic killing millions of people.


Senior scientists have criticised the “appalling irresponsibility” of researchers in China who have deliberately created new strains of influenza virus in a veterinary laboratory.


They warned there is a danger that the new viral strains created by mixing bird-flu virus with human influenza could escape from the laboratory to cause a global pandemic killing millions of people.

Lord May of Oxford, a former government chief scientist and past president of the Royal Society, denounced the study published today in the journal Science as doing nothing to further the understanding and prevention of flu pandemics.

“They claim they are doing this to help develop vaccines and such like. In fact the real reason is that they are driven by blind ambition with no common sense whatsoever,” Lord May told The Independent.

“The record of containment in labs like this is not reassuring. They are taking it upon themselves to create human-to-human transmission of very dangerous viruses. It’s appallingly irresponsible,” he said.

The controversial study into viral mixing was carried out by a team led by Professor Hualan Chen, director of China’s National Avian Influenza Reference Laboratory at Harbin Veterinary Research Institute.

Professor Chen and her colleagues deliberately mixed the H5N1 bird-flu virus, which is highly lethal but not easily transmitted between people, with a 2009 strain of H1N1 flu virus, which is very infectious to humans.

When flu viruses come together by infecting the same cell they can swap genetic material and produce “hybrids” through the re-assortment of genes. The researchers were trying to emulate what happens in nature when animals such as pigs are co-infected with two different strains of virus, Professor Chen said.

“The studies demonstrated that H5N1 viruses have the potential to acquire mammalian transmissibility by re-assortment with the human influenza viruses,” Professor Chen said in an email.

“This tells us that high attention should be paid to monitor the emergence of such mammalian-transmissible virus in nature to prevent a possible pandemic caused by H5N1 virus,” she said.

“It is difficult to say how easy this will happen, but since the H5N1 and 2009/H1N1 viruses are widely existing in nature, they may have a chance to re-assort,” she added.

The study, which was carried out in a laboratory with the second highest security level to prevent accidental escape, resulted in 127 different viral hybrids between H5N1 and H1N1, five of which were able to pass by airborne transmission between laboratory guinea pigs.

Professor Simon Wain-Hobson, an eminent virologist at the Pasteur Institute in Paris, said it is very likely that some or all of these hybrids could pass easily between humans and possess some or all of the highly lethal characteristics of H5N1 bird-flu.

“Nobody can extrapolate to humans except to conclude that the five viruses would probably transmit reasonable well between humans,” Professor Wain-Hobson said.

“We don’t know the pathogenicity [lethality] in man and hopefully we will never know. But if the case fatality rate was between 0.1 and 20 per cent, and a pandemic affected 500 million people, you could estimate anything between 500,000 and 100 million deaths,” he said.

“It’s a fabulous piece of virology by the Chinese group and it’s very impressive, but they haven’t been thinking clearly about what they are doing. It’s very worrying,” Professor Wain-Hobson said.

“The virological basis of this work is not strong. It is of no use for vaccine development and the benefit in terms of surveillance for new flu viruses is oversold,” he added.

An increasing number of scientists outside the influenza field have expressed concern over attempts to deliberately increase the human transmissibility of the H5N1 bird-flu virus. This is done by mutating the virus so that it can pass by airborne droplets between laboratory ferrets, the standard “animal model” of human influenza.

Two previous studies, by Ron Fouchier of Erasmus Medical Centre in Rotterdam and Yoshihiro Kawaoka of the University of Wisconsin, Madison, caused uproar in 2011 when it emerged that they had created airborne versions of H5N1 that could be passed between ferrets.

The criticism led to researchers to impose a voluntary moratorium on their H5N1 research, banning transmission studies using ferrets. However they decided to lift the ban earlier this year, arguing that they have now consulted widely with health organisations and the public over safety concerns.

However, other scientists have criticised the decision to lift the moratorium.


Source:
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/appalling-irresponsibility-senior-scientists-attack-chinese-researchers-for-creating-new-strains-of-influenza-virus-in-veterinary-laboratory-8601658.html
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No worries, they will have a vaccine antidote soon enough. <s>

alucard13mmfmj
05-03-2013, 07:00 AM
Chinese always interested in research like this. Maybe something good will happen with new discoveries :P

Mani
05-03-2013, 07:40 AM
What could possibly go wrong with this??? :rolleyes:



http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0108941/

alucard13mmfmj
05-03-2013, 07:45 AM
you don't trust Chinese people?

Mani
05-03-2013, 08:04 AM
you don't trust Chinese people?


Ah hum, no.....i live next door to china....so I know a thing or two about their "safety standards"......

Origanalist
05-03-2013, 09:45 AM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=WUAvTn3uz5w

Anti Federalist
05-03-2013, 11:18 AM
Jesus...

jllundqu
05-03-2013, 11:38 AM
What? It's not like we don't do the same thing... Just look at Project Paperclip and Plum Island. Look at the shiny new National Bio-Agro-defense Facility (NBAF) being built to replace Plum Island: http://www.dhs.gov/national-bio-and-agro-defense-facility

also: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erich_Traub

We do much worse than China could ever do...

pcosmar
05-03-2013, 11:40 AM
And this is different than Baxter Pharmaceutical,,how?

http://www.opednews.com/articles/Still-Think-They-re-Not-Tr-by-Mr-M-090305-202.html

ClydeCoulter
05-03-2013, 11:46 AM
What? It's not like we don't do the same thing... Just look at Project Paperclip and Plum Island. Look at the shiny new National Bio-Agro-defense Facility (NBAF) being built to replace Plum Island: http://www.dhs.gov/national-bio-and-agro-defense-facility

also: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erich_Traub

We do much worse than China could ever do...

We do crap to our crops, like corn, soya, banana, peanuts...:(

paulbot24
05-03-2013, 11:52 AM
America has been doing this for years with these families of virus strains, and citing the same excuses/reasons. Why wouldn't the Chinese, who seem especially vulnerable culturally to this type of outbreak do their own research? Why should they trust the Western world who's been telling them they've been "working on it" for years? Our media can't ever make up its mind whether to paint the Chinese as our greatest threat (not terrifying, but scary) or bumbling idiots who would end up shooting themselves in the foot.

jkr
05-03-2013, 12:07 PM
ok

Can we NOW put all these evil, violent, tyrannical, retards on a rocket to the M00N and let them fight it out there?

ALL OF THEM

Anti Federalist
05-03-2013, 12:52 PM
This in no way excuses the mad scientists we have working on these choking plagues of death.

This is where the "all technology is neutral" argument fails.

sailingaway
05-03-2013, 12:53 PM
you don't trust Chinese people?

It's like Pandora's box, once it exists you have to worry about perfect security. Better it not exist. It didn't really add to academic knowledge. We feel the same about our own government creating this stuff.

sailingaway
05-03-2013, 12:55 PM
America has been doing this for years with these families of virus strains, and citing the same excuses/reasons. Why wouldn't the Chinese, who seem especially vulnerable culturally to this type of outbreak do their own research? Why should they trust the Western world who's been telling them they've been "working on it" for years? Our media can't ever make up its mind whether to paint the Chinese as our greatest threat (not terrifying, but scary) or bumbling idiots who would end up shooting themselves in the foot.

I think our scientists in America shouldn't be such damned fools as well. You are acting like those people who when you criticize NDAA say 'Well, Bush passed the Patriot Act!" as if you remotely thought the Patriot Act was a good thing.

paulbot24
05-03-2013, 01:18 PM
I agree it is full-on retard to play with these things and "wonder" how we get such smart, pesky little pathogens. I just think it is arrogant for the West to say the Chinese are playing with fire and that the risk outweighs any potential benefits while doing the same thing. In fact the virus(es) we built (and funded) actually prefer humans over birds now as it relates to transmission and replication. We already took this virus that kills half of what it infects in the avian wild, spliced and diced it, and created one just as deadly as before, with one exception. Its "novel design" is now engineered to (finally?) bypass human mucus membranes making humans a more desirable and transmittable host for the virus now. Same death rate as before, now with massive human killing power! Nice work fellows! Here's an excerpt of the article and the link is below. (Bold mine)

'A novel human virus'
In Kawaoka's earlier study, his team induced random mutations in the HA of a 2004 H5N1 strain from Vietnam and then identified those that caused increased binding to human-type cell receptors, known as alpha2,6 receptors. The researchers then created assortment viruses consisting of the genes for the mutant H5 HAs joined to seven other genes from the 2009 pandemic H1N1 virus.....if Kawaoka's (or Fouchier's) virus escaped from a lab, it might not become a pandemic strain immediately, but it could begin spreading in humans and quickly evolve into one. "So even if this Kawaoka configuration isn't the BIG ONE, it could rapidly lead to it," he asserted.

http://www.cidrap.umn.edu/cidrap/content/influenza/panflu/news/apr2513receptor.html

sailingaway
05-03-2013, 01:31 PM
I agree it is full-on retard to play with these things and "wonder" how we get such smart, pesky little pathogens. I just think it is arrogant for the West to say the Chinese are playing with fire and that the risk outweighs any potential benefits while doing the same thing. In fact the virus(es) we built (and funded) actually prefer humans over birds now as it relates to transmission and replication. We already took this virus that kills half of what it infects in the avian wild, spliced and diced it, and created one just as deadly as before, with one exception. Its "novel design" is now engineered to (finally?) bypass human mucus membranes making humans a more desirable and transmittable host for the virus now. Same death rate as before, now with massive human killing power! Nice work fellows! Here's an excerpt of the article and the link is below. (Bold mine)

'A novel human virus'
In Kawaoka's earlier study, his team induced random mutations in the HA of a 2004 H5N1 strain from Vietnam and then identified those that caused increased binding to human-type cell receptors, known as alpha2,6 receptors. The researchers then created assortment viruses consisting of the genes for the mutant H5 HAs joined to seven other genes from the 2009 pandemic H1N1 virus.....if Kawaoka's (or Fouchier's) virus escaped from a lab, it might not become a pandemic strain immediately, but it could begin spreading in humans and quickly evolve into one. "So even if this Kawaoka configuration isn't the BIG ONE, it could rapidly lead to it," he asserted.

http://www.cidrap.umn.edu/cidrap/content/influenza/panflu/news/apr2513receptor.html

I don't protest as part of 'the West' but as a human being who lives on this planet, and am just as pissed by the games 'the West' plays.

Working Poor
05-03-2013, 01:54 PM
I am sure the elote keep hoping for a pandemic they can get behind.....

Carson
05-03-2013, 05:43 PM
The overriding thing for me on hearing this article is that often when someone out of the blue starts pointing fingers at someone that maybe they are just trying to shift blame away from themselves.

The stuff sounds pretty scary to me. I heard about a team digging for samples in a cemetery from the 1918 flu pandemic (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1918_flu_pandemic). Creepy no matter the precautions. Only Hero's need apply?

Then a few years after that I met one of the guys working on bird virus vaccines here. I'm thinking from those very samples. He was one of the people that helped develop a vaccine, about ten years(?) ago, during the end of the last outbreak. They still didn't know how effective it would be, if I remember right. He had a great accent.

Then it all went away.

Now I'm hearing it is back. And not sounding very good at all.

KrokHead
05-03-2013, 05:45 PM
Will trans-virusism out compete transhumanism?

ZenBowman
05-03-2013, 11:09 PM
Nobody has a right to stop anyone else from conducting their scientific experiments. If their experiments end up harming people, then they should certainly be sued, but we cannot allow the forward march of science to be stopped by fear.

bolil
05-03-2013, 11:30 PM
What? It's not like we don't do the same thing... Just look at Project Paperclip and Plum Island. Look at the shiny new National Bio-Agro-defense Facility (NBAF) being built to replace Plum Island: http://www.dhs.gov/national-bio-and-agro-defense-facility

also: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erich_Traub

We do much worse than China could ever do...
Its not we, and it is not the chinese per se, it is elites doing what the fuck they do... being assholes. The big one is coming, why shouldn't the next pandemic be a man made one?

Good, I am okay with it getting out as long as the people responsible get killed too.

ZenBowman
05-08-2013, 09:04 AM
Its not we, and it is not the chinese per se, it is elites doing what the fuck they do... being assholes. The big one is coming, why shouldn't the next pandemic be a man made one?

Good, I am okay with it getting out as long as the people responsible get killed too.

Scientists are elites now?

Calling everyone 'elites' makes the term meaningless, lets keep the word reserved for actual elites.

pcosmar
05-08-2013, 09:13 AM
Scientists are elites now?

Calling everyone 'elites' makes the term meaningless, lets keep the word reserved for actual elites.

Yup.. They have been in lockstep partnership with the ruling elite for centuries.

And I have nothing against science itself,, or of ethical studies.
But ethics and morality are more often than not,, left at the door.

Anti Federalist
06-04-2021, 09:10 AM
blimp

Aratus
06-04-2021, 09:26 PM
i do agree.... if COVID-19 was created in ANY lab, whether by way of orders from the Chinese gov't or more to the point,
ANY GOVERNMENT on this bloody planet, or by way of money and a sophisticated band or group of terrorists, if the virus
is artificial, this begs a question! CHINA may have been attacked, but then the bio-weapon went global. hit the 'perp' too.

Aratus
06-04-2021, 09:26 PM
whether CHINA is very innocent or very guilty, each time we modify DNA and/or RNA strings, this debates a question!!!!!!

pcosmar
06-04-2021, 11:48 PM
whether CHINA is very innocent or very guilty, each time we modify DNA and/or RNA strings, this debates a question!!!!!!

I personally do not believe it was created in a Chines lab.
I think it came from a Us Lab with US coronaviruses as a base. (one reason it had little real impact here)
I think it was released in China. for dual purposes..

I also believe it is far less virulent than planned, and so it needed Medical malpractice and Media Hype to Sell it.

and I do believe it is an agenda that transcends either political party. and politics fuels it.