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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsWe don't have to wait for nature to make bird flu airborne. We now have man-made airborne bird flu
Scientists create bird flu that spreads easily among mammals
Scientists have created versions of the H5N1 bird flu that spread easily among mammals through droplets in sneezes and have concluded that it is certainly possible the deadly virus could trigger a global pandemic in humans.
Writing in Friday's edition of the journal Science, Dutch researchers laid out for their fellow scientists and the public precisely how they engineered bird flu strains that were contagious in ferrets, laboratory animals often used as proxies for people in influenza research. As few as five mutations, generated by passing the virus from ferret to ferret to ferret just 10 times, may be enough to allow the bug to infect new hosts through the air, said virologist Ron Fouchier, lead author of the controversial report.
"We assume also in humans it would only take a low number of transmission events for these mutations to accumulate," he said.
The publication of the team's work after a six-month delay prompted by a U.S. government biosecurity panel ends a high-profile chapter in the debate over so-called dual-use research of concern: experiments that serve a legitimate scientific purpose but also could pose a threat to public health, the environment or national security.
http://articles.orlandosentinel.com/2012-06-21/news/la-sci-h5n1-bird-flu-20120622_1_h5n1-richard-webby-bird-flu
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We don't have to wait for nature to make bird flu airborne. We now have man-made airborne bird flu (Original Post)
Baitball Blogger
Jun 2012
OP
Ah, another way the 1% plans on culling the masses and avoiding the problems from
LiberalLoner
Jun 2012
#1
They simply created a simulation of a potential, and based on history probable, natural scenerio
FedUpWithIt All
Jun 2012
#3
Sounds like a national health plan might reduce the potential of someone
Baitball Blogger
Jun 2012
#4
LiberalLoner
(9,762 posts)1. Ah, another way the 1% plans on culling the masses and avoiding the problems from
overpopulation! Very interesting!
FedUpWithIt All
(4,442 posts)3. They simply created a simulation of a potential, and based on history probable, natural scenerio
It really only takes a person with the right airborne virus to catch the bird flu as well. If two compatible viruses strike the same person at the same time, the two become one and....bad news.
Baitball Blogger
(46,787 posts)4. Sounds like a national health plan might reduce the potential of someone
becoming a mixing vessel, no?
originalpckelly
(24,382 posts)5. No.
It would mean that we could treat someone who had, and possibly keep them from spreading the infection, but nothing more.
That's just a random thing.
We should have universal health insurance for infectious diseases, at minimum, I must say. It's a social risk, not a personal risk like cancer. It is suited to a socialized health plan.