Scientist creates deadly new flu strain for pandemic research

Scientist created deadly new flu strain for pandemic research

A scientist who carried out research on making influenza viruses more infectious has deliberately created a potentially lethal strain of flu that can evade the human immune system.

The article goes on to describe how Yoshihiro Kawaoka of the University of Wisconsin-Madison has changed a 2009 strain of pandemic flu to bypass the human bodies immune system rendering it incapable of forming antibodies to combat the flu.


I'm having a hard time grasping this. What in the world would possess someone to modify a version of an already deadly flu, and engineer it to be 100% lethal? I don't understand how you remove all ability for the human body to fight something like this. Usually, aren't these things engineered with vaccines in mind?

The article also says that the research was cleared, but the depth of the research was kept hidden. So basically, he never disclosed he was engineering it to for a 100% mortality rate.

Here's hoping something like this never sees the light of day.

a reply to: EternalSolace

Totally out of control. The guy needs to be locked away in the deepest darkest dungeon and the school needs to be heavily fined and taken off the list of institutions which receive any tax derived funding.

I thought universities were places where people go to get smart ... Not Do Dumb Things!!

I feel completely safe. I mean, there's never been an instance of labs having accidents, or vials of deadly diseases/toxins disappearing, being misplaced, or mishandled.

Nope. I feel as snug as a bug in a rug with this news. The fact that other scientists were concerned isn't really concerning at all. What do they know??

Guess where killer bees came from? Somebody experimented with cross-breeding and one of the experiments escaped.

But then, "If we don't do this research, then someone else will"

a reply to: Kangaruex4Ewe

Yes.
Now that the info is out, some whack job can steal it and release it.
Some things are better left unsaid. It is bad enough that someone that has access to the viruses could lose his marbles and release it... Now a million whackos know about it.

Will the scientist publish his data in a paper so that a mad scientist can replicate his work? OMG, I hope not.

originally posted by: butcherguy
a reply to: Kangaruex4Ewe

Yes.
Now that the info is out, some whack job can steal it and release it.
Some things are better left unsaid. It is bad enough that someone that has access to the viruses could lose his marbles and release it... Now a million whackos know about it.

Will the scientist publish his data in a paper so that a mad scientist can replicate his work? OMG, I hope not.

The professor stated that his study was complete and ready to be submitted into a scientific journal. So, there goes that small ray of hope.

It seems the new pandemic is ignorance.

This sounds similar to the beginning of the Stephen King book "The Stand"....

Wouldn't be hard for something like that to get out and into the open!

a reply to: Kangaruex4Ewe

What further blows my mind is that this was created in a level two lab. I don't understand how someone gets away with this. If the CDC has trouble containing anthrax in a level three facility, and over seventy people are contaminated with it, that doesn't leave much hope for those at a research university in a level two lab.

All it would take is one infected person in that lab, to go to the store, and there's the potential for an epidemic of which the world has never seen.

Complete sentimentalization. This is not 100% lethal. This does not bypass the immune system.

Everything you wrote is 100% wrong.

He altered the flu to a pre-pandemic state, which MAY make the antibodies specifically created against this flu no longer work. New antibodies would be created by our immune system though.

This is not 1% as bad as you made it out to be.

GOOD JOY!

hell yeah!

I mean, Why Not?!

why wouldn't we be making some new diseases?

what could ever go wrong?!

it has been written in the book:

"maketh thou some new diseases and locketh them down at dark place and prayeth"

a reply to: demus

As I already pointed out read the article, OP is 100% wrong on what is going on.

Not to say there is zero danger ... but it's pretty minor.

originally posted by: EternalSolace
Scientist created deadly new flu strain for pandemic research

A scientist who carried out research on making influenza viruses more infectious has deliberately created a potentially lethal strain of flu that can evade the human immune system.

The article goes on to describe how Yoshihiro Kawaoka of the University of Wisconsin-Madison has changed a 2009 strain of pandemic flu to bypass the human bodies immune system rendering it incapable of forming antibodies to combat the flu.


I'm having a hard time grasping this. What in the world would possess someone to modify a version of an already deadly flu, and engineer it to be 100% lethal? I don't understand how you remove all ability for the human body to fight something like this. Usually, aren't these things engineered with vaccines in mind?

The article also says that the research was cleared, but the depth of the research was kept hidden. So basically, he never disclosed he was engineering it to for a 100% mortality rate.

Here's hoping something like this never sees the light of day.

Give man a half-ass degree, a building and some money and look what we can do!

Man has no right to govern itself.

originally posted by: OccamsRazor04
Complete sentimentalization. This is not 100% lethal. This does not bypass the immune system.

Everything you wrote is 100% wrong.

He altered the flu to a pre-pandemic state, which MAY make the antibodies specifically created against this flu no longer work. New antibodies would be created by our immune system though.

This is not 1% as bad as you made it out to be.

A virus that the body cannot defend against, is lethal. Yes, he altered the strain to its pandemic state. In doing so, he did, not may, make antibodies useless. If a flu can evade the immune system, like the article said, it makes it 100% lethal.

Unless I'm reading this wrong, and he just created a new strain that has no current antibodies, but the body still can create antibodies to combat the virus, then I understand how I was wrong in my understanding.

But from what I gather, he created a virus that the body cannot make antibodies to defend itself. Therein lies my concern and point of the thread. If I'm wrong in my comprehension, please help clarify.

Who told him to do this?
one guess!

its a great way to stop over crowding!!!

a reply to: Jesuslives4u

Except OP is wrong, he did not do that. Hilarious how I have said it over and over.

a reply to: OccamsRazor04

Care to point out where exactly I went wrong? Or are you going to ignore my specific reply to you? If I'm wrong, add something to the discussion and stop just claiming I'm wrong.

originally posted by: EternalSolace

originally posted by: OccamsRazor04
Complete sentimentalization. This is not 100% lethal. This does not bypass the immune system.

Everything you wrote is 100% wrong.

He altered the flu to a pre-pandemic state, which MAY make the antibodies specifically created against this flu no longer work. New antibodies would be created by our immune system though.

This is not 1% as bad as you made it out to be.

A virus that the body cannot defend against, is lethal. Yes, he altered the strain to its pandemic state. In doing so, he did, not may, make antibodies useless. If a flu can evade the immune system, like the article said, it makes it 100% lethal.

False. Can you show me where the source says this? It doesn't, because it's absolutely false.

Unless I'm reading this wrong, and he just created a new strain that has no current antibodies, but the body still can create antibodies to combat the virus, then I understand how I was wrong in my understanding.

You mean like I said you were .... so because you seemed to not hear the first time, you are reading it wrong. I explained to you what the article said. You are getting caught up in the JOURNALIST who is paraphrasing the actual scientists words. Don't ever listen to that, journalists have no clue what they are talking about. Look at the actual quotes.

This is from the article...

Professor Kawaoka has so far kept his research secret but admitted that the work is complete and ready for submission to a scientific journal. The experiment was designed to monitor the changes to the 2009 H1N1 strain of virus that would enable it to escape immune protection in order to improve the design of vaccines, he said.

That does not mean the immune system has no way of defending itself. It means the virus has at least one way of evading the immune response. An example of an immune evading virus is Hep B. The liver is an immunopriviledged, so by hiding in the liver the Hep B virus is using an immune evading tactic. Viruses in nature develop immune evading tactics, so all this guy is doing is saying what if Flu did this, what would we do to combat it? Hint Hep B has a vaccine for it. Many bacteria have immune evading tactics. NONE of them are 100% lethal. You simply do not know what the terms are and bought into journalist sentimentalization.

But from what I gather, he created a virus that the body cannot make antibodies to defend itself. Therein lies my concern and point of the thread. If I'm wrong in my comprehension, please help clarify.

False. He developed a virus that has methods of defeating the immune system. No where does he say there is no way to fight it off. We all have some antibodies that provide a first line of defense, he engineered it to beat that first line of defense. The immune system has a wide array of responses, and nothing at all in this article suggests this virus has a high mortality rate.

ETA: Just to make the point even more clear .. Flu strains ALREADY USE Immune Evading Responses. They are not 100% lethal.

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov...

a reply to: OccamsRazor04

E xclusive: Controversial US scientist creates deadly new flu strain for pandemic research

“He left no doubt in my mind that he had achieved it. He used a flu virus that is known to infect humans and then manipulated it in such a way that it would effectively leave the global population defenceless if it ever escaped from his laboratory,” he said.

“He’s basically got a known pandemic strain that is now resistant to vaccination. Everything he did before was dangerous but this is even madder. This is the virus,” he added.

So when they're saying that this virus would leave the population defenseless, from this other news source, scientists are claiming that it's because it's vaccination resistant. I concede that resistant doesn't make for a 100% fatal virus. Thank you for clearing that up. But that doesn't mean the potential for the mortality rate wouldn't be through the roof.

a reply to: EternalSolace

I think you hit on the key word .. "potential". It depends on exactly what was done. We don't have enough information to really discuss lethality. It is certainly more lethal than before he tinkered with it.

The most disturbing part of all was that it was only a biosafety level 2 facility. I would rather it was level 3.

I still have the imagination of a little child, and it tends to run wild at times- like on the Fourth of July while watching fireworks.

As the displays filled the sky's, and the air grew heavy with smoke, I began to envision the worst-case doom-porn ever.

All across America fireworks were filling the sky's, and if they had somehow been tainted with anthrax or some other biological weapon, there would be few left who were not infected.

Money talks, and it could buy a lot of destruction.
A recent thread said there were approximately 300 million radical Muslims in the world, who believe it is their duty to kill all human beings who do not believe as their religion does.

Maybe the next war on humanity will be fought with unseen forces, in the form of a virus.

(I scare myself, sometimes.)