Designer Diseases

Hi All, I have been thinking about the possibility of so called designer diseases and the many conspiracies surrounding them and wanted to get my thoughts in order so thought why not express them here at the same time.
Some of the viruses in question include Bird Flu, HIV/Aids and Ebola. I am sure we can all think of more. Now many of these viruses seem to have “mysterious” origins and are many urban legends as to how they came about. EG (Aids came from a monkey/pig/some exotic animal) and the origins may be as given but who in the general population would know for sure?
I see 3 possibilities.
1) All is as told to us by our ever believable authorities and they are feverishly trying to create a cure for all of the above and more.
2) The Authorities are up to something, either weaponry or population control. And in either scenario were they accidentally released or are they being trialed on the public?
3) Both 1 & 2 are correct. By this I mean they are and have been working on designer diseases (and hopefully cures) and the above “natural” diseases being spread are working in their favour so when they do release their new virus it can easily be blamed on a new super bug?

Anyone have any thoughts confirmations or denials?

reply to post by VIKINGANT


would you add antibiotic resistance diseases such as the recent (first) three meningitis cases in the United States or would you classify them as mutations?

I 'spose this is part of my question....Who is to say? It's possible depending on how conspiritally (is that a word) minded you are.

Also, as a bit of an afterthough to my original post, maybe there is a you beaut, thanks for coming, smoke 'em if you got 'em type super bug ready for release in 2012 just in case all the other "natural" disasters dont eventuate?!?!?



[edit on 11/3/2008 by VIKINGANT]

How many "outbreak" style books and movies are there?

Loads!

Where there is smoke there are smokey things!

And you missed SARS!

That was made by the Chinese Gov to kill off all the freaking old people they have, that are going to burden their economy in the next 15-25 years. Unfortunately it attacked young healthy people and the drugs that cured them left them rather damaged. Back to the drawing board!

Not very funny mind you. Hong Kong was not a great place to be that year! Scared the # outta me!

MonKey

reply to post by ChiKeyMonKey


Yes. SARS is a big one. I wanted to leave room for input so thanks for that. I never heard about the old people concept with that, but I guess it would have been all the talk in China.
Regarding the Movie/Book idea, my favorite on this topic is The stand by Steven King. I have often wondered if the conspiracy theory came from the book or if the book was inspired by the theory?

Well, nobody is that optimistic as to think that military bio-warfare development peaked with anthrax (was developed during ww2) so there are deadly unknown toys in storing, for sure. However there is also natural process due to which new human-"targeting" disease are and will be appearing. Population is growing, people are changing places with higher frequency and places with no previous human population are colonized. So it is hard to answer , but in my opinion, new deadly weapon will for sure remain deadly only if nobody knows what it is. Once it is used, ways to fight it could be found.
As for those above-mentioned threats - biggest killer among them is HIV. There is money to be made to pharmaceutical industry, and it is being made with high - priced combination of medications which is intended to be used as long as person is alive. To make effective antiviral one time-treatment is hard but it also means - loose money being made now. So i suppose that once patents will start running out and generic companies will be able to enter the market, something better WILL appear. As for "designer" of this - i would say nature,virus is too good at what it does.
Ebola- very dangerous, highly monitored, no money to be made right now - no interest from pharmacy guys. I bet that some countries might have it as a weapon, but design - nature (in my opinion).Local bats as transmitters, and similar stuff points it to be endemic to the area.
SARS - ChiKeyMonKey could be right, respiratory diseases are usually more dangerous to older/weaker people,but this is dangerous to all. However the fact that survival rate is not that small- if a weapon, then poor one.
Bird Flu - Also the problem that survival rates are "acceptable". Since this is not the first case of animal disease sticking to humans - i'd say it is nature at work.
I feel that the easiest way to wipe us out would be to take an existing bacteria (like ones that causes ,say, pneumonia), give it all the resistance traits, and there you go - only countries with access to few non-resistant (yet) antibiotics will be relatively unharmed.

reply to post by ZeroKnowledge


I couldnt agree more about the profiteering in medication. it has been said that there are cures for some major viruses that havent/wont been released.
Your expaination of this listed bugs is very much accptable. they were only listed as well known examples but am sure there are some yet to be named bugs getting ready. Naturally as well as otherwise. Is there a "doomsday bug" looming? Not for me to say.....