Hello

The newest thing I saw was that they were going to let them publish their findings. They said that it was so easy to modify that it will probably occur in the environment naturally anyway.

take care

"Nuke there containment labs."

Well I can think of a couple of problems with that. I mean agree with you that they should perhaps be investigated further or even shut down but nuking a place filled with a deadly flu virus seems like a bad idea for many reasons really.

They probably had something like that since the 60's. Come o, guys don't you think the stuff found in germany in ww2 would be enough?

why are they allowed to make these viruses? whats the purpose?

Originally posted by biggmoneyme
why are they allowed to make these viruses? whats the purpose?

The true purpose that we do it is to find the true way they work. If we can find triggers that make them mutate we can kill them faster. But with all research you can always discover a way to make it more lethal too.

Interesting.. but let's not forget the purpose of science:

Once in Hawaii I was taken to see a Buddhist temple. In the temple a man said, "I am going to tell you something that you will never forget." And then he said, "To every man is given the key to the gates of heaven. The same key opens the gates of hell." And so it is with science. In a way it is a key to the gates of heaven, and the same key opens the gates of hell, and we do not have any instructions as to which is which gate. Shall we throw away the key and never have a way to enter the gates of heaven? Or shall we struggle with the problem of which is the best way to use the key? That is, of course, a very serious question, but I think that we cannot deny the value of the key to the gates of heaven.

All the major problems of the relations between society and science lie in this same area. When the scientist is told that he must be more responsible for his effects on society, it is the applications of science that are referred to. If you work to develop nuclear energy you must realize also that it can be used harmfully. Therefore, you would expect that, in a discussion of this kind by a scientist, this would be the most important topic. But I will not talk about it further. I think that to say these are scientific problems is an exaggeration. They are far more humanitarian problems. The fact that how to work the power is clear, but how to control it is not, is something not so scientific and is not something that the scientist knows so much about.

This whole story has been totally blown out of proportion.

The word Case fatality rate is often used. H5N1 has a Case fatality rate of about 50% which is quite high. But what does case fatality mean.

People who actually get so sick they have to go to the hospital. From this people 50% Die. There is a large proportion of the population that got infected and didnt got sick. In many asian countries People are tested positive for antibodies against H5N1 without ever becoming sick from it.

Also the Ferret experiment that was actually done is pretty simple. The whole censorship bollocks is pretty pointless since its pretty easy to reproduce. And honestly there are far better bioweapons available.

You take H5N1, infect the ferret intranasally wait a bit, grind up the loung, get the virus out. and repeat the process until you get a virus that is "airborne" and can infect a healthy ferret in a neighbour cage. Thats essentially it.

The researcher actually said on the last Biodefense meeting that its actually not very deadly and that he had very few test animals.

So H5N1 transmits very poorly and Its deadlyness is far overrated.

However this research is importend, if the virus does make it at one point and becomes transmissable between humans and we know nothing about it then we got a problem. If we are prepared then...well we are prepared. Being prepared is always good.

David Rockefeller's Sloan Kettering Cancer fund has been calling up households left and right for "the gift of life" donations etc

Surprise surprise, guess where the donations are going?



(then again, Rockefeller's name should be synonymous with DEPOP by now, to most if not all ATsers)