'Stupidly Dangerous' Research on H5N1 Virus to Resume

Originally posted by SiliconLifeForm

Originally posted by thebtheb

Originally posted by SiliconLifeForm
As much as the thought of this "accidentally" getting out is pretty scary, I think it would be interesting to be personally involved in the process of experimenting with the virus.... it's risky though, does the prospect of a cure outweigh the risk of a large number of us being wiped out? Oddly I'm not entirely sure of the answer myself, however I understand peoples fairly quick and justified answer; no it's not worth it. Will there be financial gain if a cure is found and is that the main reason for taking these risks? Of course but that's how the world works, altruism is pretty much impossible to find.

If a cure is found? There has never ever been any cure found for the flu. Ever. What cure?

You make a good point and that's another thing to put into consideration however you will never know if there's a cure or not if you don't look for one. But maybe your right there's a good chance a cure will never be discovered.

I think this should pretty much close the debate, let's close them down!

Maybe it's just my point of view, but it seems like more than 90% of the worlds scientists are researching towards useless goal, usually centered towards making money.

I'm pretty sure all those scientist could work on real solutions for humanity but noooo they prefer to test viruses that they won't find the cure for anyway. They would benefit society more if they just stayed drunk all day on welfare.

reply to post by theMediator


I actually believe the circumstances here are worse than you describe - this wasn't even a virus that affected humans in the first place - they actually created it in the lab (announcing their achievement about a year ago to the horror of the scientific community).

A friend of mine gave up his job with a pharmaceutical company for ethical reasons. he said they wee no longer set a task to find a 'cure' (or symptom controller) for any conditions - simply he said if he went to his supervisor and said, 'when I do this with A and add B, C occurs' - his supervisor's response would then be 'what can we use this for?'

It's a crazy old world.