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A application for approval to conduct a clinical trial on transplanting encapsulated pig cells into diabetic patients has been turned down by a health official in New Zealand. Dr. Karen Poutasi, director-general of Health, said the trial requested by the New Zealand company Diatranz Ltd. was not approved because of concerns about the possibility of transmitting retroviruses through transplants of live pig tissue into humans.
Much of the meeting yesterday focused on controversial research being conducted by the New Zealand-based company Diatranz, Ltd., which transplanted pig islet cells into 12 diabetic children in Mexico and plans to perform other human experiments in the Cook Islands. The company's genetically modified pigs have tested positive for three classes of porcine endogenous retroviruses (PERVs). Though Diatranz claims that its patients have remained free of infection after one year - not long in the life of a retrovirus - one patient was found to have pig DNA circulating in his/her blood, suggesting a potential infection.
Diatranz's experiments were condemned by the New Zealand Ministry of Health, which enacted a moratorium on clinical xeno trials last year and issued a "xenotransplantation research warning" in a media release on March 7th. The release stated that: studies on the benefits to Diatranz's patients were inadequate and did not counterbalance the risks of transferring animal viruses to humans. Moreover, jurisdictions like Mexico and the Cook Islands did not have the appropriate regulatory mechanisms in place to safeguard public health or monitor patients and their contacts for viruses on a long term basis.
Peek behind the Wizard of Oz's (or Shanghai's) curtain, and you'll see that China's double-digit percentage growth rates are an economic sleight of hand that have come at a price of escalating bad debt and non-performing loans. At the end of 2004, bank debt in China stood at $3.7 trillion -- about twice the size of its GDP. That's the highest proportion of any economy in the world. And that debt is lent almost entirely by state-owned banks -- and over half of it by the Big Four. Today, Chinese state-owned enterprises (SOEs) owe banks over $2 trillion -- about the size of the entire Chinese economy. And the amount of outstanding loans is growing by $500 billion each year.......But the next time you hear about China's $1 trillion of foreign reserves, remember that this world record stash is barely enough to pay off its bad banking debts. And with cheap loans financing a big chunk of China's 10%+ annual economic expansion, bad debts may approach $2 trillion before the bubble bursts.
Think of the Chinese economy like the bus in the movie "Speed." The Chinese economy is like the bus that has been rigged with explosives. If its speed drops to below 50 mph, it will explode. The Chinese authorities' challenge is to keep the bus going above 50 mph until the bomb can be (somehow) defused. If economic growth does slow, SOEs won't be able to service their debts and the entire banking system will collapse on itself. And even $1 trillion won't be enough to save it.
Originally posted by tmayhew01
But what happens if it doesn't die out and the exact opposite happens... Global Pandemic!!! However unlikely it might be, the truth is nobody has any idea what is going to happen. Or at least that's what the general public thinks.