New Research Makes Bird Flu Airborne

Discussion Open Forum
1

This is a truly scary story. A researcher into H5N1 has created a mutation of the virus to make it airborne. He admits it was an incredibly stupid thing to do.

[quote]Bird flu, or H5N1, has infected 600 people on official figures, mostly in south-east Asia, and killed more than half of those - though it is believed the true fatality rate is less as some may have caught the virus but not been hospitalised.
It can currently only be caught by close exposure to infected birds.
However, the new research demonstrated that the virus could be mutated, through genetic manipulation and other methods, into a form that was transmitted between ferrets in airborne droplets from coughs and sneezes. Ferrets are considered a good model for human-to-human virus transmission. The NSABB said this posed a big risk to the world.
Professor Osterholm said one of the researchers, when he described his work at a conference, said he had done “something really, really stupid” in mutating the virus, describing it as a “very, very dangerous virus”.

Read more: theage.com.au/world/bird-flu … z1lMr2oSQS[/quote]

2

At any point, did anyone stop and say, wait maybe this is not a great idea?

3

You have to wonder.

4

I think this has a lot to do with vaccine research.

5

I think this has a lot to do with vaccine research.[/quote]

You don’t make deadly viruses easier to transmit unless you are bonkers.

6

My understanding of the rationale behind developing this virus is that it will help researchers start to develop a vaccine against such a virus today instead of after the virus breaks out.

Right now, the virus may evolve and one day become airborne without human intervention. If that happens, we could have a really scary epidemic, and it may take months to develop the vaccine against it. God know how many lives would be lost during these months and how far it would spread since no vaccine would be ready. So someone has proactively mutated the virus so that vaccine research can start today.

I’d say it’s more questionable that samples of smallpox is kept by the US and Russia, although there is no point to keep these samples for public health.

7

[quote=“elburro”]My understanding of the rationale behind developing this virus is that it will help researchers start to develop a vaccine against such a virus today instead of after the virus breaks out.

Right now, the virus may evolve and one day become airborne without human intervention. If that happens, we could have a really scary epidemic, and it may take months to develop the vaccine against it. God know how many lives would be lost during these months and how far it would spread since no vaccine would be ready. So someone has proactively mutated the virus so that vaccine research can start today.

I’d say it’s more questionable that samples of smallpox is kept by the US and Russia, although there is no point to keep these samples for public health.[/quote]

Look what happened when the US wanted to scare everybody into the homeland act. They started using anthrax on their own people. It is just irresponsible and what say does the average Joe have over it. Even the guy who did it knew he was wrong.

8

Two scientific groups , one in the US and one in the Netherlands were working on the same issue. It is important and meaningful research. It allows researchers to pinpoint some of the key changes a bird flu virus needs to become a full blown human pandemic. Rather they do it openly than in a secret us army lab.
At least it highlights the need for concern in the future as technology is advancing quickly.

9

That is not how science works.

10

It is a murky line, I tell you. Funny that a few days before this was released, there was call for “censorship”, or at least, treat data with outmost secrecy, due to the level of danger a leak of information in the “wrong hands” -ie terrorists- would imply. First, ther ewas no mention of the “altered” virus.

Here:
bbc.co.uk/news/health-16822541
cbc.ca/news/health/story/201 … rship.html

Then you had:
reuters.com/article/2012/01/ … 9P20120131

However, the issue is not new:
npr.org/blogs/health/2011/11 … rism-field

[quote]Now, as a Nov. 17 article by Nell Greenfieldboyce entitled “Bird Flu Research Rattles Bio-Terrorism Field” states, some in the scientific community are arguing that making findings public “could potentially reveal how to make powerful new bio-weapons.”

Oddly though, no one seems concerned that the research itself is taking place or asking why such discoveries are being pursued.

Lynn Enquist, editor in chief of the Journal of Virology, explained it this way to AFP: “Scientists in the United States and all around the world are very curious as to how this thing is going to evolve because we have to be prepared for it.”

Ironically, in preparing for such an eventuality, scientists seem to be creating deadlier viruses rather than these contagions evolving naturally.

[/quote]
americanfreepress.net/?p=1634

It would be so ironic that in getting ready for the next big threat, they are actually creating the next big threat. I wonder how much we truly understand about these viruses, that such dangerous trial and error approaches are engaged.

11

It’s right to be concerned about the level of security involved, but it’s also true that nature itself can produce more deadly threats than we can create.
These viral mutants could not be created by terrorist cells and would be difficult to produce by most nations without killing themselves in the process.

It’s a brave new world, but you don’t get anywhere by sticking your head in the sand until somebody blows up an atom bomb in your face.

12

“I am not worried about the man that wants 10 nuclear bombs. I am terrified of the man who only wants one”.

It is not so much as security as humulity. Do these guys really know what they are doing? That’s waht we all hope. Great power, great responsibility and all that jazz. But mostly, do they really understand the ramifications, the consequences of their actions? Th epeople of the manhattan project debated their roles and responsibility for years. Nature takes a lot longer to make radical changes, and I am more concerned with people twicking this or that to see what happenes rather than OK, we should see what happens when A does this because we need to be prepared with B to counteract. If they have a plan, fine, but the “oops, I shouldn’t have done that” part is what scares me the most.

13

It’s right to ask questions first rather than later. Still these labs were operating in highly secure environments and they DID choose to self censor in the end. That they were manipulating such an easily transmissable virus has even me a bit worried though!

14

More to the point they were facilitating the transmission of a very deadly virus that hitherto could only be spread by intimate contact with animals. I don’t mean that in the biblical sense.

15

The virus does have the potential to mutate into a human transmissable form. The researchers were testing what mutations would be neccessary for it to achieve this, now they have a better idea they can use it to judge when a pandemic may take place and how serious it could be. They can also design vaccines more precisely.

16

I really doubt this. I know extremely little about viruses, but I suspect the following is true. please correct me if I’m wrong.

They may have figured out one such mutation. There are a large number of other ones that are possible. It’s extremely unlikely that the exact mutation they’ve come up with will be one that occurs naturally at some point in the future. The knowledge they have gained may be useful to give a general understanding about viral mutations but is unlikely to give any immediate practical benefit, while presenting a significant risk to public health.

17

Yes there are a range of mutations possible but it is possible to predict ahead of time the effect of certain mutations as specific enzymes or structural proteins of the virus are more important for transmissability. Researchers can use research on H1N1 and the Spanish bird flu variant to get an idea. I haven’t read the papers or background papers so can’t really comment much more.

The other thing it does is to make the public and governments realise in a very concrete way that yes, bird flu epidemics need to be prepared for and taken very seriously.

There is no doubt these virus strains created were dangerous, however it is unclear if they would be spread very far if they went ‘wild’.

18

[quote=“headhonchoII”]Yes there are a range of mutations possible but it is possible to predict ahead of time the effect of certain mutations as specific enzymes or structural proteins of the virus are more important for transmissability. Researchers can use research on H1N1 and the Spanish bird flu variant to get an idea. I haven’t read the papers or background papers so can’t really comment much more.

The other thing it does is to make the public and governments realise in a very concrete way that yes, bird flu epidemics need to be prepared for and taken very seriously.

There is no doubt these virus strains created were dangerous, however it is unclear if they would be spread very far if they went ‘wild’.[/quote]

Airborne means they would spread easily from victim to victim the same way regular flu which kills hundreds of thousands every year spreads. Yes, hundreds of thousands. In the US alone regular flu kills 40000 people a year.

19

Yes Fox but that is ‘wild type’ strain that is very efficient at spreading from person to person. There are a lot of factors that influence a viruses ability to cause a pandemic. If the virus has a high lethality rate it can actually prevent it from spreading quickly. If the virus cannot survive long in cold or hot temperatures outside the body the spread can be retarded. If the virus is recognised by existing vaccines or by antivirals etc etc.
Even if one escaped it could quickly mutate into a non-lethal version which spreads more effectively, the non-lethal version could outcompete the lethal version leading the lethal version to die out within 10-20 transmissions, this is often what happens in nature and pretty much what happened with SARS I believe. Of course there is a risk that it maintains its lethal characteristics while spreading effectively.

You hit on an important point above, which is that regular bog standard winter flu could kill far more every year than a lethal strain that may not spread very far although kill a large number of the people infected. Which is again what happened with SARS.

20

[quote=“headhonchoII”]Yes Fox but that is ‘wild type’ strain that is very efficient at spreading from person to person. There are a lot of factors that influence a viruses ability to cause a pandemic. If the virus has a high lethality rate it can actually prevent it from spreading quickly. If the virus cannot survive long in cold or hot temperatures outside the body the spread can be retarded. If the virus is recognised by existing vaccines or by antivirals etc etc.
Even if one escaped it could quickly mutate into a non-lethal version which spreads more effectively, the non-lethal version could outcompete the lethal version leading the lethal version to die out within 10-20 transmissions, this is often what happens in nature and pretty much what happened with SARS I believe. Of course there is a risk that it maintains its lethal characteristics while spreading effectively.

You hit on an important point above, which is that regular bog standard winter flu could kill far more every year than a lethal strain that may not spread very far although kill a large number of the people infected. Which is again what happened with SARS.[/quote]

It’s the airborne factor. That is the concern. Viruses such as Ebola are spread through actual physical contact with infected tissues so although it is highly lethal it is also easy to quarantine. This is the issue with highly virulent viruses. Other types of viruses like SARS are easily killed by sunlight. However, the point here is that they have made this bird flu virus airborne which means all bets are off. It is not easy to quarantine. It could mutate or it might mutate into a more virulent form of an already very deadly virus. Making it airborne was stupid, even the guy who did it knows that much. There is no justification for reducing the ability to quarantine a virus. In actual fact bird flu H5N1 responds very well to common anti virus medications. They know that already. Making something airborne doesn’t increase your ability to make a vaccine for it. That is just flirting with disaster and completely irresponsible.