CALLS TO CENSOR DETAILS OF POTENTIAL KILLER FLU

[mellie]

CALLS TO CENSOR DETAILS OF POTENTIAL KILLER FLU
Alison Caldwell, ABC
December 21, 2011, 4:55 pm

The suppression of breakthrough research into deadly bird flu strains has been labelled scientific censorship by some, but others say it is a necessary step to prevent a possible biological attack.

Last month researchers in the Netherlands discovered that the H5N1 influenza virus, or bird flu, could develop into a dangerous virus that can spread between humans.

The H5N1 strain of bird flu is fatal in 60 per cent of human cases but only 350 people have so far died from the disease largely because it cannot be spread by sneezing or coughing.

But by using ferrets in a lab, the researchers proved it was possible to change H5N1 into an aerosol-transmissible virus that can be easily spread rapidly through the air.

The genetic mutations could trigger deadly epidemics in humans, and the scientists behind the research have now agreed to remove key details of their work from publication.

The research - known as the Erasmus study - alarmed the National Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity (NSABB), a US government science committee.

It argued the information could be used by terrorists to orchestrate a biological attack using the virus.

The virologists were planning to publish their research in the respected journals Science and Nature.

But they have now agreed to redact their manuscripts at the request of the NSABB.

Dr Philip Cambell, Nature's editor-in-chief, describes the NSABB's recommendations as unprecedented.

"It is essential for public health that the full details of any scientific analysis of flu viruses be available to researchers," he said in a statement.

He says authorities are trying to work out how appropriate access to the scientific methods and data can be granted within the scenario recommended by the NSABB.

Censorship

But there are concerns now that science is being censored.

Professor Wendy Barclay, the chair of Influenza Virology at Imperial College in London, says the Erasmus study should be reviewed and shared.

"It's a very worrying idea that the information may be restricted to those that qualify in some way to be allowed to share it," she said in a statement.

"Who will qualify? How will this be decided? In the end, is the likelihood of misuse outweighed by the danger of beginning a big brother society?

"I'm not convinced that withholding scientific know-how will prevent the highly unlikely scenario of misuse of information, but I am worried that it may stunt our progress towards the improved control of this infectious disease."

'Major mistake'

Peter Collignon, a Professor of Infectious Diseases and Microbiology at the Australian National University, says the study should not have been conducted in the first place.

"Yes this is censorship, but by allowing this material to be out in the general public I think you're putting public health at higher risk rather than lower risk," he said.

"If you've actually taken a virus like the influenza virus... if you genetically engineer that and engineer mutations that then make it readily transmissible from... potentially from person to person, that is a huge problem given that the millions of people who've died in 1918 as a result of the Spanish flu.

"So to allow that material to be published that may be used by somebody with less than honourable intents, to use it to engineer something, I think is a major mistake.

"But what is even more a major mistake was that this research was allowed to go ahead in the first place."

Scary

He says there should be an international convention on the use of aggressive viruses.

"I think if you're taking a virus we have now and making it even more aggressive or more lethal and more easily spread, I do think you need an international convention or group of countries that regulate that so that just one country can't use it against the others," he said.

"And to me you really have to justify doing it and have to do this in the utmost secure facilities."

The Erasmus study was commissioned by the American National Institutes of Health.

The Dutch research team was led by Ron Fouchier at Rotterdam's Erasmus Medical Centre. The researchers received a permit to conduct the study from the Dutch government.

NSABB chair Paul Keim, a microbial geneticist, told Science magazine's Science Insider report last month that he had huge concerns about the potential havoc the man-made virus could unleash.

"I can't think of another pathogenic organism that is as scary as this one," Mr Keim said.

"I don't think anthrax is scary at all compared to this."

http://au.news.yahoo.com/a/-/australian ... iller-flu/

Whilst on topic, human trials for HIV vaccine go on trial in Canada next month.


http://www.silobreaker.com/

[boxy]

Too late to contain killer flu science, say experts

Attempts to suppress details of the controversial experiments that have created a highly infectious form of bird flu virus are likely to fail, according to scientists familiar with the research.

The US government has asked two scientific journals to refrain from publishing key parts of research on the H5N1 strain of bird flu to prevent the information falling into the hands of terrorists intent on recreating the same flu strain for use as a bioweapon.

However, scientists said the plea comes too late because the information has already been shared widely among flu researchers. Others argue that the move could obstruct attempts to find new vaccines and drugs to combat an infectious form of human H5N1 if it appeared naturally.

[mellie]

I look at it this way, if more people know the recipe for destruction, (scientists this is) then bio-terrorists are going to be less likely to use it given they will know scientists have began working on either a vaccine or anti-viral medication for this new strain should it break out.

It's the bugs strains we and our scientists don't know about that hurt us most, I should think bio-terrorists would be more inclined to use something other than what's already been published in a scientific journal?


I think it's more pharmaceutical company hype than anything else, intentionally being spooled to frighten people into getting their flu vaccine this year, because if you read the entire article, they admit that the current vaccine should provide a reasonable degree of protection given this strain was developed from older more common strains of bird flue, whereby only it's virulence and vector has changed, the way in which it may now transmit from person to person.



Some protection against a feared killer flu being better than none at all, right?

I think this is what they are really trying to say at the end of the day, yes?

[mellie]

The real terrorists are the pharmaceutical companies.

Terrorising populations world wide into having vaccines (some even expired) for profit.




Over the next few months, we will be reading headlines like "Killer bird flu outbreak" (after just one immuno-compromised 96 year old individual/poacher caught it off a wild bird from his aviary)...but this wont stop them sensationalising the story in order to get people running to their GP's in preparation for a "Killer Virus" that is unlikely to find it's way out of a lab to begin with.


But you better get your anti-bio terrorism H5N1 shots just to be sure, just to give you some protection "IF" it's vector changes....

Big-pharma would be juicing over this, the more hype sensation, the more fear , thus the more likely people are to run to their GP's in order to get vaccinated.

GP's receive kick-backs from pharmaceutical companies also (something I would like to see banned here in Australia) so it's not like you can count on your GP to tell it like it is, not unless you have an old-school GP and have a good relationship with them, this and have been seeing them for years and years.

[mellie]

Fact--- Scientists always knew H5N1 could naturally alter it's vector to airborne , some even suspect that it already had done so 'naturally', it was just they didn't have enough scientific data to confirm their suspicions.

So what difference does it make?

If anything, not publishing the pathogenesis of a new strain of 'potentially' airborne H5N1, we are cutting off our noses to spite our face, because if it does alter it's vector, then we will need all scientists hands-on-deck to work on a cure.

Yes?

By limiting the numbers of scientists who may access this strains blue-print, then basically we are guarding the recipe for ourselves for our own pharmaceutical companies to cash-in on in the event something like this did in fact naturally occur and require a cure/vaccine.

Which I doubt.