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SniperGuy
SniperGuyGamingRegistered User regular
SniperGuyGamingRegistered User regular
http://www.doctortipster.com/6952-dutch-researcher-created-a-super-influenza-virus-with-the-potential-to-kill-millions.html
So, should we be allowing this sort of research? Is there really a cause to create these sorts of things, and how much worry is there about anything getting loose?
A Dutch researcher has created a virus with the potential to kill half of the planet’s population. Now, researchers and experts in bioterrorism debate whether it is a good idea to publish the virus creation ”recipe”. However, several voices argue that such research should have not happened in the first place.
The virus is a strain of avian influenza H5N1 genetically modified to be extremely contagious. It was created by researcher Ron Fouchier of the Erasmus Medical Center Rotterdam, Netherlands. The work was first presented at a conference dedicated to influenza, that took place in September in Malta.
...
“I can not think of a pathogenic organism to be more dangerous than this one”, commented Paul Keim, a specialist in microbial genetics who worked for many years with the anthrax bacillus. “I think the anthrax is not at all scary, when compared with this virus” , he added.
So, should we be allowing this sort of research? Is there really a cause to create these sorts of things, and how much worry is there about anything getting loose?
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3DS FC: 4699-5714-8940 Playing Pokemon, add me! Ho, SATAN!
Fuck bird flu, polio's gonna kill us off now.
Flu be deadly, y'all. Regular influenza viruses kill about 25,000 people in the US every year. About 8 times that of Swine flu.
But, if it hadn't been created in a lab we wouldn't need to defend against it.
If a highly contagious strain develops in the wild it would need a different drug to combat it anyway. MAYBE this would help us develop one faster, which was probably the reasoning. Unless the Dutch are trying to become Bond villans. I mean again.
Well, 1st reason is that it demonstrates how wrong we were regarding H5N1. Originally, it was thought that human to human transmission would be almost impossible, but these people proved that it is possible. Now that we know it can be a real problem, we can actually start to work on countermeasures.
2nd, creating ways to counteract it can only occur once we've done this prior groundwork.
3rd, the lab this was created as is a BSL-3 facility. This particular strain won't be killing anyone.
4th is that apparently it's not too hard. Here's a less doom-y article. They were originally expecting to need to use synthetic biology or gene sequencing or something. Turns out they only needed to do standard selective breeding instead. IE, while this strain happened to be created in a high tech lab, any lab in Iran or North Korea could have pulled it off... or hell just natural selection.
Hence it's good that we figure this out now, because the only other way we'd have discovered it is when half our population ends up dead.
Edit:
Not to belittle his work, but the article makes it sound like any sonofabitch with access to a pet shop and the original (widely available) strain could have ended up killing more people than the black death. At least now we can start working on ways to prevent it.
Cause this is really sounding like something out of a Bond flick.
Although in their defense, the disease started out as relatively non-dangerous. Not their fault they did such a good job it got leveled up to 'existential threat'.
Yeah that's what they said about killer bees man!
Haha but seriously I guess level 4 is for the really dangerous stuff like Justin bieber
Ah, that is a much better article.
Thanks for the clarification.
M-O-O-N, that spells Captain Trips, laws yes!
Well, I'm heading to Boulder, Colorado.
I'm literally reading that book at the moment.
My heart froze when I saw the thread title D=
Man, forget about someone we don't like brewing this shit up in a lab; it seems like this could just happen by itself at some point in the future.
Yeah. Being especially contagious doesn't really make it a "pandemic" so much as it's just the flu. At best it'll kill off the elderly, the young, and the sick. Probably won't do much to you or I, I'd think.
If I recall, avian flu is more deadly than the "regular" flu, but it is not easily spread. So, while the regular flu kills more people, it's not actually a more dangerous virus, it's just more common.
And swine flu is not as dangerous, but it is highly contagious.
So, that's why all the hubbub about them.
E: Like, "more dangerous" with respect to any given individual dealing with it.
Sort of like a reset on globalization.
Sooooooo... what you're saying is, every cloud has a silver lining?
Now we have the Doomsday Weapon!
Time to start the Dr. Evil conference call.
Well, every white racists wet dream.
I mean the only obvious answer beyond the suggestion that the study was funded by the germans for future conquest of the world, is that europe apparently has too much money and they had to spend it on something.
They're hiding it super well.
There are plenty of reasons to study it. Understanding the genetic sources of transmissibility and better understanding how it might arise would be terribly good things to know more about. Whether they justify the risks.. ? The issue is the publication. Presumably he wants to publish the specific mutations that led to the increase in transmissibility, but that would make it pretty trivial for some bad actor with a few thousand dollars of equipment and an undergraduate degree to replicate synthetically. Bad times.
To take the words of Glados: We do what we must, because we can.
Somewhere, Thanatos just had an orgasm and he has no idea why.
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.