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Dr. Anthony Fauci and then-National Institutes of Health Director Francis Collins reportedly pressured a group of scientists to abandon a paper they were authoring on the origins of COVID-19 and the possibility that COVID-19 was “genetically manipulated” and could have leaked from the Wuhan Insitute of Virology (WIV). “Neither Drs. Fauci or Collins edited our Proximal Origins paper in any way. The major feedback we got from the Feb 1 teleconference was: 1. Don’t try to write a paper at all — it’s unnecessary or 2. If you do write it don’t mention a lab origin as that will just...

Around the world, scientists are now beginning to examine samples of the virus with a significant question in mind: Could this strain of the disease cause a global pandemic? This international network of scientists keeps constant watch for good reason. In 1918 and 1919, a flu pandemic killed between 20 million and 40 million people, more than the total death toll of World War I, more in a year than the Black Death of 1347 to 1351. More recently, an H1N1 swine flu pandemic was blamed for more than 284,500 human deaths worldwide between April 2009 and August 2010. So...

Former United Nations ambassador Susan Rice, slated to become the Domestic Policy Council chief if Joe Biden assumes the White House next month, is warning that COVID-19 outbreak “is not the big one” and that a future pandemic could be worse. “In the Obama administration, as I said, we had the 2009 swine flu; we had the Ebola epidemic that could have been a global pandemic; we had the Zika virus, as you'll remember, so we were very prime to this risk. We knew that we hadn't had the big one,” Rice said during a virtual event organized by Stevenson...

...Although the cases of swan deaths in Cumbria have not been directly linked to avian flu at this point, a number of dead swans in Dawlish, Devon — around 250 miles south of Ulverston — were confirmed to have contracted H5N8, the latest strain of avian flu. Cases of the virus have been seen across Europe, with France, Germany, Belgium, Norway and others reporting instances of H5N8.

David Wilkerson was known to always be correct concerning his prophetic words. David Wilkerson, Pastor and prophet of Times Square Church in New York City, was a voice that many prophetic people respected for his accuracy, he was known to always be correct concerning his prophetic words, and now we are seeing the fulfillment of his prophetic word from 1986. In a 1986 meeting, Wilkerson by the Holy Spirit, prophesied about a coming plague which will force the Church, government and bars to shut down. And this is exactly what is happening all around the world currently, as many religious...

Flu scientists are hoping to vaccinate themselves against another outbreak of a crippling controversy. In a letter published this week by Nature and Science (see p. 612), 22 researchers make their case for launching potentially risky experiments with the H7N9 avian influenza virus, which emerged earlier this year in China and which some scientists fear could spark a deadly human pandemic. The scientists, who mostly work in U.S.-funded labs, also detail the safety and security precautions that they would take to prevent the possibly dangerous viruses they create from escaping from the lab—or falling into the hands of terrorists. In...

A nice catch from our friends at Grabien, who got it from Ace [update] and who had to go all the way back to 2005 to find this nugget and the contemporaneous coverage at the NYT. At the time, the US prepared for a predicted epidemic of the avian flu, also known as H5N1, of global proportions. The virus had been identified for 18 years by that time, but by the end of 2004 had only resulted in 36 deaths and 50 known cases over the prior two years, according to WHO data. In 2005, the number of cases would...

Since Oct. 2016, China has seen an increase in human infections with avian influenza A(H7N9) virus and the World Health Organization (WHO) looked at some of the recent scientific information in several categories. Sudden increases in the number of human A(H7N9) cases reported during December and January have been observed in previous years. Compared to earlier waves of infection, further geographic spread of the virus was observed in this fifth wave. Of the cases where information on exposure history was known, as previous waves, most reported prior exposure to live poultry or potentially contaminated environments, including in LPMs. (live poultry...

Bird flu has made the three-egg omelette a luxury item in parts of America, but the other fowl bearing the brunt of the highly pathogenic virus's outbreak is the poor turkey, whose flocks have been culled by 7.8 million so far. The USDA is now recognizing that this could have bad consequences in, say, five months, when a certain holiday occurs on the third Thursday of November. The federal agency's latest monthly hatchery report is a bit ominous: Reuters notes that it reports a "significant decline" in the May count for baby turkeys, or poults. That number (22.3 million) is...

H-E-B has put up signs on our egg shelves throughout all of our stores, asking our customers to limit their purchases to three cartons of eggs per purchase... the company does not want restaurants and commercial institutions coming in and stripping its shelves of eggs... [Whataburger] is cutting back on the hours it offers breakfast... Some egg-dependent companies are contemplating drastic steps that include importing eggs from overseas or looking to egg alternatives.

CHICAGO (Reuters) - The U.S. Department of Agriculture has identified the first infection of a virulent strain of avian flu in poultry in Kansas, confirming the virus has spread into a migratory bird route that runs through the center of the country. The discovery of the H5N2 flu strain in a backyard chicken and duck flock in a county just outside Kansas City, Kan., is certain to lead to expanded restrictions on U.S. poultry exports from top trading partners like Mexico and Canada. The infection, confirmed on Friday by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, was the first case in an...

An outbreak of an avian bird flu that has attacked flocks of turkeys continues to spread throughout the Mississippi River Valley, as biosecurity detectives scramble to pin down the mode of transmission and contain the epidemic. Three states reporting an outbreak – Minnesota, Arkansas and Missouri – share the potential culprit. That would be the Mississippi River, which serves as a major flyway for migratory waterfowl. The particular strain of avian influenza usually doesn’t harm wild fowl, but does cause problems for domesticated flocks. The outbreak along the Mississippi flyway involves the same virus that has infected the Pacific flyway,...

Researchers have found a deadly strain of the avian influenza virus that has been sweeping through harbor seals may be able to spread to humans. That's according to a study recently published in the peer-reviewed journal Nature Communications. The study, led by investigators from St. Jude Children's Research Hospital, details how an avian H3N8 virus strain that had killed more than 160 seals along the New England coast back in 2011 boasted specific characteristics that allowed it to be easily spread through respiratory droplets and made it a potential threat for human infection.

Colonel Dai Xu of the People’s Liberation Army wrote online that the new strain of bird flu hitting China, known as H7N9, is an American “bio-psychological weapon” meant to destabilize China. The rant, posted to Dai’s account on the Twitter-like service Weibo, had already been shared by more than 30,000 fellow users by the time that the South China Morning Post reported it on Monday. Dai now has a quarter million followers on Weibo, which is quite a platform. In general, Chinese Web users appear to have rejected Dai’s argument. In response to the criticism, though, he’s only dug in....

An international group of scientists this week ended a year-long moratorium on controversial work to engineer potentially deadly strains of the H5N1 avian flu virus in the lab. Researchers agreed to temporarily halt the work in January 2012, after a fierce row erupted over whether it was safe to publish two papers reporting that the introduction of a handful of mutations enabled the H5N1 virus to spread efficiently between ferrets, a model of flu in mammals (see Nature http://doi.org/fxv55r; 2012). Both papers were eventually published, one in Nature1 and one in Science2. Now, in a letter simultaneously published on 23...

A combination of avian flu and foot and mouth disease risk destroying the protein supply, eroding public trust, and further destabilizing the Arab world's most populous country. Lost in the recent political jockeying and protest violence leading up to Egypt's May 23 presidential elections is the unfolding public health disaster there. Avian flu and foot and mouth disease are running rampant, killing people and livestock as well as inflating the price of food. It's a serious health and economic issue, but it has potentially much larger implications for Egypt, and this little-discussed crisis is beginning to resemble those that occur...

The best defense against a deadly attack with avian flu is the open scientific enterprise. Today the U.S. National Scientific Advisory Board for Biosecurity recommended that the journals Nature and Science restrict publication about controversial new research relevant to the transmission of avian flu between humans. The fear: Would-be bioterrorists are combing the pages of the journals for tips on how to wreak havoc. The H5N1 avian flu virus has killed 60 percent of the 600 or so people known to have come down with it since it was first identified in 1997. For comparison, seasonal flu in the United...

The Pandemic Flu Information Forum posted a machine translation of the Indonesian article, excerpt below: Indonesia Health Minister Suspected Bird Flu Immune Drug JAKARTA - MICOM: Health Minister Endang Rahayu Sedyaningsih suspect in Indonesia has occurred the possibility of resistance (drug resistance) to the drug oseltamivir. The hypothesis was made based on the presence of some positive victims of bird flu in Indonesia are still died despite oseltamivir have been given early. < snip > If there is resistance to oseltamivir, Indonesia no longer has a drug to counteract the spread of the H5N1 virus. Because, oseltamivir is the only...

Expert unease over deadly flu virus 'created' in Dutch laboratory Friday 25 November 2011 Dutch scientists have created a flu virus which is so deadly there is doubt about whether the research should be published, the Volkskrant reports on Friday. The paper says American experts are worried detailed information could fall into the wrong hands and that terrorists could recreate the virus as a weapon. The fears are notable because the work was carried out on behalf of the National Institutes of Health in the US. The research team, led by Ron Fouchier, professor of virology at Erasmus teaching hospital,...