Posted on 04/12/2005 3:41:03 PM PDT by blogblogginaway
Labs Urged to Destroy Pandemic Flu Strain
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Apr 12, 6:17 PM (ET)
By EMMA ROSS
LONDON (AP) - Thousands of scientists were scrambling Tuesday at the urging of global health authorities to destroy vials of a pandemic flu strain sent to labs in 18 countries as part of routine testing.
The rush, urged by the World Health Organization, was sparked by a slim, but real, risk that the samples, could spark a global flu epidemic.
"The risk is relatively low that a lab worker will get sick, but a large number of labs got it and if someone does get infected, the risk of severe illness is high and this virus has shown to be fully transmissible," WHO's influenza chief, Dr. Klaus Stohr, told The Associated Press.
So should just hide out in my house for the next few years till this passes?
Is this your doing?
Pandora's box springs to mind here.
This should be Breaking!
We're all gonna die ....unless......
Probably not a good idea to make this public.
I did put it in breaking. It was there at first now it's not. Don't know why.
Is this the 1918 Spanish Flu? I read they had isolated it from cadavers.
Sometimes I wish these geek types would go on a bender instead of messin with mother nature...
This story raises more questions than answers. Who created a killer flu virus, and why was it shipped to 18 countries?
Something is missing form this account.
For instance, what flue strain are we talking about? and where did it come from? and why did it need testing by everybody with a lab?
I read some years ago the virus was extracted from corpses of people who died in the 1918 epidemic.
They resurrected the Swine Flu!?!?
What a horrible mistake this could be!
It's the 1957 Hong Kong Flu pandemic.
Spanish Flu is probably not far behind. Here's a google hit:
http://www.bariumblues.com/recreating_the_spanish_flu.htm
It's the 1957 pandemic strain and there's no doubt that it would cause another pandemic if it got out into the wild, because no one has picked up immunity to it since the 60s. It was accidentally sent out by a firm that (stupidly) picked the H2N2 strain out from stock for routine vaccine testing.
The H2N2 1957 Hong Kong Flu.
and where did it come from?
Meridian Bioscience Inc. Past flu strains are kept in stock in case the strain reemerges.
and why did it need testing by everybody with a lab?
It sure didn't. It was sent out for routine vaccine testing but this strain should not have been sent.
Resurrecting old bugs is far less dangerous than the creation of new ones.
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