Replies

"Er, that 5% number was not scientific in any way."

No sh~t Sherlock. The attitude doesn’t make you look smarter. My question was reasonable.

"It would be virtually impossible for H5N1, the deadliest influenza strain ever seen, to mutate into a highly benign strain."

AFAIK, no one can predict the results of a mutation that makes human transmission easy. For all we know, we have little immunities to a virus like this because it isn’t easily transmitted. If we’ve never been exposed, we’ve never had to evolve past it. And whatever mutation would make it more contagious would make it look like something that our immune systems are prepared for. That’s of course just a wild guess, but AFAIK so’s the claim that the new mutated form of the virus would be deadly.

"If we're all a bunch of panic-mongering fools, and the warnings are utter nonsense, why do you trouble yourself coming in to shoot them all down? Since we're kooks, don't waste your time on us. "

You’re right, how dare I suggest that this thing might not mutate into something deadly and that there are social, political and psychological reasons pumping up our concern. What a troll I am be for intruding on your thread. Using your reasoning, maybe you shouldn’t waste your time on me. Maybe I’ll be intimidated by your condescending attitude and stop suggesting such things.

No sh~t Sherlock. The attitude doesn’t make you look smarter. My question was reasonable.

Excuse me if I don't quite understand why you're biting my head off. I was saying not to take my number seriously, because it's not from the WHO or something. I was only explaining that I used it as an example, and not to take it as a factual figure.

AFAIK, no one can predict the results of a mutation that makes human transmission easy.

Well, we can't pin down an exact "critical" mutation, but we do have an idea of what's bad and what's not.

For all we know, we have little immunities to a virus like this because it isn’t easily transmitted.

Correct. We've never been exposed to the H5N1 strain before, so it's new to our immune systems.

If we’ve never been exposed, we’ve never had to evolve past it. And whatever mutation would make it more contagious would make it look like something that our immune systems are prepared for.

Well, it doesn't quite work that way. Just because the H1N1 virus (one we have been exposed to) had a mutation at position 267 does not mean that if H5N1 picks up that same mutation at 627 we're going to have any kind of immunity to it. It's still a new virus as far as our immune systems are concerned.

That’s of course just a wild guess, but AFAIK so’s the claim that the new mutated form of the virus would be deadly.

I don't see any possible reason why a virus would cease to kill anybody if it mutated for easy transmission between humans. Of course, I don't have a crystal ball, so I don't know for sure, but there is no way I can see that such a thing could happen. You would need hundreds of mutations on all 8 proteins of H5N1. You'd need so many significant changes that the virus probably considered H5N1 any longer because the mutations needed would probably include extensive changes on the HA and NA proteins, which the H5N1 virus is named for.

You’re right, how dare I suggest that this thing might not mutate into something deadly and that there are social, political and psychological reasons pumping up our concern. What a troll I am be for intruding on your thread. Using your reasoning, maybe you shouldn’t waste your time on me. Maybe I’ll be intimidated by your condescending attitude and stop suggesting such things.

I never said that I was 100% sure this would mutate into a pandemic strain. The author of the article I posted seems to think that, but he's not me. And yes, there are those who would benefit from saying, "A pandemic is coming." I don't think money is the motivator in this situation. My opinion, and the apparent opinion of pretty much every health organization in the world, is that we are at risk from H5N1. Maybe money does fit into that, maybe not.

If you can please drop the dripping sarcasm routine, we could have a constructive discussion instead of a shouting match.