[HospiceNurse]

It is a VERY unlikely bio-weapon because, as the article says, “[IT is] susceptible to oseltamivir (Tamiflu).

Lots of flu is resistant. If you wanted to kill people, the LAST thing you would do is engineer a strain susceptible to tamiflu.

[silverleaf]

and how much tamiflu is available (especially in Mexico and the rest of the 3rd world)

and who gets it when it is rationed?

govt officials? Their families? Only people in a certain age group? AIDS/HIV community? Seniors in nursing homes? School kids? Americans? or 3rd world? People who have the flu already? or people who don’t have the flu yet?

Imagine the decisionmmaking and the triage operation in your own community

you want social crisis?

[FreedomFighter1013]

Not really, the creators may be betting that this highly deadly strain further mutates. According to my Doctor source from JHU, it is not necessary to do it in the lab, when nature gets hold of it the virus evolves on its own, it can become very deadly. According to, the natural mutation rate of Influenza virus is 1.5 *10^(-5) per nucleotide per infectious cycle (each individual replication within the cell). That means each of the millions of cells in one body that becomes infected will be mutated at a rate of 1.5 *10^(-5) (10^(-5) = 1.5/10,000) From the Journal of Virology: http://jvi.asm.org/cgi/content/abstract/59/2/377

[Erik Latranyi]

Lots of flu is resistant. If you wanted to kill people, the LAST thing you would do is engineer a strain susceptible to tamiflu.

True. Unless you have a mutating virus that becomes resistant quickly....allowing the medical community to go on a goose chase with tamiflu, then realizing it no longer works. Meanwhile, the infected population rises.

These situations are ripe for hysteria and mass panic.

[bgill]

There isn’t enough Tamiflu on hand to handle a crisis.

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/2237544/posts

[Tunehead54]

Lots of flu is resistant. If you wanted to kill people, the LAST thing you would do is engineer a strain susceptible to tamiflu.

---

Maybe the makers are incompetent, have poorly equipped cave facilities or ... maybe Roche - makers of Tamiflu are just nudging their sales up? Many a nerd has questioned whether the anti-virus companies don't slip a virus or two into "distribution" occasionally ... ;-)

[castlebrew]

“...the LAST thing you would do is engineer a strain susceptible to tamiflu.”

...unless you’re trying to get them to burn the current Tamiflu stocks before releasing something else, while they try to replenish.

[bgill]

Tamiflu Resistant H1N1 Vaccine Failures Raise Concerns
Recombinomics Commentary 16:53
March 24, 2009

http://www.recombinomics.com/News/03240901/H274Y_Vaccine_Failures.html

[1000 silverlings]

But if you are a big pharmaceutical company with huge stores of tamiflu you need to get rid of and make some profit, why, how convenient

[ichabod1]

unless you were targeting it at a bunch of third worlders who wouldn’t have access to it. And how much tamiflu do we have on hand? It’s the virulence that has me a bit concerned.