Posted on 05/04/2013 5:23:34 PM PDT by BenLurkin
Senior scientists have criticised the “appalling irresponsibility” of researchers in China who have deliberately created new strains of influenza virus in a veterinary laboratory.
They warned there is a danger that the new viral strains created by mixing bird-flu virus with human influenza could escape from the laboratory to cause a global pandemic killing millions of people.
Lord May of Oxford, a former government chief scientist and past president of the Royal Society, denounced the study published today in the journal Science as doing nothing to further the understanding and prevention of flu pandemics.
“They claim they are doing this to help develop vaccines and such like. In fact the real reason is that they are driven by blind ambition with no common sense whatsoever,” Lord May told The Independent.
“The record of containment in labs like this is not reassuring. They are taking it upon themselves to create human-to-human transmission of very dangerous viruses. It’s appallingly irresponsible,” he said.
The controversial study into viral mixing was carried out by a team led by Professor Hualan Chen, director of China’s National Avian Influenza Reference Laboratory at Harbin Veterinary Research Institute.
Professor Chen and her colleagues deliberately mixed the H5N1 bird-flu virus, which is highly lethal but not easily transmitted between people, with a 2009 strain of H1N1 flu virus, which is very infectious to humans.
When flu viruses come together by infecting the same cell they can swap genetic material and produce “hybrids” through the re-assortment of genes. The researchers were trying to emulate what happens in nature when animals such as pigs are co-infected with two different strains of virus, Professor Chen said.
(Excerpt) Read more at zen-haven.com ...
Nobody could ever be ready for that - mentally anyway. How long did it take before the plague wore itself out? How long would a person have to hibernate?
You know I have to be able to get out into my garden. Not just for food, but also for attitude and mental health reasons.
All that crap with the dog food and toothpaste etc contamination - now this. We shouldn’t be importing crap like this from places like China.
One of these days we’ll probably all be poisoned from some crap that our enemies or even just greedy USA companies do. Deliberate or accidental doesn’t matter. Dead is dead.
The UN and the WHO are elated. Finally a way to world domination
“You know I have to be able to get out into my garden. Not just for food, but also for attitude and mental health reasons.”
You could do that since you are not in the city with people living jammed close to you. You must stay away from people.
For going to China.
Makes me wish I will be in the mountains when this happens. With my supply of fish antibiotics! It is one of the few things I only have one supply of and is on the list of important things to bring when bugging out.
As for holing up here, I’m good as long as two 55 gallon water barrels will be enough. I have yet to go to the store and get those Ozarka water jugs – am waiting for my tendonitis et. al. to subside a bit more before re-inflaming it all ;(
Forgot to mention that I am starting to make my own cat food. One of my Persians has food allergies (allergic to all the grain they put in commercial cat food that cats do not need!). She had a bout of digestive problems this last month and the vet said to put her on all wet food, which she hates in the commercial grain-free options. So I looked up making cat food, bought the supplements, and made some. Luckily, she is the one that loves raw meat so switching her to the raw food diet was easy ;) Her sister and brother are resistant though!
It’s actually cheaper to make your own food rather than buy the expensive supposedly good-quality food. (Even Natural Balance grain-free foods had melamine in it years ago).
Outbreak and Contagion are the movies commonly referenced but a more realistic situation in a pandemic, at least from the long term view is “After Armageddon”
our quality control of imports is sadly lacking
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So is our quality control of some domestic products. That’s why I am going back to growing and canning most of my own stuff.
Excellent idea and action. I hope to get there someday.
Ohhhhh. Got it!
Incredibly irresponsible.
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