China is a leading producer of electron microscopes?
China is a leading producer of automated hi-tech lab equipment?
Furthermore, is it your contention that these facilities *do* indeed exist in the back-woods of China for the purposes of broducing so-called bio-engineered viruses BUT these facilites and supporting infrastructure are invisible to both the naked eye and spy satellites?
Frankly, I don't get your point. I don't think you got mine either, as evidenced by a couple of posts now ...
NEW ORLEANS -- A medical breakthrough in the study of severe acute respiratory syndrome, or SARS, is taking place in New Orleans.
Researchers at the Louisiana State University and Tulane health science centers have developed a model of the protein suspected to be responsible for the spread of the disease.
The information is being rushed to other scientists who are working on a SARS cure. It may show that certain drugs might be able to help.
It's the type of discovery that doctors normally wait to present at a medical conference or publish in a medical journal. But both health science centers published their finding on the Internet, hoping it could bring researchers closer to a treatment or cure.
LSU's Dr. William Gallaher and Tulane's Dr. Robert Garry are sharing credit.
The model shows that the surface protein attached to the SARS virus is similar to what's been discovered in the Ebola virus and HIV, it gives hope of a cure, researchers said.
"The similarity between this protein in HIV and a couple of very discreet regions is so high that actually, there are drugs in the pipeline that may directly work," Gallaher said.
"We already know that some drugs that work against those similar proteins in HIV and Ebola will block those viruses from infecting the cells," Garry said. "We're hoping to do the same thing with the new corona virus."
SARS can be fatal and is highly contagious through face-to-face contact and shared common surfaces.
The illness usually begins with fever, chills, headaches and body aches. After about seven days, the patient may develop a dry cough. At that point, doctors say too little oxygen will be getting into the blood, causing about 10 to 20 percent of patients to require a ventilator to breathe.
I would appreciate it if you would state your point or points. Be clear and direct. Help us out. Give us a good reason why SARS is not something to be concerned about.
My point about "Groom Lake Airstrip (abandoned)" (AKA Area 51) as referred to on a map from the early '70s, is that these facilities can exist in out of the way places. This is why the Air Force investigated UFO sightings, to decry the persons who had seen research aircraft. Weather baloons and the mentally imbalanced, right?
The Communists thwarted detection and remote sensing measures very well during the Vietnam war, with the help of Chinese and Soviet advisors, and it would be folly to assume that all construction of facilities requires the grand scale we would use, which would be readily viewable on satellite imaging.
Could a facility for bioweapons research be built without our knowledge? After Clinton's people attempting to cripple our intelligence network, certainly. Even so, spy/intelligence satellites orbit, and orbital windows of opportunity exist for getting things done unobserved, if the perpetrators have patience and sufficient labor, which the Communists have. As for equipment and knowledge, it is obvious that they have it, or they would not have been able to isolate the genome. Creation requires only one lab, a building on a university or technical school campus, not an entire complex. As for brooding the viruses, this can be done in a micro brewery-sized operation which could be hauled in three semi-trucks and hooked together almost anywhere.
You seem to be under the impression that the Chinese are without advanced technological capabilities, simply because they are not the world's leading producers of high tech equipment. Watch them--where are Dell Computers being made now?
Would you, were you the Chinese, admit to having a bioweapons program accident? Would you admit to having a bioweapons program? Not likely. Think like an old line, cold war Communist; things really haven't changed all that much.
While it is possible that this is just another Swine Flu, at least in terms of genesis, I would never assume that the Chinese are incapable of anything. After all, the Chinese Government slew millions of Chinese just to sieze power, and continues to arrest, imprison, and execute its own people just for speaking their mind.