Scientists have Weaponized the H5N1 Bird Flu Virus and are Now Warning that Releasing Research Could Result in the Construction of Deadly Bioweapons Which Could Kill Half of Humanity

Man-made Super-flu Could Kill Half Humanity

Man-made super-flu could kill half humanity

November 24, 2011

RT.COM - A virus with the potential to kill up to half the world’s population has been made in a lab. Now academics and bioterrorism experts are arguing over whether to publish the recipe, and whether the research should have been done in the first place.

­The virus is an H5N1 bird flu strain which was genetically altered to become much more contagious. It was created by Ron Fouchier of the Erasmus Medical Centre in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, who first presented his work to the public at an influenza conference in Malta in September.

Fouchier said the strain circulates in animals, particularly birds, but rarely affects humans.

In the ten or so years since bird flu first emerged in Asia, fewer than 600 cases have been reported in humans. But the H5N1 strain is particularly vicious, killing roughly half of patients diagnosed with it. What stops it from becoming a major threat to public health is that it does not readily transmit from human to human. Or at least it didn’t – until now.

Researchers in Fouchier’s team used ferrets – test animals which closely mimic the human response to influenza – and transmitted H5N1 from one to another to make it more adaptable to new hosts. After 10 generations, the virus had mutated to become airborne, which means ferrets became ill from merely being near other diseased animals.

A genetic study showed that the new, dangerous strain had only five mutations compared to the original one, and all of them were earlier seen in the natural environment – just not all at once. Fouchier’s strain is as contagious as the human seasonal flu, which kills tens of thousands of people each year, but is likely to cause many more fatalities if released.

“I can’t think of another pathogenic organism that is as scary as this one,” Paul Keim, a microbial geneticist who has worked on anthrax for many years, told Science Insider. “I don’t think anthrax is scary at all compared to this.”

Now Keim, who chairs the US National Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity (NSABB), and other members of the body, have a very difficult decision to make. Fouchier wants his study to be published. So does virologist Yoshihiro Kawaoka, who led similar research in collaboration with the University of Wisconsin, Madison, and the University of Tokyo, and reached comparable results. And it is up to NSABB to give them the green light.

Many academics and biosecurity experts are naturally cautious about releasing information which could provide any bioterrorist with a ready recipe to hold the world to ransom. Some argue that such work should never have been done in the first place and call for international monitoring of potentially harmful research.

“It’s just a bad idea for scientists to turn a lethal virus into a lethal and highly contagious virus. And it’s a second bad idea for them to publish how they did it so others can copy it,” believes Dr. Thomas Inglesby, a bioterrorism expert and director of the Center for Biosecurity of the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center.

However the very same data, if made available to the scientific community, could potentially allow humanity to prepare for an H5N1 pandemic, which Fouchier’s study has shown to be far more probable than was previously believed. Clamping down on freedom of information in the scientific domain may in the end leave us defenseless against the flu, should it arise naturally.

NSABB plans to issue a public statement soon, says Keim, and is likely to issue additional recommendations about this type of research.

“We’ll have a lot to say,” he says.

Scientists Weaponize Bird Flu, Consider Releasing Results to Create Bioweapon

November 22, 2011

Anthony Gucciardi - It sounds like something out of a bizarre science fiction comic book, but scientists have weaponized the H5N1 bird flu virus, and are actually considering releasing the research.

The experiments, which involved mutating the virus a total of 5 times, made the strain highly contagious between ferrets — the very animal model used to study human flu infection.

Of course many scientists are now warning that if such research was made public it could result in the construction of deadly bioweapons.

Making the virus highly contagious could result in widespread infection. The H5N1 virus has been infecting birds and other animals in recent years, though it has also infected around 500 people.

The reason that it has not become an epidemic is due to the fact that affected humans are usually not very contagious. Therefore, altering the virus to become highly contagious is quite possibly the deadliest tweak which could be done.

It seems that these scientists are just asking for the new weaponized bird flu virus to infect the public.

Bioterrorism fears arise as scientists push to release weaponized bird flu research

Dr. Thomas Inglesby, a bioterrorism expert and director of the Center for Biosecurity of the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, notes that it is simply a bad idea for scientists to militarize bird flu, let alone publish the results:

‘It’s just a bad idea for scientists to turn a lethal virus into a lethal and highly contagious virus. And it’s a second bad idea for them to publish how they did it so others can copy it,’ says Inglesby.

So far no scientific journal has published the findings, and Inglesby hopes that none of them will. Virologist Ron Fouchier of the Erasmus Medical Center in the Netherlands is responsible for weaponizing the virus and presenting the findings at a flu conference held in Malta. He has recently come under attack by an organization known as the National Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity, a committee of independent experts on biological research.

Ron Fouchier says that mutating the virus to become highly contagious is shocking enough, but the fact that some scientists are now pushing for the release of the research is beyond outlandish.

It seems apparent that these scientists have zero regard for public health.