Chinese scientists attacked for creating killer flu strain

[GreenStormCloud]

Source: Belfast Telegraph

BY STEVE CONNOR – 03 May 2013

Scientists have criticised the “appalling irresponsibility” of researchers in China who have deliberately created new strains of influenza virus in a veterinary laboratory.

SNIP

“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.


Read more: http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/world-news/chinese-scientists-attacked-for-creating-killer-flu-strain-29239192.html

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That is some scary shit. I understand they claim that they are doing it to study how to make a vaccine for H5N1 before the virus self-mutates, but if that stuff escapes from the lab, the world could see a repeat of 1918.

[Kablooie]

1. And here in the US we can do nothing but watch. We can't even complain to anyone.

Now that the technology to develop world class plagues is available to everyone in the world, someone is bound to release one sooner or later.

We could soon be living in an apocalyptic science fiction novel.
The last one ever to be written.

[wickerwoman]

3. Would be willing to bet we're doing the same thing here

with tighter security.

[Poll_Blind]

4. Oh yes. nt

PB

[zonkers]

7. Are you really getting worked up over a plague that hasn't happend and

even if it did, you'd be powerless to stop it.

[Kablooie]

8. No. I'm just thinking how exciting it would be to live in a scifi novel.

[MrModerate]

10. I'm really looking forward to . . .

Being killed and eaten by the last ambulatory survivors in my neighborhood. What fun!

[freshwest]

2. Must be their version of the CDC. The stuff they work with gives me the shivers.

There are snasty viruses and bacteria in labs for research. Such as anthrax, plague, etc. As long as there's no proof it's weaponized (sure that's not the right word) it should be okay. We have some people at DU who are into research and can say a lot more.

[mettamega]

5. Holy F--king Sh-T

[MFM008]

6. hopefully

they get it first...........

[truthisfreedom]

9. There's so many potential victims in that part of the world.

Hell, there's so many potential victims in every party of the world.

[gadjitfreek]

11. Someone send these nimwits...

...a copy of Stephen King's novel "The Stand".

From Yeats' "The Second Coming",

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

Now I am a scientist and don't believe in religious nonsense but I also know that humans are capable of some serious fuckery and are most likely to be the cause of their own extinction.

[alberg]

12. Check out "The White Plague" - Frank Herbert's last novel.

[cosmicone]

13. China is developing biological weapons

This is no accident. It is planned and probably has the nod from the highest levels of the government.

[GreenStormCloud]

14. They have to develop a vaccine first.

If they do that, they could sell it for a ton of money. Releasing a bio-agent with no vaccine means it will spread back to your own army.

[Nihil]

16. Depends on the degree of susceptibility

If only it only fatal to 50% of the infected people then China will still win on
sheer weight of numbers - even without a reliable vaccine ... and if they could
engineer a finite length of dormancy then the leadership class would only need
to be isolated for a comparatively short time before the danger had passed.

[MrScorpio]

15. When does the Mass Zombification begin? nt