WPpg1: Scientists Race To Head Off Lethal Potential Of Avian Flu

[DeepModem Mom]

Scientists Race To Head Off Lethal Potential Of Avian Flu
By David Brown
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, August 23, 2005; A01


Robert G. Webster is watching his 40-year-old hunch about the origin of pandemic influenza play out before his eyes. It would be thrilling if it were not so terrifying.

Four decades ago, Webster was a young microbiologist from New Zealand on a brief sojourn in London. While he was there, he did an experiment that pretty much set the course of his scientific career. In just a few hours, he showed that the microbe that swept the globe in 1957 as "Asian flu" bore an unmistakable resemblance to strains of virus carried by certain birds in the years before.

Webster's observation was a surprise -- and a troubling one. It suggested an origin of the unusually virulent strains of influenza virus that appear two or three times each century. His hunch, that at least some of these pandemic strains were hybrids of bird and human flu viruses, was correct.

Since then, Rob Webster has become arguably the world's most important eye on animal influenza viruses. These days, he is deeply worried about what he's seeing.

Strains of influenza virus known as A/H5N1 have been spreading in wild and domestic birds across Southeast Asia and China since 1996. In recent weeks, the virus has apparently struck poultry in Siberia and Kazakhstan....


http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/08/22/AR2005082201365_pf.html

[Ian David]

1. All the major vaccine manufacturers have same-sex partner benefits

We need to tell the anti-gay bigoted fundies to boycott the vaccines.

[Bob3]

2. this uses science - according to * this has to be wrong.

I mean shouldn't we be including a conflicting view that Jesus is causing this or maybe the Flying Spaghetti Monster?