fear mongering by krauthammer

[onenote]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/10/13/AR2005101301783.html

Charlie the Krackpot Krauthammer's column today offers some of the worst fear mongering (and worst logic) I've seen in awhile.

Let me say at the outset that I take the avian flue threat very seriously. While there are some here who think its some sort of BFEE scam, the fact is that independent, reputable scientists and medical experts are very concerned.

That being said, Krauthammer's column seems to suggest that while avian flu is a big threat, an even bigger threat has been posed by efforts by the scientific community to deconstruct the virus. At least that's how I read the column. Worse, the big bogey-man in Krauthammer's column is that we've now made it possible for our "enemies" (i.e., the terra-ists) to synthesize bird flu and kill us all.

Charlie's apparently been losing too much sleep over the self-inflicted self-destruction of his boys in the White House. Our "enemies" are so freakin' sophisticated that the last time they tried to blow up anything they did it with some Maxwell Smart style sneaker bomb that didn't even work. Sure they're going to synthesize and distribute bird flu without managing to give it to themselves and the rest of the arab world first.

And while I have no doubt that the leadership of various Islamic groups are recruiting suicide bombers, I don't think that they are all that interested in dying themselves. And once you let a killer virus out of the bag, you have no assurance that you aren't doing exactly that.

OF course none of this occurs to Charlie the K. He's just trying to find something to talk about other than the collapse of his little world.

onenote

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

1. Not that I'd wish bird flu on anybody,

but if there ever is a pandemic, there are some people who I'd feel really bad if they got it, and some others, not so much. Not sayin' who, of course.

[LiberalVoice]

2. I once wrote an LTTE to the Pittsburgh Post Gazette...

regarding a piece that flapjack wrote. I believe the title went something like "The Rural Redneck Myth". The entire article was about how their realy is no such think as white rascist rednecks and it was all just perpetuated by the liberals to smeer conservatives.

A Dem I know who is from a rural area in W. Virginia said to me, "Yeah right...Let him to walk into a bar in the backwoods of W. Virginia and then tell me their is no such thing as a redneck."

[Ron Green]

3. He's the creepiest, most STRANGELOVIAN dude I've ever seen.

:scared: :scared: :scared:

[thebigidea]

7. my father always likens him to an Alice in Wonderland character

[Missy M]

4. I assume they recreated the flu to find a vaccine that works against..

it. The findings were published so the rest of the world could also work on fighting the virus. From that he gathers the 'terrorists' will get a hold of it and wipe out the world. I wish he felt the same way about the nuclear (nukular) weapons that this country has more of than any country in the world. Now that's scary!!!

[xchrom]

5. krauthammer is nuts.

and should be treated with as little respect as possible.

[bridgit]

6. krauthammer is another journalistic scourge imo...

[Coastie for Truth]

8. Charlie's Typical Jingoistic, Chavinistic Attitude

The relevant passage is:

We are essentially in a life-or-death race with the bird flu. Can we figure out how to preempt it before it figures out how to evolve into a transmittable form with 1918 lethality that will decimate humanity? To run that race we need the genetic sequence universally known -- not just to inform and guide but to galvanize new research.

On the other hand, resurrection of the virus and publication of its structure open the gates of hell. Anybody, bad guys included, can now create it. Biological knowledge is far easier to acquire for Osama bin Laden and friends than nuclear knowledge. And if you can't make this stuff yourself, you can simply order up DNA sequences from commercial laboratories around the world that will make it and ship it to you on demand. Taubenberger himself admits that "the technology is available."

And if the bad guys can't make the flu themselves, they could try to steal it. That's not easy. But the incentive to do so from a secure facility could not be greater. Nature, which published the full genome sequence, cites Rutgers bacteriologist Richard Ebright as warning that there is a significant risk "verging on inevitability" of accidental release into the human population or of theft by a "disgruntled, disturbed or extremist laboratory employee."

The Jingoist, Chauvinistic, Egotistical (and Racist?) assumption is that we can keep these well known techniques "secret".

A further incorrect Jingoist, Chauvinistic, Egotistical (and Racist?) assumption is that we are ill served by getting the sequence (and microphotos) out into the public arena to competitively develop therapies and vaccines.

This is within the skill set of any reasonably competent biochemist.