Bird Flu may have made a mutation toward human contagion.

[Silverhair]

http://www.recombinomics.com/News/01050608/H5N1_Turkey_Explosion.html

Recombinomics Commentary
January 5, 2006

The human cases have been alarming because of the sudden appearance of cases, the size of the clusters, and the severity of the disease. The bird cases have also suddenly appeared and significantly extended a geographic reach over significant portions of Turkey.

The simultaneous appearance of the human sequences suggests the H5N1 has change and become more efficient at infecting humans. The widespread nature of the human cases suggest this change has happened and has been amplified in birds.

These types of changes could be explained by the acquisition of HA S227N. This polymorphism was identified in H5N1 Z_+ genotype isolates from two Hong King residents who had visited Fujian Province in 2003. The polymorphism led to a decreased affinity for avian receptors and an increased affinity for human receptors. Although the affinity for the avian receptors was reduced, the HA still had a significant affinity. Similarly, although the affinity for human receptors increased, the affinity was significantly lower than the affinity of human influenza sero-types.

These changes would allow the H5N1 to spread in birds, yet have a significant increase in efficiency of infecting humans. The H5N1 in the wild bird sequences also have the PB2 polymorphism, E627K, which increases virulence in mammals and favors viral replication at lower temperatures.

The increased virulence could explain the severity of the infections in humans. Many have pneumonia and are on ventilators and many are bleeding from the mouth.
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And: http://www.recombinomics.com/News/01050604/H5N1_Kurgan_Recombinant.html

These newly acquired polymorphisms indicate the wild bird sequences evolve via a series of recombinations. Although the new polymorphisms appear as point mutation, the polymorphisms are not unpredictable random mutations. They are acquired via recombination with a limited number of parental strains that are recent ands localized.

As H5N1 expands its geographical reach, the genetic complexity of H5N1 sequences has increased and. led to additional acquisition of novel polymorphisms. This increased complexity has been evident in recent OIE reports on H5N1 on the Crimea peninsula and the Volga Delta.

The increase in efficient transmission of H5N1 to humans in Turkey and Indonesia suggests that these acquisitions via recombination are presenting increasing challenges and the H5N1 gene reservoir becomes more diverse and unstable.
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If I understand the articles correctly, H5N1 has made a large step toward human-to-human contagion, but isn't fully there yet. We don't have a good picture on the lethality in Turkey yet, but the data should be far superiour to earlier SouthEast Asian data.

[Loonman]

1. Crap

This isn't good, I read about this earlier.

[Cessna Invesco Palin]

2. Recombinomics is NOT a valid source for information on Bird Flu.

And Henry Niman is a crackpot.

[NNN0LHI]

3. Now, now, the snake oil salesmen know there is money to be made

Even though you are right.

Don

[Silverhair]

6. And your proof of that is?

Perhaps you would care to discuss the specifics and the facts, or do you just engage in name calling?

[Cessna Invesco Palin]

10. When the advanced search comes back on line...

...I'll find the relevant threads.

[BR_Parkway]

4. They don't evolve, and our Intelligent Designer wouldn't want them

to shift to humans, so we can all just quit worrying about this. Go back to shopping, nothing to see here. And feel free to donate to us so we can continue to stop the wicked persecution of ID being thrown out of our schools. :sarcasm:

[Karmakaze]

5. According to recombinomics....

"Bird Flu" has been mutating for at least the past year. In fact I remember a "report" from them that it had already mutated in China MONTHS ago and was mere days or weeks away from killing us all.

Don't believe the hype. Evolution means that organisms evolve to SURVIVE. Virii "survive" by infecting hosts. If a virus KILLS its host as easily and as massively as we keep being told bird flu will, it will soon die out. For example the 1918 flu. In the "wild" it died out almost as quickly as it arrived simply because it killed its host too easily. It is like an animal destroying its own habitat - no habitat, no animal.

So in my totally unprofessional opinion, "Bird Flu" is far more likely to evolve into a LESS deadly variant than a MORE deadly variant. It just makes sense, and so far the facts have been on my side. More people have died in the last few months from normal every day human flu than have died from "Bird Flu" (H5N1) since it first became a concern YEARS ago.

Then again, I'm not making money off people being afraid of "Bird Flu" or some other super-pandemic (SARS springs to mind, and I was right about that too). If I was I would probably be telling you that you are about to die from "Bird Flu" too.

[Silverhair]

8. Evolution is not directed and has no mind.

It doesn't choose to evolve in any particular manner. It is convenient to speak of evolution as if it were minded, because in many way it does seem to mimic intelligent planned behavior, but sometimes this leads us into subtle errors. One of those is thinking of evolution as having foresight.

The 1918 flu is proof that highly contagious and lethal forms CAN arise. The form of the virus that is most contagious is the one that survives best. It is not effected by the limitations on the number of available hosts until it hits that limit. If the virus is able to jump to new hosts before it kills the current host, then it will out compete less contagious forms of the same virus.

The 1918 form didn't die out because it killed all the hosts. It only killed about 5% of the people it infected. The rest survived, developed immunity to it. For a disease, a dead host, or a recovered and immune host are the same thing - a closed avenue of transmission.

[Karmakaze]

15. I am not saying it CHOSE to become less deadly...

I am saying that it had NO choice - kill the ecosystem and it kills itself. So it became LESS deadly (not less virulent) killing fewer hosts while still infecting the same number of people. The same will happen to "Bird Flu" dead or immune hosts mean the same thing, so what is a virus to do? Well make itself less likely to kill the host or trigger a massive immune response.

In reality a pandemic is evolution gone wrong - it is rare and very unlikely to be any kind of major threat.

I would be far more worried (and I am) of human pollution, than "Bird Flu".

[Silverhair]

17. You are speaking as if the virus has foresight. It doesn't.

The most contagious version will out compete the less contagious versions, until it runs out of hosts.

[Karmakaze]

18. Not at all - in fact the complete opposite..

All I am saying is that evolutionary pressures on a virus are to become more infectious and LESS deadly - killing the host is counter productive. Far better for the host to stay alive but infected. So strains that become MORE deadly kill the host and are less successful at infecting other hosts, therefore rapidly dying out.

The perfect condition for a virus is to infect the host without even making the host sick. That way it can continue to reproduce and have more chances to infect more hosts.

Even if "Bird Flu" becomes more infectious human to human, it is likely to become less deadly at the same time simply because at the moment, the humans it infects become too sick and die to early for the virus to spread very far.

[Silverhair]

19. You are ignoring the feedback mechanism.

The virus is not able to plan. The most contagious strain will out compete the other strains - REGARDLESS OF WHETHER OR NOT IT IS MORE DEADLY. It will continue until it runs out of hosts.

It can run out of hosts by killing them, or by the host becoming immune. To a virus there is no difference, as in either case it can no longer live in the individual host. (I am being specific to the flu virus here. Other viruses have evolved different "strategies".)

If humanity were still moderately isolated tribes of hunter-gatherers, then a deadly virus would quickly reach saturation, and then would itself die from a lack of new hosts. So evolution would have a feedback loop to "tell" a virus, "Hey, You are too deadly. Calm down." The less deadly strains would be able to survive to jump to a new host group when the tribe met another tribe. So the evolutionary pressure toward a less deadly strain would be very quickly applied. BUT UNTIL A VIRUS RECEIVES THE FEEDBACK PRESSURE, THE ONLY PRESSURE ON IT IS TO BE CONTAGIOUS.

But humanity is no longer small isolated groups. The rapid evolutionary pressure on a virus to be less deadly is removed, as the supply of new hosts is massive. The only pressure on the virus, at this time, is to mutate to be the most contagious.

So the only pressure on the bird flu, at this time, is toward contagion. There is no pressure toward reduced lethality.

In fact, some people make the argument that evolution uses deadly diseases as a population control measure when a species has become too abundant. (The last sentence sounds as if evolution itself were intelligent - it isn't. But it is often easier to use that kind of language as a shorthand for describing the sometimes complex pressures. That is OK, as long as one remembers that "intelligent evolution" is a shortcut language, and not the reality itself. I don't feel like writing several paragraphs describing the feedback loops that make population control possible.)

[Delphinus]

20. So, in effect, you're saying the virus learns?

Or, perhaps, this is what evolution is truly about - learning, not quite in the same sense as human, but learning nonetheless.

Fascinating.

[BR_Parkway]

13. I don't believe the hype, my partner works with CDC & WHO as

an epidemiologist, he sees the data way before the MSM.

[Karmakaze]

16. and what was he or she sayng about SARS?

Before "Bird Flu" there was SARS and the reality is much the same. I am not sying these diseases are not deadly in the slightest. what I am sying is that these diseases are no where near as deadly as the powers that be would wish you to believe.

I have a simple challenge for anyone who really believes this crap - the day a pandemic based on "Bird Flu" (H5N1) breaks out I will pay you a million dollars IF you sign up as believing such an event is possible and pay me 10 dollars in advance.

[woodsprite]

7. I wouldn't be a bit surprised. It's sure taken

those * scientists awhile to get this converted to human form. :sarcasm:

[Atman]

9. If it hasn't, you can be sure Bush's people are working on it!

They need this outbreak real bad about now!

[Norquist Nemesis]

11. Someone should check with Pat Robertson

We need to know if this is ID or God's Wrath.

[Javaman]

12. Until someone is infected in an urban pop, this is more fear tactics...

All, ALL of the people so far infected and have died had worked with live or dead pultry.

Until joe blow apartment dwelling urbanite who's closest brush with a chicken comes when he buys KFC, I'm not going to worry.

fear, FEAR BLAHHHHHHH FEAR!!!

[stickdog]

14. What a load of birdshit!

The explosion of H5N1 bird flu infections in people and birds in Turkey is cause for concern.

Duh!

The number of suspected cases may have topped 30 with 3 new admissions from Agri and 2 from Ercis. The bird outbreaks have expanded to the south and west in Turkey.

How is this fundamentally different from any other outbreak?

The human cases have been alarming because of the sudden appearance of cases, the size of the clusters, and the severity of the disease.

1) The appearance is always sudden. 2) The cluster sizes are not atypical. 3) The disease, as manifested in humans contaminated by birds, has displayed a mortality rate well above 50% in all but the very first outbreak.

The simultaneous appearance of the human sequences suggests the H5N1 has change and become more efficient at infecting humans. The widespread nature of the human cases suggest this change has happened and has been amplified in birds.

These types of changes could be explained by the acquisition of HA S227N. This polymorphism was identified in H5N1 Z_+ genotype isolates from two Hong King residents who had visited Fujian Province in 2003. The polymorphism led to a decreased affinity for avian receptors and an increased affinity for human receptors. Although the affinity for the avian receptors was reduced, the HA still had a significant affinity. Similarly, although the affinity for human receptors increased, the affinity was significantly lower than the affinity of human influenza sero-types. These changes would allow the H5N1 to spread in birds, yet have a significant increase in efficiency of infecting humans. The H5N1 in the wild bird sequences also have the PB2 polymorphism, E627K, which increases virulence in mammals and favors viral replication at lower temperatures.

Bullshit fear mongering pseudoscientific mumbo jumbo.

The increased virulence could explain the severity of the infections in humans. Many have pneumonia and are on ventilators and many are bleeding from the mouth.

How is this ANY different from any other outbreak?