What the "EFF" were they thinking?
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Bighersh Alter-Ego
Joined: Nov 2003
Posts: 178
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From: 33.02N / 96.66W
What the "EFF" were they thinking?
Why not leave a petrie(sp) dish full of small pox laying around?
Idiots... Some things should be left alone.. This is one of them.
I wonder what ever happened to those bodies buried below Alaska's permafrost line, that were the last victims of the flu strain that caused the 1918 Influenza Pandemic. That was said to be the most virulent strain ever; and it killed millions too. They were supposed to send a team up to recover three of the bodies so they could study the virus to see what made it so bad.... That kinda stuff makes me nervous.
Full story: http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmp...demic_flu_labs
Scientists Scramble to Destroy Flu Strain
13 minutes ago Top Stories - AP
By EMMA ROSS and MARILYNN MARCHIONE, AP Medical Writers
Scientists around the world were scrambling to prevent the possibility of a pandemic after a nearly 50-year-old killer influenza virus was sent to thousands of labs, a decision that one researcher described as "unwise."
Nearly 5,000 labs in 18 countries, mostly in the United States, were urged by the World Health Organization to destroy samples of the dangerous virus because of the slight risk it could trigger a global outbreak. The labs received the virus from a U.S. company that supplies kits used for quality control tests.
"The risk is low and we've taken appropriate action," said Dr. Nancy ***, chief of the influenza branch at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta.
Her counterpart at WHO, Klaus Stohr, agreed but said, "If someone does get infected, the risk of severe illness is high, and this virus has shown to be fully transmissible."
The germ, the 1957 H2N2 "Asian flu" strain, killed between 1 million and 4 million people. It has not been included in flu vaccines since 1968, and anyone born after that date has little or no immunity to it.
The WHO said Tuesday that there have been no reports of infections in laboratory workers associated with the distribution of the samples and that "the risk for the general population is also considered low."
Still, the decision to send out the strain was described by Stohr as "unwise" and "unfortunate."
The CDC learned Friday that test kits prepared by Meridian Bioscience Inc. of Cincinnati contained the virus. The company makes kits for at least four groups that help labs do proficiency testing, which involves identifying viruses to check a lab's quality controls or to acquire certification.
The largest of those groups, the College of American Pathologists, said it had sent 3,747 kits to various labs starting last year and ending in February.
Permafrost: http://www.gladwell.com/1997/1997_09_29_a_flu.htm
1918 Pandemic: http://employees.csbsju.edu/hjakubow.../Influenza.htm
Idiots... Some things should be left alone.. This is one of them.
I wonder what ever happened to those bodies buried below Alaska's permafrost line, that were the last victims of the flu strain that caused the 1918 Influenza Pandemic. That was said to be the most virulent strain ever; and it killed millions too. They were supposed to send a team up to recover three of the bodies so they could study the virus to see what made it so bad.... That kinda stuff makes me nervous.
Full story: http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmp...demic_flu_labs
Scientists Scramble to Destroy Flu Strain
13 minutes ago Top Stories - AP
By EMMA ROSS and MARILYNN MARCHIONE, AP Medical Writers
Scientists around the world were scrambling to prevent the possibility of a pandemic after a nearly 50-year-old killer influenza virus was sent to thousands of labs, a decision that one researcher described as "unwise."
Nearly 5,000 labs in 18 countries, mostly in the United States, were urged by the World Health Organization to destroy samples of the dangerous virus because of the slight risk it could trigger a global outbreak. The labs received the virus from a U.S. company that supplies kits used for quality control tests.
"The risk is low and we've taken appropriate action," said Dr. Nancy ***, chief of the influenza branch at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta.
Her counterpart at WHO, Klaus Stohr, agreed but said, "If someone does get infected, the risk of severe illness is high, and this virus has shown to be fully transmissible."
The germ, the 1957 H2N2 "Asian flu" strain, killed between 1 million and 4 million people. It has not been included in flu vaccines since 1968, and anyone born after that date has little or no immunity to it.
The WHO said Tuesday that there have been no reports of infections in laboratory workers associated with the distribution of the samples and that "the risk for the general population is also considered low."
Still, the decision to send out the strain was described by Stohr as "unwise" and "unfortunate."
The CDC learned Friday that test kits prepared by Meridian Bioscience Inc. of Cincinnati contained the virus. The company makes kits for at least four groups that help labs do proficiency testing, which involves identifying viruses to check a lab's quality controls or to acquire certification.
The largest of those groups, the College of American Pathologists, said it had sent 3,747 kits to various labs starting last year and ending in February.
Permafrost: http://www.gladwell.com/1997/1997_09_29_a_flu.htm
1918 Pandemic: http://employees.csbsju.edu/hjakubow.../Influenza.htm
Senior Member
Joined: Mar 2004
Posts: 525
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From: Rochester NY
Stuff like this and that Marburg virus (Hemorrhagic fever like Ebola) over in Africa are what scare me the most these days. Nasty stuff, what scares me more is bioweapons made out of things like this, one little point mutation and you could have a global killer. Someday the next intelligent species to evolve on this planet could be speculating how "humans" died out, like we do with dinosaurs.
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Bighersh Alter-Ego
Joined: Nov 2003
Posts: 178
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From: 33.02N / 96.66W
Originally posted by fatman66
Stuff like this and that Marburg virus (Hemorrhagic fever like Ebola) over in Africa are what scare me the most these days. Nasty stuff, what scares me more is bioweapons made out of things like this, one little point mutation and you could have a global killer. Someday the next intelligent species to evolve on this planet could be speculating how "humans" died out, like we do with dinosaurs.
Stuff like this and that Marburg virus (Hemorrhagic fever like Ebola) over in Africa are what scare me the most these days. Nasty stuff, what scares me more is bioweapons made out of things like this, one little point mutation and you could have a global killer. Someday the next intelligent species to evolve on this planet could be speculating how "humans" died out, like we do with dinosaurs.
