The same people
in charge of weaponizing the H5N1 flu virus now want to modify another pathogen
that has the capacity to spread among humans.
It seems that
for some scientists the world does not have enough threats to the lives of
billions of people, so they actually promote the creation of even more threats.
This is the case of a group of insane scientists who believe that it is a good
idea to modify a lethal virus in a lab, even though that could cause a worldwide
pandemic. These mad scientists are of the type of Ron Fouchier, from the
Erasmus Center in Rotterdam, and Yoshihiro Kawaoka, from Wisconsin University.
These guys are the ones who last year manipulated the H5N1 flu virus to enable
its contagion among mammals. They did so for the sake of science, they said.
Now this year, scientists like Fouchier and Kawaoka want to do something
similar with the H7N9 flu virus.
The so-called
scientists, want to generate mutations on the H7N9 virus to turn it into a
lethal agent that could cause a pandemic, instead of waiting for nature to take
care of the virus. The U.S. health authorities supposedly imposed strict
security conditions of these experiments. Why? Because they Americans directly
finance experiments such as the one attempted by Kawaoka and Fouchier last year
and the new one that scientist will perform on the H7N9 virus.
Since late
March, when the first outbreak appeared in Shanghai, the H7N9 avian flu virus
has only caused 130 cases of human infection in China, with 43 deaths in total.
Those infected were allegedly victims of the virus “jumping” from birds to
humans, still with no ability to spread between people. But the virus is
changing and the insane scientists are concerned with the potential ability
that the virus may acquire to “jump” from person to person. In this case, the
potential for something to happen is prompting well-funded, out of control
scientists to cause mutations in the virus so that it acquires the ability to,
not potentially, but actually “jump” from person to person and in doing so,
threaten to cause a worldwide pandemic. Scientists say, though, that they want
to carry out the experiments so that they can better determine how to deal with
the virus and to produce a “life-saving” vaccine.
Setting up a
precendent
Fouchier and
Kawaoka were the biologists that triggered a crisis last year by introducing
five mutations in another influenza virus, the H5N1, to give it a high capacity
of transmission between mammals, (that includes humans). They are now leading
an initiative to repeat those experiments with the new influenza virus ( H7N9).
The proposal
has led to a joint publication of Nature and Science Magazines, a coalition
between competitors that is reserved for ‘special’ occasions. These two
journals were also central to the H5N1 crisis, during the first months of 2012,
it was to them to which Fouchier and Kawaoka sent information about their work.
The scientific panel that advises the U.S. government on biosecurity, the
National Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity or NSABB, recommended its
censorship for fear of bioterrorism, and it was only after mediation by the WHO
(World Health Organization) that some of the experiments were published.
“Although the
first outbreak of H7N9 is now controlled, the virus, or other similar
properties, can reemerge when winter approaches,” say Fouchier and Kawaoka. The
main measure that has helped control the outbreak has been the closure of
poultry markets and other live birds, which are one of the great centers of
emerging viruses. No one can forget of course that while bird farms are
potential focal points for the emergence of viruses, some of the most lethal
strains of viruses and other pathogens have come from high tech labs in
developed countries which are heavily financed by big pharmaceutical
conglomerates or powerful governments.
Chinese
scientists have just published in the British Medical Journal what they
estimate is the first human transmission of the H7N9 virus, from a father to
his daughter. The case apparently occurred in April, before the outbreak was
controlled. Also studies with ferrets, the usual pattern of human influenza by
the great similarity of their response to these agents, have recently
indicated, scientists say, that some strains of H7N9 are halfway to their
adaptation to the airways of mammals.
“To thoroughly
evaluate the potential risk associated with this new virus,” Fouchier and
Kawaoka say, “we need new experiments that could be defined as’ gain of
function”. It is a genetic technicality, which in this case acts as a strategic
understatement. It means manipulating the virus to make it highly transmissible
among mammals, or highly lethal, or both at once. “It’s how you find out what
exact mutations cause these calamities,” say the scientists. Scientists believe
that they have the power to emulate nature, even though, nature itself can
through many more strikes at them with one virus than what they could handle in
their lifetime.
The virologists
are concerned about several very specific facts. The major coat protein of the
new virus, hemagglutinin, the ‘H’ in H7N9, contains several sections on what is
known as adaptations that probably will help it work its way towards the
airways of mammals. Emphasis added on the word PROBABLY. This includes certain
mutations that allow the virus to bind to human receptors. Many of these
crucial data were obtained from the reconstruction of the Spanish flu virus
that killed 40 million people in 1918. That’s right, that virus has also been
manipulated and is now very much alive in several labs around the world.
As it is
expected several H7N9 isolates from patients receiving antiviral treatments
acquired drug resistance to oseltamivir, peramivir and zanamivir. These
resistors complicate things much in case of a pandemic. Scientists and pharmaceutical
companies limit their response to infection to antiviral drugs, which they say
are the first line of defense while they develop an ‘all mighty’ vaccine. “To
obtain information that enable us to initiate public health actions before a
pandemic,” Fouchier and Kawaoka say, “there are fundamental experiments that
need to be carried out regarding so-called ‘gain of function”. Remember the
significance of that euphemism: create a pandemic agent in the laboratory to
study it to prevent the pandemic.
Scientists, the
military and the bureaucrats that enable these dangerous experiments say the
security will be among the strictest in the history of biology. The research
will be subject to the supervision of safety committees with world experts in
infectious diseases, immunology, bio-terrorism, molecular biology and public
health. Most of these measures are already used to work with the Spanish flu
virus of 1918.
The question
is, can we trust the same organizations, perhaps with new players, who have
created deadly weapons and pathogens, to handle risky experiments that attempt
to create controlled pandemics?
Delivered by TheDaily Sheeple