Swine Flu Not an Accident From a Lab, W.H.O. Says

[uppityperson]

Source: NYT

The swine flu virus did not result from a laboratory accident, the World Health Organization said Thursday, working to debunk rumors started by an Australian virologist and circulated by news outlets all over the world. “We took this very seriously,” Dr. Keiji Fukuda, the agency’s deputy director general, said of the virologist’s assertion. “But the evidence suggests that this is a naturally occurring virus, not a laboratory-derived virus.”

(clip)

The virus rumor was started by Adrian J. Gibbs, a retired plant virologist from the Australian National University, who previously published work in the journal Science questioning the idea, now accepted, that the 1918 pandemic started as a bird flu. Dr. Gibbs, who had studied the gene sequences of the swine flu virus posted on public data banks, argued that it must have been grown in eggs, the medium used in vaccine laboratories. He reached that conclusion, he said, because the new virus was not closely related to known ones and because it had more of the amino acid lysine and more mutations than typical strains of swine flu.

His theory was reported by Bloomberg News on Tuesday. Even though scientists at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention were skeptical and some prominent virologists openly derisive, news outlets have repeated and magnified the theory, adding speculation about bioterrorism that even Dr. Gibbs repudiated. He was also interviewed Thursday on the ABC News program “Good Morning America.” Dr. Fukuda said a W.H.O. panel of experts had concluded that “the hypothesis does not really stand up to scrutiny.” The lysine residues and mutation rates were typical, he said, and many swine flus seem unrelated because not enough pigs are tested each year.

(clip)

Late Thursday, Smithfield Foods reported that the Mexican health authorities had not found the new virus in herds at its huge hog-fattening operations in Veracruz, which some have blamed for the outbreak. But it was not clear what test was used; only blood tests for antibodies would show whether pigs had the virus in February, when the human outbreak is thought to have begun. ...(more@link)

Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/15/health/policy/15flu.h...

Donate to DU and give valentine hearts to your friends! Click here.

[Viva_La_Revolution]

1. ...not an accident..

that's when I stopped reading and started freaking out... I may have imbibed just a little too much riesling...

[uppityperson]

2. "But the evidence suggests that this is a naturally occurring virus, not a laboratory-derived virus"

There has been a slew of conspiracy threads and articles on this. However, rather like when they say "the plane crash wasn't terrorism", trying to make us feel better, I feel worse.

I'd rather someone did something nasty to make that plane crash rather than just random thing or stupidity happening. However, this is to counter the conspiracy threads.

The good thing is that even though this is spreading widely and quickly, it hasn't caused a lot of deaths. Not to discount those who died, but a pandemic of a new virus, meaning one that is spreading widely, is enough in and of itself for me. Glad not more have died

[nadinbrzezinski]

3. I am still waiting for wave two

Not really, scared, but history tells me that we should be concerned.

At least responsible people are concerned and not dropping them guards

By the way, you did get the link from the NYT I posted in the other thread regarding fever

Funny BIL sent it to me and I read it while having some nausea... as in real bad nausea... I went... ooooh great!

Dinner must have really not agreed that night... but still it was one of those... ok I wonder if I am getting my vaccine

[quidam56]

6. Wait until the flu gets mixed with MRSA,

that's concerning. http://www.wisecountyissues.com

[uppityperson]

11. Viruses and bacteria don't mix, unless you mean opportunistic bacterial infections piggybacking, so

to speak, on a system that is fragile due to fighting the flu virus

[nadinbrzezinski]

12. MRSA is a bacteria not a virus

now opportunistic that is another story.

But this is biology 101

[flvegan]

4. "naturally occurring virus"? Really?

Yeah, if factory farms were a part of nature.

You know, we could just choose to stop eating them. Just saying.

[Art_from_Ark]

5. Factory farms = crowded, unsanitary conditions =

breeding ground for disease

[muriel_volestrangler]

7. Swine flu cases now 7,709 worldwide

The number of global cases of the new influenza A(H1N1) virus has topped 7,700 worldwide, according to figures from the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC).

The pan-European agency on Friday tallied 7,709 global cases including 234 in Europe.

The United States reported 4,298 cases. These included probable cases since US authorities as of Thursday included probable cases in their estimates, the ECDC said.
...
The influenza has to date claimed 69 lives of which 64 were in Mexico, three in the United States, and one in both Canada and Costa Rica, the ECDC said.

http://news.smh.com.au/breaking-news-world/swine-flu-ca...

Also:

Human noses too cold for bird flu

An Imperial College London recreation of the nose's environment found that at 32 degrees Celsius, avian flu viruses lose function and cannot spread.

It is likely that the viruses have adapted to suit the warmer 40 degree environments in the guts of birds.

A mutation would be needed before bird flu became a human problem, they said.

Published in the journal PLoS Pathogens, the study also found that human viruses are affected by the colder temperatures found in the nose but to nowhere near the same extent.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/8050523.stm

Doesn't stop spreading through the mouth, of course, but frequent hand washing presumably cuts down the risk of infection a lot through that route.

[MrSlayer]

8. Of course not.

If it were it would be killing lots and lots of people. This was a big panic over nothing.

[Chulanowa]

9. It wasn't even a big panic

I work in a nursing home. When flu season started, it burned through our place like kindling. We lost a few residents and more deteriorated. A few employees took quite a while to recover. I myself don't remember much from the few days I was home with it, but I have the vague memory that I was walking on the ceiling or something. it was hard.

But barely a peep this time around. A few people called in for coughs or sniffles, just to be on the safe side, but nobody really got sick.

Mostly it was the 24-hour news programs filling space as they do. I'm beginning to hate them, all of them. There's just not enough news happening, given their narrow fucking focus on the United States and our tiny little military colonies abroad.

[Javaman]

10. These are not the driods you are looking for...nt

[hugo_from_TN]

13. They must be in on it.