Does anybody know what group reconstituted the 1918 Spanish flu virus?

[The Backlash Cometh]

Was it a group that is loyal to this Administration? Was it a military based lab? Is it a private corporation who performed the work with government approval? Are the lab technicians Brownie appointments or are they nonpartisan careerists?

We did such a lousy job of containing anthrax four years ago, that I'm a bit concerned about this lab experiment.

[mike_c]

1. it was CDC scientists....

About as "careerist" as you can get. The viral genes were inserted into plasmids by researchers at Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York, and the plasmids were grown in human kidney cell culture at CDC in Atlanta.

[The Backlash Cometh]

4. What kind of security do they have in their labs?

[mike_c]

8. level 4 bio-safety....

Maximum.

http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/dvrd/spb/mnpages/glossary.htm

biosafety level:
Specific combinations of work practices, safety equipment, and facilities, which are designed to minimize the exposure of workers and the environment to infectious agents. Biosafety level 1 applies to agents that do not ordinarily cause human disease. Biosafety level 2 is appropriate for agents that can cause human disease, but whose potential for transmission is limited. Biosafety level 3 applies to agents that may be transmitted by the respiratory route which can cause serious infection. Biosafety level 4 is used for the diagnosis of exotic agents that pose a high risk of life-threatening disease, which may be transmitted by the aerosol route and for which there is no vaccine or therapy.

[GreenPartyVoter]

2. Here is an article

http://www.commondreams.org/views05/1016-22.htm

In the news report: "The science behind the re-creating of the 1918 flu virus is a triumph for Dr. Jeffrey Taubenberger of the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology in Rockville, MD, who began the seemingly quixotic quest to reconstruct the virus ten years ago." Such research can only be done when well funded and this Institute undoubtably would receive Department of Defense funding. It is not quixiotic to develop potential biological weapons.

[The Backlash Cometh]

3. Is that "Armed Forces" as in the military branch of government?

[mike_c]

5. Taubenberger's team sequenced the viral genes...

...but the reconstruction was done at Mount Sinai and CDC.

[kikiek]

6. Personally I think it is a good thing they have the samples to do it. It's

possible they could use it to help find a vaccine. History of that pandemic will also be helpful. I don't see anything suspicious with this. There is a good book called "Flu" that discusses the 1918 flu.

[bonito]

9. Good point n/t

[GreenPartyVoter]

11. As ,long as it's not made into a weapon, it's a good thing. Vaccines, as

you say.

[kikiek]

13. They way they mutuate they don't need to make them weapons. They

are natures weapons. Since the beginnning of time there have been pandemics. The key seems to be in figuring out which virus/viruses are going to be active during flu season, and finding a vaccine. Of course some the of the vaccines have turned out to be worse than the flu. Like the pig flu one from the late 70's. Caused Guillain-Barre in some people. That can still happen from the vaccines too. I would wonder more about the stuff they found in the ventilation system in DC during the anti-war march. That didn't get enough attention in my book.

[gkhouston]

7. it was at an Air Force lab. From the initial press release

they came across as a bunch of hard core science weenies. I doubt they have any particular allegiance to this or any other administration. Political appointments don't reach down to the "worker bee" level, i.e., the folks doing the actual research. Lab directors might be another story. Could the work be misused? Sure, but then again, so can anything, including a dozen projects we've never heard of. I'm not going to lose any sleep over it.

[The Backlash Cometh]

10. I'd feel a lot safer if our sleuth detectives had figured out how the

anthrax spores made it out of a US military lab.

[mike_c]

12. PLEASE PEOPLE-- read the articles....

The viral sequence data was provided by Jeffery Taubenberger of the U.S. Armed Forces Institute of Pathology. The genes were built into plasmids at Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York. The virus was reconstructed by Terrence Tumpey at Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta.

on edit-- there really isn't any dark military stuff lurking in the background here. The original tissue samples for gene sequencing were obtained from lung tissue from victims stored at CDC and from lung tissue obtained from a grave in Greenland (I think-- one of those places above the arctic circle :-) ).

[The Backlash Cometh]

14. I guess the big question should be then, who has access/clearance

to the lab?

I'm trying to make it clear, that I'm not feeling all together secure that anyone in our military can get ACCESS to the specimens, regardless of where the virus was reconstructed.

The one thing I know about the anthrax is that military people had access to the military lab where the anthrax was reconstructed. So, that person is still milling around with some kind of clearance, right? That doesn't worry you?

[mike_c]

16. no-- now that the virus has been reconstructed under open...

...conditions--i.e. not in secret-- and the full gene sequence has been published, making a vaccine would be trivial. Plus, the Spanish flu has already been out in the wild, so humans have already been exposed and there is some level of immunity. It could be engineered to bypass that, of course, but that has always been the case. The fact that this was done openly makes it much less troubling.

on edit-- much less troubling in one sense, but there is another-- the real danger is that now OTHERS have the sequence available as a starting point for an engineered virus based on the 1918 H1N1.

[The Backlash Cometh]

17. Well, I'm not feeling assured.

The habits of some of the kids around here is abominable and the potential for germ spreading is just ripe. I've seen well-educated girls of 16 doing incredibly stupid things. They still share water bottles on the sports field, even a bout of mononucleosis didn't stop them. Nor did it change the parent's attitude about germ spreading. I'm talking about private school educated people!

And as far as staying home when you're teeming with sickness, it's unheard of. I had a group of my daughter's friends spend the night this weekend and one of them was sick as a dog and dropped a luggy in my kitchen sink!

[mike_c]

20. bleach....

For the kitchen sink. Ugh.

[kikiek]

21. They're made up of DNA and RNA. I don't think they can engineer that.

They mutate themselves since they are living. Probably one of the strongest arguments for evolution. Viruses mutate to survive. Immunity wasn't present for the 1918 flu in people born after 1924 I think. It was also very similar to a pig flu that was going around at the time. They were considering that people were passing it to pigs. We have had other swine flu scares since as you might remember from the 70's. Now there is a dog flu also. Dogs from kennels are getting it, and many are dying from it. Passed only dog to dog at this time. The key is in vaccines which is very weak (attenuated) virus which passes on immunity only not the illness. Interesting thing was that ferrets were able to get the flu from people. Also viruses don't live outside the body for long. If I recall right it was only minutes. They need a living body to exist in.

[kikiek]

15. Permafrost from Alaska I think a female Inuit. Missionaries brought it

from the sounds of it. Killed most of the village. Really a good book if anyone is interested in history "Flu".

[ignatius 2]

18. It seems to me about 1-1 1/2 years ago,I remember reading that a

group of British scientists exumed bodies to research the 1918 Spanish flu. I remember thinking that after the anthrax scares and all the talk of bio terrorism, this was pretty scary.

[Silverhair]

19. Excellent article in Scientific American a few months ago about it.

Sorry, I don't remember which month, but their web site has a search ability. It will tell you everything you want to know about it.