We don't have to wait for nature to make bird flu airborne. We now have man-made airborne bird flu

[Baitball Blogger]

Scientists create bird flu that spreads easily among mammals

Scientists have created versions of the H5N1 bird flu that spread easily among mammals through droplets in sneezes and have concluded that it is certainly possible the deadly virus could trigger a global pandemic in humans.

Writing in Friday's edition of the journal Science, Dutch researchers laid out for their fellow scientists — and the public — precisely how they engineered bird flu strains that were contagious in ferrets, laboratory animals often used as proxies for people in influenza research. As few as five mutations, generated by passing the virus from ferret to ferret to ferret just 10 times, may be enough to allow the bug to infect new hosts through the air, said virologist Ron Fouchier, lead author of the controversial report.

"We assume also in humans it would only take a low number of transmission events for these mutations to accumulate," he said.

The publication of the team's work — after a six-month delay prompted by a U.S. government biosecurity panel — ends a high-profile chapter in the debate over so-called dual-use research of concern: experiments that serve a legitimate scientific purpose but also could pose a threat to public health, the environment or national security.

http://articles.orlandosentinel.com/2012-06-21/news/la-sci-h5n1-bird-flu-20120622_1_h5n1-richard-webby-bird-flu

[LiberalLoner]

1. Ah, another way the 1% plans on culling the masses and avoiding the problems from

overpopulation! Very interesting!

[Iterate]

2. Link?

[MattBaggins]

6. lolwut

[FedUpWithIt All]

3. They simply created a simulation of a potential, and based on history probable, natural scenerio

It really only takes a person with the right airborne virus to catch the bird flu as well. If two compatible viruses strike the same person at the same time, the two become one and....bad news.

[Baitball Blogger]

4. Sounds like a national health plan might reduce the potential of someone

becoming a mixing vessel, no?

[originalpckelly]

5. No.

It would mean that we could treat someone who had, and possibly keep them from spreading the infection, but nothing more.

That's just a random thing.

We should have universal health insurance for infectious diseases, at minimum, I must say. It's a social risk, not a personal risk like cancer. It is suited to a socialized health plan.