Newsday.com: CDC Will Allow 1918 Killer Flu Off Campus — Let’s see what should we do next? Hmmm. How about distributing the secrets to the neutron bomb? And don’t forget to send out the last of the Smallpox samples!
ATLANTA — Federal scientists say they will consider requests to ship the recently recreated 1918 killer flu virus to select U.S. research labs.
There are 300 non-government research labs registered to work with deadly germs like the Spanish flu, which killed millions of people worldwide. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention will consider requests for samples from those labs “on a case-by-case basis,” CDC spokesman Von Roebuck said Wednesday.
found by Mad Dog Mike
I saw this movie on the late show. Did Danny Boyle direct or was it George Romero?
There’s a lot of nastier stuff than this one out in the world. The more know about this one the better, particularly given its remarkable molecular simularity to the present bird flu.
These loonies should be called the New Frankensteins.
Their fascination with technology overrides the normal survival instinct – for themselves or for us.
Aside from the obvious risks of transportation, theft and accident, there are only four BSL-4 labs in the US.
This means only 4 of the 300 potential dispersal sites have a safety level commensurate with the threat of this virus.
And yes, we did see this movie before.
It was called 12 Monkeys – and that creepy red-haired guy is still out there.
Isn’t the CDC the same organisation as the one that sent samples of flu to labs in Europe a year ago and cannot account for what happened with a number of those shipments?
It wasn’t the killer version back then though… Now I’m really happy to see they’re going to send the 1918 killer flu just to U.S. research labs… (Sorry guys! I live in Europe!)
“There’s a lot of nastier stuff than this one out in the world”
Oh yeah? Like what? This little bugger killed 50 MILLION people back in 1918! Way more people that World War I!! Way more people than any epidemic, including the Black Plague!!! OK, ‘they’ tell us most people living today have some sort of immunity against this virus, as most of us are descendants of those who survived… But how can we be so sure? Actually, how? Answer, we can’t.
it’s only 45 days until CHRISTMAS…and they’re going to use FedX and UPS to ship? With all those temp workers and the confusion, and the increase in traffic?
CDC…are you for us or against us?
Miguel,
Nastier Like:
Plague,
Serin,
Tabin,
Hybrid Small Pox
Hybrid Anthrax
etc.
6 oz. of Serin or Tabin in a community’s water supply will kill hundreds of thousands – and since its nerve gas – there no such thing as immunity.
Hybrid Anthrax (give thanks to the USSR) can stay dormant for decades to reappear again and again.
Let’s face this stuff and hopefully learn how to deal with it. Any halfway decent lab tech can take a virus and attempt to make it way badder than bird flu.
BTW – in proportion of population Plague was way deadlier.
“Sounds the Alarm” should be more like “Sounds like an Alarmist”. Needs to get some facts. (Are you actually “AB CD”?)
It’s not “Serin” it’s “Sarin”. 6oz or Sarin in a water supply might possibly hurt the people closest to the water supply, but it would be mosty innocuous, since it is a respiratory agent. The psychological impact would be substantial, but that’s about it.
As reported in USA Today: “Even if terrorists managed to introduce Sarin into water supplies, dilution, purification systems and natural breakdown of the agent in the environment would make it very difficult, if not impossible, to deliver a lethal dose through a metropolitan water supply system.”
Plague is easily treated with regular anibiotics, and is commonly found in many parts of the USA in squirells. Plague is not an issue.
The flu is the biggest danger out there, right up there with SmallPox.
People that worry about terrorist attacks more than naturally occuring events such as killer flu outbreaks are fools. A large scale biological attack by terrorists could kill many people (100,000?), but a naturally occuring event such as the flu could kill millions.
And what do we obsess about? The smaller of the two dangers.
1) Sue me, it passed my spell check.
2) You get your facts from USA today? Would you like some one to dump a few gallons of NG in the water? I’ll let you take the first drink. Also terrorists seem to be getting lots better at
3) If there was a large scale plague outbreak now, how long before anti-biotic resistant plague strains appear? I agree plague now is a lesser issue, but through history it still remains the number one per-capita killer – there having been at least three large scale outbreaks and countless small scale outbreaks (city size and smaller) from the mid 1300’s through the 1700’s.
4) The 1918 flu, while deadly to be sure, would be no more deadly than any cross species pandemic, and most likely less given some of us are descendant from 1918 survivors. While I wouldn’t want to bet my life on such immunity, it would have some effect.
My point is hiding makes no sense, only by research will we discover how to deal with these things. Everyone on this post acts like the CDC is giving this stuff away to girl scouts and wack jobs. They don’t. They give it out to science nerds and academic wack jobs – for study.
Alarm, you may be right that only by study light will come, but the point the rest of us are trying to make is that this is potencially *extremely*dangerous. None of the threats you mention have the same potential for *immediate* widespread death – none are as contagious as the flu. On average, 60,000 americans die every year of the common, garden-variety flu. Which is much more death than many other diseases or threats cause, even worldwide. The flu is a *very* dangerous thing. I honestly hope you are right and the CDC is being deadly careful!!!