Inherent Viral Purpose

[timeparticle]

Gene Engineers Create Monster Doomsday Virus
AUSSIE SCIENTISTS STUMBLE ACROSS THE DOOMSDAY BUG
Jan. 10/01 Agence France Presse English

PARIS - New Scientist magazine was cited as reporting today that Australian gene engineers accidentally created a mouse virus that kills every one of its victims by wrecking their immune system, a discovery with the potential for making the ultimate terrorist weapon.

The story says that the killer bug was invented quite inadvertently, while the researchers were trying to create a contraceptive vaccine for mice as a pest control.

They inserted into a mousepox virus a gene that creates large amounts of interleukin 4 (IL-4), a naturally-occurring molecule that produces antibodies in the immune system.

The idea was to stimulate antibodies to destroy eggs in female mice, thus making the rodents infertile.

Mousepox, a close relation to smallpox, normally only causes mild symptoms among the type of mice being used in the study, and was only being used as a vehicle to deliver the IL-4.

But, the story explains, when the IL-4 gene was inserted, the engineered virus ran amok, attacking the "cell-mediated response" -- the part of the immune system that fights viral infection. All the animals in the study
were wiped out in just nine days.

Worse, the engineered virus was astonishingly resistant to vaccines. A
vaccine that would normally protect these mice from mousepox only worked
in half of the mice exposed to the killer version.

Co-researcher Ron Jackson, of the Canberra-based institute CSIRO, was
cited as telling New Scientist the discovery was a frightening indicator
of what could happen if the human smallpox virus was similarly modified,
adding, "It would be safe to assume that if some idiot did put human IL-4
into human smallpox, they'd increase the lethality quite dramatically.
Seeing the consequences of what happened in the mice, I wouldn't want to
be the one to do the experiment."

Anne Hill, a vaccine experts from Oregon Health Sciences University in
Portland, Oregon, was quoted as saying, "It's surprising how very, very
bad the virus is."

New Scientist was cited as saying the incident highlights how easy it could be for some with bio-engineering knowledge to create a murderous virus for which there would be no cure or effective vaccine, adding "Vast amounts of time and effort have gone into policing the military's use of biotechnology. But the activities of civilian biologists have been
ignored. Yet genetic engineering techniques are now so widespread that potentially dangerous results are bound to emerge accidentally."

This was eight years ago. Should we believe that scientist have become more ethical since this accident?

What would happen if changing genes in viruses alters their initial purpose?

[Mikal]

Gene Engineers...even the name sounds creepy....if geneticists are experimenting with what is naturally occurring in all of life isn't that too much like "playing God"....could that ever be completely ethical or ever trusted completely???

Wow....boggles the mind TP......


Mikal

[Mikal]

Hosted by Back to Google NewsBaxter admits contaminated seasonal flu product contained live bird flu virus
3 days ago

The company that released contaminated flu virus material from a plant in Austria confirmed Friday that the experimental product contained live H5N1 avian flu viruses.

And an official of the World Health Organization's European operation said the body is closely monitoring the investigation into the events that took place at Baxter International's research facility in Orth-Donau, Austria.

"At this juncture we are confident in saying that public health and occupational risk is minimal at present," medical officer Roberta Andraghetti said from Copenhagen, Denmark.

"But what remains unanswered are the circumstances surrounding the incident in the Baxter facility in Orth-Donau."

The contaminated product, a mix of H3N2 seasonal flu viruses and unlabelled H5N1 viruses, was supplied to an Austrian research company. The Austrian firm, Avir Green Hills Biotechnology, then sent portions of it to sub-contractors in the Czech Republic, Slovenia and Germany.

The contamination incident, which is being investigated by the four European countries, came to light when the subcontractor in the Czech Republic inoculated ferrets with the product and they died. Ferrets shouldn't die from exposure to human H3N2 flu viruses.

Public health authorities concerned about what has been described as a "serious error" on Baxter's part have assumed the death of the ferrets meant the H5N1 virus in the product was live. But the company, Baxter International Inc., has been parsimonious about the amount of information it has released about the event.

On Friday, the company's director of global bioscience communications confirmed what scientists have suspected.

"It was live," Christopher Bona said in an email.

The contaminated product, which Baxter calls "experimental virus material," was made at the Orth-Donau research facility. Baxter makes its flu vaccine - including a human H5N1 vaccine for which a licence is expected shortly - at a facility in the Czech Republic.

People familiar with biosecurity rules are dismayed by evidence that human H3N2 and avian H5N1 viruses somehow co-mingled in the Orth-Donau facility. That is a dangerous practice that should not be allowed to happen, a number of experts insisted.

Accidental release of a mixture of live H5N1 and H3N2 viruses could have resulted in dire consequences.

While H5N1 doesn't easily infect people, H3N2 viruses do. If someone exposed to a mixture of the two had been simultaneously infected with both strains, he or she could have served as an incubator for a hybrid virus able to transmit easily to and among people.

That mixing process, called reassortment, is one of two ways pandemic viruses are created.

There is no suggestion that happened because of this accident, however.

"We have no evidence of any reassortment, that any reassortment may have occurred," said Andraghetti.

"And we have no evidence of any increased transmissibility of the viruses that were involved in the experiment with the ferrets in the Czech Republic."

Baxter hasn't shed much light - at least not publicly - on how the accident happened. Earlier this week Bona called the mistake the result of a combination of "just the process itself, (and) technical and human error in this procedure."

He said he couldn't reveal more information because it would give away proprietary information about Baxter's production process.

Andraghetti said Friday the four investigating governments are co-operating closely with the WHO and the European Centre for Disease Control in Stockholm, Sweden.

"We are in very close contact with Austrian authorities to understand what the circumstances of the incident in their laboratory were," she said.

"And the reason for us wishing to know what has happened is to prevent similar events in the future and to share lessons that can be learned from this event with others to prevent similar events. ... This is very important."

Copyright © 2009 The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.


Just an interesting news drop for you TP....


Mikal

[timeparticle]

[QUOTE=Mikal;82731]Hosted by Back to Google NewsBaxter admits contaminated seasonal flu product contained live bird flu virus
3 days ago

The company that released contaminated flu virus material from a plant in Austria confirmed Friday that the experimental product contained live H5N1 avian flu viruses.

And an official of the World Health Organization's European operation said the body is closely monitoring the investigation into the events that took place at Baxter International's research facility in Orth-Donau, Austria.

"At this juncture we are confident in saying that public health and occupational risk is minimal at present," medical officer Roberta Andraghetti said from Copenhagen, Denmark.



Hi, Mikal. This is a great beginning for a sci-fi movie. The accidental release of a new, genetically altered, or mixture virus has been released. But, don't worry, folks, as we are pretty sure it won't be a problem..... The next scene is of a zombie.

[Mikal]

Hi TP....you can catch the follow-up on this story in my Cultural thread....I felt it important enough to drop it there seeing I have been discussing vaccinations....


Mikal

[leskey]

Hi, All.

Even without any engineering from drug companies, it's important to see some of the connections.

A recent documentary linked the connection between weather extremes of drought and flood (similar to current patterns) being followed by rat plagues and the transfer of viruses from animals to humans. This occurs in densely populated conditons because the mutation rate of the virus is accelerated, the virus initially spreading from animal to animal, then crossing to contaminate humans with subsequent human to human infection. Researchers have now attributed the demise of the Aztecs to such a plague consisting of two pandemics killing approximately 16 million people over a 30 year period in the early 16th century.

From Wiki:

Yersinia pestis (formerly Pasteurella pestis) is a Gram-negativerod-shapedbacterium belonging to the family Enterobacteriaceae. It is a facultative anaerobe that can infect humans and other animals.
Human Y. pestis infection takes three main forms: pneumonic, septicemic, and the notorious bubonic plagues.[1] All three forms have been responsible for high mortality rates in epidemics throughout human history, including the Black Death (a bubonic plague) that accounted for the death of at least one-third of the European population in 1347 to 1353.
Recently Y. pestis has gained attention as a possible biological warfare agent and the CDC has classified it as category A pathogen requiring preparation for a possible terrorist attack. Y. pestis may be afflicting al-Qaeda in Algeria.

It's also interesting to note that many other viruses, despite their various names, are in fact variations on the same theme. In the case of Ebola, Marburg and Hendra virus, it is initially spread by bats.

Throughout history sudden, dramatic climate change has been the impetus for equally sudden and dramatic extinctions in overpopulated environments. The virus is a natural regulator. Now it appears, pharmaceutical companies have no problem in assisting the process: afterall, people will pay for the privilege of an injection safeguard whichever way you look at it...yet another "licence to print money."

[Mikal]

Hi Lesk....makes you wonder what kind of world we are when we would even allow the military to consider Biological Warfare...maybe its not that we allow it but that things are too secretive and too much is decided now without a referendum from the public.....

A good question....who dropped the reins???


Mikal

[timeparticle]

Nano-tech will alter viral future.

Engineering to alter and re-create the genes in virus will probably not change it's fundamental purpose. However, it may change it's plan and execution for carrying the purpose out.

Virus adapt, sometimes quickly, in order to execute it's inherit purpose. Stopping it's purposeful attack temporarily will not shut down it's motivation, only encourage it's mutation.

Throw nano-tech into a not too distant future, and we will have a biological war on the microscopic level that will affect all other life forms. The viral purpose will continue... Will we?

[Mikal]

Hi TP....follow this link, you might get an answer to your question.

http://www.drcarley.com/




Mikal

[Mikal]

A quote from

THE SECOND TREE OF CLONES, CHIMERAS AND THE QUEST FOR IMMORTALITY

ELAINE DEWAR

"The idea of revelation made me read again and again, the sad tale of Adam and Eve. Their story welds the invention of the first biotecnology (the use of leaves to cover nakedness) to the knowledge of good and evil and both to their fall from grace.
For the first time I noticed that the story deals with two trees, not just one. They eat the fruit of the first but it is the second tree that matters, the tree of life.
This is what God sought to protect by ejecting the parents of humankind from the Garden of Eden, setting cherubin and a fiery turning sword at the gate to guard it from us, lest flawed human beings also eat of the second tree and live like God forever.
At some point the cherubim and the fiery turning sword must have left their posts because biologists are definitely swarming all over this tree of life. They are grafting on new branches, meddling with the trees molecules, stretching out their hands to eat and live forever.
How did this happen? Where will it end? Who will make rules for them as they extend their dominion over all forms of life???"



Mikal