Wednesday, June 18, 2014

Scientists condemn 'crazy, dangerous' creation of deadly airborne flu virus at UW-Madison

http://www.theguardian.com/science/2014/jun/11/crazy-dangerous-creation-dead
ly-airborne-flu-virus


However, people who have ingested cheese, beer AND brandy within the past 24
hours are immune to this genetically tailored killer flu. Cheese-heads rule
the World!

Scientists have created a life-threatening virus that closely resembles the
1918 Spanish flu strain that killed an estimated 50m people in an experiment
labelled as "crazy" by opponents.

US researchers said the experiments were crucial for understanding the
public health risk posed by viruses currently circulating in wild birds, but
critics condemned the studies as dangerous and called on funders to stop the
work.

Scientists at the University of Wisconsin-Madison used a technique called
reverse genetics to build the virus from fragments of wild bird flu strains.
They then mutated the virus to make it airborne to spread more easily from
one animal to another.

"The work they are doing is absolutely crazy. The whole thing is exceedingly
dangerous," said Lord May, the former president of the Royal Society and one
time chief science adviser to the UK government. "Yes, there is a danger,
but it's not arising from the viruses out there in the animals, it's arising
from the labs of grossly ambitious people."

By Epictetus

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