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| Fifth Column |
| Vomit-Brained Idiots give Terrorists the Spanish Flu genome |
| 2005-10-17 |
| Recipe for Destruction By RAY KURZWEIL and BILL JOY Published: October 17, 2005 Snipped for fair use, read the whole thing at the link AFTER a decade of painstaking research, federal and university scientists have reconstructed the 1918 influenza virus that killed 50 million people worldwide. Like the flu viruses now raising alarm bells in Asia, the 1918 virus was a bird flu that jumped directly to humans, the scientists reported. To shed light on how the virus evolved, the United States Department of Health and Human Services published the full genome of the 1918 influenza virus on the Internet in the GenBank database. This is extremely foolish. The genome is essentially the design of a weapon of mass destruction. No responsible scientist would advocate publishing precise designs for an atomic bomb, and in two ways revealing the sequence for the flu virus is even more dangerous. First, it would be easier to create and release this highly destructive virus from the genetic data than it would be to build and detonate an atomic bomb given only its design, as you don't need rare raw materials like plutonium or enriched uranium. Synthesizing the virus from scratch would be difficult, but far from impossible. An easier approach would be to modify a conventional flu virus with the eight unique and now published genes of the 1918 killer virus Gee, it's not as if there's anyone out there who might use this information to cook up a deadly virus in the name of Allen, or anything. It is small consolation to think that the Kerry administration would be handing out free Bubonic Plague samples as well. |
| Posted by:Ernest Brown |
| #4 JFM: Not so, on several points. First of all, the demographics are heavily skewed towards peasants with absolutely no modern health care. Perhaps 3-4 billion. Second, in 1918, the American medical community were very familiar with epidemics. They had good antiseptics, autoclaves, surgical masks and rubber gloves, specialist hospitals for certain diseases, and took many reasonable precautions that saved lives. The big difference today is that the general public is far more medically educated. It also has access to tremendous information resources, and can receive information quickly from the government. As far as antivirals go, only one is left that the disease hasn't shown considerable resistance to. The one they had been betting on, Tamiflu, may require 30 times its expected dose to have any effect. |
| Posted by: Anonymoose 2005-10-17 15:57 |
| #3 Mortality from the Spanish flu was 3%. Reason it was so deadly was because it struck half the world population. But nowadays mortality would be a lot less than 3% just from better diagnostic and life support and that before we factor antivirals who didn't exist in 1918. |
| Posted by: JFM 2005-10-17 14:41 |
| #2 I would add: Why would they spend the money? The typical terrorist attack is done as cheaply as possible. That allows for more attacks to be planned and funded. Cheap, and simpler attacks also mean fewer points of potential failure. All Tim McVeigh had to worry about was if the timer would work or not. A viral terrorist has multiple points of failure to overcome, not the least of which is not dying by your own product. Chemical attacks and dirty bombs are inexpensive, and plain old explosives even more so. |
| Posted by: Chuck Simmins 2005-10-17 13:48 |
| #1 If they're planning to reconstruct a virus from a genome template, let's hire them. The US probably won't be able to do that for another 20-50 years without their help. |
| Posted by: Anonymoose 2005-10-17 11:17 |