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| China-Japan-Koreas |
| China may be testing bird flu as a bioweapon |
| 2005-07-16 |
| This is a translation of a post at Boxun, which broke the SARS story and has persistent rumours of human cases of bird flu in China. You have to scroll down to get the human translation by docomo. My read is in fact quite different to the posters in the thread. Were a major flu pandemic to break out, despite severe consequences, it would not result in 'regime change' in Western democracies, while it would seriously endanger the Chicom regime. So I think they may be testing bird flu containment by creating vaccine barriers and then releasing know strains and seeing if the vaccine barriers work. I know this sounds Dr. Strangelove conspiratorial but it has a certain logic. What if you were a Chicom leader and believed a major bird flu outbreak would lead to you and everyone you know hanging from a lampost, wouldn't you take the risk of testing in the field whether vaccines could stop its spread? Since the first appearance of bird flu, the chinese government has made some detailed classification for the mutated virus. Contrary to most speculations, related government departments have taken necessary measures to contain and counter the spreading of the virus. However, the chinese government is worried about the anti-communist movement may be able to put more pressure to the control of the communist government at this moment. Since 2004, the government has classified most infected or death cases caused by the virus, supplemented with the information gathered in qinghai. For non-fatal infectious diseases, the chinese government targeted at controlling information and quarantine measures. For infectious diseases which are fatal to human, the focus of the government is whether the virus can be converted to a biological weapon or not. The military will first research on the controllability of the virus. In some occasions, the virus may even be released to the public in order to test the effectiveness of the vaccines and preventive measures. |
| Posted by:phil_b |
| #11 Interesting analysis Phil, and very logical in my twisted mind. What says you about Smallpox and NK? Thank ya, thank ya very much. EP |
| Posted by: ElvisHasLeftTheBuilding 2005-07-16 22:52 |
| #10 So, the weapon is the capacity to produce sufficient vaccine (that works) in a useful timeframe. |
| Posted by: phil_b 2005-07-16 19:17 |
| #9 And, everyone agrees the flu pandemic is coming and there is little we can do to stop it. Moose is right about the speed with which flus 'mutate' but the barriers to producing vaccines in short timescales are largely self-imposed in the West. These regulatory barriers don't exist in China. Lets face it, nobody is going to sue the Chinese government. BTW, there have been several 'bad vaccine' stories out of China recently, that coincidentally are in remote areas and coincide with military exercises. |
| Posted by: phil_b 2005-07-16 19:12 |
| #8 I agree with Moose that using flu as a bioweapon is nuts, but what if the Chicoms could control/contain outbreaks of a killer flu and nobody else could? Or their troops were immune becuase they had a vaccine and nobody else did? There is a school of thought that says WW1 came to an end becuase both sides were incapacitated by the flu pandemic. What if only one side was? China has been unusually secretive and paranoid about bird flu. I think this document is probably a fake, but the possibility its not scares the hell out of me. Like the Moose I am well aware that disease pandemics are world changing events. |
| Posted by: phil_b 2005-07-16 18:53 |
| #7 A really horrific pandemic has all sorts of *interesting* international effects. In the short term, it can radically change the outcome of wars, such as Korea, where the numerically vastly superior Chinese forces were decimated by hemorrhagic smallpox, otherwise the US could have been muscled off the peninsula or forced to use nukes. Otherwise, pandemics tend to work from the bottom up, taking out lots of peasants; otherwise, they free up huge amounts of farmland for more efficient agriculture, and when they are over, there are boom times from high wages and low unemployment. The Black Death of the 14th Century was followed by the Renaissance, and the Black Death of the 17th, by the Industrial Revolution. Today, my own personal projection from a real killer influenza is anywhere from 30M to 300M deaths, mostly in China, India and the 'nesias. |
| Posted by: Anonymoose 2005-07-16 18:04 |
| #6 Wonder how good the health sciences are in the NW Territory of Pakland if something like this should show up? |
| Posted by: Omise Glavirong4752 2005-07-16 17:19 |
| #5 More than you want to know about bird flu at http://www.recombinomics.com/whats_new.html |
| Posted by: RWV 2005-07-16 15:54 |
| #4 Thanks for the detailed information Moose, but let's be honest - there's a severe lack of sanity in certain areas of the world at the moment... |
| Posted by: Tony (UK) 2005-07-16 13:27 |
| #3 Influenza is an insane choice as a bioweapon, and is never seriously considered for such for a simple reason. It is too unpredictable. Unlike most other viral pathogens, influenza has an extraordinarily high number of what are called "flexible genes", genes that are very prone to mutation. It is just as likely to mutate to a less harmful state on the spur-of-the-moment (as did Swine Flu), as to mutate to a strain resistant to the current vaccine. Its mutations cover the gamut from selectivity in its victims (such as 'young men' killed by the Spanish Flu), to what species of mammals and birds it attacks or just uses as vectors. In addition, "avian" strains are very hard to make vaccine for in quantity, because they kill the chicken embryos used to make the vaccine, so other animals have to be used. On top of that, vaccine is only optimally effective for two or three months, and an influenza epidemic can circulate from nine months to a year and a half. In other words, while everybody wants and needs to test the HELL out of it, and control methods for it, NOBODY is going to fiddle with it in hopes of developing a weapon. (BTW, I just mentioned the "tip of the iceberg" with its eccentricities. Let it just be said that it is, and has long been considered to be the #1 *natural* virological threat to mankind in the world.) |
| Posted by: Anonymoose 2005-07-16 11:04 |
| #2 I have no doubt that someone somewhere will perfect the bioweapon someday. On the flipside I'm also quite optimistic that no one will be left to enjoy the victory. |
| Posted by: AzCat 2005-07-16 09:07 |
| #1 My feeling is that bioweapons are overrated. It's hard to beat natural (Darwinian) selection for coming up with the most environment resistant bugs simply by having guys in lab coats spend a few years with test tubes. Naturally-evolving bugs have been doing their thing for millions of years. The day we figure out how to kill these bugs will be the day that we also figure out how to come up with better bioweapons. |
| Posted by: Zhang Fei 2005-07-16 08:28 |