Article

2007-01-26 Science & Technology

Sercrets of 1918 Flu. (bio-reverse engineered bug used to test)

Archived material is restricted to Rantburg regulars and members. If you need access email fred.pruitt=at=gmail.com with your nick to be added to the members list. There is no charge to join Rantburg as a member.

Posted by 3dc 2007-01-26 00:00|| || Front Page|| [11134 views since 2007-05-07] Top

#1 OK, so maybe I am a bit paranoid, has all the test material been accounted for and / or destroyed? Canada is a bit too close for this stuff to be running around.

Posted by USN, ret. 2007-01-26 00:12|| 2007-01-26 00:12|| Front Page Top

#2 I think we should fire bomb all of Canada to be safe.

Posted by Mike N. 2007-01-26 00:37|| 2007-01-26 00:37|| Front Page Top

#3 Reviving extinct virii, especially one that killed 20 million people, strikes me as a really bad idea.

Posted by mojo">mojo 2007-01-26 02:27|| 2007-01-26 02:27|| Front Page Top

#4 It is a bad idea, and I 2nd Mike N's suggestion.

Posted by BA 2007-01-26 09:47|| 2007-01-26 09:47|| Front Page Top

#5 It's this kind of thing, scientists reconstructing viruses or designing their own, that gives me the heebie-jeebies every time I hear about it.

There are kits available out there, really inexpensive ones, that are designed to allow high school students to do genetic work (particularly recombinant DNA experients).

As an example of some of the stuff that can be had, I was looking around just yesterday and for about $150 you can buy frozen or lypholized spider venom in a variety of quantities and types. I was particularly amazed at this as I had just recently learned there are no permitting requirements for trans-shipping live spiders. Spider venom is loaded with proteins and proteins are building blocks of DNA, but aside from that point, it shows what can be found on the net these days if you know how and where to look.

There are labs out there, possibly (probably?) in someone's kitchen, brewing up stuff that if it got out could be a dire threat to our very existence ala Stephen King and his worst nightmares.

Posted by FOTSGreg">FOTSGreg 2007-01-26 10:37|| www.fire-on-the-suns.com]">[www.fire-on-the-suns.com] 2007-01-26 10:37|| Front Page Top

#6 This plus home nano-factories are the reason we have get on with conquering and subduing the planet pronto. Nuclear-armed "islamists" i.e. muslims are going to be looked back on as a quaint little problem by comparison. Seriously, we would be better off ruled by the ChiComs than try to survive the chaos on the way.

Posted by Excalibur 2007-01-26 11:02|| 2007-01-26 11:02|| Front Page Top

#7 Though I would still prefer our global hegemony of course.

Posted by Excalibur 2007-01-26 11:02|| 2007-01-26 11:02|| Front Page Top

#8 I, for one, welcome our new (write down name and/or description here) Overlords!

Posted by anonymous5089 2007-01-26 12:08|| 2007-01-26 12:08|| Front Page Top

#9 Learning from the 1918 flu, even by recreating the virus, is worthwhile. And it is not likely to be nearly as dangerous even if it were to be re-released: man has now been exposed to it and its mutated progeny so immune responses should not be so distorted. The ones to be more concerned about are the mutations into whole new lines, which is why the 'bird flu' is of such concern. Research on the 1918 flu just might help us intercept the bird flu BEFORE it goes all '1918' on us. (This is not to say the Canadians shouldn't be careful, but they are a responsible, developed nation, and not Iran or such.)

Posted by Glenmore">Glenmore 2007-01-26 12:16|| 2007-01-26 12:16|| Front Page Top

#10 No Mike N. nuking it from orbit is the only way to be sure.

Posted by Carl in N.H.">Carl in N.H. 2007-01-26 13:15|| 2007-01-26 13:15|| Front Page Top

#11 To explain the interest, flus contain an 'H' factor, and an 'N' factor.

H is the protein in the virus that lets it enter a cell, and N is another protein that, after the virus reproduces in the cell, allows it to break out of the cell to infect other cells.

Influenza virus must have both an H and an N factor to cause disease.

There are 16 different H factors and 137 N factors.

However, in past, only H1, H2, and H3 have been able to infect human cells. That is why H5N1, the avian flu, is so potentially deadly. Until now, we have never been exposed to it at all.

As far as the N factor, only 9 variants are associated with influenzas, and most influenzas have used either N1 or N2, but there have been some isolated cases from N3 and N7.

That being said, the Spanish flu (H1N1) seemed to have just the right combination to attack humans where they were weakest. Though we don't know for sure, it might have been the first time for the H1 to attack us.

The number assignments are recent, so H1 may actually be a fairly new protein in the influenza virus, with H2 and H3 far older.

However, as a caution, there is NO immunity in any living person to the Spanish flu (H1N1), either. After they had re-created, they tested it on animals, and it is still incredibly virulent. Lab animals all died within 36 hours.

Even the few people still alive who lived through the Spanish flu have probably long since lost their immunity to the disease.

Important: the Spanish flu peaked at a 20% mortality rate among humans. The avian flu is easily, and unexpectedly, maintaining its 50% or better mortality rate. So it is more than twice as potentially lethal as the Spanish flu.

In 1918, the United States had about 50 million people, of which, rough estimates are that anywhere from 200,000 to 2 million Americans died.

Our population is now over 300 million. Assuming the lower figure is correct, all else being equal, we could have 3 million fatalities.

Posted by Anonymoose 2007-01-26 18:06|| 2007-01-26 18:06|| Front Page Top

#12 And the scary thing about the 1918 flu was that it killed, within a very short time... the young and the fit, who otherwise would have been expected to survive it.
My great-aunt contracted it as a teenager, in Reading, England. She lived; she wrote in a short memoir that she was barely strong enough to come downstairs and listen to the WWI victory through the front door of her parents' house, as she was too weak to go any farther than the bottom of the staircase. She was all alone in the house; her mother was a volunteer nurse at the time, probably working in an emergency hospital with those who were very much worse off.

Posted by Sgt. Mom 2007-01-26 18:54|| www.ncobrief.com]">[www.ncobrief.com] 2007-01-26 18:54|| Front Page Top

#13 Killing too quickly can be bad though, as it limits the spread.

This is not as bad as it sounds, and is done with a range of things.

Posted by bombay">bombay 2007-01-26 20:44|| 2007-01-26 20:44|| Front Page Top

#14 The 1918 flu virus did not kill everyone. Until very recently, there was no good idea of why it killed the way it did, a fact necessary to protect from the next bad mutation. This research is important.

Posted by Anguper Hupomosing9418 2007-01-26 23:36|| 2007-01-26 23:36|| Front Page Top

18:57 jacksonsa
23:44 Anguper Hupomosing9418
23:36 Anguper Hupomosing9418
23:31 Anguper Hupomosing9418
23:27 Anguper Hupomosing9418
23:22 Anguper Hupomosing9418
22:47 DMFD
22:38 gromgoru
22:31 xbalanke
22:26 Classical_Liberal
22:25 xbalanke
22:21 3dc
22:19 Xenophone
22:17 gromgoru
22:08 USN, ret.
22:05 xbalanke
22:05 USN, ret.
22:00 Eric Jablow
21:56 USN, ret.
21:53 Anguper Hupomosing9418
21:50 Verlaine
21:47 USN, ret.
21:43 Anguper Hupomosing9418
21:42 USN, ret.