http://washingtontimes.com/upi-break...0452-8400r.htm
Atlanta, GA, Mar. 24 (UPI) -- The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has begun a series of experiments to see how likely the bird flu virus could result in a human pandemic.
var bnum=new Number(Math.floor(99999999 * Math.random())+1);document.write('');
The six-month series of experiments seeks to simulate the mixing and matching of genes from the H5N1 avian flu virus that has plagued Asia and a common human flu virus that public-health experts fear could turn avian flu into a pandemic, the Wall Street Journal reported Thursday.
CDC scientists inside an ultra-secure laboratory have started swapping the genes of the H5N1 avian virus with the genes of an H3N2 virus, the strain behind most recent human flu outbreaks.
The goal is to substitute the eight genes of each virus, one by one, with the eight genes from the other virus to see which of more than 250 possible combinations create flu viruses that could spread easily among humans.
The work responds to fears by global public health experts that the bird flu virus could mutate to form one that could spawn a global outbreak of the disease.
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This makes me very uncomfortable. Do we really need homegrown pandemic strains? I notice they aren't planning any recombinations with swine H1N1 or mallard HxNx, etc.
What happens if they find a high path franken-virus, make a VAX, vaccinate millions, and (you-guessed it) the H2H is a combo of H5N1 and something other than the precise strain of H3N2 used for the VAX? How many years have they guessed wrong on the annual VAX?
Conspiracy theorists will really spin this event.
But I hope it works.
.
Atlanta, GA, Mar. 24 (UPI) -- The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has begun a series of experiments to see how likely the bird flu virus could result in a human pandemic.
var bnum=new Number(Math.floor(99999999 * Math.random())+1);document.write('');
The six-month series of experiments seeks to simulate the mixing and matching of genes from the H5N1 avian flu virus that has plagued Asia and a common human flu virus that public-health experts fear could turn avian flu into a pandemic, the Wall Street Journal reported Thursday.
CDC scientists inside an ultra-secure laboratory have started swapping the genes of the H5N1 avian virus with the genes of an H3N2 virus, the strain behind most recent human flu outbreaks.
The goal is to substitute the eight genes of each virus, one by one, with the eight genes from the other virus to see which of more than 250 possible combinations create flu viruses that could spread easily among humans.
The work responds to fears by global public health experts that the bird flu virus could mutate to form one that could spawn a global outbreak of the disease.
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This makes me very uncomfortable. Do we really need homegrown pandemic strains? I notice they aren't planning any recombinations with swine H1N1 or mallard HxNx, etc.
What happens if they find a high path franken-virus, make a VAX, vaccinate millions, and (you-guessed it) the H2H is a combo of H5N1 and something other than the precise strain of H3N2 used for the VAX? How many years have they guessed wrong on the annual VAX?
Conspiracy theorists will really spin this event.
But I hope it works.
.
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