Dutch Researcher Creates A Super-Influenza Virus With The Potential To Kill Half the World’s Population
Via DoctorTipster.com:
A Dutch researcher has created a virus with the potential to kill half of the planet’s population. Now, researchers and experts in bioterrorism debate whether it is a good idea to publish the virus creation ”recipe”. However, several voices argue that such research should have not happened in the first place.
The virus is a strain of avian influenza H5N1 genetically modified to be extremely contagious. It was created by researcher Ron Fouchier of the Erasmus Medical Center Rotterdam, Netherlands. The work was first presented at a conference dedicated to influenza, that took place in September in Malta.
Avian influenza emerged in Asia about 10 years ago. Since then there were fewer than 600 infection cases reported in humans. On the other hand, Fouchier’s genetically modified strain is extremely contagious and dangerous, killing about 50% of infected patients. The former strain did not represent a global threat, as transmission from human to human is rare. Or, at least, it was before Fouchier genetically modified it.
Washington Health Sec.: Contagion Movie Is Very Real
[Note spoilers below and in the link.] Josh Kirns amps up fear of contagious diseases for Mynorthwest.com:
Talk about a horror movie. The global outbreak thriller “Contagion” topped the weekend box office and it prompted a lot of extra hand washing and increased hesitance to touch door knobs, hand rails, or just about anything else we all come in contact with. Of course it’s prompting many to ask if the fictional story of an unknown virus spreading around the world in a matter of days can come true.
“What was rolling around in my mind was when SARS happened,” Washington Secretary of Health Mary Selecky told Seattle’s Morning News on 97.3 KIRO FM. “And then of course, there was H1N1 (commonly known as Swine Flu,) it was an unknown novel virus just like in the movie.”
She said just like in the movie, we didn’t know what it was or how to treat…
New Drug May Cure All Viruses
DRACO images (MIT) – click to enlarge
This is so sci-fi it has to be too good to be true – doesn’t it? MIT News reports that researchers at MIT’s Lincoln Lab have developed technology that may someday cure the common cold, influenza and many other viral ailments:
Most bacterial infections can be treated with antibiotics such as penicillin, discovered decades ago. However, such drugs are useless against viral infections, including influenza, the common cold, and deadly hemorrhagic fevers such as Ebola.
Now, in a development that could transform how viral infections are treated, a team of researchers at MIT’s Lincoln Laboratory has designed a drug that can identify cells that have been infected by any type of virus, then kill those cells to terminate the infection.
In a paper published July 27 in the journal PLoS One, the researchers tested their drug against 15 viruses, and found it was effective against all of them —…
Flu Vaccine Could Treat All Strands Of The Virus
Kazakstan students during 2009 swine flu outbreak. Photo: Nikolay Olkhovoy
Good bye flu shot, hello cure! The Guardian reports:
Scientists at Oxford University have successfully tested a universal flu vaccine that could work against all known strains of the illness, taking a significant step in the fight against a disease that affects billions of people each year.
The treatment – using a new technique and tested for the first time on humans infected with flu – targets a different part of the flu virus to traditional vaccines, meaning it does not need expensive reformulation every year to match the most prevalent virus that is circulating the world.
Developed by a team led by Dr Sarah Gilbert at Oxford’s Jenner Institute, the vaccine targets proteins inside the flu virus that are common across all strains, instead of those that sit on the virus’s external coat, which are liable to mutate.
If used widely a universal flu vaccine…
Is Schizophrenia Caused By An ‘Insanity Virus’?
It’s a novel and chilling theory: we are all born with a brain-ravaging virus that invaded the human DNA millions of years ago. Our bodies work to contain it, but childhood infections such as the flu can allow HERV-W to become temporarily unleashed — the cause of schizophrenia and multiple sclerosis. Discovery reports:
Schizophrenia has long been blamed on bad genes or even bad parents. Wrong, says a growing group of psychiatrists. The real culprit, they claim, is a virus that lives entwined in every person’s DNA.
Schizophrenia is usually diagnosed between the ages of 15 and 25, but the person who becomes schizophrenic is sometimes recalled to have been different as a child or a toddler—more forgetful or shy or clumsy. Even more puzzling is the so-called birth-month effect: People born in winter or early spring are more likely than others to become schizophrenic later in life. It is a small increase,…
Cure For Common Cold May Arrive Soon
Too good to be true? It’s sort of the holy grail of medicine and maybe, just maybe, scientists at Cambridge University have found it, according to Steve Connor at the Independent:
In a dramatic breakthrough that could affect millions of lives, scientists have been able to show for the first time that the body’s immune defences can destroy the common cold virus after it has actually invaded the inner sanctum of a human cell, a feat that was believed until now to be impossible.
The discovery opens the door to the development of a new class of antiviral drugs that work by enhancing this natural virus-killing machinery of the cell. Scientists believe the first clinical trials of new drugs based on the findings could begin within two to five years.
The researchers said that many other viruses responsible for a range of diseases could also be targeted by the new approach. They include…
Can Supercomputers Stop Bird Flu Using Google Earth?
Supercomputers can now construct millions of phylogenetic trees to determine how H5N1 viral mutations are related, and then map them on Google Earth.
The Supramap can predict the path of pathogens the way weathermen predict the path of a storm…
Ex-Pfizer Worker Cites Genetically Engineered Virus In Lawsuit Over Firing
By Edmund H. Mahoney for the Hartford Courant:
Medical experts will be watching closely Monday when a scientist who says she has been intermittently paralyzed by a virus designed at the Pfizer laboratory where she worked in Groton opens a much anticipated trial that could raise questions about safety practices in the dynamic field of genetic engineering.
Organizations involved in workplace safety and responsible genetic research already have seized on the federal lawsuit by molecular biologist Becky McClain as an example of what they claim is evidence that risks caused by cutting-edge genetic manipulation have outstripped more slowly evolving government regulation of laboratories.
McClain, of Deep River, suspects she was inadvertently exposed, through work by a former Pfizer colleague in 2002 or 2003, to an engineered form of the lentivirus, a virus similar to the one that can lead to acquired immune deficiency syndrome, or AIDS. Medical experts working for McClain believe the…
According to DNA, You’re Half-Human, Half-Virus
Frank Ryan writes in New Scientist:
When, in 2001, the human genome was sequenced for the first time, we were confronted by several surprises. One was the sheer lack of genes: where we had anticipated perhaps 100,000 there were actually as few as 20,000. A bigger surprise came from analysis of the genetic sequences, which revealed that these genes made up a mere 1.5 per cent of the genome.
This is dwarfed by DNA deriving from viruses, which amounts to roughly 9 per cent.On top of that, huge chunks of the genome are made up of mysterious virus-like entities called retrotransposons, pieces of selfish DNA that appear to serve no function other than to make copies of themselves. These account for no less than 34 per cent of our genome.
All in all, the virus-like components of the human genome amount to almost half of our DNA. This would once have been dismissed as mere “junk DNA”, but we now know that some of it plays a critical role in our biology. As to the origins and function of the rest, we simply do not know…
40-Million-Year-Old Virus Found In Human Genome
Reported on AFP via Yahoo News:
Humans carry in their genome the relics of an animal virus that infected their forerunners at least 40 million years ago, according to research published by the British science journal Nature.The invader is called bornavirus, a brain-infecting pathogen that was first identified in 1970s. Scientists led by Keizo Tomonaga of Japan’s Osaka University compared the DNA of a range of mammals, including humans, apes, elephants, marsupials and rodents, to look for tell-tale signatures of bornavirus code.
In the human genome, the team found several bornavirus fragments but also in the form of two genes that may be functional, although what they do is unclear. Until now, the only viruses known to have been handed on in vertebrates were retroviruses, which work by hijacking cellular machinery in order to reproduce.
Retroviruses are effective in infiltrating the germline — the DNA of reproductive cells, which means their sequence, or…
We Don’t Want Your Swine Flu Vaccinations (Music Video)
Check out this music vid from Steve Phillips where he lays out many of the arguments against the H1N1 vaccine. He also tells us:
I believe this is an extremely important issue. Because it’s not possible to present all the information in a short song, I sincerely hope that those who have not already done so will look into this matter more deeply.
Here are some links to get you started:http://www.theshotheardroundtheworld….
http://www.davidicke.com/content/blog…
http://www.wholetruthcoalition.org/
H1N1 Virus Can Be Killed by Acidic Ozone Water
From PhysOrg.com:
Scientists have found that acidic ozone water can deactivate H1N1 viruses very effectively, offering a promising disinfectant for the millions of people trying to avoid the disease. Acidic ozone water (AOW) is made from regular tap water mixed with a small amount of acid such as hydrochloric acid, along with an ozonized gas that can be produced in the lab. After deactivating the virus, the substance eventually decays into plain water, leaving no residue or harmful materials in the environment.
Scientists Han Uhm of Ajou University in Korea, along with Kwang Lee and Baik Seong of Yonsei University in Korea, have published the results of their study on the H1N1 disinfectant in a recent issue of Applied Physics Letters. Besides being environmentally benign, AOW also has the advantage that it may cost significantly less to prepare compared with chemical disinfectants.
During the past several months, H1N1 has infected thousands of people…
New Ebola-like Virus Threatens U.S. Troops In Afghanistan
Sara Carter reports exclusively for the Washington Times:
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan | U.S. military officials sent a medical team to a remote outpost in southern Afghanistan this week to take blood samples from members of an Army unit after a soldier in the unit died from an Ebola-like virus.
Dr. Jim Radike, an expert in internal medicine and infectious diseases at the Role 3 Trauma Hospital at Kandahar Air Field, told The Washington Times that Sgt. Robert David Gordon, 22, from River Falls, Ala., died Sept. 16 from what turned out to be Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever after he was bitten by a tick. The virus is transmitted by infected blood and can be carried by ticks, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
Dr. Radike, who is with the Navy, said the medical team “will be taking blood samples and the results may take several weeks to get back.” He called…
