Wendy,
The genie is already out of the bottle. The fact that the Dutch and
American researchers announced last year, that it is possible to tweak
the H5N1 virus so that it is able to jump from birds to animals,
would be enough for others to try it themselves. Unfortunately the
most likely candidates to attempt this, would not have the best
interests of a large part of the worlds population at heart. The
mortality figures I have read run between 40% and 60%. It would
certainly solve the problems of the world's population and global
warming at the same time.
Mother nature may beat them to it though. There was an article in
Nature in 2004, warning that H5N1 was mutating and that it may be able
to jump to mammalian species in the future.
Carl Clifford
On 23/01/2012, at 7:24 PM, Wendy wrote:
Hi all,
If you are feeling a bit hot, with today's warm weather, here is a way
to make your blood run cold, have a listen to the ABC Radio National
Health Report story about Bird Flu research.
http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/healthreport/health-report-23-january-2012/3785124
Not only could this lead to the massive loss of wild and domestic
birds, that has already been the risk, now some bright sparks have
worked out, and all but published, HOW TO make the virus air
transmissible in mammals with, I think they said, SIXTY PERCENT
mortality - FAR higher than the post WWI flu pandemic had. This
research was also undertaken in not highest safety labs.
I am all for free exchange of scientific knowledge, this is VERY
scary. Thankfully world scientists have taken action to try to keep
this genie in its bottle.
Wendy
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