Article

2005-07-16 China-Japan-Koreas

China may be testing bird flu as a bioweapon

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Posted by phil_b 2005-07-16 07:44|| || Front Page|| [11128 views since 2007-05-07] Top

#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">Zhang Fei 2005-07-16 08:28|| http://timurileng.blogspot.com]">[http://timurileng.blogspot.com] 2005-07-16 08:28|| Front Page Top

#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|| 2005-07-16 09:07|| Front Page Top

#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|| 2005-07-16 11:04|| Front Page Top

#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|| 2005-07-16 13:27|| Front Page Top

#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|| 2005-07-16 15:54|| Front Page Top

#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|| 2005-07-16 17:19|| Front Page Top

#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|| 2005-07-16 18:04|| Front Page Top

#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|| 2005-07-16 18:53|| Front Page Top

#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|| 2005-07-16 19:12|| Front Page Top

#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|| 2005-07-16 19:17|| Front Page Top

#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|| 2005-07-16 22:52|| Front Page Top

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