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U.S. Continues Biological Warfare Research
merryprankster writes "Researchers at Saint Louis University
have engineered a strain of mouse-pox virus which kills 100% of
animals it infects - even when the mice have been treated with vaccination
and anti-virals. The deadliness of the virus is related to the addition of a
protein IL-4 which shuts down cell-mediated immune response. The engineered
virus is not contagious and does not affect humans but the research has drawn
some condemnation as being dangerous and
unnecessary."
Seriously, what is the point of engineering something like this?
If it was another country's research team we'd probably be invading by now...
evil adrian
Yeah, don't worry, it doesn't infect humans.
Er, wait.
The work has not stopped there. The cowpox virus, which infects a range of animals including humans, has been genetically altered in a similar way.
Uh-oh.
Don't worry folks, viruses never mutate. There's no chance that a non-contageous virus could become airborne or bloodborne, and there's absolutely no way it could start affecting people. The fact that the US military has created a vaccine proof superbug with a 100% kill rate shouldn't bother anyone.
In Capitalist America, bank robs you!
The deadliness of the virus is related to the addition of a protein IL-4 which shuts down cell-mediated immune response.
Wow, just wow! I can't believe people don't realize how useful this is, and how off base the news poster really is. It was not developed to become a means to kill people. Being able to deactivate the entire immune system with a virus is such a huge leap forward. Now we can see how various biological processes work in the absence of the immune system. We have never been able to supress the immune system on this level. We can learn what functions definately need the immune system, gain new insight into autoimmune disease, and so on. Science always advances by altering or eliminating a variable and observing what happens to the others. I'm sure this sounds awfully familiar to all you CS people who spend hours debugging. Next time think before jumping to the OMG DEY R TEH Ev1L!!!11 conclusion.
Despite the concerns, work on lethal new pox viruses seems likely to continue in the US. When members of the audience in Geneva questioned the need for such experiments, an American voice in the back boomed out: "Nine-eleven". There were murmurs of agreement.
What has 9/11 to do with this? Could this virus have prevented the attack? Or any biological/chemical weapon for that matter?
9/11 has been used as an excuse for too long now to have any real meaning.
Americans have given up alot of privacy for nothing (as most allready know). The rest of the world has been ordered by the USA to change identification documents or face economical consequences, hand over flight information (including information which has nothing to do with the possibility of being a terrorist), Iraq have been invaded with this as an excuse whil everyone and their mother know right now that there has been no evidence of Iraq being involved with 9/11 and people are still being bombarded with laws and organisations that are supposedly to stop another attack.
While I agree that this research has value, lets not underestimate the danger involved. This is why we have containment procedures, etc. What would make me more comfortable with the international treaties on defensive research would be:
- Requirement of open communication on research being conducted (not to disclose HOW to do anything, but for awareness of WHAT is being done)
- Int'l standards for containment, etc. which could be verified by an int'l body.
These points allow you to prevent terror-supporting nations from abusing the loophole. If they don't tell us what they are doing and demonstrate observable precautions its illegal.Isn't that essentially how the IAEA Additional Protocol treaty works? The IAEA gets to monitor and you fully disclose what you are doing? Iran is signing on to that I believe.
Come play Moral Decay!
By some measures, the U.S. government is the most violent that has ever existed in the world.
The writer of this is an American who is very concerned about his government's participation in violence. In his opinion, a person doesn't really love his or her country unless he or she is willing to look at and understand areas where the country needs improvement. The same principle applies elsewhere. A man doesn't really love his wife if he turns his back when she is having serious, difficult-to-understand problems. And, a person doesn't really love himself or herself unless he or she tries to understand and resolve his or her own inner conflict.
Strictly speaking, it is the U.S. government that is responsible for the violence, not the people of the United States. Very, very few Americans understand the facts presented here. There are many Americans who support violence, and who angrily reject these facts, but even those probably would not want their money being spent on violence if they fully understood the financial and social impact on their lives.
The U.S. government has directly killed about 3,000,000 people since the beginning of the Vietnam war. Most of those, an estimated more than 2,000,000, were in Vietnam, a very poor country that did not threaten the United States.
Historians say that the number of people indirectly killed by the U.S. government is at least another 3,000,000, for a total of 6,000,000. For example, U.S. bombing of Cambodia left that country destabilized, and the forces of violence controlled Cambodia for years after the U.S. bombing.
The U.S. government has bombed 24 countries in the 58 years since the Second World War. The list below includes only countries bombed, not countries in which the U.S. government was responsible for other violence. The list includes only violence since the Second World War, not the extensive violence before the war. Most U.S. citizens are surprised and skeptical when they see the list, so a few links have been provided to supporting information. For more information, try the Google search engine or see the links below.
From the article:
Ramshaw's team made its initial discovery while developing contraceptive vaccines for sterilising mice and rabbits without killing them. The researchers modified the mousepox virus by adding a gene for a natural immunosuppressant called IL-4, expecting this would boost antibody production.
Instead, the modified mousepox virus was far more lethal, killing 60 per cent of vaccinated mice. The addition of IL-4 seems to switch off a key part of the immune system called the cell-mediated response.
Okay. For all of you going on and on about how useful this research for preventing bioterrorism, keep in mind that this is not at all the original intent of the researchers.
They were trying to make an contagious but non-lethal virus whose sole function was to serve as a contraceptive. Instead, they ended up creating a highly lethal, non contagious virus.
Granted, it is difficult to know exactly what the effect of mutating or altering viruses will be on the animals they're introduced into, but this is sort of my point.
If you try modifying a virus to make it non-lethal, and it turns out to be lethal for most of your test subjects, it is not a good idea to to say, "Wow! Let's see what happens when we try that in *another* virus!"
Since they don't know why the introduction of IL-4 made the viruses non-transferable, they probably don't know enough about this virus modification to assume that other strains won't be contagious when it's introduced.
Karma: Chevy Kavalierma.
I rarely get mad at a post on slashdot. But this one got me going.
We are now guilty of illegally invading a foreign country without any direct threat of war or attack or in assistance to another country, but simply based on political agenda, public ignorance, public fear mongering, and propoganda about WMD.
Wow. First, there is no such thing as an illegal war. Frankly, there's hardly such a thing as a civilized war. Who has the athority to say "war is legal" and "war is illegal"? Last I looked on earth the highest authority is a soverign government. There is NO INTERNATIONAL GOVERNEMENT - although some would like there to be one.
The public was not ignorant about the war in Iraq. I seem to recall almost endless debate over the need for the war. It came to a vote and people with access to even better information than you and I (congress) authorized the president to take action. WMD as justification aside, there were four other pillars to the decision: democratization of the region, oil, terrorism and the plight of the Iraqi people.
The US is not a world democracy, but a world hypocrisy. We can do it, but NOBODY else can. And there is NOTHING you can do about it.
Why whould you ever think the US was trying in any way to represent the world? Last I looked only US citizens had the right to vote here. We are not a world democracy. Our government was not founded protect the world, it was founded to to protect the people who have entrusted it with the power to do so. Based on the fact we are prosperous, don't have wars inside our borders and enjoy a life where we are free to pursue our own interests, our government is a success.
As for hypocrisy, why does that even matter? Last I looked, hypocrisy wasn't a crime. Regardless, the US is not hypocritical. We are simply pursuing policy that is in our interest. What you seem to fail to grasp is that policies in the interest of other nations are often contrary to what is best for your own nation.
Do we need ANOTHER WMD? The answer is, we don't.
That's fine if you want to be bullied around by other nations. But I think I can speek for anyone who values freedom here: I'd rather have the next WMD in our arsenal than anyone else have it. Better my country be able to threaten a foreign power than be threatened by one.
-- $G
Well if you consider the UN charter a treaty that the US has agreed to, then you look at that charter, especially where it says "The Organization is based on the principle of the sovereign equality of all its Members" and "All Members shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state, or in any other manner inconsistent with the Purposes of the United Nations."
Then you can easily draw a conclusion that the new policy of premption is in contradiction with existing US treaty obligations.
We are simply pursuing policy that is in our interest. What you seem to fail to grasp is that policies in the interest of other nations are often contrary to what is best for your own nation.
This can be true, but international relations is not a zero-sum game. What goes around comes around.
And it will come around...
Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known. -- Carl Sagan
That was a very well written post and I agree with you that most Americans do not understand the facts. But then, neither do the French, the Russians, the Chinese, heck, the entire human race's ability for objectivism and rationality could be seriously questioned. Which is the point of my response.
While I as an American certainly do not want to let my government and my society (including myself) off the hook, laying the guilt of 3,000,000 or 6,000,000 deaths soley on the heads of America is an abuse of the facts. Violence is a global failure, not a localized one. Aggressors should be identified and appropriately dealt with (US included) -- but to excuse all other parties is to participate in a witch hunt.
I leave you with one question: Suppose the US had not killed all those people. Suppose the US had never gotten involved anywhere. Can you confidently conclude that the gross level of violence and death in the world would be any less?
There is more than one player in the world. And we ALL share in these iniquities. The violence of the US, Rwanda, Palestinians and Jews is violence of humanity and we each share in the failure.
Who said Freedom was Fair?