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Superflu Being Brewed in the Lab

Posted by michael on from the 1-6-million-dead-and-pass-to-your-left dept.

Genial Generalist writes "Superflu is being brewed in the lab, an article by Michael Le Page, describes some of the ongoing efforts to genetically modify the different strains of flu, specifically CDC modification of bird flu for the purpose of developing new vaccines."

2 of 332 comments (clear)

  1. The problem with flu vaccines... by jeblucas · · Score: 5, Informative
    Flu vaccines--for the last several decades--are cultured in chicken eggs. The little eggs gets injected with flu virus, the virus replicates and the little liquid chicken produces antibodies, which are then sucked out and jabbed in Gramma's arm at the clinic. This works great. For swine flu.

    Avian flu, however, would likely kill the egg--Dead Eggs Produce No Antibodies, i.e. no vaccine. Luckily, it's more difficult for avian flu to make the species jump to humans in a virulent form, but the WHO, CDC, and other groups are scared to death some bird flu is going to figure this out soon and we'll be helpless in front of it. It's 1918 all over again.

    Don't get to cranky about these folks looking at ways to culture flu virii in something other than chickens--they're looking for answers.

    --
    blarg.
  2. Re: 1918 Pandemic- yes, it WAS that bad... by cbelt3 · · Score: 5, Informative

    My grandfather came down with the 1918 flu with his entire Army unit just before they shipped out to France. 2/3 of the unit died. These were young men at the peak of physical condition, but living in very close quarters. Most died literally overnight. He was hospitalized for a month, and fortunately, missed the war. And by the way, it was called "Spanish Flu". Most of the /. crowd is too damn young to remember the major pandemics of the 20th century (Spanish Flu, Polio, TB). Viruses can and will kill a hell of a lot of people in a hurry. Any nice theory to the opposite is obviously developed by people who failed to sudy or remember history. So far we've been damn lucky in the last 30 years. While I'm sure our luck will run out some time, deliberately coming up with an agent that will ENSURE megadeaths is the height of arrogance and stupidity.