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Indonesia Stops Sharing Avian Virus Samples
dankrabach writes "Indonesia has apparently decided to play the IP game, with the world's health at stake. The country, one of the hardest-hit by avian flu, has stopped submitting virus samples to the World Health Organization, and is negotiating to sell them to an American drug company that makes the vaccine. They feel slighted when they give away such samples, but then cannot afford the patented vaccines. Logical to me, given the rules of the game; however, can't we come up with some GPL'ish license to free any product based on this data?"
Forbid any American drug company from buying the samples. Problem solved.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
For an idea of how bad a Flu epidemic can get, try typing "flu 1919" into Google, that epidemic is believed to have killed as many as 60 million worldwide. Today such an outbreak would probably be worse because it would be spread more quickly around the globe, would have many more densely packed cities to infect and a large (certainly in Africa) group of immune-compromised potential victims because of HIV.
Is this a good or bad thing? Disease a part of nature adjusting species population levels. (O.k. I don't want one.) I've read demographics about how 3rd world is our main problem due to their over population, their cutting down vast rain forests and such making about 1/3 of human carbon emissions, and their being potential for clean water/fresh food wars over there shortly. O.k. I don't want New York, LA, London, or Toyko to loose 1/10 to 1/3 of their populations due to disease, but these vast 3rd world folks that I hear nothing but negatives about? Why should I care about them? Oh, we got to help the poor in China and India because they are useful to use, but the rest of the poorer countries? Let evolution take care. We'll either come up with drugs or expensive treatments for ourselves, or a percentage die off. Forget about global warmig, the war on drugs, and the war on terror. Wait until we try the War on Disease. You only think that we've over reacted with homeland security. Wait until we loose a major city due to disease from either illegal immgrants or legal global business travelers. We almost have the tech to monitor everyone in the country. To prevent the spread of disease or to avoid areas where disease has spread, we might go there.