Researchers Reconstruct 1918 Flu Virus 321
Gnpatton writes "CNN is running a story on how researchers have recreated the gene sequence for the 1918 virus which claimed 50 million lives. The mapping for the gene sequence was found on a victim frozen in Alaskan permafrost. From the article: 'Using a technique called reverse genetics, the Mount Sinai researchers used the genetic coding to create microscopic, virus-like strings of genes, called plasmids.'" Researchers are hoping that reconstructing a virus like this will help them to better understand similar problems. The structure was originally determined earlier this year.
Ok... (Score:3, Insightful)
But...please try to stick to things that can easily be killed with the tip of well-placed soldering iron.
Re:Sick and should be forbidden... (Score:5, Insightful)
What if this secured facility gets compromised, an accident happens that leads to the infection of one of the staff, testtubes are improperly sterilized. I could name hundreds of things that could go wrong, and will not even start wildly speculating what would happen if 5HN1 somehow mutates with this virus.
You can make this argument about any virus. Your argument, taken to its logical conclusion, implies that we should not do any research on any harmful micro-organism for fear of it getting out. Ignoring harmful things and hoping they go away is not an intelligent strategy.
Re:Sick and should be forbidden... (Score:2, Insightful)
Your reasoning is that terrorists (who so far have only ever managed to kill a few thousand people at any one time) might somehow acquire the virus, when they haven't yet managed to acquire and use one of thousands of other deadly agents.
Are we immune ? (Score:3, Insightful)
However safe the experiment in itself might have been, external contamination if the virus is out there is a serious concern. Half of Europe is immune to some strains of typhoid and plague, thanks to natural selection. But these days viruses can travel on jet airliners , in business class - they are not limited to the region of previous occurrence.
Hopefully the current healthy diets, good healtcare and lack of a recent war should ensure that another Spanish Flu breakout cannot happen.
Re:Science has a fatal flaw (Score:2, Insightful)
The soldiers returning from the fronts of the First World War possibly spread the infection as well as any buisness class traveller could today. Also, this disease is an airborne pathogen (it reproduces in lung tissue), and in its day managed to sweep the globe incredibly quickly.
One additional point made today by researchers is that the 1918 influenza was almost surely an avian flu that mutated and infected humans. It's not too different from the current superbug that everyone is eyeing warily. Perhaps some of the benefit of this research is studying how a virus mutates and crosses the lines from one species to another. Theoretically it could better prepare us to resist an impending pandemic.
One question - aren't most contemporary humans immune to the 1918 bug?
Re:Sick and should be forbidden... (Score:2, Insightful)
I don't question that science must move forward, and this means taking risk. however, I'm a bit at a lose to what, exactly, this is the answer TO?
Re:Sick and should be forbidden... (Score:5, Insightful)
Studying viruses is very difficult, as you can only tell so much from examining the raw sequence information or using simulations. Everything from the exact mechanism of transmission to how this flu caused so many deaths to (and this is probably the most important) how this bug made it from animals to humans is still not precisely known. In order to learn such things, you'd have to directly infect some test organisms or cells and observe the effects and do other lab studies using a live viruses. There is just no substitute. (Another controversial approach involves deliberately crossing human and avian and porcine flus to try and generate one that will cross between the species)
The justification for doing so is clear, and goes beyond a desire for Nobel glory, many scientists agree that we are just a day away from another deadly and widespread flu epidemic. If we are going to predict and prevent such an epidemic, we need to really understand the kinds of features that made the "Spanish" flu possible and so potent. Another massive problem we have is the utter lack of real epidemiological surveillance in large domesticated animal populations (on chicken and pig farms, for example). Not only do we need to do this, but we need to understand the viral features that we need to look for.
Re:Sick and should be forbidden... (Score:5, Insightful)
More likely because our parents/grandparents/great-grandparents were either not infected or lived after becoming infected. Doing a quick search find that the mortality rate was 2.5%. That means that 2.5% of all those who became infected died. Given that 50 million people died, that's 2 billion people that were infected. Chances are you foreparents had it.
So are we immune? No. Did we descend from the lucky ones? Yes.
Um... is this a good idea? (Score:1, Insightful)
You let this jeanie out of the bottle, even a little bit, even with the best intentions and you have potential to depopulate a good chunk of the planet. Last time it killed more people than died in WWII. And they didn't have modern air-travel. Just what is the cost / risk ratio here?
And this assumes good intntions. What if some military committee decides to "study" weaponizing it? In the name is national security, of course. And in secret.
We just learned how to do this stuff. Let's think twice before actually doing it. Measure twice, cut once.
Paraphrasing Oppenheimer: We spent so much energy thinking about *how* to make the bomb, that we didn't stop to ask *whether* we should do it at all.
Re:Sick and should be forbidden... (Score:3, Insightful)
Why? How else are we supposed to understand the capabilities of the virus that will cause the next pandemic, if we don't observe a virus that caused a previous one? The nature of influenza viruses, and particularly the highly virulant ones, must be fully mapped to give us the knowledge to understand where they come from, how they spread, and hopefully, how to develop vaccines and other treatments to prevent another 1918-like outbreak.
Or we can just go "that's scary", bury are heads in the sand and be taken out when another uber-virulent bird flu makes the leap from cross-species infection to human-to-human infection.
Re:Bad idea (Score:2, Insightful)
The final bit that doesn't make me worry about these scientists reverse engineering the gene is the simple fact that this doesn't change anything as far as pandemic risk goes. We are just as likely to get a horrendous pandemic from a "wild" source as we are from this flu strain infecting a scientist who suddenly goes on a globe trotting spree of some kind. At this point in our global development as a species it is really only a matter of time before we get a big pandemic a la 1918. I mean AIDS is already a pandemic and if we get something that is more acute the death toll will simply be more noticable. It is far more important to study how to defend against viruses that could cause pandemics. It is not often that scientists can get a virus that they know for certain has caused one. The research that can be done now is much more beneficial than the potential risks.
Re:Hmm... (Score:4, Insightful)
And what do you think comes next?"
New man whips up flu vaccine for known flu strain.
It's not like we're talking about AIDS or some other untreatable disease, once we know what strain we're dealing with, the only problem we have left is distributing the flu vaccine. And I'm under the impression that, unless we dig up an example of the strain that caused the 1918 pandemic, we can't easily create a vaccine to defend against it.
Welcome to the Twenty-First Century.
Re:Bad idea (Score:2, Insightful)
I read in a another article that the they found a number of striking similarities between the 1918 virus and the mutations that are starting to appear in the bird flu virus. What's more worrying is that these are the kind of mutations that caused the outbreak in 1918.
You can probably do a Google search on this.
Re:I would be much more interested... (Score:4, Insightful)
One hundred forty-six volunteers were randomized to receive a placebo or an allicin-containing garlic supplement, one capsule daily, over a 12-week period between November and February. They used a five-point scale to assess their health and recorded any common cold infections and symptoms in a daily diary. The active-treatment group had significantly fewer colds than the placebo group (24 vs 65, P
Re:Ok... (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm all for tinkering, and hacking and doing stuff just because you can. But...please try to stick to things that can easily be killed with the tip of well-placed soldering iron.
Just to be pedantic, most viruses can easily be killed by heat... which means that as long as they don't spread outside their container, they can easily be killed with the tip of a well-placed soldering gun. :-D
Re:Bird flu/swine flu...Here we go again (Score:4, Insightful)
But that requires thought and work. It's easier to repeat the fear mongering of the left wing blogs than to think for oneself.
Re:Science has a fatal flaw (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Sick and should be forbidden... (Score:3, Insightful)
our only real luck has been that it doens't spread well from person to person yet.
Re:Aquired immunity is not inherited (Score:4, Insightful)
True, but could the antibodies be passed on through breast milk?
Is it possible to pass antibodies through more than one generation?
That is the part I would be unsure of.
If my mom got the antibodies from her mother who lived through that time, and if she breastfed me then would I have the antibodies?
But then this also assumes that the virus has not mutated.
And the conspiracy theorists are saying "they" have been manipulating the virus they dug up to make it more contagious.
We're doomed! DOOMED!! DOOOOOOOMED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Re:Sick and should be forbidden... (Score:2, Insightful)
Androk