WHO Investigates Claims That Swine Flu Resulted From Human Error 249
Tom DBA writes "Bloomberg reports on claims that the swine flu could have been accidentally made in a lab, which are now being investigated by the World Health Organization. Quoting: 'Adrian Gibbs, 75, who collaborated on research that led to the development of Roche Holding AG's Tamiflu drug, said in an interview today that he intends to publish a report suggesting the new strain may have accidentally evolved in eggs scientists use to grow viruses and drugmakers use to make vaccines. Gibbs said that he came to his conclusion as part of an effort to trace the virus's origins by analyzing its genetic blueprint. ... Gibbs and two colleagues analyzed the publicly available sequences of hundreds of amino acids coded by each of the flu virus's eight genes. ... [The CDC's Nancy Cox says] since researchers don't have samples of swine flu viruses from South America and Africa, where the new strain may have evolved, those regions can't be ruled out as natural sources for the new flu.'"
Time has a related story evaluating the World Health Organization's response to H1N1.
Tinfoil hat wearing crowd said this was man-made (Score:5, Insightful)
I suppose even a stopped clock might be right twice a day. But still, there's a difference between man-made on purpose, and man-made by accident/human error. So all the tinfoil hat wearing brigade, can hold off on the "I told you so's".
Origins (Score:5, Insightful)
So the virus is found in the poor countryside of Mexico...
And someone thinks it was created somewhere in a lab?
I've heard some far out conspiracy theories, but creating a mild flu in a lab and then transported out to Colillacarajo, Mexico? That's just dumb.
Re:So . . . (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Tinfoil hat wearing crowd said this was man-mad (Score:5, Insightful)
But let's start spreading those conspiracy theories anyway!
Re:First plot! (Score:5, Insightful)
It could be worse: Randall Flagg could be traveling the countryside to gather his minions in Las Vegas.
Re:So . . . (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:What next? (Score:4, Insightful)
Nick Andros, Jimi Hendrix, Sean Sananikonem and a pregnant Britney Spears fight George W. Bush?
Where can I watch this?
Re:Tinfoil hat wearing crowd said this was man-mad (Score:4, Insightful)
Tinfoil wearing crowd will never be right since some conspiracy plots simply aren't there, which doesn't prove or disprove any theory.
Since a large number of conspiracies happened, conspiracy deniers tout-court are in the same league of tinfoil wearing crowd.
Back in topic: there are wars for oil, there are environmental disasters, a virus released to raise some money isn't surprising at all.
There are other potential uses too: if economy collapses, crowds may gather with pitchforks the old fashioned way, a more virulent strain of H1N1 would force people to stay home instead.
Re:Tinfoil hat wearing crowd said this was man-mad (Score:5, Insightful)
You know there's two things I've learned in my nearly 30 years on this earth.
Men often do evil things for money. Always have and always will. Now there's various scales of 'evilness' but near everyone does something at some stage that could be called evil by someone.
$5000 on the line will make some people murder and everyone accepts that.
Here's the weird thing:
$100,000,000 dollars on the line and a certain type of person thinks that *nobody* would kill for it. It's crazy! I mean you wouldn't even consider releasing a weak little flu on the world to get a taste of that sort of cash? If not that's great! Your a man of values. But there's a million men on the planet who *would* do it without a single shred of remorse.
Rapid anti-conspiracy nuts are as bad as rabid pro-conspiracy nuts. Both are absolutely delusional about the equally beautiful and grotesque mess that is called humanity.
And for god sakes man do you have *any* idea of some of the shit that big pharma has pulled over the years?? Something like this would hardly even be a stretch.
Re:Tinfoil hat wearing crowd said this was man-mad (Score:2, Insightful)
Just because someone would do it doesn't mean they did it.
This would be a logic professors ultimate example of fallacies.
1) Because they would: they did.
2) Because 'anti-conspiracy' people are nut jobs: you can't argue they didn't release the flu.
3) Because some pharma companies did questionable things in the past: this company is doing questionable things now.
Your claims are backed by nothing but wild speculation and logically flawed arguments.
Re:So . . . (Score:3, Insightful)
Well, when regular influenze kills ~40,000 americans a year, and this stuff makes headlines with 3 deaths.. You have to wonder who is benefiting.
Re:Origins (Score:4, Insightful)
So the virus is found in the poor countryside of Mexico...
And someone thinks it was created somewhere in a lab?
Your comment is stupid because: viruses travel.
It's also stupid because: If you actually wanted to release a virus, you'd do it in someplace that would cover your tracks.
Re:So . . . (Score:3, Insightful)
Actually perfectly rational events being labeled 'conspiracy theories' by smug self entitled 'intellectuals' who sit inside and push buttons to make other people rich all day and night is the best part of Slashdot.
Here's a 'crazy conspiracy theory' example:
A big pharma company released a drug that it knew caused more heart attacks than it stopped and when scientists started critising the drug the company drew up a hit list and set out to discredit and destroy the careers and lives of anybody on the list.
Slashdots initial response...
-1 crazed conspiracy theory
Then again the collective "wisdom" of Slashdot was 110% certain that the Ipod was going to be a complete flop so I guess that should say something of the level of understanding about reality here.
Re:Tinfoil hat wearing crowd said this was man-mad (Score:5, Insightful)
Please come hang out with me ;)
Re:covering tracks (Score:3, Insightful)
So, pretty much anywhere?
It would be incredibly stupid to release it near to the point of creation, and it would be even dumber to not take the tenth of a second to realize this before posting a comment on the subject. With that said, the smartest place to release it would probably be outside the lab of a competitor researching the same or a similar virus. But even more to the point, releasing a swine flu in Mexico is entirely plausible. If you broke it out in Switzerland you'd have a lot of work to do to convince people.
Re:Tinfoil hat wearing crowd said this was man-mad (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Origins (Score:2, Insightful)
So the virus is found in the poor countryside of Mexico...
And someone thinks it was created somewhere in a lab?
I've heard some far out conspiracy theories, but creating a mild flu in a lab and then transported out to Colillacarajo, Mexico? That's just dumb.
Yes, because it would make far more sense to release it right near the lab, of course ... nobody would *ever* guess *then*. Also, it makes much more sense to release it in a country far better prepared to not only contain any outbreak rapidly, but also far better able to analyse the genetic make-up and origins, in addition to analysing the spread of the disease for further clues on its origins.
Actually, if you think about it for more than five seconds, if you *are* part of such a "conspiracy", it makes perfectly logical sense to purposely release it in the middle of a pig farming community in Mexico, and would be incredibly stupid to release it in your own backyard.
Re:So . . . (Score:5, Insightful)
"according to the "experts" was dead set going to "wipe us out""
No expert ever said that.
You do carry the burden of ignorance pretty well.
Re:Tinfoil hat wearing crowd said this was man-mad (Score:5, Insightful)
People doing evil things for money is not what makes conspiracy theories so unlikely to be true.
People do evil things for money all the time. People do evil things for free all the time, so we certainly don't need the added incentive of money.
Where the train goes off the rails is where a conspiracy theory requires that massive numbers of people are keeping their mouths shut about some grand plan that they're a small part of. That can be done for a short time, but eventually every secret that has more than about 3 people in on it comes out.
Re:Origins (Score:3, Insightful)
On the maybe-inna-lab side, if you didn't want to be discovered you'd release it in an area where you'd reasonably expect a new disease to be discovered: a rural area where people, chickens, and swine live in comparatively close proximity. (And Mexico is an extra plus because it's much easier to smuggle samples from US labs to Mexico than to India or China: you just drive.)
On the other hand, the CDC is spending some time and money investigating claims that the first cases were actually in San Diego in September: it's not at all clear it actually started in Mexico. (read the wikipedia page on the outbreak [wikipedia.org] for more details.
Re:Origins (Score:3, Insightful)
So the virus is found in the poor countryside of Mexico...
And someone thinks it was created somewhere in a lab?
I've heard some far out conspiracy theories, but creating a mild flu in a lab and then transported out to Colillacarajo, Mexico? That's just dumb.
IIRC, that is precisely the plot for one of the episodes in season one of ReGenesis. Just because it was manufactured in a lab doesn't mean it was released on purpose. Whose to say that there isn't a "lab" out in the boonies - depending on what they are studying they may need some arable land in order to test grow some of their other experiments. One foul-up in their safety procedures and the wrong samples get released into the wild...
what crap (Score:5, Insightful)
The drug cartels are rich. They get their weapons on the open (black) market by the container load, shipped directly to them or they use some of their fleet of planes or boats to bring them in. These are smugglers, remember, and *also* businessmen, they are going to pay wholesale rates direct from the manufacturer/jobber or they are stolen from the Mexican military (and the Mex military is more just an arm of the smugglers than not, same as their upper level so called "police" establishment). Do you have ANY idea -example-what a legal registered select fire AK is going for now in the US, and the hoops you have to jump through to buy and sell them? The smugglers are NOT going to be doing that and paying 3 grand for a 100 buck wholesale rifle.
There is no "gun show loophole" or legit gun dealers in the US who are selling fully automatic rifles and RPGs etc in mass quantities to be smuggled to Mexico. That is just so ludicrous as to be mega laughable. It's a stupid talking point outright lie the gun grabbers came up with. There's a few go south, that's inevitable given the nature of the business and the US insane prohibition war on some drugs, but I'd be surprised if it approached 1%, and most of those would be just fancy expensive pistols so that the various drug cartel soldiers can have little macho weapons to carry. The serious stuff is wholesale blackmarket sourced from asia and eastern europe for the most part.
Re:Tinfoil hat wearing crowd said this was man-mad (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Origins (Score:3, Insightful)
So the virus is found in the poor countryside of Mexico...
Actually, I think the reason it was so widespread in Mexico was the Sunday communion at Church. Seeing that Mexico is primarily Catholic, one can assume they share that wine on Sunday morning. Now if you have ever participated you know that the most they do is wipe the chalice with a napkin or something.
So my best guess is that someone had the flue went to communion and got everyone sick.
Re:Tinfoil hat wearing crowd said this was man-mad (Score:5, Insightful)
D-day was kept quiet, as was the Manhattan project. The bluebird was a secret and how many thousands of men were involved in the design and production of that? The 9/11 Hijackers managed to keep their plans to themselves.
In fact your pretty much saying that state secrets, NDAs, sworn oaths and trade secrets don't exist. Yet reality shows that they clearly do.
What's the exact recipe for Coke a Cola? By your logic it would be out in the open by now. There's thousands of people who would have knowledge of it.
In any case what makes you think that something like this needs large numbers of people? One person could just as easily pull it off, even if only a crackpot scientist ala the anthrax scares.
There's plenty of things that happen because of incompetence or just sheer bad luck. But there's plenty of things that happen that were indeed planned (if only guided) by men.
Saying that there's never a conspiracy is naive and ridiculous especially when it's based on some trite self-styled conventional wisdom that people can't keep secrets when with the correct motivation they clearly can.
Re:So . . . (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Tinfoil hat wearing crowd said this was man-mad (Score:3, Insightful)
What happens if you violate that secrecy: The Germans or the Japanese win; You spend the rest of your life as a traitor in exile, or receive a long all-expenses paid visit at Fort Leavenworth, or the death penalty.
What happens if you violate that secrecy: The 9/11 Hijackers' plan fails, and they do not become martyrs. They go to jail or are handed back to some country for whom waterboarding looks like a day at the park.
The problem with this is twofold:
First, if it's one scientist operating alone, they would need a lot of knowledge and skill to release this virus, for very little payoff. He doesn't own Tamiflu, he makes a salary for the company that controls it. If they make an extra hundred million dollars this year, he might get a moderate increase in his bonus, but he sure as hell isn't going to rake in a hundred million dollars. It's possible that someone could just be sheer-crazy enough to want to do it out of malice, but it's unlikely you'll find the combination of "talented & well trained" coexisting with "batshit-crazy sociopath". Not impossible, but we're certainly talking fractions of a single percent of the population.
Second, if it's a cabal, then the scientist(s) in question would have to all be ethically & morally bankrupt (not impossible, but not entirely likely), as well as immune to whatever virus they're releasing into the wild (again not impossible, but not entirely likely). They would also, very likely, not see much in the way of money as a result of doing this. So where's the upside? Where's the motivation?
Your example of NDAs, Sworn Oaths, state secrets, and the like are not in the same league as "treason charges with the death penalty as punishment," and where financial motivation is involved, the people with the skills & knowledge to perform this sort of malicious act are very unlikely to profit greatly from doing it.
Yes, it's happened in the past, drug companies have done bad things in the interests of profits. But given the number of drugs on the market, and the relatively few "conspiracy" cases, it seems perfectly reasonable to be skeptical of extraordinary claims when there's a reasonable excuse that doesn't involve a group of twisted, morally bankrupt people deciding to go on a killing spree for the fun of it.
Re:Tinfoil hat wearing crowd said this was man-mad (Score:4, Insightful)
At least two American Generals were fired for using their knowledge of D-Day as after-dinner conversation at some cocktail parties.
And the Soviets had spies in the Manhattan Project.
Not really good examples.
Re:Tinfoil hat wearing crowd said this was man-mad (Score:2, Insightful)
Men often do evil things for money...Rapid anti-conspiracy nuts are as bad as rabid pro-conspiracy nuts. Both are absolutely delusional about the equally beautiful and grotesque mess that is called humanity.
Conspiracy theories are highly unlikely because they require many people to "conspire", to participate with equal zeal and secrecy to accomplish their plan. Before buying into any conspiracy theory ask yourself: How many people are required to pull this off? What is the likelihood that, in the recruitment process, no "non-believers" would have been solicited to join?
Particularly with the second question, each non-believing, normal Joe unsuccessfully solicited greatly increases the risk that the entire conspiracy will be exposed. This above all else causes me to roll my eyes at conspiracies in general and the 9/11 conspiracy in particular. A 9/11 conspiracy would have required a cast of 100s to pull off and recruiting those 100s would also have included unsuccessfully recruiting 1000s.
Tell you what. You think 9/11 was a government conspiracy? Generate a Gantt chart showing me all of the roles involved in it, the skills required of each role, what they did, and when they did it. Be sure to show the critical path and how information was communicated from person to person. If you can't do that you're wasting everyone's time selling people on this conspiracy or that conspiracy.
stop being naive (Score:5, Insightful)
Ya, and many guns smuggled down to central america by rogue CIA and other (para)military jerks during their decades long support for tin pit dictators and wannabes, like the Contras, are still down there. Plane loads and plane loads of them. The are some of the same jerks who are part of the drug smuggling cartels themselves, when they aren't running renditioned victims to torture centers or doing other stuff like smuggling opium out of afghanistan.. So in that sense, ya, some the guns originally came from the US.
I will repeat, the BULK of the firearms, especially the select fire rifles and the larger weapons, are sourced down there to begin with because they have been in the area for awhile, or are imported from overseas directly. Some come from the US lately, but nothing like what is down there already and what is being imported from asia and eastern europe directly. They are finding weapons with no serial numbers. Not ground off numbers, these are production runs, directly manufactured without the numbers to begin with for just such sales. And a lot of the other ones can be traced from official US military sales to nations down there including Mexico, then they "disappear", they don't want to talk about those, because they have no defense for the abysmal state of inter nation gun sales to regimes like the completely corrupt Mexican Army and the various police forces down there. No telling how many death squad people got trained at the school of the americas where they were pushed off as righteous and responsible "military officers" from tyrannies down there, and they then got the weapons to do that stuff. Been going on for *generations* now. Places like that are where the bulk of the weapons come from, not private US sales. Big orders, overseas where they are made, or to tyrannical regimes down there in the past. That crap that proven liars like Pelosi are repeating that 90% come from the US and from legit gun dealers and "gun show loopholes" and so on are just more big fat lies. Some do, of course, but most? Not even close.
If it-it being any official announcement about anything important- comes from a government spokestard or bureaucratic lackey, put your heavy duty skeptic hat on, because the odds are heavy you are being lied to. I mean really, how many thousands of lies, big and small, does it take to sink in that they lie more often than not? What's it gonna take? How much longer are intelligent people going to keep believing those crooks and murderers? If they have an agenda to push, something that is controversial and important to them for pushing their globalist new world order crap, they lie to push it, that is their proven and overwhelming default behavior.
Put it this way, if you believe their crap about this, you probably got sucked into the Iraqi WMD BS as well. They lied about that, they lied about the Tonkin gulf attacks, both those lies lead to big huge wars, you think they WOULDN'T lie about something lesser than that, to get their civilian disarmament agendas pushed through?
Re:Tinfoil hat wearing crowd said this was man-mad (Score:2, Insightful)
get over you're "logical fallacy". it's not about that. What he means is that once you have an insight about the nature of the industry, it becomes allot easier to believe that this was engineered. No, it doesn't prove it, but what people on the other side are doing is saying "gee, man made? that's so UN-believable that it can't be true." There's a logical fallacy to consider.
The difference between the two sides is that one side has experienced or read allot about the evils of the industry and the other hasn't. Consider the perspectives of each when they hear about the swine flu being man made.
I think the GP expressed this more elegantly, but I just had to spell it out.