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.
Plasmids (Score:3, Informative)
Put another way, we are much more at risk from Asian Bird Flu than we are from this virus.
Incidentally, how is Avian Flu being reported in america
Re:Plasmids (Score:4, Informative)
But...but...from TFA:
"The plasmids then were sent to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, where they were inserted into human kidney cells for the final step in the virus reconstruction."
Re:Plasmids (Score:2)
Regularly... and with loads and loads of fear-mongering. Everyone's tired of hearing how the world could be destroyed at any moment by a giant projectile from space. It's successor, the "super volcano" scare compaign didn't really pan-out, so bird flu is the big thing.
To that sentiment, allow me to just say:
SARS!!! SARS!!! Oh God, won't someone ple
Re:Plasmids (Score:2)
Avian Flu fearmongering (Score:2)
There was a report a couple of weeks ago that the first fatalities due to the avian flu in the US had occured. Way into the report it came out that both victims were in their 80's. A stiff breeze would have finished them off.
It must really disappoint the media when stuff like this doesn't rack up the body coutn. Hell, you'd think they'd have learned a lesson when SARS made them look like assholes, but I guess not.
Re:Plasmids (Score:5, Funny)
GW Bush used one of the questions in his press conference to jump into a little sidestream about bringing out the troops if the Republican majority was in jeop^W^W^W^W^W^W... uh, if there was an avian flu epidemic. In fact, he even said he'd use them to quarantine all of the voters in the blue^W^W^W^W... people in those cities where the outbreak occurred.
Re:Plasmids (Score:2, Interesting)
Asian Bird Flu (Score:4, Informative)
The press doesn't harp on it much, but anytime they mention it they call it the next big pandemic. National Geographic covers it in the current issue, and they've got a little presentation about it [nationalgeographic.com] on their website.
They infected chicken eggs (Score:2)
Re:Plasmids (Score:2, Informative)
They've had these sequences in plasmids for years. That doesn't make news.
They used the plasmids to make a whole bunch of RNA, transfected it into a cell line, and let the virus reassemble itself. They now have viable 1918 virus. That *is* news.
This is potentially nasty, but if it got out of the lab, it probably wouldn't be a 1918 redo. Most everyone on earth has been exposed to the currently circulating H1N1 viruses (same type as 1918), so everyone has some immunity to the old virus.
You wan
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:Ok... (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Ok... (Score:5, Informative)
1) The Virus is being reconstructed as best they can.
2) The researchers aren't even using Level 5 isolation because -- guess what -- they expect that we're all pretty much immune to the virus these days. (They'll be the first to go if they're wrong...)
Re:Ok... (Score:2, Troll)
No kidding. Let those plasmids slip into a few stray bacteria and you could have all kinds of fun on your hands. Those proteins don't take the form they do just for the fun of it. They fold certain ways, like a virus, because it's the low energy state.
Okay, spontaneous reconstruction isn't kind of unlikely, but what a way to find out mother nature is a cast iron bitch.
P4 labs usually know what they're
additional coverage (Score:3, Informative)
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/4308872.stm [bbc.co.uk]
and another one from ABC news, about how they in their enlightened wisdom (read fearmongering) think that the asian birdflu will result in similar problems.
http://abcnews.go.com/Health/Flu/story?id=1183172
i would have posted as ANON but aparently 212 minutes since i last posted a comment is not enough time to wait between comments
Re:additional coverage (Score:4, Informative)
-Ted
I would be much more interested... (Score:3, Funny)
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
Garlic, the geek's friend. (Score:5, Interesting)
>
> One hundred forty-six volunteers were randomized to receive a placebo or an allicin-containing garlic supplement [
Ah, Garlic. Best vegetable ever. The antisocial geek's friend.
I prefer my garlic the old-fashioned way. One head of garlic (peel, squeeze through garlic press or otherwise grind it into mush), raw, whipped into one stick (1/4 lb) of butter. Spread over bread (cheese optional), toast, eat. Throw a teaspoon or two into a bowl of piping hot pasta (and grate some real Parmigiana Reggiano over it, none of that powdered cheese in a can crap). As a side dish, slug down a glass or two of red wine.
Take another head of garlic, peel it, and toss 3/4 of the cloves into a whole raw chicken. Slip the rest of the cloves between the skin and the meat. Roast tha mothaplucka. Good eatin' again.
(Whenever you roast a chicken, just throw another head of garlic into the oven next to the chicken. When the chicken's done, squeeze the now-mushy cooked garlic into a small jar. Dip a hunk of fresh artisan bread into the garlic mush, and then into some extra virgin olive oil. Yet more good eatin'!)
Some people think I eat too much garlic. Not true. Only once have I eaten so much garlic in a single sitting that I've been able to smell garlic on my farts for the next three days.
People at the office tend to avoid me. In fact, if I eat enough of the stuff (see above), even people whose noses are stuffed up with the flu tend to avoid me.
Haven't had a cold in two years. Funny how things works out. Must be the garlic.
Damn, I love garlic.
Of course garlic prevents colds (Score:5, Interesting)
People catch colds when it's cold out, not because of the temperature, but because they tend to stay indoors and socialize more. Colds spread by being in close contact with others with colds.
So garlic helps keep people from being in close contact with each other, and therefore prevents colds.
Re:Garlic, the geek's friend. (Score:2)
Re:Garlic, the geek's friend. (Score:2)
ah! (Score:3, Interesting)
B.
Re:ah! (Score:5, Funny)
Dan East
Re:ah! (Score:2)
That probably meeans that when some old black lady tells you God wants you to come to Nebraska, you're gonna say fuck that nonsense and head straight to Vegas.
Re:ah! (Score:2)
You were either chosen by God, or your immune system had to fight it off in a very precise manner. which it was is left up to the discretion of the reader.
me, I couldn't stand that book.
no pune intended
Re:ah! (Score:2)
How do they verify their "creation"? (Score:2)
Re: How do they verify their "creation"? (Score:2)
As if the original wasn't already a mutant monster.
No Frankenstein (Score:2)
Re:How do they verify their "creation"? (Score:2)
Yeah, that's one of those qualities that's really tricky for a disease to maintain. In order to survive, a disease must not kill its host faster than it can spread. That means that the really nasty stuff that kills you quickly is likely to burn itself out quickly. Something that shows symptoms within, say, 24 hours of infection is much easier to quarantine than something that waits around for a week (like the common cold) or years (l
Greaaaat...... (Score:3, Funny)
I'll let everyone know how everything goes if it ev
Re:Greaaaat...... (Score:3, Funny)
Gesundheit
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:Are we immune ? A: Yes (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Are we immune ? A: Yes (Score:2)
Regenesis (Score:4, Informative)
Hooked me for a few episodes.
Re:Regenesis (Score:2)
Army of the Twelve Monkeys? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Army of the Twelve Monkeys? (Score:2)
Furthermore, I'm glad wild poorly thought out conspiracies are alive and well on slashdot. It's one of the few stable things in this world, really.
Irresponsible (Score:2)
Time to brush up on a little reading [thinkgeek.com].
This is the plot of the TV Show ReGenesis (Score:2)
The first season had lots of stuff going on that seems to have foreshadowed recent developments in real life - the recovery of a live sample of this same flu virus, from a victim in the permafrost plays a key role in the story. An outbreak or two of Marburg Hemmoragic Fever [google.com] was also major plot device.
Only 50 Million? (Score:2)
Forgive me for being cold but the black blague sent us back over 200 years.
Yes its nice to characterize this virus but it looks like our genetics have the advantage. In a very cold statistical manor.
Not to distract from the research which is important but this is not the end of humanity.
We're as ready as FEMA was. (Score:2, Informative)
Chances are, they have as many self-powered, automated, ventilators as they have intensive care beds, which in most community hospitals is perhaps a dozen.
If a more than a few dozen patients show up with rapidly fulminating viral pneumonia, (the main cause of death in the avian flu), they whole system is quickly overwhelmed.
Supposedly, the government has hundreds, (thous
Bird flu/swine flu...Here we go again (Score:3, Interesting)
1) Why isn't the current president ordering vaccinations for everyone? The technology of making flu vaccines is pretty routine, even if the flue is alleged to be unusually lethal. Instead, President Bush is talking about imposing martial law and using the military to quarantine those portions of the country where the bird flu strikes.
2) Why is the 1976 vaccine that was allegedly protective against the '1918 flu' not being resuscitated and updated to be used in 2005?
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.
What was found? (Score:2)
So you're telling me that this guy was walking around rural Alaska with the gene sequence all mapped out and written down on paper, died from the flu whose gene sequence for which he was carrying the mapping, was frozen with the paper on him, was found 87 years later, and credited with having the gene mapping all along?
I'm sorry, that just sounds a little far-fetched. Isn't it more likely that the mapping for the gen
Re:Sick and should be forbidden... (Score:5, Interesting)
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:3, Interesting)
According to Dr Tumpey, "We felt we had to recreate the virus and run these experiments to understand the biological properties that made the 1918 virus so exceptionally deadly. We wanted to identify the specific genes responsible for its virulence, with the hope of designing antivirals or other interventions that would work against virulent pandemic or epidemic influenza viruses."
Since we get hit with flu pandemics every 30 years or so, and this is viewed as inevitable, it makes sense to me that we
Re:ReGenesis again? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:ReGenesis again? (Score:4, Interesting)
They simply read Robin Cook's "Contagion", which was released back in 1996.
In the story (minor spoiler),
A hospital has recurring internal infection problems with exotic disesases, including plague and Spanish flu.
(major spoiler)
Certain parties that enjoyed collecting and cultivating viruses come across specimens in the yukon permafrost frozen to death, infected with Spanish flu. These parties eventually become involved in a plot to discredit a hospital by planting viruses to cause internal infections, and use the Spanish flu to cause panic (and unknowlingly threaten an epidemic).
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.
I did not say ignore... (Score:2)
As a compromise: at least put forward your testing before a medical and ethical committee before you start your experiments...
Being ignorant in experimenting with death is illogical.
Re:Sick and should be forbidden... (Score:2)
Yeah but... (Score:2)
Yeah but this particular virus killed over 50 million people.... Not quite the same as playing around with a virus that will only give you the sniffles.
Re:Sick and should be forbidden... (Score:3, Interesting)
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.
Aquired immunity is not inherited (Score:3, Informative)
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)
My great-grandparents sent my grandmother to live with her cousins on a farm for 18 months so that she would be safe, in the end she avoided the flu, but one of the cousins died of it. What would happen today? Would people take such extreme steps?
Re:Sick and should be forbidden... (Score:3, Interesting)
This goes back a bit on a different disease. Polio, one of the ones that the US has greatly worked on eradicating (along with smallpox and some others). Polio is the disease that you get a check for in gym class in elementary to this day. Back when it was more
Re:Sick and should be forbidden... (Score:5, Interesting)
The mortality rate was estimated at 2.5% to 5% of the population, not those that were infected. Only 20% of the population was infected, making the mortality rate closer to 14% to 28% of those infected. Basically, if you got it, you more than 1 in 5 chance of dying.
Now, add the fact that we are entirely more mobile, and it would be devistating. We have not had a disease that spreads this quick since then, and if it was gotten lose, it would likely expose 2/3 of the population of the planet before we knew what hit us. Fortunately, we have better medicine now, but even if we reduced the mortality by 75%, you are looking at:
~20% of exposed died in 1918 vs 5% now
360mil exposed in 1918 vs. 4 billion now.
50,000 died in 1918 vs 200 million now.
200 million dead, potentially. Not guaranteed, not high, not low, just realistic potential.
Yea, I say we be really freaking careful how we handle this virus. Obviously, this is more easily spread than SARS or anything else we have seen since 1918, and even if the fatality rate was wrong by a full factor, and just
Re:Sick and should be forbidden... (Score:3, Funny)
You better send those researchers a memo or something. I'm sure they're being all careless and shit, flinging beakers and test tubes back and forth across the lab, since they must not understand the danger.
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:Sick and should be forbidden... (Score:2)
Supposing your scenario comes true, it does not mean that everyone on earth is going to die. It means that the people who get sick with the flu will be at a much higher risk of death. It may mean that almost all of those people die, although my personal opinion is that this will not be the case, and you are probably looking at maybe 50% of the people, but I ain't a scientist.
However, not everyone gets the flu. And some people get the flu and it isn't nearly as bad
Re:Sick and should be forbidden... (Score:4, Informative)
Actually I think that I heard the idea that some viruses are too strong for their own good, for example Ebola. If they have 100% death rate (Ebola is close) they kill themselves -- viruses need to leave people alive to get spread or need to have very long incubation period. A virus that kills 100% of the people it infects in 1 day is less dangerous than a virus that kills 60% in 2 weeks.
Re:Sick and should be forbidden... (Score:2)
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.
Re:Sick and should be forbidden... (Score:5, Informative)
You misread it: In an experiment, published in October 2002, they were successful in creating a virus with two 1918 genes.
It does not say they recreated the original virus. The 1918 virus occured before flu vaccines had come about. As such, we currently have no vaccine against that particular strain. The researchers think that by studying the 1918 virus they can learn some information that may help with the current avian flu 5HN1.
Does the 1918 virus scare the shit out of me? Yes, just as much as the idea of 5HN1 infecting humans. But if studying the 1918 flu help combat 5HN1, I'm all for it.
What H5N1 is... (Score:4, Interesting)
Currently the virus can spread from bird to bird and from bird to human. However it does NOT spread from human to human
When the virus infects humans there is a very high fatality rate, and a brutal morbidity(needing hospitilization) rate. This is the first strain (N1) of its type (H5) that we have encountered, so vaccines can't be produced. There is a fear that this "bird flu" H5N1 will mutate into a strain that can jump from human to human. This is a very real fear, as flu is known to make these jumps. Even conservative estimates place the death toll in the millions if a Human to Human H5N1 flu emerges.
Tamiflu and Releenza are anti-virals that have been suggested as treatments for H5N1, however there are some reports that these treatments have been inneffective, with only mild attenuation of viral load. However Tamiflu and Releenza are the only available known treatments available, and these drugs are in short supply.
Hope this helps
Storm
Two points... (Score:5, Informative)
"Almost" doesn't cut it. And if you think the former Soviet Union (and former United States) really eliminated their last reserves of the virus, you're seriously deluded.
> Now they are reviving an old virus that was completely eradicated. This does not make sense, other than for the nobel-prize signs in the scientists eyes (which they should not get).
The 1918 pandemic strain killed off the most vulnerable portion of the population three or four generations ago. Subsequently, mutations to that strain that were less virulent than the original appeared. These less-virulent strains didn't kill their hosts as quickly (and often, didn't kill the host at all!), and turned out to be better-adapted to their environment than the original. These less-virulent strains worked their way throughout the rest of the population. The world ended up with a not-so-bad version of the flu, and a relatively high resistance in the surviving population. All in all, a lousy environment for the original or the less-virulent strains to propagate.
Don't worry about the 1918 flu getting out. First, it almost certainly won't. Second, if it does, it won't be nearly as bad as it was in 1918, largely due to the fact that anyone who was highly vulnerable to it had been ejected from the gene pool by 1920.
> 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.
Don't worry about an H5N1 recombination (or reassortment) with the 1918 flu. You'd need someone to be simultaneously infected with both viruses. The probability of that is vanishingly small. (As is the probability of the 1918 flu escaping and setting up a reservoir population in birds or pigs.)
Worry about a human-to-human transmissible evolution of H5N1. If the strain currently fiddling around Jakarta [recombinomics.com] is reproducing by means of human to human transmission, and if that strain is doing so via casual contact (to date, it appears that most cases from this cluster involve zoo visitors, their immediate families, and health care workers -- so we don't yet have confirmation of h2h transmission, let alone via casual contact), then worry.
If a human-to-human transmissible of H5N1 shows up, and if it's as lethal to humans as the version currently floating around Asia, you're looking at somewhere between 100M and 300M dead before a weaker variant evolves.
Re:Sick and should be forbidden... (Score:4, Funny)
It might be fun actually. I think that we should to atmospheric nuclear tests on big holidays. It could be like fireworks, only much more entertaining.
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: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 g
They didn't eliminate smallpox. (Score:2)
Re:Captain Tripps (Score:5, Funny)
Asked for comment, Dr. Jeffrey Tauenberger, who led the U.S. Armed Forces Institute of Pathology team that restored the virus, cackled "Fools! I'll destroy them all!"
Re:What are they smoking? (Score:2)
Because they can!
Re:What are they smoking? (Score:3, Informative)
Think positive, man! (Score:2)
Re:What are they smoking? (Score:5, Informative)
I don't think that the 1918 flu would be the major killer now that it was originally.
Re:What are they smoking? (Score:2)
Re:What are they smoking? (Score:2)
Additionaly, medical science now recognizes hte need to
Re:What are they smoking? (Score:3, Informative)
While that's true for most flu seasons, the 1918 pandemic strain was unusual. A fair number of deaths occured from primary influenza infections in 1918. At first, scientists had assumed that the bacterial Haemophilus influenza was the cause of the pandemic (later implicated as one of the more common causes of bacterial meningitis in children).
After the influenza virus was discovered, many still b
Re:Science has a fatal flaw (Score:4, Informative)
How would that occur, exactly, if its mortality rate less than 5 per cent (and those who recover are immune)?
Re:Science has a fatal flaw (Score:2)
And, speaking as an Alaskan, how could it get me if I run to the hills?
I could stay there for years. I already have a place set up.
Re:Science has a fatal flaw (Score:2)
Hmm.. I don't think it worked for this guy:
"The mapping for the gene sequence was found on a victim frozen in Alaskan permafrost."
Re:Science has a fatal flaw (Score:2)
Isn't it obvious? This virus will turn those 5% into flesh-eating zombies, who will then proceed to kill the other 95%.
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
My grandfather's story (Score:2)
Then they wouldn't let him off the ship. They left the ship anchored in Philadelphia harbor, waiting out the influenza epidemic.
Now, the story as I recall it was that they wouldn't let the soldiers off the ship because they were afraid that the epidemic would kill them. But now I wonder if they wouldn't
Re:Science has a fatal flaw (Score:2)
No. Most of the people who were alive then, to get immunity from surviving the infection) have died. We might have partial immunity from related infections, but it's not excellent protection. Sometimes entire population groups have an innate resistance: SARS, for example, is much more likely to kill Asians than Europeans because of some cell-level differences.
What we do have is a much better understanding of how viruses spread, a
Re:Science has a fatal flaw (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Hmm... (Score:2)
If there are any scientific grounds to the claims that it can be used to help combat a future epidemic that would kill a further 50 million+ then this is a very good idea
Also If we had the ability to resurrect Hitler , keep him in a lab and experiment on him,find a way to prevent a new Hitler ever taking power.I would not really object to that . Though the scientific grounds for that o
Re:Hmm... (Score:2)
Re:Hmm... (Score:5, Funny)
Notice the emerging pattern (1->2, 1->3, 3X2, 1->2, 2->3); next will be 3X1, or Flu kills God. Like, duh. ;)
--whoa, the flu can kill God?!? *head explodes*
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)
Re:Bad idea (Score:2, Insightful)
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.