I joined Buddhini Samarasinghe and Scott Lewis on a Science Sunday Hangout on Air to talk about my career in virology: how I came to be interested in viruses, and what goes on in my laboratory. You can find hangouts and more at the ScienceSunday community.
So when is Virology Blog going to comment on the latest episode of the ‘lethal flu virus’ debacle, following on the heels of the controversial Fouchier and Kawaoka studies?
Google this story in the Independent for background: ‘Appalling irresponsibility’: Senior scientists attack Chinese researchers for creating new strains of influenza in veterinary laboratory (published 2 May 2013.)
Also Google this CIDRAP report: “Study: Lab-made H5N1-H1N1 viruses spread in guinea pigs” and look for comments by David Relman and Simon Wain-Hobson.
Do the words ‘effective ethical oversight’ mean anything to people working in the influenza industry? What a shambles…
For more history on this matter see the webpage on the influenza industry (under the Questionable Vaccines tab) on my website overvaccination dot net (I can’t include the actual website address on Virology Blog otherwise my comment is likely to disappear off into the ether of ‘moderation’… People working in the virus industry don’t like public criticism you see…) There are two links to letters I have written to the NSABB and CDC on this matter.
It’s about time we had an investigation into the burgeoning influenza industry and its participants e.g. pharmaceutical companies, academics, WHO, CDC, NIH etc. A lot of empires are being built on the back of questionable research in this area.
Funny, as Fouchier and Kawaoka reported studies aren’t about anything harmful, only of how influenza can spread easily amongst ferrets. How HORRIBLE! Science shouldn’t study how diseases spread, they should ignore disease or something, maybe prayer or something.
Maybe we can go back to believing that diseases spread via bad odors, rather than learning precisely *how* diseases spread and how they “learn”.
Better yet, kindly seek professional mental health care professional advice. For, your grasp of reality and that of anything related to science is far outside of your grasp, to judge by your tirade here.
Especially considering how the “industry blog” comment still exists.
Lemme guess, you also believe in flying saucers too.
There are good virii and bad virii. Some do good things, as related in the video. Then, there are the known pathogenic virii and even others that turn common bacteria that can cause do degree of distress to become potentially deadly, such as is present with cholera and a bacteriophage whose name I currently can’t recall.
That said, it’s from a perspective of good or bad to us, as humans. For said bacteria, said virus is rather good for them. For, in the cholera example, the virus spreads even better. In spite of it being potentially more lethal to the victims.
Which is a most fascinating virologists study in and of itself.
Then, add in our own ERV’s, it makes for a fascinating field.
And one fascinating, as it revolves around four “letters” of DNA and four “letters” of RNA.
But then, in science, on occasion, rare occasions, something doesn’t work and results in an, “Hmm, now THAT is interesting!”. In short, a discovery unrelated to the original research. The yearning of every scientist I’ve known and I’ve known quite a few over my life.
As for SIV –> HIV “blame”, I don’t see blame. I only see a vector being transmitted.
Animals exist, humans exist, both shall interact. When harm occurs, there isn’t blame, only a chain of infection. The cause of interaction is irrelevant. Affixing blame causes a fatally harmful chain of thought.
Lest we get some legislators introduce legislation to eliminate all chimpanzees…