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While H5N1 doesn't easily infect people, H3N2 viruses do. If someone exposed to a mixture of the two had been simultaneously infected with both strains, he or she could have served as an incubator for a hybrid virus able to transmit easily to and among people.
That mixing process, called reassortment, is one of two ways pandemic viruses are created.
So who is monitoring these people to avoid contaminating people as a means of making money off of it later?

4 comments:

Sandra Draft said...

It does raise serious questions about where this brand new, never before seen virus came from, especially since it cannot be contracted from eating pork products, and has never before been seen in pigs, and contains traits from the bird flu and which so far only seems to respond to Tamiflu.
According to the Associated Press at least one financial analyst estimates up to $388 million worth of Tamiflu sales in the near future. That's without a pandemic outbreak.
More than half a dozen pharmaceutical companies, including Gilead Sciences Inc., Roche, GlaxoSmithKline and other companies with a stake in flu treatments and detection, have seen a rise in their shares in a matter of days, and will likely see revenue boosts if the swine flu outbreak continues to spread.
In February 2009, American pharmaceutical company Baxter was under investigation for distributing the deadly avian flu virus to 18 different countries as part of a seasonal flu vaccine shipment. Czech reporters were probing to see if it may have been part of a deliberate attempt to start a pandemic; as such a "mistake" would be virtually impossible under the security protocols of that virus.
The contaminated product, a mix of H3N2 seasonal flu viruses and unlabelled H5N1 viruses, was supplied to an Austrian research company. The Austrian firm, Avir Green Hills Biotechnology, then sent portions of it to sub-contractors in the Czech Republic, Slovenia and Germany.
The contaminated product, which Baxter calls “experimental virus material,” was made at the Orth-Donau research facility. Baxter makes its flu vaccine, including a human H5N1 vaccine (for which a licence is expected shortly) at a facility in the Czech Republic. People familiar with biosecurity rules are dismayed by evidence that human H3N2 and avian H5N1 viruses somehow co-mingled in the Orth-Donau facility. That is a dangerous practice that should not be allowed to happen, a number of experts insisted.
While H5N1 doesn’t easily infect people, H3N2 viruses do. If someone exposed to a mixture of the two had been simultaneously infected with both strains, he or she could have served as an incubator for a hybrid virus able to transmit easily to and among people. That mixing process, called “reassortment”, is one of two ways pandemic viruses are created in the lab.
Reassortment is the mixing of the genetic material of two similar viruses that are infecting the same cell. In particular, reassortment occurs among influenza viruses, whose genomes consist of eight distinct segments of RNA. These segments act like mini-chromosomes, and each time a flu virus is assembled, it requires one copy of each segment.
The H5N1 virus on its own is not very airborne. However, when combined with seasonal flu viruses, which are more easily spread, the effect could be a potent, airborne, deadly, biological weapon. If this batch of live bird flu and seasonal flu viruses had reached the public, it could have resulted in terrible consequences. Some scientists say the most recent global outbreak (the 1977 Russian flu) was started by a virus created and leaked from a laboratory.
A top scientist for the United Nations, who has examined the outbreak of the deadly Ebola virus in Africa, as well as HIV/AIDS victims, has concluded that the current swine flu virus possesses certain transmission "vectors" that suggest the new strain has been genetically-manufactured. The UN expert believes that Ebola, HIV/AIDS, and the current A-H1N1 swine flu virus are biological warfare agents.
Another example of the less sterling integrity of Big Pharma is the case of Bayer, who sold millions of dollars worth of an injectable blood-clotting medicine to Asian, Latin American, and some European countries in the mid-1980s, even though they knew it was tainted with the AIDS virus.

vania_gl… said...

Hey there,
In Australia, a well-known Biologist and a Bird Flu expert wrote a book entitled: "The Bird and Swine Flu Survival Guide" which could save your love-ones or your life!
He's been increasing becoming popular with his book being featured in Australian Newspaper and so forth because of the current Swine Flu epidemic. The Health authorities have praised and acknowledged his book to be informative and true.
You may want to check it out here:
http://moourl.com/nek3h

Zavier said...

Nothing prevents someone from doing it but you would hope someone isn't doing it because its cruel inhumane etc. If someone did do it you would hope someone involved would say something but I highly doubt if someone did that they would care if someone said anything because its already to late.

Ay said...

Humanity stops it. At some point, someone with good intention would intervene, and it would very likely get out that this was a man made, created virus, however, money can do terrible, terrible things to people and corrupt them. GlaxoSmithKline, who manufacture Tamiflu and Relenza, have made 50BN in the last three weeks. Timely fashion in a recession, don't you think?
Please, take a deep breath, and calm down. To live in fear is a terrible, terrible thing! Take a deep breath, count to ten, and think. We should be aware that it is less infectious then seasonal flu. People are surprised at how fast it has spread, and how virulent it is, but that does not mean it is something to fear. People are taking tamiflu as a precaution, but this is a bad thing to do as it will make the virus mutate and make it useless against fighting the virus.
I believe the government is definately hyping this up so they can distract our attentions from the god awful mess they made with the economy. All we can do is improve our hygiene and let the WHO make our decisions. We should be aware about this, but not concerned. There are over six billion people in the world, and 200 or so have died, the proportion is very little. So don't worry. I feel sorry for the families, but then again, I feel angered that Mexico has done nothing to stop it spreading apart from giving out those silly masks. But then again, these things happen all around the world and it doesnt get reported, and the media hype things up.
Worrying about this will do nothing, worrying makes your immune system lower because you get less sleep and you eat less. So stop worrying about something we can't affect. Mother Nature obviously thinks this is the best thing to happen to the human race, but we have survived much worse! If we got wiped out after every virus threat, civilisation probably wouldnt have lasted very long.
Peace Out, Chill Out, Life is short. ♥

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