Experts Unlock Clues to Spread of 1918 Flu Virus

NY Times ^ | October 6, 2005 | GINA KOLATA

[Perdogg]

The 1918 influenza virus, the cause of one of history's most deadly epidemics, has been reconstructed and found to be a bird flu that jumped directly to humans, two teams of federal and university scientists announced yesterday. It was the culmination of work that began a decade ago and involved fishing tiny fragments of the 1918 virus from snippets of lung tissue from two soldiers and an Alaskan woman who died in the 1918 pandemic.

[TheLion]

Important stuff!

[jim-x]

I read about that earlier in the day. I'm not so sure it was a good idea to reproduce that flu strain. It killed millions in 1918-1919.

They say that many people would have some type of immunity but who really knows?

[apackof2]

My grandfather died of this Flu in 1918
He was in his 30's and quite healthy, a very typical victim,...... healthy young men

[flixxx]

I heard this on NPR today on the way home...exciting findings. Interesting how the virus mutates and changes fairly rapidly and how we are able to compare the current Avian virus with the 1918 virus genome...
They found a good sample of the 1918 influenza virus from a woman who had died in Alaska and was frozen...got samples from her lungs...

[NewRomeTacitus]

Previously posted HERE.

[Perdogg]

This is a new story. The byline was date October 6th.

[jocon307]

This was the article my boss was talking about today. And then hubby was asking, what was he talking about. I said, I don't know, it hasn't been posted to FR yet, but if it's important, it will be!

you win a gold star Perdogg!

[JohnBovenmyer]

Bush administration officials have been talking about pandemic flu preparedness for years, and they say they will soon release a pandemic flu plan, in the works for more than a year. Senate Democrats say that the administration is not doing enough, and they are writing their own bills that call for more spending and coordination.

How about some significant tort reform and FDA reform so the lawyers and bureaucrats won't up the price and delay the release of the solution! I'd love to watch Bush propose that and then watch those same Democrats choke on it.

[RebelTex]

From the article posted at top:

"...the cause of one of history's most deadly epidemics, has been reconstructed and found to be a bird flu..."

Now they have put the genetic info on the web.   From this article: (emphasis added)

"Publication of the work and the filing of the virus's genetic make-up to an online database followed an emergency meeting last week by the US National Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity, which concluded that the benefits of publishing the work outweighed the risks. Many scientists remained sceptical. "Once the genetic sequence is publicly available, there's a theoretical risk that any molecular biologist with sufficient knowledge could recreate this virus," said Dr John Wood, a virologist at the National Institute for Biological Standards and Control in Potters Bar."

Don't worry, all the bad guys are too stupid to figure out how to recreate this virus.  History has proven that all scientists are good guys that would never create a bio weapon or nuke, right?   </sarcasm>

[RebelTex]

OOPS!  I forgot to put in the link.  Here it is:

Experts Unlock Clues to Spread of 1918 Flu Virus

[traumer]

"I'm not so sure it was a good idea to reproduce that flu strain... "

HEY - it was reproduced in government labs... we should be OK
:o)

[RebelTex]

Rats! I must be more tired than I thought.  I posted the link back to this thread instead of the article.  OK, let's try this one more time (if I screw this one up, I'm giving up and going to bed, LOL.)

Security fears as flu virus that killed 50 million is recreated

[Anathematized]

According to the article, Richard H. Ebright, a molecular biologist at Rutgers, said H5N1 "is perhaps the most effective bioweapons agent ever known."

And then they publish the genome which is the blueprint for making the virus.

[Nathan Zachary]

Considering it was "the guardian", they probably had sent the info to their terrorist pals long before they published the article.

[NewRomeTacitus]

So solly, Mr. Cawtright. Hop Sing run to kitchen now, make eggs for Hoss.

[Criminal Number 18F]

Your grandfather was indeed a typical victim. People over 40, many of them had been exposed to a similar enough virus to have antibodies. Children seemed to have good resistance. But young adults had not. The epidemic went through the Army camps like wildfire.

The Army lost far more men to the influenza epidemic than it had in the Great War.

There are two good books on this epidemic -- one is by the author of this story, Gina Kolata (it's the more dumbed-down of the two -- she was a TV reporter at the time).

d.o.l.

Criminal Number 18F

[Brainhose]

This makes me think of "12 Monkeys".

[aimhigh]

I'm not so sure it was a good idea to reproduce that flu strain. It killed millions in 1918-1919.

This was done by government researchers. You can trust them. Now, about that swamp land in Florida...

[SunkenCiv]

alas...

Scientists: 1918 Killer Spanish Flu Was a Bird Flu
Fox News | October 05, 2005 | Daniel J. DeNoon
Posted on 10/05/2005 11:20:11 AM PDT by stm
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1497138/posts