Possible laboratory origin of swine flu

Words escape me in describing the admiration I have for this scientist to openly come out like this to the world and bravely say what his peers won't. Kudos, sir!!! The idea put forth in this paper is not that the virus was engineered or created with maliciuos intent. It is that several strains stored in a lab got together to recombine, because the strains which test as the parents of this new strain would have had a very hard time coming together in the "wild". It is a completely valid hypothesis, worthy of investigation. Lab safety procedures are very important when dealing with viruses, as ... [More]

"bad lab safety practices." Ever been to one of those labs? The security and precautions taken in them rivals those found in national defense buildings. I have a hard time in believing in an "accident".

The idea put forth in this paper is not that the virus was engineered or created with maliciuos intent. It is that several strains stored in a lab got together to recombine, because the strains which test as the parents of this new strain would have had a very hard time coming together in the "wild". It is a completely valid hypothesis, worthy of investigation. Lab safety procedures are very important when dealing with viruses, as they not only can replicate themselves and hide inside infected cells but can mutate and cause disease. This is NOT suggesting there was a conspiracy to create this ... [More]

"bad lab safety practices." Ever been to one of those labs? The security and precautions taken in them rivals those found in national defense buildings. I have a hard time in believing in an "accident". I agree with the above statement. The regs are very stringent indeed especially in North America, moreso following 9-11 and the threat of terrorist attack using bioagents. We have to have updated inventory, inventory controls, personal security access etc etc etc. A major pain but we put up with it ... OR ELSE! How would these different viruses travel from a lab environment (where they would be... [More]

We are not necessarily talking about military labs here, that deal with weaponized agents. THOSE will have regs out the wazoo, of course (though they are not immune to mistakes). We are quite possibly talking about a normal research lab, which while it will have regulations it is easier to have them not followed. I have worked in a lab - not one that dealt with pathological agents, but one in which I dealt with harmless mammalian tissue cultures. I know how possible it is to, if you are not careful, let something get into a tissue culture. I only contaminated my cultures once, in my first summ... [More]

~~~ ... (snip) ... ... Does someone more familiar with the H1N1 pandemic know if the virus was ever found in pigs? I haven't heard one way or another and a quick search (I am briefly stealing the use of my grandpaents computer while we visit them) has failed to enlighten me. My point being that if a virus did recombine in a lab, it could have infected a lab worker and spread from there without needing to get into the pig population first. It IS extremely communicable from organism to organism, more so than the standard flu. Someone can spread the virus even before they show symptoms, so even i... [More]

Interesting theory, i think its possible.

At the risk of sounding controversial here, allow me to state the obvious............ This planet cannot sustain the growth of the dominant species at current rates. There is a bottleneck coming, whether that be of humankind's own doing, or by nature. Of course, we can all sit idly by and pretend that we can just pass our bandaid policies onto the next generation, but the clock is ticking. We do not have sustainable resources to support the human growth rate on our planet. Not even close. I'm not talking about 10 or 20 years in the future.......I'm talking about NOW. In my opinion, the swine f... [More]

At the risk of sounding controversial here, allow me to state the obvious............ This planet cannot sustain the growth of the dominant species at current rates. There is a bottleneck coming, whether that be of humankind's own doing, or by nature. Of course, we can all sit idly by and pretend that we can just pass our bandaid policies onto the next generation, but the clock is ticking. We do not have sustainable resources to support the human growth rate on our planet. Not even close. I'm not talking about 10 or 20 years in the future.......I'm talking about NOW. In my opinion, the swine f... [More]

Does someone more familiar with the H1N1 pandemic know if the virus was ever found in pigs? I haven't heard one way or another and a quick search (I am briefly stealing the use of my grandpaents computer while we visit them) has failed to enlighten me. Yes it has. In fact it has been in pigs for over 15 years apparantly. We in North America do not routinely screen pigs (or birds) for influenza or other viruses. WHO has since urged that such screening proceedures be set in place but the costs would be prohibitive