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Author Topic: Primates Injected With Influenza Virus?
remind
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posted 19 January 2007 06:26 PM      Profile for remind     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Apparently, scientists have recently been injecting primates with a old strain of influenza to see what transpires. CBC Vancouver had it on at 6pm but I missed it.

All I could find on it was this from CNN:

quote:
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Monkeys infected with a resurrected virus that was responsible for history's deadliest epidemic have given scientists a better idea of how the 1918 Spanish flu attacked so quickly and relentlessly: by turning victims' bodies against them.

The research, which found that an over-stimulated immune system killed even as it tried to fight the flu, helps explain why many of the 50 million people who died in the epidemic were healthy young adults. Conventional flu usually claims mostly the very young and very old.

...The 1918 virus, which was reconstructed with reverse genetics, exists today only in two labs where scientists are studying it.

Scientists said they were struck by how suddenly and overwhelmingly the 1918 flu struck seven macaques that were tested in a high-level biosafety lab in Winnipeg, Canada. The virus spread faster than a normal flu bug and triggered a "storm" response in the animal's immune systems.


1918 Influenza Testing


From: "watching the tide roll away" | Registered: Jun 2004  |  IP: Logged
Michelle
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posted 19 January 2007 06:31 PM      Profile for Michelle   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Jesus. I thought we knew this already.
From: I've got a fever, and the only prescription is more cowbell. | Registered: May 2001  |  IP: Logged
remind
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posted 19 January 2007 08:01 PM      Profile for remind     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
Originally posted by Michelle:
Jesus. I thought we knew this already.

Well, apparently we did not know it well enough!

What scares the crap out me after announcing this there is this that happened today:


quote:
Canada funds state-of-art infectious disease lab in Kenya Health Minister Tony Clement cut a ribbon to open an ultra-modern, $4 million infectious disease laboratory in Nairobi on Friday, almost all of which was paid for by the Canadian government.

The money is well spent, said Clement during the ribbon-cutting. He served as Ontario's health minister during the province's SARS crisis in 2003.

"Things can be tested, research can be done here immediately, on the spot," Clement said. "That means we can have a quicker response as a world community to any infectious disease outbreak, because of this facility being here in Nairobi."


http://www.cbc.ca/health/story/2007/01/19/lab-nairobi.html


From: "watching the tide roll away" | Registered: Jun 2004  |  IP: Logged
M. Spector
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posted 19 January 2007 08:07 PM      Profile for M. Spector   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Why is it scary that Kenya has its own infectious-disease laboratory instead of having to rely on North Americans to do the research for them?
From: One millihelen: The amount of beauty required to launch one ship. | Registered: Feb 2005  |  IP: Logged
remind
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posted 19 January 2007 08:15 PM      Profile for remind     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
Originally posted by M. Spector:
Why is it scary that Kenya has its own infectious-disease laboratory instead of having to rely on North Americans to do the research for them?

Well, when you put it that way it is not, it is in fact a good thing, but at first blush, I thought: "I simply do not trust ANYTHING Harper's CPC does, next thing you know, they be testing primates in the wild there with the Spanish Flu to see what happens."

Maybe it's been too long of day.


From: "watching the tide roll away" | Registered: Jun 2004  |  IP: Logged
pogge
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posted 19 January 2007 08:56 PM      Profile for pogge   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
Originally posted by Michelle:
Jesus. I thought we knew this already.

No. It had been theorized but never proven.


From: Why is this a required field? | Registered: Mar 2002  |  IP: Logged
quart o' homomilk
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posted 20 January 2007 05:48 PM      Profile for quart o' homomilk     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
How the hell did they get a hold of the 1919 virus in the first place?
From: saturday | Registered: Oct 2006  |  IP: Logged
M. Spector
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posted 20 January 2007 06:00 PM      Profile for M. Spector   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
The virus was reconstructed from tissues of victims from 1918.

From: One millihelen: The amount of beauty required to launch one ship. | Registered: Feb 2005  |  IP: Logged
remind
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posted 20 January 2007 07:02 PM      Profile for remind     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
with reverse genetics
From: "watching the tide roll away" | Registered: Jun 2004  |  IP: Logged
jrose
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posted 20 January 2007 08:43 PM      Profile for jrose     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Here is an article one of my profs wrote a few years back for Chatelaine.. It's more of a human interest story, but it sheds a lot of light on what animals go through for the sake of medicine.
From: Ottawa | Registered: Oct 2006  |  IP: Logged
siren
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posted 20 January 2007 08:55 PM      Profile for siren     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
Originally posted by remind:
Well, when you put it that way it is not, it is in fact a good thing, but at first blush, I thought: "I simply do not trust ANYTHING Harper's CPC does, next thing you know, they be testing primates in the wild there with the Spanish Flu to see what happens."


I rather doubt that this is a Harper initiative. I am sure it would take longer than 10 months to get this off the ground. Clement probably just didn't have time to hack it..

from your link:

quote:
The International Centre for Infectious Diseases represents a new chapter in a 27-year collaboration between the University of Nairobi and the University of Manitoba. The lab will be able to handle highly infectious, deadly diseases such as Ebola, the Marburg virus and HIV/AIDS.

Once the equipment is in place, the facilities will be as good as any in Canada, said Dr. Frank Plummer, director of the National Microbiology Laboratory in Winnipeg. He was also in Nairobi for the opening.


I think it is a very good thing, and at least the neo-cons didn't gut it.


From: Of course we could have world peace! But where would be the profit in that? | Registered: Nov 2004  |  IP: Logged
remind
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posted 20 January 2007 10:47 PM      Profile for remind     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
Originally posted by siren:
...Clement probably just didn't have time to hack it...I think it is a very good thing, and at least the neo-cons didn't gut it.


"Clement didn't have time to hack it"

Yes, I agree it's a good thing,if it stays what it was intended to be.

Today, I was listening to CBC and they were discussing this and one of its focuses is the early testing for Eboli.


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Brian White
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posted 21 January 2007 07:45 PM      Profile for Brian White   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
They did it to "learn about the virus".
Supposedly to learn how to stop it when it breaks the confines of their lab.
I presume that the whole thing is a front for a germ warfare research project.

From: Victoria Bc | Registered: Jan 2005  |  IP: Logged
pogge
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posted 21 January 2007 08:01 PM      Profile for pogge   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
Originally posted by Brian White:

I presume that the whole thing is a front for a germ warfare research project.

Sorry but I think your tinfoil hat is on a bit too tight. There was another death in Indonesia from H5N1 recently -- a teenager -- bringing the total fatalities to 159 since 2003. The Case Fatality Rate remains at 60%.


From: Why is this a required field? | Registered: Mar 2002  |  IP: Logged
M. Spector
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posted 21 January 2007 08:18 PM      Profile for M. Spector   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Non sequitur. H5N1 is not the same virus as the 1918 one, which was H1N1.
From: One millihelen: The amount of beauty required to launch one ship. | Registered: Feb 2005  |  IP: Logged
pogge
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posted 21 January 2007 08:29 PM      Profile for pogge   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Not a non-sequitur. They're studying H1N1 for clues because they'd like to figure out how these viruses work and how to stop them. They can't confine themselves to H5N1 as it currently exists because the whole point is: these viruses mutate very quickly. If H5N1 goes human to human in a serious way, and that's still an if, they can't know what else will have changed in the meantime. So they're getting whatever info they can, where ever they can. They also can't know whether H5N1 will in fact be the next pandemic virus. H1N1 could mutate in a way that defeats our immunity and come back at us.

[ 21 January 2007: Message edited by: pogge ]


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