Did the NIH Just Open the Door to the Next Killer Pandemic?

The agency just lifted a ban on researching deadly viruses. Some scientists think that’s a recipe for a global public health disaster.

In 2011, scientists studying the H5N1 virus—the avian flu, or the bird flu—intentionally made variants of the illness that could transmit between ferrets, who often serve as human substitutes in flu studies.

That’s huge, even a few years later. The strain of influenza can, as its name suggests, infect birds, particularly poultry like chickens and ducks. Researchers are still not quite sure how it moves from avians to humans, but the fact that it does, and that the disease can evolve into something more powerful, meant that researchers were extremely interested in jumping in for a closer look.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/did-the-nih-just-open-the-door-to-the-next-killer-pandemic?ref=home

Reminds me of the time that a British lab saved small pox. They had eradicated it everywhere in the world, so the scientists said it was important to preserve a small sample of it to do research.

You guessed it. It escaped, and we have a thriving colony today.

The problem is we need a complete ban on 'germ warfare' but how do you go about it and how do you police it, we therefore need to study this stuff to find antidotes and need to keep the viruses to do this, so where do we go from here?

Original Quill wrote:Reminds me of the time that a British lab saved small pox.  They had eradicated it everywhere in the world, so the scientists said it was important to preserve a small sample of it to do research.

You guessed it.  It escaped, and we have a thriving colony today.

Yeah. Makes you wonder why they really keep them and and how they manage to "escape".....

There was a isolation Smallpox Hospital about 2 miles from me, some years ago it was closed down. It could not be demolished because of the risk of Germs/ virus's floating about. It was doused in Petrol and set alight, left to burn out, it was then ploughed over and left to grow wild.

eddie wrote:

Original Quill wrote:Reminds me of the time that a British lab saved small pox.  They had eradicated it everywhere in the world, so the scientists said it was important to preserve a small sample of it to do research.

You guessed it.  It escaped, and we have a thriving colony today.

Yeah. Makes you wonder why they really keep them and and how they manage to "escape".....

Perhaps they keep them in case it comes back and they need to do more research?

Raggamuffin wrote:

eddie wrote:

Original Quill wrote:Reminds me of the time that a British lab saved small pox.  They had eradicated it everywhere in the world, so the scientists said it was important to preserve a small sample of it to do research.

You guessed it.  It escaped, and we have a thriving colony today.

Yeah. Makes you wonder why they really keep them and and how they manage to "escape".....

Perhaps they keep them in case it comes back and they need to do more research?

Yes. Perhaps they do keep them for that reason. And maybe some others too.