Edit: let me just add that I'm extremely positive about the future, it's just that there are certain challenges that we as a society must deal with.
The ability for one man or a small group of men to more or less wipe out the human race will be in our reach within perhaps just a few years.
We can deal with this by different control mechanisms in our society. I'm a firm believer in the transparent society but the way things are going right now we seem to be moving towards a government controlled big brother society.
Is that the way we want it? Now is the time to discuss these issues if we want to change route.
Isn't this the same problem as nuclear knowledge regulation though? We definitely need some controls here, but the government doesn't need to control everything big brother style. Just a few specific items within a few domains of knowledge.
I'm not a big fan of government secrecy either but if the choice is between that and self-extinction, well...! Our Stone Age circumstances have left us with some pretty predatorial instincts and drives. It makes sense to put in safeguards to protect us from our own giant technological reach. It gives us time to let our social/cultural immune systems catch up.
And these probably don't have to be permanent - I'm not sure, but it does feel like we're moving towards greater freedom over time. Look at the chemicals you can buy in any hardware store or pharmacy today, and the instruction guides freely available on the internet. Individuals can already cause asymmetrically large harm but generally don't, because we're already fairly self-domesticated.
I think there's more to gain than lose by publishing these results. First of all, the research states that ~50% of people infected with the virus would die, not that humanity would be reduced by 50%, necessarily. It's unclear if this is an implication and I think, as a result, it's a bit of a misleading title.
Also, say the title is not misleading and they publish the results and some crazy dictator gets his hands on it. First, he has to be crazy enough to want to develop a virus that has a 50% chance of killing him. Then he has to find scientists that are willing to develop the virus that has a 50% chance of killing them and their family and friends, etc. The likelihood of all these things transpiring seems relatively low.
On the other hand, this research seems to indicate that it's not wholly unlikely that this kind of virus mutation could transpire organically, in which case this "recipe" being public knowledge would be instrumental in fighting the disease. Even if it doesn't arise organically (crazy terrorist convinces crazy scientists) the public knowledge of it would still reduce the 50% death rate.
And I also feel that the kind of sentiments that lead people to claim that this research should never have been performed in the first place are misguided. This kind of tinkering and hacking around is likely what would lead to the next big cure, etc. Never stop scientists from learning new things.
>Also, say the title is not misleading and they publish the results and some crazy dictator gets his hands on it.
The difference between bioweapons and nuclear weapons is the former don't require the resources of a state. It could just as easily be done by a few grad students. Maybe even a single grad student.
> it's not wholly unlikely that this kind of virus mutation could transpire organically ...
Interestingly that might give some crazy dictator or lone crazy scientist an incentive to perhaps develop and release it in some particular region of the world. If it looks like a natural mutation then it will be harder to find the culprit.
Reading some of the comments, I am reminded of the Greek concept of hubris...
In particular, it is funny how programmers, who make their living by controlling complicated systems, jump to the conclusion that every complicated system is trivially subject to human control. I had a professor once put it this way: disease is just that -- a dis-ease.
The first thing you have to understand is that no organism lives in a biological vacuum. Every organisms interacts with other organisms. When first two organisms meet, the interaction is usually rather messy. One or the other or both die in great numbers. Gradually, they make adjustments and the deaths decrease. One becomes a disease or parasite of the other. Eventually, the two organisms will reach a détente and begin living as symbionts. Given enough time, the distinction between the two may even vanish (see: endosymbiont hypothesis).
The flu virus is, in particular, a rather striking study of this process. Consider the vast majority of fowl who carry the virus asymptomatically. For them, flu is not a disease, but rather a simple hitch-hiker. For humans, you can predict the severity of a flu outbreak based on how well adjusted the virus is to humans. The more avian characteristics it has, the worse the symptoms and mortality are likely to be. At the same time, an ill adjusted virus is much less likely to spread.
One other thing to consider is that the flu virus itself does not exist in isolation from itself. The Spanish flu of 1918 is an interesting case in this respect. It was, as I alluded to before, ill adjusted to human hosts. At the same time, it was particularly communicable; something of an oddity for a flu with so many avian characteristics. It did kill a large number of people, but within a year or two the major damage had been done and the pandemic was over.
Why? Well, certainly a large portion of the human population that had become exposed but had not died were now immune. More importantly, though, the strain mutated and became better adjusted to human hosts. This strain, H1N1, then became the predominant form of the "seasonal flu". It is likely that you have become infected by a descendent of this very strain, probably many times over.
I would not fear this virus for the same reason that I do not fear Ebola or Marburg virus. Viruses that kill quickly and efficiently do not spread as well as those that cause some disease but allow their host to continue functioning more or less normally (all the while exposing many more to the virus). Of course, this is little comfort to the dead, and there will always be those who die from any outbreak (just go look at the annual death toll from "seasonal flu"). It is far, far from a reason to start predicting the end of humanity.
One final note on the bioweapon/bioterror angle: if you follow the thinking of the people that actually contemplate the use of bioweapons, you'll find that bioweapons are only ever considered as denial-of-area or knock-down agents. That is, you can use a bioweapon to prevent your enemy from gaining or holding a strategic position. What you don't find is anyone proposing to use a bioweapon as a coup de grace. Those that study these things understand that any biological agent has an in-built time limit on its effectiveness.
Edit: I just realized I should mention that while I don't appreciate the sensationalism espoused by the scientific press, H5N1 is a very real, very troubling threat. It won't wipe out the human race, but it does have a good chance of setting humanity back a decade or two (not from disease, but primarily from the knock-on effects of people reacting to the disease, halting productive work and worldwide travel). In my mind, though, this is all the more reason to publish this research and, while we're at it, pour some more money into the worldwide flu monitoring network.
Viruses that kill quickly and efficiently do not spread as well as those that cause some disease but allow their host to continue functioning more or less normally (all the while exposing many more to the virus).
While this perspective is sound and less alarming than the source, viruses like influenza can still spread relatively far, can't they? They are believed to be contagious one or two days before the onset of symptoms [1], leaving a quite big window open for contagion.
[1]
When is a person with influenza contagious? A person is most likely to pass on the virus during the period beginning one to two days before the onset of symptoms and ending four to five days after the onset.http://www.vaccineinformation.org/flu/qandadis.asp
How do you compare a flu to a hemorrhagic virus like Marburg or Ebola? The reason you shouldn't be worried about the latter is that they are transmitted via direct fluid contact instead of getting aerosolized like the flu. That's why they don't spread well, not because of the mortality.
You minimize something that is not natural (engineered to be lethal) that could kill several billion people. I wouldn't stand up there lecturing anyone about hubris.
> Every organisms interacts with other organisms. When first two organisms meet, the interaction is usually rather messy.
But you also seem to assume that all such interaction are taking place under natural conditions (humans are just a passive agent, one of the mammalian species, like a cow perhaps). In reality though humans are actively manipulating this virus in a laboratory environment and are able to select strains that are deadly enough, but not too deadly, also transmittable enough. That is the real danger I think.
> Why? Well, certainly a large portion of the human population that had become exposed but had not died were now immune.
What if you or your family isn't. Are you willing to brave on a new hardened strain of avian flu just to find out. Would you soldier on with a stoic face? Nobody would right? Therefore the panic. So this is another side of the issue. Humans are going to react to the disease not just in a sort of automatic biological way but in a proactive way. Close borders if they can, quarantine and so on.
> Viruses that kill quickly and efficiently do not spread as well as those that cause some disease but allow their host to continue functioning more or less normally
I think again, you are assuming a naturally evolving environment outside of human activity. With plane travel for example, and ever larger densities of population centers, the same assumptions about the rate of spreading of a virus cannot be made as they would have been 100 years ago. (On the other side there is the pro-active element of having access to quicker and better information, so which one will win -- quick information that could be used to establish quarantine zones for example or the disease carried by fast traveling passengers? But that is a whole other discussion).
> bioweapons are only ever considered as denial-of-area or knock-down agents.
I don't think that angle was assumed as much as some ideological angle of depopulating the planet, by a lone extremist, for example. Here is an example profile: a virologist at some research facility who has strong beliefs about the world reaching a tipping point as far as natural resources are concerned vis-a-vis he accelerating increase in population, becomes obsessed with the idea, that de-population has to take place and they are willing to actively encourage it. They start the process of cultivating a strain of flu. When finished they travel to another continent and try to find ways to spread it.
There's no theoretical reason to dismiss the possibility of a virus that quickly kills 50% of the population, as the article claims this virus could. Myxamatosis killed about 80% of Australian rabbits within a few years of its introduction to Australia.
Yes, it's true that the virus and host adapted to each other and it's nowhere near as deadly now, but we have a proof of concept of a virus that can do a lot worse than the flu virus in this article, and that's bad enough.
>I would not fear this virus for the same reason that I do not fear Ebola or Marburg virus. Viruses that kill quickly and efficiently do not spread as well as those that cause some disease but allow their host to continue functioning more or less normally (all the while exposing many more to the virus).
I disagree with that argument.
Its almost right, but I think its perniciously wrong.
Its true that the most dangerous viruses, all other things being equal, are the ones with longer incubation time. Outbreaks of Ebola have tended to wipe out an isolated population, and quickly 'burn themselves out'; this has substantially reduced their threat.
But that 'all other things being equal' part is important.
There's nothing that says a virus that kills quickly and efficiently can't also spread well.
You could have a flu virus, with 50% mortality, that is asymptotic for 5 days, and then kills quickly; but if that virus easily transfers airborne, it could still spread well. The question is always whether each infected person can infect - on average - a little more than one other person; there's no reason a highly contagious flu couldn't do this in a 5 day window, and that makes it very scary.
In simple epidemic modeling terms, you've got a contagion rate Beta, and a recovery rate Gamma. With fixed Beta, lower Gamma causes more spreading. But even with a fairly high recovery rate, if Beta is high enough, the disease will spread effectively.
If humanity should fear anything, its viruses like these. Its way above nuclear meltdowns, or climate change, in that respect.
>One final note on the bioweapon/bioterror angle: if you follow the thinking of the people that actually contemplate the use of bioweapons, you'll find that bioweapons are only ever considered as denial-of-area or knock-down agents.
Have you ever heard of these guys? : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aum_Shinrikyo
These crazy bastards did a sarin attack on the Tokyo subway.
Wiki says: "Over the next week, the full scale of Aum's activities was revealed for the first time. At the cult's headquarters in Kamikuishiki on the foot of Mount Fuji, police found explosives, chemical weapons and biological warfare agents, such as anthrax and Ebola cultures, and a Russian Mil Mi-17 military helicopter. The Ebola virus was delivered from Zaire in 1994"
I don't know how well sourced that wikipedia article is, but I've certainly read many places that they sent people to source Ebola in Africa.
These were not logical people, rationally planning military use scenarios, and weren't thinking about things like 'denial-of-area'.
There aren't many people like that in the world, but there's some.
>It won't wipe out the human race, but it does have a good chance of setting humanity back a decade or two
3 billion deaths would be an unprecedented human tragedy. Its like flipping a coin, for each of your loved ones lives, if you want to personalise it. Its completely horrific, and we shouldn't lose sight of that, talking about 'being set back a decade or two'.
Furthermore, you'd probably be talking about complete social, economic, societal collapse. I'd imagine that would be very hard to recover from.
The prospect of something like this getting out is terrifying. I'm a researcher, and I really think we should be pushing forward scientific progress. But even the fact that there's a virus like this sitting in a lab somewhere is scary. I hope its got an extremely high level of security. What happens if a crazy group kidnaps one of the researcher's families? I definitely understand why there's concern about making the 'steps to reproduce' available.
Several years ago, Bill Joy talked about having to censor certain intellectual information, for situations just such as this.
I thought he was a bit crazy at the time; but with developments like this, well, maybe there's an uncomfortable discussion to be had, here; personally, I need to think more about this.
> In my mind, though, this is all the more reason to publish this research and, while we're at it, pour some more money into the worldwide flu monitoring network.
Flu monitoring is probably not going to stop something like this if it appears in the wild - at least in terms of intervening to quarantine a particular variant.
If you look at the swine flu outbreak, in the early stages they were worried that the mortality was high (they didn't have good data). But no attempt at containment was made; the time window for containment was effectively gone, by the time the virus came to our attention. (I can't find a source for this, but that's my recollection). (EDIT: Here's one source: http://www.newscientist.com/blogs/shortsharpscience/2009/07/...)
That group has what seems to be one of the best global epidemic models; the point of the talk was that even shutting down air travel was very unlikely to stop the spread of the flu they were studying, in response to detecting an outbreak; its just very hard to stop these things spreading.
I should say - I'm not an expert on biological epidemiology or anything, and I'd love to be told I'm wrong about any of this.
> One final note on the bioweapon/bioterror angle: if you follow the thinking of the people that actually contemplate the use of bioweapons, you'll find that bioweapons are only ever considered as denial-of-area or knock-down agents.
I think you are forgetting about the fundamentalist nuts who are hoping for the end of the world. I am sure they would see it as their destiny if they could get a hold of such bioweapons and start their own version of Armageddon.
So surely the most effective disease would be highly contagious and lethal, but with a high incubation period of maybe a year? That way, everyone becomes infected then we all just start dropping.
The now known as Spanish flu wasn't Spanish at all [0]. It's believed it was originated in China.
The 'Spanish flu' name came as a result of a mix of circumstances: the early affliction and large mortalities in mid 1918s in Spain (althought a first wave of influenza appeared early in the spring of 1918 in Kansas and in military camps throughout the US) and Spain’s neutral position during World War I. Without Media censorship, hence openly reporting about a flu outbreak, led to fooling observers into thinking that’s where the disease had come from.
Of course, programmers and engineers aren't always right that a certain problem can be solved by applying logic, but sometimes it takes an engineer willing to look at a problem in just that kind of way to solve it. To put it another way, if a system is so complex that no logic you bring to bear on it will solve it, then programmers are of the mindset that it's their fault for not being able to tease out the connections. What's the alternative? To throw up your hands and declare that some problems just can't be solved? That would be unbearable for an engineer.
Todd Rider from MIT may already have the answer to this problem. What I'd like to know is, if the natural or unnatural mutation of this virus is such an immediate threat, why not rush his DRACO to market for emergency use? Why do we have to sit here and pretend that some problems can't be solved, when someone has apparently done just that?
After 10 generations, the virus had mutated to become airborne
Can someone more qualified than me comment on this? I was under the impression that this is as ridiculous as saying that you started out with dogs and ended up with cats 10 generations later. That viruses belong to specific families, and those families include how they're transmitted.
My knowledge of this field is extremely limited; can someone please clear up my confusion? :)
In fact you are more or less correct. It is as if they put in dogs and got out cats. That's just how Influenza works. It mutates, adapts, and evolves extremely rapidly. This is why it never has been, and likely never will be, eradicated (notice that those "in the know" don't even talk about Influenza eradication in passing).
Thanks to the commenters who pointed to more balanced news stories about this line of research. Some of the other comments here mention the difficulty in developing strain-specific flu vaccines. That difficulty is why research on universal flu vaccines
is going on in multiple countries, with some major funding support. Antiviral medicines that treat cases of the flu tend to be in short supply in every flu season, but some governments have taken care to stockpile those in ways that ensure that essential services would go on in those countries even during a severe flu pandemic. Further research on broad-spectrum flu vaccines, including a possible universal vaccine, is warranted to prevent natural strains of the flu and is ongoing. Further research, development, and production of antiviral medicines to treat people who catch the flu is also warranted and ongoing.
A new pandemic, from whatever source, would be extremely disruptive, but as an astute previous comment pointed out, people can do things like self-quarantine, and such simple forms of self-protection were very effective in stopping the SARS epidemic in 2003. Predicting the death of half of humankind based the preliminary finding reported in the rather sensational story submitted here is not a prediction I believe or worry about.
The trouble is not making the vaccine. As soon as you have the virus you can make the vaccine. The trouble is that we currently lack the capacity to rapidly produce large quantities of the vaccine.
Why do we lack the capacity? Because there's no profit in making flu vaccines! Gotta love capitalism, eh?
To me, the scariest thing (which seems to be overlooked) is that this particular strain of Avian Flu is only 5 mutations away from the Avian Flu in the wild.
While we're fretting about whether this will get out of a lab, it's not entirely unlikely that a similar strain will evolve in the wild (now you know why they burned all those chickens in China).
Edit: "A genetic study showed that the new, dangerous strain had only five mutations compared to the original one, and all of them were earlier seen in the natural environment – just not all at once."
According to Wikipedia, Erasmus Medical Center (or, for that matter, all of Rotterdam) only has labs rated up to Biosafety Level 3. This sounds like it should be the definition of BSL4. I wonder whether the research was conducted elsewhere, Wikipedia is wrong, or if they're really doing this in a BSL2 or BSL3 lab.
Just seems like playing with fire. I get the whole idea of helping humanity cope with an epidemic, but not clear why they didnt just do THAT research instead.
It's hard to figure out how to put out fires based on news reports of what fires are like. At some point you just have to set fire to something in a laboratory and see if you can actually put it out.
It helps that just like it's not actually possible to start a fire that would actually incinerate half the globe, it's not actually possible to create a virus that would wipe out half of humanity. The article is wrong and sensationalist.
The ethical dilemma is interesting and, I think, parallels the "security through obscurity" approach to software security. If the findings are published, the scientific community at large can work to fight a pandemic which may happen anyway, but at the same time may decrease the time until a pandemic occurs by giving information to those who would willingly produce it for their personal gain.
But, seriously, isn't it obvious that publication of the fact that this research is blocked is already enough for terrorists? From the preliminary report they already have an outline of what needs to be done, they know where to go and who to ask or what to steal if they can't do it themselves.
Unfortunately, if the virus has already been created, the antidote has to be found ASAP. For this to happen, a large number of scientists have to know how to make it first before knowing how to destroy it.
How you decide who should have access to this information is now the problem. If they are not careful, the censoring could piss of some crazy scientist who would now announce such discoveries with a blogpost and allow anyone have access to it than through a sort of regulated process that would at least give the 'right people' a lead on the info; so they can start working on an anti-dote before is gets to the mass market.
As to what kind of research should be allowed, I have no comment.
There is an interesting short story called "Talking To God" [1], which postulates that sentient species only survive if every individual has the ability to destroy the entire world, but chooses not to.
Our capacity for mass destruction is only going to get worse. I think it's far more efficacious to look toward managing that reality than to try to postpone or prevent it.
Science is an American publication. If this were submitted to Nature, I suspect we'd be hearing about some British committee fretting over this...or perhaps not since Americans seem particularly prone to sensationalism.
[+] [-] erikstarck|14 years ago|reply
20th century: mankind can destroy mankind.
21st century: man can destroy mankind.
Edit: let me just add that I'm extremely positive about the future, it's just that there are certain challenges that we as a society must deal with.
The ability for one man or a small group of men to more or less wipe out the human race will be in our reach within perhaps just a few years.
We can deal with this by different control mechanisms in our society. I'm a firm believer in the transparent society but the way things are going right now we seem to be moving towards a government controlled big brother society.
Is that the way we want it? Now is the time to discuss these issues if we want to change route.
[+] [-] dcx|14 years ago|reply
I'm not a big fan of government secrecy either but if the choice is between that and self-extinction, well...! Our Stone Age circumstances have left us with some pretty predatorial instincts and drives. It makes sense to put in safeguards to protect us from our own giant technological reach. It gives us time to let our social/cultural immune systems catch up.
And these probably don't have to be permanent - I'm not sure, but it does feel like we're moving towards greater freedom over time. Look at the chemicals you can buy in any hardware store or pharmacy today, and the instruction guides freely available on the internet. Individuals can already cause asymmetrically large harm but generally don't, because we're already fairly self-domesticated.
(Credit to Simon of Space for this line of thought - http://cheeseburgerbrown.com/stories/Simon_of_Space/)
[+] [-] itmag|14 years ago|reply
http://dreaming5gw.com/5gw_lexicon/s/super-empowered-individ...
http://globalguerrillas.typepad.com/
Kul att se dig hær førresten :)
[+] [-] brador|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] prophetjohn|14 years ago|reply
Also, say the title is not misleading and they publish the results and some crazy dictator gets his hands on it. First, he has to be crazy enough to want to develop a virus that has a 50% chance of killing him. Then he has to find scientists that are willing to develop the virus that has a 50% chance of killing them and their family and friends, etc. The likelihood of all these things transpiring seems relatively low.
On the other hand, this research seems to indicate that it's not wholly unlikely that this kind of virus mutation could transpire organically, in which case this "recipe" being public knowledge would be instrumental in fighting the disease. Even if it doesn't arise organically (crazy terrorist convinces crazy scientists) the public knowledge of it would still reduce the 50% death rate.
And I also feel that the kind of sentiments that lead people to claim that this research should never have been performed in the first place are misguided. This kind of tinkering and hacking around is likely what would lead to the next big cure, etc. Never stop scientists from learning new things.
[+] [-] tsotha|14 years ago|reply
The difference between bioweapons and nuclear weapons is the former don't require the resources of a state. It could just as easily be done by a few grad students. Maybe even a single grad student.
[+] [-] rdtsc|14 years ago|reply
Interestingly that might give some crazy dictator or lone crazy scientist an incentive to perhaps develop and release it in some particular region of the world. If it looks like a natural mutation then it will be harder to find the culprit.
[+] [-] jballanc|14 years ago|reply
In particular, it is funny how programmers, who make their living by controlling complicated systems, jump to the conclusion that every complicated system is trivially subject to human control. I had a professor once put it this way: disease is just that -- a dis-ease.
The first thing you have to understand is that no organism lives in a biological vacuum. Every organisms interacts with other organisms. When first two organisms meet, the interaction is usually rather messy. One or the other or both die in great numbers. Gradually, they make adjustments and the deaths decrease. One becomes a disease or parasite of the other. Eventually, the two organisms will reach a détente and begin living as symbionts. Given enough time, the distinction between the two may even vanish (see: endosymbiont hypothesis).
The flu virus is, in particular, a rather striking study of this process. Consider the vast majority of fowl who carry the virus asymptomatically. For them, flu is not a disease, but rather a simple hitch-hiker. For humans, you can predict the severity of a flu outbreak based on how well adjusted the virus is to humans. The more avian characteristics it has, the worse the symptoms and mortality are likely to be. At the same time, an ill adjusted virus is much less likely to spread.
One other thing to consider is that the flu virus itself does not exist in isolation from itself. The Spanish flu of 1918 is an interesting case in this respect. It was, as I alluded to before, ill adjusted to human hosts. At the same time, it was particularly communicable; something of an oddity for a flu with so many avian characteristics. It did kill a large number of people, but within a year or two the major damage had been done and the pandemic was over.
Why? Well, certainly a large portion of the human population that had become exposed but had not died were now immune. More importantly, though, the strain mutated and became better adjusted to human hosts. This strain, H1N1, then became the predominant form of the "seasonal flu". It is likely that you have become infected by a descendent of this very strain, probably many times over.
I would not fear this virus for the same reason that I do not fear Ebola or Marburg virus. Viruses that kill quickly and efficiently do not spread as well as those that cause some disease but allow their host to continue functioning more or less normally (all the while exposing many more to the virus). Of course, this is little comfort to the dead, and there will always be those who die from any outbreak (just go look at the annual death toll from "seasonal flu"). It is far, far from a reason to start predicting the end of humanity.
One final note on the bioweapon/bioterror angle: if you follow the thinking of the people that actually contemplate the use of bioweapons, you'll find that bioweapons are only ever considered as denial-of-area or knock-down agents. That is, you can use a bioweapon to prevent your enemy from gaining or holding a strategic position. What you don't find is anyone proposing to use a bioweapon as a coup de grace. Those that study these things understand that any biological agent has an in-built time limit on its effectiveness.
Edit: I just realized I should mention that while I don't appreciate the sensationalism espoused by the scientific press, H5N1 is a very real, very troubling threat. It won't wipe out the human race, but it does have a good chance of setting humanity back a decade or two (not from disease, but primarily from the knock-on effects of people reacting to the disease, halting productive work and worldwide travel). In my mind, though, this is all the more reason to publish this research and, while we're at it, pour some more money into the worldwide flu monitoring network.
[+] [-] stephth|14 years ago|reply
Viruses that kill quickly and efficiently do not spread as well as those that cause some disease but allow their host to continue functioning more or less normally (all the while exposing many more to the virus).
While this perspective is sound and less alarming than the source, viruses like influenza can still spread relatively far, can't they? They are believed to be contagious one or two days before the onset of symptoms [1], leaving a quite big window open for contagion.
[1] When is a person with influenza contagious? A person is most likely to pass on the virus during the period beginning one to two days before the onset of symptoms and ending four to five days after the onset. http://www.vaccineinformation.org/flu/qandadis.asp
[+] [-] 3am|14 years ago|reply
You minimize something that is not natural (engineered to be lethal) that could kill several billion people. I wouldn't stand up there lecturing anyone about hubris.
[+] [-] Rastafarian|14 years ago|reply
http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=qubTdDk1H3IC&pg=PA205... : "fatality rates of 80–90% in Native American populations during smallpox epidemics"
[+] [-] rdtsc|14 years ago|reply
But you also seem to assume that all such interaction are taking place under natural conditions (humans are just a passive agent, one of the mammalian species, like a cow perhaps). In reality though humans are actively manipulating this virus in a laboratory environment and are able to select strains that are deadly enough, but not too deadly, also transmittable enough. That is the real danger I think.
> Why? Well, certainly a large portion of the human population that had become exposed but had not died were now immune.
What if you or your family isn't. Are you willing to brave on a new hardened strain of avian flu just to find out. Would you soldier on with a stoic face? Nobody would right? Therefore the panic. So this is another side of the issue. Humans are going to react to the disease not just in a sort of automatic biological way but in a proactive way. Close borders if they can, quarantine and so on.
> Viruses that kill quickly and efficiently do not spread as well as those that cause some disease but allow their host to continue functioning more or less normally
I think again, you are assuming a naturally evolving environment outside of human activity. With plane travel for example, and ever larger densities of population centers, the same assumptions about the rate of spreading of a virus cannot be made as they would have been 100 years ago. (On the other side there is the pro-active element of having access to quicker and better information, so which one will win -- quick information that could be used to establish quarantine zones for example or the disease carried by fast traveling passengers? But that is a whole other discussion).
> bioweapons are only ever considered as denial-of-area or knock-down agents.
I don't think that angle was assumed as much as some ideological angle of depopulating the planet, by a lone extremist, for example. Here is an example profile: a virologist at some research facility who has strong beliefs about the world reaching a tipping point as far as natural resources are concerned vis-a-vis he accelerating increase in population, becomes obsessed with the idea, that de-population has to take place and they are willing to actively encourage it. They start the process of cultivating a strain of flu. When finished they travel to another continent and try to find ways to spread it.
[+] [-] rsheridan6|14 years ago|reply
Yes, it's true that the virus and host adapted to each other and it's nowhere near as deadly now, but we have a proof of concept of a virus that can do a lot worse than the flu virus in this article, and that's bad enough.
[+] [-] feral|14 years ago|reply
I disagree with that argument. Its almost right, but I think its perniciously wrong.
Its true that the most dangerous viruses, all other things being equal, are the ones with longer incubation time. Outbreaks of Ebola have tended to wipe out an isolated population, and quickly 'burn themselves out'; this has substantially reduced their threat.
But that 'all other things being equal' part is important. There's nothing that says a virus that kills quickly and efficiently can't also spread well.
You could have a flu virus, with 50% mortality, that is asymptotic for 5 days, and then kills quickly; but if that virus easily transfers airborne, it could still spread well. The question is always whether each infected person can infect - on average - a little more than one other person; there's no reason a highly contagious flu couldn't do this in a 5 day window, and that makes it very scary.
In simple epidemic modeling terms, you've got a contagion rate Beta, and a recovery rate Gamma. With fixed Beta, lower Gamma causes more spreading. But even with a fairly high recovery rate, if Beta is high enough, the disease will spread effectively.
If humanity should fear anything, its viruses like these. Its way above nuclear meltdowns, or climate change, in that respect.
>One final note on the bioweapon/bioterror angle: if you follow the thinking of the people that actually contemplate the use of bioweapons, you'll find that bioweapons are only ever considered as denial-of-area or knock-down agents.
Have you ever heard of these guys? : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aum_Shinrikyo These crazy bastards did a sarin attack on the Tokyo subway. Wiki says: "Over the next week, the full scale of Aum's activities was revealed for the first time. At the cult's headquarters in Kamikuishiki on the foot of Mount Fuji, police found explosives, chemical weapons and biological warfare agents, such as anthrax and Ebola cultures, and a Russian Mil Mi-17 military helicopter. The Ebola virus was delivered from Zaire in 1994"
I don't know how well sourced that wikipedia article is, but I've certainly read many places that they sent people to source Ebola in Africa.
These were not logical people, rationally planning military use scenarios, and weren't thinking about things like 'denial-of-area'. There aren't many people like that in the world, but there's some.
>It won't wipe out the human race, but it does have a good chance of setting humanity back a decade or two
3 billion deaths would be an unprecedented human tragedy. Its like flipping a coin, for each of your loved ones lives, if you want to personalise it. Its completely horrific, and we shouldn't lose sight of that, talking about 'being set back a decade or two'.
Furthermore, you'd probably be talking about complete social, economic, societal collapse. I'd imagine that would be very hard to recover from.
The prospect of something like this getting out is terrifying. I'm a researcher, and I really think we should be pushing forward scientific progress. But even the fact that there's a virus like this sitting in a lab somewhere is scary. I hope its got an extremely high level of security. What happens if a crazy group kidnaps one of the researcher's families? I definitely understand why there's concern about making the 'steps to reproduce' available.
Several years ago, Bill Joy talked about having to censor certain intellectual information, for situations just such as this. I thought he was a bit crazy at the time; but with developments like this, well, maybe there's an uncomfortable discussion to be had, here; personally, I need to think more about this.
> In my mind, though, this is all the more reason to publish this research and, while we're at it, pour some more money into the worldwide flu monitoring network.
Flu monitoring is probably not going to stop something like this if it appears in the wild - at least in terms of intervening to quarantine a particular variant.
If you look at the swine flu outbreak, in the early stages they were worried that the mortality was high (they didn't have good data). But no attempt at containment was made; the time window for containment was effectively gone, by the time the virus came to our attention. (I can't find a source for this, but that's my recollection). (EDIT: Here's one source: http://www.newscientist.com/blogs/shortsharpscience/2009/07/...)
I attended a talk a couple of years ago: http://netsci2010.net/abstracts/Bajardi.htm
That group has what seems to be one of the best global epidemic models; the point of the talk was that even shutting down air travel was very unlikely to stop the spread of the flu they were studying, in response to detecting an outbreak; its just very hard to stop these things spreading.
I should say - I'm not an expert on biological epidemiology or anything, and I'd love to be told I'm wrong about any of this.
[+] [-] aroberge|14 years ago|reply
I think you are forgetting about the fundamentalist nuts who are hoping for the end of the world. I am sure they would see it as their destiny if they could get a hold of such bioweapons and start their own version of Armageddon.
[+] [-] antihero|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] thechangelog|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] notspanishflu|14 years ago|reply
The now known as Spanish flu wasn't Spanish at all [0]. It's believed it was originated in China.
The 'Spanish flu' name came as a result of a mix of circumstances: the early affliction and large mortalities in mid 1918s in Spain (althought a first wave of influenza appeared early in the spring of 1918 in Kansas and in military camps throughout the US) and Spain’s neutral position during World War I. Without Media censorship, hence openly reporting about a flu outbreak, led to fooling observers into thinking that’s where the disease had come from.
[0] http://virus.stanford.edu/uda/
Edit: Formatting
[+] [-] noduerme|14 years ago|reply
Todd Rider from MIT may already have the answer to this problem. What I'd like to know is, if the natural or unnatural mutation of this virus is such an immediate threat, why not rush his DRACO to market for emergency use? Why do we have to sit here and pretend that some problems can't be solved, when someone has apparently done just that?
[+] [-] oasisbob|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] cr4zy|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mootothemax|14 years ago|reply
Can someone more qualified than me comment on this? I was under the impression that this is as ridiculous as saying that you started out with dogs and ended up with cats 10 generations later. That viruses belong to specific families, and those families include how they're transmitted.
My knowledge of this field is extremely limited; can someone please clear up my confusion? :)
[+] [-] jballanc|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Apocryphon|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tokenadult|14 years ago|reply
http://www.nih.gov/news/health/jul2010/niaid-15.htm
http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2011/feb/06/flu-universal-...
is going on in multiple countries, with some major funding support. Antiviral medicines that treat cases of the flu tend to be in short supply in every flu season, but some governments have taken care to stockpile those in ways that ensure that essential services would go on in those countries even during a severe flu pandemic. Further research on broad-spectrum flu vaccines, including a possible universal vaccine, is warranted to prevent natural strains of the flu and is ongoing. Further research, development, and production of antiviral medicines to treat people who catch the flu is also warranted and ongoing.
A new pandemic, from whatever source, would be extremely disruptive, but as an astute previous comment pointed out, people can do things like self-quarantine, and such simple forms of self-protection were very effective in stopping the SARS epidemic in 2003. Predicting the death of half of humankind based the preliminary finding reported in the rather sensational story submitted here is not a prediction I believe or worry about.
[+] [-] markazevedo|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ck2|14 years ago|reply
How would we stop all the permutations of this?
[+] [-] adrianN|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jballanc|14 years ago|reply
Why do we lack the capacity? Because there's no profit in making flu vaccines! Gotta love capitalism, eh?
[+] [-] jarin|14 years ago|reply
While we're fretting about whether this will get out of a lab, it's not entirely unlikely that a similar strain will evolve in the wild (now you know why they burned all those chickens in China).
Edit: "A genetic study showed that the new, dangerous strain had only five mutations compared to the original one, and all of them were earlier seen in the natural environment – just not all at once."
[+] [-] frisco|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kunle|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] laughinghan|14 years ago|reply
It helps that just like it's not actually possible to start a fire that would actually incinerate half the globe, it's not actually possible to create a virus that would wipe out half of humanity. The article is wrong and sensationalist.
[+] [-] dools|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] vl|14 years ago|reply
But, seriously, isn't it obvious that publication of the fact that this research is blocked is already enough for terrorists? From the preliminary report they already have an outline of what needs to be done, they know where to go and who to ask or what to steal if they can't do it themselves.
[+] [-] OoTheNigerian|14 years ago|reply
How you decide who should have access to this information is now the problem. If they are not careful, the censoring could piss of some crazy scientist who would now announce such discoveries with a blogpost and allow anyone have access to it than through a sort of regulated process that would at least give the 'right people' a lead on the info; so they can start working on an anti-dote before is gets to the mass market.
As to what kind of research should be allowed, I have no comment.
[+] [-] lukifer|14 years ago|reply
Our capacity for mass destruction is only going to get worse. I think it's far more efficacious to look toward managing that reality than to try to postpone or prevent it.
[1] http://www.fullmoon.nu/articles/art.php?id=tal
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