From the journal
Nature
A team of scientists in China has created hybrid viruses by mixing genes from H5N1 and the H1N1 strain behind the 2009 swine flu pandemic, and showed that some of the hybrids can spread through the air between guinea pigs. The results are published in Science1.
Flu hybrids can arise naturally when two viral strains infect the same cell and exchange genes. This process, known as reassortment, produced the strains responsible for at least three past flu pandemics, including the one in 2009.
Now please recall an old Garvey's Ghost posting entitled:
Did the Government Create HIV?. The relevant text highlighted:
There are two things about the biological agent field I would like
to mention. One is the possibility of technological surprise. Molecular
biology is a field that is advancing very rapidly and eminent biologists
believe that within a period of 5 to 10 years it would be possible to
produce a synthetic biological agent, an agent that does not naturally
exist and for which no natural immunity could have been acquired.
MR. SIKES. Are we doing any work in that field?
DR. MACARTHUR. We are not.
MR. SIKES. Why not? Lack of money or lack of interest?
DR. MACARTHUR. Certainly not lack of interest.
MR. SIKES. Would you provide for our records information on what
would be required, what the advantages of such a program would be,
the time and the cost involved?
Recall that early in the HIV epidemic there were researchers who suggested, quite strenuously, that the HIV virus was in fact a hybrid virus. Now I'm not saying that the above
proves that HIV was in fact created but it is another bit of evidence that it is in fact possible. That governments
can and
will fund such projects, and that the results of such projects do not usually make it to public scholarly journals.
Also of note, the response from the
scientific community:
They warned there is a danger that the new viral strains created by mixing bird-flu virus with human influenza could escape from the laboratory to cause a global pandemic killing millions of people....
“They claim they are doing this to help develop vaccines and such like. In fact the real reason is that they are driven by blind ambition with no common sense whatsoever,” Lord May told The Independent.
“The record of containment in labs like this is not reassuring. They are taking it upon themselves to create human-to-human transmission of very dangerous viruses. It’s appallingly irresponsible,” he said.
[My emphasis]
"The record of containment in labs like this is not reassuring"?
Really?
Pray tell, what record is that?
Now don't call me a conspiracy theorist. I'm just reporting on the facts.
