Bird flu

[Kat Kanning]

CDC May Distribute 1918 Killer Flu

By MIKE STOBBE, Associated Press Writer Wed Nov 9, 1:18 PM ET

ATLANTA - Federal scientists say they will consider requests to ship the recently recreated 1918 killer flu virus to select U.S. research labs.
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There are 300 non-government research labs registered to work with deadly germs like the Spanish flu, which killed millions of people worldwide. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention will consider requests for samples from those labs "on a case-by-case basis,"
CDC spokesman Von Roebuck said Wednesday.

Dangerous biological agents are routinely shipped through commercial carriers like FedEx or DHL, following government packaging, safety and security guidelines.

Last month, U.S. scientists announced they had created ? from scratch ? the 1918 virus. It was the first time an infectious agent behind a historic global epidemic had ever been reconstructed.

Researchers said they believed it would help them develop defenses against the threat of a future pandemic evolving from bird flu, which was found to have similar characteristics as the 1918 virus.

About 10 vials of virus were created, each containing about 10 million infectious virus particles. CDC officials said at the time the particles would be stored at a CDC facility in Atlanta, and that there were no plans to send samples off campus.

But that statement did not mean there was a policy against sending samples elsewhere, Roebuck said.

The agency's decision to consider shipping the virus outside Atlanta was first reported in the latest issue of the journal Nature. Some critics of the recreation of the virus were not pleased to learn of plans to ship the germ.

"Obviously, that contradicts what most people were led to believe when the results of the 1918 experiments were published," said Edward Hammond, director of the Sunshine Project, an Austin, Texas-based organization that advocates more control of biological weapons and biotechnology.

In addition to creating the virus, the scientists said they would place the gene-sequencing information from the new research in GenBank, a public database operated by the
National Institutes of Health.

GenBank will allow some research groups to build their own virus, rather than seek samples of what the CDC had created.

"But that would be a lot of work. Wasted, duplicative work, if they (the CDC) have already made it," said Dr. Diane Griffin, chair of molecular microbiology and immunology at Johns Hopkins University's Bloomberg School of Public Health.

It's impractical to expect every influenza researcher who could learn from the 1918 virus to travel to Atlanta, said Michael Osterholm of the University of Minnesota School of Public Health.

"There's very limited lab space there," said Osterholm, director of Minnesota's Center for Infectious Disease Research & Policy.

The CDC currently has no pending requests for the virus, Roebuck said. It's unlikely many requests would come in right away, Osterholm noted.

The government requires researchers who work with such agents to use highly secure labs that meet strict training and equipment requirements. About 300 labs are registered for handling such agents, and all are located in the United States, Roebuck said.

"This (virus) is not going to go willy nilly to anyone who wants it," he said.

[Pat K]

You can tell you have bird flu, when you crap feathers.

[Lloyd Danforth]

You can tell you have bird flu, when you crap feathers.

No!  Thats a myth!  It, simply means you forgot to pluck the bird!

[Kat Kanning]

Smooth move.

[Kat Kanning]

[Lloyd Danforth]

[Dreepa]

Amanda?

[Lloyd Danforth]

Amanda?

???

[Kat Kanning]

Is he calling Amanda a sick chicken?

[KBCraig]

I thought she was a cute chick.

And that's a turkey, not a chicken. City slickers!

[AlanM]

I thought she was a cute chick.

And that's a turkey, not a chicken. City slickers!

Are you saying Amanda is a turkey?  ???

[Kat Kanning]

http://articles.news.aol.com/news/article.adp?id=20051111212209990004

Tamiflu Cited in 2 Teen Deaths, Report Says

TOKYO (Nov. 12) - Two teenage boys who took the antiviral drug Tamiflu exhibited abnormal behavior that lead to their deaths -- one jumped in front of an oncoming truck and the other apparently fell from a building, the Mainichi Shimbun reported Saturday.

Following the first incident, which took place last year, the prescription drug in Japan began carrying a warning that says possible side effects include "abnormal behavior" and "hallucinations," the major Japanese newspaper said.

This is the first time that deaths have been linked to the drug.

The Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare is aware of one of the cases. "As a result of abnormal behavior, it could lead to an accidental death," a ministry official said.

Rokuro Hama, the doctor who heads the Japan Institute of Pharmacovigilance for Evidence-Based Healthcare, will present the cases at a meeting of the Japanese Society for Pediatric Infectious Diseases on Saturday in Tsu, Mie Prefecture, the Mainichi said.

Hama, who runs the Osaka-based nonprofit group, was consulted by the boys' families, according to the newspaper.

The first case occurred in February last year when a 17-year-old male high school student in Gifu Prefecture was diagnosed with influenza and took a regular dose, one capsule, of Tamiflu at home at around noon, the newspaper said.

When no one else was there, the teen, wearing pajamas and barefoot, left the house, jumped over a fence around the house and ran in the snow, it said.

He then crossed over a guard rail near his home, jumped in front of a big truck and died at around 3:45 p.m., it said.

Chugai Pharmaceutical Co., the Japanese distributor of Tamiflu, produced by Swiss drug giant Roche, reported the incident in July that year to the health ministry as "a case where a causal link to the drug cannot be denied," the Mainichi said.

In the second case, a 14-year-old male junior high school student in Aichi Prefecture was diagnosed with flu on Feb. 5 this year and took one capsule at around 4 p.m.

He went to his bedroom around 5:30 p.m. About 30 minutes later, the boy was found lying barefoot in front of his condominium building, and later died, the newspaper said.

Police said his fingerprints were found on a handrail on the ninth floor of the building, and the boy is believed to have fallen after hanging onto the handrail, according to the Mainichi.

Neither of them had exhibited any psychological abnormalities before taking the drug, the newspaper said.

The government is planning to boost its stockpile of Tamiflu, generically known as oseltamivir phosphate, amid growing fears about a possible pandemic of a new type of influenza as bird flu deaths rise across Asia, health ministry sources said earlier.

Tamiflu is used to inhibit the growth of a flu virus in humans.

11/11/05 21:21 EST

[EagleClaw]

This is a warning to all Medicrats reading this forum.

Force-injecting the populace with a proprietary, top secret voodoo formulation is even more scary and potentially harmful than the virus itself.

My body is my property and I will defend it from ANY forced "innoculation".

MANY of us feel this way, so be careful what despotic trial balloons you float in the media.

[Eli]

http://www.reason.com/hod/cartoon.hp111105.shtml

Political cartoon from Reason Magazine.

[Kat Kanning]

Man, they're really hyping this.


Experts: Pandemic fears premature
Bird flu spread possible, not probable, officials caution

By David E. Williams
CNN
Monday, November 21, 2005; Posted: 3:22 p.m. EST (20:22 GMT)

story.bird.flu.1918.ap.gif
The influenza pandemic of 1918 is estimated to have killed 20 milliion to 50 million people.
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(CNN) -- While health officials have serious concerns about the H5N1 bird flu virus becoming a pandemic, they say it won't be a worldwide threat until the virus is able to spread easily between people.

That has not happened yet, and scientists stress that it might not happen with this strain.

Three things have to happen for a pandemic to start, according to the World Health Organization.

First, there has to be a new substrain of the flu virus. Second, it has to spread to humans and cause serious illness. Finally, it has to spread easily between people.

The flu virus currently circulating in Asia and parts of Europe has made the first two steps. But so far only 130 people have been infected with the H5N1 flu virus in Asia over the past two years -- 67 have died, according to the WHO.

There is no bird flu pandemic anywhere in the world. Health officials say that's because, at this point, the virus does not spread easily between people.

Almost all of the human cases have involved people who had direct contact with infected birds.

The fear is that the H5N1 virus will change and develop into a new strain that is highly contagious among humans.

Health and Human Services Secretary Mike Leavitt has told CNN that there was no way to know if this bird flu would lead to a pandemic, but said it was only a matter of time before some strain of flu virus did.

He said that such an outbreak would be a natural disaster of unique proportions.

"It can happen in 5,000 different communities around the world at the same time. No central place can manage all of those difficulties and so local communities need to be ready, and part of the president's plan is to assure that they are," Leavitt said.

Three influenza pandemics swept the globe in the 20th century. The worst, in 1918-19, killed 20 million to 50 million people, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and triggered an international panic.

The CDC has set up quarantine stations at 18 U.S. airports to monitor and respond to potential outbreaks.

President Bush outlined a $7.1 billion plan to prepare for a potential pandemic in a November 1 speech.

Much of the money would be spent on a stockpile of vaccine and antiviral drugs, but about $583 million is being spent on domestic preparedness and $251 million would go to help other countries detect and contain a potential outbreak.

"The most effective way to protect the American population is to contain an outbreak beyond the borders of the United States. While we work to prevent a pandemic from reaching our shores, we recognize that slowing or limiting the spread of the outbreak is a more realistic outcome and can save many lives," according to the Department of Homeland Security's national strategy plan.

The federal plan calls for coordination with international organizations such as the World Health Organization and the Food and Agriculture Organization to isolate outbreaks.

Health officials stress that there is no risk of catching the bird flu by handling or eating birds in the United States.

The H5N1 virus has not shown up in the United States.

If a bird were to be infected with the virus, cooking it to a temperature above 158 degrees Fahrenheit will kill the virus, according to the WHO.

"To date, no evidence indicates that any person has become infected with the H5N1 virus following the consumption of properly cooked poultry or poultry products, even in cases where the food item contained the virus prior to cooking," according to the World Health Organization.