AVIAN FLU UPDATE

[Blonde Granny]

I haven't read the other pages, but I assume you are talking about chickens from China.

We live in the heart of Tyson poultry products and see trucks daily full of chickens and turkeys on the way from the grower to the processing plants.  I will not buy any poultry product not labeled Tyson or Perdue.....ever!

[dothedd]

Nov 14, 2013 12:48:14 GMT -5 @patstab said:

I do buy from a farmer locally that grows his own and we eat very little processed foods so I think we will be ok.  I can't even imagine the govt allowing this but they are.  Damn that's just crazy after we have had dogs and cats poisoned with foods from there and they have had babies die from their bogus formulas to let them export this crap to us.

I have friends in Florida that had to remove all THE CHINESE drywall in their house and replace it; mold really made the whole family ill until they found out what was causing their health problems.

"Chinese drywall" refers to an environmental health issue involving defective drywall manufactured in China and imported to the United States starting in 2001. Laboratory tests of samples for volatile chemicals have identified emissions of the sulfurous gases carbon disulfide, carbonyl sulfide, and hydrogen sulfide. These emissions, which have the odor of rotten eggs, worsen as temperature and humidity rise and cause copper surfaces to turn black and powdery, a chemical process indicative of reaction with hydrogen sulfide. Copper pipes, wiring, and air conditioner coils are affected, as well as silver jewelry. Homeowners have reported a variety of symptoms, including respiratory problems such as asthma attacks, chronic coughing and difficulty breathing, as well as chronic headaches and sinus issues

[dothedd]

Nov 14, 2013 19:28:39 GMT -5 Blonde Granny said:

I haven't read the other pages, but I assume you are talking about chickens from China.

We live in the heart of Tyson poultry products and see trucks daily full of chickens and turkeys on the way from the grower to the processing plants.  I will not buy any poultry product not labeled Tyson or Perdue.....ever!

We are probably shipping our "quality" chickens to China ...   

Not long ago there was an article in the local paper talking about how workers in the local Tyson's produce center was throwing the chickens against the walls to kill them. I thought to myself, YIKES, no wonder the chicken meat is often bruised, so I quit buying Tyson's chicken in protest.

[dothedd]

New Bird Flu Infects Human for First Time
LONDON November 14, 2013 (AP)

A strain of bird flu that scientists thought could not infect people has shown up in a Taiwanese woman, a nasty surprise that shows scientists must do more to spot worrisome flu strains before they ignite a global outbreak, doctors say.

On a more hopeful front, two pharmaceuticals separately reported encouraging results from human tests of a possible vaccine against a different type of bird flu that has been spreading in China since first being identified last spring, which is feared to have pandemic potential.

The woman, 20, was hospitalized in May with a lung infection. After being treated with Tamiflu and antibiotics, she was released. One of her throat swabs was sent to the Taiwan Centres for Disease Control. Experts there identified it as the H6N1 bird flu, widely circulating in chickens on the island.

The patient, who was not identified, worked in a deli and had no known connection to live birds. Investigators couldn't figure out how she was infected. But they noted several of her close family and friends also developed flu-like symptoms after spending time with her, though none tested positive for H6N1. The research was published online Thursday in the journal Lancet Respiratory Medicine.

Since the H5N1 bird flu strain first broke out in southern China in 1996, public health officials have been nervously monitoring its progress — it has so far killed more than 600 people, mostly in Asia. Several other bird flu strains, including H7N9, which was first identified in China in April, have also caused concern but none has so far mutated into a form able to spread easily among people.

"The question again is what would it take for these viruses to evolve into a pandemic strain?" wrote Marion Koopmans, a virologist at the National Institute for Public Health and the Environment in the Netherlands, in a commentary accompanying the new report.

She said it was worrying that scientists had no early warning signals that such new bird flus could be a problem until humans fell ill. Scientists often monitor birds to see which viruses are killing them, in an attempt to guess which flu strains might be troublesome for humans — but neither H6N1 nor H7N9 make birds very sick.

Koopmans called for increased surveillance of animal flu viruses and more research into predicting which viruses might cause a global crisis.

"We can surely do better than to have human beings as sentinels," she wrote.

The vaccine news is on the H7N9 bird flu that has infected at least 137 people and killed at least 45 since last spring. Scientists from Novavax Inc., a Gaithersburg, Maryland, company, say tests on 284 people suggest that after two shots of the vaccine, most made antibodies at a level that usually confers protection.

"They gave a third of the usual dose and yet had antibodies in over 80 percent," said an expert not connected with the work, Dr. Greg Poland of the Mayo Clinic. "This is encouraging news. We've struggled to make vaccines quickly enough against novel viruses," he said.

Results were published online Wednesday by the New England Journal of Medicine.

In a separate announcement on Thursday, Switzerland-based Novartis announced early tests on its H7N9 vaccine in 400 people showed 85 percent of them got a protective immune response after two doses. The data has not yet been published.

[dothedd]

November 14, 2013 at 6:55 am
Bird flu strain infects human for first time

A chicken is kept in a cage waiting to be inspected by health workers in Hong Kong. In May, a Taiwanese woman caught a new strain of bird flu scientists previously thought was incapable of infecting humans.
A chicken is kept in a cage waiting to be inspected by health workers in Hong Kong. In May, a Taiwanese woman caught a new strain of bird flu scientists previously thought was incapable of infecting humans. (Vincent Yu / AP)

London — A strain of bird flu that scientists thought could not infect people has shown up in a Taiwanese woman, a nasty surprise that shows scientists must do more to spot worrisome flu strains before they ignite a global outbreak, doctors say.

On a more hopeful front, two pharmaceuticals separately reported encouraging results from human tests of a possible vaccine against a different type of bird flu that has been spreading in China since first being identified last spring, which is feared to have pandemic potential.

The woman, 20, was hospitalized in May with a lung infection. After being treated with Tamiflu and antibiotics, she was released. One of her throat swabs was sent to the Taiwan Centres for Disease Control. Experts there identified it as the H6N1 bird flu, widely circulating in chickens on the island.

The patient, who was not identified, worked in a deli and had no known connection to live birds. Investigators couldn’t figure out how she was infected. But they noted several of her close family and friends also developed flu-like symptoms after spending time with her, though none tested positive for H6N1. The research was published online Thursday in the journal Lancet Respiratory Medicine.

Since the H5N1 bird flu strain first broke out in southern China in 1996, public health officials have been nervously monitoring its progress — it has so far killed more than 600 people, mostly in Asia. Several other bird flu strains, including H7N9, which was first identified in China in April, have also caused concern but none has so far mutated into a form able to spread easily among people.

“The question again is what would it take for these viruses to evolve into a pandemic strain?” wrote Marion Koopmans, a virologist at the National Institute for Public Health and the Environment in the Netherlands, in a commentary accompanying the new report.

She said it was worrying that scientists had no early warning signals that such new bird flus could be a problem until humans fell ill. Scientists often monitor birds to see which viruses are killing them, in an attempt to guess which flu strains might be troublesome for humans — but neither H6N1 nor H7N9 make birds very sick.

Koopmans called for increased surveillance of animal flu viruses and more research into predicting which viruses might cause a global crisis.

“We can surely do better than to have human beings as sentinels,” she wrote.

The vaccine news is on the H7N9 bird flu that has infected at least 137 people and killed at least 45 since last spring. Scientists from Novavax Inc., a Gaithersburg, Maryland, company, say tests on 284 people suggest that after two shots of the vaccine, most made antibodies at a level that usually confers protection.

“They gave a third of the usual dose and yet had antibodies in over 80 percent,” said an expert not connected with the work, Dr. Greg Poland of the Mayo Clinic. “This is encouraging news. We’ve struggled to make vaccines quickly enough against novel viruses,” he said.

Results were published online Wednesday by the New England Journal of Medicine.


From The Detroit News: www.detroitnews.com/article/20131114/NATION/311140062#ixzz2kkmcJoFI



From The Detroit News: www.detroitnews.com/article/20131114/NATION/311140062#ixzz2kkmGI2PN 

[dothedd]

November 15, 2013

The H5N1 bird flu virus re-appeared in Thailand

Bird Flu has again flied in Thai region. The country’s third outburst this year after a six-month quiet period, the Agriculture Ministry said on Friday.
“All fowl in the immediate area around the outbreak in Ang Thong province, 105 km (65 miles) north of Bangkok were being slaughtered after 16 fighting cocks were confirmed to have died of bird flu,” they said.
“The lab tast has confirmed that the virus found in the province was the deadly H5N1,” senior ministry official Pirom Srichan said on the Department of Livestock Web site .
The H5N1 bird flu virus has re-appeared in Thailand last month; The World Health Organization (WHO) says the virus has infected 267 people in 10 countries and killed 164 since 2003. People are feared about if the virus were to transmute into a form that passed simply.

CLICK ON THE LINK AND THEN CLICK ON BIRDZILLA....


search.yahoo.com/search;_ylt=A0oG7t8JkYZSVXgArAxXNyoA;_ylc=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?p=h5n1+bird+flu&fr2=sb-top&fr=yfp-t-900-s

[Deleted]

Nov 15, 2013 16:44:54 GMT -5 dothedd said:

Nov 14, 2013 19:28:39 GMT -5 Blonde Granny said:

I haven't read the other pages, but I assume you are talking about chickens from China.

We live in the heart of Tyson poultry products and see trucks daily full of chickens and turkeys on the way from the grower to the processing plants.  I will not buy any poultry product not labeled Tyson or Perdue.....ever!

We are probably shipping our "quality" chickens to China ...   

Along with all our premium lumber.

[Deleted]

 Our exporters are not giving chickens and lumber, etc., away... to China, Indonesia, etc.
 They sell it to them. Profitably, as a rule.

The Asian markets purchase raw material from the USA (with cash), process it and "add value" to it, then sell much of it back to us as finished products.
 They will continue to do that until the costs of energy and transportation increase enough to reduce their profit margins significantly. 
  And as they process those raw materials, the polluted runoff from the paper mills, bleacheries, dyehouses, refineries, etc., etc., are degrading their environment instead of ours. That bill will come due eventually. See: www.env.go.jp/en/chemi/hs/minamata2002/summary.html

[dothedd]

H5N1 

Canada reports first H5N1 bird flu death in North America
AFP By Michel Comte
22 minutes ago 1/8/14

Ottawa (AFP) - Canada announced Wednesday the first H5N1 avian flu death in North America, of a patient who had just returned from China, and said it was urgently contacting airline passengers on the victim's flights.

It was also the first known instance of someone in North America contracting the illness, Canada Health Minister Rona Ambrose told a press conference, stressing it was an "isolated case."

The victim, who had recently returned from a trip to Beijing and had been otherwise completely healthy, was from the western plains province of Alberta, officials said, adding they were withholding the person's gender and other identifying details to protect the family's privacy.

"I am here to confirm North America's first human case of H5N1, also known as avian flu," Ambrose said, confirming the patient died on January 3.

"I want to reassure the public this is an isolated case and the risk of H5N1 to Canadians is very low. There is no evidence of sustained human-to-human transmission," the minister added.

The virus is contracted directly from birds, mainly poultry. The illness it causes in humans is severe and 60 percent of human cases are fatal.

The victim began to feel ill during the December 27 flight home to Alberta province, developing a fever and headache. They were admitted to hospital on January 1 when the symptoms worsened suddenly and they began falling in and out of conciousness.

The patient died two days later.

The federal microbiology laboratory in Winnipeg, Manitoba, identified the H5N1 virus overnight from a specimen that had been taken while the victim was still alive.

Doctors said the deceased had traveled with two companions who are not sick but will be kept under observation as a precaution for 10 days -- double the usual time it takes for the virus to manifest itself.

"The patient's family is not showing any sign of illness. There is no evidence of human-to-human transmission on airplanes. All evidence indicates this is one isolated case in an individual who is infected following exposure in China," said Alberta Chief Medical Officer James Talbot.

"Although we don't know at this time how the individual contracted the virus," he added.

Talbot said the victim had not traveled outside Beijing to the regions of China, and had not visited a farm, nor a public market.

Canadian officials have notified China and the World Health Organization, but said they are at a loss to explain where or how the person caught the illness. Beijing had been believed to be free of the bird flu virus.

Search for airline passengers

Authorities have also secured passenger lists and were contacting others on the same flights as the victim to reassure them of the "extremely low" chance of contagion.

The victim flew from Beijing to Vancouver on Air Canada flight 030 on December 27, then went on to Edmonton, Alberta, aboard Air Canada flight 244.

The person's final destination was not revealed, again for privacy reasons, but he or she was treated at an Edmonton hospital.

Other recent fatal cases have been reported in Indonesia and Cambodia, in November.

Avian flu viruses have been around for a long time in wild birds but do not generally cause disease in humans, though in rare cases they mutate and jump species.

Strains of the H5, H7 and H9 avian influenza subtypes have caused human infections, mainly following direct contact with infected poultry. None of the strains have yet mutated to become easily transmissible from person to person -- the epidemiologists nightmare.

The H5N1 virus is the best-known of the strains, having caused 633 confirmed flu cases in humans in 15 countries from 2003 to July this year, of whom 377 died.

[dothedd]

H5N1

Boy, 11, dies of avian flu in hospital: doctor
Mon, 10 March 2014

Following the death of a 3-year-old due to avian flu on March 2, an 11-year-old boy died in Phnom Penh’s Kantha Bopha Hospital on Friday, a hospital representative said yesterday.

The boy, from Kampong Chhnang province, was one of two admitted to the hospital last week suffering from H5N1, according to Dr Denis Laurent.

“The good news is that the 8-year-old boy from Kandal province is in stable condition,” Laurent said.

Sok Touch, director of the Ministry of Health’s communicable diseases control department, and deputy director Ly Sovann, could not be reached yesterday.

Vicky Houssiere, a spokeswoman for the World Health Organization in Cambodia, declined to confirm the two new cases of H5N1.

“We can’t confirm any new cases before the Ministry of Health releases a statement,” Houssiere said.

The news from Kantha Bopha comes on the heels of a joint statement released by ministry officials and the WHO on Friday, announcing the death of a three-year-old boy, who was the sixth confirmed case of avian influenza in Cambodia this year, and the 53rd person to become infected.

The boy, from Chom Chao commune in the capital’s Por Sen Chey district, was admitted to the National Pediatric Hospital on February 28, and transferred to Calmette Hospital on March 2, where he died an hour later, says Friday’s statement from the Ministry of Health and WHO.

“In mid-February, over 90 per cent of the chickens and small numbers of ducks suddenly died in the village,” the press release details.

“The boy was often going to a neighbour’s house where their poultry died. The relatives reported that the boy had no direct contact but the chickens died in close proximity to the house of the case.”

While three cases were confirmed in Phnom Penh last year, this case marks the first in the capital this year, Houssiere wrote in an email yesterday.

At least 22 cases of bird flu in Cambodia were recorded by the Ministry of Health last year, more than any previous year.

[dothedd]

THANKS, Aham for the link to the Cambodia Article!

Rising number of bird flu cases in Cambodia under scrutiny
Updated 26 March 2014, 13:34 AEST
Cambodia reported 14 deaths last year from the bird flu strain H5N1.

It was the highest number of human cases in the world and more than the total that Cambodia had recorded, since H5N1 was first detected there a decade ago.

So far this year, another four Cambodians have died from avian influenza.

This week, officials from Cambodia, Vietnam and international agencies have been meeting in Phnom Penh to try to work out why the numbers are higher and what to do about it.

Reporter: Robert Carmichael

Speakers: Dr Dennis Carroll, USAID; Lotfi Allal, FAO; market vendor Ly Mey

CARMICHAEL: Health experts say they don't understand why Cambodia last year recorded 14 deaths from H5N1, more than half the global total. Prior to that, Cambodia's worst year for human deaths from the virus was in 2011, when eight people died.

The reason for this surprise increase could be that the surveillance program reporting human cases of H5N1 is working well, picking up instances that otherwise would not have been detected.

Less positively, it could be that H5N1 is gaining more traction, or the increase could be due to something else entirely. At this stage, nobody knows.

What has the experts puzzled is that the H5N1 strain circulating in southeastern Cambodia is the same as that in southern Vietnam - yet Vietnam reported just four human infections since the beginning of last year.

Dr Dennis Carroll heads the pandemic influenza and other emerging threats unit at USAID, the US government's development arm.

CARROLL: "We're seeing a huge inequity between what's showing up on the Cambodia side versus what's showing up on the Vietnam side without any real obvious explanation."

CARMICHAEL: Dr Carroll hopes that this week's meeting will generate some insights.

CARROLL: "Ultimately the intent is to see whether or not we can do better cross-border coordination - identify gaps and knowledge and opportunities to coordinate some future activities towards getting a better understanding and hopefully coordinating better responses to this particular virus."

CARMICHAEL: H5N1 is one of many so-called zoonotic diseases - the name given to infections that originate in animals and that can pass to humans. Influenza-type illnesses are particularly problematic because they can mutate to allow easy human-to-human transmission.

The seasonal flu virus is one example of an influenza infection that transmits readily between people. But seasonal flu has a low fatality rate.

H5N1, on the other hand, has killed around 60 percent of the 650 people it has been shown to have infected globally over the past decade. To date, almost all H5N1 cases in humans have passed only from birds to humans. But the concern is that the virus could mutate to allow easy human-to-human transmission. The reason for the effort to tackle H5N1 is to make sure that never happens.

The source of avian flu is, of course, birds. And Phnom Penh's Chhbar Ampov market has plenty of poultry.

Cambodia is a predominantly rural country, and most of its 20 million chickens and ducks can be found in small clusters of four or five birds in village home backyards.

Controlling outbreaks in poultry, then, relies on villagers reporting when their birds fall ill. However the government won't compensate for poultry losses. Whatever the rights and wrongs of that - and compensation is a tricky topic - the result is that impoverished villagers would rather sell or eat sick and dying poultry.

Lotfi Allal is with the UN's Food and Agriculture Organisation, which works with the government on the animal side of H5N1. Although the main challenge is the lack of reporting of sick or dead poultry, he says, there are other difficulties too, including the unregulated cross-border trade between Cambodia and Vietnam.

LOTFI ALLAL: There are challenges of the informal trade in general in the country but [also] informal trade with neighbouring countries, which is a very huge challenge. This is linked with poultry but also linked with any other animals, adding a risk to the different challenges we are facing in the country.

CARMICHAEL: Birds that are sold typically end up in markets like Chhbar Ampov, where traders like Ly Mey slaughter them and sell them on. Conditions are far from hygienic, and government inspectors regularly find signs of H5N1 in markets like this.

LY MEY: (ACTUALITY)

CARMICHAEL: But Ly Mey isn't worried. She believes - wrongly, it should be said - that she can tell just by looking at a chicken whether it has avian influenza. She is also under the mistaken impression that only poultry from commercial growers can contract the disease.

CARMICHAEL: Clearly the experts have their work cut out for them. Although elements of Cambodia's approach to avian influenza have improved significantly in recent years, the experts know more needs to be done.

[dothedd]

Health Officials Agree on Stronger Bird Flu Monitoring

A raw blood dish is displayed with cooked entrails at a restaurant in Hanoi April 28, 2009. Frozen pudding from fresh duck or pig blood is a popular dish in the Southeast Asian country although duck blood is less consumed following bird flu outbreaks that have killed at least 55 Vietnamese since late 2003 ...  PHOTO Link: www.voacambodia.com/content/health-officials-agree-on-stronger-bird-flu-monitoring/1878802.html


Kong Sothanarith, VOA Khmer
25 March 2014

PHNOM PENH — Cambodian and Vietnamese officials say they are prepared to take stronger measures to monitor the region for avian influenza, following two days of talks.

Efforts include close monitoring of the economic trade of fowl and better information sharing at border crossings, officials said.

Bird flu has killed 14 Cambodians and 63 Vietnamese since its initial outbreak in 2013, making them the worst-hit countries in Southeast Asia.

Health officials worry the H5N1 virus behind the disease could mutate, allowing it to spread from human to human and to create a global pandemic.

Discussion included monitoring the “value chain” of ducks, “active information sharing” at borders and better education and communication about the disease, said Lotfi Allal, team leader for the Emergency Center for Transboundary Animal Diseases at the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization.

Bird flu remains a concern at the international level and a concern of national governments, he said.

Mai Van Hiep, deputy director general for the animal health department of Vietnam’s Agriculture Ministry, said both sides had agreed to establish an area for prevention and control of the disease.

That will include “sharing information about the disease, to put animal cross-border movements under control and to engage publish awareness about the threat of H5N1,” he said.

[dothedd]

we can be better prepared for the next pandemic.New Gene Map of Deadly Bird Flu Points to Pandemic Concerns
"I don't know why this [study] would even be considered a biological weapon," researcher says.

PUBLISHED APRIL 10, 2014

When does scientific research cause more harm than good? That question has been at the heart of controversy over what should be published about avian flu.

A new study by virologist Ron Fouchier and researchers from Erasmus Medical Center in the Netherlands explores the ability of the H5N1 bird flu strain to become airborne transmissible between mammals. The researchers describe their work, published Thursday in the journal Cell, as providing key insights into how the bird flu virus might spread and, by extension, helping to prevent a possible pandemic.

But the research has been controversial. David Relman, professor of medicine, microbiology, and immunology at Stanford University in California, says such work could also provide insights into how to build a biological weapon. He says it is "irresponsible," entails "greater risk and fewer benefits" than presented, and could give someone "well-versed in reverse genetics" the ability to manufacture the deadliest version of the virus.

Stephen Morse, global co-director of the U.S. government–funded PREDICT Project consortium and an epidemiology professor at Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health in New York, says the research is addressing key questions but must be done carefully for many reasons. "If someone is infected in the laboratory, there would be serious consequences," he says.

Research like this study has been so fraught with concerns over its public dissemination that some governments, citing national security dangers, require an export permit before the paper can be published because of its potential "dual use" as a blueprint for a weapon.

Currently, the H5N1 virus hasn't been shown to be transmissible through the air, but this new work shows how mutations to the virus could give it that ability. Fouchier spoke with National Geographic about his controversial work and why it is vital to understanding flu and its inevitable outcome: a pandemic.

Could you explain what is new in your current paper?

In our work published in 2012, we showed for the first time that the H5N1 virus could acquire airborne transmissibility between mammals—between ferrets. We also showed that of the viruses that we genetically engineered and also adapted further to ferrets, the ones that became airborne transmissible had a minimum of nine amino acid substitutions.

In that initial paper we did not further map which of those mutations were essential for the airborne phenotype. So in the present manuscript, we started off with the viruses that were described in the 2012 paper, but now we chose the viruses with minimal sets of mutations.

We found that as few as five were sufficient to make the virus airborne. For each of these five mutations, we have investigated exactly what the biological traits were that were associated with those mutations, and we showed that the mutations that are critical for airborne transmission are mutations that increase the binding of the virus to cells in the upper respiratory tract of mammals, increase the stability of the virus, and are mutations that increase the replications, or the copying of the virus, while it is in the cell.

So the big difference between this paper and the previous one is that we now really narrow down the exact molecular basis for airborne transmissibility.

There is concern that by mapping this out, you are also essentially mapping out how to make a biological weapon. How dangerous, exactly, is your research?

Well, there are two concerns from people in the field. One is the accidental escape of viruses like this from the laboratory. The other is that people with bad intentions would try to re-create viruses like this and use them as a weapon.


To begin with the latter point, these viruses are not very lethal. When we do these transmission experiments in mammals, the animals don't die. So it is certainly not a lethal weapon in that sense. You also cannot aim this weapon: You cannot protect your own people and target other people, so as a weapon this makes very little sense at all.

Then, of course, there is the argument that maybe some idiot, some lone wolf, some terrorist would use it, but these viruses are not easy to make. You need a lot of expertise to be able to make viruses like this. And at the same time, you have to realize that nature has plenty of dangerous viruses already out there, so if you really want to do some harm with viruses, then maybe people would not have to rely on genetic mutation of viruses. They could just go out into nature and get some dangerous viruses out there.

You can never exclude the possibility that some idiot will start using viruses as bioterror agents, but that doesn't mean that you can't do research on it. I don't think we are enabling these idiots at all by doing research on these pathogens.

For the release of pathogens out of the laboratory, there have been enormous improvements since the 1970s on biosafety. We've heard rumors of this or that pathogen escaping from a laboratory, but the number of cases where this has actually happened is extremely limited. There is, of course, the SARS incident in Singapore in facilities that really weren't operating in the way they should. There are incidences reported every year, that's true, but these incidences have not resulted in releases of pathogens into the environment.

One of the arguments is that by mapping this information out, somebody could use reverse genetics as the end game to replicate the deadliest aspects of this virus. Is that possible?

Well, of course, our manuscripts contain detailed information on how we created those viruses, so in principle our manuscripts could be used as a recipe for anybody. But you need very sophisticated equipment and personnel to do these types of experiments. Even if you would succeed in that, which really is not easy, then still this is not a biological weapon. This is a virus that transmits between ferrets, but it's not clear that it would transmit between humans. And it certainly does not kill the ferrets. So it's not clear that it would kill humans. I don't see why this would even be considered a biological weapon.

Why ferrets?

There are many reasons. The anatomy of their airway systems is comparable to [that of] humans, and the receptor distribution for the flu virus is the same in ferrets as in humans. Ferrets develop a similar disease as humans do when infected with flu virus, and the severity of disease also corresponds. We know these ferrets are a good model because all human flu viruses are airborne transmitted in ferrets, and animal viruses that are not airborne transmitted in humans are also not transmitted in ferrets. So the ferret is as good a model as we'll ever get for flu.

What benefits does your research provide us when it comes to fighting flu and a potential pandemic?

It's very basic fundamental research on pathogens. Some pathogens acquire the ability to be transmitted, either through contact or, in this case, through aerosols or respiratory droplets. The infectious disease field on the whole has no knowledge whatsoever of what makes a pathogen airborne transmissible. To really understand this I think is a key issue in the investigations in the infectious disease community. We want to know why viruses kill humans or cause disease, but we also need to understand how they are transmitted.

This is very fundamental research; I cannot completely predict where it will be applied, but we need to look into how this virus works, and maybe identify ways of doing something about it. We used the H5N1 as a model virus because it's been feared this virus might acquire the ability of airborne transmission in nature, so we are hitting two birds with one stone: On the one hand, we are addressing fundamental questions, and on the other hand, we're trying to also increase our insight into what might happen in nature with this particular virus. Some of the mutations we've described are already found in the field in chickens or in humans.

Are you still involved with legal battles with the Dutch government over bringing your research to a global audience?

Yes, that's correct. I don't have a legal case with Dutch authorities, but Erasmus University does. When we submitted our manuscript in 2011, both the U.S. and the Dutch governments declared that, because of all the danger that was thought to be associated with this work, an export permit would be required, not only here but [also] in the U.S. In the U.S. they dropped that requirement instantly after the NSABB [National Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity] reversed their decision about redacting the manuscripts.

But the Dutch government still requires a permit. Erasmus has decided to appeal this decision, and that case will probably continue at the end of this year. In the meantime, I still have to get this export permit until the case is settled, so that's what we did with this manuscript. This is the second time I've had to apply for an export permit for a scientific publication.

Wasn't there also a broad moratorium on this kind of research until this past January?

The NSABB was asked to look at our previous paper in 2011 and also that of Yoshihiro Kawaoka [and co-authors]. The NSABB, which is a U.S. advisory body, said both manuscripts should not be published as presented—too much danger and very little benefit. That was their initial decision.

But after that, there was enormous commotion in the press: People were asking if this work is so dangerous, should we be doing it at all? And there was enormous discussion in the scientific community about whether a government body could regulate scientific communications. And there was commotion in political institutions like the White House in the U.S. about further regulation of science. There was commotion in the public about fearing mad scientists.

So there was so much commotion and so many new regulations and so much unclarity about safety conditions that the influenza field decided to voluntarily shut down this kind of research, initially for two months. Even the World Health Organization initially advised that [the moratorium] should last longer so that everyone could calm down and investigate what really happened here. [The WHO advised publication in full a few months later.]

Do you see general differences between the U.S. and Europe when it comes to sensitive materials being explored by scientists?

The U.S., of course, has more of a fear of terrorism because of 9/11 and the anthrax letters in 2001, so the U.S. has some experience that makes [the country] more triggered for this type of issue than Europe. There have been so many attacks in the U.S. that now there are organizations that deal with this full-time, an entire industry in the U.S. that operates on bioterrorism fear. That is much less the case in Europe. And Europe is generally very pro-transparency and against doing things in secrecy or classified.

How big of a risk is there that this strain of bird flu could really cause a pandemic?

Flu viruses are known to be the most threatening when it comes to causing pandemics. We've seen them, on average, every 20 to 30 years over the past two centuries. For flu, pandemics are an intrinsic part of the viral ecology. That's why we're so interested in doing this with flu rather than with other viruses. If you're asking how afraid we should be of another pandemic, I don't have to guess much—we know there will be another pandemic.

And we also know that this pandemic will be caused by a virus that transmits between humans, [as] we've seen this in recent centuries. That is why I think we should investigate how this airborne transmission works, so that maybe in the longer term we can do something about that transmission route. Even if we can't, maybe we can identify among all the various flu viruses in animals which [one] is most likely to cause the next pandemic. If we know that, then we can be better prepared for the next pandemic.

[dothedd]

Richard Danzig, a former Navy secretary and now a biowarfare consultant to the Pentagon, said that while there are 1,000 to 10,000 "weaponeers" worldwide with experience working on biological arms, there are more than 1 million and perhaps many millions of "broadly skilled" scientists who, while lacking training in that narrow field, could construct bioweapons. "It seems likely that, over a period between a few months and a few years, broadly skilled individuals equipped with modest laboratory equipment can develop biological weapons," Danzig said. "Only a thin wall of terrorist ignorance and inexperience now protects us." --Washington Post



This letter to you is like the letter Dr. Albert Einstein wrote United States President Franklin D. Roosevelt on August 2, 1939.



Dr. Einstein wrote, "...it may become possible to set up a nuclear chain reaction in a large quantity of uranium...," and "...it is conceivable...that extremely powerful bombs of a new type may thus be constructed."



This letter is to inform you that it is possible to set up a biological chain reaction with a highly contagious construct virus, and it is conceivable that extremely powerful bombs of a new type may thus be constructed by individuals.



Nuclear blindness is the mistaken belief that the bigger the bang, the more powerful the weapon. A highly contagious construct virus is a bomb that keeps exploding through the population at a geometric rate.



"A virus that has been engineered in the laboratory is called a recombinant virus. This is because its genetic material-DNA or RNA-has genes in it that come from other forms of life.These foreign genes have been inserted into the virus's genetic material through the process of recombination. The term construct is also used to describe it, because the virus is constructed of parts and pieces of genetic code-it is a designer virus, with a particular purpose." -The Demon in the Freezer by Richard Preston



"In truth, it is possible to imagine a malicious use for virtually any biological research or production site. The difference between a lab for producing lifesaving vaccines and one capable of making deadly toxins is largely one of intent." -"Terrorism and the Biology Lab" by Henry C. Kelly, New York Times
I estimate it is over ten times easier to construct a highly contagious virus than it is to enrich uranium using the gas centrifuge method.
I estimate it is over ten times easier to set up a biological chain reaction with a highly contagious virus than it is to set up a nuclear chain reaction with a sufficient quantity of enriched uranium.
I estimate it is over ten times easier for a terrorist to deliver a highly contagious virus than a nuclear bomb. A virus can be easily smuggled because it is small and nonmetallic, and can be used as seed stock to make an unlimited number of bombs.
I estimate there are over one million people with the technical knowledge and access to the necessary lab equipment to construct a highly contagious virus. That number is growing.
"The main thing that stands between the human species and the creation of a supervirus is a sense of responsibility among individual biologists." -The Demon in the Freeze

[Aman A.K.A. Ahamburger]

I thought you had somewhere to file these b...

-Egypt Sees Second Bird Flu Death in Two Days
-Bird flu: Humans could be infected with virus after 6,000 ducks are destroyed on Yorkshire farm

[Aman A.K.A. Ahamburger]

A Third Dutch chicken farm hit by bird flu

[dothedd]

CANADA

Up to 140,000 chickens and turkeys culled in B.C. as officials try to contain outbreak of highly-contagious avian flu

December 7, 2014 9:30 PM ET

VANCOUVER — With seven countries now turning away imports of Canadian poultry due to a Vancouver-area outbreak of avian flu, federal officials are rushing to contain the highly contagious virus before it can infect farms beyond the Fraser Valley.

While the virus is not dangerous to humans, it has the potential to kill off entire barns of poultry within a matter of days.

“To lose most of your flock within the span of a week is completely unheard of,” said Ray Nickel, president of the B.C. Poultry Association. “It’s hard to even visualize unless you’ve gone through and experienced it.”

Over the weekend, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency confirmed that five farms have become infected by a “high pathogen” strain of H5N2 never before seen on Canadian soil.

To lose most of your flock within the span of a week is completely unheard of
As of Sunday, all five properties were subjected to “biosecurity” quarantines as crews in HAZMAT suits destroyed as many as 140,000 chickens and turkeys.

As many as 90 additional poultry farms fall within the three-kilometre-wide quarantine zones established around the infected farms.

The stocks at these other farms will not be culled if no evidence of avian flu is found, but they are subject to strict conditions about moving their birds out of the Fraser Valley.

In a weekend statement, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency said it has “mobilized all available resources to manage this situation.”

Related
Crisis of faith at CDC after latest blunder: It somehow shipped a deadly strain of bird flu to a poultry lab

A brief, terrifying history of viruses escaping from labs: 70s Chinese pandemic was a lab mistake

Alberta bird-flu victim revealed to be registered nurse working in Red Deer, as mystery around her death deepens

The agency added, “it can be anticipated that additional at-risk farms may be identified in the coming days.”

Outbreaks of H5N2 have struck Canada three times before, but always a low pathogen (“low-path”) version. The difference is quite stark. A flock of chickens could be infected with a low-path version of H5N2 without immediately showing any ill-effects. A “high-path” infection, meanwhile, begins killing birds within hours.

Veterinarians have dubbed it the “cathedral effect”: Farmers enter a normally noisy poultry barn only to discover that it has been left eerily quiet by the sudden die-off of thousands of birds.

A poultry farm under quarantine because of a outbreak of avian influenza is pictured in Chilliwack, B.C. Thursday, Dec. 4, 2014.

THE CANADIAN PRESS/Jonathan Hayward A poultry farm under quarantine because of a outbreak of avian influenza is pictured in Chilliwack, B.C. Thursday, Dec. 4, 2014.

CONTINUED: 

news.nationalpost.com/2014/12/07/highly-contagious-strain-of-bird-flu-kills-up-to-140000-chickens-and-turkeys-at-five-b-c-farms/

[dothedd]

Avian Flu Scan for Feb 25, 2015 

More H7N9 cases in China; H9N2 seroprevalence
Filed Under: H7N9 Avian Influenza; Avian Influenza (Bird Flu)
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H7N9 sickens two in China's Guangdong province
China's Guangdong province reported two new H7N9 avian influenza cases today, according to a report from Hong Kong's Centre for Health Protection (CHP).

One of the H7N9 case-patients is a 3-year-old boy from the city of Heyuan, who is hospitalized in stable condition. The other infection occurred in an 18-year-old woman from the city of Foshan. She is currently hospitalized in critical condition.

The two new cases bring the global H7N9 total to 613, according to a case list maintained by FluTrackers, an infectious disease tracking message board.
Feb 25 CHP report
FluTrackers H7N9 case list



Study finds low prevalence of H9N2 infection in people exposed to birds
Seroprevalence of H9N2 avian flu antibodies among people exposed to birds was fairly low, although the virus still poses a pandemic threat, according to a study in the Journal of Infectious Diseases.

Researchers conducted a meta-analysis involving 25 studies on the results of hemagglutination inhibition (HI) and microneutralization (MN) assays presented in 25 studies from 1997 to 2003. Results were compared with the World Health Organization (WHO)–recommended case definition for seroprevalence, which is a median 1.3% via HI and 0.3% via MN.

Use of the HI assay in people exposed to birds resulted in an overall H9N2 seroprevalence of 4.9% (range, 0.6%-42.6%), which did not differ significantly from the WHO estimate. The MN assay returned a median seroprevalence of 2.7% (range, 0.5%-9%), which was significantly higher than the WHO definition.

Researchers found that H9N2 infections were detected mainly in China, Hong Kong, and Bangladesh, although infection has also been detected in other Asian regions, the Middle East, Africa, and North America. The virus has an almost global distribution in domestic poultry.

H9N2 infection in people generally causes mild or asymptomatic disease, and the study said that surveillance efforts are likely missing infections in people exposed regularly to birds. Because H9N2 poses a pandemic threat, researchers recommended standardized sampling protocols and the development of new diagnostic assays.
Feb 23 J Infect Dis abstract