Bird Flu Studies to Stay Private for Now
February 21, 2012 by admin
Filed under News Stories
February 21st, 2012
CBS News
By Monica DyBuncio
Bird flu research has sparked controversy in recent months, as experts debated whether to publish two studies that would provide anyone with the information to experiment with the mutant virus, H5N1. The biggest risk is that the virus could, if put in the wrong hands, turn into a human pandemic.
The World Health Organization said Friday that it will extend a moratorium on the research and delay publication of studies so far. The WHO previously called for a 60-day moratorium on research in January, noting the potential negative consequences of the research despite its importance, HealthPop reported.
“Given the high death rate associated with this virus – 60 percent of all humans who have been infected have died – all participants at the meeting emphasized the high level of concern with this flu virus in the scientific community and the need to understand it better with additional research,” Dr. Keiji Fukuda, assistant director-general of health security and environment for the World Health Organization, said in a written statement.
The WHO called a meeting Feb. 17-18 to settle the issue. Experts at the meeting included lead researchers of the two studies, scientific journals interested in publishing the research, bioethicists, research funders and providers of the virus. The group came to a consensus to delay publication
“There is a preference from a public health perspective for full disclosure of the information in these two studies. However there are significant public concern surrounding this research that should first be addressed,” Fukuda said.
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WHO: Deadly Bird Flu Studies To Stay Secret For Now
February 17, 2012 by admin
Filed under News Stories
February 17th, 2012
MSNBC
By: Stephanie Nebehay and Kate Kelland
Two studies showing how scientists mutated the H5N1 bird flu virus into a form that could cause a deadly human pandemic will be published only after experts fully assess the risks, the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Friday.
An Ohio drugmaker began releasing limited supplies of a crucial medication to treat childhood leukemia Thursday, sending hospital pharmacists facing life-threatening shortages scrambling for their share
Speaking after a high-level meeting of flu experts and U.S. security officials in Geneva, a WHO official said an agreement had been reached in principle to keep details of the controversial work secret until deeper risk analyses have been carried out.
“There is a preference from a public health perspective for full disclosure of the information in these two studies. However there are significant public concerns surrounding this research that should first be addressed,” said Keiji Fukuda, the WHO’s assistant director-general for health security and environment.
The WHO called the meeting to break a deadlock between scientists who have studied the mutations needed to make H5N1 bird flu transmit between mammals, and the U.S. National Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity (NSABB), which wanted the work censored before it was published in scientific journals.
Biosecurity experts fear mutated forms of the virus that research teams in The Netherlands and the United States independently created could escape or fall into the wrong hands and be used to spark a pandemic worse than the 1918-19 outbreak of Spanish flu that killed up to 40 million people.
WHO spokesman Gregory Hartl said that because of these fears, “there must be a much fuller discussion of risk and benefits of research in this area and risks of virus itself”.
But a scientist close to the NSABB who spoke to Reuters immediately after the decision said the board was deeply “frustrated” by it.
The only NSABB member attending the meeting was infectious disease expert Paul Keim of Northern Arizona University and he “got the hell beat out of him”, the source said.
“It was a closed meeting dominated by flu people who have a vested interest in continuing this kind of work,” he added.
The WHO said experts at the meeting included lead researchers of the two studies, scientific journals interested in publishing the research, funders of the research, countries who provided the viruses, bioethicists and directors from several WHO-linked laboratories specializing in influenza.
The H5N1 virus, first detected in Hong Kong in 1997, is entrenched among poultry in many countries, mainly in Asia, but so far remains in a form that is hard for humans to catch.
It is known to have infected nearly 600 people worldwide since 2003, killing half of them, a far higher death rate than the H1N1 swine flu which caused a flu pandemic in 2009/2010.
Last year two teams of scientists – one led by Ron Fouchier at Erasmus Medical Center and another led by Yoshihiro Kawaoka at the University of Wisconsin – said they had found that just a handful of mutations would allow H5N1 to spread like ordinary flu between mammals, and remain as deadly as it is now.
This type of research is seen as vital for scientists to be able to develop vaccines, diagnostic tests and anti-viral drugs that could be deployed in the event of an H5N1 pandemic.
In December, the NSABB asked two leading scientific journals, Nature and Science, to withhold details of the research for fear it could be used by bioterrorists.
They said a potentially deadlier form of bird flu poses one of the gravest known threats to humans and justified the unprecedented call to censor the research.
The WHO voiced concern, and flu researchers from around the world declared a 60-day moratorium on Jan. 20 on “any research involving highly pathogenic avian influenza H5N1 viruses” that produce easily contagious forms.
Fouchier, who took part in the two-day meeting at the WHO which ended on Friday, said the consensus of experts and officials there was “that in the interest of public health, the full paper should be published” at some future date.
“This was based on the high public health impact of this work and the need to share the details of the studies with a very big community in the interest of science, surveillance and public health on the whole,” he told reporters.
Asked about the potential bioterrorism risks of his and the U.S. team’s work, Fouchier said “it was the view of the entire group” at the meeting that the risks that this particular virus or flu viruses in general could be used as bioterrorism agents “would be very, very slim”.
“The risks are not nil, but they are very, very small,” he said.
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The Kevin Trudeau Show: 1-28-12
You will not believe what the drug companies get away with! KT explains what Big Pharma is doing to get their drugs to the mass market. Plus, Jon Rappoport stops by to blow the whistle on government corruption and media lies!
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Your Wish Is Your Command
Health
Big Pharma Researcher Admits to Faking Research!
EU Bans Chemical BPA in Baby Bottles
Mylanta Recall Adds to Johnson & Johnson Woes
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FDA, WebMD Expand Health Information Partnership
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Race On To Cover Up Details Of Lab Created Killer Bird Flu
December 20, 2011 by admin
Filed under News Stories
December 21, 2011
Info Wars
By Steve Watson
“Why are deadly viruses being created in laboratories? Here’s an idea – leave them alone.” –KTRN
A highly contagious mutant strain of H5N1 bird flu that can be transmitted between mammals has been deliberately created at Rotterdam’s Erasmus Medical Centre, the London Independent reports.
Now plans to publish details of how the deadly virus was created in the lab are being castigated by government officials and health experts.
The findings were scheduled to be published in the US journal Science, however, officials at the National Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity have demanded that they be allowed to screen the details first.
“The worst-case scenario here is worse than anything you can imagine,” an anonymous senior US government advisor told the Independent.
“The fear is that if you create something this deadly and it goes into a global pandemic, the mortality and cost to the world could be massive.”
In comments to The London Telegraph, EU Health Commissioner John Dalli said that the Dutch government has assured him the virus is being kept secure.
“The Dutch authorities confirmed that the virus itself is stored in a very secured way and that the necessary permits were given and that the researchers are bound by a code of conduct,” Mr Dalli said.
“One of the issues … is to ensure that any information coming from this research is well controlled and without sensitive details about mutation being given,” he added.
The ultimate fear is that the virus could escape the lab, or be recreated somewhere else for nefarious purposes, such as a deadly bioweapon.
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The Kevin Trudeau Show: 11-12-11
You will not believe what the drug companies get away with! KT explains what Big Pharma is doing to get their drugs to the mass market. Plus, Jon Rappoport stops by to blow the whistle on government corruption and media lies!
Self Help:
Your Wish Is Your Command
Deer Antler Velvet
Health
Big Pharma Researcher Admits to Faking Research!
EU Bans Chemical BPA in Baby Bottles
Mylanta Recall Adds to Johnson & Johnson Woes
Government
FDA, WebMD Expand Health Information Partnership
Better Business Bureau Issues Mea Culpa for Pay-to-Play Ratings
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How Many Americans Don’t Pay Taxes?
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Today, Kevin explains why it is so vital for the government to stop giving out free lunches and how, in reality, welfare is actually hurting Americans, not helping.
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Today, Kevin discusses who is actually controlling all the money in the world; it might not be who you think it is! PLUS, find out the dangers of vaccines and the lengths the government is going to to make sure you get the shots!
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WHO says New Flu is Unstoppable
Drug Resistant Tuberculosis is On the Way
Swine Flu Similar to 1918 Pandemic
Flu Shots Put Children in Hospital
Homeless People DIE After Given Bird Flu Vaccine
Cures for Flus, Colds, etc.
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134 Billion Dollars of U.S. Bonds Were Smuggled Into Switzerland
The Economy is Even Worse Than You Think
Home-Based Business Opportunities
Global Infomation Network
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NewsCorp was Accused of Illegal Wiretapping
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WHO Admits Errors in Handling H1N1
April 13, 2010 by admin
Filed under News Stories
April 13, 2010
AOL News
By: Katie Drummond
The World Health Organization has admitted to errors and a lack of clear communication in handling the H1N1 pandemic last year, but its top influenza expert says the agency doesn’t regret proclaiming the flu a pandemic.
“The reality is there is a huge amount of uncertainty [in a pandemic]. I think we did not convey the uncertainty. That was interpreted by many as a nontransparent process,” Keiji Fukuda, the WHO’s leading influenza expert, told a panel of experts convening this week for a post-pandemic analysis of the organization’s response to H1N1.
The agency uses a six-stage system for “ranking” the outbreak of an illness based on geographic spread, rather than severity. When H1N1 was rated a pandemic, it fell into the same category as the much more deadly avian flu, which has killed 60 percent of those infected since 2003.
Critics have derided the system for overhyping the severity of H1N1, which, the WHO now acknowledges, was decidedly mild.
The WHO reaction also catalyzed a mass manufacturing of vaccines, which cost the U.S. government alone more than $1.6 billion. Worldwide, countries spent an estimated $4 billion on H1N1 vaccines, according to estimates from the World Bank.
Drug companies and health organizations initially advised two doses of vaccine to bolster immunity, but one was later found to be sufficient — adding more fuel to the accusations of widespread misinformation and needless expenditures.
And while countries like the United States and England start discarding expired, unused vaccine doses, developing nations are crying foul at not receiving adequate supplies in the first place.
“It is not fair to have new vaccines and medicines and then they are so expensive that most poor people in developing countries can’t access them,” Kenya’s delegate told the conference. “This is not a situation that should be tolerated at all.”
Fukuda told the panel that the organization needs to come up with a better way to categorize the spread and severity of future influenza.
“Confusion about phases and level of severity remains a very vexing issue,” he said.
But infectious disease specialist Dr. Neil Rau thinks the crux of the problem is the WHO, which got caught up in a flurry of self-made hype.
“They had focused so much on bird flu, on worst-case scenarios, that once the idea of a pandemic being declared was raised, there were now so many things written in that playbook, that they couldn’t stop themselves,” he told Canada’s CTV News. “It was almost a spaceship had been launched: We just couldn’t pull this back into orbit.”
American health agencies are defending their own role in the global management of H1N1. “We were dealing with a very unusual situation. We had a pandemic. We had young people being killed,” Anne Schuchat of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention told The Washington Post in early April. “We wanted to make sure we had enough. We didn’t want to be short. It was important to us to be able to protect the American people.”
Results of the WHO review aren’t expected until June of next year. Meanwhile, the agency still lists H1N1 as a pandemic. Though the illness is largely contained in the U.S., concerns persist about it spreading across the Southern Hemisphere.
Click here for the full report.
Superbugs Getting Stronger and Stronger
February 12, 2010 by admin
Filed under News Stories
February 11, 2010
Natural News
By David Gutierrez
The steady medical advance against viruses and bacteria that many experts were trumpeting in the early days of vaccines and antibiotics seems to have stalled, if not reversed. The ongoing emergence of new and increasingly drug-resistant diseases is now causing many to question whether the war against microbes is one that can ever be won.
“It is a war of attrition,” said David Livermore of the United Kingdom’s Health Protection Agency. “There have been points where we have been advancing, and points when we have had to beat a retreat. If we were having this conversation 20 years ago, for instance, we would be celebrating the vaccine for bacterial meningitis.”
The news these days contains less of celebration and more of alarm. Even with H1N1 swine flu now appearing less dangerous than originally thought and infection rates of the superbug Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) falling in the United Kingdom, widespread antibiotic use and a globalized world have made the processes of pathogen evolution and spread faster than ever before.
The threat from the highly lethal H5N1 bird flu – a mere mutation away from a highly contagious form – has not abated, and other infectious threats thought long vanquished continue to rear their heads. China, for example, is currently battling an outbreak of pneumonic plague caused by Yersina pestis, the same bacterium that wiped out a third of Europe’s population as the Black Plague. Meanwhile, longer lifespans have encouraged the emergence of suberbugs such as Clostridium difficile, which preferentially targets elderly patients who have already been treated with antibiotics.
“Sensible prescribing is part of the answer, but we also need new antibiotics,” Livermore said. “It’s not one of the most attractive areas for pharmaceutical companies as people don’t take them for very long, unlike treatments for heart disease or cancer.”
“We will always be at war with microbes,” said Primrose Freestone of the University of Leicester. “Their genetic promiscuity is impressive.”
Click here for the full report
Mutated Flu Comes to China
November 30, 2009 by admin
Filed under News Stories
November 30, 2009
Reuters
By Stefanie McIntyre
China must be alert to any mutation or changes in the behavior of the H1N1 swine flu virus because the far deadlier H5N1 bird flu virus is endemic in the country, a leading Chinese disease expert said.
Zhong Nanshan, director of the Guangzhou Institute of Respiratory Diseases in China’s southern Guangdong province, said the presence of both viruses in China meant they could mix and become a monstrous hybrid — a bug packed with strong killing power that can transmit efficiently among people.
“China, as you know, is different from other countries. Inside China, H5N1 has been existing for some time, so if there is really a reassortment between H1N1 and H5N1, it will be a disaster,” Zhong said in an interview with Reuters Television.
“This is something we need to monitor, the change, the mutation of the virus. This is why reporting of the death rate must be really transparent.”
The World Health Organization warned on Tuesday that H5N1 had erupted in poultry in Egypt, Indonesia, Thailand and Vietnam, posing once again a threat to humans.
“First, it places those in direct contact with birds — usually rural folk and farm workers — at risk of catching the often-fatal disease. Second, the virus could undergo a process of “reassortment” with another influenza virus and produce a completely new strain,” it said.
“The most obvious risk is of H5N1 combining with the pandemic … (H1N1) virus, producing a flu virus that is as deadly as the former and as contagious as the latter.”
Zhong told the Chinese media last week that China may have had more H1N1 flu deaths than it has reported, with some local governments possibly concealing suspect cases.
The doctor is known for his candor and work in fighting Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome in 2003, when nationwide panic and international alarm erupted after it emerged that officials hid or underplayed the spreading epidemic.
Cover-ups by local governments in 2003 during the SARS epidemic led to the sackings of several officials. More than 300 people died in that outbreak.
China, the world’s most populous country, has reported around 70,000 cases of H1N1 and 53 death from the virus.
While some regions simply lack the technology to test for H1N1, other areas have been treating deaths as cases of ordinary pneumonia without a question, Zhong said.
“Some local healthcare authorities are reluctant, unwilling to test patients with severe pneumonia because there’s some latent rule which says the more H1N1 deaths, the less effective the control and prevention work in your area,” Zhong said.
Zhong said China’s health minister Chen Zhu rang him up last week and agreed with his views. A notice then appeared on the ministry’s website threatening severe punishment for officials caught concealing deaths from H1N1 swine flu.
WHO reported more than 526,060 laboratory confirmed cases of H1N1 worldwide on November 15, with at least 6,770 deaths. However, it has stressed for months now that the figures were only the tip of the iceberg.
It urged countries to place more resources on mitigating the disease rather then on costly prevention measures or testing everyone. All WHO and the U.S. CDC will say is that “millions” have been infected.
