Doomsday fears over new pox virus

[Fridays Child]

Captain Trips...

-snip-

SCIENTISTS have genetically modified a virus from the smallpox
family to create a super-lethal strain as part of a research programme backed by the US government.

Dr Mark Buller of the University of St Louis, who trained at Glasgow, told the New Scientist his work was part of a programme to defend against possible terrorist threats.

However, other researchers say the work creates unnecessary risks and the virus could prove a threat to humans.

Dr Buller found the deadly form of mousepox – a relative of smallpox – was 100% lethal to mice, even if they had been vaccinated.

He also genetically altered the cowpox virus, capable of infecting a range of animals including humans.

The research suggests that mild pox viruses could be turned into deadly terrorist weapons, he warned.

-snip-

[dawgman]

1. do you have a link?

[Fridays Child]

10. Oops. Sorry! Here's the link.

http://www.theherald.co.uk/news/3596.html

[arcane1]

2. "defend against possible terrorist threats"

:wtf: is THAT supposed to mean?

[Must_B_Free]

5. it means kill all blacks and asians on their continents.

Oh how they long for another easy genocide like the Native American one...

[tom_paine]

7. That's EXACTLY what it means

We didn't fully defeat the Nazis. Thanks to the Busheviks, we absorbed them through our intelligence networks (osetnsibly to fight the Russians).

[david_vincent]

3. And then people think the Nigerians are crazy

for wanting proof that what they're being injected with is really polio vaccine. Who can blame them? They don't trust us, they're familiar with American attitudes toward Africans, and they've got oil.

[gethmord]

4. To create a vaccine against a virus.

You have to have the virus to create the vaccine against it.
Go watch the first twenty minutes or so of Mission Impossible II

[newyawker99]

9. Hi gethmord!!

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

[tom_paine]

6. Links

http://www.worldhealth.net/index.php?p=646,1705

http://online.sfsu.edu/~rone/GEessays/killervirus.html

[Mandate My Ass]

8. genetic profiling of viruses

Several of the seven or eight microbiologists who turned up dead a year or so ago were allegedly working on viruses that could target a particular ethnic group. They also have viruses that are capable of destroying only certain crops. Scary stuff when you think about whose hands they're in and what their threat-level threshhold for attack is. :tinfoilhat: