Wednesday, April 13, 2005

This is the Way the World Ends

Through pugnacious stupidity.

Scientists Scramble to Destroy Flu Strain
Scientists around the world were scrambling to prevent the possibility of a pandemic after a nearly 50-year-old killer influenza virus was sent to thousands of labs, a decision that one researcher described as "unwise." [Gee, ya think? -ed.]

Nearly 5,000 labs in 18 countries, mostly in the United States, were urged by the World Health Organization to destroy samples of the dangerous virus because of the slight risk it could trigger a global outbreak. The labs received the virus from a U.S. company that supplies kits used for quality control tests. "The risk is low and we've taken appropriate action," said Dr. Nancy Cox, chief of the influenza branch at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta. Her counterpart at WHO, Klaus Stohr, agreed but said, "If someone does get infected, the risk of severe illness is high, and this virus has shown to be fully transmissible."


The germ, the 1957 H2N2 "Asian flu" strain, killed between 1 million and 4 million people. It has not been included in flu vaccines since 1968, and anyone born after that date has little or no immunity to it.


Hey, I know. Let's ship around some Ebola, too, just for the fun of it.

4 Comments:

At 1:28 PM, Blogger Nathan said...

Oh well, there are worse ways to die. This has been happening for some time now, hasn't it? And no pandemic or mass hysteria yet. The media likes to put people in the "oh no, I'm going to die" mode. They think it's funny. Dance you monkeys, and maybe tomorrow will kill you.

 
At 4:07 PM, Blogger Tyler said...

Are you saying I don't need this gas mask, bunker, one year's supply of canned peaches, shotgun, and 3,000 shotgun shells?

(Shotgun serves dual purpose - protection against both looters and flu zombies. And unlike the movies, I'll remember to shoot the zombies in the head.)

 
At 4:09 PM, Blogger Tyler said...

No, what's frustrating is that they distributed a known pandemic-causing virus all over the world, to dozens if not hundreds of laboratories - and had no need to. Seriously - why not ship Ebola around too? And start putting blasting caps in with your Wheaties?

 
At 10:45 AM, Blogger Tyler said...

Dihydrogen monoxide! Auugghhh! It's EVERYWHERE!

 

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