It sounds like the setup for a Hollywood thriller: scientists in a lab create a virus as contagious as the flu that kills half of those infected. We're safe as long as the virus remains locked up, but if it escapes or gets into the hands of bioterrorists, it has the potential to become a pandemic and kill millions around the world.

But this isn't the latest summer blockbuster. According to New Scientist magazine, researchers in the Netherlands studying H5N1 -- commonly referred to as the bird flu or avian influenza -- have created a strain of the virus that's easily passed between mammals, and it's just as lethal as the original virus.

According to the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services, the H5N1 virus has infected more than 500 people in more than a dozen countries and is known to kill around 60 percent of those that become infected.

Ron Fouchier, a researcher at the Erasmus Medical Centre in Rotterdam, led the team that successfully created the mutation. Fouchier presented the findings at a conference in Malta in September and, according to NPR, is now seeking publication of his results.

But some in the scientific community are debating whether or not that's a good idea.

"It's just a bad idea for scientists to turn a lethal virus into a lethal and highly contagious virus. And it's a second bad idea for them to publish how they did it so others can copy it," Dr. Thomas Inglesby, the director and CEO of the Center for Biosecurity at the University of Pittsburgh, told NPR.

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What Next? I know Airborne AIDS or a Plague that once you breathe it in it eats you from the inside out in a NANOSECOND!

This is Grotesque

Why don't we just Hand the handbook out to every OTHER NATION shall we?

I know I shouldn't swear like that but this is horrific and has got to stop.

US government orders scientific journals to censor findings of deadly H5N1 bird flu experiment


(NaturalNews) After toying with the idea of blocking public access to critical information discovered as part of an experiment with H5N1 avian flu, the US government has now decided that certain details of this controversial research be withdrawn from two scientific journals. The UK's Guardian reports that the journals Science and Nature are working to remove certain details from the research that terrorists may try to use to create biological weapons.

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According to Science Insider, Dr. Fouchier told reporters that he and his team's deliberate mutation of H5N1 had created "probably one of the most dangerous viruses you can make." US National Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity (NSABB) chair Paul Keim added, "I can't think of another pathogenic organism that is as scary as this one. I don't think anthrax is scary at all compared to this."

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"The proposed reactions are nothing more than a public relations measure, a window dressing, intended to convey the impression that the issue is being addressed to minimize negative public reaction and deflect calls for effective regulation," said Richard Ebright, a professor of molecular biology at Rutgers University.

Learn more: http://www.naturalnews.com/034490_bird_ ... z1hlO6Ylb0

More on the man-made variants of H5N1 and H1N1 found here:

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Research to Resume on Modified, Deadlier Bird Flu

By DENISE GRADY

Published: January 23, 2013

Experiments with a deadly flu virus, suspended last year after a fierce global debate over safety, will start up again in some laboratories, probably within the next few weeks, scientists say.

The research touched off a firestorm in 2011 when it became known that two groups, one in the Netherlands and another in the United States, had genetically altered a dangerous bird flu virus to make it more contagious in mammals. Some scientists warned that a deadly pandemic could break out if the mutant virus leaked out of the lab accidentally or if terrorists stole it or made it themselves, using articles in scientific journals for the recipe.

The outcry led scientists conducting the experiments to declare a voluntary moratorium a year ago, in part to let research organizations and governments decide what safety rules to require.

Now, flu researchers say, the moratorium should end because most countries have rules in place. A letter from 40 scientists — the same ones who called the moratorium last year — was published on Wednesday in the journals Science and Nature, saying it is time for the work to begin again in countries ready to allow it.

But the United States, which pays for much of the flu research both at home and abroad, has not yet released new guidelines. So scientists here will not be able to resume experiments yet, nor will those in other countries who depend on grant money from the United States.

During a telephone news conference on Wednesday, Ron Fouchier, a virologist who conducted some of the flu experiments at Erasmus Medical Center in the Netherlands, said the scientists were lifting the moratorium without waiting for guidelines from the United States.

“How long do you want us to wait?” Dr. Fouchier asked. “If this was the Netherlands, would the U.S. wait? Should all countries really wait for the U.S., and why?”

He said his laboratory would resume research within a few weeks. Although he receives research money from the National Institutes of Health in the United States, funding from other sources will allow him to go ahead, he said. Other researchers in the European Union will be free to pick up the research if they have funding that does not come from the United States government, he said. Laboratories in China and Canada may be ready to start up, but Japan, like the United States, is still working on new guidelines, researchers said during the teleconference.

Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said the Department of Health and Human Services was reviewing new guidelines, and that he expected them to be approved in weeks. The guidelines will specify the laboratory conditions under which this type of research is permitted and require that experiments have a potential benefit for public health

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