“Miss me? I’m baaaack!!!”
“The scientists doing this work are so immersed in their own self-aggrandizement, they have become completely blind to the irresponsibility of their acts.”
–—Robert Kolter, professor of microbiology at Harvard Medical School, condemning the work of Professor Yoshihiro Kawaoka of the University of Wisconsin-Madison and his research team, which managed to recreate the Spanish Flu virus that killed an estimated 50 million people in 1918.
The reincarnated 1918 virus was recreated from eight genes found in avian flu viruses isolated from populations of wild ducks. Using a technique known as “reverse genetics,” Kawaoka’s team rebuilt the entire virus so that it was 97 % identical to the 1918 strain, identified from viruses recovered from frozen 1918 corpses. Said Kawaoka: “The point of the study was to assess the risk of avian viruses currently circulating in nature. We found genes in avian influenza viruses quite closely related to the 1918 virus and, to evaluate the pandemic potential should such a 1918-like virus emerge, identified changes that enabled it to transmit in ferrets.”
And, in order to assess that risk, the research created a completely unnecessary one that if mankind proves fallible again, could, as various Stephen King and Michael Crichton novels and movies have shown, kill us all.
Eventually, one of these hubris-warped and ethics-free fools might just eradicate humanity…all in the interest of scientific inquiry, of course.
Ethics Alarms 
And how much did we, the taxpayers, pay for this idiocy?
I wish there was a like feature. And an edit feature. But mostly a like feature for this comment.
I have to say, HT—I hate the “like” feature, which is available to me via WordPress (edit, sadly, is not). The whole thumbs up-thumbs down approach is often inadequate for the complex topics sometimes covered here, and in a field where the majority view is deemed to convey no virtue at all, it carries the wrong message.
But I like the comment too…
I’m beginning to think that most scientists live in an ethics-free zone. The only concern they have seems to be where their next grant is going to come from.
Yikes! The Spanish flu resurrected? My mother and her mother caught it and were lucky to survive. These scientists should read *Pale Horse, Pale Rider* sometime but probably they wouldn’t be interested.
You never expect the Spanish Influenza!!!
It sounds scary, but I wonder about the actual risk. A flu virus which killed that many people surely left survivors with a heightened immunity (genetic, not acquired) to that virus. Today’s population may be at less risk to the same strain. Kawaoka’s team is also claiming their result is only 97% identical. That 3% difference could potentially be huge, making their replicated virus far more or far less lethal than the original.
On the other hand, this guy’s no stranger to controversial and potentially dangerous viral research. Who knows where that will lead in the long run?
I think the germane point is, why wonder about the actual risk when the think is potentially lethal? The potential risk should be zero, and the way to maintain that is to leave the virus dead and buried.
You’re right, the only way to have zero risk when experimenting with viral genomes is to do nothing at all. The expected rebuttal is that doing nothing leaves us helpless when the next Spanish Flu equivalent comes along via natural means. I’m not sure how much weight to give such an argument, but since it hasn’t been made, I’ll offer it for argument’s sake.
It’s kind of like the argument that if you carry a bomb with you on planes you’re safer, because what are the odds of TWO bombs on planes? All this story made me think of was the sci-fi book I’ve referenced before, IQ-84, where a virus isolated to find a cure for retardation and dementia gets loose, making the whole country stupid. Wait–or was that real???
Give you a rebuttal for the rebuttal. For all the research we’ve done, you know how many viruses we’ve developed a cure for? Zip…zero…nada. We’ve managed to develop a few vaccines, but developing a vaccine for Spanish Flu while you’re in the middle of a 50-million dead pandemic is a little late.
Why does nobody ever listen to Dr. Malcolm?
Reverse genetics, huh? I guess we’ll be seeing dinosaurs next… if we survive the epidemic!