Virology Journal article:Swine flu man made?Human activity involved

[roganvilla]

Published in the paper under the headline,"Is swine flu man-made?"

Online article:


Australian experts say swine flu a laboratory error

THREE Australian experts are making waves in the medical community with a report suggesting swine flu might have developed because of a laboratory error in the process of making a vaccine.

"It could have happened in a lab where somebody became affected and then travelled with it," virologist Dr Adrian Gibbs told The Courier-Mail yesterday.

"Things do get out of labs and this has to be explored.

"There needs to be more research done in this area. At the moment there is no way of distinguishing where swine flu has come from."

Pictures: Swine flu outbreakThe report, published in the Virology Journal on Tuesday, was compiled by two former researchers at the Australian National University, including Gibbs and programmer John S. Armstrong.

Dr Jean Downie, once the head of HIV research at the Institute of Clinical Pathology and Medical Research at Westmead Hospital, was also involved.

The article says the swine-origin influenza A (H1N1) virus that appeared in Mexico in April has at least three parent genes which originated in North America, Europe and Asia.

"The three parents of the virus may have been assembled in one place by natural means, such as by migrating birds, however the consistent link with pig viruses suggests that human activity was involved," the research found.


Their report said that if the virus was generated by laboratory activity, it would explain why it had "escaped surveillance for over a decade and how viruses last sampled in North America, Europe and Asia became assembled in one place and generated a reassortant."

Dr Gibbs said it was not the first time in history that laboratory errors had been made, with evidence foot and mouth disease in England had been born out of a lab mistake and circumstantial evidence that Spanish influenza in 1918 and Asian influenza in 1957 re-appeared decades later because of lab mistakes with vaccines.


http://www.news.com.au/couriermail/story/0,23739,26409736-953,00.html

[Mike Philbin]

they said the Baxter BIRD FLU infestation of 72 kilos of seasonal flu vaccine was also an accident..

oh, and so was the Bayer infestation of Factor 8 with HIV...

oh, and... it's time to close down these accident-prone pharma labs and initiate better ones.

[James]

Looks like a peer reviewed source to me.

http://www.virologyj.com/content/6/1/207


Abstract (provisional)

The swine-origin influenza A (H1N1) virus that appeared in 2009 and was first found in human beings in Mexico, is a reassortant with at least three parents. Six of the genes are closest in sequence to those of H1N2 'triple-reassortant' influenza viruses isolated from pigs in North America around 1999-2000. Its other two genes are from different Eurasian 'avian-like' viruses of pigs; the NA gene is closest to H1N1 viruses isolated in Europe in 1991-1993, and the MP gene is closest to H3N2 viruses isolated in Asia in 1999-2000. The sequences of these genes do not directly reveal the immediate source of the virus as the closest were from isolates collected more than a decade before the human pandemic started. The three parents of the virus may have been assembled in one place by natural means, such as by migrating birds, however the consistent link with pig viruses suggests that human activity was involved. We discuss a published suggestion that unsampled pig herds, the intercontinental live pig trade, together with porous quarantine barriers, generated the reassortant. We contrast that suggestion with the possibility that laboratory errors involving the sharing of virus isolates and cultured cells, or perhaps vaccine production, may have been involved. Gene sequences from isolates that bridge the time and phylogenetic gap between the new virus and its parents will distinguish between these possibilities, and we suggest where they should be sought. It is important that the source of the new virus be found if we wish to avoid future pandemics rather than just trying to minimize the consequences after they have emerged. Influenza virus is a very significant zoonotic pathogen. Public confidence in influenza research, and the agribusinesses that are based on influenza's many hosts, has been eroded by several recent events involving the virus. Measures that might restore confidence include establishing a unified international administrative framework coordinating surveillance, research and commercial work with this virus, and maintaining an registry of all influenza isolates.

The complete article is available as a provisional PDF. The fully formatted PDF and HTML versions are in production.

http://www.virologyj.com/content/pdf/1743-422x-6-207.pdf

[roganvilla]

Sorry to sound like a whiner, but could a Mod please fix this topic placing as it is currently on the 2nd page of the Swine Flu Hoax section, and I have just posted it today.
Thanks.

[roganvilla]

Bump

[grapecrusher1]

I imagine it has already been posted elsewhere as it is all over the net and there are others here on top of things. 

But Gibbs puts forth some of the possible origins for this current virus which he points to being  a possible "lab error" or that maybe the a virus lurked around in pigs mutating for 20 years without detection.  It is worth reading despite being pretty thick.