The Dutch are at it again. Just creating weapons of mass destruction all willy nilly like. Now the guy wants to publish how he made it! The audacity of spreading knowledge! Seriously though, this guy took the bird flu, then modified it so that it can be contagious to people (maybe) through the air. Is that acceptable?
About 10 years ago, the Avian flu struck the world. People in Asia were wearing masks, no one could fly into or out of most of Asia. There was a global panic about how we’re all going to die. Since then, there have been basically no cases reported in people. Then we get Ron Fouchier coming along deciding to take one of the most feared animalistic flus and make it contagious and extremely dangerous to humans. It’s reported that this new strain will kill about 50% of infected patients.
Fouchier and co must have been bored with the way evil geniuses have been portrayed recently. They were a little hurt, so they took what once was almost impossible to transfer to humans and genetically modify it. Fouchier’s strain is as contagious as the standard seasonal flu that affects everyone.
So, now that this super-flu exists and is going to kill us all Fouchier wants to publish a paper and show everyone how he took a harmful virus and in ten generations turned it into Rambo. Bioterrorist experts are in a tizzy. It has been said that this paper will give real terrorists useful tips or a methodology to create different terror-viruses.
Other people say that banning the paper will leave us all helpless if the H5N1 virus makes it out of the lab or the Avian flu naturally mutates into this form. Part of Fouchier’s study suggests that the risk of natural mutation to this global pandemic causing awfulness is much greater than previously thought.
So guys, release the paper and let the terrorists win? Or do we want to ban the paper and die as ignorant assholes?
