Guest guest Posted September 26, 2008 Report Share Posted September 26, 2008 The Wikipedia article says this about Flumist and H5N1: " Flumist is designed to be quickly modifiable to present the surface antigens of seasonal flu. The modifiability could also allow it to be quickly customized as a vaccine against a pandemic influenza if one were to emerge. In light of the Global spread of H5N1 advance preparation to reduce human mortality in the event of an H5N1 pandemic has begun. Modifying Flumist to serve as a specific human H5N1 vaccine is among the measures studied.[20] In June 2006, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) began enrolling participants in a Phase 1 H5N1 study of an intranasal influenza vaccine candidate based on MedImmune's live, attenuated vaccine technology.[21] In September 2006 the NIH NIAID reported that inoculation with a Flumist vaccine modified to present the surface antigens of certain H5N1 variants provided broad protection against other H5N1 variants in the mouse and ferret models.[22] " And I think that this is what has caused alarm among people who have a weak understanding of the sciences of virology and molecular biology. Not that I am an expert, but I haven taken some courses in molecular biology and I do know that markers are not viruses and cannot spread the disease for which they mark. A virus is a very complex particle, of which the surface proteins are only one small piece. The purpose of attaching surface components from H5N1, or any other variant of influenza, to the surface of the Flumist virus is to signal the immune system to develop a defense against the real thing, should the person ever come in contact with it. But surface proteins cannot cause the disease of the virus from which they are derived. In Flumist these markers are attached to a weakened (attenuated) version of a mild live influenza. The live attenuated virus is a delivery mechanism to get the markers into the blood stream so that the immune system can see them and react to them. Again, the markers cannot cause the disease for which they mark. It is understandable that people with no education in the very arcane sciences of molecular biology or virology would misunderstand how Flumist works, and become alarmed at the idea of inhaling any part of H5N1. But hopefully people like mentalchemist, once they are informed, will start to spread the word to others in his circle who are similarly confused and stop spreading misinformation. He should also think about what I said in an earlier post about the impossibility of a company deliberately creating a pandemic to make profit from it, due to, if nothing else, the huge number of people who would have to agree to be complicit in a plan so horrible and criminal that almost no one would think it was a good idea or, upon being recruited, would refrain from blowing the whistle on the whole insane idea. It really just can't happen. And by the way, the article says that preparing H5N1 markers is just being studied at this point, and has not happened. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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