Flu vascine

Well so as you may or may not have heard, two teams in the netherlands and the US have devlepoed a more transmssable flu virus, and in certain circles there is a hot debate about whether or not to publish some of the information. Maybe its because I've been watching too much of the X-Files (government conspiracies are everywhere!) but I personally believe this information should be realeased.

Well firstly what are the reasons for not releasing the information? Well in a word terrorism. The Influenza pandemic that devastated the 1919's was so awful because it was so easily transmissable. Its estimated at least 27% of the worlds population was infected, and at a mortality rate of around 3% (your plain garden variety flu has a mortality rate of about 0.1%) that makes for a huge death toll. However while the end of World War I did succeed in transmitting the disease around the world, today, if such a virus with such a high infection rate was released, it could travel much much faster, and infect much more of the world thanks to air-travel and the like. Thankfully the recent pandemic of Swine Flu, was not as easily transmittable, yet not so thankfully, it had an estimated much higher mortality rate of around 14%-33%. A very bad thing for the world if it was more easily transmittable, which is essentially what these scientists have figured out how to do.

So yes, if a terrorist ever did manage to get there hands on some of the viruses the US and the Dutch have developed, that would be bad, very very bad.

But at the same time, publishing the information could also do a lot of good. While I don't think that there is likely to be another pandemic anytime soon, there is a very real possibility that there will be one time in the future. Quite frankly the world got off lucky when it came to Swine flu, there was not nearly the level of devastation that would happen had the virus been more transmittable, so unless we want a contagion like scenario, there is a real need to evaluate and prepare for a more effective way to deal with such an outbreak, and of course the best possible scenario would be a vaccine, which of course the earlier it is able to be developed, the better for the rest of the world, and studying these viruses in more depth could do a world of good. Such as other ways to fight them, ways in which to reduce exposure and prevent contagion, not just for the flu, but for a range of other diseases as well.

Also there is the fact that if two teams were independently able to create a virus that was so easily transmittable, there is a very real possibility that if a said terrorist group or whatever was so motivated to do so, they could produce the virus themself. Honestly there is always a risk that an extremely deranged individual will create or steal a deadly virus, I remember when I was younger and the war in Iraq was in full swing, people afraid that some terrorist group would was going to release the small-pox virus, and I knew quite a few people who went and got vaccinated against a variety of such dieases. But honestly it very unlikely that something like this would happen.

So while there is a risk, I still think it would be a much better idea if they were to release the research, to activity do some good, rather then be afraid of possible bad. But it will be interesting to see what actually happens.