ATS: US Reluctant To Share Important Flu Samples

Originally posted by FredT

So please post the links and relevant CDC/NIH/OSHA/FBI/DHS regs that say samples will not be shared?

Substances deemed "select agents" are NOT SHARED - they are reserved for use by US scientists, under CDC oversight.


If you have Intel that the USA intends to share 1918 bird flu samples with other nations - despite its designation as a "select agent" - please post your reference here.

A quote from President Bush would be nice. No strings attached would be even nicer.



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[edit on 21-10-2005 by soficrow]

www.cdc.gov...
1. What is the select agent program?

The "Public Health Security and Bioterrorism Preparedness and Response Act of 2002 and the Agricultural Protection Act of 2002" (the Acts) require entities to register with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) or Agriculture (USDA) if they possess, use, or transfer biological agents or toxins (i.e. select agents and toxins) that could pose a severe threat to public health and safety; to animal or plant health; or animal or plant products. In addition to ensuring that laboratories safely handle these select agents and toxins, the Acts also require increased safeguards and security measures for these agents, including controlling access, screening entities and personnel (i.e., security risk assessments) and establishing a comprehensive and detailed national database of registered entities. The Act also imposes criminal and civil penalties for the inappropriate use of select agents and toxins.

The HHS Secretary has delegated the responsibility for promulgating and implementing regulations under the "Public Health Security and Bioterrorism Preparedness and Response Act" to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). At CDC, the Division of Select Agents and Toxins (DSAT) in the Coordinating Office of Terrorism Preparedness and Emergency Response oversees these activities and registers all laboratories and other entities in the United States that possess, use, or transfer a HHS or "overlap" select agent or toxin.

www.research.dfci.harvard.edu...

and heres what select agents are: www.ehrs.upenn.edu...

[edit on 21-10-2005 by namehere]

Originally posted by soficrow


Substances deemed "select agents" are NOT SHARED - they are reserved for use by US scientists, under CDC oversight.


If you have Intel that the USA intends to share 1918 bird flu samples with other nations - despite its designation as a "select agent" - please post your reference here.

The entity should submit paperwork well in advance of the training event to ensure that a delay of the training will not occur. For additional clarification contact CDC's Select Agent Program by telephone (404-498-2255), facsimile (404-498-2265), e-mail ([email protected]), or mail at:

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
Select Agent Program
1600 Clifton Rd NE, Mailstop E-79
Atlanta GA 30333

there you go, ask the cdc...

Originally posted by soficrow
Substances deemed "select agents" are NOT SHARED - they are reserved for use by US scientists, under CDC oversight.

Show Me?????? Linky Linky

I looked over them all and I cannot find any reference to "US only" ecept for your OP/ED's that is

Hum, there seems to be some heated contraversy here. I decided to take a moment and analyze some of the statments for review.

************************************************************
Statement:

by soficrow Title/Subject line
WAR: US Won't Share Important Flu Samples

Observation: Misleading statment. Wont Share? War? WTF?

Fact: If scientists desire to work with the (1918 reconstructed) agent, consideration will be given to hosting them at CDC.

www.cdc.gov...

************************************************************

Statement:

by soficrow
The USA just defined the 1918 Bird Flu virus as a "select agent"

Observation: False and misleading statment. Perhaps unintentional, but never the less, there is a huge difference between the 1918 flu virus, and the reconstructed 1918 flu virus.

Fact 1: The 1918 influenza virus is NOTcurrently designated as a select agent.

Fact2:The Intra-governmental Select Agents and Toxins Technical Advisory Committee convened on September 30, 2005, and recommended that the reconstructed 1918 influenza virus be added to the list of HHS select agents.

www.cdc.gov...

************************************************************


Statement:

By soficrow
It was hoped that researchers could use the virus to develop better antiviral drugs and influenza vaccines. As a "select agent" however, access to virus samples will be restricted.

Observation: Misleading statment. 1. This statment was based on the 2 misleading and false statements listed above. 2. This statement is subtly indicating that there was once hope, and now there is not.

Fact 1: Researchers are in progress using both the virus and the reconstructed virus to develop better antiviral drugs.

Fact 2: A highly contagious virus should be restricted. Nowhere does the article state that only US scientists will have access to either the 1918 virus, or the reconstructed 1918 virus.

************************************************************


Statement:

By soficrow
parallels the announcement of an emergency international meeting in Canada to strengthen the international response to bird flu.

Observation: Misleading statment. This statement indicates that the US could not care less about the emergency nature of the situation.

Fact: The US just had a similar meeting, and is working with the WHO and other international bodies to further the vaccine research and freely spread knowledge of the virus.

07 October 2005

Delegates from 80 nations and international agencies began a meeting in Washington DC on Thursday to formulate the best way to fight bird flu.

"The world is clearly unprepared, or inadequately prepared, for a pandemic of H5N1 influenza," US Health and Human Services Secretary Mike Leavitt told the meeting.

The meeting was convened by US officials, who have become increasingly concerned about the epidemic, and are trying to wrest high-level political commitments for cooperation and transparency from other nations.

Everyone at the US meeting, sponsored by the State Department, agreed in principle to share information quickly to allow health experts study and contain the virus. Now, said officials, it is critical to make sure they actually do so.

www.nature.com...


************************************************************

Statement:

by soficrow
Defining the 1918 bird flu virus as a "select agent" makes scientific research on bird flu a political issue

Observation: False and Misleading statement

Fact 1: The 1918 influenza virus is NOTcurrently designated as a select agent.

www.cdc.gov...

************************************************************


There is more, but I grow weary of this.

Fair and balanced article?

You decide.

makeitso

It's weird that this gross twisting of facts keeps happening over and over. Isn't it? Some kind of bizarre pattern I guess.

Originally posted by Valhall
It's weird that this gross twisting of facts keeps happening over and over. Isn't it? Some kind of bizarre pattern I guess.

Yes, it is weird. And disconcerting.

I thought this board had moderators who might at least attempt to correct some of this. You know, the whole motto of the Web site, which I need not write again.

What say you mods? Any chance we could have some action here? Or how 'bout a warn for consistent, deliberate abuse of status to push a consistent, deliberate agenda filled with consistent, deliberate falsehoods?

What does us more harm, this constant lying by our so-called experts, or a couple of curse words?

Sounds like a bad idea to me to be sending out samples deadly bio-agents of the 1918 flu. Humans are prone to error and terrorists would love a crack at stealing the samples.

A Flu Hope, Or Horror?

Resurrection of the virus and publication of its structure open the gates of hell. Anybody, bad guys included, can now create it. Biological knowledge is far easier to acquire for Osama bin Laden and friends than nuclear knowledge. And if you can't make this stuff yourself, you can simply order up DNA sequences from commercial laboratories around the world that will make it and ship it to you on demand. Taubenberger himself admits that "the technology is available."

And if the bad guys can't make the flu themselves, they could try to steal it. That's not easy. But the incentive to do so from a secure facility could not be greater. Nature, which published the full genome sequence, cites Rutgers bacteriologist Richard Ebright as warning that there is a significant risk "verging on inevitability" of accidental release into the human population or of theft by a "disgruntled, disturbed or extremist laboratory employee."

Why try to steal loose nukes in Russia? A nuke can only destroy a city. The flu virus, properly evolved, is potentially a destroyer of civilizations.

We might have just given it to our enemies.

Have a nice day.

Germ lab hit by power failure

FORT COLLINS, Colo., Oct. 13 (UPI) -- The U.S. germ lab in Fort Collins, Colo., lost its power supply for 13 hours, disabling its security system, the Rocky Mountain News reported.

The power failure Monday at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention laboratory disabled freezers holding thousands of vials of plague and other potential bio-weapons, the report said.

Might as well mail nuclear warhead plans to the Ayatollah too.

Originally posted by namehere
www.cdc.gov...

The HHS Secretary has delegated the responsibility for promulgating and implementing regulations under the "Public Health Security and Bioterrorism Preparedness and Response Act" to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). At CDC, the Division of Select Agents and Toxins (DSAT) in the Coordinating Office of Terrorism Preparedness and Emergency Response oversees these activities and registers all laboratories and other entities in the United States that possess, use, or transfer a HHS or "overlap" select agent or toxin.

www.research.dfci.harvard.edu...

Key phrase that - in the United States.

Again:

If you have information that the USA is sharing it's 1918 bird flu samples with scientists in other nations, please do post your links here. A quote from President Bush would be nice.

I would be happy to be proved wrong.


At the same time as insisting that the USA is in fact sharing these samples, critics here also claim that the US is right NOT to share the samples - due to bioterror threats. ...And when, exactly did you'all quit beating your wives?

...FYI - the bioterror threat is here, it's loose, and has been for nearly half a century. It now almost has mutated out of control - and the critical turning point was about 2 1/2 to 3 years ago.

The US can accept that the world is one single system - and that migrating birds and other animals carrying bird flu do NOT respect borders - or not. Either way, working cooperatively is still a positive thing. And maybe the only hope we have for species survival.



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Again:


The US Government defined this as a "war issue" when the bird flu samples were designated "select agents" under the Bioterrorist legislation. I filed my article under War on Terror - exactly where I should have, under the circumstances.



There are people here who do not want this issue addressed - or the US role in obstructing international efforts to fight bird flu brought to light. And they have sufficient power to get the title changed, and the article placed in a non-controversial category. So what? It's still out there. Floating around the net for all to see, just like all the other dissed, deleted, and otherwise manipulated media.



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OK, who will benefit the most in case of an epidemic if one country happens to hold the only cure for it?

That is a fair question, When it comes to the multibilion empire that is our pharmaceutical industry It can not be any clear, they will manufacture the vaccine and then sell it at outrageous prices to other countries.

Is call profiting.

Originally posted by soficrow
There are people here who do not want this issue addressed - or the US role in obstructing international efforts to fight bird flu brought to light.

The only issue we do not seem addressing here is the fact that your story was misleading and inaccurate at best. In case you missed it ATS has a quite active H5N1 Avian Flu Issues forum, and ATSNN has more topics than you can shake a stick at. So far the only articles discussing US obstruction efforts have come from YOU based on one journal article

Originally posted by soficrow
and the article placed in a non-controversial category. So what? It's still out there. Floating around the net for all to see, just like all the other dissed, deleted, and otherwise manipulated media.

So are you saying that you deliberately misrepresented the post with its content and title and placed in a category it was not suited to simply generate controversy? While Joseph Pulitzer and William Randolph Hearst would recognize this style, the rest of us would see it as another case of "Yellow" Journalism
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Originally posted by soficrow
I just write news.

Yes I have to agree here 100% in this case, you did write the news. But you failed to Report the news as you would expect from an ATSNN Expert submitter. The Bias was there from the title to the cut an paste article (trying to support you conclusions and was total unrelated) that many in this thread pointed out. :shk:

Originally posted by soficrow
The news is - the USA is blocking access to critical data (although granted it's an old story) - and obstructing international efforts to respond to the bird flu epidemic - also an old story, but with new details.

Again the only evidence for this has come from the two OP/ED's (lets call them what they are this one and Flu Researchers Slam US for Hoarding Data. Where else has this been covered? Where is the WHO complaint that the US is withholding data? Where the outraged statements from Europe? Where Where Where? No can I find the nature article that you based the other OP/ED on at this time (If you can point me in the correct direction Id be much obliged, but a search of the nature site reveals nothing?)



You have failed to cite any sources within the US nor the world that have stated that samples have been denied. Nor have you shown me ANY federal regulation that states it will not be done. Can you please show me where a request for the 1918 flu has been denied other than you assertions of course which now I must treat with a healthy dose of skepticism.

And why the issue with the CDC making sure the agent is safe when being used for research? I can see you next OP/ED guised as a news submission "Bush lets deadly flu sample escape" or other such nonsense. Even the Journal of Nature is concerned so much as to say this:

But the studies have sparked fears among other researchers. "There most definitely is reason for concern," says Richard Ebright, a bacteriologist at Rutgers University in Piscataway, New Jersey, who serves on biosecurity panels. "Tumpey et al. have constructed, and provided procedures for others to construct, a virus that represents perhaps the most effective bioweapons agent now known."

"This would be extremely dangerous should it escape, and there is a long history of things escaping," says Barbara Hatch Rosenberg, a molecular biologist and member of the Federation of American Scientists' Working Group on Biological Weapons. "What advantage is so much greater than that risk?"
www.nature.com...

So again where is the long list of countries that have been so denied, or was all this an exercise to generate controversy for the sake of doing so in one submitted article :shk:

Well Soficrow I see you changed the title of this thread--the new one is much better because it gives the more nearly correct situation. That dadgum virus is so virulent that if it excapes containment we could easily have a rerun of the 1918 epidemic. Further, that virus could well combine with the current Avian Flu virus(if it escaped) with a totally unknown, but in all likelihood, lethal result.

Ahh. Sorry - I assumed background knowledge here. The "silencing scientists" strategy of the US administration is an old problem - and this current permutation is just a continuation of the old problem.

As you can see, there is a situation, and a history, and documented impacts - of the US using the "select agent" designation to obstruct research and sharing of information.

For example, U.S. Still Silencing Scientists:


...scientists say business interests apply political pressure to reverse scientific conclusions that might interfere with profits, including timber, grazing, development and energy companies. "The pressure to alter scientific reports for political reasons has become pervasive at Fish and Wildlife offices around the country," says Lexi Shultz of the Union of Concerned Scientists. According to critics, the Bush administration routinely alters science to suit political objectives.







A Mad Cow-like prion disease that infects deer and elk, called "chronic wasting disease," is epidemic in the US and is obviously a good part of the reason for this most recent debacle in the Fish and Wildlife Service. The Wyoming Game and Fish Department is talking publicly about the epidemic, and wants to start regulating the disposal of deer and elk carcasses. Chronic wasting disease is found in wild herds in Wyoming and Colorado, and also Nebraska, New Mexico, Illinois, South Dakota, Utah and Wisconsin. It has spread to domestic herds in Colorado, Montana and other states.

"Mad Cow" Spreading in Deer and Elk


The Bush admininistration has worked to silence scientists or modify scientific reports on several other occasions. Commonly, scientific information about Mad Cow or prion related diseases was lurking in the background, threatening to make headlines.

It all started when Bush defined 'Mad Cow' BSE and TSE prions as "select agents" under anti-terrorist legislation. By January of 2004, researchers went discreetly public with their concerns about constraints on Mad Cow research.

“Scientists worry that US gov't classification of BSE prions as 'select agents' could hinder research”
www.biomedcentral.com...

By April, EPA modelers said it out loud, "Science is being altered to suit objectives."

Original Story


By June of 2004, US scientists were on a very short leash:

The U.S. government is making it harder for scientists to speak to their global colleagues... Rep. Henry Waxman said he has a letter showing that the Health and Human Services Department has imposed new limits on who may speak to the World Health Organization.

Under the new policy, WHO must ask HHS for permission to speak to scientists and must allow HHS to choose who will respond.

"This policy is unprecedented. For the first time political appointees will routinely be able to keep the top experts in their field from responding to WHO requests for guidance on international health issues,... This is a raw attempt to exert political control over scientists and scientific evidence in the area of international health," Waxman wrote.

"Under the new policy the administration will be able to refuse to provide any experts whenever it wishes to stall international progress on controversial topics."

U.S. Charged With Silencing Scientists

The new policy prevented key US scientists from attending the 2004 International AIDS conference in Bangkok. Scheduled US speakers were forced to cancel their presentations.

"The US Government came under scathing attack from senior members of the medical establishment for blocking scientists from attending the International AIDS conference that opened in Bangkok at the weekend."

US bans scientists from AIDS event

"The absence of American researchers at the International AIDS Conference here this week has left many pondering why the decision was made to limit US attendance, and by whom. ...It came from above [Secretary of Health and Human Services] Tommy Thompson," said one US researcher who was told not to present her paper and had to find funding from other sources to attend. Although her work was cofunded by her university, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) component meant she was forbidden to present or talk to the media, she told The Scientist. "So I'm not going to give you my name." "

Key US scientists missing from the increasingly political International AIDS Conference

The political difficulty with HIV-AIDS is that the 'virus' is most likely a mutated prion-virus hybrid, related to Mad Cow.

Mad Cow and AIDS

Gay Concern over Hyping AIDS 'Superbug'


Beyond covering up the Mad Cow epidemics, this administration silences US scientists in every discipline.

"Whether they are studying global warming, environmental toxins, or workplace safety, scientists who find their research unjustifiably shunned or suppressed face similar challenges from corporate and special interests, said (CSPI Integrity in Science project director) Merrill Goozner.

...Baird also took the scientific community to task for failing to respond to the suppression of science (and contended that) scientists ... must "stand up for the democratic process itself."

...An April 2004 General Accounting Office report titled "Federal Advisory Committees: Additional Guidance Could Help Agencies Better Ensure Independence and Balance" ...said some departments have appointed members of industry and stakeholder groups, persons who are exempt from conflict-of-interest rules. Industry leaders may therefore theoretically be profiting from their own advice."

Fighting for integrity. Scientists Dismayed at Corporate Influence, Politicization of Science

The Bush administration silences US scientists in every field to protect corporate interests, at the expense of ordinary peoples' health, lives and economic well-being.





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[edit on 23-10-2005 by soficrow]

Got an idea. Why not stick to the original topic, rather than making this a convoluted mess.

Edited for lousy typing.

[edit on 23-10-2005 by Thomas Crowne]

Originally posted by Thomas Crowne
Why not stick to the original topic, rather than making this a convoluted mess.

TC - the topic is about the US hoarding data needed to deal with the bird flu pandemic. The fact is, there is a related history - of the US hoarding data, silencing US scientists, and preventing scientific collaboration that would help ordinary people deal with the numerous -and related- epidemic diseases in the world today.

The argument presented above against my article can be summed up as follows.

There is no story because:

a. The US does not hoard scientific data; and

b. The US does hoard scientific data, but it's to protect Americans so it's justifiable.


...Interesting argument.

Requires a more detailed response, methinks.





Oh yeah - the point is, after creating the "Bioterrorism Preparedness" legislation, the US has used the "select agent" designation to obstruct much-needed scientific research and collaboration. The 1918 flu virus being the latest example.






Ed. brain burp - to make point.

[edit on 23-10-2005 by soficrow]

what I find odd about this is the fact that talks of a pandemic on h5n1 surfaced before those 119 people ever got it (50% died).

Ironic isn't it.

I still say this was man made for population control.

The two are not necessarily related and the second can also be brought up for debate, so this is nothing more than convolution.

Originally posted by Thomas Crowne
The two are not necessarily related

What two?

and the second can also be brought up for debate,

Which second?

so this is nothing more than convolution.

You do mean the also self-contradictory argument aaginst my article, right?



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Originally posted by TrueLies

Ironic isn't it.

I still say this was man made for population control.

I find very troublesome that while all these new or no so new viruses are starting to pop all over, I see not hurry by the scientific community to find cures even when they said otherwise.

But rather spend their time and money looking for remedies and treatments as to make sure that people that get sick will be Dependant of the miracle pills while still been sick.

Is all about control, and as usual poor third world countries are the ones that suffer the most and die the in higher quantities.

I think you have a point Truelies is all about population control.