The Government Lifted Its Ban on Creating Deadly Super Viruses
A few months ago, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services lifted a three-year moratorium on experiments involving deadly viruses. Prior research in this field has included influenza, SARS, and MERS – three highly infectious pathogens many fear could mutate into pandemic super-viruses.
The ban on studying these germs came between 2011 and 2012 when scientists intentionally created a new version of H5N1, or bird flu virus, enabling it to spread between ferrets. This testing raised many eyebrows in the medical community generating concern that a highly contagious virus could have been accidentally created causing a global pandemic.
The lift on the moratorium will still require extensive oversight from government review panels on individual studies, but slip-ups at the Centers for Disease Control in the past have left some worrying whether the ban’s lift is a good idea.
In 2014, the CDC accidentally exposed dozens of workers to anthrax and mailed a deadly sample of bird flu to a lab that requested an inactive strain. Smallpox samples were also found at the National Institutes of Health that had been stored in a freezer and forgotten for half a century.
Proponents of the relax on the ban think it will help scientists discover ways to prevent the outbreak of future pandemics, but no previous research has led to any viable solutions.
The research has, however, worked to create something called a gain-of-function mutation that creates viruses with the ability to spread easier. In order to study highly contagious pathogens, they must create infectious pathogens; an incredibly risky experiment with no guaranteed return.
Aside from the prospect of an artificial super-virus leaking from a lab and infecting the masses, there’s always the possibility of a virus falling into the wrong hands and being weaponized by bio-terrorists.
Michael Osterholm, director of the University of Minnesota’s Center for Infectious Disease Control, is concerned with maintaining security around the discovery of information surrounding artificial super-viruses. Osterholm said that if a study found ways to genetically modify Ebola as an airborne pathogen, he wouldn’t want the public to have access to that information.
Is it really necessary to lift a ban on this field of study, when it hasn’t produced significant findings in the past?
Scientists currently supporting the green-light on gain-of-function studies say concerns are blown out of proportion, and that the combination of safety measures and scientists’ will of self-preservation are strong enough to prevent an outbreak. But does its clumsy precedent really support this?
About the Author
HAARP; A U.S. Conspiracy Theory Magnet
In 1993, The US Air Force began construction on a $290 million project that would enable the government’s foremost atmospheric researchers to study the ionosphere — the top layer of the Earth’s atmosphere. The research center, now run by the University of Alaska, Fairbanks, is called the High-Frequency Active Auroral Research Program, or HAARP, and is located in the frozen wilderness of Gakona, Alaska. For a number of reasons, HAARP’s activities have drawn the attention of citizens who are suspicious of the organization’s practices.
Over the years, HAARP has been officially credited with conducting useful and successful research, but because of its highly complex work, officials claim its purpose has been largely misunderstood by detractors. For this reason, it has been ground zero for criticism since its inception.
Situated in the remote wilderness of an already low-population state — purportedly to promote secrecy — HAARP features 360 radio transmitters, 180 antennas, and 5 powerful generators that create geometric patterns in every direction when turned on. The antennas, each a foot thick and stretching 72 feet into the sky, continue to raise eyebrows.
A section of the HAARP antenna field.
Shortly after the facility opened, the public began reporting strange phenomena — not only in the region, but around the world. Activists challenged HAARP’s activities, vocally questioning what the organization was really up to. While the government continues to deny any connection with changes in weather, frequencies of earthquakes, and chemtrails in the skies, it has made deliberate efforts to quell suspicions about the nature of its operations. Yet these are not nearly enough to quiet HAARP’s notable detractors, including former Venezuelan President, Hugo Chavez and former Minnesota Governor, Jesse Ventura.
Ventura questioned whether the government was using HAARP to manipulate the weather or overwhelm citizens with mind-controlling radio waves. While the Air Force acknowledged that Ventura had made an official request to visit the research station, he and his crew nevertheless were denied access.
