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Could 1918 Flu Research
Shed Light On Scientist's Deaths?
From Patricia Doyle, PhD
dr_p_doyle@hotmail.com
2-8-4



Hello, Jeff - I notice that you have presented a similar article regarding the 1918 research as it might pertain to Avian Influenza H5N1 jumping species barrier to infect humans thus setting the stage for a MAJOR pandemic with resulting loss of lives in the megamilliions around the planet, thus reducing the world's population. It is also possible that Avian Influenza could be manipulated to infect a specific ethnic group causing millions of deaths in the targeted group.
 
I have copied a pertinent refernce to Dr. Don C. Wiley in the following research. Moreover, this was, I believe, one of the last research projects of Dr. Wiley. It is noted that Dr. Mostcow, Dr. Benito Que, Dr. Robert. M. Schwartz, and Dr. Vladimir Pasechnik were working on a DNA sequencing project and were involved in Influenza research. I know that other prominent scientists on our ever growing list of dead microbiologists were working on Influenza virus, including Dr. Robert E. Shope. Dr. Wiley's work was actually the basis for the research below.
 
It might be a very, very small dot to connect, but, one never the less.
 
Patricia Doyle
 
The references for the papers referred to in the above report are the following: (1) Structure of the Uncleaved Human H1 Hemagglutinin from the Extinct 1918 Influenza Virus. James Stevens, Adam L. Corper, Christopher F. Basler, Jeffery K. Taubenberger, Peter Palese, and Ian A. Wilson. Science Express online, 5 Feb 2004, 10.1126/science.1093373; and (2)The Structure and Receptor-Binding Properties of the 1918 Influenza Hemagglutinin. S. J. Gamblin, L. F. Haire, R. J. Russell, D. J. Stevens, B. Xiao, Y. Ha, N. Vasisht, D. A. Steinhauer, R. S. Daniels, A. Elliot, D. C. Wiley, and J. J. Skehel. Science Express online, 5 Feb 2004, 10.1126/science.1093155.
 
 
AVIAN INFLUENZA, HUMAN - EAST ASIA (15)
 
A ProMED-mail post
 
In this update:
 
[1] Viet Nam - two more deaths [2] & [3] Haemagglutinin structure and human transmissibility
 
****** [1] Date: Fri 6 Feb 2004 From: ProMED-mail <promed@promedmail.org> Source: Reuters Health online, Fri 6 Feb 2004 [edited] <http://www.reutershealth.com/en/index.html>
 
 
Viet Nam: Two More Deaths Brings Total to 13 -------------------------------------------- HANOI: Viet Nam's death toll has risen to 13 after a six-year-old girl and a 24-year-old man died from avian influenza in Ho Chi Minh City. Five people have also died of the disease in Thailand, taking the Asian human toll to 18. [In Viet Nam there have been 15 laboratory confirmed cases of avian influenza A (H5N1) virus infection, 13 of whom have now died, and in Thailand there have been five cases, all of whom have died. As of Fri 6 Feb 2004, the total number of cases confirmed in East Asia is 20, 18 of whom have now died. There have been no human cases in any other country in the region. - Mod.CP]
 
Meanwhile, a UN agency [FAO] said tests revealed the virus in pigs, a potentially disturbing development that highlights the risks to humans. A day after China said avian influenza had spread to more provinces and UN agencies chided Asian countries for being slow to sound the alarm, the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) said three or four pigs had tested positive in Viet Nam. "Avian influenza A (H5N1) virus was in the nasal cavities of the pigs," FAO Vietnam representative Anton Rychener said, adding that blood samples had been sent to Hong Kong for further tests. A Vietnamese official was unaware of any such finding.
 
Health experts had feared the virus --- ravaging poultry flocks in eight countries with two more reporting milder strains --- would get into pigs, whose immune system is similar to humans' and which suffer from a wide variety of diseases that also infect people. Scientists say this makes them ideal vessels for mixing genes from the bird flu pathogen and the human influenza virus. The World Health Organization has said this could result in the emergence of a new subtype of virus for which humans would have no immunity. "If there was a very widespread infection in pigs, then that would be a great concern that a pandemic strain might develop from it," Jacqueline Katz, a flu expert at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said last week. However, Rychener said there was no cause for alarm or for the banning of pig trading. The nasal swab result "does not mean that the virus is in the bloodstream of pigs." The pigs were likely to have been infected from digging their noses in dirt that was infected with the virus, he said and suggested farmers separate pigs from chickens to prevent infections.
 
Fifty million birds had been culled in Asia so far and poultry restocking alone would cost some $150 million, said Louise Fresco, assistant director-general of the FAO. Thailand, the world's fourth biggest chicken exporter, which has slaughtered 26 million poultry, is confident it is wiping out the virus. Deputy Prime Minister Somkid Jatusripitak said Thailand had only one "red zone" left -- the five-km (three-mile) area around a confirmed outbreak within which the government orders the slaughter of all poultry. Last week, it had more than 140 in 29 of its 76 provinces.
 
(By Christina Toh-Pantin)
 
 
****** [2] Date: Thu 5 Feb 2004 From: ProMED-mail <promedmail.org> Source: Reuters News UK online, Thu 5 Feb 2004 [edited] <http://www.reuters.co.uk/newsArticle.jhtml?type=healthNews&storyID=4294836& section=news42>
 
Determination of the Structure of the 1918 Pandemic Influenza Virus ------------------------------------------------------------------- WASHINGTON: The 1918 flu virus, which killed 20 million people around the world, was probably so deadly because of a unique avian influenza-like protein, U.S. and British scientists reported [in Science Express online] on Thu 5 Feb 2004. Like the current outbreak of avian influenza in East Asia, the 1918 pandemic influenza virus appears to have jumped from birds to people with little change. But unlike the 1918 influenza virus, the current avian influenza virus, which has killed 16 people, so far has not developed the mutation that allowed influenza virus to decimate human populations 80 years ago. Two teams of researchers analyzed samples of the virus from the 1918 outbreak and said it bears the clear hallmarks of a bird virus that mutated very little before jumping from birds to people.
 
Health officials in China, Thailand and Vietnam are scrambling to control the current outbreak of avian influenza A (H5N1) virus. It is lethal to people, which is often the case when viruses leap from one species to another. In 1997 when it first appeared in Hong Kong it was contained very quickly because it did not spread from human to human, but only from birds to people.
 
So far this year only 16 people have been killed, but there is some evidence [now discounted - Mod.CP] it may have begun spreading from person to person. If that happens, experts fear the virus has the potential to be as bad as the 1918 epidemic. Understanding just what it is about the viruses that makes them deadly, and what makes them able to live and spread among humans, will be key to controlling or pre-empting future epidemics, the researchers noted.
 
Ian Wilson and colleagues at the Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, California and a team at the UK Medical Research Council Laboratory at Mill Hill and the U.S.-based Howard Hughes Medical Institute looked at [the haemagglutinin protein] of the virus extracted from the bodies of victims [of the 1918 pandemic], some buried in Alaska permafrost and others saved in laboratory jars. They looked specifically at the part of the virus called the haemagglutinin, which is a protein the virus uses to infect cells. Each strain of virus has a unique haemagglutinin structure, and scientists believe small mutations of the protein are what allows the virus to infect new species. They found it had some unique structures, but was clearly more suited to avian hosts than to humans. These properties may have given it "novel mechanisms" for infecting people, Wilson and colleagues wrote. This may explain why the 1918 epidemic killed so many young, healthy adults. And this explains why the current avian influenza outbreak has, so far, not lived up to fears, said the MRC's John Skehel.
 
"Presumably, what's blocking this current flu from spreading person-to-person is that its haemagglutinin structure has not yet evolved such that it can efficiently infect humans," Skehel said in a statement. Scientists say this probably happened with the 1918 influenza virus and will inevitably happen again unless they are prepared to stop it in its tracks. Studies like this one, they say, will help in designing vaccines to quickly stop an epidemic before it can take hold. "This tells us more about the transmission of infections from birds to humans," Skehel said. "However, it will not have an immediate impact on the situation currently unfolding in the Far East with avian influenza A (H5N1 virus, since from our previous work, we know that the 1918 virus [with a H1-type haemagglutinin] and the H5-type haemagglutinins are quite different."
 
(By Maggie Fox)
 
 
 
****** [3] Date: Fri 6 Feb 2004 From: A-Lan Banks<A-Lan.Banks@thomson.com> Source: The Guardian, Fri 6 Feb 2004 [edited] <http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,3604,1141911,00.html>
 
 
Scientists Identify Key Factor in Switch from Birds to Humans ------------------------------------------------------------- Scientists have solved a secret of an avian flu virus which killed up to 40 million people worldwide 86 years ago. They now know more about how a disease of birds switched to humans to trigger the most lethal outbreak in history. A team from the National Institute for Medical Research at Mill Hill, north London, used pathological samples taken from victims of the Spanish influenza pandemic of 1918 to recreate the structure of a haemagglutinin protein vital in the leap between species. "This tells us more about the transmission from birds to humans," said Sir John Skehel, leader of the team. "However, it will not have an immediate impact on the situation currently unfolding in the far east with the outbreak of avian influenza A (H5N1) virus since, from our previous work, we know that the [haemagglutinin of the] 1918 virus [H1-type] and H5 haemagglutinins are quite different." The research is published in the online edition of the US journal Science today. It is backed up by a study from the Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, California.
 
Viruses smuggle themselves into a host cell to replicate and then spread infection. Haemagglutinin is a spike-like molecule on the surface of the virus which sticks to receptors on the cells of birds or humans. The teams worked with DNA [RNA - because influenza virus is an RNA virus - Mod.CP] preserved in the Alaskan permafrost and in preserved tissue taken from young American soldiers who died in 1918. The British researchers used x-ray crystallography to determine the three-dimensional structure of the haemagglutinin. The American team started from a different point and studied the precursor protein that becomes haemagglutinin. Between them, they have thrown light on one of history's great puzzles.
 
(By Tim Radford)
 
 
[The references for the papers referred to in the above report are the following: (1) Structure of the Uncleaved Human H1 Hemagglutinin from the Extinct 1918 Influenza Virus. James Stevens, Adam L. Corper, Christopher F. Basler, Jeffery K. Taubenberger, Peter Palese, and Ian A. Wilson. Science Express online, 5 Feb 2004, 10.1126/science.1093373; and (2)The Structure and Receptor-Binding Properties of the 1918 Influenza Hemagglutinin. S. J. Gamblin, L. F. Haire, R. J. Russell, D. J. Stevens, B. Xiao, Y. Ha, N. Vasisht, D. A. Steinhauer, R. S. Daniels, A. Elliot, D. C. Wiley, and J. J. Skehel. Science Express online, 5 Feb 2004, 10.1126/science.1093155. <http://www.sciencemag.org/sciencexpress/recent.shtml>. The abstract to the first gives a better understanding of the virological basis for the statements in the above press reports: "The 1918 'Spanish' influenza pandemic represents the largest recorded outbreak of any infectious disease. The crystal structure of the uncleaved precursor of the major surface antigen of the extinct 1918 virus was determined at 3.0Å resolution after re-assembly of the haemagglutinin gene from viral RNA-fragments preserved in 1918 formalin-fixed lung tissues. A narrow, avian-like receptor binding site, two novel histidine patches and a less exposed surface loop at the cleavage site that activates viral membrane fusion reveals structural features primarily found in avian viruses, that may have contributed to the extraordinarily high infectivity and mortality rates observed during 1918." These are undoubtedly important findings but it remains to be established whether similar changes in the structure of the H5 haemagglutinin molecule of avian influenza viruses will in fact be accompanied by a change to transmissibility in humans. - Mod.CP]
 
Patricia A. Doyle, PhD Please visit my "Emerging Diseases" message board at: http://www.clickitnews.com/ubbthreads/postlist.php?Cat=&Board=emergingdiseases Zhan le Devlesa tai sastimasa Go with God and in Good Health

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