-Caveat Lector- <A HREF="http://www.ctrl.org/"> </A> -Cui Bono?- >From http://www.ft.com/hippocampus/q32a53e.htm {{<Begin>}} Life / Books Getting to grips with a killer virus Aching? Coughing? In bed with flu? Find out all about it, suggests Susanna Rustin FLU: The Story of the Great Influenza Pandemic and the Search for the Virus that Caused it by Gina Kolata Farrar Straus $25/Macmillan CATCHING COLD: 1918's Forgotten Tragedy and the Hunt for the Virus that Caused it by Pete Davies Michael Joseph £12.99, 305 pages "Every virologist loves a new virus" was professor John Oxford's remark about the discovery of HIV. Since the Aids panic of the 1980s, HIV has dominated the virologists' agenda, with unprecedented funding pouring into laboratories in the rush for a cure. One of the questions asked by both Gina Kolata and Pete Davies in their new books is whether this diversion of resources was prudent in the light of the on-going threat to humanity posed by influenza. Epidemics sell books as well as newspapers, and Kolata must be delighted with her timing; the UK edition of her book has arrived in the middle of the winter flu crisis. Meanwhile one hears the echo of last week's news headlines in Pete Davies' description of British hospitals exactly a year ago, "cancelling operations as they struggle to cope with the influx of flu patients". Influenza is an annual occurrence affecting about 100m people worldwide. Unpleasant though it is, and dangerous to the old and ill, the more common variants of the illness bear little resemblance to the killer disease that swept the globe in the final months of the first world war, killing between 20m and 100m people. There has been no such deadly outbreak since, but both Kolata and Davies are convinced that, in the words of one scientist, "It's not a question of if. It's only a matter of when." They present flu experts' investigations into 1918 as a matter of urgent attention. It is a story with several episodes, which Kolata tackles chronologically. The pandemic itself was well-documented, particularly in the US military, and appears complete with horrifying statistics and gory details, from the onset of symptoms - "Mahogany spots over the cheek bones"; "their faces soon wear a bluish cast; a distressing cough brings up the blood-stained sputum" - to the ghastly spectacle of the dead "mortifying and emitting a nauseating stench". Research had begun in the 19th century, but it was not until 1951 that a Swedish scientist, Johan Hultin, decided to try and recover samples of the actual virus, from the lungs of flu victims buried in Alaska. Molecular biology would take 45 years to catch up with Hultin, providing the techniques necessary to extract genetic information from the frozen tissue. Before that, there was the swine flu scare of 1976, and a disastrous immunisation programme which left the US government to pick up the bill for compensation after the vaccine was claimed to cause Guillain-Barré syndrome. Having laboured the point that historians have paid the flu insufficient attention (their conspiracy of silence coupled with its gruesome symptoms makes the 1918 flu sound like a television X-file), Kolata's narrative picks up, demonstrating the quandary in which the risk of a dangerous flu strain placed the authorities. Later, Flu becomes something of a page-turner as Kolata tracks rival attempts to recover the vital samples. She manages to convey the muted excitement of a year of pains-taking lab work at the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology in Washington, which finally paid off for Dr Jeffery Taubenberger and Ann Reid. And she delivers a well-aimed swipe at the science establishment journals which initially neglected to publish their findings. Pete Davies jumps in to the plot much later, opening his book with the outbreak of bird flu which spread to humans and resulted in the slaughter of more than 1m chickens in Hong Kong in 1997. The British writer's book has a more European emphasis, noting for example the failure of the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta to acknowledge that it was a Dutch laboratory that first identified the H5 Hong Kong virus. Both writers offer cogent descriptions of the virus itself, the crucial point being the haemagglutinin and neuraminidase proteins according to which strains are named: H1N1, H2N2, and so on. They clearly explain how the Nobel prize- winning technique of polymerase chain reaction, or PCR, enabled molecular biologists to copy and analyse genetic fragments. And in the end both give broadly similar accounts of the rival scientists. Taubenberger emerges the far more credible figure, with Kirsty Duncan's highly publicised 1998 expedition to exhume the bodies of seven miners in Svalbard, Norway, proving a costly fiasco. Kolata has Duncan "talking endlessly about her hurts, hopes and fears" and wearing "sexy suede and high heels at the graveyard". Davies was part of the media circus that accompanied this trip, and his eye- witness account of the group's conduct confirms Kolata's negative impressions, although he does offer some sympathy, suggesting that Duncan lacked the necessary maturity. Both writers entirely vindicate Johan Hultin, who returns in true maverick fashion to see the plot to its finale. His tactful, behind- the-scenes negotiations with Alaskan villagers concerning the Inupiat burial site provides the perfect counterpoint to the publicised handwringing and prayers of the team in Norway. It seems curiously fitting that what became a race between scientists should have been documented by two rival authors with the same idea. Since both books are well-researched and well-plotted, it is a shame that they must compete for sales. At the end, Kolata returns to the still unanswered questions posed by the killer virus itself, while Davies updates us on the current state of research. At a conference in Maui, he encounters the drug companies and the new neuraminidase inhibitors - the most famous of which, Relenza, the UK government this year declined to recommend for prescription on the National Health Service, to Glaxo Wellcome's fury. As to the future, readers can take some but not enough comfort in the "global flu surveillance network" which exists to monitor the constantly evolving virus. Unfortunately China, one of the network's blind spots, is thought to pose a particular risk, due to a disheartening theory that rice farmers in the south have created an ideal environment for the virus to jump species. The worst case scenario, apparently narrowly averted in Hong Kong, is if an avian flu should jump to humans, possibly via pigs, and then mutate in such a way that it could travel from human to human, the point about China being that the rice farmers keep ducks and pigs in close proximity. While it is easy to sympathise with Davies' and Kolata's concerns about flu, it is by no means straight-forward to argue that we should redraw the list of planning priorities. Risk or no risk, influenza must compete for resources - both human and financial - with such ongoing concerns as climate change and environmental pollution, the Aids epidemic in Africa, and cancer research, not to mention the annual round of natural and man-made disasters. Humans will never know for sure which catastrophe will strike next. Speaking from his London pulpit in 1890, Reverend Daniel Bell Harkin declared it "marvellously humiliating" that microbes had proved "more powerful really than all our armies". Secular readers may find it harder to revel in nature's proof of human weakness; still, we are in no position to deny it. {{<End>}} A<>E<>R ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Integrity has no need of rules. -Albert Camus (1913-1960) + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + The only real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes. -Marcel Proust + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + "Believe nothing, no matter where you read it, or who said it, no matter if I have said it, unless it agrees with your own reason and your common sense." --Buddha + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + It is preoccupation with possessions, more than anything else, that prevents us from living freely and nobly. -Bertrand Russell + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + "Everyone has the right...to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers." Universal Declaration of Human Rights + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + "Always do sober what you said you'd do drunk. That will teach you to keep your mouth shut." Ernest Hemingway + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + Forwarded as information only; no endorsement to be presumed + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. section 107, this material is distributed without charge or profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving this type of information for non-profit research and educational purposes only. <A HREF="http://www.ctrl.org/">www.ctrl.org</A> DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER ========== CTRL is a discussion & informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic screeds are not allowed. Substance—not soap-boxing! These are sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory'—with its many half-truths, misdirections and outright frauds—is used politically by different groups with major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought. That being said, CTRL gives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and always suggests to readers; be wary of what you read. CTRL gives no credence to Holocaust denial and nazi's need not apply. Let us please be civil and as always, Caveat Lector. ======================================================================== Archives Available at: http://home.ease.lsoft.com/archives/CTRL.html http:[EMAIL PROTECTED]/ ======================================================================== To subscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email: SUBSCRIBE CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED] To UNsubscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email: SIGNOFF CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED] Om
