I’m not sure where I stand on this, but I’d like to hear what others think.
Is it possible that the 1918 flu was “released” from a government bio lab, and that’s why symtoms between it and H5N1 mimic each other? What are the odds for so many similarities to occur haphazardly? Also, what about existing population control literature? Could there be a grain of truth to this being the “final solution” of world depopulation objectives? Who stands to gain from a reduction in humanity? The rich? The greedy, landgrabbing multinationals? Politicians? If one third of humanity is wiped out (mostly poor unfortunates) the average Malthusian will consider it a good thing. The world’s resources would be there for the plundering without anyone to contest it. I’m talking fossil fuels, precious stones and metals, land and agriculture. Let’s also not forget the cheap labor force supplied by displaced survivors.
I’d love to debate this.
Looks like I had an “oops” there.
Anyway, I’m certainly not going to say that I believe that stuff, but it was after someone e-mailed me a similar story about 3 years ago that I did a search using “Killer Flu” as a search term. That’s how I got started watching H5N1.
The e-mail had a link to a real “tin foil hat” site that claimed the one worlders had recreated the H1N1 from 1918 and made it more lethal so that they could eliminate five sixths of the world population. It also claimed they would come up with a “miracle vaccine” at the last minute and the vaccine would actually be used to increase the spread of the virus.
I think such ideas are not realistic. If there was a release it was more likely the lab in China near Q lake (see the pig thread). ANd if you want the one nation that would gain from population reduction it would be China.
I think such ideas are not realistic. If there was an “accidental” release it was more likely the lab in China near Q lake (see the pig thread). And if you want the one nation that would gain from population reduction it would be China. If someone had a goal of depopulation, they would have started it in many areas at once and not sporadically over the last 7 years.
However, I do not think there is any conspiracies like that- incompetence, yes; conspiracy, no. Someone might have emptied a test tube out before they sterilized it. And since you ask me what I think- I think your tin hat may be a little too tight :) (Said in jest)
Plagues/pandemics happen. Just like volcanos and supervolcanos happen every so often in Earth’s long lifetime.
Its hard for us to face the fact that we are just as vulnerable now to disease as people were during the “black death” in the 1500s. The fact is we are just mortals, just regular mammals, as vulnerable to disase as any other creature. Those of us living in the western world have become used to the idea that we can overcome cancer with chemotherapy and get our heart valves fixed, but we are truly the minority. A small percentage of us might have access to modern health care, but as a species, the fact is we are no better off than 500 years ago, and in many ways in a much worse situation with global travel and densly packed cities.
We don’t need conspiracy theories when nature answers the questions so easily.
Thanks for the commentary. I tend to agree with the non-conspiracy camp…but you just never know. Yes gross incompetence has probably brought us nearer to the edge than most governments would ever admit…but then again, there have been so many reports of deliberate releases of pathogens throughout history (since the time of the Romans or earlier) that I find it hard to file the argument completely to the realm of the absurd. I think of the Georgia Guidestones and what they might represent, and I get shivers that there are “those” out there who really believe in the sanctity of their population purging mission. When you realize also that the UN and the WHO got their start from the coffers of the petro-chemical elite who now, coincidentally, support population control agendas, I am not left feeling confident of their assurances to protect the public.
I would still love to discuss this this thread. Keeps the old juices flowing. LOL
Anything is possible, I suppose, but the older I get the more I think disasters happen because of incompetence rather than conspiracies. Or, more likely a natural disaster compounded by incompetence. No one brought on KAtrina, no one can cause a hurricane-but boy they sure could make it worse.
And no-one wants to be thought of as incompetant so a mistake is made and its covered up-not so much because of greed or a hidden agenda-though sometimes that is the case, but I think much more often the poor soul who made the mistake covers it because he dosn’t want his colleagues pointing fingers at him. Its late, a lab worker is tired, distracted maybe a minent by some gossip, or a stray thought-whats for supper, who was that guy the wife was laughing with yesterday. He replaces the tubes, locks up the lab and goes home. Halfway home he thinks-Did I sterilize that stuff before putting it away-he thinks he did but he’s not sure. He’s allready locked up and it will be another hour before he gets home if he turns around, plus its raining and he’d really like a cold beer and monday night football. Oh, the hell with it, get to it first thing in the morning. But in the morning he has a huge fight with his wife over the laughing guy, and he’s late to work, and he’s forgotten all about the damn test tube.
Later when contagion breaks out he’s either completly forgotten about it and is mystified over the whole thing, or he thinks back to that test tube and thinks yeah, that was me-but he’s being considered for a promotion and his wifes thinking divourse and he cant look incompetant so he blames it on graduate students.
I think veriations of this scenaro happens all the time on every level. To err is human-to cover up our errors and blame someone else is even more human, going all the way back to Adam blaming Eve for the apple.
Green Mom – at 03:05
I love the analogy. You never know. I guess my cynical side is showing on this post. Hmmm…maybe I need a hobby.
Wolverine-lately Ive been having bouts of insomnia-note the time of my post! Its amazing what sorts of things go through your mind at two in the morning. Actually Ive had a little paranoia lately regarding the flu shots which I posted on the flu shot panic thread. Why do some areas have so much vaccine that people are being urged to get shots while the supply is delayed or insufficent in others? Worried in Wales couldn’t get flu shots for asthmatic children-who should be at the top o’ anyones list. Is Wales being “written off” as per the City triage thread? Chicago area? I find this odd.
Or again, is it just incompetance-someboby mislaid a shipping order, some clerk ordered 10,000 doses instead of 100,000. A computer glitch sent doses of vaccine meant for Cicero, Illinois to Glasgow Ky. Who knows?
The ‘authors’ of the vaccine-as-poison conspiracy theory could at least give credit for where they got the idea - Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six.
I’m open to the idea that the high-path H5N1 was developed in a lab. It is just that I think that this is highly unlikely, although I believe it was Monotreme who advanced the idea that botched veterinary vaccine efforts in China may have excacerbated the problem. Who knows?
However, if someone used the resurrected 1918 virus, why would they completely change the antigenic characteristics from H1N1, which had the proven ability to efficiently infect humans, to H5N1, which so far has been rather inefficient at infecting humans? Plus, the only researchers that I am aware of who have reconstructed the 1918 genome are led by JKT. Any thought that he is involved in any such plot is, frankly, insane.
No, this seems to me to be one of those bugs that naturally comes along every so often and threatens to cull a large part of the host population. It happens - whether to honeybees, elm trees, Colorado trout or Home sapiens. Better to get on with the task of meeting and beating it rather than wasting mental energy trying to puzzle out whacko conspiracy theories.
I too think if it was anyone it would have been the Chinese. The North Koreans are also big on biological weaponry and they can’t feed their own without help from their enemies and from China. Even their leader went to Beijing in January for his health problems. Diabetes, heart and liver. The man can’t even walk, and there are doctors in Russia experimenting to keep the man going. He might be like the self centered Samson in the Bible who pulled down the temple. But we could go on and on. As it is ,the people on top rip us all off without needing help from the virus. I think its Nature doing its thing, with an big helping hand from incompetant humans who have their own little agendas.There came a point in the Indonesian mess when I realized ,very clearly ,that people are their own worse enemies. All that we can do is prepare ourselves and attempt to alert others without endangering our own families. After all this virus isn’t the only killer out there.
Think on Bobbie Burns. “The best laid plans of mice and men go aft aglay.”
The premise to Stephen King’s The Stand is that a highly virolent flu strain escapes a government lab. It was either stated or implied (I forget which now) that it was being developed as a biological weapon. While it was intertaining, and scary reading,and I will admit pondering these things at two in the morning, I remain in the Berry “Great Influenza” camp that these bugs happen every so often, thats just how it is.
Now that its daylight, I’m going to put the conspiracy theory aside and go dehydrate some carrots.