Synthetic Influenza and In Silico Collections
This post is really about synthetic biology and influenza; but I want to start by clarifying one thing: If I were free to decide, I'm pretty sure that I would not enshrine into law sovereign rights over creatures great and small.
But I don't get to make the rules, nor do virologists (and not even The Imperial Laurie Garrett, heretofore "TILG", no matter how intolerably super-sized her ego gets). Maybe in another post, on another day, I'll explore how the present legal and treaty situation came to be; but that's not the point now. Instead, let's make the best of the hand we've been dealt. Hint: Folks searching for a gene sovereignty bogeyman can blame, in significant measure, the large mainline environmental organizations.
Today's ugly bellyaching about sovereignty and microbes in the flu science crowd (More)
About Immunocompetent
I am weary of public health G.I. Joes (and Janes) and other obsessives and their threats that we're all gonna die of bird flu.
I am turned off by the callous and poorly reasoned bashing of foreigners that fills many flu blogs.
I believe that greed and poor governance in the US and EU plays a huge and underexplored role in the sad state of global readiness for a flu pandemic.
I am sure that national security and public health ought not to be mixed up in the way they have become.
Immunocompetent is a place for enlightened talk about Bird Flu, and where xenophobia and fearmongering are banned.
Here you will find fresh perspective about the serious problem of potentially pandemic influenza. You'll get information and analysis that you won't find blogged elsewhere, because this site doesn't just comment on the news, it aims to make it.
From 1999 to 2008 your host, Edward Hammond, directed the Sunshine Project, a nongovernmental organization focusing on biological weapons and biosafety. He first stuck his toe into influenza issues in 2003, when the Sunshine Project issued one of the first public warnings that US scientists were intending to recreate 1918 influenza. Since 2006 he has focused on H5N1 issues, specifically, questions of access and benefit sharing related to influenza viruses.