Scott McPherson's Web Presence

The weekend headlines shrieked "Scientists Make Bird Flu Breakthrough!" 

Well, not really a breakthrough on fighting the virus itself; more like a breakthrough on finding ways to more safely handle the H5N1 virus without accidentally triggering the next Stephen King novel.  If you search this Blogsite for my ongoing series "When Labs Attack," you will read horror story after horror story regarding how lab accidents can, and frequently do infect people, animals and the environment. 

One example: Just a few months ago, CSIRO workers in Australia were exposed to H5N1 when they all forgot to properly configure their canisters of air.  They are all fine, thanks for asking, but still the incident could have introduced the virus into the Australian nation. 

In this weekend's story,  Professor Mark von Itzstein and his team at the Institute for Glycomics at Australia's Griffith University worked with the very capable Professor Malik Peiris and his team at Hong Kong University's Institut Pasteur.  Peiris, for the uninitiated, is a protege of Dr. Robert Webster, the Pope of Influenza.   Besides his work on H5N1, he is also very well-known for his work in containing the SARS virus. 

The report that these seasoned viral researchers had discovered a way to slip the H5N1 virus into a protective envelope of a "virus-like particle" for safer examination is welcome news.

But I think the real message of that story was contained in the concluding paragraphs of the story which I found at: http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,23149404-1702,00.html . From the news.com.au story:

Prof von Itzstein, who helped to develop the influenza drug Relenza, said it was hoped the breakthrough could help to "crack the code" of the deadly H5N1 avian influenza virus.

OK, now here comes the most important part of the entire story:

The professor said the H5N1 virus had evolved to the stage where it could be transmitted from birds to humans, with evidence mounting that limited human-to-human transmission could also occur.

My friend Dr. Mike Osterholm was in Bangkok at that bird flu confab in late January, trying valiantly to convince the global press corps to stop writing about Beckham and Britney and start writing about something that will eventually happen, has happened with historical certainty ever since the Chinese domesticated ducks some 4,000+ years ago, and will absolutely keep happening, no matter how arrogant we are about our "superiority" over bugs. And that something is an influenza pandemic in the Just-in-Time 21st Century.

Professor von Itzstein is a man whose work has created the only antiviral that has not (yet) developed resistance in Influenza A.  He has studied H5N1 as much as any other scientist, perhaps including those intrepid people who work with Webster, Peiris and Oxford.  And he is telling us the "evidence is mounting" that the H5N1 virus is evolving, or adapting, or mutating, or whatever you want to call it.  Whatever you call it, it is heading for Humanity.  Slouching toward Bethlehem to be born, if you prefer Yeats.  And considering Bethlehem's strategic location and proximity to human and avian H5N1 cases, perhaps eerily prophetic.

Are we listening?