Os limites da Ciência

Há qualquer coisa de verdadeiramente errado quando o dinheiro entregue à Ciência se converte em experiências para criar super-vírus ou super-bactérias. A natureza não precisa da nossa ajuda para provocar catástrofes! A experimentação pode levar à descoberta de curas mas, às vezes, a cura torna-se secundária perante a "maravilha" da criação e desperta o Dr. Frankenstein em nós.

Por isso, o desejo do governo americano de impedir que seja divulgada informação referente à investigação em torno do vírus H5N1, porque teme que esta caia nas mãos erradas, aparece um pouco a despropósito. Se os cientistas estão a desenvolver formas mais letais do vírus, se calhar a investigação já está nas mãos erradas! A gripe das aves foi um sucesso de vendas mas, apesar de ter causado várias mortes, a sua letalidade não se aproximou dos valores da gripe de 1918, por exemplo.
Transformar o vírus responsável num super-vírus não é uma boa ideia pois, em caso de acidente, lá se cumpriria a promessa de um apocalipse "gripal" e aí não haveria vacina que nos valesse...

"Too late to contain killer flu science, say experts

Attempts to suppress details of the controversial experiments that have created a highly infectious form of bird flu virus are likely to fail, according to scientists familiar with the research.

The US government has asked two scientific journals to refrain from publishing key parts of research on the H5N1 strain of bird flu to prevent the information falling into the hands of terrorists intent on recreating the same flu strain for use as a bioweapon.

However, scientists said the plea comes too late because the information has already been shared widely among flu researchers. Others argue that the move could obstruct attempts to find new vaccines and drugs to combat an infectious form of human H5N1 if it appeared naturally. Professor Richard Ebright, a virologist at Rutgers University in New Jersey, said the research, which was funded by the US government, should never have been done without first assessing how to control the release of scientific information. "The work should have been reviewed at the national or international level before being performed, and should have been restricted at a national or international level before being performed," he said.

Two teams of researchers, one led by Ron Fouchier of Erasmus Medical Centre in Rotterdam and the other by Yoshihiro Kawaoka of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, have submitted manuscripts on bird flu virus to the journals Nature and Science. In them, they describe how they deliberately mutated the H5N1 strain of bird flu into an "airborne" strain that can be transmitted in coughs and sneezes between laboratory ferrets, the best animal "model" of human flu. (...)" The Independent