Angalee Nadesalingam<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Sometimes it\u2019s easy to tell between Right and Wrong.<\/p>\n
Wrong:
\nChildren starving in Africa<\/p>\n
Wrong:
\nKilling people.<\/p>\n
Right:
\nHelping the old lady cross the street.<\/p>\n
But, sometimes there\u2019s this fuzzy gray area between black and white. Over the last couple of months, scientists have been making the headlines. So, what have these budding-Einsteins\u00a0 been up to?<\/p>\n
Well, they\u2019ve been creating a super-flu, a killer virus.<\/p>\n
Dr. Ron Fouchier from the Netherlands has lately become the object of a lot of critical international scrutiny. And, before I tell you more about him, I\u2019d like to mention that the Netherlands is ranked as the 25th<\/sup> most peaceful country in the world.<\/p>\n This 45-year old virologist genetically engineers new organisms for a living. He has recently been making a new strain of the highly fatal H5N1 bird flu virus. Though only 336 people have so far naturally died of this disease, its potential is much larger. If it were to escape from Dr. Fouchier\u2019s lab, it could kill more people than an exploding At almost the same time, virologist Yoshihiro Kawaoka of the University of Wisconsin combined the avian and swine flu virus to create a virus that can be transmitted through the air.<\/p>\n These discoveries can be a major improvement in science, because they can demonstrate which genes cause severe mortality.\u00a0 Right now, the medical and Meanwhile, people like us read these questions and think, \u201cWell, who gives a damn? What\u2019s the big hullabaloo about?\u201d But, the World Health Organization (WHO) and the U.S.A.\u2019s National Science Advisory Board of Biosecurity (NSABB), sure don\u2019t feel that way. In fact, they\u2019ve prevented these articles from being published in two of the most prestigious scientific journals, Nature and Science. But, why?<\/p>\n They\u2019re scared. That\u2019s the bottom line of it. They may use fancy, menacing words like \u2018bioterrorism\u2019, \u2018public safety standards\u2019, and \u2018potential biological weapons\u2019 to justify their censorship. However, what they truly believe is that militant groups will use these However, it seems that these terrorists already have access to plenty of other \u2018controversial\u2019 experiments:<\/p>\n <\/p>\n -In 2001, the genetic make-up to a -In Nature, instructions on how to create -The Spanish Flu of 1918, which killed <\/p>\n Today we live in a world where a person on <\/p>\n Well, really, the answer is Nothing. Angalee Nadesalingam Sometimes it\u2019s easy to tell between Right and Wrong. Wrong: Children starving in Africa Wrong: Killing people. Right: Helping the old lady cross the street. But, sometimes there\u2019s this fuzzy gray area between black and white. Over … Continue reading
\nnuclear reactor.<\/p>\n
\nscientific communities are awaiting answers to some gripping questions: How did
\nthese scientists manipulate the viruses? What are their genetic codes? What
\nmutations cause the fatality?<\/p>\n
\nexperiments to create deadly viruses that they will release into America. The
\nU.S. Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, spoke of \u201cwarning signals\u201d and even
\n\u201cevidence\u201d that the al-Qaida was trying to recruit \u201cbrothers with degrees in
\nmicrobiology and chemistry\u201d. She states that these terrorists only require
\n\u201cinexpensive equipment and college-level chemistry and biology\u201d to make these
\ndeadly diseases.<\/p>\n
\n100-percent fatal mouse poxvirus was published<\/p>\n
\nthe plague virus were laid out<\/p>\n
\nbetween 50-100 million people, has been fully re-created<\/p>\n
\none side of the planet can contact a person on the other within a matter of
\nseconds. Ideas can be just as contagious as viruses, as the recent uprisings in
\nthe Middle East have proven. It seems too late to stop this tidal wave of
\nresearch; what\u2019s to stop terrorists from acting on the existing research?<\/p>\n
\nNothing, but morals. So, maybe it\u2019s about time we spread good morals and
\nphilosophies around the world. As the movie Inception taught us all, ideas only
\ngrow in another\u2019s mind when the person believes it is their own.\u00a0 Even if the movie is fictional, it brings up
\na powerful idea: We can\u2019t force other people to share our morals. Few people
\nare talking about humanitarian prospects in this scientific argument, because it\u2019s
\ntoo much of a long-term plan. But, as we agreed at the beginning of this
\narticle, \u201ckilling people\u201d is wrong. We have to make everyone realize this fact.
\nOtherwise there really is nothing<\/em>
\nbetween life and death.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"