Baxter: Product contained live bird flu virus

By Helen Branswell, THE CANADIAN PRESS
Last Updated: 27th February 2009, 3:26pm



The company that released contaminated flu virus material from a plant in Austria confirmed Friday that the experimental product contained live H5N1 avian flu viruses.
And an official of the World Health Organization’s European operation said the body is closely monitoring the investigation into the events that took place at Baxter International’s research facility in Orth-Donau, Austria.
“At this juncture we are confident in saying that public health and occupational risk is minimal at present,” medical officer Roberta Andraghetti said from Copenhagen, Denmark.
“But what remains unanswered are the circumstances surrounding the incident in the Baxter facility in Orth-Donau.”
The contaminated product, a mix of H3N2 seasonal flu viruses and unlabelled H5N1 viruses, was supplied to an Austrian research company. The Austrian firm, Avir Green Hills Biotechnology, then sent portions of it to sub-contractors in the Czech Republic, Slovenia and Germany.
The contamination incident, which is being investigated by the four European countries, came to light when the subcontractor in the Czech Republic inoculated ferrets with the product and they died. Ferrets shouldn’t die from exposure to human H3N2 flu viruses.
Public health authorities concerned about what has been described as a “serious error” on Baxter’s part have assumed the death of the ferrets meant the H5N1 virus in the product was live. But the company, Baxter International Inc., has been parsimonious about the amount of information it has released about the event.
On Friday, the company’s director of global bioscience communications confirmed what scientists have suspected.
“It was live,” Christopher Bona said in an email.
The contaminated product, which Baxter calls “experimental virus material,” was made at the Orth-Donau research facility. Baxter makes its flu vaccine — including a human H5N1 vaccine for which a licence is expected shortly — at a facility in the Czech Republic.
People familiar with biosecurity rules are dismayed by evidence that human H3N2 and avian H5N1 viruses somehow co-mingled in the Orth-Donau facility. That is a dangerous practice that should not be allowed to happen, a number of experts insisted.
Accidental release of a mixture of live H5N1 and H3N2 viruses could have resulted in dire consequences.
While H5N1 doesn’t easily infect people, H3N2 viruses do. If someone exposed to a mixture of the two had been simultaneously infected with both strains, he or she could have served as an incubator for a hybrid virus able to transmit easily to and among people.
That mixing process, called reassortment, is one of two ways pandemic viruses are created.
There is no suggestion that happened because of this accident, however.
“We have no evidence of any reassortment, that any reassortment may have occurred,” said Andraghetti.
“And we have no evidence of any increased transmissibility of the viruses that were involved in the experiment with the ferrets in the Czech Republic.”
Baxter hasn’t shed much light — at least not publicly — on how the accident happened. Earlier this week Bona called the mistake the result of a combination of “just the process itself, (and) technical and human error in this procedure.”
He said he couldn’t reveal more information because it would give away proprietary information about Baxter’s production process.
Andraghetti said Friday the four investigating governments are co-operating closely with the WHO and the European Centre for Disease Control in Stockholm, Sweden.
“We are in very close contact with Austrian authorities to understand what the circumstances of the incident in their laboratory were,” she said.
“And the reason for us wishing to know what has happened is to prevent similar events in the future and to share lessons that can be learned from this event with others to prevent similar events. ... This is very important.”

Iniciado por Doomsday

La farmaceutica BAXTER envio a material experimental contaminado por el virus de la gripe aviar H5N1. El material contaminado era el de la gripe humana el cual mezclado con el de la gripe aviar podria crear una variante de facil transmision entre humanos. La noticia sale publicada en un periodico canandiense pero como siempre es algo que pasa desapercibido para la poblacion. La verdad es que esto empieza a dar miedo ya que segun expertos en biotecnologia, que se produzca esta contaminacion de forma fortuita en laboratorios con tan alta seguridad es completamente imposible.



Baxter: Product contained live bird flu virus | Canada | News | Toronto Sun
?Accidental? Contamination Of Vaccine With Live Avian Flu Virus Virtually Impossible
Baxter: Product contained live bird flu virus

Then a granite company outside of Nuberg, Georgia was approached by a mysterious stranger who called himself "R.C. Christian," which he admitted was a fake name.

The Georgia Guidestones.

The stranger wanted a Stonehenge built -- he had a model of it in a shoe box -- and had selected Nuberg because it was remote and because it offered good granite. Mr. Christian reportedly left $50,000 in a local bank, told the locals that they would never see him again, and vanished forever...
(...)
The main cluster was completed on March 22, 1980, using granite quarried from nearby Elberton.

On the top stone, carved on the four sides in Egyptian Hieroglyphics, Classical Greek, Sanskrit, and Babylonian Cuneiform, it says: ""Let these be Guidestones to an Age of Reason."

Berlín, 2 de marzo, RIA Novosti. Un habitante de la ciudad de Gifhorn (Baja Sajonia) llamó a la comisaría la noche pasada, declarando que en su casa llegaron extraterrestres que hablaban en ruso, informó hoy la policía local.

Un hombre de 40 años llamó a las 03.30 a la comisaría, afirmando que en su apartamento estaban volando seis seres extraterrestres, con estatura de unos 15 centímeros, que estaban conversando en ruso con él, dijo un portavoz de la policía, sin concretar si el propio inquilino hablaba el ruso o no.

A los policías que acudieron al lugar del incidente, el individuo les dijo que los alienígenas ya habían salido afuera por la puerta y probablemente se escondían en las macetas.

Iniciado por Asdrúbal el Bello

Para paranoia esta:

RIA Novosti - Últimas noticias - Alemán afirma que lo visitaron extraterrestres que hablaban en ruso

Iniciado por allseeyingeye

bueno bueno, olvidemos de los rusos cosmonautas, y volvamos al asunto....


En la noticia ya lo recuerdan, que no es la primera vez que pasa, que BAYER ya hizo lo mismo pero con virus del SIDA (sea lo que sea eso).


Es muuuu gordo el asunto.