Once again, Communist China is suppressing information vital to the control of bird flu world-wide. The last time they did this was in connection with the SARS outbreak, and we’re seeing the the same pattern repeat itself:
“It might be another clumsy attempt at a cover-up. It might just be plain, everyday incompetence. Either way you’d think they would know better by now,” one international scientist said.
He said that suspicions about Beijing’s approach were heightened when independent scientists researching the avian flu outbreaks had their work thwarted by government officials. Guan Yi, a scientist from Hong Kong University who led the international research on the Sars virus, said last week that the authorities had tried to stop his team’s work on bird flu after he published an article in the journal Nature, warning of the global threat posed by the virus and linking it to other cases in China.
The Chinese government’s chief veterinary official publicly condemned his research, saying it had been conducted without permission and “lacked credibility”. The next day, officials visited Dr Guan’s laboratory in Guangdong province and told him to stop his research and hand over samples, citing a breach of safety regulations.
Further disquiet has been expressed by international researchers about China’s use of drugs designed to combat avian flu. Although China first reported a flu outbreak in February 2004, it emerged recently that its farmers had been trying to suppress a serious outbreak for more than eight years by feeding poultry with an antiviral drug meant for humans, in breach of international livestock guidelines.
As one of two main drugs used for treating human influenza, Amantadine should have had a key role in fighting any future pandemic.
Instead, the H5N1 strain of bird flu has become resistant to the drug because it was systematically fed to poultry.
The Chinese government denies reports that it encouraged its farmers to use the drug.
Scientists need information on this deadly new virus in order to build an effective anti-virus, especially important since it can be carried hundreds of miles by migratory birds.
China’s stonewalling essentially turns bird flu into a WMD, and takes away some of the mystery behind the decision of Valerie Plame’s CIA section to target the Chinese Embassy for bombing in Belgrade in 1999.