Alarm as Dutch lab creates highly contagious killer flu

The most alarming thing I found about this article was this paragraph, where the irony appears to be quite unconscious: Alarm as Dutch lab creates highly contagious killer flu - Science - News - The Independent:

Some scientists are questioning whether the research should ever have been undertaken in a university laboratory, instead of at a military facility.

It really worries me that "some scientists" appear to put their trust in "military facilities" rather than universities, which are. at least in theory, dedicated to more independent research.

It reminded me of the Cold War parody of a Western hymn:

The day God gave thee, man, is ending
The darkness falls at thy behest
who spent thy little life defending
from conquest by the East, the West.

The sun that bids us live is waking
behind the cloud that bids us die
And in the murk fresh minds are making
new plans to blow us all sky-high.

It worries me that "some scientists" seem to have a preference for operating in that murk.

But never mind:

Bombs shall dig our sepulchre
Bigger bombs exhume us.
Gaudeamus igitur
Juvenes dum sumus.[1]

Or, as Jeremy Taylor used to sing:

Three cheers for the army, and all the boys in blue
Three cheers for the scientists, and politicians too
Three cheers for the future years, when we shall surely reap
All the joys of living on a nuclear rubbish heap.

But since they tell us that "science" has won the battle of "science versus religion" we ought to forget all our outdated superstitions about human sinfulness, and rather put our trust in "some scientists" and their "military facilities".

____

Notes and references

[1] Both verses from Quake, quake, quake: a leaden treasury of English verse, by Paul Dehn.

Health hazard in flu vaccine?

It has been reported that some batches of flu vaccine have been contaminated by live avian flu virus (H5N1):

The Czech company Biotest near from Prague got from Austria a testing batch of the new flu vaccine for 2009 from the american company Baxter. In february they have found that the vaccine was contaminated by the H5N1 - Avian flu virus, which is on the list of the possible biological weapons and is one of the most dangerous biological agents on the Earth - with more than 60% death rate [4]. All the testing animals in Biotest were subsequently destroyed and all the workers in the company were put in quarantine. Luckily nobody contracted the disease. Subsequently the same problem of the Baxter vaccines contamination with H5N1 was found in the laboratories in Slovenia, Austria and Germany, which confirms that the source of the contagion was in fact the Baxter vaccine, which could be very probable, because Baxter is one of the companies, which are developing the vaccines against H5N1.

This has led some to suggest that it is a deliberate attempt to create a pandemic. That sounds more like a conspiracy theory, and most of these reports, except possiblt the original Czech ones, seem to emanate from conspiracy theory factories.

But I've managed to survive every winter of my life so far without resorting to flu vaccines, in spite of my Medical Aid sending out letters recommending them, and I think this year will be no exception.