Did U.S. government lie about deadly virus?
Nov. 9, 2005 Special to World Science U.S. officials seem to have quietly reversed an assurance they gave publicly last monththat copies of a deadly virus, which scientists recently recreated, would not leave a secure government facility. Terrence Tumpey, a microbiologist at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, examines reconstructed 1918 Pandemic Influenza Virus inside a specimen vial. (Courtesy CDC) Now, authorities acknowledge theyll mail copies of the germ, which killed an estimated 50 million people in 1918, to qualified laboratories that apply for it. The apparent flip-flop suggests the initial assurance might have been a lie, or deception, meant to calm a nervous public about the risky project, says the head of an anti-biological weapons organization. But U.S. officials deny misleading anyone. Scientists and government officials announced last month that they had designed a virus identical in most key respects to the infamous 1918 Spanish Flu virus. The projects state
