An award-winning scientist claims the British public are being lulled into a false sense of security because it appears there isn't going to be a big Foot & Mouth outbreak.

Dr Ken McClure is to the medical world what John Grisham is to the legal world. Now a full time author, Dr McClure has a PhD in molecular genetics, won the Difco Triennial Prize for research into microbiology, and discovered a new cell division gene, ftsK, named after him, whilst working for the Medical Research Council.

On BBC Radio Southern Counties today, which covers the Foot & Mouth outbreak area, presenter Gordon Astley described Dr McClure's book The Lazarus Strain as about "the escape of a virus, a bird flu virus, from a secure establishment. That sound familiar to those of you living in Pirbright?"

Ahead of the Game
"You are ahead of the game often and you were this time"
Whilst conceding this was true, Dr McClure said "The basic question behind The Lazarus Strain is how secure is a secure lab, and to all intensive purposes, Pirbright has answered that question"
He continued "If a virus can get out of that (Category A lab), this is extremely alarming and embarrassing ..."

"People are being lulled into a fall sense of security because everyone is so relieved that it doesn't look like there's going to be a big Foot & Mouth outbreak and in a few weeks time, it is going to go away ...."

Warning
Although the official report is not out yet, Dr McClure said:
"Unless HSE (Health and Safety Executive) establish EXACTLY how the virus got out from that place, as I say, there is no such thing as a secure lab and next time it could be Porton Down."
Porton Down is home to the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory, known as Dstl, Porton Down. It is believed to be one of the UK's most sensitive and secretive government facilities for military research, including chemical and biological weapons defence. CBD Porton Down most notably contributed to the Independent Inquiry into Gulf War Illness, commonly referred to as the Lloyd Report. It has come under scrutiny with regard to Gulf War Syndrome effecting soldiers from the 1991 Gulf War.

                                           

Pandemic
Dr McClure explained "What grabbed my attention was that a group of American scientists decided to resurrect the 1918 flu virus. This was a virus that caused the 1918 Pandemic that circled the world and killed up to 40 million people ie more people than died in the Great War itself! Today, at the moment, this virus is held in a Category A BL-4 lab, a lab similar to Pirbright". He conceded that many in the scientific world thought this to be a "crazy idea".

Forte
As to McClure's forte of writing about an outside possibility which subsequently turns into scientific fact, Dr McClure said that he had completed writing The Lazarus Strain over 2 years ago, well before stories of bird flu virus appeared on our TV screens. Further, on bird flu, he gave the chilling warning that "until the strain exists, you cannot make a vaccine to counter it, as it keeps changing its protein code"

Meantime, we await the official Report on exactly how the virus escaped from Pirbright, the Category A secure establishment.

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