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From: plains!lenti.med.umn.edu!ernest@uunet.UU.NET (Ernest Retzel (1535 49118))
Newsgroups: sci.med.aids
Subject: Re: No "Genetic Weapon"
Message-ID: <1991Jan28.115913.21996@cs.ucla.edu>
Date: 28 Jan 91 02:53:54 GMT
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Organization: Dept. of Microbiology, U of MN, Mpls.
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In repsonse to a recent post of mine, one poster writes in part:

> There seems to be a common theme in the history of development of things:
> once something thought "impossible" has been demonstrated to be feasible,
> no matter what it was, everyone else seems able to do it, even /s the
> "inside information".  I think this line of reasoning could also apply to
> AIDS.  i.e. I find it hard to believe some fiendish scientist(s) somehow
> devised this bug, yet the rest of the talent in the world cannot undo it.
> I just happened to think of an example to my assertion:  nuclear fission,
> atomic weapons, etc.  It was theorized, but no one could make it work. Once
> it was proven and announced, others followed suit, armed only /c the knowledge
> it COULD be done.  While not 'a posteriori' evidence, I think the trend
> is concrete enough to continue to this day.

What I was trying to point out was that the tools simply were not there in the
year the document asserted this happened, nor are they now; they are getting
there, for exactly the reasons that you pointed out--things are possible, and
we will make them work.  However, the design of a novel bio-entity so unlike
anything we know about is nowhere near.  What we do now is mimic and change
existing things, and don't do a very good job of that.

The problem with the Manhattan Project comparison is that there *was* all 
that theory already; it did not have to be created first.  Add to that the 
fact that that Project brought together a team of first-rate nuclear 
physicists, primarily from academia, and basically the best of the 
scientific world at that time. That is not the same as trying to postulate a 
secret lab of maladjusted biologists who could be so insightful as to 
create/disseminate something that had no vaccine and no cure.

Ernest F. Retzel
Dept. of Microbiology
University of Minnesota
Minneapolis, MN

ernest@lenti.med.umn.edu