The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) will soon launch experiments designed to combine the H5N1 virus and human flu viruses and then see how the resulting hybrids affect animals. The goal is to assess the chances that such a "reassortant" virus will emerge and how dangerous it might be.
In truth, this is a new virus from recombination of four existing viruses. One human flu, one bird flu, and two swine flus. Actually, I don't see this disputed in Sandy's article. All she is saying is that recombination happens a lot and new viruses spring up all the time.
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The swine flu has actually been around for a while. Junkfood Science has a great post up about it.
In truth, this is a new virus from recombination of four existing viruses. One human flu, one bird flu, and two swine flus. Actually, I don't see this disputed in Sandy's article. All she is saying is that recombination happens a lot and new viruses spring up all the time.
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