Influenza, the common flu, is not generally a sexy enough zoonotic disease to figure in an "evil genius plotting to destroy the world" scenario; it has not appeared in any recent James Bond movies, or pop apocalyptic scenarios (well, there was Stephen King's 1978 The Stand, with "Captain Trips" escaping from a top secret military facility). In the 2009-2010 H1N1 Swine Flu Pandemic, there were quite a many lurking rumors and suspicions that the virus—which exploded like a bomb in Mexico and then impossibly swept the globe in about three months—was a man-made monstrosity of equal helpings of swine, bird and human DNA.
To manufacture a possible "evil-genius" plot for world dominance, what would be the necessary elements? If an evil genius living underground and experimenting on the flu virus truly desired to kill off a large percentage of the world's population, possibly more effectively than did the 1918-1919 Great Pandemic, what key ingredients would he diabolically stir into his killer brew, and what timing would be necessary to ensure that the viral bomb would explode with maximum weapon of mass destruction (WMD) certainty?
Historical documentation indicates that the various influenza pandemics that proliferated and killed across the world occurred at the peak, or just after the peak of periods of intense solar activity. Sunspots and solar flares walk hand in hand with influenza epidemics, and most notably with pandemics. British astrophysicist Fred Hoyle even speculated that "influenza particles" travel from the sun through space to spark off raging influenza blazes. The Science Frontiers website correlates influenza pandemics with sunspot peaks.
History informs us that when a devastating flu pandemic knifes through populations, it is a pattern that the "killer" flu" always follows a very weak version of the virus which spread harmlessly one to two years prior to the killer events. The weak version of the virus tends to appear, making the leap directly from swine to humans, during periods of minimal solar activity.
One theory is that the radiation from intense solar activity induces influenza viruses to swiftly and drastically mutate on a large scale, providing the opportunity for widely spread viruses all over the world to suddenly try on new angles of attack, new possible points of entry into animal and human breeding grounds; the more successful mutations—easily spread from victim to victim and highly pathogenic—erupt and invade and manically spread across the surface of the world.
Flu experts shook and scratched their heads all through the 2009-2010 pandemic, as the H1N1 Swine Flu virus spread more efficiently than any other virus in recorded history, and yet was strangely mild (except in rare instances where apparently healthy people without any prior health conditions, suddenly and irreversibly sickened and died, apparently due to massive cytokine storms similar to the 1918-1919 Great Pandemic, but thankfully on a comparatively limited modern scale). The more canny flu experts worried, greatly, of reassortment and recombination of two separate viruses, chiefly the deadly H5N1 Avian Flu (highly pathogenic, but not very transmissible between humans) and the weak H1N1 Swine Flu (easily transmissible between people), producing a new pandemic that spreads easily and kills easily.
The theoretical evil genius, rubbing his hands unctuously, occasionally loosing a maniacal evil-genius laugh, would most likely release his manufactured virus at a time of low solar activity, such as 2009-2010, which science described as unusually low. To ensure that his virus would spread with greatest ease, he would probably work with versions of the virus that can leap from people to swine, vice versa, and from swine to birds and vice versa. The H1N1 Virus, released in 2009-2010, could be set in place, firmly entrenched with competing viruses, ready and set and just waiting for "go," whenever the sun chooses to wake and spout off a few solar blasts.
As the sun awakened in 2011, the environment is set in place, with a solar storm blasting off on Valentine's Day 2011. Scientists forecast unusual solar activity in the near future, apparently in compensation for the years of solar off-time.
If an evil genius released a virus in 2009, he might now be clapping his hands in his hidden Shangri La, as all of his necessary ingredients are set in place. But what needs to happen now? To make it a good movie, the mutation needs to happen. That could be happening right now. It is happening right now, because mutation and flu are partners, and mutation is influenza's natural doorway to survival.
Perhaps in the Year 2021, we will look back and make the correlation, yes, indeed, solar activity and influenza do walk hand in hand. Ah, what a movie. What a movie, indeed.
For more information on influenza, please visit The Flu HQ.
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