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Monday, January 9, 2012

Local coverage of the locally-created new super flu

After reading my repeated postings about the local newspapers' silence about the now world-wide concerns about the invention of the new deadlier-than-ever flu virus invented at the University of Wisconsin, Madison and in Holland, a friend of mine sent an email to a reporter at the Cap Times, Todd Finkelmeyer, and to an editor at the Wisconsin State Journal, Scott Milfred, asking them why they weren’t covering this story.

Finkelmeyer wrote back pointing to his work on this (which I had completely missed), and to my chagrin, Finklemeyer has done a good job:

Bird flu research like that done at UW called ‘recipe for disaster'
TODD FINKELMEYER | The Capital Times | December 1, 2011

Feds ask that bird flu study conducted at UW-Madison be censored
TODD FINKELMEYER | The Capital Times |Tuesday, December 20, 2011

The Capital Times also published this opinion piece:

Anthony S. Fauci, Gary J. Nabel and Francis S. Collins: Dangerous flu virus research a risk worth taking ANTHONY FAUCI, director of National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases; GARY NABEL, works in NIAID virology lab; and FRANCIS COLLINS, director of National Institutes of Health | January 3, 2012.

The Wisconsin State Journal editor wrote back to my friend and said that they too had published a piece (from AP) so they weren’t staying silent either:

Feds asked researchers at UW to withhold details about bird flu creation
Associated Press, State Journal, December 21, 2011

You can decide whether the Wisconsin State Journal coverage has been significant or sufficient, but they’ve at least written something, and clearly, Finkelmeyer and the Cap Times have tried to keep the public informed on this matter.

Mea culpa. And happy to say so.

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