H5N1 Flu Virus Could be 'Engineered' to Put Hundreds of Millions at Risk, Scientist Tells Homeland Security Committee

(CNSNews.com) - If H5N1 bird flu, which has a 60-percent fatality rate, were engineered to spread like seasonal flu, hundreds of millions of lives would be at risk, a scientist told the Senate Homeland Security Committee on Thursday. “What happens if a mammalian transmissible H5N1 flu starts to spread?" Thomas Inglesby, CEO and director of the Center for Biosecurity at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, asked rhetorically in his testimony. "Seasonal flu affects 10 to 20 percent of the world every year--as much as a billion...