Talk:Robert Webster

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[edit] 1957

It seems to be wrong that Webster was the first who linked influenza to birds in 1957. In 1957 it was Martin M. Kaplan who was the first to analyse the parallelity of influenza H2N2 in humans and pigs. Even the cited nature article says, that Webster started his work on influenza in the early 1960s. Influenza-viruses in birds were first isolated in 1955. --De.Gerbil 11:57, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

The sourced claim is that he "is the virologist who in 1957 was the first to announce a link between human flu and bird flu." Not the first to "analyse the parallelity of influenza H2N2 in humans and pigs". Not the first to isolate influenza-viruses in birds. It would be useful to add to the article the research foundations created by others that he drew on, but the sources would have to specify exactly that. See our no original research policy. WAS 4.250 12:08, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

It was in 1954, when Werner Schäfer, a virologist of the German Max-Planck-Institut für Virusforschung (Tübingen) could definitely demonstrate, that the viruses of human influenza and of bird flu belong to the same group of viruses. He was the first to identify influenza viruses in birds. His work was published in German language in 1955: Werner Schäfer, Vergleichende sero-immunologische Untersuchungen über die Viren der Influenza und klassischen Geflügelpest. Zeitschrift für Naturforschung, Vol. 10b, p. 81–91, 1955 (Comparative Sero-immunological Studies on Influenza Viruses and Viruses of the Classical Avian Influenza)----De.Gerbil 14:44, 17 October 2007 (UTC)