Yes, sometimes I think that people get so carried away with trying to infuse their writing with character that they forget to check if they have one first! I just found the piece annoying, myself.

Though snide remarks aside, while I agree that the tone of the article is patronising and not at all befitting of even a semi-serious piece of writing, I think too much has been made of the dangers of genetic engineering in the past, and actually find myself appreciating the implied "It's still just a blooming virus!" stance. I mean, surely a virus with altered genetic material is about as likely to wildly mutate as one that's entirely 'natural' (whatever that means)?

There is no doubt that such a virus could be dangerous if it had been engineered, say, to be more resilient or to reproduce very rapidly, but I think people get so worried about the scary things that genetic engineering could do (if it wanted to) that they expect it to do so regardless of what is intended. The same could be said of the public perception of science in general, sadly enough - look at the way people have reacted to the LHC.