Biosecurity advisory board reverses decision on ‘engineered bird flu’ papers

abernard102@gmail.com 2012-08-20

Summary:

“Two scientific papers that describe experiments with a virulent and contagious bird flu virus should be published in uncensored form, a committee of scientists advising the federal government said Friday. That recommendation by the National Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity reverses one the committee made in January, when it asked two journals, Science and Nature, to hold off publishing studies about the lab-engineered strains of the H5N1 influenza virus. The about-face came after the heads of the research teams — one Dutch, the other American — clarified their work and provided new information on its possible importance at a two-day meeting of the committee in Washington. While the studies could still be used by terrorists or mischief-makers, the committee said in a written statement that ‘the additional information changed the board’s risk/benefit calculation.’ Two facts appeared to sway the 18 voting members, according to people on and off the committee not authorized to speak on the record. One is that the papers don’t provide step-by-step directions for how to make the engineered H5N1 strain. Specifically, they don’t provide a final list of mutations that made the bird flu easily transmissible in mammals, which it isn’t naturally. ‘The data described in the revised manuscripts do not appear to provide information that would immediately enable misuse of the research,’ the committee wrote. The second fact is that new surveillance shows that ‘wild’ H5N1 viruses circulating in chicken flocks overseas contain mutations similar to ones in the lab-engineered strains. Consequently, publishing the papers would give public health officials information that would help them identify wild H5N1 strains evolving in an especially dangerous direction. ‘Global cooperation . . . is predicated upon the free sharing of information and was a fundamental principle in evaluating these manuscripts,’ the statement said... The controversial research was paid for by the National Institutes of Health. The purpose was to determine what changes wild H5N1 flu virus would have to undergo in order to become easily transmissible between human beings — a trait that would make it hugely more dangerous if it remained lethal as well... Although the notion that some research can be put to both beneficial and nefarious use is not new, the question of what to do with the papers on the engineered bird flu virus took much of the scientific community by surprise. As the biosecurity committee debated the matter, Fouchier and Kawaoka agreed to a 60-day moratorium on further experiments. The World Health Organization convened a two-day meeting in February to mull over the issue. The Royal Society, in London, will hold another meeting next week. Earlier this week, the Obama administration asked federal agencies to inventory all the research they conduct and sponsor that involves 15 specific pathogens that ‘pose the greatest risk of deliberate misuse with most significant potential for mass casualties or devastating effects to the economy’ and report back in 90 days.”

Link:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/biosecurity-advisory-board-reverses-decision-on-engineered-bird-flu-papers/2012/03/30/gIQA6NOGmS_story.html

Updated:

08/16/2012, 06:08

From feeds:

Open Access Tracking Project (OATP) » abernard102@gmail.com

Tags:

oa.medicine oa.new oa.npg oa.comment oa.usa oa.nih oa.uk oa.funding oa.biomedicine oa.studies oa.who oa.oba oa.censorship oa.nsabb

Authors:

abernard

Date tagged:

08/20/2012, 18:34

Date published:

04/02/2012, 21:38