BIO-TERRORISM
work could be construed as contributing to the deliberate use of a pathogen. After receiving manuscripts in October 2011 for research under review for publication by US and Dutch researchers in two journals – Nature and Science – the National Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity (NSABB) at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in the US had recommended that some parts of the research about H5N1 influenza virus not be published. According to their initial report, the
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NSABB feared that explicit information on how to create a biological weapon from the H5N1 influenza virus would be available to would-be bioterrorists, should this research be published. Meanwhile, a group of leading influenza researchers convened by the World Health Organization (WHO) entirely disagreed with the NSABB findings, and stated that scientific publication of both articles should commence. Interestingly, the contrary decisions of both the NIH and the WHO advisory boards were made unanimously by each board’s respective membership.
Ferreting it out Both groups of influenza virus researchers, one at the Erasmus Medical Centre in Rotterdam (led by Ron Fouchier), and the other at University of Wisconsin, Madison (led by Yoshihiro Kawaoka) had made genetic manipulations to the H5N1 influenza virus.
he ongoing controversy about the H5N1 influenza virus has threatened to halt any scientific research where that
In both instances, the genetically modified H5N1 then became readily transmissible via the airborne route in a mammalian species - ferrets, which are commonly used as an animal substitute for human influenza research. These research results then led to the
concerns that a potential biological weapon had been created in the laboratory, since the H5N1 virus had not previously been so readily transmissible. Also, the proposed research articles detailed how these particular genetic pathogen manipulations in the influenza virus had been made, thereby providing a detailed ‘cookbook’ method for the potential bioterrorist. The NSABB decided that the papers could only be published if the methods used to make the influenza virus more readily transmissible were left out of the papers. Interestingly, the WHO expert committee urged that both papers be published in their entirety, as the benefits of such published research on the H5N1 influenza virus far outweighed the potential risks.
Previous publication It is important to note that there is a substantial case that both research papers simply provide information concerning previously existing scientific knowledge about the H5N1 influenza virus. Much of this information can be compiled from previously published material. For example, there is a published paper from researchers (Reuben Donis, et al.) at the US Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention (CDC), which demonstrate how to make the H5N1 influenza virus more readily transmissible. However, Donis and co-workers conclude that such a natural mutation in the H5N1 influenza virus is not likely in nature, while both Foucier’s and Kawaoka’s papers demonstrate that such an increase in influenza pathogenicity is considerably more likely than had been supposed. This is particularly true if, as has been disclosed in the media, both researchers performed different genetic manipulations of the H5N1 influenza virus, which has separately led to an enhanced pathogenicity of this virus. Why did the WHO group of experts
come to a different conclusion about the publication of this research than the NSABB? It was composed of scientific researchers and public health scientists. Was it in this group’s vested interest to not hamper any form of scientific inquiry? Does not any valid scientific information about a potential human pandemic influenza virus strain constitute important information that needs to be shared with the worldwide scientific and public health communities? Did the NSABB overreact with its initial decision? Did the NSABB seek to hamper all legitimate scientific research that could even remotely be considered to have “dual-use” implications?
How transmissible? After all, as the H5N1 influenza virus had demonstrated about a 60% case fatality rate in humans, this particular influenza virus can
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