Man Made H5N1 - Super Version

[Shiloh]

Re: Man Made H5N1 - Super Version

Source: http://www.ctv.ca/CTVNews/Health/201...eeting-120121/

Meeting to address bird flu research impasse: WHO
The Canadian Press
Date: Saturday Jan. 21, 2012 4:23 PM ET

The World Health Organization will gather a relatively small group of technical experts in mid-February in a bid to try to breaking the impasse over the proposed publication of controversial bird flu research...

...A senior official of the Geneva-based WHO says the meeting will likely involve fewer than 50 people and is tentatively slated for Feb. 16 and 17, though the dates may change...

[Pathfinder]

Re: Man Made H5N1 - Super Version

Scientist Plays Down Danger of Flu Strain

By DONALD G. McNEIL Jr.
Published: January 25, 2012

A Wisconsin virology team that created a more contagious form of bird flu did not produce a highly lethal superflu, as a Dutch team famously and controversially did last year, according to the leader of the Wisconsin team.

Dr. Yoshihiro Kawaoka of the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the University of Tokyo said in a commentary published online by Nature magazine that his team?s virus had infected ferrets through the air, but that it did not kill any of them. Ferrets catch flu just as humans do. Also, he said, ?Current vaccines and antiviral compounds are effective against it.?

By contrast, a virus created by Ron Fouchier of Erasmus Medical Center in the Netherlands had both the high lethality of the H5N1 avian flu and the ability to transmit easily among ferrets, touching off fears that his virus could be devastating in people.

However, a flu expert who serves on an American scientific advisory panel that looked at both Dr. Fouchier?s work and Dr. Kawaoka?s said the panel still believed key details should be censored from both papers before they are published to keep terrorists or rogue scientists from being to replicate the work, since the gene-manipulation techniques and intermediate mutations are as potentially dangerous as the end products.

Some scientists believe that Dr. Fouchier created what is potentially the most lethal virus in history ? a flu that would transmit through a sneeze and kill more than 50 percent of those who caught it. That has led to calls for restrictions. Some ? including the editorial board of The New York Times ? have argued that the virus stocks should be destroyed; others want the virus restricted to a small number of laboratories with the highest biosecurity levels.

Some scientists, including Dr. Fouchier, argue that the fear of his virus is exaggerated. What works in ferrets does not always work in humans, they argue, and the true lethality of avian H5N1 is unknown because there have been fewer than 600 confirmed human cases and many milder ones might exist...

Full text:

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/26/health/wisconsin-scientist-says-h5n1-flu-strain-he-created-is-less-dangerous.html?hpw

[gsgs]

Re: Man Made H5N1 - Super Version

so Kawaoka et.al took the HA from H5N1 and reassorted
it with ******, the result was highly transmissable
among ferrets but no more virulent than ******.

If that works the same way in humans then we could
maybe cause an artificial mild H5N1 reassorted pandemic
and thus get immunity towards other lethal H5N1 strains.

But it opens the door for further reassortments that
could make it lethal again.

And we could get that strain or similar combinations in swine,
if it were really that transmissable.
H5N1 were endemic in Indonesian swine in some regions,
causing only mild disease.
And we know, how much flu reassorts in swine recently !

So, terrorists,researchers just mix swine with 2009flu,
1998pigflu,H5N1indoswine,1978euroswineflu and see
what you get, haha.
And if some viruses escape - das macht doch nix, das märkt
doch keiner...


(******=2009flu=pH1N1(2009))

[gsgs]

Re: Man Made H5N1 - Super Version

Palese opinion:

http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2012/01/24/1121297109.full.pdf

doesn't make much sense to me.


"fear needs to be put to rest"


I wonder whether he has some interest in the data-release, i.e. whether he wants to
work on the issue.


----------------------------------------------------------------

www.pnas.org/cgi/doi/10.1073/pnas.1121297109 PNAS Early Edition

H5N1 influenza viruses: Facts, not fear
Peter Palese (a,b,1) and Taia T. Wang (a)
Departments of (a) Microbiology and (b) Medicine,
Mount Sinai School of Medicine, New York, NY 10029

Author contributions: P.P. and T.T.W. wrote the paper.
The authors declare no conflict of interest.
(1) To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: peter.palese@mssm.edu
*Details of the manuscripts have already been disclosed to many in the field
of influenza virology; for example, one of us (P.P.) was sent one of the
manuscripts in September 2011 as a courtesy and to elicit comments.


>The ongoing controversy
>over publication of two studies involving the transmission in
>ferrets of H5N1 (H5) subtype influenza viruses and the recommendations
>of the National Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity to redact
>key details in the manuscripts call for an examination of relevant
>scientific facts. In addition, there are calls in the media to
>destroy the viruses, curtail future research in this area, and
>protect the public from such “frightening” research efforts. Fear
>needs to be put to rest with solid science and not speculation.

>avian influenza | moratorium | World Health Organization |
>case fatality rate | National Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity

Facts
------
What Are the Studies About?
>The two studies
>discussed here are by Ron Fouchier at Erasmus Medical Center in
>Rotterdam and Yoshihiro Kawaoka at the University of Wisconsin
>(not yet published by Science and Nature, respectively) . Both
>senior authors are experienced virologists who have worked for
>years with highly pathogenic avian influenza viruses. Their respective
>studies differ in many ways, but both were designed to answer
>one question of whether H5 influenza viruses can achieve sustainable
>aerosol transmission in ferrets. The studies use the age-old method
>of virus adaptation by repeated passage in cells or in naive animal
>hosts. H5 viruses (WT or with specific mutations introduced that
>are known to confer tropism to mammalian tissue) were passaged
>in ferrets, a well established animal model for the study of influenza
>transmission (1–5) . Ultimately, both studies determined that,
> indeed, H5 viruses could acquire aerosol transmissibility while
>maintaining virulence in ferrets. * The experiments demonstrate
>the important finding that aerosol transmission between ferrets
>can be determined by a relatively small number of mutations that
>do not significantly change virus virulence. Thus, the need for
>continued surveillance efforts around H5 viruses is clearly reinforced
>by these works, as is the importance of continuing to develop
>H5 vaccines and therapeutics (6) .

How Relevant Are These Studies for Humans?
>The ferret system is an important model for the study
>of influenza transmission, virulence, and immunity (7–11) . Generally,
> the ferret model provides a more accurate reflection of how influenza
>viruses affect humans compared with the mouse model (another common
>system) (12) . Ferrets are quite susceptible to infection with
>influenza viruses. However, it is not clear that all virus strains
>that replicate in and transmit between ferrets necessarily do
>so in humans (13, 14) . Ferrets are also more likely than humans
>to have disseminated, multiorgan influenza disease including neurologic
>sequelae resulting from virus replication in the brain (15–18).
>Thus, the mutations identified in the studies by Fouchier and
>Kawaoka could cause the viruses to be more transmissible between
>humans, but this is simply unknowable from the available data.
> The viruses may well be more adapted to ferrets, but not more
>adapted to other mammals; one cannot directly extrapolate from
>the data to make predictions about humans. In fact, passage of
>viruses in a different host is the most frequently used strategy
>to reduce viral virulence in humans. Many live, attenuated virus
>vaccines have been generated by that approach, including those
>for poliovirus and yellow fever virus. Further experiments in
>other mammalian systems would enhance our understanding of the
>potential for the H5 viruses to transmit between nonferret mammals
>and/or cause disease in these systems (19–21) . It is known that
>H5 viruses have been circulating in poultry for at least 50 years
>(probably much longer) and that they cause natural infection and
>even transmit between some mammals such as pigs, dogs, and cats
>(21–24) (Figs. 1 and 2) . Despite regular human contact with animal
>reservoirs and the virus’ propensity to mutate, strains able to
>cause sustained disease in humans have not emerged. In fact, in
>humans, only influenza viruses of the subtypes H1, H2, and H3
>have circulated during the past 100 years, suggesting that other
>subtypes may not easily become significant human pathogens.

Why Is it Important to Have the Full Data Published?
>With respect
>to the specific papers by Fouchier and Kawaoka, it would be important
>for other scientists to replicate portions of these works to test
>new vaccines/therapeutic agents and for continued studies on the
>molecular aspects of influenza transmission, a topic that is extremely
>important yet relatively poorly understood (25–27) . From a broader
>perspective, publishing relevant methods and data related to important
>experimental findings is fundamental to progress in science. Enabling
>others to repeat published data makes it possible to expand on
>what is known; the cycle of publication followed by experimental
>replication and advancement has resulted in the majority of our
>scientific and medical achievements. With specific reference to
>influenza viruses, the free flow of data has enabled the timely
>development of vaccines and other medications for seasonal and
>pandemic disease, and has, without question, saved millions of
>lives.

Fear
-----
>With the understanding that all parties involved have
>worthy intentions, it is difficult to ignore some of the incongruities
>that overshadow discussions related to H5 viruses and the publication
>of these two manuscripts. Examination of the topics discussed
>below may relieve some of the fear that is fueling the current
>debate.

Is the Case Fatality Rate for Human H5 Infections Truly Greater than 50% ?
>At the heart of this controversy is the notion
>that the case fatality rate for human H5 infections is in the
>range of 50% to 80% . This rate is derived from the list of H5
>cases that have been “confirmed” under World Health Organization
>(WHO) guidelines; the list tallies 573 cases in 15 countries
>(as of December 15, 2011) , with nearly 60% of total cases resulting
>in death (28) . The frequency and certainty with which this staggering
>fatality rate is reported is troubling when one considers how
>the numbers are generated; in order for a case to be confirmed
>by WHO, a person must have an acute, febrile respiratory illness
>(temperature >38C/100.3F) with known H5 exposure in the 7
>days preceding symptom onset and have molecular confirmation of
>H5 infection by a WHO-approved laboratory (e.g. , virus isolation,
> PCR, serology) (29) . This definition does not allow for asymptomatic
>infections and essentially requires that a person actively seek
>medical help at a hospital that is
>equipped to draw samples and ship them to an approved laboratory.
>Given that rural populations in developing countries are most
>commonly affected by H5 viruses, it seems unlikely that even a
>small fraction of the total number of infected cases has been
>accounted for under the WHO surveillance system. Also, the fatal
>cases that have been reported are most likely caused by mega-doses
>of H5 virus inhaled by the patients, who are living in very close
>contact with infected poultry. Transmission involving small doses
>of virus (as observed under regular aerosol transmission conditions)
> may not result in overt disease. Of the 10 largest studies of
>which we are aware (N=500) (30-39) , which document seroevidence
>in humans for H5 infections, two studies report no seropositivity
>and the other eight report rates ranging from 0.2% to 5.6% ; the
>studies are mostly conducted in rural areas where H5 in fections
>have been previously documented (30-39) . Even if only a low percentage
>of the rural population is asymptomatically/ subclinically infected,
> the case fatality rate that is offered by the WHO—and that is
>driving this controversy—is likely orders of magnitude too high.
> This suggests that more work should be done to determine an accurate
>case fatality rate for H5 infections, which takes into account
>mild and asymptomatic cases.

Why These Papers, Why Now?
>The type of work performed in the studies under evaluation is quite common
>in virology becauseitisausefulwaytostudymolecular determinants
>of virus adaptation, pathogenesis, and transmission. The reasoning
>behind the selection by the National Science Advisory Board for
>Biosecurity of these specific papers for redaction/censorship
>seems somewhat arbitrary relative to what has previously been
>published in the field of influenza. In 2005, the complete sequences
>for the 1918 pandemic influenza virus were published in Nature
>and methods describing the rescue of the 1918 virus were published
>in Science (40, 41) . In 2006, both Science and Nature published
>reports of specific mutations that enable the H5 viral hemagglutinin
>to bind human, rather than avian, tissues (42, 43) . In 2012,
>a report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that
>bears striking resemblance, in principle, to the works by
>Fouchier and Kawaoka was already published in Virology;
>it describes mutations in an H5N1 virus that confer airborne transmissibility
>between ferrets (44) . Studies have also been published recently
>that describe mutations enabling other potential pandemic strains
>to transmit between ferrets (45, 46) or that make currently circulating
>virus strains more virulent (47) . These are a small fraction
>of studies published during the past decade that could have been
>considered controversial (some were controversial at the time,
> but all were published in full) . We know from studies like these
>that, for example, the 2009 pandemic vaccine protects against
>the 1918 pandemic virus and thus the 1918 strain is not a pandemic
>threat at this time (48) , nor would it be of any advantage for
>a bioterrorist to lay his/her hands on it. Other striking examples
>of achievements based on the free exchange of potentially controversial
>information are the elimination of SARS corona virus in only 6
>months and the fact that the dangers of HIV have been dramatically
>reduced by the development of effective antiviral treatments.
>None of this would have been possible without the uncensored exchange
>of scientific data.

Could the Data from These Two Papers Realistically
Be Used to Generate an H5N1 Biologic Weapon?
>The answer is simply no.
>It would be unrealistic to assume that these ferret viruses
>could be successfully used against humans. Even if the viruses
>were transmissible between humans and were to cause disease in
>humans, viable vaccine candidates for H5 viruses do exist and
>available influenza medications have good activity against H5
>strains (49, 50) . Additionally, safely generating a stock of
>highly virulent influenza virus based on raw sequence information
>would require (i) access to a sophisticated laboratory setting,
> (ii) proficiency in relevant concepts of molecular biology, and
>(iii) experience with laboratory methods related to influenza
>viruses (e.g. , rescue by reverse genetics, growth and harvesting
>of the virus, storage) . In contrast to the expertise and resources
>that would be required to use nucleic acid sequences for virus
>production, passing a virus in animals (or humans) to adapt it
>to a mammalian host would require no training or data, and could
>likely be done very quickly. Still, this approach is extremely
>unlikely to be successful. As mentioned earlier, passing viruses
>in animals typically results in attenuation of the disease phenotype
>and, perhaps most importantly, this experiment has been and is
>going on every day in a natural setting. So far, of the likely
>millions of mammals that have hosted H5 viruses,
>none of the strains that have emerged are real human pathogens.
> It would be very difficult for a bioterrorist to come up with
>a human virus strain that is transmissible and still highly
>virulent. Under natural conditions, however, there is virtually
>unlimited allowance for generation of capable viruses, the opportunities
>for infection of humans are plentiful, and the evolutionary pressures
>of selection are great. If anyone could do it, Nature could.

[gsgs]

Re: Man Made H5N1 - Super Version

>It is known that H5 viruses have been circulating in poultry for
>at least 50 years (probably much longer)

no.These were single outbreaks, the virus died, then another outbreak
occurred elsewhere. The current HP H5N1 is "circulating" only since
1997. H5N2 was circulating in American poultry, but not as virulent.
And a completely different strain in all 8 segments.

>to test new vaccines/therapeutic agents and for continued studies on the
>molecular aspects of influenza transmission, a topic that is extremely
>important yet relatively poorly understood (25-27).

you would better study that in seasonal flu ?!

>With specific reference to
>influenza viruses, the free flow of data has enabled the timely
>development of vaccines and other medications for seasonal and
>pandemic disease,

yes,but is that particular artificial strain so important ?

>and has, without question, saved millions of lives.

how to prove that ? The studies could show no big effect of vaccination
towards life saving, afaik.
And for vaccine production, I don't see why the data in question would
be important.

>Is the Case Fatality Rate for Human H5 Infections Truly Greater
>than 50% ?

in most human outbreaks that we saw it was. If it goes pandemic,
what CFR would we expect ? We had the clusters in Turkey,Karo,
the outbreaks in Tigers and so bad for the chickens+turkeys.
The cfr in humans might well go down, but then with high
probability (>20%,IMO) it might not.
The subclinical infections that he mentions have other
backgrounds, not what we would expect if it goes pandemic :
suddenly seeing mild cases and severe cases simultaneously.
We didn't see that before.

>1918 H1N1

that was different. The virus is extinct, H1 is seasonal now.
And it's much harder to reconstruct, many mutations needed.

Arguing that possible flu-terrorism usable info had been
published already is no indication that it should continue.
The question is, what would we expect in the current case ?
This must be answered by those who know the details.

>We know ...that the 2009 pandemic vaccine protects against
>the 1918 pandemic virus and thus the 1918 strain is not a pandemic
>threat at this time (48)

thus refusing his own previous argument, that 1918 H1N1 was allowed to be
published and thus H5N1 should be too.


>SARS,HIV

this is very different, not much usable for terrorism.(I hope)
And that was 2003, since then we made some advances ...

> Could the Data from These Two Papers Realistically
> Be Used to Generate an H5N1 Biologic Weapon?
> The answer is simply no.

so simple. Just others disagree ?!?

>It would be unrealistic to assume that these ferret viruses
>could be successfully used against humans. Even if the viruses
>were transmissible between humans and were to cause disease in
>humans,

so, that could happen yes ?

>viable vaccine candidates for H5 viruses do exist and
>available influenza medications have good activity against H5
>strains (49, 50) .

how much does the vaccine protect and could a flu-vaccine prevent
a pandemic anyway ? This is very debatable and it never did in the past.
And how much would it cost and how long take to produce it ?
Vaccines can't even prevent the seasonal outbreaks.

>Additionally, safely generating a stock of
>highly virulent influenza virus based on raw sequence information
>would require (i) access to a sophisticated laboratory setting,
> (ii) proficiency in relevant concepts of molecular biology, and
>(iii) experience with laboratory methods related to influenza
>viruses (e.g. , rescue by reverse genetics, growth and harvesting
>of the virus, storage) .

terrorist may not care so much about safety ...

>In contrast to the expertise and resources
>that would be required to use nucleic acid sequences for virus
>production, passing a virus in animals (or humans) to adapt it
>to a mammalian host would require no training or data, and could
>likely be done very quickly.
>Still, this approach is extremely unlikely to be successful.

It was already ?!

>As mentioned earlier, passing viruses
>in animals typically results in attenuation of the disease phenotype

"typically" ? H5N1-experiments typically didn't show this.
It seemed to be the exception.

>and, perhaps most importantly, this experiment has been and is
>going on every day in a natural setting. So far, of the likely
>millions of mammals that have hosted H5 viruses,
>none of the strains that have emerged are real human pathogens.

these "millions" were not tested in humans, had no opportunity to
transmit through >10 generations of humans as Fouchier did with ferrets.
Much more infections of humans happen with other avian viruses,
yet it usually takes decades until one is successful and causes a pandemic.

> It would be very difficult for a bioterrorist to come up with
>a human virus strain that is transmissible and still highly
>virulent.

the Fouchier-virus may qualify.
they just wrote:
>production, passing a virus in animals (or humans) to adapt it
>to a mammalian host would require no training or data, and could
>likely be done very quickly.

>Under natural conditions, however, there is virtually
>unlimited allowance for generation of capable viruses, the opportunities
>for infection of humans are plentiful, and the evolutionary pressures
>of selection are great. If anyone could do it, Nature could.

And it did in 1918.
But it's so slow. Nature typically needs reassortment and thus
double-infection and then transmission of that virus.
We can much better do that in a lab.
Heck, they can just freeze old viruses and wait some decades,centuries
until immunity wanes -as seen in 1977- .
Nature seems to be unable to do this.

[gsgs]

Re: Man Made H5N1 - Super Version

Tom Inglesby wrote:

> The principal scientist of the controversial H5N1 experiment said he believes that
> this engineered virus would spread as well as seasonal flu.

do we have a quote ? Who has said this ? Fouchier ?

----------------------------------

But Fouchier electrified the flu world in September when he gave an outline of the work
at a major influenza conference in Malta.
He told the gathering that in trying to find out whether H5N1 could acquire the ability
to spread easily among people, he came up with a virus that spread among ferrets
as easily as seasonal flu viruses, according to a report on the meeting in Scientific American.

http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/2011/12/30/what-really-happened-in-malta-this-september-when-contagious-bird-flu-was-first-announced/

Katherine Harmon was at the meeting in Malta Sept.12 and reports:
> And that was when “someone finally convinced me to do something really, really stupid,”
> Fouchier recounted. They put the mutated H5N1 into the nose of one ferret, then took a
> sample of nasal fluid from that ferret and put it in the nose of another. After 10 ferrets,
> the virus began spreading from ferret to ferret via the air just about as easily as a seasonal flu virus.

is it just this that Inglesby is referring to ?


and BTW. Fouchier just only announcing this in a Malta hearing was bad, IMO.
He should have first contacted the commission and then, -if-, announce it directly on his
webpage in a prepared statement IMO


5 mutations
key substitutions are in the HA and PB2 areas

[Pathfinder]

Re: Man Made H5N1 - Super Version

Published: January 28, 2012

Letters

<NYT_HEADLINE type=" " version="1.0">Sunday Dialogue: Bird Flu Experiments</NYT_HEADLINE>

Research into the bird flu virus has set off an impassioned scientific debate over its risks and benefits. Here is a sampling.

To the Editor:
Re ?Bird Flu Scientists Agree to Delay Virus Research? (news article, Jan. 21):

There is great debate in the scientific and public health community about what should be done regarding recent experiments in which scientists mutated H5N1 bird flu strains so that they could spread readily between ferrets.

Ferrets are the best model for predicting human flu transmission, so the assumption should be that this new strain would spread among humans, perhaps as easily as seasonal flu.

Both sides in the debate deeply value public health and are seeking to diminish the dangers of bird flu. The question is whether these new experiments increase or decrease the dangers of a bird flu pandemic.

Naturally occurring H5N1 bird flu has killed nearly 60 percent of the 583 cases confirmed by the World Health Organization since 2003. Fortunately, it has not spread effectively among people. If this engineered transmissible H5N1 strain were to escape the lab by accident or intentional act, and if it maintained high lethality while spreading as effectively as seasonal flu, it could kill tens or hundreds of millions of people worldwide.

Those in favor of the work have argued that it will improve bird flu surveillance and vaccine development efforts. But it seems unlikely that bird flu surveillance and control programs will be substantially changed based on this research. And developing vaccines against H5N1 strains that are actually emerging in nature does not require this kind of research.

The potential benefits of the research do not justify the potential dangers, so the research should be discontinued. While in almost all circumstances basic research should be fully disseminated in the science community, in this case the results should not be published in a way that allows them to be replicated by others. If allowed to continue, the research should be performed only in pursuit of concrete, urgent goals under international approval and the greatest possible safety conditions.

TOM INGLESBY
Baltimore, Jan. 24, 2012
The writer, an infectious-disease doctor, is director of the Center for Biosecurity, University of Pittsburgh Medical Center.

Readers React:

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/29/opinion/sunday/sunday-dialogue-bird-flu-experiments.html?pagewanted=all

[Pathfinder]

Re: Man Made H5N1 - Super Version

The cat is out of the bag people. It evidently is fairly easy to make. There are universities all over the world capable of replicating the results. It is extremely virulent in ferrets. Which sadly translates as probably being extremely virulent in humans. If terrorists do decide to reengineer this virus then we only have a short time to counter. Instead of fighting over what we should have done re. the original manufacture of the virus, we should now be focusing on education, vaccines, etc... The virus mutating on its own was always a threat in any event. The virulence has always been exceptional. The cfr has been abyssmal. The study only highlighted how fast and easy eventual mutation was likely to occur in any event. The only saving grace is if some idiots do release this they are likely to also kill their own people. Detente may be the only deterrent.

Readers React
Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/29/op...pagewanted=all

Excerpt:

In principle the specific knowledge gained from biomedical research with influenza viruses might aid surveillance and suppression efforts. However, that decidedly optimistic view overlooks some inconvenient on-the-ground realities. Mother Nature may compose a completely novel killer virus at any time. A better use of limited resources may be ensuring that global surveillance efforts are adequate to detect emerging flu viruses as early as possible and providing the means to eradicate them swiftly.

The record of well-documented accidents involving a range of human and animal pathogens at biodefense and other facilities is not reassuring. For instance, the severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) virus has escaped containment several times.

Controlling the dissemination of information and restricting future work seems advisable. But, in a real sense for anyone hoping to deter bioterrorists, that cat is already out of the bag.

A quick review of recent publications will reveal the simple method used to select this new virus. Whether they possess the precise nucleotide sequences or not, knowing the general technique and, more important, now knowing with certainty that such a beast can be made, would-be terrorists can collect their own bird flu viruses in Asia and attempt to brew up a nightmare.

Despite the good intentions of the scientists working with engineered H5N1 and presumably other such viruses in the future, I object to potentially betting so many lives on the promise that these experiments can be undertaken in complete safety.

TYLER A. KOKJOHN
Glendale, Ariz., Jan. 25, 2012
The writer is a professor of microbiology at Midwestern University.

[JJackson]

Re: Man Made H5N1 - Super Version

The writer, an infectious-disease doctor, is director of the Center for Biosecurity, University of Pittsburgh Medical Center.

Again this debate splits straight down party lines. Follow the funding.

[Pathfinder]

Re: Man Made H5N1 - Super Version

Readers React
Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/29/op...pagewanted=all

Excerpt:

...The present discussion brings to mind a similar problem faced by atomic scientists just before World War II. As word of Lise Meitner?s discovery of nuclear fission spread through Europe, the Hungarian physicist Leo Szilard took it upon himself to persuade colleagues around the world to limit public discussion related to this discovery, to prevent Nazi scientists from developing an atomic bomb.

It seems clear to me, as a scientist, that when our discoveries have an impact in ways that threaten humanity existentially, we must sometimes delay the gratification that comes with publicizing our findings.

One hopes that pertinent details concerning this extraordinarily virulent virus will be suppressed.

ABRAHAM R. LIBOFF
Delray Beach, Fla., Jan. 25, 2012
The writer is professor emeritus of physics at Oakland University.

[mixin]

Re: Man Made H5N1 - Super Version

I find this whole research issue confusing; I'm not knowledgeable about how research projects are funded.

Surely when these were funded, the expectations were clear.. in that the goal was to do what was finally accomplished. I find it hard to believe that guidelines were not laid out as to what the researchers would do with the information if they were successful.

[sharon sanders]

Re: Man Made H5N1 - Super Version

hat tip Michael Coston

Contact: Diana Friedman
dfriedman@nyas.org
212-298-8645
New York Academy of Sciences
Dual use research: H5N1 influenza virus and beyond

Experts to discuss controversial studies on avian flu virus at live event

WHAT: Dual Use Research: H5N1 Influenza Virus and Beyond

WHEN: Feb. 2, 6pm to 8pm

WHERE: The New York Academy of Sciences
REGISTER: www.nyas.org/H5N1

The US National Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity (NSABB) recently recommended that journals Nature and Science remove certain methodological details from controversial studies on the avian influenza virus (H5N1) to minimize the risk of these findings being misused by would-be bioterrorists. On February 2 from 6pm to 8pm, the Emerging Infectious Diseases & Microbiology Discussion Group of the New York Academy of Sciences presents Dual Use Research: H5N1 Influenza Virus and Beyond, a discussion between scientists, publishers, and legal experts that will explore the myriad issues surrounding the impending publication of these two studies and measures that will need to be undertaken to ensure the security of future such research.

To weigh in on matters of censorship and public safety, W. Ian Lipkin, MD, Center for Infection & Immunity at Columbia University, will moderate a panel discussion with Arturo Casadevall, MD, PhD, Albert Einstein College of Medicine, and member, NSABB; Laurie Garrett, PhD, Council on Foreign Relations; Barbara R. Jasny, PhD, Science; Veronique Kiermer, PhD, Nature Publishing Group; Michael T. Osterholm, PhD, MPH, Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy, University of Minnesota, and member, NSABB; Peter Palese, PhD, Mount Sinai School of Medicine; Vincent Racaniello, PhD, Columbia University; and Alan S. Ruldolph, PhD, Defense Threat Reduction Agency.

###
Attendees must register at www.nyas.org/H5N1. Media must RSVP to Diana Friedman, dfriedman@nyas.org.

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2012-01/nyao-dur013012.php

[sharon sanders]

Re: Man Made H5N1 - Super Version

There is a charge of $30.00 to view this program which is a travesty in my opinion.

It should be very interesting, however. Here is a recent comment by Vincent Racaniello on this issue:

"Racaniello: Most virologists agree that the experiments should proceed and are not exceptionally dangerous. The exceptions are those who don't understand the science, and the bioterror community. These individuals have proliferated since 9/11 and the anthrax attacks. They are paid large sums of money to sit in offices and decree what scientists can or cannot do. They are not practicing scientists and they don't appear to understand the underlying science.

Entire academic departments and corporations have been funded by the U.S. government to ponder potential dangers and tell scientists what to do. We now have a bioterror-industrial complex that rivals the military-industrial complex that Dwight Eisenhower warned us about. It is a scam, and I hope one day the nature and extent of the wasted money will be revealed to the public."

[JJackson]

Re: Man Made H5N1 - Super Version

Prfvvr good luck! I regret you will need it as they have packed the panel with bio-threat industry spokesmen.

[Pathfinder]

Re: Man Made H5N1 - Super Version

From Sharon's post:

"The exceptions are those who don't understand the science, and the bioterror community......They are not practicing scientists and they don't appear to understand the underlying science."

The conflict of opinions on this research seems to be, not only between governments and scientists, but also among scientists themselves.