<p>"According to the journals, two research labs have submitted papers showing how to make the virus more transmissible in humans, and the NSABB, an independent expert committee that advises the Department of Health and Human Services and other federal agencies, wants to keep this information from falling into the wrong hands. "</p>
<p>In this day and age, when it is known that terrorists groups can and have downloaded instructions for making bombs from the Internet, I see no reason to assume that ONLY those who need to know[ such as scientists] will be the ONLY ones who get their hands on this info, if it is published. I find that incredibly naive. We have only to look at the numerous invasive computer hacks by Chinese government agents to know that keeping this kind of information in the only the “right hands” is not yet possible.
When the Nuclear Bomb was being developed, most physicist in the country were not aware of the project. Why should the standards for release of information about a potentially equally deadly weapon be any less stringent??</p>
<p>I believe that scientists working on a altered version of the 1918 flu virus, which resulted in a worldwide pandemic, have also been asked to not publish their results, for the same reasons.</p>
<p>This is what I remember about bird flu. It was given a big build up in the press and blogs around 2005. Coincidentally, a then Cabinet Secretary was also affiliated with a Big Pharma co. that made the only then known treatment for bird flu. After a huge amount was sold and hoarded, it was revealed the drug was not effective.</p>
<p>Well, the bird flu caused a lot of deaths in China, and is a particularity virulent form of flu virus, with a very hi death rate. That is the reason for the big scare in 2005- it was hard to stop and was passed very easily.</p>
<p>menloparkmom, while I agree with your argument, I also get what the scientists are trying to say. While it is not not necessary to know how the inner works of a nuclear weapon to design protection from one, such as a fallout shelter and a radiation detector, it is critical to know the information about the virus (e.g. its nucleic acid sequence, certain metabolic pathways, etc.) to design proper diagnostcs and new drugs that target the virus.</p>
<p>"it is critical to know the information about the virus (e.g. its nucleic acid sequence, certain metabolic pathways, etc.) to design proper diagnostcs and new drugs that target the virus. "
I agree. But until there is a way to make sure that only the scientists that need that information are the only ones who have access to it, it is far too dangerous to publish it online. Doing so is just opening Pandora’s Box. There is no current method to ensure that level of security, unfortunately.</p>
<p>"After a huge amount was sold and hoarded, it was revealed the drug was not effective. "
“IF the danger from the bird flu has not been highly exaggerated.”</p>
<p>the bird flu WAS very dangerous! Dont you remember all the quarantines that happened around the world? That is what stopped the spread. But no one knew when or where it might pop up next. The fact that the drug that was developed to prevent it was not effective or that someone profited from its sale, is irrelevant. The Bird flu can still be very dangerous.</p>
<p>Why did it disappear from the news? If I recall correctly, it was because the danger was highly exaggerated. It was more than the quarantines, I think.</p>
<p>The catch here is that the work does not seem to have been done in labs where personnel are required to have any sort of security clearance. Nor has there been any restriction, until now, on the scientists or their staff discussing any aspect of their work. As far as I can tell, the work was performed in ordinary medical research facilities at academic institutions – one in the United States and one in the Netherlands. And in all likelihood, the work has been going on for years (after all, it is now at the point of publication, which is a late stage in the process), during which the researchers have discussed it with their colleagues; employed postdocs, graduate students, and technicians to help with the work; and perhaps even presented papers about it at scientific meetings.</p>
<p>This is quite different from the Manhattan Project or the national security-related research performed today in the United States and other countries, where multiple types of precautions are taken to prevent sensitive information from being disclosed.</p>
<p>To me, keeping certain aspects of the data out of the journals is like covering up a cancer with cosmetics. It may make things look better, but it doesn’t stop the problem – in this case, the sensitive information – from spreading.</p>
<p>"Well, the bird flu caused a lot of deaths in China, and is a particularity virulent form of flu virus, with a very hi death rate. That is the reason for the big scare in 2005- it was hard to stop and was passed very easily.#4</p>
<p>“The World Health Organization says 573 people have been infected worldwide with H5N1 since 2003, resulting in 336 deaths.” NYT 12/21/11</p>
<p>Maybe this is being confused with SARS which did cause more than a thousand deaths in China and elsewhere, or some other influenza outbreak.</p>
<p>How much Tamiflu was purchased for the US Army?</p>
<p>The World Health Organization just put out a statement expressing “alarm” at the thought of a airborne Bird flu virus getting out of the hands of scientists doing research. </p>
<p>GENEVA – The World Health Organization is warning that dangerous scientific information could fall into the wrong hands after U.S. government-funded researchers engineered a form of the deadly H5N1 bird flu virus more easily transmissible between humans.</p>
<p>In a strongly worded statement Friday, WHO said it was “deeply concerned about the potential negative consequences” if the results of the study were used to create biological weapons or the mutated virus was accidentally released.</p>
<p>“This is not the kind of research that you would want to have out there,” WHO’s top influenza expert, Dr. Keiji ***uda, told The Associated Press in a telephone interview.</p>