Bird flu strains should be secret, government says
Published 4:00 am, Wednesday, December 21, 2011
The U.S. government paid scientists to figure out how the deadly bird flu virus might mutate to become a bigger threat to people - and two labs succeeded in creating new strains that are easier to spread.
On Tuesday, federal officials took the unprecedented step of asking those scientists not to publicize all the details of how they did it.
The worry: That this research with lots of potential to help the public might also be hijacked by would-be bioterrorists. The labs found that it appears easier than scientists had thought for the H5N1 bird flu to evolve in a way that lets it spread easily between at least some mammals.
The scary-sounding viruses are locked in high-security labs as researchers at the Erasmus University Medical Center in the Netherlands and the University of Wisconsin-Madison prepare to publish their findings in leading scientific journals. That's the way scientists share their work so that their colleagues can build on it, perhaps creating better ways to monitor bird flu in the wild, for example.
But biosecurity advisers to the government recommended that the journals Science and Nature publish only the general discoveries, not the full blueprint for these man-made strains. In statements, the two research teams say they're making some changes, if reluctantly. The journals are mulling what to do, and the government didn't say precisely what should be left out.
But Science editor in chief Dr. Bruce Alberts said his journal pushed the U.S. government to set up a system where certain international researchers will be able to get the full genetic recipe for these lab-bred strains - especially those in bird flu-prone countries like China and Indonesia.