Gov't wants bird flu research kept under wraps, away from terrorists

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(CBS/AP) Government officials want a group of bird flu researchers to keep some of their findings out of medical journals - so they don't get into the hands of terrorists.

PICTURES: Bird flu self-defense: 7 key questions answered

The government-funded studies were aimed to find out how deadly H5N1 bird flu could mutate to become a bigger threat to humans. Two labs were successful in creating bird flu strains that could easily spread to people. That's when the government took the unprecedented step to ask the scientists to keep the details under wraps.

"It wasn't an easy decision," said Dr. Anthony Fauci, infectious diseases chief at the government's National Institutes of Health.

The research showed that it was easier than scientists expected for bird flu to evolve in a way that lets it spread between at least some mammals. The virus stores are being kept 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 to share their findings with colleagues so they could build it on it with more studies.

But bioterrorism advisers to the government recommended that the journals Science and Nature publish only the general findings, not the full blueprint for these man-made strains. The journals and researchers are mulling their next steps.

Science editor-in-chief Dr. Bruce Alberts wants the government to set up a system where certain international researchers - like those in bird flu-prone countries like China and Indonesia - will be able to get the full genetic recipe for these lab-bred strains.

Alberts believed this to be the first time the government requested secrecy from legitimate public health research. 

"It's a precedent-setting moment, and we need to be careful about the precedent we set," Alberts told the New York Times.

NIH's Fauci said the system should be working very soon, so that international public health officials, scientists and drug companies with "a legitimate need to know can have access to that information."

Nature's editor-in-chief, Dr. Philip Campbell, also called the recommendations unprecedented.

"It is essential for public health that the full details of any scientific analysis of flu viruses be available to researchers," he said.

Avian flu has caused outbreaks in wild birds and poultry in a number of countries around the world. But it only occasionally infects people who have close contact with infected poultry. It's known to have sickened nearly 600 people over the past decade and it's deadly, killing about 60 percent of the time.

The threat is especially large in and around Southeast Asia. The New York Times reported Wednesday that Hong Kong health workers began slaughtering more than 17,000 chickens in a poultry market after one was found to be infected with bird flu. Hong Kong's health officials raised the territory's bird flu alert to "serious," and closed the market.

"There is clearly a public health threat that has been lingering and smoldering with regard to H5N1 for several years," said Fauci. He said that a naturally occurring flu outbreak is much more likely than any man-made one.

"Nature is the worst bioterrorist," he said. "We know that through history."

Dutch lead researcher Dr. Ron Fouchier argued his discovery showed what mutations to watch for so "we can then stop the outbreak before it is too late."

Erasmus Medical Center said its researchers were complying with the U.S. request but added in a statement, "Academic and press freedom will be at stake as a result of the recommendation. This has never happened before."

The University of Wisconsin said reseacher Yoshihiro Kawaoka's team likewise would comply.

"While recognizing the potential for misuse of scientific discovery, the research described by UW-Madison researchers is essential for public health, global influenza surveillance activities and the development of vaccines and drugs to counter any potential pandemic," said a university statement.

Some experts called the government's action a good middle-ground.

"Influenza is certainly a unique beast in its capability to spread," said Dr. D.A. Henderson of the Center for Biosecurity of the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center., who played a key role in the eradication smallpox. "The question is how can we assure experiments like this really aren't done in ways that the organism is apt to escape."

The CDC has more on bird flu.

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Bird flu self-defense: 7 key questions answered

[venusvegasvada]

If the Govt (our tax dollars) paid for the research and it's considered as possibly dangerous in the wrong hands, then yeah, keep it to those that need the info and out of terrorist hands. Why make things worse than they have to be?

[Jesus_Loves_Children]

Weapons of Mass Destruction

Viral manipulations must be leak proof in research centers, scientific journals and especially the internet...

[Lerianis4]

Not going to happen, to be blunt. It's time to realize that if terrorists truly wanted to release these things, they would have already done it.

I'm more worried about the rich using this to 'thin the herds' while giving themselves the vaccine for said virus.

[rightbehind]

The elite wealthy plan to use viruses like this to thin the herd. Unless common people get smart and quick they may be casualties. We need to throw the wealthy and their minions out of government as quickly as possible.

[expatriate2]

by erasmus111 December 21, 2011 12:01 PM EST
It's too bad the media can't keep their yaks shut too. Like why didn't they just keep this to themselves and no one would have been the wiser? Now that would be asking too much, wouldn't it? We all know the media has to spill every freakin' thing they know, even if it puts lives in danger
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Oh, by all means let's not permit the American public know anything! Considering that bird flu was concentrated in the orient, it's illogical to think that information about it could be gained from their scientists. The policy of the government of the United States is to control, not govern. To conceal, not provide. To rule, not administer.

[erasmus111]

Oh please. When you are warned about a flu possibly being a pandemic, you B*TCH. You say they are going overboard. You guys are always whining. You are either b*tching because they haven't told you something or b*tching because they have.

Now, in this case, what good is it for you to know? What has happened now is that the terrorist know that there is something to look for. Before they didn't.

[tb1955]

Idiots in the government, with idiots participating in the laboratory. Unfortunately now, possible idiots with details working for journals, and magazines.
Where did so much mindlessness come from? Anyone? Please.

[erasmus111]

It's too bad the media can't keep their yaks shut too. Like why didn't they just keep this to themselves and no one would have been the wiser? Now that would be asking too much, wouldn't it? We all know the media has to spill every freakin' thing they know, even if it puts lives in danger.