Members of the National Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity, in an article posted on Science’s website on Jan. 30, explain their reasons for asking researchers to omit published details of their work, in which they manipulated the genetic composition of the N1N5 virus to make it transmissible mammal to mammal, through the air. The article is identified as a Policy Forum and is found in the upper right corner of Science’s hot topics/biosecurity webpage.
Meanwhile, Yoshihiro Kawaoka, the leader of the Wisconsin team contributing to the H1N5 work forcefully makes the case for urgently carrying on such work if global pandemics are to be prevented. Some opinion leaders, including the editorial board of the New York Times, have suggested that the work never should have been done in the first place. Besides rebutting that view, Kawaoka also takes exception to the Science Board’s recommendation that the bird flu papers be redacted. He argues that following the recommendation will put a huge administrative burden on the researchers, who will have to communicate omitted details to qualified researchers, without seriously impeding somebody who seriously wanted to manufacture a transmissible flu virus.
