H5N1 Bird Flu Research Is Safe to Publish, Panel Says

Excerpt from an article in

The New York Times

Saturday, March 31, 2012

H5N1 Bird Flu Research Is Safe to Publish, Panel Says

By DENISE GRADY

After a public furor over experiments that made a dangerous flu virus more contagious, a panel of scientific advisers reversed itself on Friday and recommended that full details of the research be published in scientific journals.

Dr. Paul Keim, acting chairman of the panel, said the new manuscripts made it clear that the experiments were not as dangerous as they originally appeared to be and that the benefits of the research were greater. The benefits come from information that can be used to help predict which flu viruses circulating in the environment may be developing pandemic potential.

The panel, the National Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity, recommended in December that scientific reports about the research be published only if certain details were withheld, to prevent others from replicating the experiments. The fear was that bioterrorists would use the information to create germ weapons, or that the virus would leak out of a laboratory by accident.