Biomedical experiments and public safety
http://thedianerehmshow.org/shows/2011-12-22/biomedical-experiments-and-public-safety
Two leading scientific journals have been asked not to publish details of research into the deadly bird flu virus. The research involved creating a highly transmissible version of H5N1. The scientists hope to gain valuable data that could lead to a vaccine. But the National Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity said the experiments, if made public, could be used by bioterrorists. Their decision raises many questions – including should the scientists have created the deadly new variation in the first place. Join us to discuss whether publishing research into virulent diseases is a threat or a benefit to public health.
Guests
Dr. Anthony Fauci
director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases/NIH.
Ruth Faden
Director, Johns Hopkins Berman Institute of Bioethics;
Dr. Michael Osterholm
Director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy and Director of the NIH-sponsored Minnesota Center of Excellence for Influenza Research and Surveillance
Board member, National Science Advisory Board on Biosecurity
Bruce Alberts
Science editor-in-chief
Comments
Please familiarize yourself with our Code of Conduct and Terms of Use before posting your comments.
What is sad is that once it is generally known that a super flu can be produced, one of the bad guys will try to produce it. And one can suspect that a good graduate student in virology will be able to do so. Limiting access to the details of how to produce it should make it a little bit harder to produce the flu, but unfortunately a super flu that gets out may well happen.
For a good fictional account of how a super flu might get out from a government lab, read the beginning of Stephen King's The Stand. The super flu in that novel, referred to there as Captain Trips, is much worse than this genetically engineered bird flu has been reported to be (almost 100% fatal versus about 60%), and hopefully this bird flu does not spread quite as fast as Captain Trips, but it could easily be as bad as the plague that wiped out one quarter of the European population about the year 1350.
It would be far better if the public did not know about the super bird flu, but unfortunately we do know about it, and we will have to live (or hope to be able to live) with the consequences. Maybe it can be made difficult to get hold of samples of the bird flu which was modified to produce the super bird flu. Let us hope that we can keep terrorist groups from getting the samples they would need to make a super flu.
Gee Whiz, must be the product of unbound capitalism.
So the current thought is for this information to be shared with only those who need to know.
Can the bird flu research be compared to the atomic bomb - a fearful technology that in the wrong hands (or maybe we humans just shouldn't have it all!) can threaten civilization? We have not been very successful at keeping atom splitting a secret.
Where does medicine get off with making diseases worse?
Are we still immune from previous flu seasons?
Please explain the difference between this knowledge and nuclear proliferation controls. I see no difference. Both are advances in science, both provide the knowledge to make weapons of mass destruction.
We spend billions working to keep nuclear proliferation under control, regret our prior largess, and now worry about the newer nations capable of, or who have acquired an atomic bomb.
You bet a low cost biological bomb would be interesting to all. Keep the knowlage very close, national defense and defense of the human race is way more inportant than personal accolades from publishing the method.
Bruce MacDonald wrote:
We have not been very successful at keeping atom splitting a secret.
===========================================
Nuclear proliferation did not occur due to the sharing of scientific knowledge. On the contrary, it proliferated in the two time honored methods:
1. Theft
2. To the highest bidder
How do these projects get funding? My guess is We-the-People pay for this 'research' to attempt to destroy our selves.
While funding is pulled from social services how many millions of federal reserve notes are going toward these types of projects?
The big question is who gets what profit from this? There has to be someone making money from this or there would be no funding for the research in the beginning.
Yes, monte, capitalism with no regulation - for the benefit of who?
re: public fear. my husband spent his career with Public Health Service at NIEHS. . .just this morning he mentioned the need for the public to be more educated about probability and what scientists mean by this, our Congressmen included.
(bio program, now on air).
The discussion I have heard so far shows why scientists themselves should never be allowed to make decisions on issues of such importance -- and with potentially cataclysmic impact -- without supervision. "That is the beauty of science" said one of your guests, regarding the pursuit of science wherever it leads (Issue One) and then disseminating the results widely (Issue Two).
The people who created this version of bird flu should have been stopped in their tracks. And the idea of publishing even the general outlines of how it is done should be rigorously controlled. Why do you think that knowledge of nuclear weapons is so tightly controlled by the US government (and other nuclear powers)? And that the penalties of violating these restrictions are so harsh?
Occam's Razor puts it very simply, it is not "complex" as your scientific commentators are saying. The answer has to be "No." No to such experimentation that does not in advance show promise of limiting risks to human life; and no to any dissemination. The alternative is immoral arrogance.
Ambassador Robert Hunter
(bio program, now on air).
The discussion I have heard so far shows why scientists themselves should never be allowed to make decisions on issues of such importance -- and with potentially cataclysmic impact -- without supervision. "That is the beauty of science" said one of your guests, regarding the pursuit of science wherever it leads (Issue One) and then disseminating the results widely (Issue Two).
The people who created this version of bird flu should have been stopped in their tracks. And the idea of publishing even the general outlines of how it is done should be rigorously controlled. Why do you think that knowledge of nuclear weapons is so tightly controlled by the US government (and other nuclear powers)? And that the penalties of violating these restrictions are so harsh?
Occam's Razor puts it very simply, it is not "complex" as your scientific commentators are saying. The answer has to be "No." No to such experimentation that does not in advance show promise of limiting risks to human life; and no to any dissemination. The alternative is immoral arrogance.
Ambassador Robert Hunter
A correction to a comment of Dr. Fauci's in this interesting and important discussion: IBCs have NOT, to my knowledge, been required (or even recommended) by either the NSABB or the Recombinant DNA Advisory Committee as local reviewers of the dual-use potential for such research. Some IBCs have voluntarily taken this task on, but most need expert help to do so. Sometimes that expert advice is available through Regional Centers of Excellence in Emerging Infections and Biodefense Research, but although the mechanisms for this review are in place, they really have not yet been activated. Clearly, this is the time to do so. The NIH Office of Biotechnology Activities, which staffs the NSABB and the RAC, and works extensively with IBCs as well, is well-positioned to do more, but IBCs cannot comprehensively undertake this work without a mandate and extensive support.
By the way, dual-use is NOT a new issue by any means; it dates way back. Nor is caution about publication in the context of biodefense and emerging infections research new, to my knowledge; it's just the first time that publication agreements have not been voluntary.
Thanks for this discussion!
--Nancy M. P. King, Professor, Wake Forest School of Medicine, WFDD listener.
Monte:
This is not the influence of "unbound capitalism". Rather, it is the natural path of "unbound science". To ask questions and to answer them, absent both passion and context. And, yes, it is likely that this research was funded (at least in part) by US tax dollars by way of a NIH grant.
This info needs to be closely guarded. Are we forgetting what happened regarding the anthrax scare? This virus was spread on society by a government scientist NOT some guy in his mother's basement.
This sword has two edges! One day the U.S. may find itself begging at the altar of bio-security. Such arrogance...
I think an important aspect of preparation for any pandemic flu, from whatever source, is clear policies for who should and should not stay home, from both workplaces and schools.
It would also be sensible to establish a protocol for home nursing by family members - it's a lost skill in many cases.
What's the difference between gene slicing to produce a global pandemic and gene slicing to produce a different color oatmeal besides perhaps good sense and medical ethics?
What I would like to Diane is Why would a scientist try to make this deviation. They knew exactly what they were trying to do, why do it?
This talk about biological weapons disguised as a talk about health concerns has a particular "War of the Worlds" feel to it and the speculation in regards to a "Dr. Evil" character lurking out there with the intent to do harm is fear mongering on the highest order. The H5N1 virus has killed around 300 people worldwide, but common flu virus' kill thousands every year. Folks may recall the hysteria surrounding the "swine flu" a short while back and the fear it could become a worldwide pandemic as announced by the WHO. The virus simply fizzled out and went away. I suggest people read a book titled "Lab 257" by Michael C. Carroll and educate themselves about the US governments secret germ lab on Plum Island of the coast off Long Island. It may be that that the enemy is within. By the way , the evidence that Bruce Ivins was the Anthrax attacker is about as flimsy as the case against Steven Hatfield , but alas Mr. Ivins is dead and dead men tell no tales.
Who funds this research? These scientiists have no moral compass and intelligence. Such criminal arrogance! We all have "the right to know" so we can vote to elliminate any funding that comes from the taxpayer. Another deadly problem created. And now we get to anxiously depend on these "experts" to create the "solution"--before the deadly problem inevitably leaks out and proliferates.
Folks, with comparisons to nuclear bombs you are missing the real threat to human health! These flu mutations happen NATURALLY too. This happens continually, and eventually there will be virulent strains as result. The sooner we know about them the better the chances of containing the threat and getting appropriate vaccines. Scientists did not create influenza, they are just studying what makes it better or worse. The only way this fits your nuclear science analogy is if every year nature had a small but real chance of spontaneously creating complete nuclear bombs. The risk to humans dying comes from both sides of the equation, releasing data AND not releasing data. Final point: What will stop publishing of this information outside the US? Nature and EMBO, the prestigious journals of Europe may happily make all this public. The rest of the world may also decide to fund this work if no matter what we do. I'd love to hear from someone who knows the policy of non-US journals...
Can any virologists chime in?
Science in the United States is about to take its first step into a direction already tried before. In the name of placating fears. Some real, some unreal, but most whooped up and amplified in order to entertain or frighten, we are about to put the very security aparat we have created as a barrier to air travel as a barrier to explore. What scientific research is not dual use? Why not vet PhD candidates in the bio-sciences as they may go on to engineer weapons of mass destruction. Shall we make computer science a vetted science as well. After all we can't just allow anyone to understand the basis upon which all our critical infrastructure now depends. TCP/IP should be classified. Maybe we should control publication of mathematical papers. What is there to do if the means of encryption were discovered that could not be broken? Science is a threat. It always has threatened people. It usually threatens people with political power. Other societies have made the mistake of placing the security aparat as a check valve in the way of science. They were called the Eastern Bloc. It's a shame the United States is about to embark on the same mistake that the Soviet Union did during the Cold War. For those Americans who consider themselves so exceptional as to be immune to the forces of history and human nature all you have to do is look to what the DHS has done to air travel to meter what they will do to science in America. We may be exceptional, but we are not so exceptional as to avoid the mistakes we have already demonstrated we can make ourselves, let alone the mistakes of others. This is a mistake of monumental proportion.
As a biomedical scientist having previously worked on bird flu, I find I need to defend my fellow scientists against criticism voiced here.
Many have voiced concern over why scientists were researching this virus and inadvertently, engineered a more lethal form of it. I'll tell you why - to better understand it so that if a similar virus where to be produced by Mother Nature (Dr. Fauci stressed is not an unlikely possibility) we would be better prepared to fight it! Some of you have criticized making the more lethal form of it, but I can only counter that without the actual biological form of the virus, experiments could not have been done to confirm its lethality. There is no computer simulator that can confirm this. What should be done with the virus now that it has been made is another discussion, however, it could prove useful to prevent a pandemic caused by a similar virus. If a bird flu with pandemic potential outbreak happens, it will happen extraordinarily quickly, before research and drug development can curb its spread globally. This engineered virus, while incredibly controversial now, may allow for testing of drugs to fight a bird flu pandemic.
I also want to address comments made suggesting a lack of morality in these scientists - these comments were especially cruel. How many of you know the difficulties of working in the biological safety conditions required to reduce the risk of researching a pathogen of this lethality? These scientists put themselves at risk to better understand something that may save millions of lives later. Many biomedical scientists actually have a very keen sense of compassion and morality, as those qualities drive us into a profession underappreciated and underpaid, all for the chance to perhaps contribute to a cure or vaccine, or at least better understanding of diseases that plague our populations.
All this being said, I remain conflicted, but neutral on the ultimate decision made about the publication issue.
I am sorry but the excuse of 'being better prepared to fight it' is not a valid argument for making the virus in the first place. The simple reason is that there are millions of possible flu variations... the odds that scientists will create the same flu that mother nature decides to hit us with are almost 0. The information that studying this particular virus would provide may not even be remotely helpful if a substantially different (but equally deadly) flu virus manifests itself.
The minimal amount of information gained does not outweigh the risk of actually having the live virus.
Gee, Steve Gewirtz, that's some mighty confident faith you have in our national security state. Our national political police (FBI) have still not been able to explain the Anthrax mailing incident a decade ago.
"Let us hope that we can keep terrorist groups from getting the samples they would need to make a super flu."
A good way of putting Occupy (or any other peaceful citizen insurgency) back in the can would be to unleash a "bad bug." Remember, these are the same Secret Opps that shared chemical weapons with Saddam Hussein. Who is "good" and who is "bad" is kind of a Santa Claus science in a world where political and economic power is polarized in a few elite secretive hands. "It would be better if the public did not know about the super bird flu..." is a poor attitude for anyone who cares to maintain civilization. Your careful wording makes you seem "Strangelovian": like a borderline personalitied creature who hungers to see people they deem inferior suffer. You may be totally innocuous in your observations but if you'll reread what you've said there are ambiguous sinister overtones. An aerosol transmitted superflu is a more chilling concept than a nuclear meltdown (though not as enduring). There is probably no better speculation for spreading fear and inhibition than to bring this to the media fore now. I suspect an agenda, a counterinsurgency agenda. The Oligarchy fears us People, and bird flu is a nice way of showing it at Christmas. And yes, this is another byproduct of runaway financialized corporate capitalism, not the fruit vendor kind. Mom and pop marketeers are so put upon already they're considering lighting themselves up, starting in Tunisia.
Jessica Taaffe: Now who is it exactly that funds and pays these well-meaning scientists working under these extraordinary and challenging conditions? Who is it exactly that has marshal authority over their work? The Anthrax spores came either from the covert government labs at Fort Detrick or another militarized facility in Ohio (so say investigators). Now when the super flu gets out will it really matter who opens the valve? But we will find the culprits hiding in a "safe, undisclosed location." Should pathogen scientists be "just following orders"? It is better for the People now if all the information comes out in "Science" and "Nature" and the plotters are made to answer for their devious actions. I sure hope there is a brave whistleblower in the mix somewhere, about like Bradley Manning, and a leak network on the web to publish what we should know before the general extermination of the superfluous population Oligarchs lay awake fearing at night. When chicken flu is purposely engineered that can kill billions of innocent people, there is an evil mind somewhere that considers us no better than turkeys on a platter.
This "scientific" discussion was digusting. The scientists knowingly and intelligently produced this more deadly form of the disease, yet failed to fully explore and consider the human toll -- the one factor that should reign supreme in any "scientific" innovation. Can you say Dr. Mengele? Can you say that the Nazi eugenics "engineers" learned their "craft" at a state hospital in Fredricksberg, Virginia?? Let us carefully recognize Satan for his deeds, not his nationality.
PLEASE begin to stop, look and think critically!! Read (if necessary, listen) to ALL "information" that is being disseminated, analyse it and reach hypotheses or conclusions only after scrupulously analysing and comparing other sources.
We are systemically under attack from those who ecoomically rape us of our tax dollars. It is soley up to us to make ourselves knowledgeable of what is occuring around us and to us.
Pancake Rankin, you are TOTALLY on point!!!! Or, on all fours, to use the legal term of art.
Kaline,
Your rhetorical questions are (or, should be) at the very least thought-provoking; but in reality, are quite frightening as it is increasingly clear that the inmates are running the prisons/asylums funded unquestioningly, totally lackintg in ethical oversight, by our squandered tax dollars to create even more deadly diseases, all while cutting funding for programs benefitting the most vulnerable. Yet, we, the 99 percent, (most, who contrary to popular misiinformed dissing, are employed taxpayers or were until unjustly affected by the bailout of the 1 percent with the tax dollars of the 99 percent) could be the immediately apparent intended target of these diseases. But we cannot think only locally; there are so many groups, throughout the world, disaffected with the machinations of the global elite for the benefit of only the global elite, where and who would be next???? And where and when would it stop???