Lisa Schnirring 
Staff Writer
Mar 30, 2012 (CIDRAP News) – A federal advisory board today reversed its stance on publishing two controversial H5N1 transmission papers today, recommending that both studies be published in full.
The National Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity (NSABB) met yesterday and today to discuss revised versions of the studies by two groups, one from the University of Wisconsin, Madison, and one from Erasmus University in the Netherlands.
Both studies were funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH), and, as its dual-use advisory board, the NSABB in December recommended redacting the studies due to bioterror concerns and the risk of an unintentional release of the viruses used in the two ferret studies.
The two journals that slated to publish the studies, Science and Nature, have held off on running the papers based on the NSABB's nonbinding recommendation, which the NIH agreed with in December.
In a statement released today, the NSABB said it unanimously recommended that the revised manuscript by the University of Wisconsin group, headed by Yoshihiro Kawaoka, DVM, PhD, be published in full, and members voted 12 to 6 that the data, methods, and conclusions in the revised paper by the Erasmus group, headed by Ron Fouchier, PhD, be published.
Today's action by the NSABB follows yesterday's launch of a new government policy on the oversight of federally funded life sciences dual-use research. The new policy requires federal agencies to routinely review the risks of research conducted on 15 "high consequence" pathogens and toxins, including highly pathogenic H5N1 avian flu.
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1 comment:
Trying to make information less accessible in this day and age isn't just futile; it makes the one SOB you need to worry about feel like that much more of a criminal genius when he gets his hands on it anyway.
Before 9-11 happened, stronger cockpit doors were a good idea on airliners, along with a protocol of excluding terrorist control of a cockpit under any circumstance. This was deducible, yet the world chose to assess risk based on recent prior experience. What is today's weak cockpit door, the fact that information is accessible? It can't be. It's the preparedness at the lowest levels: county, township, town, neighborhood, family, individual. Everybody depends on the same old outside sources for energy, food, water. Creating backup systems closer to home can be rationalized in the name of saving money on bills, if disaster prepping is still such a freakin stigma.
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