2012
This special issue is available to AAAS members and institutional subscribers. As a service to the community, AAAS is also making these articles free to the public.
The publication in this issue of these research papers on the airborne tranimssion of H5N1 marks the end of 8 months of controversy over whether some of the data, now freely accessible, should be withheld in the public interest.
POLICY FORUM
A. Fauci & F. Collins
Public concern over two H5N1 influenza manuscripts has triggered intense discussion on dual use research and the way forward.
REPORT
S. Herfst et al.
Avian flu can acquire the capacity for airborne transmission between mammals without recombination in an intermediate host.
REPORT
C. A. Russell et al.
Some natural influenza viruses need only three amino acid substitutions to acquire airborne transmissibility between mammals.
PERSPECTIVE
M. Frankel
Government must balance many competing interests in its regulation of science.
POLICY FORUM
C. D. Wolinetz
Recent dual use provisions from the federal government may provide more questions than answers.
PERSPECTIVE
B. Schneier
Lessons from cryptography illustrate that neither secrecy measures, such as deleting technicaldetails, nor national solutions, such as export controls, will work for biological research data.
POLICY FORUM
M. Lipsitch
Future experiments with virulent pathogens whose accidental or deliberate release could lead to extensive spread in human populations should be limited by explicit risk-benefit considerations.
POLICY FORUM
R. Rappuoli
While we wait for the development of a universal influenza vaccine, we have practical options to reduce the risk of massglobal mortality from the next influenza pandemic.
1 comment:
It is excellent that they devoted the entire issue to this. As far as the biosecurity issues with potentially uncontrollable, indiscriminate contagious man-made viruses... that horse was out of the barn years ago. To continue to overstate the ability of the world's centralized defenses and understate the threat has no further merit. Local and individual preparedness infrastructure DOES have merit, as does the simple fear required to motivate communities and individuals.
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