Science and technology
Flu research
A deadly balance
Dec 21st 2011, 22:36 by C.H. | NEW YORK
TEMPTING fate is never wise; tempting a flu pandemic is downright foolish. Yet it is impossible for scientists to understand influenza or create vaccines without at least some risk. The question, then, is what level of risk is acceptable.
On December 20th American authorities said they had asked the world’s leading scientific journals to withhold research. The request, to Science and Nature, is highly unusual. But so is the research in question. Two separate teams, led by Yoshihiro Kawaoka at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, and Ron Fouchier at Erasmus Medical Centre in Rotterdam have tinkered with H5N1, otherwise known as bird flu. The resulting strains are dramatically more dangerous.
According to the World Health Organisation, bird flu has killed more than 300 people since 2003. Its toll would certainly have been far greater had it not been for H5N1's important limitation: it is not easily transmitted to humans, or between them. But if the virus ever evolved to hop nimbly from man to man, it could wreak a pandemic.
That evolution has now occurred, helped by the researchers in Madison and Rotterdam. Each team engineered the virus so that it could be transmitted through the air from ferret to ferret (good proxies for humans). Details of both studies are still under wraps but a paper Dr Fouchier presented in September at a virology conference in Malta outlines his team's approach. He and his colleagues first tried to fiddle with the flu genome directly, introducing bespoke changes to it in an effort to create an airborne strain. When this did not work, he resorted to the low-tech method of passing the virus (albeit one with three engineered mutations) from one ferret to another a number of times, giving it an opportunity to mutate naturally. After ten generations evolution worked its (in this case black) magic: the flu had gone airborne. The nasty strain had five mutations in two genes. Each of these has, Dr Fouchier notes, already been found in nature, only in separate strains and never clumped together.
The new, deadlier flu strains exist only in labs, of course. However, the fear is that if the researchers are allowed to describe the genetic changes needed to create the new strains and the precise methods used to obtain them, then terrorists or other mischief-makers can copy the techniques. H5N1 would become the atomic bomb of biological warfare.
American officials would rather stymie such proliferation. After the attacks of September 11th, 2001, America created the National Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity (NSABB) to advise the health department. The NSABB has not asked Science and Nature to withhold the new research altogether. Rather, it has tried to strike a balance, asking the journals to publish enough information to encourage further understanding and responsible research, but not enough to allow the researchers’ methods to be put to nefarious use.
Bruce Alberts, the editor of Science, which accepted Dr Fouchier's work for publication, said in a statement that the journal was considering what to do. (Dr Kawaoka submitted his to Nature.) The journal would wait for the government to suggest how the critical data might be shared with scientists confidentially. Knowledge about the new virus, Dr Alberts wrote, “could well be essential for speeding the development of new treatments to combat this lethal form of influenza.” Blunt censorship would be counterproductive.
There are other worries. Laurie Garrett at the Council on Foreign Relations, a think-tank, points out that some deadly viruses, like smallpox, are kept under countless locks and keys in highly secure laboratories. The new strains, meanwhile, are not as well protected. As such, they might be unleashed not just by terrorists, but by simple error. That is probably one risk not worth taking.
(Photo credit: Tequiua via Flickr)
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So does this mean that Medicare and Social Security may not be broken beyond repair afterall?
I see a lot of people have bought the official version of the world hook, line, and sinker. Has it ever occurred to anyone that it's not lone wolf terrorists that we should be afraid of, but nation states? Iraq was a pushover because the united states worked for a decade isolating and destroying the Iraqi ability to resist. What if they actually did have a biological weapon? Even developing nations have basic virology laboratories. I can see from the attitude of most people that the human race is screwed.
As pointed out by The Economist, this research is based on quite trivial biological techniques, and therefore, virtually any state (or even powerful criminal organization) anxious for an apocalyptic toy could develop it (assuming it hasn't done so yet). That is why the democratic and free world cannot allow itself the luxury of not being technologically and scientifically ahead in this matter (in this case not to develop the biological weapon itself, but the vaccine or treatment against it)
Of course, this sort of research should be carried out only under extremely high security standards, and its results submitted to the proper clearance of authorities before publication. But again, the study itself should not be banned because, sadly, such prohibition would not reach all corners of the world - and with a case fatality rate around 50% and high transmission, a few of those viruses out there in the wrong hands is all that is needed to send us back to another Dark Age.
As pointed out by The Economist, this research is based on quite trivial biological techniques, and therefore, virtually any state (or even powerful criminal organization) anxious for an apocalyptic toy could develop it (assuming it hasn't done so yet). That is why the democratic and free world cannot allow itself the luxury of not being technologically and scientifically ahead in this matter (in this case not to develop the biological weapon itself, but the vaccine or treatment against it)
Of course, this sort of research should be carried out only under extremely high security standards, and its results submitted to the proper clearance of authorities before publication. But again, the study itself should not be banned because, sadly, such prohibition would not reach all corners of the world - and with a case fatality rate around 50% and high transmission, a few of those viruses out there in the wrong hands is all that is needed to send us back to another Dark Age.
I'm sure this new strain of H5N1 will be relegated to BSL-4 only status soon enough.
The virus evolved in such a short time! Truly a testament to "Survival of the Simplest". The more complex an organism grows, the more difficult it becomes for it to evolve. And we all know what happens to those organisms that cannot evolve easily.
I am also, sometimes, in awe of the bacteria that evolve just like that to counter pharmaceutical antibiotics - millions of dollars and the work of the best brains rendered useless...by such a simple organism with a simple mutation!
Well, if it only hops from "man to man" then women have nothing to worry about. That's a relief.
Stupidity seems to know no bounds with the arrogance of Science's scientists. Playing with fire and we all get burned isn't my idea of "Helping Mankind" bullshit. The idea of "Free and unfettered knowledge" is a canard. When, not if, the pandemic comes the survivors, if any, should end science as it's practiced which is for the good of the few not the many.
arrtist
Technological progress is like an axe in the hands of a....oh, whatever.
It's really horrible. I have being pondering that whether advances in technology give human a better world or just opposite. Thinking about he nuclear weapon and triffic accidents.
Dear Sir
Every Army in the Third World has a Biological Lab for Biological warfare counter strike .Even Brazilian Army has one in Rio de Janeiro outskirts and Brazilians Special Forces ae supossedly to be trained to handle that .And corruption is widely spread all over the World.
Just a question of time in order to have Flu bird "engineered " like Antrax was (september eleven!).
@T___
"What the little b*st*rd did not say was that he had a chip of ice-9 in a thermos in his luggage."
Vonnegut, Cat's Cradle
This a good thing. If humans can not limit themselves, them let nature,even if modified do it.
After reading this I'll definitely be more careful about washing my hands before handling my ferrets. I didn't realize they could get human flu.
After reading this I'll definitely be more careful about washing my hands before handling my ferrets. I didn't realize they could get human flu.
Dr Alberts wrote, “could well be essential for speeding the development of new treatments to combat this lethal form of influenza.” Blunt censorship would be counterproductive.
What is certain is this research's harmful facilitation of the virus to devastate vast populations, with or without the terrorists. What is hypothetical is this research's POSSIBILITY to help stop such an epidemic. Dr. Alberts and The Economist are ridiculous.
Professors Yoshihiro Kawaoka and Dr. Ron Fouchier have striken a Faustian bargain -- exchanging the lives of millions for their own scientific fame (notoriety).
Human folly and selfishness know no limit.
If we stick our heads deep in the sand, nothing bad can happen!
@jomiku
It is not the 12 monkeys!. The 12 monkeys are just a bunch of people freeing animals.
Knowing its one or handful of mutations is very important for the world's population. Since H5N1 is endemic over entire continents , it is a matter of time before these mutations happen naturally. Knowing how few mutations are required to make the airborne leap can help better estimate if we are talking years or months.
Based on the information available, it looks highly probable that we could see a airborne strain in less than decade. This gives us time to make a vaccine that can be integrated into the yearly flu shots. At that point its a non-issue. The natural risk to humanity is likely much larger than a directed attack.
It’s rare that putting your head in the sand is a solution to a problem. I expect more from the Economist.
Have I missed something elementary here?
Why would these scientists want to make the bird-flu virus capable of infecting as airborne agents?
I hope the answer is to obtain a vaccine or anti-dote for the virus?
- so that should it transmute out of its present limitations and become air borne, we will be ready?
Oh, another thing, should TE have named these scientists and the places where they work?
Gone are the days when established state agencies can assume they are smarter than the terrorists.
Other than this line of thought, I cannot imagine why they went in for this most dangerous exercise.
Scientists do what they do.Few of them are moralists.If God gives man the power to annihilate himself on the planet Earth (as He has already done)and now in a variety of ways; is it perhaps only a matter of brief time, before this world comes to an end.?