February 17, 2012 | 9:37 AM | By

Health experts say controversial bird flu research should be published

FILED UNDER: Science, bird flu, superbug, World Health Organization

Flickr, 4BlueEyes

A blue-ribbon panel at the World Health Organization has decided that two controversial bird flu studies should go forward and be published in full.

Just not yet — not until the public has been inoculated against premature anxiety and hysteria. Here’s WHO’s press release on the meeting.

“The group felt that one of the things that would be important to do is to increase public awareness first,” said Dr. Keiji Fukuda, WHO director general for health and environmental security.

“There are lots of concerns about whether this (research) has created a super virus, whether it might escape from laboratories,” Fukuda said.He said the panel recommended full publication and ongoing similar studies on the bird flu virus, H5N1, but not until the public is better educated about the true risks and benefits of the science.

“So that there isn’t a new wave of anxiety created by the manuscripts coming out,” Fukuda said.

Meanwhile, the editor of the journal Science, Bruce Alberts, said today he intends to publish the bird flu study they have in hand if the scientific community can’t agree on a workable alternative that adequately balances the need for free and open exchange of information against biosecurity concerns. Alberts told the BBC:

Speaking at the American Association for the Advancement of Science meeting in Vancouver, he said: “Our position is that, in the absence of any mechanism to get the information to those scientists and health officials who need to know and need to protect their populations and to design new treatments and vaccines, our default position is that we have to publish in compete form.”

 

  • Dfedson

    The debate over restricting publication
    of the experimental details of the H5N1 research by Fouchier and Kawaoka misses
    a larger point. Influenza viruses can and do develop more efficient
    transmissibility on their own; we’ve known this for decades. What’s more
    important is to understand what we might do to reduce mortality when this
    happens. Immunomodulatory agents could probably be used to modify the host
    response to severe influenza and improve survival (Influenza Other Respi Virus
    2009; 3: 129-42). Evidence that this happens was published recently. In a study
    of patients hospitalized with laboratory-confirmed influenza, statin treatment
    reduced mortality by 41% (J Infect Dis 2012; 205: 13-9). The reduction in
    mortality was in addition to any benefit that might have been due to previous
    influenza vaccination or antiviral treatment. Influenza scientists and the
    public health officials who listen to them have yet to understand the potential
    importance of these agents, yet if a highly virulent H5N1 virus gets loose, the
    vaccines and antivirals they’re counting on won’t be available in time to do
    much good. The issue we should be discussing is not whether to undertake or
    publish research on H5N1 influenza virus transmission; it’s why we have failed
    to undertake laboratory and clinical research on immunomodulatory agents that
    could save lives. These agents are produced as generics in developing countries
    and could be used to treat anyone with access to basic health care. The cost of
    treating an individual patient would be less than one dollar.