BioterrorismBalancing safety, risk in the debate over the new H5N1 viruses
This fall, the U.S. National Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity (NSABB) set off a debate when it asked the authors of two recent H5N1 research studies and the scientific journals that planned to publish them to withhold important details of the research in the interest of biosecurity; the scientific community is divided over the issue of best to balance free research and security
In the controversy surrounding the newly developed strains of avian H5N1 flu viruses, scientists and policy makers are struggling with one question in particular: what level of biosafety is best for studying these potentially lethal strains of influenza? In two commentaries, researchers from the Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York and the University of Michigan argue their different views of how safely to handle H5N1 flu viruses. The commentaries were published in mBio, the online open-access journal of the American Society for Microbiology, on Tuesday, 6 March 6.
An American Society of Microbiology release reports that this fall, the U.S. National Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity (NSABB) set off a debate when it asked the authors of two recent H5N1 research studies and the scientific journals that planned to publish them to withhold crucial details of the research in the interest of biosecurity. The researchers had taken H5N1, a virus that cannot easily transmit from human to human, and developed strains of the virus that can transmit easily between ferrets, which are a common model for human influenza.
These H5N1 strains and others like them that might be developed in the future could pose a grave threat to human life, but researchers and others argue that studying these H5N1 strains could help bolster preparedness efforts and vaccine development to help fend off a potential H5N1 pandemic.
The release asks: How can we balance the need to protect human life from the accidental escape of an H5N1 strain with the need to continue research that might prevent a naturally occurring outbreak? Which biosafety level (BSL) is right for the H5N1 virus?
In the commentaries appearing yesterday in mBio, two experts offer opposing views of the appropriate level of security for dealing with H5N1 viruses. The authors agree that, with a reported case fatality rate that could be as high as 50 percent or more, H5N1 could create a pandemic of disastrous proportions, but they differ in their opinions of how to strike a balance between biosecurity and potentially life-saving research.
“The existence of mammalian transmissible H5N1 immediately poses the question of whether the current biosafety level of containment is adequate,” writes mBio editor in chief Arturo Casadevall in an accompanying editorial. “It is important to understand that the choice of BSL level has profound implications for society.”
The release notes that under current U.S. guidelines H5N1 is classified as a select
