most moratorium. NIAID chief Anthony Fauci said more discussion is needed before the H5N1 research moratorium may be lifted.
National Institute of Health
NEW YORK, NEW YORK [1945015moratoire] -A voluntary on potentially dangerous experiments to understand the highly virulent H5N1 flu is expected to continue for the time being, the National Institute of allergy and infectious diseases (NIAID) Director Anthony Fauci in a flu scientists meeting here. But, he added, efforts to increase scientists should engage with the public to get support for the vital work but risky.
"The scientific community flu can not be the only player in the discussion on this research," said Fauci. "You certainly lose the battle for public support for your research if you ignore this." Fauci remarks, delivered at the annual meeting of the flu research of excellence NIAID centers, also echoed a call for openness and transparency he made in June in the pages of science , published by AAAS, which publishes science Insider.
The moratorium announced by 39 scientists this past January, came amid controversy over the publication of two studies that described how the researchers made H5N1 more transmissible between mammals, perhaps setting stage for a flu pandemic. After a long review, the US National Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity (NSABB) finally recommended that the US government allows full publication of two studies. One, by a team led by Yoshihiro Kawaoka, who has a joint appointment at the University of Tokyo and the University of Wisconsin, Madison, was published by Nature . The other, a team led by Ron Fouchier of Erasmus MC in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, was published by Science .
What to do about the moratorium, however, has been the subject of controversy. It was originally supposed to last only 60 days, but was then extended indefinitely. In April, Fauci - which has not signed the moratorium, but conducting a major research funding agency of the flu and encouraged scientists to take a break in an attempt to calm public fears, told a Senate committee US that the moratorium should continue pending further discussions. In June, he said that the research community still had "a lot of homework to do ... and some check boxes" before the moratorium could be lifted, including an agreement on what influenza types of research have earned . risks
in remarks today, Fauci stressed a particularly sensitive area of research: supposedly experiences "gain of function" that allow scientists to create and study the virus the flu are more pathogenic than those found in nature. a key argument for such experiences, he noted, is that they allow scientists to understand how a virus might evolve in the future.
"There is a real and present danger of the natural evolution of the virus and that is why you do the experiments that might seem risky to some," he said. "You make the experience so we can stay ahead of the risk to evolve naturally."
Many critics, however, whether such experiences are really useful, and if scientists can safely contain potentially dangerous new pathogens. "The world sees things differently," Fauci said, "and they ask the question ... namely: If these experiments should be conducted and / or published in the first place"
Scientists , he says, often "answer that the benefit outweighs the risk. ... However, it is essential that we respect public concerns nationally or globally, not ask them to take the scientific speech flu. "
with concerns about bioterrorism to the documents published to guide deliberate efforts to whip up a pandemic, Fauci said he worried about the laboratories 'unregulated' maybe outside the US, do the work "sloppily" and leading to a pandemic inadvertently. "accidental release is what the world is really concerned," he said.
to address these concerns, Fauci suggested more dialogue and patience. Before lifting the moratorium, scientists need to take more time to share information with the public and discuss compromises inherent in influenza research, he said, perhaps through workshops and international meetings.
Not taking such measures, he said, would be against-productive. "If we, without this broader input, say, 'we will lift the moratorium," the consequences of this would make it harder to get back on the track to do this research, "he said.
Fauci also suggested that there are many potentially important H5N1 experiences that are not covered by the moratorium. eligible experiences, for example, could test the hypothesis that a flu virus infecting a small mammal such as a ferret could infect monkey. Or, he says, researchers could begin more studies to answer questions about how the immune system responds to the virus.
"the game has changed for scientists pandemic influenza and the organizations that support them, "he said. NIAID, the National Institutes of Health and the Department of Health and Human Services "can not recommend or go along with the moratorium is lifted ... so that the issues I have just mentioned and raised remained unanswered. "
This position got a mixed review of predictable audience members, which included both supporters and opponents of lifting the moratorium. But several scientists have publicly thanked NIAID Director for his comments francs . "I think [Fauci] articulated the case for continuing the moratorium today better than the case for continuing the moratorium was articulated above, and what is important," virologist Nancy Cox of the Centers for Disease Control Atlanta said Science Insider Fauci after the session. She was among the signatories of the original moratorium. During the session, she also said that "there must be a better explanation of what kind of work on the H5N1 virus may continue under the moratorium and what can not."
Fouchier, for one, Fauci said it was time for the moratorium to end. "I think we have done what we can do about accidental release," he said. "at the outside the accidental release of the US can not be treated by regulation, "he noted, adding that some of the signatories to the moratorium does not receive US funds. he also stressed that laboratories worldwide have already dangerous pathogens at hand, including hundreds with samples from 1957 H2N2 pandemic virus. "If this virus [gets released] it will kill 1 to 2 million people," he said, suggesting that the infectious disease community has shown that it can work with dangerous pathogens responsible.
Response to Fauci Fouchier: Share this argument with the public. Fouchier said that "does not receive transparency airing it deserves," said Fauci. "This argument you made must be done in a forum that people can understand what you say."
At the end of the one hour session, it appeared that the researchers were not about to solve when, or if, the moratorium should end. "In case of disagreement between the people in this room, how a decision will be taken?" asked virologist Adolfo García Sastre Mt. Sinai School of Medicine in New York.
Fauci said that it is developing detailed guidelines for universities and other institutions to carry potentially risky research of concern (DURC) dual-use will help you spell out an answer. As part of his speech, he shared the progress made by the US government on Durc guidelines, which have been shaped by a new committee, inter-yet-to-be-named including national leaders Institutes health. The group meets to develop rules and Fauci expects their release "reasonably soon." After their release, Fauci said he hopes they will be subject to public comment and receive feedback from an international consultative conference. The guidelines now cover 15 pathogens and agents "likely will be modified in the future to include more than 15." In the past, Fauci said the publication of the Guidelines would be needed before he would support lifting the H5N1 research moratorium.
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