José Manuel Barroso
European Commission
the European Commission needs to take an interest in the controversy over called gain function studies with dangerous viruses and should undertake a risk-benefit analysis for this line of research, 56 scientists from more than a dozen countries wrote in a letter to Commission President José Manuel Barroso. The letter accuses the December 18th European Society for Virology (ESV) making "misleading scientific claims" when he lobbied in support of Barroso studies hotly debated it 2 months ago.
concerned are studies to find out which mutations could be dangerous viruses such as the H5N1 strain of bird flu more easily transmissible between humans. Opponents of the research argue that its risks as an accidental leak of the laboratory, do not exceed the potential benefits.
ESV urged Barroso, who heads the executive arm of the European Union, to participate after Dutch court ruled that virologist Ron Fouchier of Erasmus MC in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, can not publish these studies with the H5N1 virus without first asking the Dutch government for authorization. (Fouchier appealed this decision .) In his letter of October 16 , ESV argued the decision could cause delays in the dissemination of scientific information and inequality between scientists from different European countries.
in their own letter to Barroso and several other members of the European Commission Fouchier critics charge there are "anomalies" in the ESV letter; for example, it is not true that research has been used only "to reproduce what nature already selected," the group wrote, because studies of Fouchier tours of virus never seen before. The group proposes to hold a scientific briefing of the Commission and calls on Barroso to organize a rigorous risk-benefit analysis of "decision-makers in Europe and the world."
Among the signatories, some ESV are members- are German virologist and Nobel prize Harald zur Hausen, Roel Coutinho, the former head of the infectious diseases control Centre in the Netherlands; and Adel Mahmoud, a former president of Merck Vaccines now in Princeton University.
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