It's a pointless and damaging gesture; the study authors confirmed
earlier statements on their work, which confirmed how easy it is. They
simply serially-infected ferrets with the infectious-but-not-contagious
wild virus, and after a mere 10 generations it became airborne.
It's actually easier to make the virus in this way, I imagine, than by
engineering or synthesising it based on their experimental results. By
censoring the results, they are harming our ability as a global society
to prepare for the worst, while doing utterly nothing to prevent the
potential for an outbreak or attack.
Typical, eh?
On 21/12/11 16:54, Nathan McCorkle wrote:
> On Wed, Dec 21, 2011 at 10:38 AM, Jeswin <phillyj101@gmail.com> wrote:
>> I was going to post this. I heard it this morning on the BBC. The US
>> asked that the researcher not post specific details about the sequence
>> they discovered that permits the transfer of the virus from ferret to
>> ferret. They used the ferrets in the studies. The Principle
>> Investigator said that the sequence is important for testing
>> laboratories and specifically selecting who to send this sequence info
>> to is cost-prohibitive. Also, it will require countries to come
>> together and sign an agreement saying this data must be kept secret.
>> Given that world talks like the recent one in Durban mostly failed to
>> agree to a binding treaty, I assume the same will happen.
>>
>> The PI and and persons supporting the censorship both agreed that the
>> protocol is common knowledge. I don't know if a "terrorist" could
>> replicate the mutation without some expensive sequencing machines.
>> Since mutations are random, the probability they replicate the
>> mutation in an organism is hit or miss. Am I right? If a foreign state
>
> Yeah I think you're right, selectively breeding the virus, only
> allowing ferrets to contact each other through air exchange or
> something.
>
>> wanted to create an H1N1 bio-weapon, it can be done. If an individual
>> or a terrorist group wanted to, I would say the success rate is
>> extremely unlikely.
>>
>
> I think the only restriction to anyone successfully replicating this
> work is A) smart enough with basic biotech, and B) having Personal
> Protective Equipment (PPE) so the researchers don't kill themselves. I
> think the latter is where terrorists would get stopped, carelessness,
> or pressure from their terrorizing authorities to get work done faster
> seems like it would lead to quick failure
>
>> This sets a new precedence into the restriction/censorship of
>> scientific knowledge. Saying that the public does not need to know
>> technical information, information that is not proprietary or
>> extremely dangerous, dumbs down society to a bunch of hamsters in a
>> cage.
>>
>> On Wed, Dec 21, 2011 at 10:11 AM, Bryan Bishop <kanzure@gmail.com> wrote:
>>> (Including a cheap shot at amateurs "otherwise known as terrorists")
>>>
>>> From: Eugen Leitl <eugen@leitl.org>
>>> Date: Wed, Dec 21, 2011 at 5:26 AM
>>> Subject: [biomed] Seeing Terror Risk, U.S. Asks Journals to Cut Flu Study
>>> Facts
>>> To: tt@postbiota.org, biomed@postbiota.org, cypherpunks@al-qaeda.net
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/21/health/fearing-terrorism-us-asks-journals-to-censor-articles-on-virus.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all
>>>
>>> Seeing Terror Risk, U.S. Asks Journals to Cut Flu Study Facts
>>>
>>> By DENISE GRADY and WILLIAM J. BROAD
>>>
>>> Published: December 20, 2011
>>>
>>> For the first time ever, a government advisory board is asking scientific
>>> journals not to publish details of certain biomedical experiments, for fear
>>> that the information could be used by terrorists to create deadly viruses
>>> and
>>> touch off epidemics.
>>>
>>> National Institute for Biological Standards and Control/Photo Researchers
>>>
>>> The A(H5N1) virus largely affects birds and rarely infects people, but it is
>>> highly deadly when it does.
>>>
>>> Kin Cheung/Associated Press
>>>
>>> Health workers in Hong Kong killed chickens at a poultry market in 2008.
>>>
>>> In the experiments, conducted in the United States and the Netherlands,
>>> scientists created a highly transmissible form of a deadly flu virus that
>>> does not normally spread from person to person. It was an ominous step,
>>> because easy transmission can lead the virus to spread all over the world.
>>> The work was done in ferrets, which are considered a good model for
>>> predicting what flu viruses will do in people.
>>>
>>> The virus, A(H5N1), causes bird flu, which rarely infects people but has an
>>> extraordinarily high death rate when it does. Since the virus was first
>>> detected in 1997, about 600 people have contracted it, and more than half
>>> have died. Nearly all have caught it from birds, and most cases have been in
>>> Asia. Scientists have watched the virus, worrying that if it developed the
>>> ability to spread easily from person to person, it could create one of the
>>> deadliest pandemics ever.
>>>
>>> A government advisory panel, the National Science Advisory Board for
>>> Biosecurity, overseen by the National Institutes of Health, has asked two
>>> journals, Science and Nature, to keep certain details out of reports that
>>> they intend to publish on the research. The panel said conclusions should be
>>> published, but not "experimental details and mutation data that would enable
>>> replication of the experiments."
>>>
>>> The panel cannot force the journals to censor their articles, but the editor
>>> of Science, Bruce Alberts, said the journal was taking the recommendations
>>> seriously and would probably withhold some information — but only if the
>>> government creates a system to provide the missing information to legitimate
>>> scientists worldwide who need it.
>>>
>>> The journals, the panel, researchers and government officials have been
>>> grappling with the findings for several months. The Dutch researchers
>>> presented their work at a virology conference in Malta in September.
>>>
>>> Scientists and journal editors are generally adamant about protecting the
>>> free flow of ideas and information, and ready to fight anything that hints
>>> at
>>> censorship.
>>>
>>> "I wouldn't call this censorship," Dr. Alberts said. "This is trying to
>>> avoid
>>> inappropriate censorship. It's the scientific community trying to step out
>>> front and be responsible."
>>>
>>> He said there was legitimate cause for the concern about the researchers'
>>> techniques falling into the wrong hands.
>>>
>>> "This finding shows it's much easier to evolve this virus to an extremely
>>> dangerous state where it can be transmitted in aerosols than anybody had
>>> recognized," he said. Transmission by aerosols means the virus can be spread
>>> through the air via coughing or sneezing.
>>>
>>> Ever since the tightening of security after the terrorist attacks on Sept.
>>> 11, 2001, scientists have worried that a scientific development would pit
>>> the
>>> need for safety against the need to share information. Now, it seems, that
>>> day has come.
>>>
>>> "It's a precedent-setting moment, and we need to be careful about the
>>> precedent we set," Dr. Alberts said.
>>>
>>> Both studies of the virus — one at the Erasmus Medical Center in Rotterdam,
>>> in the Netherlands, and the other at the University of Wisconsin-Madison —
>>> were paid for by the National Institutes of Health. The idea behind the
>>> research was to try to find out what genetic changes might make the virus
>>> easier to transmit. That way, scientists would know how to identify changes
>>> in the naturally occurring virus that might be warning signals that it was
>>> developing pandemic potential. It was also hoped that the research might
>>> lead
>>> to better treatments.
>>>
>>> Dr. Anthony Fauci, head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious
>>> Diseases, said the research addressed important public health questions, but
>>> added, "I'm sure there will be some people who say these experiments never
>>> should have been done."
>>>
>>> Dr. Fauci said staff members at the institutes followed the results of the
>>> research and flagged it as something that the biosecurity panel should
>>> evaluate.
>>>
>>> The lead researcher at the Erasmus center, Ron Fouchier, did not respond to
>>> requests for an interview. The center issued a statement saying that
>>> researchers there had reservations about the panel's recommendation, but
>>> would observe it.
>>>
>>> The Wisconsin researcher, Yoshihiro Kawaoka, was out of the country and "not
>>> responding to queries," according to a spokesman for the university. But the
>>> school said its researchers would "respect" the panel's recommendations.
>>>
>>> David R. Franz, a biologist who formerly headed the Army defensive
>>> biological
>>> lab at Fort Detrick, Md., is on the board and said its decision to
>>> intervene,
>>> made in the fall, was quite reasonable.
>>>
>>> "My concern is that we don't give amateurs — or terrorists — information
>>> that
>>> might let them do something that could really cause a lot a harm," he said
>>> in
>>> an interview.
>>>
>>> "It's a wake-up call," Dr. Franz added. "We need to make sure that our best
>>> and most responsible scientists have the information they need to prepare us
>>> for whatever we might face."
>>>
>>> Amy Patterson, director of the office of biotechnology activities at the
>>> National Institutes of Health, in Bethesda, Md., said the recommendations
>>> were a first.
>>>
>>> "The board in the past has reviewed manuscripts but never before concluded
>>> that communications should be restricted in any way," she said in a
>>> telephone
>>> interview. "These two bodies of work stress the importance of public health
>>> preparedness to monitor this virus."
>>>
>>> Ronald M. Atlas, a microbiologist at the University of Louisville and past
>>> president of the American Society for Microbiology, who has advised the
>>> federal government on issues of germ terrorism, said the hard part of the
>>> recommendations would be creating a way to move forward in the research with
>>> a restricted set of responsible scientists.
>>>
>>> He said that if researchers had a better understanding of how the virus
>>> works, they could develop better ways to treat and prevent illness. "That's
>>> why the research is done," he said.
>>>
>>> The government, Dr. Atlas added, "is going to struggle with how to get the
>>> information out to the right people and still have a barrier" to wide
>>> sharing
>>> and inadvertently aiding a terrorist. "That's going to be hard."
>>>
>>> Given that some of the information has already been presented openly at
>>> scientific meetings, and that articles about it have been sent out to other
>>> researchers for review, experts acknowledged that it may not be possible to
>>> keep a lid on the potentially dangerous details.
>>>
>>> "But I think there will be a culture of responsibility here," Dr. Fauci
>>> said.
>>> "At least I hope there will."
>>>
>>> The establishment of the board grew out of widespread fears stemming from
>>> the
>>> 2001 terrorist attacks on the United States and the ensuing strikes with
>>> deadly anthrax germs that killed or sickened 22 Americans.
>>>
>>> The Bush administration called for wide controls on biological information
>>> that could potentially help terrorists. And the scientific community firmly
>>> resisted, arguing that the best defenses came with the open flow of
>>> information.
>>>
>>> In 2002, Dr. Atlas, then the president-elect of the American Society for
>>> Microbiology, objected publicly to "anything that smacked of censorship."
>>>
>>> The federal board was established in 2004 as a compromise and is strictly
>>> advisory. It has 25 voting members appointed by the secretary of health and
>>> human services, and has 18 ex officio members from other federal agencies.
>>>
>>> Federal officials said Tuesday that the board has discussed information
>>> controls on only three or four occasions. The first centered on the genetic
>>> sequencing of the H1N1 virus that caused the 1918 flu pandemic, in which up
>>> to 100 million people died, making it one of the deadliest natural disasters
>>> in human history.
>>>
>>> "We chose to recommend publication without any modifications," Dr. Franz,
>>> the
>>> former head of the Army lab, recalled. "The more our good scientists know
>>> about problems, the better prepared they are to fix them."
>>>
>>> This fall, federal officials said, the board wrestled with the content of
>>> H5N1 papers to Science and Nature, and in late November contacted the
>>> journals about its recommendation to restrict information on the methods
>>> that
>>> the scientists used to modify the deadly virus.
>>>
>>> "The ability of this virus to cross species lines in this manner has not
>>> previously been appreciated," said Dr. Patterson of the National Institutes
>>> of Health. "Everyone involved in this matter wants to do the proper thing."
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> biomed mailing list
>>> biomed@postbiota.org
>>> http://postbiota.org/mailman/listinfo/biomed
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> --
>>> - Bryan
>>> http://heybryan.org/
>>> 1 512 203 0507
>>>
>>> --
>>> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups
>>> "DIYbio" group.
>>> To post to this group, send email to diybio@googlegroups.com.
>>> To unsubscribe from this group, send email to
>>> diybio+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com.
>>> For more options, visit this group at
>>> http://groups.google.com/group/diybio?hl=en.
>>
>> --
>> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "DIYbio" group.
>> To post to this group, send email to diybio@googlegroups.com.
>> To unsubscribe from this group, send email to diybio+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com.
>> For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/diybio?hl=en.
>>
>
>
>
--
www.indiebiotech.com
twitter.com/onetruecathal
joindiaspora.com/u/cathalgarvey
PGP Public Key: http://bit.ly/CathalGKey
--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "DIYbio" group.
To post to this group, send email to diybio@googlegroups.com.
To unsubscribe from this group, send email to diybio+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com.
For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/diybio?hl=en.
0 comments:
Post a Comment