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发帖数: 4793 | 1 Don't censor life-saving science
Controlling who is allowed access to information about mutations in the H5N1
bird flu virus is unacceptable, says Peter Palese21.
11 January 2012
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The recent arguments over the creation of a transmissible form of the bird
flu virus (H5N1) feel very familiar. My colleagues and I were at the centre
of a similar controversy in 2005, when we reconstructed the 1918 flu virus,
which had killed up to 50 million people worldwide. News stories around the
globe debated the merits of our research and television pundits argued
opposing viewpoints. Naturally, the US government was concerned — as it is
now. Yet our research was published in full. So why are similar concerns
being used now to demand unacceptable censorship of the H5N1 scientific
papers?
I have spent my career studying potentially dangerous pathogens — 20 years
ago, my lab developed the technique that has enabled the H5N1 researchers to
insert the mutations that render the virus more easily transmissible. In
the 1990s, researchers discovered degraded samples of the 1918 virus in lung
tissue from US soldiers who had died from the 'Spanish flu'. Using
polymerase chain reaction technology, they amplified and sequenced the virus
's RNA. We then took an existing influenza virus and, one by one, swapped
its genes with those from the 1918 virus, eventually recreating a live
version.
As we prepared our results for publication, the US government convened the
National Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity (NSABB), which advises the
community about research using agents that pose threats to national security
or public health. Our experiments had made some people nervous.
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During our discussions with members of the NSABB, we explained the
importance of bringing such a deadly pathogen back to life. Although these
experiments may seem dangerously foolhardy, they are actually the exact
opposite. They gave us the opportunity to make the world safer, allowing us
to learn what makes the virus dangerous and how it can be disabled.
Thankfully, the discussions were largely constructive — within a week, the
NSABB recommended that we continue to study the virus under biocontainment
conditions, and publish the results so that other scientists could
participate in the research. After we published our full paper in 2005 (T. M
. Tumpey et al. Science 310, 77–80; 2005), researchers poured into the
field who probably would not otherwise have done, leading to hundreds of
papers about the 1918 virus. As a result, we now know that the virus is
sensitive to the seasonal flu vaccine, as well as to the common flu drugs
amantadine (Symmetrel) and oseltamivir (Tamiflu). Had we not reconstructed
the virus and shared our results with the community, we would still be in
fear that a nefarious scientist would recreate the Spanish flu and release
it on an unprotected world. We now know such a worst-case scenario is no
longer possible.
This experience has made the NSABB's latest recommendation — that the H5N1
researchers not reveal the mutations behind the virus's transmissibility —
all the more frustrating. I make the same argument today that we made in
2005 — publishing those experiments without the details is akin to
censorship, and counter to science, progress and public health. Why did the
(different) members of the committee come to a different conclusion in this
case? I can only hope that they take a more sensible stance and change their
minds, or that the scientific community at large convinces them to do so.
Certainly, the authors of the papers, as well as the journals considering
them for publication (including this one), should resist the committee's
unworkable compromise that the full information should be released only to
approved experts, and insist on full disclosure.
Giving the full details to vetted scientists is neither practical nor
sufficient. Once 20–30 laboratories with postdoctoral fellows and students
have such information available, it will be impossible to keep the details
secret. Even more troublesome, however, is the question of who should decide
which scientists are allowed to have the information. We need more people
to study this potentially dangerous pathogen, but who will want to enter a
field in which you can't publish your most scientifically interesting
results?
“Who will want to enter a field in which you can't publish your most
scientifically interesting results?”
Knowing which mutations render the virus more dangerous could help on a
public-health level — if an outbreak of bird flu occurs in Taiwan, for
instance, and researchers sequence the virus and see those mutations, we
would know to ramp up the production of appropriate vaccines and antiviral
drugs.
Incidentally, I believe that the risk of future outbreaks in humans is low:
H5N1 has had the opportunity to cause widespread pandemics for many, many
decades, yet it has not done so. Although we know the virus is transmissible
between ferrets, little is known about how it will behave in other animals,
including humans.
The more danger a pathogen poses, the more important it is to study it (
under appropriate containment conditions), and to share the results with the
scientific community. Slowing down the scientific enterprise will not '
protect' the public — it only makes us more vulnerable.
Journal name:
Nature
Volume:
481,
Pages:
115
Date published:
(12 January 2012)
DOI:
doi:10.1038/481115a
Editor's note: Nature is considering one of the papers and the NSABB's
recommendations. It is also involved in consultations about how restricted
access to the scientific methods and data might be implemented. |
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