February 17, 2012

expert reaction to ongoing debate concerning research on transmissibility of H5N1

In conjunction with an announcement from a World Health Organisation consultation in Geneva, the SMC gathered reactions from leading experts on the ongoing controversy over research into the H5N1 flu virus.

Dr Philip Campbell, Editor-in-Chief, Nature, said in response to the statement from the WHO meeting, said:

“Discussions at the WHO meeting made it clear how ineffective redaction and restricted distribution would be for the Nature paper. It also underlined how beneficial publication of the full paper could be. So that is how we intend to proceed.

“As was expressed at the WHO meeting, there is a need first to explore how best to communicate the issues of publication to a concerned public, and to review safety-assurance of labs who would act on this publication. I fully support the WHO’s further efforts in this regard.”

Dr Jim Robertson, Principal Scientist In Virology, National Institute for Biological Standards and Control, said:

“While this might seem like an anticlimactic announcement, I did not expect much more to happen and it does sound like something (as little as it might be) was achieved, which is not bad going considering all the issues that are at play in a WHO meeting. I think a continued moratorium on the research is acceptable and more discussion on the risk/benefit will be useful, but ultimately I think the research in question still should be published. Most flu researchers will be aware of the details of at least Ron Fouchier’s work as he presented it at an international conference last year, and I’m glad this happened. Even in the absence of directly attempting to make the H5N1 virus transit between mammals, when you are working with influenza virus, you always have to be aware that passaging the virus in the laboratory may inadvertently mutate it into something quite nasty, and watch out for that. With this demonstration that the H5N1 can transit between mammals without too much mutation, it has snapped us out of any complacency that the virus was never going to do this and that we really need to keep up if not enhance surveillance of animals and humans and not let pandemic planning fall by the wayside.”

Dr John McConnell, Editor, The Lancet Infectious Diseases, said:

“I would comment that although not completely convinced that the work needed to be done in the first place, knowledge of the methods is already so widespread there seems little to be gained in now attempting to restrict access to the data. Indeed, in the unlikely event that the engineered virus escapes the lab, or a similar mutant arises spontaneously, it is essential that the scientific community has full knowledge of the threat it might be facing.”

The Lancet Infectious Diseases also published an editorial on this topic which you can find at this address: http://bit.ly/wbU8Ge

[Written before the WHO announcement] Professor Andrew Easton, School of Life Sciences, University of Warwick, said:

“This is a difficult issue which involves several different questions. The first question that arises is about the value of the experiments and whether they should have been done at all. Do they reveal important, new information? It is certainly possible to generate H5N1 variants that transmit readily between ferrets (not humans, though the ferret model is a very good surrogate for the human situation) so at that trivial level we have not learned anything. However, the data (which I have not seen) will have identified some of the mutations that are required to promote transmission for this particular strain of flu. That is certainly new and has important implications for surveillance. Specifically, the various laboratories that monitor the appearance of flu strains will be able to focus in on key areas and alert us to the possibility that the virus is mutating towards a strain that has a higher threat level. Advance warning is critical in intervention activities.

“The next question, inevitably, is whether the experiments have raised the risk of ‘terrorist’ manipulation of the virus. It is important to understand that manipulation of specific virus genes is technically difficult and requires a high degree of technical skill that puts it outside the range of possibilities for a ‘garage-based’ terrorist.”