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<div class="header reader-header reader-show-element"> <a
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href="https://web.archive.org/web/20111227153536/https://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/27/science/debate-persists-on-deadly-flu-made-airborne.html">web.archive.org</a></div>
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<h6 class="metaFootnote">A version of this article
appeared in print on December 27, 2011, on page A1 of
the New York edition with the headline: Debate
Persists On Deadly Flu Made Airborne.</h6>
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<h1 class="reader-title">Debate Persists on Deadly Flu Made
Airborne</h1>
<div class="credits reader-credits">By DENISE GRADY and DONALD G.
McNEIL Jr.</div>
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<div class="reader-estimated-time" dir="ltr">5-6 minutes</div>
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<p><img
src="https://web.archive.org/web/20111227153536im_/http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2011/12/27/us/jp-FLU/jp-FLU-articleLarge.jpg"
alt="" width="600" height="350"></p>
<p>Dirk-Jan Visser for The New York Times</p>
<p class="caption">Ron Fouchier led a team that took one of
the most dangerous flu viruses ever known and made it even
more dangerous. </p>
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<p>
The young scientist, normally calm and measured, seemed
edgy when he stopped by his boss’s office. </p>
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<p>
“<u><b>You are not going to believe this one,” he tol</b></u><u><b>d
Ron Fouchier, a virologist at the Erasmus Medical
Center in Rotterdam. “I think we have an airborne H5N1
virus.” </b></u></p>
<p>
The news, delivered one afternoon last July, was chilling.
It meant that Dr. Fouchier’s research group had taken one
of the most dangerous flu viruses ever known and made it
even more dangerous — by tweaking it genetically to make
it more contagious. </p>
<p>
What shocked the researchers was how easy it had been, Dr.
Fouchier said. Just a few mutations was all it took to
make the virus go airborne. </p>
<p>
<u><b>The discovery has led advisers to the United States
government, which paid for the research, to urge that
the details be kept secret and </b></u><u><b><a
title="A NY Times article about the panel
recommendations."
href="https://web.archive.org/web/20111227153536/http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/21/health/fearing-terrorism-us-asks-journals-to-censor-articles-on-virus.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=grady,%20fauci&st=cse">not
published in scientific journals</a></b></u><u><b>
to prevent the work from being replicated by
terrorists, hostile governments or rogue scientists. </b></u></p>
<p>
Journal editors are taking the recommendation seriously,
even though they normally resist any form of censorship.
Scientists, too, usually insist on their freedom to share
information, but fears of terrorism have led some to say
this information is too dangerous to share. </p>
<p>
Some biosecurity experts have even said that no scientist
should have been allowed to create such a deadly germ in
the first place, and they warn that not just the
blueprints but the virus itself could somehow leak or be
stolen from the laboratory. </p>
<p>
Dr. Fouchier is cooperating with the request to withhold
some data, but reluctantly. He thinks other scientists
need the information. </p>
<p>
The naturally occurring A(H5N1) virus is quite lethal
without genetic tinkering. It already causes an
exceptionally high death rate in humans, more than 50
percent. But the virus, a type of bird flu, does not often
infect people, and when it does, they almost never
transmit it to one another. </p>
<p>
If, however, that were to change and bird flu were to
develop the ability to spread from person to person,
scientists fear that it could cause the deadliest flu
pandemic in history. </p>
<p>
The experiment in Rotterdam transformed the virus into the
supergerm of virologists’ nightmares, enabling it to
spread from one animal to another through the air. The
work was done in ferrets, which catch flu the same way
people do and are considered the best model for studying
it. </p>
<p>
“This research should not have been done,” said Richard H.
Ebright, a chemistry professor and bioweapons expert at
Rutgers University who has long opposed such research. He
warned that germs that could be used as bioweapons had
already been unintentionally released hundreds of times
from labs in the United States and predicted that the same
thing would happen with the new virus. </p>
<p>
“It will inevitably escape, and within a decade,” he said.
</p>
<p>
But Dr. Fouchier and many public health experts argue that
the experiment had to be done. </p>
<p>
If scientists can make the virus more transmissible in the
lab, then it can also happen in nature, Dr. Fouchier said.
</p>
<p>
Knowing that the risk is real should drive countries where
the virus is circulating in birds to take urgent steps to
eradicate it, he said. And knowing which mutations lead to
transmissibility should help scientists all over the world
who monitor bird flu to recognize if and when a
circulating strain starts to develop pandemic potential. </p>
<p>
“There are highly respected virologists who thought until
a few years ago that H5N1 could never become airborne
between mammals,” Dr. Fouchier said. “I wasn’t convinced.
To prove these guys wrong, we needed to make a virus that
is transmissible.” </p>
<p>
Other virologists differ. Dr. W. Ian Lipkin of Columbia
University questioned the need for the research and
rejected Dr. Fouchier’s contention that making a virus
transmissible in the laboratory proves that it can or will
happen in nature. But Richard J. Webby, a virologist at
the St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis, said
Dr. Fouchier’s research was useful, with the potential to
answer major questions about flu viruses, like what makes
them transmissible and how some that appear to infect only
animals can suddenly invade humans as well. </p>
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