H5N1 (original) (raw)
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Ferreting things out: Biosecurity, pandemic flu and the transformation of experimental systems
BioSocieties, 2015
At the end of 2011, microbiologists created a scientific and media frenzy by genetically engineering mutant avian flu viruses that transmitted through the air between ferrets, the animal most widely used to model human flu. Though the studies offered new evidence of avian flu's pandemic potential, they were nevertheless restricted from publication because of concerns about their possible threat to human health and security. In this article, I examine the mutant flu controversy to show how nascent biosecurity regulations engender transformations in experimental systems; namely, in the use and interpretation of experimental organisms, and in the establishment of a culture of security among a globalizing community of scientists. Drawing on analyses of academic publications, interviews with microbiologists and biosecurity regulators, and ethnographic observations at a biosecure laboratory, I show how these experimental transformations are structured by the local demands of scientific production as well as by broader concerns about biosecurity made visible in formal and informal regulations on scientific conduct. I further argue that while the controversy signals unprecedented controls over publication in the biological sciences, such controls build upon and extend ongoing shifts in scientific thought and practice in the wake of pandemic threats.
2014
The relationship between national security and scientific research has received considerable attention in recent years. As part of this, particularly in North America and Europe, questions are being raised regarding whether the knowledge and techniques generated through fundamental and applied life science research might facilitate the production of bioweapons and therefore whether controls should be placed on what gets done, how, and whether information is widely circulated. Such concerns, in some part, informed the 2005 meetings in the inter-review conference process of the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention examining “the content, promulgation and adoption of codes of conduct for scientists.” The final report of the 2005 meeting States Parties stated that:
Rethinking Biosafety in Research on Potential Pandemic Pathogens
mBio, 2012
If accidentally released, mammalian-transmissible influenza A/H5N1 viruses could pose a greater threat to public health than possibly any other infectious agent currently under study in laboratories, because of such viruses' likely combination of transmissibility and virulence to humans. We advocate explicit risk-benefit assessments before work on such pathogens is permitted or funded, improvement of biosafety practices and enforcement, and harmonization of criteria for permitting such experiments across government agencies, as well as internationally. Such potential pandemic pathogens, as they have been called, jeopardize not only laboratory workers and their contacts, but also the wider population, who should be involved in assessments of when such risks are acceptable in the service of scientific knowledge that may itself bear major public health benefits.
The Need for Modernization of Biosecurity in the Post-COVID World
mSphere, 2022
At present, there are two hypotheses about the emergence of SARS-CoV-2; the first is that it was due to a naturally occurring zoonotic jump, and the second contends that it spread due to an accidental dispersion of a laboratory-acquired infection in Wuhan, China. While the pandemic's actual origins remain occluded, it is useful to examine the latter possibility as a paradigm for evaluating biosecurity policy in the post-COVID world. While the pandemic may not have emerged from a research lab, this is possible with research on dangerous pathogens and prompts questions for biosecurity. How might biosecurity protections for such research be modernized while still enabling important, necessary public health research that utilizes dual-use or gain-of-function capabilities? As the world takes urgent action to mitigate shortcomings in the response to COVID-19, such questions and their potential solutions are vital to inform and direct future life science and technology endeavors. KEYWORDS COVID-19, biosecurity, gain of function, modernization C OVID is now regarded as one of the greatest challenges to global public health since the influenza pandemic of 1918. One consistency in the years between then and now has been the commitment to a robust and ubiquitous public health infrastructure for response. However, much has changed in the past 100 years, not only societal changes that affect transportation, communication, economics, and the lifestyles of individuals but also tremendous advances in science and technology. We have described how the response to the COVID-19 pandemic could and should be "modernized" through use of these advances, including modernization of the national stockpile and supply chains for a more successful response to future pandemic threats (1-3). However, we posit that such advances in today's science and technology also pose dual-use risks that warrant ongoing, vigilant biosafety and biosecurity consideration. Applications of synthetic biology for research discovery in the life sciences and for the creation of biomanufactured commodities have increased tremendously over the past decade (4). Thus, just as public health preparedness and response platforms require modernization to adopt advanced technologies for better preparedness and response, so too do biosecurity policies in light of such dual-use capabilities. Gene editing technologies and an expanding convergence between biotechnology and information technology have enabled precision manipulation of biology, which creates opportunities for harm only wished for during Cold War bioweapons programs. It is provocative that concerns about such dual-use capabilities may have spurred theories that SARS CoV-2 resulted from bioweapons-type experimentation. There is ample evidence to confirm that this was not the case (5), but there are two existing hypotheses of how SARS CoV-2 emerged, and there are indications in support of both. Early reports noted the likelihood of a naturally occurring zoonotic jump (6), whereas somewhat later in
Human vaccines & immunotherapeutics, 2013
Since December 2011, influenza virologists and biosecurity experts have been engaged in a controversial debate over research on the transmissibility of H5N1 influenza viruses. Influenza virologists disagreed with the NSABB's recommendation not to publish experimental details of their findings, whereas biosecurity experts wanted the details to be withheld and future research restricted. The virologists initially declared a voluntary moratorium on their work, but later the NSABB allowed their articles to be published, and soon transmissibility research will resume. Throughout the debate, both sides have had understandable views, but both have overlooked the more important question of whether anything could be done if one of these experimentally derived viruses or a naturally occurring and highly virulent influenza virus should emerge and cause a global pandemic. This is a crucial question, because during the 2009 H1N1 influenza pandemic, more than 90% of the world's people had...