A new genetically engineered (GE) bird flu virus created in a lab has the potential to kill up to half the world’s population. The virus, a GE synthetic H5N1 strain is more contagious than the seasonal flu that kills tens of thousands of people every year. This aggressive strain can be transmitted by air human to human. Escape of this synthetic virus could be especially problematic for those living in densely populated cities.

The GE virus was created by Ron Fouchier at the Erasmus Medical Centre in Rotterdam, Netherlands and Yoshihiro Kawaoka at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Their work was presented at the Influenza Conference in September 2011. Academics and bioterrorism experts have since argued whether this information should be patented, published and released to the scientific community.

On Friday February 17, 2012 the World Health Organization (WHO) gave its approval for publication. The WHO meeting held in Geneva focused on issues which relate to the controversial research. At the end of a two- day discussion, a decision was made to release the details of the biotech process. The scientific research paper on how to produce this deadly flu virus will be published in a few months. A 60 day moratorium will allow time for those in charge to determine how the details will be released.

The US wanted detailed information kept secret for fear terrorists could use the biotechnology to create a weapon of mass destruction. However, the World Health Organization decided the work would be published in full. This followed a two month long debate with recommendations by 22 experts in flu and public health from participating countries. Dr. Bruce Alberts, editor in chief of 'Science', a peer reviewed journal, issued a statement in response to the WHO press release on Friday stating: "In the absence of any mechanism to get the information to those scientists who need to protect their populations and to design new treatments and vaccines, our default position is that we have to publish in complete form."

Albert and other scientists believe that a vaccine should be developed immediately in the event that this type of virus appears in nature as a mutation of current H1N5 types. As a scientist, I believe the research by Fouchier and Kawaoka who genetically engineered this transmissible virus should never have been done. There is absolutely no guarantee that a vaccine developed for this GE virus would be effective against a naturally occurring mutation from the wild. The replication of this GE virus for use by research labs increases the chance of accidental release -- multiple teams working with the virus increases risk.

An article in Medical Daily said: “Nobody is going to ramp up production of a pre-pandemic vaccine based on these two experimental viruses,” Richard Webby, a flu virologist at the St. Jude Children's Research Hospital in Memphis, Tennessee told Nature. “That's 100 percent sure.”

http://www.medicaldaily.com/news/20120208/9074/flu-h5n1-vaccine-ron-fouchier-yoshihiro-kawaoka-anthony-fauci.htm

Anthony Samsel is a member of the Union of Concerned Scientists, the Collaborative on Health and the Environment and a retired consultant to Arthur D. Little, Inc.