Seeing Terror Risk, U.S. Asks Journals to Cut Flu Study Facts

Wed Dec 21 03:26:52 PST 2011

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/21/health/fearing-terrorism-us-asks-journals-to-censor-articles-on-virus.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all

By DENISE GRADY and WILLIAM J. BROAD

Published: December 20, 2011

For the first time ever, a government advisory board is asking scientific
journals not to publish details of certain biomedical experiments, for fear
that the information could be used by terrorists to create deadly viruses and
touch off epidemics.

National Institute for Biological Standards and Control/Photo Researchers

The A(H5N1) virus largely affects birds and rarely infects people, but it is
highly deadly when it does.

Kin Cheung/Associated Press

Health workers in Hong Kong killed chickens at a poultry market in 2008.

In the experiments, conducted in the United States and the Netherlands,
scientists created a highly transmissible form of a deadly flu virus that
does not normally spread from person to person. It was an ominous step,
because easy transmission can lead the virus to spread all over the world.
The work was done in ferrets, which are considered a good model for
predicting what flu viruses will do in people.

The virus, A(H5N1), causes bird flu, which rarely infects people but has an
extraordinarily high death rate when it does. Since the virus was first
detected in 1997, about 600 people have contracted it, and more than half
have died. Nearly all have caught it from birds, and most cases have been in
Asia. Scientists have watched the virus, worrying that if it developed the
ability to spread easily from person to person, it could create one of the
deadliest pandemics ever.

A government advisory panel, the National Science Advisory Board for
Biosecurity, overseen by the National Institutes of Health, has asked two
journals, Science and Nature, to keep certain details out of reports that
they intend to publish on the research. The panel said conclusions should be
published, but not bexperimental details and mutation data that would enable
replication of the experiments.b

The panel cannot force the journals to censor their articles, but the editor
of Science, Bruce Alberts, said the journal was taking the recommendations
seriously and would probably withhold some information b but only if the
government creates a system to provide the missing information to legitimate
scientists worldwide who need it.

The journals, the panel, researchers and government officials have been
grappling with the findings for several months. The Dutch researchers
presented their work at a virology conference in Malta in September.

Scientists and journal editors are generally adamant about protecting the
free flow of ideas and information, and ready to fight anything that hints at
censorship.

bI wouldnbt call this censorship,b Dr. Alberts said. bThis is trying to avoid
inappropriate censorship. Itbs the scientific community trying to step out
front and be responsible.b

He said there was legitimate cause for the concern about the researchersb
techniques falling into the wrong hands.

bThis finding shows itbs much easier to evolve this virus to an extremely
dangerous state where it can be transmitted in aerosols than anybody had
recognized,b he said. Transmission by aerosols means the virus can be spread
through the air via coughing or sneezing.

Ever since the tightening of security after the terrorist attacks on Sept.
11, 2001, scientists have worried that a scientific development would pit the
need for safety against the need to share information. Now, it seems, that
day has come.

bItbs a precedent-setting moment, and we need to be careful about the
precedent we set,b Dr. Alberts said.

Both studies of the virus b one at the Erasmus Medical Center in Rotterdam,
in the Netherlands, and the other at the University of Wisconsin-Madison b
were paid for by the National Institutes of Health. The idea behind the
research was to try to find out what genetic changes might make the virus
easier to transmit. That way, scientists would know how to identify changes
in the naturally occurring virus that might be warning signals that it was
developing pandemic potential. It was also hoped that the research might lead
to better treatments.

Dr. Anthony Fauci, head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious
Diseases, said the research addressed important public health questions, but
added, bIbm sure there will be some people who say these experiments never
should have been done.b

Dr. Fauci said staff members at the institutes followed the results of the
research and flagged it as something that the biosecurity panel should
evaluate.

The lead researcher at the Erasmus center, Ron Fouchier, did not respond to
requests for an interview. The center issued a statement saying that
researchers there had reservations about the panelbs recommendation, but
would observe it.

The Wisconsin researcher, Yoshihiro Kawaoka, was out of the country and bnot
responding to queries,b according to a spokesman for the university. But the
school said its researchers would brespectb the panelbs recommendations.

David R. Franz, a biologist who formerly headed the Army defensive biological
lab at Fort Detrick, Md., is on the board and said its decision to intervene,
made in the fall, was quite reasonable.

bMy concern is that we donbt give amateurs b or terrorists b information that
might let them do something that could really cause a lot a harm,b he said in
an interview.

bItbs a wake-up call,b Dr. Franz added. bWe need to make sure that our best
and most responsible scientists have the information they need to prepare us
for whatever we might face.b

Amy Patterson, director of the office of biotechnology activities at the
National Institutes of Health, in Bethesda, Md., said the recommendations
were a first.

bThe board in the past has reviewed manuscripts but never before concluded
that communications should be restricted in any way,b she said in a telephone
interview. bThese two bodies of work stress the importance of public health
preparedness to monitor this virus.b

Ronald M. Atlas, a microbiologist at the University of Louisville and past
president of the American Society for Microbiology, who has advised the
federal government on issues of germ terrorism, said the hard part of the
recommendations would be creating a way to move forward in the research with
a restricted set of responsible scientists.

He said that if researchers had a better understanding of how the virus
works, they could develop better ways to treat and prevent illness. bThatbs
why the research is done,b he said.

The government, Dr. Atlas added, bis going to struggle with how to get the
information out to the right people and still have a barrierb to wide sharing
and inadvertently aiding a terrorist. bThatbs going to be hard.b

Given that some of the information has already been presented openly at
scientific meetings, and that articles about it have been sent out to other
researchers for review, experts acknowledged that it may not be possible to
keep a lid on the potentially dangerous details.

bBut I think there will be a culture of responsibility here,b Dr. Fauci said.
bAt least I hope there will.b

The establishment of the board grew out of widespread fears stemming from the
2001 terrorist attacks on the United States and the ensuing strikes with
deadly anthrax germs that killed or sickened 22 Americans.

The Bush administration called for wide controls on biological information
that could potentially help terrorists. And the scientific community firmly
resisted, arguing that the best defenses came with the open flow of
information.

In 2002, Dr. Atlas, then the president-elect of the American Society for
Microbiology, objected publicly to banything that smacked of censorship.b

The federal board was established in 2004 as a compromise and is strictly
advisory. It has 25 voting members appointed by the secretary of health and
human services, and has 18 ex officio members from other federal agencies.

Federal officials said Tuesday that the board has discussed information
controls on only three or four occasions. The first centered on the genetic
sequencing of the H1N1 virus that caused the 1918 flu pandemic, in which up
to 100 million people died, making it one of the deadliest natural disasters
in human history.

bWe chose to recommend publication without any modifications,b Dr. Franz, the
former head of the Army lab, recalled. bThe more our good scientists know
about problems, the better prepared they are to fix them.b

This fall, federal officials said, the board wrestled with the content of
H5N1 papers to Science and Nature, and in late November contacted the
journals about its recommendation to restrict information on the methods that
the scientists used to modify the deadly virus.

bThe ability of this virus to cross species lines in this manner has not
previously been appreciated,b said Dr. Patterson of the National Institutes
of Health. bEveryone involved in this matter wants to do the proper thing.b 