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Today, the White House announced a pause in a specific type of research on viruses. Rather than being a response to the recent Ebola infections, this dates back to events that began in 2011 ( http://arstechnica.com/science/2012/02/study-of-deadly-flu-sparks-debate-amidst-fears-of-new-pandemic/ ). Back then, researchers who were studying the bird flu put it through a series of lab procedures that ended with a flu virus that could readily infect mammals. Some members of the scientific community considered this work irresponsible, as the resulting virus could, again, potentially infect humans.
Similar research and a debate over its value and threat have continued. Now, however, the Obama administration decided to put it on hold. Prompted by several recent biosafety lapses (including the discovery of old smallpox samples at the National Institutes of Health), the government will temporarily stop funding for these projects. During the pause, the government will organize a "deliberative process" ( http://www.phe.gov/s3/dualuse/Documents/gain-of-function.pdf ) that will consider the value of the research and the appropriate safety precautions that will need to be followed if it's done. The review will be run by a combination of the National Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity and the National Academies of Science.
http://arstechnica.com/science/2014/10/us-announces-pause-in-funding-for-changing-the-species-a-virus-targets/
[Announcement]; http://m.whitehouse.gov/blog/2014/10/17/doing-diligence-assess-risks-and-benefits-life-sciences-gain-function-research
(Score: 2) by Joe on Sunday October 19 2014, @11:17PM
This is pretty disappointing.
I though that there was maybe a chance that the public and politicians, after all their screaming for more therapeutics for Ebola, would see the value of "gain of function" experiments on pathogens/potential pathogens. I thought that maybe all the fear surrounding Ebola could actually amount to an increased awareness of how important it is to study pathogens before there is an outbreak.
How are we to determine if a new virus is a threat, if we can't study it? Zoonotic transmission is a source emerging infectious disease. Should we just wait until people get sick at a noticeable level or human-to-human transmission occurs?
The H5N1 aerosol transmission in mammals studies were deliberate and well-controlled - the scientists didn't just bumble around and magically end up with the virus like an apocalypse movie. Having an idea of what mutations that could possibly lead to human-to-human transmission of a ~50% case fatality virus is important. This is especially true since the virus is endemic to chickens in some countries.
Aside: typing that out just made me realize that it parallels Ebola as it is endemic to an animal reservoir in poor countries and has a similar case fatality rate. Of course, it missing is human-to-human transmission, which is possibly more concerning since other influenza strains are airborne, much harder to contact-trace, have multiple animal reservoirs, and can spread world-wide within a year.
Also, the smallpox example wasn't really a biosafety lapse. It was safely stored according to the standards of the time, but the standards changed in the past fifty years. Refer to this story if you don't remember the details of the "biosafety lapses" - http://soylentnews.org/article.pl?sid=14/07/14/0910259 [soylentnews.org]
- Joe