The New York Times Wants a Science Experiment Destroyed
Scientists have long worried that an influenza virus that has ravaged poultry and wild birds in Asia might evolve to pose a threat to humans. Now scientists financed by the National Institutes of Health have shown in a laboratory how that could happen. In the process they created a virus that could kill tens or hundreds of millions of people if it escaped confinement or was stolen by terrorists.
We nearly always champion unfettered scientific research and open publication of the results. In this case it looks like the research should never have been undertaken because the potential harm is so catastrophic and the potential benefits from studying the virus so speculative.
Full article on the call for better analysis of potentially deadly virus experiments.
It must be that they can document their research, even publish the findings, without preserving–and in fact, destroying–the malignant virus samples.
Doing the research is a little problematic because of accidental release during the process of building the virus. Once the findings are known, there is no reason to destroy it. But, why announce to the world that a given bird virus can be made into a weapon of mass destruction?
There is no justification for not destroying the virus. Document it, as A suggests?–sure. But destroy it! Too many opportunities for unintended consequences.
I vote for destroying the virus, dispite the tone of your headline. In a perfect world, it could be contained. However, human error will always be a factor and that does not bode well for an irreverseable danger.
With respect to the virus being accidently (or intentionally) released, Murphy’s Law likely applies here. I completely expect this virus or another one to be released at some point. The virus may or may not be as deadly as governments claim it is, and vaccine producing companies will make a lot of money.
Surely they’ve violated international treaties to which the U.S. is a signatory against the development of biologic warfare agents — not to mention anti-terrorism statues?
“…We nearly always champion unfettered scientific research and open publication of the results. In [the case of ObamaCare, however,] it looks like the research should never have been undertaken because the potential harm is so catastrophic and the potential benefits from [experimenting with US medical care are] so speculative.”
everyone, let’s chill out and be rational here.
http://www.virology.ws/2012/01/03/should-we-fear-avian-h5n1-influenza/