US worried about publication of details on bird flu super virus

By Gisela Ostwald Jan 16, 2012, 3:06 GMT

New York - The Dutch medical researcher who came up with a super bird flu virus once described his experiment as 'really, really stupid', but he remains convinced of its usefulness.

Ron Fouchier of Erasmus University in Rotterdam infected ferrets repeatedly with the deadly bird flu virus H5N1, creating a pathogen capable of spreading rapidly amongst the animals, killing most of them.

The same is likely to happen to people if this super virus ever escaped, Fourier has acknowledged, setting alarm bells ringing in the United States in particular, where there are concerns the virus could fall into terrorist hands.

The news caused nervousness when Fouchier first announced his achievement at a conference in Malta in September. That turned to outright alarm, when the respected US journal Science said it would be publishing details of his experiments in a forthcoming issue.

The US administration reacted sharply, expressing fear the article could provide a blueprint for terrorists aiming to create a biological weapon capable of killing millions of people. The US National Biosecurity Committee called on the magazine's publishers to hold back on publication.

Since then, Fouchier has reworked his manuscript, but neither the author nor the Science editors are happy about the decision. The Rotterdam researcher insisted in a recent interview with the New York Times that the discovery is highly significant and its details should be made available to other research teams around the world.

'The message is that H5N1 can go airborne between mammals,' he said. Currently the virus is not passed readily between mammals and is usually caught through direct exposure to poultry. In cases where humans have been infected, the death rate is above 50 per cent.

Fouchier argues that, should the super virus ever be released, whether by natural mutation, escaping from the laboratory or being created by bio-terrorists, health authorities around the world should be prepared to deal with it. He believes that at least 100 organization could assist in finding an antidote.

The new H5N1 pathogen is not easy to make, he insists. 'There are many pathogens in nature that you could get your hands on very easily, and if you released those in the human population, we would be in trouble,' Fouchier says.

But the concern of the US administration is evident. 'A crude, but effective, terrorist weapon can be made by using a small sample of any number of widely available pathogens, inexpensive equipment, and college-level chemistry and biology,' Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told a Geneva conference last month.

She added that the terror group al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula had called for 'brothers with degrees in microbiology or chemistry to develop a weapon of mass destruction.'