Panel backs sharing studies of lab-made bird flu

NEW YORK (AP) ? A U.S. biosecurity panel said Friday that it supports publishing two revised studies showing how scientists made new easy-to-spread forms of bird flu in the lab.

The committee, meeting in Washington, said the updated versions do not reveal information that could be misused by bioterrorists to create a deadly global epidemic. That means two scientific journals will go ahead and publish the research.

The lab research was funded by the U.S. with the hope it would help scientists learn how to prevent the bird flu now in Asia from becoming more dangerous.

But last year the National Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity said publishing full details would be too risky. It switched positions Friday, with members announcing they are satisfied with the revised research reports.

The committee made its recommendation to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

It unanimously supported publication of one study, led by Yoshihiro Kawaoka of the University of Wisconsin. By majority vote it supported publication of the key parts of a second study, from Ron Fouchier of the Erasmus Medical Center in Rotterdam, The Netherlands.

Editors of the journals Science and Nature, which plan to publish the works, said they were pleased by the decision.

University of Pennsylvania bioethics professor Art Caplan said the decision makes sense, primarily because the information in the studies is already being shared among scientists.

"The details of this paper are already out, these two papers. The horse is out of the barn and trying to yank it back doesn't make much sense," Caplan said.

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Science Writer Seth Borenstein in Washington contributed to this report.

Associated Press

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