Let's Ban Research That Makes the Bird-Flu Virus and Other Pathogens DeadlierFebruary 6, 2012, 7:24 am by Scientific American: HealthIn my classes, I often ask my students to wrestle with what I call damned-if-you-do-or-don’t dilemmas, which offer no easy solutions. Every choice would pose certain risks and violate one valued principle or another. We often must choose what we deem to be the “least bad” option, and hope things work out. Research involving the bird-flu virus H5N1 poses an especially knotty dilemma, in which scientists’ commitment to openness and to reducing humanity’s vulnerability to potential health threats collides with broader security concerns. The H5N1 virus normally only infects humans who come into direct contact with infected birds; so far there have been no reported cases of airborne transmission among birds and humans. Of the 583 people known to have been infected with the virus, 344 have died as a result, a mortality rate of 59 percent. To be sure, many other infected people may have recovered without coming to the attention of medical authorities. But in comparison, the infamous flu pandemic of 1918, which killed at least 50 million people worldwide, had a mortality rate of two percent. [More]
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