Can censorship stop bioterrorism? Open science is the best defense against a deadly avian flu attack.

• Author: Bailey, Ronald
• Position: Columns - Column

IN JANUARY, the U.S. National Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity (NSABB) recommended that the journals Nature and Science restrict publication of controversial new research relevant to the transmission of avian flu between humans. The fear: Would-be bioterrorists may be combing the pages of technical publications for tips on how to wreak havoc.

The H5N1 avian flu virus has killed 60 percent of the 600 or so people known to have come down with it since it was first identified in 1997. (By comparison, seasonal flu in the United States kills about 0.1 percent of those who catch it.) So far the H5N1 virus has not become easily transmissible between humans. But recently two research teams, one in the Netherlands and another in Wisconsin, reported that they had succeeded in transforming the virus into versions that can be passed through the air between mammals via respiratory droplets. In the normal course of scientific research, the teams approached Science and Nature about publishing their results.

Reports of this research, however, provoked worries that publishing the recipe for transmitting the flu virus could enable bioterrorists to unleash a devastating global epidemic that might kill billions of people. Concerned journal editors and peer reviewers sought advice from the NSABB, a federally chartered committee of 25 outside experts that advises the government on possible public health threats posed by biological research. In December the NSABB recommended that the journals withhold the research details.

In February, a panel of 22 prominent influenza researchers meeting under the auspices of the World Health Organization rejected the NSABB's recommendation. The panel agreed that publication should be delayed, but that both studies should be published in full within a few months. The voluntary two-month research moratorium for the two teams was extended pending a further biosafety review.

Research moratoriums are not new to the life sciences. Back in 1974, several prominent biologists concerned about the "potential bio-hazards" posed by then-new gene-splicing techniques that had been described in leading scientific journals called for a time-out on certain kinds of experiments. A year later, a group of 140 scientists, along with a few lawyers and journalists, convened at the Asilomar Conference Grounds in Pacific Grove, California, where they proposed a scheme for containing gene-spliced organisms in laboratories. This evolved into...