Lab created highly transmissible H5N1 bird flu virus.

[The Magic Pudding]

http://mpegmedia.abc.net.au/rn/podcast/2012/01/hrt_20120116.mp3

Scientists in Europe and the US have created a highly transmissible form of the potentially deadly H5N1 bird flu virus. Laurie Garrett, a senior fellow for global health on the Council on Foreign Relations, talks about the implications of this research.

This is from a different source

When flu scientist Ron Fouchier of Erasmus University in Rotterdam announced in September that he had made a highly contagious, supervirulent form of the bird-flu virus, a long chain of political events unfolded, mostly out of the public eye.

   Fouchier told European virologists at a meeting in Malta that he had created a form of the H5N1 avian flu -- which is naturally extremely dangerous to both birds and mammals, but only contagious via birds -- that was both 60 percent fatal to infected animals and readily transmitted through the air between ferrets, which are used as experimental stand-ins for human beings.

Within government circles around the world, the announcement has highlighted a dilemma: How do you balance the universal mandate for scientific openness against the fear that terrorists or rogue states might follow the researchers' work -- using it as catastrophic cookbooks for global influenza contagion?

Besides the terrorist issue was the question of the security of the labs the research was carried out in.

[Asmodean]

Was just reading about it in a local paper. Freezing research for fear of terrorism..? Oh, come ON!

There is potential for deadly abuse in many fields of research. Should we just ignore them because some asshole with a turban may find them useful in unintended ways?

[The Magic Pudding]

Was just reading about it in a local paper. Freezing research for fear of terrorism..? Oh, come ON!

There is potential for deadly abuse in many fields of research. Should we just ignore them because some asshole with a turban may find them useful in unintended ways?

If the research is potentially of great value I suppose you take some risk I suppose, I'm not sure of how much value it was.  I'd look at things on a cost/benefit basis, I'm not science guy but I do no sometimes benefits aren't know before research is done.  In the audio interview it is stated there are four levels of lab security, apparently the research wasn't done at the highest level, that does sound reckless.

[Asmodean]

If they are talking about biocontainment or some such (BL1-BL4), a flu virus has nothing to do in the 4-zone, really. That is for mostly highly virulent pathogens with very high rates of mortality and no known cures or vaccines. Ebola would be an example of such, but Smallpox is a three, AFAIK.

Flu would be about two, maybe three, methink.

[Whitney]

I've read a few books on virus related things.  There are probably worse things than bird flu stored in labs somewhere.  Apparently, the US and Russia lost control of their small pox stores....and there is evidence that it was weaponized (apparently not actually used yet).

So, if something that caused as much issues as small pox can get out of where it was suppose to be kept I can understand why there would be concern over any other potentially weaponize-able diseases.

[pytheas]

it said it was 3+

4 is total inside-outside exclusion, in case of spill, lockdown to pressure vacuum tightness and all inside melt away if so in contained  internal quarrantine

there is no reason for that, i think it may be over the top. However virulance is judged together with transmiscability. So a highly virulant flu that will take 50% but spread like a rumour in an instant and like sunlight with modern aircraft may affect thousands
an ebola break even at 100% mortality most likely will be tracked  and contained within
the first hundreds. Level 4 is the certainty of the hundreds accident toll for ebola versus the uncertainty for the flu.

anyway the authors complied with the american-led authorities and are restricting/withholding construction information.

it is much much better than smallpox or ebola or anthrax, be sure.
its a bit like a nuclear final solution, sure to get out of hand, hence malthusian population control

[DeterminedJuliet]

step one of The Zombacolypse.

[pytheas]

step one of The Zombacolypse.

not sure about that, sister

I dont visualise zombies as dropping off work suddenly  with high fever, coughing their guts out and dying from asphyxia with lung eodema- but certainly not arising ever again