Deadly H5N1 Flu Studies To Stay Secret... For Now

Edsj writes "A spokesman for the World Health Organization announced that an agreement had been reached, after a debate, to keep details secret of the controversial work about the highly pathogenic H5N1 avian flu virus until deeper risk analyses have been carried out. The scientists who made the study, led by Ron Fouchier, still want to release the full paper at some future date for public viewing, but for the time being, the NSABB got what it wanted." The moratorium will be extended "probably for several months."

Wikipedia says

[Anonymous Coward]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Influenza_A_virus_subtype_H5N1

On October 10, 2011 the WHO announced a total of 566 human cases which resulted in the deaths of 332 people since 2003

So it kills about 58% of the people it infects

They certainly managed to draw attention to it now

[gweihir]

Every dictator left that cannot afford nuclear weapons will have a team looking into reproducing this work, even without the publication. I do have to say that most of the fault is with the scientists that went for an, at best, dubious research subject, doubtlessly because of some over-sized egos.

Yet again the editors deleted my submission

[wisebabo]

I submitted this a few hours before this one. (That makes three for three recent submissions of mine that were in the /recent queue and just vanished!). I guess for this one they didn't like my alarmist tone. Anyway, these guys say the studies will stay secret but the New York Times link I provided says they will be releasing the full details (after a delay).

Here is my submission:

wisebabo writes
"So they're going to release FULL details of how to make this? Time to whip up my bio-reactor!

Ok, so this easily transmissible human to human virus (as predicted by ferret models) *only* has a lethality of 50% but that should be enough to collapse civilization. At least it'll help cut down on global warming.

Still that doesn't compare with that (smallpox?) variant which had an almost 100% fatality rate. I remember the publication for that one was suppressed pretty fast. I guess they think this one isn't nearly as dangerous which i would agree with except for the fact that it is AIRBORNE TRANSMISSIBLE (it's based on the Flu!). Boy is sneezing going to be a real conversation killer!

Seems like we've solved the Fermi Paradox; once a species has figured out to make or modify self-replicating nano bots (like viruses), they'll inevitably make one that will in one way or another wipe them out.

Hey, let's see if we can get them to release this in time for 12/21/12!"

Link to Original Source

Re:Wikipedia says

[Mr.LightFoot]

If you read the paper or summary of the paper, it is talking about mutation and implicit manipulation of the virus to 'weaponize' the flu. The steps to mutate the virus was extremely simplistic and can be spread quickly around the globe. An example of how it would work would be similar to the movie Contagion. If you were in Asia during SARS or Africa during Ebola, you would see how fast society/community collapsed. Panic ensures, rich ppl got cures/protection while poor got guns. By delaying the publication, WHO can allow some scientists to develop vaccines to immunize or have counter agents available for key gov't officials to ensure continuance of governance. (aka, politically connected/rich) can get their protection and the rest of us dies until the vaccine is spread across teh world and H1N1is eradicated or diminished. BTW, if you look at the Stats, the reason it didn't spread wide, it happened in China and other Asian countries that has an authoritarian government. Civil unrest results in a bullet to the head or heart. In "free world" it's all man/woman/child for themselves, and therefore, stats would have been higher.