New York Times, Washington Post examine science’s bird flu dilemma
TheNew York Times and theWashington Post responded with front-page stories late last month after the National Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity asked for self-censorship by researchers who had generated a strain of bird flu easily transmissible among humans. Both papers have continued to probe this freedom-vs.-security dilemma that confronts science in a new way.
(It’s not physics, but it has obvious implications for all of science. A previous report can be seenhere.)
The dilemma involves new particulars but old tensions, as theTimes‘s William J. Broad made clear in the 27 December Science Times essay ‘Science and censorship: A duel lasting centuries.’ Broad called Francis Bacon ‘the 17th-century British philosopher long credited with illuminating the scientific method’ and began by quoting him:
We have consultations, which of the inventions and experiences which we have discovered shall be published, and which not; and take all an oath of secrecy for the concealing of those which we think fit to keep secret; though some of those we do reveal sometime to the State, and some not.
Broad observed that ‘governments have repeatedly tried to keep scientific information secret in fields as diverse as math and cryptography, physics and nuclear science, optics and biology.’ He quoted Steven Aftergood, director of the Federation of American Scientists’ project on government secrecy: ‘It’s a story with mythological resonance. It reflects the view that knowledge is power and some kinds of knowledge have destructive power.’ Broad reported that ‘Aftergood added . . . that censorship often fails because science by nature is inherently open and gossipy—all the more so today because of instant communication and international travel.’
Broad recalled that in 2003, a joint declaration from the editors ofScience,Nature, andThe Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences predicted that situations could arise when a paper ‘should be modified, or not be published.’ That day, Broad wrote, ‘now seems to have arrived for advanced biology.’
Above the fold on that same day’sTimes front page appeared the Denise Grady and Donald G. McNeil Jr story ‘Debate persists on deadly flu made airborne.’ It reported that what ‘shocked the researchers was how easy it had been,’ that some ‘biosecurity experts have even said that no scientist should have been allowed to create such a deadly germ in the first place,’ that these experts ‘warn that not just the blueprints but the virus itself could somehow leak or be stolen from the laboratory,’ that the ‘naturally occurring A(H5N1) virus is quite lethal without genetic tinkering,’ and that it ‘already causes an exceptionally high death rate in humans, more than 50 percent.’
If ‘bird flu were to develop the ability to spread from person to person,’ the article said, ‘scientists fear that it could cause the deadliest flu pandemic in history.’ But the article also reported views such as those of Ron Fouchier, the virologist at the Erasmus Medical Center in Rotterdam who led the recent laboratory effort:
If scientists can make the virus more transmissible in the lab, then it can also happen in nature, Dr. Fouchier said. Knowing that the risk is real should drive countries where the virus is circulating in birds to take urgent steps to eradicate it, he said. And knowing which mutations lead to transmissibility should help scientists all over the world who monitor bird flu to recognize if and when a circulating strain starts to develop pandemic potential.
TheTimes flagged Broad’s essay with prominent notes in the text of the front-page news report and on the page A2 Inside the Times listings. A few days later, theTimes printed a letter from Michael Farzan, a Harvard Medical School microbiologist and immunologist, who argues that efforts to withhold volatile information would prove ‘almost certainly futile’ and that humanity must therefore conduct ‘a concerted ‘land a man on the moon’ effort to combat and ultimately eliminate human infectious disease.’ Farzan declared that such an effort ‘can be successful in a generation even with current technologies’ and ‘would immediately limit the range and virulence of would-be bioweapons, discourage their development and enhance our security far more effectively than any defense program of similar costs.’
TheWashington Post‘s probing of the freedom-vs.-security dilemma took the form of the op-ed ‘A flu virus risk worth taking’ by three authors: Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases; Gary Nabel, director of the Vaccine Research Center at that institute; and Francis Collins, director of the National Institutes of Health. The online version (which diverges slightly from the paper version) argues that ‘important information and insights can come from generating a potentially dangerous virus in the laboratory’ and that understanding ‘the biology of influenza virus transmission has implications for outbreak prediction, prevention and treatment.’ Here’s the heart of the authors’ argument in favor of further research and some degree of openness:
In defining the mutations required for mammalian transmission, public health officials are provided with genetic signatures that, like fingerprints, could help scientists more readily identify newly emergent, potentially harmful viruses, track their spread and detect threatening outbreaks. The ability to identify such viruses even a few months faster than by conventional surveillance provides critical time to slow or stop an outbreak. For example, the CDC implements public health protective measures and stockpiles antiviral drugs. Identifying threatening viruses can also facilitate the early stages of manufacturing vaccines that protect against such a virus in advance of an outbreak.
In addition, determining the molecular Achilles’ heel of these viruses can allow scientists to identify novel antiviral drug targets that could be used to prevent infection in those at risk or to better treat those who become infected. Decades of experience tells[sic] us that disseminating information gained through biomedical research to legitimate scientists and health officials provides a critical foundation for generating appropriate countermeasures and, ultimately, protecting the public health.
The question is whether benefits of such research outweigh risks. The answer is not simple. A highly pathogenic bird flu virus transmissible in humans could arise in ways not predicted by laboratory studies. And it is not clear whether this laboratory virus would behave in humans as it does in ferrets. Nonetheless, new data provide valuable insights that can inform influenza preparedness and help delineate the principles of virus transmission between species.
Coinciding with that New Year’s Day op-ed were reports in various media that in southern China, after a lapse of 18 months, another death has been reported from bird flu.
Steven T. Corneliussen, a media analyst for the American Institute of Physics, monitors three national newspapers, the weeklies NatureandScience, and occasionally other publications. His reports to AIP are collected each Friday forScience and the Media. He has published op-eds in theWashington Post and other newspapers, has written for NASA’s history program, and is a science writer at a particle-accelerator laboratory.