WASHINGTON - Scientists who sparked an outcry by creating easier-to-spread versions of the bird flu for research purposes want to try such experiments again using a worrisome new strain.
This time around, the U.S. government is promising extra scrutiny of such high-stakes research.
Since it broke out in China in March, the H7N9 bird flu has infected more than 130 people and killed 43. Some of the world's leading researchers argue that genetically altering that virus in high-security labs is key to studying how it may mutate in the wild to become the next pandemic.
"We cannot prevent epidemics or pandemics, but we can accumulate critical knowledge ahead of time" to help countries better prepare and respond, Ron Fouchier of Erasmus University in the Netherlands told The Associated Press.
In letters published Wednesday in the journals Science and Nature, Fouchier and colleagues from a dozen research centers in the U.S., Hong Kong and Britain outlined plans for what's called gain-of-function research - creating potentially stronger strains, including ones that might spread easily through the air between lab animals. They say the work could highlight the most important mutations for public health officials to watch for as they monitor the virus's natural spread or determine how to manufacture vaccines.
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The announcement is an attempt to head off the kind of controversy that erupted in 2011 when Fouchier and Yoshihiro Kawaoka of the University of Wisconsin-Madison created easier-to-spread strains of another deadly kind of bird flu, the better-known H5N1.
The concerns: How to guard against lab accidents with the man-made strains, and whether publishing findings from the research could offer a blueprint for would-be bioterrorists. The H5N1 work eventually was published.
Now the researchers aim to explain to the public ahead of time why they want to do more of this scary-sounding research, and how they'll manage the risks.
The Obama administration already had tightened oversight of research on dangerous germs. On Wednesday, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services announced an extra step: In addition to scientific review, researchers who propose creating easier-to-spread strains of H7N9 will have to pass a special review by a panel of experts who will weigh the risks and potential benefits of the work.
