Flu..

 

Accidents do happen. In 2011 the US National Research Council reported 196 “loss of containment” incidents involving dangerous pathogens between 2003 and 2009 at US government labs.

Today Mark Lipsitch of Harvard University and Alison Galvani of Yale University published a critique of gain-of-function flu work that emphasized the risk of lab escapes.

“While such a release is unlikely in a specific laboratory conducting research under strict biosafety procedures,” they write, “even a low likelihood should be taken seriously, given the scale of destruction if such an unlikely event were to occur.”

If this type of problem can happen at a CDC lab, it points out the issues regarding gain-of-function lab accidents,” says Michael Osterholm of the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis. In reply, flu virologists have insisted that they use very stringent safety procedures.

The incident has rattled critics of “gain of function” experiments with flu, because they can turn flu that does not pose a pandemic threat into a virus that could. Unlike anthrax such flu is highly contagious, and harder to kill with drugs.

They say that such work is unethical if whatever public health benefit it provides can be obtained with less-dangerous experiments – or just by investing in better vaccines.