Meeting to address bird flu research impasse: WHO

[Editor's note: in this Canadian Press report bird flu virus researcher Ron Fouchier makes it clear just why I was right to accuse Baxter of deliberately trying to trigger a worldwide pandemic in 2009 when it contaminated 72 kilos of seasonal vaccine material with the deadly bird flu virus in their biosecurity level 3 facilities in Orth an der Donau. 

Fouchier is quoted as saying that there has never been a  lab accident involving the bird flu virus in any biosecurity level 3 lab, underlining just how secure they are.

Questions not yet answered are: why was the bird flu virus in the Baxter facility in the first place? What type of virus was it? How did it get to contaminate 72 kilos of seasonal vaccine material? How could the contaminated material be sent out of the facility irradiated? Why is the Baxter facility listed as a site of especial interest to US security on diplomatic cables leaked by Wikileaks]

Updated: Sat Jan. 21 2012 15:39:10

The Canadian Press

A small — in relative terms — group of technical experts will be invited to Geneva in mid-February to begin the difficult task of trying to break an impasse arising from the proposed publication of controversial bird flu research, the World Health Organization revealed Saturday.

The controversy was ignited when a U.S. government panel recommended two scientific journals be asked to withhold parts of studies that reportedly show how the H5N1 flu virus can be made more transmissible.

…..

Another issue that will likely be on the table is whether future work with these viruses should be limited to labs with the highest biosafety and biosecurity designations, known as BSL4 laboratories. Fouchier and the American team, from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, did their work in labs with BSL3-plus designations.

Neither team has a BSL4 lab at their institution. And Fouchier has insisted upping the requirement is neither necessary nor helpful. He said dozens of researchers have worked with H5N1 viruses in BSL3-plus labs since 1997 — when the first outbreak in people occurred — and there have been no lab accidents involving the virus.

“If we move this up to (BSL) 4, the research will suffer,” he said in an interview Friday.

Fukuda suggested a larger follow-up meeting involving a more varied cast of players might be arranged later, depending on the outcome of the February gathering.

He wouldn’t give a time frame for that larger meeting, which would likely have the international involvement that flu scientists have been calling for.

 

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