The U.S. government is sounding the alarm after reports that Dutch scientists have created a highly-contagious and deadly airborne strain of bird flu that is potentially capable of killing millions. CLick below to read the story.
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The U.S. National Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity is currently analyzing how much of the scientists’ information should be allowed to be published—given the inherent risks of having the information fall into the hands of terrorists or rogue states.
“The fear is that if you create something this deadly and it goes into a global pandemic, the mortality and cost to the world could be massive,” a senior US government adviser told The Independent.
Scientists, too, are questioning whether the science should ever have been performed in the first place.
“There are people who say that the work should never have been done, or if it was done it should have been done in a setting where the information could be better controlled,” a source close to the US biosecurity board told the newspaper.
“With influenza now it is possible to reverse engineer the virus. It’s pretty common technology in many parts of the world. With the genomic sequence, you can reconstruct it. That’s where the information is dangerous.”
