Flu Researchers Say: Let Us Get Back To Work Studying Risky Mutations
Flu Research In A BSL3 Lab A virologist studies avian influenza in a Biosafety Level 3 laboratory. Taronna Maines and Greg Knobloch/CDCVirologists are ending their worldwide bird-flu research hiatus, but they need approval from U.S. funding agencies. One year after voluntarily pausing their work on airborne bird flu, an international group of flu researchers wants to get back to it, promising safeguards that will protect lab workers and the public. The benefits of studying how avian flu can mutate to infect humans outweigh the risks, which the researchers say are minimal anyway. Now it's a matter of getting government funding agencies to restore funding. "We know that in nature, H5N1 viruses in birds are becoming more like viruses that affect mammals," said Yoshihiro Kawaoka of the University of Wisconsin, Madison, co-signer of a new letter declaring an end to the research moratorium. He is also lead author of a paper examining genetic...