June 7, 2012

Science versus spin: how Ron Fouchier and other scientists miscommunicated about the bioengineered bird flu controversy

For a lucid history of the early phase of the GOF H5N1 flu virus see the story by Peter Sandman, a risk communicator. The contradictions between the early and late versions of the “Fouchier” experiment by Fouchier himself are indeed worrying and highly irregular. This is not representative of what happens in the vast majority of labs.

June 22, 2012

Airborne transmission of influenza A/H5N1 virus between ferrets.

Herfst S1, Schrauwen EJ, Linster M, Chutinimitkul S, de Wit E, Munster VJ, Sorrell EM, Bestebroer TM, Burke DF, Smith DJ, Rimmelzwaan GF, Osterhaus AD, Fouchier RA.

Comment to be posted.

May 2, 2012

Experimental adaptation of an influenza H5 HA confers respiratory droplet transmission to a reassortant H5 HA/H1N1 virus in ferrets

Imai M1, Watanabe T, Hatta M, Das SC, Ozawa M, Shinya K, Zhong G, Hanson A, Katsura H, Watanabe S, Li C, Kawakami E, Yamada S, Kiso M, Suzuki Y, Maher EA, Neumann G, Kawaoka Y.

Comment to be posted.

February 9, 2012

Nature editorial - Facing up to flu
The potential for mutant-flu research to improve public health any time soon has been exaggerated. Timely production of sufficient vaccine remains the biggest challenge.
Nature. 2012 Feb 8;482(7384):131. doi: 10.1038/482131a

“The fact that the risks seem to far outweigh the public-health benefits of the research, at least in the short term, means that there is no need to rush headlong into an expansion of the work. Rather, regulators and flu researchers must take whatever time they need to decide the best way for such work to proceed safely.”

Agreed. However, 2012 and 2013 were essentially wasted years in terms of discussion. Only following what has been called black biosafety year 2014 did anything change.

February 9, 2012

Lab flu may not aid vaccines
Game-changing vaccine technologies are needed to strengthen global pandemic defences.
Butler D
Nature. 2012 Feb 8;482(7384):142-3. doi: 10.1038/482142a.

“Now that laboratory studies have yielded a glimpse of H5N1 flu viruses that might spread rapidly in humans and cause a devastating pandemic, vaccine makers will be better prepared if one develops. Or will they?

It is an appealing argument, and one that some scientists have made in recent weeks as controversy has swirled over two experiments that created H5N1 strains able to spread in mammals. But most experts contacted by Nature say that the work is unlikely to speed up the vaccine response in a pandemic. Jeremy Farrar, director of the Oxford University Clinical Research Unit in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, calls such expectations “a red herring”.”


“But many agree with Richard Webby, a flu virologist at the St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis, Tennessee, who says, “I think the research is important, but not for vaccine purposes.””


“Nobody is going to ramp up production of a pre-pandemic vaccine based on these two experimental viruses,” says Webby. “That’s 100% sure.” Ab Osterhaus, a co-author on Fouchier’s paper also at Erasmus, agrees that industry will wait on the actual pandemic strain for any major roll-out, but says that screening for mutations could detect variants that could be used to make new seed strains, which might help with the initial response.”


“Bram Palache, the global government affairs director for vaccines at Abbott Biologicals in Weesp, the Netherlands, says that industry will not switch its limited plant capacity from making the seasonal flu vaccines to making a pandemic vaccine until a human pandemic has actually emerged and government orders are in hand. And once a pandemic is under way, neither industry nor governments will be content to use existing pre-pandemic vaccines — they will insist on one matched to the pandemic strain itself, says Palache.

Given the current technology and infrastructure, developing and manufacturing such a vaccine will take many months. Now that the mutant-flu studies have suggested that an H5N1 pandemic is a real possibility, health authorities should focus on shortening that timescale, says Farrar. He urges much greater investment in better and faster vaccine technologies, including universal flu vaccines — because H5N1 is far from the only possible pandemic strain.”

Making vaccines was one of the claims for doing GOF research work. The above comments are pretty clear. Move on.

January 20, 2012

Pause on avian flu transmission studies

Fouchier RA, García-Sastre A, Kawaoka Y, Barclay WS, Bouvier NM, Brown IH, Capua I, Chen H, Compans RW, Couch RB, Cox NJ, Doherty PC, Donis RO, Feldmann H, Guan Y, Katz J, Klenk HD, Kobinger G, Liu J, Liu X, Lowen A, Mettenleiter TC, Osterhaus AD, Palese P, Peiris JS, Perez DR, Richt JA, Schultz-Cherry S, Steel J, Subbarao K, Swayne DE, Takimoto T, Tashiro M, Taubenberger JK, Thomas PG, Tripp RA, Tumpey TM, Webby RJ, Webster RG.

Science. 2012 Jan 27;335(6067):400-1. doi:10.1126/science.335.6067.400.

“In two independent studies conducted in two leading influenza laboratories at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and Erasmus MC in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, investigators have proved that viruses possessing a haemagglutinin (HA) protein from highly pathogenic avian H5N1 influenza viruses can become transmissible in ferrets. This is critical information that advances our understanding of influenza transmission.”

“However, more research is needed to determine how influenza viruses in nature become human pandemic threats, so that they can be contained before they acquire the ability to transmit from human to human, or so that appropriate countermeasures can be deployed if adaptation to humans occurs.”

“Whether the ferret-adapted influenza viruses have the ability to transmit from human to human cannot be tested.”

“We propose to do so in an international forum in which the scientific community comes together to discuss and debate these issues.”

Quote 1 cites critical information, although more work is needed (quote 2). This is frequently the case in science. Quote 3 shows that we cannot be sure whether these viruses will actually transmit between humans, despite being critical information. Hence there is little robust information for a Health Minister.

Quote 4 was never followed through by the flu community, or at least not in an open format.