Ten ferrets, some bird flu and swabs. That is all, according to a presentation last summer, one needs to concoct a virulent strain of influenza that could start a deadly pandemic among humans.

These initial findings were presented last September in Malta at the European Scientific Working group on Influenza meeting to an auditorium packed with fellow scientists and policy makers. Ron Fouchier, a virologist at Erasmus Medical Center in Rotterdam, himself a bit sniffly at the time, calmly explained that he and his team had discovered that without the help of another virus, the deadly avian flu (H5N1) could easily mutate in mammals to become transmissible through the air, like a true pandemic strain, through a sneeze or a cough. And it might need as few as five mutations to make that leap.

The findings took time to gain attention wider public attention, but when research manuscripts describing the specific mutations that the virus underwent were submitted to scientific journals, many scientists and commentators protested, suggesting such information could be used by bioterrorists to manufacture a pandemic flu strain. But after extensive review by researchers, journal editors and even the National Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity, a decision was finally made to take the papers public.

Today in Science, the full paper on the ferret experiment is being published and made freely available online in its entirety. This publication follows the May release of a similar H5N1 study in Nature. (Scientific American is part of Nature Publishing Group.) A second Science study, also published online June 21, assesses the likelihood that these mutations will occur in nature and spur a pandemic in humans. Today's paper is published alongside eight essays explaining some of the risks and benefits of this sort of research.

The upshot is further evidence that this deadly bird flu spreading to humans "is absolutely in the realm of possibility," Derek Smith, of the University of Cambridge, who co-authored the separate, second Science paper said at a Wednesday press briefing. "We see no fundamental hurdle to that happening."

H5N1 has already been found in some 20 mammalian species, including dogs, cats, humans and the dreaded virus reservoir, pigs, Fouchier noted at the briefing. About 600 human deaths have been confirmed in the past 15 years as being caused by this infection, acquired directly from birds. (The mortality rate among humans has been reported at a scary 60 percent, but this is likely an overestimate because non-lethal cases are probably not reported as often, Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, and Francis Collins, director of the National Institutes of Health, noted in an essay in the same issue of Science)

"Whether this virus may acquire the ability to be transmitted via aerosols or respiratory droplets among mammals, including humans, to trigger a future pandemic is a key question for pandemic preparedness," Fouchier and his colleagues wrote in their paper.

7 Comments

1. 1. r0b3m4n 05:44 PM 6/21/12

   Agreed. The best defense is a good offense. And without scientific knowledge of the strains we have literlly NO offense against such "bugs". Any one who disagrees I recommend reading the Art of War
   
   "the general who wins a battle makes many calculations in his temple ere the battle is fought. The general who loses a battle makes but few calculations beforehand. Thus do many calculations lead to victory, and few calculations to defeat: how much more no calculation at all! It is by attention to this point that I can foresee who is likely to win or lose." -Sun Tzu
   

   Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this

2. 2. meliesq 07:59 PM 6/21/12

   Why were Mr. Fourier's work kept a secret for so long?

   Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this

3. 3. Bops 09:53 PM 6/21/12

   Why even waste the money, the whole thing was a bad bird joke for media attention and public tax funding!
   
   We have so many other bigger problems to solve, it's hardly worth a comment, never mind an article.
   

   Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this

4. 4. davidhill 12:06 PM 6/22/12

   A Drug Cure will always come too late to save Humanity
   
   In 1997 the pandemic was stopped in its tracks in Hong Kong. The system adopted was not reliant upon a drug cure but that prevention was better than cure. It worked and Ken Shortridge who devised the strategy was given the Asian equivalent of the Nobel Prize in medicine, The Prince Mahidol Award. By doing this Prof. Shortridge stopped a bird flu pandemic starting and which had the propensity to kill millions (the only one ever to do so and prevent the deaths of incalculable numbers). The premise was, ‘don’t let it start in the first place’.
   
   Why has the establishment therefore forgotten the first dictum of medical health that ‘prevention is better than cure?’
   
   http://avian-influenza.cirad.fr/content/download/1931/11789/file/Kennedy-F-Shortridge.pdf
   
   And why have those who are advocating a drug cure not taken on-board this system that has worked? This question is postulated because the Swine Flu pandemic showed that with reference to the Spanish Flu in 1918 which took up to 100 million lives, that a cure would come too late. In this respect it was not until 7 months 1 week that a vaccine was created and then it had to be manufactured and thereafter distributed to the masses (a logistics nightmare). In the second wave of the Spanish Flu, after the virus had mutated into a human-to-human killer, it did its worst between week 16 and week 26, some 1 month 1 week before a cure was found for the Swine Flu pandemic.
   Therefore whatever way we look at it a drug vaccine will come too late to save us, no matter who you are from the president of the United States downwards. Fact not fiction.
   
   Margaret Chan, Director-General of the WHO says that it is only a matter of time not when the killer virus will emerge - may be next week, next month, next year or whenever; but it will happen sometime and such a pandemic according to pandemic researchers is overdue. Therefore we are living on borrowed time and we have to adopt Prof. Shortridge's strategy for the good of all humanity.
   
   Dr David Hill
   Chief Executive
   World Innovation Foundation
   

   Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this

5. 5. EyesWideOpen 07:19 PM 6/23/12

   I would imagine if terrorists used these papers to replicate the virus, it may escape their bio containment protocols (if they even exercise containment protocols), leaving their labs and infecting their scientists and inhabitants of that geographic region. Whether the military and world health officials from various governments have enough intel to identify these clandestine operations, move in, and contain such an outbreak, "sterilizing" the area of infection, remains to be seen.

   Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this

6. 6. jackvandijk 06:05 PM 6/25/12

   yes, it is a danger

   Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this

7. 7. george19 12:17 PM 6/27/12

   Brought to you by the makers of the flu vaccines, nothing like a bit of panic to bring up sales!!

   Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this