The Telegraph: Too Late for Research into Deadly Bird Flu Strain!

The US government is unlikely to succeed in suppressing details of controversial experiments that have created highly infectious forms of the bird flu virus, experts have warned. Two scientific journals have come under pressure not to publish findings of research on the mutant strains of H5N1 over fears that terrorists could use the information to create bio-weapons. However, scientists claim that the plea from the US National Science Advisory Board for Bio-security (NSABB) comes too late because details of the research have already been shared among flu experts: "This horse is out of the barn," Professor Richard Ebright, a molecular biologist and bio-defense expert at Rutgers University in Piscataway, New Jersey, told the journal Nature. "At this point, it is utterly futile to be discussing restricting the publication of this information." He added: "The work should have been reviewed at the national or international level before being performed, and should have been restricted at a national or international level before being performed." Others argue that keeping the science secret could hamper efforts to find new vaccines and drugs to combat an infectious form of human H5N1 .