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February 18th, 2012 
FAKE NEWS for the Zionist agenda SATURDAY, Feb. 18 (HealthDay News) — Research on a mutated, more
contagious form of the bird flu virus can be published in full, the World
Health Organization announced Friday, despite concerns that bioterrorists
could use the information to start a pandemic.
The decision came during a special meeting of 22 bird flu experts in
Geneva, Switzerland, that was convened by the WHO to discuss the “urgent
issues” that have swirled around possible publication of the two bird flu
studies since last November, The New York Times reported
Saturday.
Most of those at the meeting felt that any theoretical terrorist risk
was outweighed by the “real and present danger” of similar flu virus
mutations occurring naturally in the wild, and by the need for the
scientific community to share information that could help identify exactly
when the virus might be developing the ability to spread more easily, Dr.
Anthony Fauci, director of the U.S. National Institute of Allergy and
Infectious Diseases, told the Times. Fauci represented the United
States at the meeting.
“The group consensus was that it was much more important to get this
information to scientists in an easy way to allow them to work on the
problem for the good of public health,” Fauci said. “It was not unanimous,
but a very strong consensus.”
However, Fauci added, the United States was not part of that consensus.
U.S. bio-security chiefs had urged last November that critical specifics
of the papers remain unpublished.
Although the bird flu virus, known as H5N1, rarely infects people, it
appears to be highly lethal when it does. Of about 600 known cases, more
than half have been fatal. If the virus were able to spread more easily
from birds to humans, experts have estimated that millions of people could
die after being infected.
The two studies at the center of the debate were to be published in the
journals Science and Nature late last year. The papers,
which were funded by the U.S. National Institutes of Health, describe how
the H5N1 virus could mutate relatively easily into a strain that could
spread rapidly among humans. The research was done by scientists at the
University of Wisconsin and in the Netherlands.
The editors of both journals said they plan to publish the papers in
full at a future date.
“Discussions at the WHO meeting made it clear how ineffective redaction
and restricted distribution would be for the Nature paper. It also
underlined how beneficial publication of the full paper could be. So, that
is how we intend to proceed,” Dr. Philip Campbell, editor-in-chief of
Nature, said in a statement. “As was expressed at the WHO meeting,
there is a need first to explore how best to communicate the issues of
publication to a concerned public, and to review safety assurance of labs
who would act on this publication. I fully support the WHO’s further
efforts in this regard.”
Speaking at a scientific meeting in Vancouver, Science
editor-in-chief Bruce Alberts had this to say about the WHO decision: “So,
my reading is that both Nature and Science are to wait until
we get some further information from the WHO and other authorities of
when, in fact, we are to publish the full manuscript.”
Before the two studies can be published, the experts at the WHO meeting
said, security assessments must be made, the Sydney Morning Herald
reported.
Another meeting on the remaining issues will be held at a future date,
the WHO said in a statement.
The scientists behind the research had agreed on Jan. 20 to honor a
60-day moratorium on further studies, the Herald reported, but that
deadline will now be extended for an unspecified time to allow for a wider
examination of the risks and for public discussion.
More information
For more on how the bird flu virus might be able to infect humans,
visit the U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious
Diseases.
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