mBio: Influenza Viruses: Breaking All the Rules

[tetano]

:tiphat: AFD
http://afludiary.blogspot.it/2013/07/morens-taubenberger-influenza-viruses.html



Morens & Taubenberger - Influenza Viruses: Breaking All the Rules

BSL-4 Lab Worker - Photo Credit –USAMRIID


# 7485

Perhaps the most memorable line from the movie Contagion came when Laurence Fishburne, as the director of the CDC said, “Someone doesn't have to weaponize the bird flu. The birds are doing that.”

Nevertheless, there has been much debate in recent years over the wisdom of creating new, potentially dangerous, life forms in the laboratory. Projects that, at least in view of some biosecurity experts, could pose a significant danger to the public.
​

Last year, the United States' Office of Science Policy at the NIH released a 4 page set of guidelines for DURC (Duel Use Research of Concern) projects, and ordered a review of all current life sciences projects.

For those unfamiliar with the lexicon of biomedical research, DURC in this new policy is defined as:

. . . life sciences research that, based on current understanding, can be reasonably anticipated to provide knowledge, information, products, or technologies that could be directly misapplied to pose a significant threat with broad potential consequences to public health and safety, agricultural crops and other plants, animals, the environment,
​

While this new policy does not automatically halt or defund research found to meet the DURC definition, it does require greater agency oversight and an assessment of the risks and benefits of any research, along with the development of appropriate risk and safety measures.

The debate continues, however over the safety, and advisability, of some of these lab experiments.
​

Today in mBio we’ve a perspective from noted virologist Jeffery K. Taubenberger & epidemiologist and medical historian David M. Morens on how nature continually conducts these types of experiments 24/7, without regard for the rules of mankind.

Regardless of how you feel about this type of research, you’ll want to read:

Influenza Viruses: Breaking All the Rules

Jeffery K. Taubenberger^a, David M. Morens^b
Viral Pathogenesis and Evolution Section, Laboratory of Infectious Diseases^a
Office of the Director,^b National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Maryland, USA
ABSTRACT

Influenza A viruses (IAV) are significant pathogens able to repeatedly switch hosts to infect multiple avian and mammalian species, including humans. The unpredictability of IAV evolution and interspecies movement creates continual public health challenges, such as the emergence of the 2009 pandemic H1N1 virus from swine, as well as pandemic threats from the ongoing H5N1 and the recent H7N9 epizootics. In the last decade there has been increased concern about the “dual use” nature of microbiology, and a set of guidelines covering “dual use research of concern” includes seven categories of potentially problematic scientific experiments. In this Perspective, we consider how in nature IAV continually undergo “dual use experiments” as a matter of evolution and selection, and we conclude that studying these properties of IAV is critical for mitigating and preventing future epidemics and pandemics.

The views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect the views of the journal or of ASM.
(Continue . . . )
​

Posted by Michael Coston at <a class="timestamp-link" href="http://afludiary.blogspot.ca/2013/07/morens-taubenberger-influenza-viruses.html" rel="bookmark" title="permanent link"><abbr class="published" title="2013-07-16T12:35:00-04:00">12:35 PM</abbr>

 

[Giuseppe]

Re: mBio: Influenza Viruses: Breaking All the Rules

Interesting point of view. But humans also have to not break rules especially when we are managing pathogens with high virulence and with little medical countermeasures to stop a possible laboratory leakage...

 

[gsgs]

Re: mBio: Influenza Viruses: Breaking All the Rules

?But Nature Started It?: Examining Taubenberger and Morens? View on Influenza A
Virus and Dual-Use Research of Concern
1. Nicholas G. Evans Charles Sturt University, Canberra, Australia
1. Address correspondence to Nicholas G. Evans, neva9257@gmail.com.
Letter
In a recent article (1), Jeffery Taubenberger and David Morens examined the way
that nature purportedly breaks the rules of the seven experiments of concern that
characterize the current paradigm of dual-use research of concern (DURC).
They argue that we ought to be mindful that influenza pandemics, epidemics,
and epizootics will continue to wreak havoc for the foreseeable future at the
cost of countless lives. In considering the relative merits of supporting or thwarting
safe research aimed at better preventing and controlling influenza by elucidating
fundamental viral mechanisms, IAV?s own actions should surely be borne in mind
(1) [?IAV? stands for influenza A virus].
Yet such an argument, I argue, is a strange way of characterizing the problem
of dual use, much less advancing the case for pursuing DURC.
The strangeness of this article is borne out first in the idea of IAV continually
undergoing such ?dual use experiments.? While evolutionary pressures cause
IAV to mutate in ways that mirror the outcomes of the experiments of concern
listed in recent U.S. policy (2), it seems a mistake to anthropomorphize nature.
The key behind current U.S. policy is to review proposed research that ?produces,
aims to produce, or is reasonably anticipated to produce one or more of the effects?
listed in the experiments of concern (2). To claim that nature conducts research is
playing fast and loose with the criteria; that nature breaks the rules smacks of an
animism that is hard to fathom.
Second, even if nature does conduct experiments, these experiments are hardly
dual use in any relevant sense. The ?dual? in ?dual use? explicitly identifies research
that may be used to benefit or harm humanity (3?6). Yet the evolution of IAV,
at least in the cases that Taubenberger and Morens raise, has no benefits to human
or animal health (3). If anything, the claim that the authors use to guide their reader?s
intuitions?the horrors that nature visits on us via IAV?relies on the idea that there is
nothing good to be expected from the natural evolutionary mechanisms that drive IAV.
Finally, it is hard to understand why nature ?breaking all the rules? would motivate us
to break the rules. Since the 2004 ?Fink Report? on DURC (3), the power of nature to
cause harm via evolutionary mechanisms creating a gain of function in IAV has been
understood; it is understood that two of the legitimate aims of DURC are to understand
emerging diseases, such as novel strains of IAV, and to attempt to mitigate the harms
caused by such emergence (3, 4). What remains unanswered, here as elsewhere, is
the question of how to properly realize the purported benefits of such research (6, 7).
This is a challenge that any opponent of current regulations must address; simply
advocating the dangers of IAV does little to combat regulations.
This leaves us with the unsettling impression that the authors want to convince us that
?nature started it? and that the only way to finish it is to mirror nature?s efforts.
Yet holding up the lives lost to IAV as an example says nothing about how compelling
DURC is to pursue unless it can be shown that DURC is the best or only option that
we have available to us. As I have argued, that is much more ambiguous than the authors
admit.
There is no doubt that investigating the therapeutic modalities available to us through
DURC will produce some benefit; no one denies that. The questions should be what
types of benefits will these modalities bring and what else is needed to realize these
benefits. Claiming that nature is breaking all the rules does not get Taubenberger and
Morens the conclusion they want. They have to show that the best way to approach
nature breaking the rules is to break the rules ourselves.

Citation Evans NG. 2013. ?But nature started it?: examining Taubenberger and Morens? view
on influenza A virus and dual-use research of concern.
mBio 4(4):e00547-13. doi:10.1128/mBio.00547-13.
Published 20 August 2013
Copyright ? 2013 Evans.

REFERENCES
1. 1.↵ 1. Taubenberger JK, 2. Morens DM
. 2013. Influenza viruses: breaking all the rules.
mBio 4(4):e00365-13. doi:10.1128/mBio.00365-13.
2. 2.↵ 1. Office of Biotechnology Activities, NIH
. 2012. U.S. government policy for oversight of life sciences dual use research
of concern. Office of Biotechnology Activities, NIH, Bethesda, MD. http://www.phe.gov/s3/dualuse/Documents/us-policy-durc-032812.pdf.
3. 3.↵ 1. National Academies of Science . 2004. iotechnology research in an
age of terrorism. Committee on Research Standards and Practices to Prevent the
Destructive Application of Biotechnology, Nation Research Council, National
Academies of Science, Washington, DC.
4. 4.↵ 1. National Academies of Science
. 2006. lobalization, biosecurity, and the future of the life sciences.
Committee on Research Standards and Practices to Prevent the Destructive Application
of Biotechnology, Nation Research Council, National Academies of Science, Washington, DC.
5. 5.↵ 1. Miller S, 2. Selgelid MJ . 2007. Ethical and philosophical consideration of the
dual-use dilemma in the biological sciences. Sci. Eng. Ethics 13:523?580.
6. 6.↵ 1. Evans NG . 2013. Great expectations?ethics, avian flu and the value of
progress. J. Med. Ethics 39:209?213.
7. 7.↵ 1. Osterholm MT, 2. Relman DA . 2012. Creating a mammalian-transmissible
A/H5N1 influenza virus: social contracts, prudence, and alternative perspectives.
J. Infect. Dis. 205:1636?1638.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Reply to ??But Nature Started It?: Examining Taubenberger and Morens? View on Influenza
A Virus and Dual-Use Research of Concern?
Jeffery K. Taubenberger,
David M. Morens
+ Author Affiliations
National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, National Institutes of Health,
Bethesda, Maryland, USA Address correspondence to Jeffery K. Taubenberger,
taubenbergerj@niaid.nih.gov.
Reply
We thank Nicholas Evans for his comments (1). There has been much recent discussion
of how best to balance the public health needs of mitigating the impact of emerging
infectious diseases with the concerns of biosafety and biosecurity that dual-use research
entails (2?4). In our recent article (5), we sought to inform this discussion from the
perspective of the dynamic nature of influenza viruses themselves. Our goal was to
describe how influenza virus evolution, with regard to alterations in virulence, host
switching, antigenic drift, and development of antiviral resistance, etc., could be
examined metaphorically through the lens of the promulgated dual-use rules (6).
Further, it was our contention that a better understanding of the variable and
ever-changing genotypic and phenotypic properties of influenza A viruses in
nature would be helpful as a platform to better inform future policy decisions
aimed at balancing important public health and biosafety/biosecurity concerns.

Citation Taubenberger JK, Morens DM. 2013. Reply to ??But nature started it?:
examining Taubenberger and Morens? view on influenza A virus and dual-use
research of concern.? mBio 4(4):e00579-13. doi:10.1128/mBio.00579-13.
Published 20 August 2013
Copyright ? 2013 Taubenberger and Morens.

REFERENCES
1. 1.↵ 1. Evans NG . 2013. ?But nature started it?: examining Taubenberger and Morens?
view on influenza A virus and dual-use research of concern. mBio 4(4):e00547-13.
doi:10.1128/mBio.00547-13.
2. 2.↵ 1. Morens DM, 2. Subbarao K, 3. Taubenberger JK . 2012. Engineering H5N1
avian influenza viruses to study human adaptation. Nature 486:335?340.
3. 3.↵ 1. Perez DR . 2012. Public health and biosecurity. H5N1 debates:
hung up on the wrong questions. Science 335:799?801.
4. 4.↵ 1. Patterson AP, 2. Tabak LA, 3. Fauci AS, 4. Collins FS, 5. Howard S
. 2013. Research funding. A framework for decisions about research with HPAI H5N1
viruses. Science 339:1036?1037.
5. 5.↵ 1. Taubenberger JK, 2. Morens DM. 2013. Influenza viruses: breaking all the rules.
mBio 4(4):e00365-13. doi:10.1128/mBio.00365-13.
6. 6.↵ 1. Office of Biotechnology Activities, 2. NIH . 2012. U.S. Government policy
for oversight of life sciences dual use research of concern, 21012. Office of Biotechnology
Activities, NIH, Bethesda, MD.

 

[gsgs]

Re: mBio: Influenza Viruses: Breaking All the Rules

besides the purpose of the paper,
most of the Taubenberger/Morens analogies and comparisons
didn't make sense IMO. They were constructed.
Not that it matters so much for the issue itself, but it
reveals the bias of the authors.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Fouchier,Kawaoka wrote in a new paper
> we are beginning to understand some of the molecular changes
> that may allow H5N1 influenza A viruses to transmit via aerosols or respiratory
> droplets among mammals

is that good news or bad news ? If they are beginning to understand,
others will follow, it will become common knowledge.
Even if that may not enable "us" to make H5N1 or H7N9 go pandemic - you could
argue that those subtypes aren't capable to do so - it may help us "mechanistically",
teach us some tricks on how to manipulate other flu viruses to go pandemic.
We know those pandemic viruses exist, they regularly appeared in human history.
Finally "we" may understand how to create them.
I think they should mention and address this issue.

Do we really want that ? Well, science is unstoppable.
Better we know it before evildoers know it, so there is a chance to
better prepare, mitigate. Investing more in countermeasures.

Maybe it's controllable. So to ensure that the knowledge won't be used
to actually do that thing. But that requires rigorous measures and I don't
think we are ready for that without some 9/11-like wakeup-event.

 

[tetano]

Re: mBio: Influenza Viruses: Breaking All the Rules

Reply to ??But Nature Started It?: Examining Taubenberger and Morens? View on Influenza A Virus and Dual-Use Research of Concern?

Jeffery K. Taubenberger,
David M. Morens

+ Author Affiliations

National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Maryland, USA

Address correspondence to Jeffery K. Taubenberger, taubenbergerj@niaid.nih.gov.


Next Section
Reply

We thank Nicholas Evans for his comments (1). There has been much recent discussion of how best to balance the public health needs of mitigating the impact of emerging infectious diseases with the concerns of biosafety and biosecurity that dual-use research entails (2?4). In our recent article (5), we sought to inform this discussion from the perspective of the dynamic nature of influenza viruses themselves. Our goal was to describe how influenza virus evolution, with regard to alterations in virulence, host switching, antigenic drift, and development of antiviral resistance, etc., could be examined metaphorically through the lens of the promulgated dual-use rules (6). Further, it was our contention that a better understanding of the variable and ever-changing genotypic and phenotypic properties of influenza A viruses in nature would be helpful as a platform to better inform future policy decisions aimed at balancing important public health and biosafety/biosecurity concerns.
Previous SectionNext Section
Footnotes

Citation Taubenberger JK, Morens DM. 2013. Reply to ??But nature started it?: examining Taubenberger and Morens? view on influenza A virus and dual-use research of concern.? mBio 4(4):e00579-13. doi:10.1128/mBio.00579-13.

http://mbio.asm.org/content/4/4/e00579-13.full#fn-group-1