A massive bio-ethical debate has been sparked surrounding a
mutant strain of the H5N1 virus, or avian flu, was taken out of storage to
resume research on the strain of the flu. The avian bird flu is one of the
highest death rates of any pandemic. It has a death rate of nearly 60 percent
while the flu of 1918, which killed 50 million people, had a death rate of only
2.5 percent. The only reason H5N1 hasn’t claimed many lives, only 364, is
because it does not transmit well between humans due to the fact that it is not
an airborne virus.
The reason
this H5N1 strain is such a controversy is because it has been genetically
altered to become airborne and thus transmit between mammals much more
effectively. At this point the U.S. National Science Advisory Board for
Biosecurity (NSABB) asked the researches who developed this to do something
unprecedented, they asked for the portions of the research paper that described
how to make the virus more contagious to be removed to prevent the risks of
bioterrorists learning how to make this virus into a weapon. This outraged
other researchers because the sharing of research is the only way to progress
the science.
Eventually
the researchers who created the virus decided to do something that was again
unheard of, they stopped their research all together and put the last of the
virus on ice. They wanted there to be a halt in research so they could explain
their work. Just recently this moratorium was lifted and research started again
but the debate still continues. Do the risks of bioterrorists or accidental
releases of the virus outweigh the potential benefits of further research on
the virus?
In my
opinion the virus should be released to a limited group of respected
researchers for further study. This is because of a few key aspects. First of
all if you limit who has access to the process of making the virus airborne to
respected scientists you severely reduce the risk of the virus being used as a
bio weapon. Also the mutations that make the virus airborne also make the virus
much less lethal, the ferrets infected with the virus in the lab did not die.
Lastly the mutations in the virus were not man made, they are all found in
nature just not in the same strain of the virus. This means that it is
incredibly plausible that the virus could naturally evolve to be transmitted
thorough the air.
The benefit
of research outweighs the dangers in my opinion. If a vaccine could be created
for H5N1 then it would no longer be a danger at all, like polio. If a vaccine
cannot be made much more will be known about the virus and if an natural
outbreak does occur it will be much easier to deal with anyway. Any of these
benefits will be nullified if the virus is destroyed and research is completely
halted. Then if a natural outbreak does occur the human population will be at a
loss with what to do about the pandemic.
http://www.thestar.com/news/world/2013/02/10/mutant_virus_sparks_bioethics_debate.html
1 comment:
I think the scientists who decided to stop the research all together deserves some applause. It's a grateful act, to stop pursuing knowledge for the safety of the world. However, from the saying, knowledge is power, I think that some people would continue to do the research for the sake of power. Just imagine how much power one would have if he has created an organism that can wipe out the human race.
With that said, I agree that research on the virus should continue. The more we know about the virus, the better we can react to the virus in the case of an outbreak, whether it occurs naturally or through some bio-terrorist attack.
There are researches done on viruses throughout the world, and it's very likely that eventually, the recipe for creating a dangerous virus will fall into the wrong hands. In that case, we need to know how to react and contain the virus.
Even though I agree that we should continue the research, I don't think we have to know everything there is to know. Why should we know how to create an organism that is so deadly, especially if they are made to be airborne? Instead, I think our research should focus on how to prevent the virus from spreading, or on how to combat a viral attack.
We also have to be careful when we handle these organisms that we have created because they are not natural. If there is already concerns with how genetically modified corn may impact our health, consider how much concerns there would be if we accidentally released a virus that is capable of wiping out 60% of an animal species. How much damage would that do to the ecosystem? Not only do we have to contain our information for the virus, but we also have to keep an eye on all those live specimens in the lab.
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