National biosecurity panel to hold closed-door meeting on bird flu research

The National Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity (NSABB) is scheduled this week to hold "a closed-door meeting to once again look at unpublished manuscripts describing" two studies that showed how H5N1 bird flu virus could be manipulated to become transmissible among ferrets, a model for humans, NPR's health blog "Shots" reports, noting that the meeting "will include a classified briefing from the intelligence community." The article examines the "dual use" nature of the studies, meaning "legitimate scientific work that's intended to advance science or medicine, but that also might be misused with the intent to do harm." Though the "concept of dual use got a lot of attention even before this bird flu controversy," scientists, institutions and funding agencies do not always have policies in place to review the potential consequences of research," the blog notes (Greenfieldboyce, 3/26).