Osterholm at center of H5N1 research debate

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Michael Osterholm

University of Minnesota professor Michael Osterholm is at the center of scientific debate regarding unpublished research on the lab creation of the H5N1 avian flu virus.

The H5N1 strains that were created could lead to research that improves pandemic preparedness. But Osterholm and others are concerned that releasing details of the research puts us at risk of a human pandemic — by accident or intentional release of the virus.

The two teams of researchers, one led by Ron Fouchier (Erasmus Medical Centre, Rotterdam, Netherlands) and the other by Yoshihiro Kawaoka (University of Tokyo, Japan, and University of Wisconsin-Madison) have generated viruses that could be transmitted in aerosols among ferrets — a model for influenza transmission in human beings.

In December, the researchers submitted papers to Nature and Science, but publication has been put on hold following a recommendation from the U.S. National Science Adviosry Board for Biosecurity. The NSABB recommended that certain details be redacted from the published report, an unprecedented action.

Osterholm was part of the National Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity (NSABB) that unanimously recommended redaction.

“These papers really represent a seminal moment in life sciences,” Osterholm said before a Feb. 2 New York Academy of Sciences debate about the issue. Osterholm is director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy and at the University of Minnesota School of Public Health. “We now have really been confronted with examples of where the science itself — which is very important in moving forward for the public’s health — also poses potential risk for nefarious actions or even situations where this virus might escape from the laboratory.”