Saw this on Forbes, couldn't help but share it. Bolded the key areas to aid easy scanning.

In an outrageous display of chutzpah, a group of flu researchers led by Ron Fouchier of Erasmus Medical Center in the Netherlands announced today, in a letter to the journal Nature, that they were planning to engineer the new H7N9 avian flu strain to give it new, possibly much more deadly capabilities. Fouchier is the same scientist who, two years ago, adapted the highly pathogenic H5N1 flu strain so that it could be passed from human to human, which it cannot do in its natural form. The resulting outcry delayed publication of his paper, but it eventually did appear.

Now they want to do the same thing, and much more, with the new H7N9 influenza virus, which has killed 43 people in China to date, and which epidemiologists are tracking with great concern.

They should track Fouchier and his lab instead.

Wait a second, protests Fouchier. He promises that

“All experiments proposed by influenza investigators are subject to review by institutional biosafety committees. The committees include experts in the fields of infectious disease, immunology, biosafety, molecular biology and public health; also, members of the public represent views from outside the research community.”

Sorry, but I’m not reassured. Fouchier’s group wants to do this research because it’s all they know how to do – and, I suspect, because they enjoy the publicity. Despite their claims that the research is vital to our understanding of the flu, none of their past work, including their work on H5N1, has changed our ability to respond to a pandemic. As flu expert Michael Osterholm said in a report by the Associated Press:

“H5N1 surveillance is as haphazard today as it was two years ago. Should we do the work if it’s not actually going to make a difference?”

Precisely. Fouchier and his colleagues can’t do surveillance, nor do they work on vaccine development. They have laboratories where they can engineer the flu virus to make new strains, so that’s what they want to do. Two years after their controversial H5N1 experiments, they haven’t contributed to any improvement in our ability to control a pandemic, nor have they shown how to develop a better flu vaccine. The benefits of creating a deadly new H7N9 virus are marginal, at best.

What about the risk? As reported in the Daily Mail, Fouchier and his colleague Yoshihiro Kawaoka themselves said

“H7N9′s pandemic risk would rise ‘exponentially’ if it gained the ability to spread more easily among people.”

Really? And from this they conclude that it’s a good idea to engineer a virus that can do exactly that – spread more easily among people? Are we supposed to take this risk because of some theoretical benefit from a vague “better understanding” of how mutations in the virus change its pathogenicity?

Although Fouchier is in Amsterdam, the NIH funds part of his work through the National Institute of Allergies and Infectious Diseases (NIAID). Dr. Anthony Fauci, the head of NIAID, offered the reassurance that a special panel will review this H7N9 project, and

“If the risk is felt to be too high by this outside review, they will recommend it won’t be done and we won’t fund it.”

Despite this additional oversight, I remain skeptical. These special panels tend to include other scientists who are very sympathetic with the work they’re reviewing, as was demonstrated two years ago when the H5N1 work was published despite the grave concerns expressed by many outside the field. I predict they will approve Fouchier and Kawaoka’s experiments.

Here’s a thought: put me on the panel: I’ve published multiple research papers on the influenza virus (including this paper in Nature and this paper on H5N1 avian flu), so I think it’s fair to say I’m qualified. But somehow I doubt they will do that.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/stevensalzberg/2013/08/08/scientists-will-create-a-deadly-new-flu-strain-just-to-prove-they-can/

SEriously?

Some are in it for the love of humanity

Some for the rush

Some to make a living

Some because there is nothing else they could do

And some others because it makes them feel like gods. They are the ones I call people with exaggerated brains.
They try God. But more usually than not come out burnt,scarred for life. A few others become better, better in faith.

This is why scientists should not be allowed to watch science fiction movies like resident evil and the likes, for pete's sake there are a dozen epidemics that hunt the human race and this,permit my language, scallywags are wasting time pursuing a ridiculous venture as this. I always wonder how the wrong people end up in such positions.

Make them try

That's how dey will start somefin dey can't finish

Too bad!

wtf

the world is going mad

This is the same sort of thing we see causing apocalypses in Movies, resident evil because some research went amock

Alias because of stupid curiousity

Fringe, because of uncultured quantum physics and science

Careless science!!, i mean 43ppl dead , and u wanna release an improved more lethal version of the similar flu jst because you can??

WE are our own End, jesus doesn't need to do squat!!

Oldest trick in the book.

Create the virus, and sell the anti-virus.

I must make my billions, period!!

HIV seem to be laughing at humans

o o o ooo o ! ! ! U de pity them? Leave them naa! Nobi dem go first die? B4 d tin go spread, prevention nd cure go jst erupt!

This brings to my mind many movies I've watched where viruses leaked from labs and wiped humans from the earth...

Those bloody twats should be found and exterminated

dis guyz wan turn us to ZOMBIE 4 resident evil, *geez*

Seriously i dont understand d post.... TOO MUCH GRAMMAR MAKES WILSON MORE DULLER.....?

OMG!!!!!!

For real?

Probably that is how HIV came into existence.

Stories like this makes one wish some scientists should have been expelled right before finishing college.

Na una and una generations go first kpeme finish first.

..Where's Ombatse when you need them?

A good way to use public funds to develop chemical weapons.
After developing it next thing you hear is that it's been stolen.
How I wish one test tube containing a deadly avian virus will break and find their way into these scientists lungs.

...make it look like an accident.

Huhu! I wouldn't be suprised if the chinese govt has secretly given permission to these scientists to introduce a disease that reduce their population exponentially. Good for them but for us we're very immune over here. Hahahaha! Sci fi in action.

Yoshi-Master:
Oldest trick in the book.

Create the virus, and sell the anti-virus.

GBAM!
I wonder why people think a funded program will waste money creating a 'situation' cos they feel like?
They want to make money out of it!
But i have to give it to them. They were kind enough to let us know that, instead of the cowards who bio-engineered HIV/AIDS.

Typical mumu...ur mates are working hard to find solutions to existing problems dat will benefit mankind and yu wanna do somtin stupid. Who d hell is even funding dis useless ppl??

Resident Evil: Genesis 2.0

>>>>>>LOADING

Yoshi-Master:
Oldest trick in the book.

Create the virus, and sell the anti-virus.

you are missing the intermediary step. which is put the virus in vaccines and go test it all over africa

this bunch of fools dat call themselves scientists r trying 2 cre8 a pandorax' box.

Reminds me of Cordilla virus in 24. What does he stand to gain. Imagine this being used by terrorists

Like seriously? , these guys must be high on something.