From: Yona F Maro

Experiments conducted by two groups of scientists last year, one in
the US and the other in the Netherlands, have provoked a policy
imbroglio in most parts of the world that is destined to fester
through 2012. The experiments, funded by the National Institute of
Health in the United States, were aimed at determining how the bird
flu virus could be made transmissible between mammals. The result was
a deliberately created “bird flu” strain that may be capable of
passing from human to human.

Much coverage in the mainstream and scientific press in the developed
world has focused on the dispute over whether or not to publish the
studies as some fear they could provide recipes for criminals or
terrorists. However,  bigger issues are at stake such as questions
about how the international community should oversee particularly
risky types of infectious disease research? What, if any, research
should be impermissible? Who can make that call? And what should the
role of the World Health Organization (WHO) be in this tricky field
that mixes issues of public health and security? Despite the important
international implications of this debate, little attention has been
paid to it in Africa.

On one side are advocates of “scientific freedom” who offer no
apologies for the deliberate creation of these extremely dangerous
bugs. They say the experiments are important to prepare responses to a
future influenza pandemic. On the other side are a more heterogeneous
group of safety and security advocates who are dismayed at the lack of
oversight of the laboratories where such experiments occur. They argue
that the risks posed by such experiments outweigh the benefits and
that they should never have been performed. They argue that the
research contributes little to development of vaccines, and are
concerned about the potential for laboratory accidents that may have
far reaching negative health consequences.

Many critics of the research also want new procedures to review
security aspects of dangerous experiments before they happen. Some in
this group additionally want details of some experiments kept secret
from those considered America’s political enemies.

The US government, which both funded the experiments and is trying to
coordinate a response to the security concerns they have raised, has
ended up broadcasting mixed messages. The health ministry, which is
amenable to the interests of big science, tends toward the “scientific
freedom” position, while other officials are more likely to advocate
action to reign in risks. So the health ministry blandly promises new
biosecurity advice to laboratories, a project that has lingered undone
for nearly a decade. This guidance will likely be nonbinding and
unambitious, and have effect only in the US. Others meanwhile press
for mandatory measures that would create layers of local, national,
and international review for the small set of experiments deemed
highly risky.

Caught in this messy situation is the WHO, whose past successes have
often stemmed from its ability to bypass political rivalries – such as
its eradication of smallpox in the midst of the Cold War. If a new
international system to review especially risky infectious disease
research is to be developed, there is no question that WHO would need
to be, at some level, involved.

Yet such a system has the potential to be poisonous to the WHO and its
goals to promote public health interests over political rivalries.
What happens, for instance, if the US goes to the WHO to stop research
results from being provided to a rival such as Iran?

This is a less hypothetical problem than you may suspect. Some leading
US biological security voices appear to believe that WHO should be
bent to serve American security interests. They find it reasonable
that WHO would manage a two-tiered system of access to research
information, dividing nations between those deemed (by the US amongst
others) trustworthy and those that are not. Much as the Non-
Proliferation Treaty has divided the world into those who may, and
those who may not have nuclear weapons.

Compounding the difficulty for the WHO is that in May 2011 it adopted
a new international Framework agreement on sharing influenza viruses
and research data. This agreement is the culmination of a negotiation
that was largely divided along North-South lines.  Developing
countries, led by Indonesia, sought to reform WHO’s influenza
surveillance network, which plays a critical global role in influenza
diagnostics and vaccine selection.

Influenza vaccines are made from influenza viruses, and developing
countries rightly criticized the WHO for collecting viruses in the
name of public health and then gifting those viruses to the
pharmaceutical industry that used them to develop proprietary
commercial vaccines. Moreover, the industry is uninterested in
producing and selling influenza vaccines to developing countries, at
the prices that they could afford. At the centre of H5N1 outbreaks,
Indonesia found itself unable to buy vaccines made from the viruses
that it gave to the WHO, and which the WHO gave to industry.

The Framework promises to change this with a commitment from vaccine
makers to provide benefits to developing countries in return for
access to the viruses. These viruses include those that were used in
the experiments that kicked off the present controversy, which were
collected by the WHO system from Indonesia and Vietnam.

Ironically, in the negotiation of the Framework, the staunchest
advocate for the unrestricted sharing of influenza viruses between
nations was none other than the United States, which feared that
Indonesia or other countries would become so frustrated that they
would abandon the WHO system by making bilateral deals with vaccine
companies – cutting others out of the loop.

Now, however, the United States is making an abrupt change of course.
Concerned that the H5N1 experiments could offer its geopolitical
opponents a map to create a particularly nasty biological weapon, the
US doesn’t want these engineered viruses and key details of the
research freely shared.

Thus, having just fixed virus-sharing problems with the Framework, the
WHO now must deal with one of its weightier members wanting to revert
to a system that collects all the viruses but does not equitably share
the benefits. This time, the forces auguring for disparity are related
to security, rather than economic interests.

With advances in biotechnology enhancing the dangerous potential of
engineering viruses that transmit from human to human, it makes a
great deal of sense for specific types of research to be pre-screened
and more tightly overseen.  Some experiments, especially those
intended to increase the danger a disease poses, may be too risky to
allow at all. Also, because some such diseases can quickly spread
around the world, it stands to reason that an international review
should be required in cases where the most extreme danger is posed.

But this is no simple task. In fact, the potential political obstacles
to an international review system may be insurmountable – at least if
governments want to protect the independence of the international
public health agency. Governments that look to the WHO to implement
their national security policy would best look elsewhere. If a
depoliticised international research review system could be
established with countries on equal footing, however, it may help
ensure that we are less often confronted with dangerous surprises such
as the recent flu experiments. Given that any worldwide pandemic is
likely to hit the African continent harder than others, we should
prepare a response that upholds public health interests by ensuring
that influenza research goes forward that is well considered and
properly overseen, to improve public health outcomes.

Dr. Edward Hammond is Director of Prickly Research
(www.pricklyresearch.com) and an advisor to the Third World Network.
Dr. Chandre Gould is a senior researcher in the Crime and Justice
Programme of the ISS

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Karibu Jukwaa la www.mwanabidii.com
Pata nafasi mpya za Kazi www.kazibongo.blogspot.com