Monday, March 5, 2012

It is starting to become clear that the NSABB are saying that the basis for their recommendation is the fact that the virus was made transmissible and the decision had little or nothing to do with whether or not the virus was lethal via aerosol transmission. I just cannot believe this. I believe that most of the NSABB group did not know enough about flu to know the importance of this distinction. They now are embarrassed that they missed this and are likely covering their asses. Interesting that the N.Y. Times (Phil Boffey) editor wrote another Sunday editorial yesterday (May 4, 2012) criticizing the process and implying that “the NIH, whose reputation is at stake…..” is somehow at fault. He clearly is taking the side of the NSABB calling them fiercely independent. He wrote me an e-mail prior to the Sunday editorial giving me a “headsup”. He implied in his e-mail that I was trying to have him retract his prior editorial based on information from Geneva. He is totally missing the point. I do not want him to retract anything nor do I want to influence the NSABB to change their minds. I merely want them to reconvene so that they can have all of the information that was presented in Geneva and at the ASM meeting on Feb. 29, 2012 in Washington. Things that they almost certainly did not know at the time of their December, 2011 recommendation: 1) aerosol transmitted H5N1 does not kill ferrets; 2) engineered H5N1 is poorly transmissible, i.e. it takes 3 to 5 days after exposure to transmit to 75% of ferrets compared to 2009 N1N1 that transmits in 100% of animals within 1 day; 3) pre-infecting ferrets with either seasonal H1N1 or H3N2 and letting them recover and then instilling 1 million infectious doses of H5N1 into their tracheas completely protects the ferrets from disease and death. If they still feel after they hear this that the papers should be redacted, then so be it. I believe that they are incorrect and were driven by the hysteria of Mike Osterholm, the know-it-all of David Relman and the lack of understanding of the rest of the NSABB.