Wednesday, January 23, 2013

The “60 day moratorium” on gain-of-function research on respiratory transmission of HPAI H5N1 influenza in mammals has been lifted by the scientists who originally signed to moratorium. The moratorium actually lasted just over one full year. We at HHS and NIH have been developing a framework for making funding decisions for this type of research (see above – Dec. 17, 2013). The framework should be ready for implementation in a few weeks and so we can start making funding decisions. Much press coverage today (I was in NY Times, Wall Street Journal, AP, etc.). The nay-sayers who feel this research should not be done at all (David Relman, John Roberts (Nobel Prize winning ass-hole) or should not be published (Mike Osterholm) are still out there bad-mouthing the decision to lift the moratorium.