Professor Yoshihiro Kawaoka carried out research on making the 2009 swine flu virus more infectious and has deliberately created a potentially lethal strain of flu that can evade the human immune system, a virus that could wipe out 400 million people and for which there is no known vaccine.
Many scientists are deeply uncomfortable with the way Yoshihiro Kawaoka research is carried out on H5N1. But despite such calls from their academic colleagues, Kawaoka and other scientists, such as Professor Ron Fouchier at Erasmus Medical Centre in Rotterdam, insist that what they are doing is right, and maintain that their work is safe and therefore ethical.
Professor Sir Andrew McMichael, a vaccine expert at Oxford University, said that there are mounting concerns about this kind of work and there needs to be a wider debate between flu scientists, funding bodies and biosafety experts.
But as every scientist knows, there is no such thing as a sure. There is always a chance that, one day someone will walk out of Professor Kawaoka’s laboratory in Wisconsin with his virus.
Leading experts in infectious diseases were amazed to discover that this work was carried out in a laboratory with only relatively minor precautions against accidental releases compared to the two highest levels of biosafety.
I'm no scientist, but it looks more like irresponsible research to me!
Dr. No ...