After public outcry against research into avian flu strains that can be transmitted among mammals, 40 of the top scientists working on the influenza strains signed a voluntary moratorium on research last January. The goal of the pause was to properly—and publically—weigh the potential risks and benefits of such investigations. Critics of the research noted [...]

After months of contentious debate, the journal Science is publishing a controversial study on Friday about H5N1 avian influenza‘s ability to spread among mammals. The report faced a tortuous path to publication as some researchers sought to censor the study’s findings for fear that they could be replicated and put to nefarious use. In a [...]

A highly controversial research paper on bird flu was released today by the journal Nature. It shows that a particularly troublesome strain of avian influenza, designated H5N1, which has been worrying public health officials for more than a decade, has the potential to become a human pandemic. In other words, H5N1 bird flu, which so [...]

Infection with the H5N1 bird flu is both more prevalent and not as deadly for humans as had been previously thought, according to a paper that has just been published ahead of print by the research journal Science. But before you relax your guard, consider this piece of context: most flu specialists have long assumed [...]

NEW YORK—Sparks flew Thursday night at a New York Academy of Sciences panel discussion about whether or not certain recent research into the H5N1 avian flu virus has created a major biosecurity threat and what, if anything, to do about it. The research in question comes from the labs of Ron Fouchier at the Erasmus [...]

A controversy over whether the U.S. government should allow details of a deadly new flu strain to be published in scientific journals has recently caught fire in the media. But I first heard the news of the mutated virus months ago in Malta at the European Scientific Working group on Influenza (ESWI) meeting. The morning [...]

Researchers have engineered a new type of chicken that might help prevent the spread of bird flu—a worrisome virus that has already caused extensive economic harm on farms, especially in Asia, and that could lead to a pandemic in humans. Many farmers have gone to great lengths to prevent a poultry-based pandemic, but the newest [...]