Newly Engineered Highly Transmissible H5N1 Strain Ignites Controversy About Balancing Scientific Discovery And Public Safety

Scientists have engineered a new strain of H5N1 (commonly known as bird flu) to be readily transmitted between humans. Two perspectives being published early online in Annals of Internal Medicine, the flagship journal of the American College of Physicians, raise concerns about if and how this research should be continued, and how the data should be shared for the benefit of public health. The currently circulating H5N1 virus has an extremely high case-fatality rate, killing about 60 percent of the over 500 confirmed human cases...

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