The largest association of microbiologists is the American Society for Microbiology (ASM) which has almost 40,000 members with about a third of those in other countries. Its upcoming 10th Annual BIODEFENSE and Emerging Diseases Research Meeting in a couple weeks shows how the 2001 Amerithrax attack and the continuing Security State mentality continue to warp America’s priorities.
A look at the confirmed sessions (http://www.asmbiodefense.org/) and scheduled talks and you see few of them are really directly related to biosecurity. They cover primarily public health research whose funding has been stolen by defense related funding bills and transferred to security state concerns. There are many more public health research projects of higher priority that should be getting assistance through NIH and other agencies but may not be as successful at masquerading as defense/health dual purpose research. A ton of money supporting creation of laboratories that can safely research the worst of the worst infectious diseases directly starves funding of research into diseases of public health that sicken people every day in this and other countries.
One session that legitimately concerns both is Discussion of NSABB’s publication recommendations for the NIH-funded research on the transmissibility of H5N1 led by the head of National Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity (NSABB). This group is demanding (asking nicely with power to get their way) that a couple of scientific journals censor the reports of research about what makes the H5N1 strain of influenza (Bird Flu) so pathogenic and how the transmission rate is limited. This is apparently not needed since the basic procedures have already been done in ferret influenza and as bad as this strain is, it is not a scary as the regular media and Wikipedia reports. I’m sure you’ve heard that Bird Flu kills 60% of people who get it. Nonsense. It’s bad enough that 60% of those with a case bad enough to be recognized and hospitalized do have that fatality rate. But looking at the numbers of people who have made antibodies to the strain by being infected and fighting it off (with or without some “flu-like”symptoms) the actual fatality rate is low and really the ability of this strain to be transmitted between people is really low also. Of course Influenza has a nasty habit of mutating so the possibility that this could happen makes developing and getting the H5N1 vaccine worthwhile. But the research that the security apparatus wants to embargo touches on this aspect. They fear that “Terrorists” will learn how to make this pathogenic strain highly transmissible and cause a pandemic. But without much of this knowledge being available to researchers in the field the factors leading to a better understanding of the mechanisms and ways to build a better vaccine and a better way to spot a different but more dangerous pandemic strain will be stymied.