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Feds fret over publication of virus information, but should they?

As grim as it sounds, there are lots of horrifically deadly bugs out there — like Ebola — that never seem to get very far due to poor transmission and that's something to keep in mind in this debate.
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As grim as it sounds, there are lots of horrifically deadly bugs out there — like Ebola — that never seem to get very far due to poor transmission and that's something to keep in mind in this debate.

The U.S. government is opposing full publicationby scientists of methods used to create a mutant form of bird influenza based on the fear it could be used by terrorists to launch a deadly pandemic.

There are a few reasons why, as reasonable as this may sound, many see the government’s position as unworkable and inappropriate.

Read more on Humanosphere.

The host of the Humanosphere community is Tom Paulson, who spent 22 years reporting on science and medicine at the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. Tom was one of the first daily news reporters to cover the topic of “global health” (a much-debated label which he discusses the merits of on the Humanosphere website).