Scientific freedom and security: Jail-bird flu RON FOUCHIER (pictured), of the Erasmus Medical Centre in Rotterdam, is the lead author of a controversial paper which lays out how deadly H5N1 avian influenza, or bird flu, can be made deadlier still. He believes this information should be widely disseminated, so that biologists can work on drugs or vaccines to combat the new strain - which Dr Fouchier and his team created by combining five flu mutations that are currently (and separately) circulating in the wild. Others, however, disagree. The authorities in the Netherlands are pondering stopping the paper's publication because of fears its findings could be misused by hostile governments or terrorists. That pondering has been going on since December, and Dr Fouchier is growing restless. A decision is expected soon, but he recently went as far as saying that he would disregard it, if it went against him, and would publish regardless. He has now softened his stance, but defiance could see him in prison. The contentious paper looks at how the new form of influenza passes between ferrets. Since, as flu goes, ferrets are good proxies for humans, and because H5N1 kills roughly half the people it infects - a mortality rate several times that of the "Spanish flu" that is reckoned to have claimed as many as 100m lives in 1918 and 1919 - Dr Fouchier's work has touched a nerve. It emerged in December that the authorities in the United States had recommended withholding from general publication the detailed results and methods of the study, as well as those of a second one led by Yoshihiro Kawaoka, of the University of Wisconsin-Madison. This also created transmissible strains, albeit less virulent ones. Both studies had received grants from America's National Institutes of Health (NIH). The decision to withhold publication prompted both the American and the Dutch commerce departments to invoke rules restricting the export of "dual-use" materials and information (those that can serve both civil and military ends). The American restrictions have since been eased, following a change of heart by the National Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity (NSABB), which advises the government on research financed from the federal kitty. The Dutch controls, stemming from European Union legislation that requires a permit to be issued for the export of dual-use materials, remain in force. On April 23rd authorities in the Netherlands held a meeting, the results of which had not been made public when The Economist went to press, to consider the matter in light of the Americans" change of mind. Last week Dr Fouchier said he would disregard the embargo and submit the paper to Science anyway, without applying for a permit. Science is an American journal, and thus not bound by Dutch regulations. On April 24th he and his co-authors agreed to seek one after all, in order to expedite publication, while officially disputing the obligation to comply with it. They argue that EU law makes exemptions for "basic scientific research," a category which, according to legal advice obtained by the Erasmus Medical Centre, covers the manuscript. If Dr Fouchier were denied the permit yet chose to defy the decision then he would, if convicted, face a maximum penalty of six years in prison. In practice, the chance of his ending up in the dock is not that high. Quite apart from the political embarrassment of acting against a man who seems motivated by principle, there is also the question of the NSABB's reversal of view. That is not binding on the Dutch, of course, but it may affect their decision. Publish and perish? According to Paul Keim, the NSABB's acting chairman, the board changed its mind because both of the papers had been revised to make it clearer what safety measures the researchers had undertaken, and what potential risks and benefits flowed from the work. Science has afforded Dr Fouchier an extra 1,000 words to lay this out. In addition, the two researchers had the chance to make their case to the board in person when it convened to re-examine the matter last month. Its members grilled Dr Fouchier, whose work always worried them more than Dr Kawaoka's, for more than two hours. They also got a preview of some as-yet-unpublished research concerning flu surveillance and modelling, based on the two controversial studies, which Dr Keim says altered the balance in favour of making the work public in its entirety. Lastly, Dr Keim and his colleagues were shuffled into a confidential briefing by bioterrorism experts from America's security agencies. This eased some of the board members" fears about potential misuse of the work. The upshot was that the NSABB voted unanimously for unabridged publication of Dr Kawaoka's research. It remained cagier about Dr Fouchier's, which passed by 12 votes to six. One of the dissenters, Michael Osterholm, a virologist at the University of Minnesota, went so far as to allege that the deliberations were "one-sided" and "designed to produce the outcome that occurred," failing to take full account of the risks involved. But such worries were not enough to prevent the head of the NIH, Francis Collins, and America's health secretary, Kathleen Sebelius, endorsing the full publication of both papers. They did so on April 20th, perhaps comforted by the fact that a meeting held in February in Geneva under the auspices of the World Health Organisation also yielded a recommendation to publish the papers in full. Most scientists in the field have welcomed the news. Many fret that imposing too many restrictions on work involving pathogens, which is already tightly controlled, would hobble the ability to prepare for outbreaks of disease. For their part, Dr Fouchier and Dr Kawaoka remain resolutely wedded to their work. Neither is contemplating leaving the field for less troubled waters. "I will keep doing this," Dr Fouchier insists. When it becomes unworkable, I will switch to a different virus.