U.S. Government Makes Odd Request of Scientific Journals

Washington D.C. - Under the guise of not wanting terrorists to get their hands on the blueprints, the United States government asked scientists from two labs responsible for creating new strains of the H5N1 virus - also known as bird flu - not to publish anything beyond the general details.

Without saying exactly what should be left out of the their publications the government sent the request to the journals Science and Nature at the request of bio-security advisers.  While the publications say they are deciding what to do, Science editor-in-chief Dr. Bruce Alberts said his journal is trying to get the U.S. government to set up some way for international researchers to still gain access to the virus strains.  He continues "This is a sort of watershed moment," and says it's the first time public health authorities sought out this kind of secrecy.  Nature's editor-in-chief is says the same thing adding "It is essential for public health that the full details of any scientific analysis of flu viruses be available to researchers.  Appropriate access to the scientific methods and data could be enabled."  It must be noted according to Dr. Anthony Fauci, infectious diseases chief at the National Institute of Health where the original research was funded, said "It doesn't necessarily mean the new lab-bred flu strains could infect people."

The two research teams came upon the strains independent of each other, making ones that can spread between ferrets with little effort.  Ferrets were selected due to their similarity with humans when it comes to the flu.

More information won't be revealed until the scientific journals make a decision as to what to publish for the public to read.