Bird flu researchers started the year with a self-imposed moratorium on work deemed too dangerous for public consumption. That ban was supposed to last just 60 days, but as the year ends, the research is still on hold. And scientists have been left debating whether it makes sense in the first place to do research that, in the wrong hands, could spread a deadly disease. The halt was called in response to two controversial studies in which scientists created mutated versions of the H5N1 avian flu virus. Unlike the original, the engineered versions could pass through the air between ferrets, common stand-ins for humans in influenza research. A U.S. government advisory panel decided there was a danger that terrorists might use information from the studies to create and unleash a deadly flu pandemic.
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