Danger of Potential-Pandemic-Pathogen Research Enterprises

Klotz, Lynn C.

If P 1 is really as low as Fouchier suggests, we would need to wait 670 years to reach a 1% chance of escape, an elapsed time that would appear to make the research enterprise safe in some researchers' thinking, but risk equals likelihood times consequences, and consequences such as fatalities could be very high for a human-contagious influenza virus with a high case fatality rate. This would lead to an intolerable number of fatalities even using Fouchier's low P 1 estimate. Potential fatalities for the enterprise and the fatality burden for each lab in the enterprise were quantified for his very low P 1 of 1 Ï« 10 -6 in my published criticism (4) of Fouchier's million-year calculation. The conclusion there was that each lab in the enterprise would carry the potential burden of over 14 fatalities per year. "To put this fatality burden number in perspective, no Institutional Review Board tasked with assessing human subject research would approve a proposed research project with 14 potential fatalities per year."