Recent News

(Science Now) AMSTERDAM — After an international meeting of scientists and security experts on Monday, the Dutch government says it may decide very soon whether virologist Ron Fouchier of Erasmus MC in Rotterdam is eligible for an export license that would allow him to resubmit his controversial H5N1 transmissibility study for publication by Science. Fouchier,  Read More »

(Nature.com) Ron Fouchier, a researcher at the Erasmus Medical Center in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, whose work on the H5N1 avian flu virus has been embroiled in controversy, told Nature this afternoon that he has now reluctantly agreed to apply for an export permit to submit his work to the journal Science. Fouchier’s paper is one  Read More »

(Science Now) A senior Republican in the U.S. House of Representatives is asking more questions about how the U.S. government reviewed two controversial H5N1 avian influenza studies, and how it wrote a new policy for reviewing taxpayer-funded studies that might be used for good and evil. Representative Jim Sensenbrenner (R-WI) today sent a letter to  Read More »

(Radio Netherlands) Deputy Minister Bleker has announced that he’s imposing a ban on publication – in the journal, Science – of the research which was carried out at the Erasmus Medical Centre in Rotterdam. He cites the rules laid down in the government’s User Guide on Strategic Goods and Services on the export of sensitive  Read More »