Morning Briefing

Attendees of a recent WHO meeting that discussed the possible publication in the journals Nature and Science of two studies that modified H5N1 bird flu strains to show the virus could be more easily transmissible among humans decided publication of redacted versions would be ineffective and that "a system for distributing the full paper only to selected individuals would be impossible to set up on any relevant timescale," a Nature editorial states. Participants also learned "not only does the mammalian transmissibility threat seem greater than previously thought, but also that current avian viruses have some of the mutations identified in the new work," according to the editorial.