On Tuesday, the United States was officially canceled a 3-year moratorium on the development of a deadly virus. It is reported by The New York Times. Now the National Institute of health will allocate funds for continued research, aimed at the development of pathogens capable of quickly hit the the human body and lead to death.
The essence of the program consists in the removal by artificial means of deadly germs and viruses, further their study, to identify possible scenarios of mutation and improvement of existing and creation of new vaccines against the most serious human diseases such as the avian flu.
The head of the National Institute of health, Dr. Francis S. Collins said that the investigation will continue after receiving the conclusions of the scientific panel confirming that their benefits far more than the risk.
Opponents of the program believe that scientists can develop a terrible virus that can spiral out of control, leave the lab and cause a pandemic. However, officials assure that the research will begin only after it will be confirmed by the high degree of security of the facilities where they will be.
A moratorium on research was introduced after several emergencies. The most serious of them was the contamination of staff of the Centre for control and prevention of disease with anthrax while working with the virus in 2014 year. In the same year in the laboratory of the National Institute of health was accidentally discovered a few bottles of frozen smallpox virus, forgotten for 50 years.
The authorities claim that such violations will now become impossible. In addition, not all the achievements of the scientists will be saying in the media that the most important information that can become a weapon in the hands of criminals, was not used against the person.
