公眾應該了解多少關于危險病毒的研究?

公眾應該了解多少關于危險病毒的研究?

U.S. officials are weighing the benefits and risks of proposed experiments that might make a dangerous pathogen even worse — but the details of that review, and the exact nature of the experiments, aren't being released to the public.

美國官員正在權衡擬議中的實驗的好處和風險，這些實驗可能會使危險的病原體變得更加糟糕，但審查的細節(jié)和實驗的確切性質并未向公眾公布。

Later this week, officials are to hold a meeting in Bethesda, Md., to debate how much information to openly share about this kind of controversial work and how much to reveal about the reasoning behind decisions to pursue or forgo it.

本周晚些時候，官員們將在馬里蘭州貝塞斯達舉行會議，討論公開分享多少關于這類有爭議的工作的信息，以及披露多少關于決定是繼續(xù)還是放棄這類工作背后的原因。

The meeting comes as the high stakes of this research are coincidentally being highlighted by events in China, where public health workers are grappling with an outbreak of a new coronavirus. The virus likely first arose in animals and seems to have acquired the ability to be transmitted from person to person.

此次會議召開之際，中國的一些事件恰好突顯了這項研究的重大意義。中國的公共衛(wèi)生工作者正在努力應對一種新型冠狀病毒的爆發(fā)。該病毒可能首先在動物中出現，并似乎獲得了人際傳播的能力。

How animal viruses can acquire the ability to jump into humans and become contagious is exactly the question that some researchers are trying to answer by manipulating pathogens in the lab to explore what genetic changes alter their virulence and transmissibility.

動物病毒是如何獲得進入人體并具有傳染性的能力的，這正是一些研究人員試圖通過在實驗室里操縱病原體來探索是什么基因變化改變了它們的毒性和傳染性來回答的問題。

'Potential pandemic pathogens'

潛在的傳染病病原體

Scientists have argued for years over whether it's ever justifiable to do experiments that might create "potential pandemic pathogens" — viruses or other germs that are likely to be highly contagious from person to person and capable of causing a significant number of illnesses and deaths.

多年來，科學家們一直在爭論，做可能產生“潛在的傳染病病原體”的實驗是否有道理。“潛在的傳染病病原體”指的是病毒或其他細菌，它們可能在人與人之間具有高度傳染性，能夠導致大量的疾病和死亡。

Some think that if this research is to be done, it requires an unusual degree of transparency because it involves deliberately making a pathogen more risky.

一些人認為，如果要進行這項研究，就需要不同尋常的公開度，因為它涉及到故意增加病原體的風險。

"It seems to me that the review process should be very much weighted toward making sure that as many people as possible are satisfied that that risk is justified by some very large benefit to health and welfare of people," says Marc Lipsitch, a professor of epidemiology at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health who has been critical of past efforts to create genetically-altered bird flu viruses.

哈佛大學公共衛(wèi)生學院流行病學教授馬克·利普西奇說，“在我看來，應該非常重視審查過程，以確保盡可能多的人認為這種風險是合理的，因為它給人們的健康和福利帶來了一些非常大的好處。”利普西奇一直對過去創(chuàng)造轉基因禽流感病毒的努力持批評態(tài)度。

Those in favor of this virus tinkering say it's necessary to prepare for the possibility that an animal pathogen circulating out in nature might mutate in a way that lets it start sickening humans and spreading widely. It's not a theoretical danger; past pandemics, like the 1918 flu, killed millions.

那些支持這種病毒修補的人說，有必要為一種可能性做好準備，即一種在自然界中傳播的動物病原體可能會發(fā)生變異，讓它開始讓人類生病并廣泛傳播。這不是理論上的危險;過去的大流行，比如1918年的流感，奪去了數百萬人的生命。

That's why some researchers say they have to take worrisome viruses into the lab and tweak them in order to see what these germs are capable of. The findings could tell public health workers what potential dangers lie ahead, so that they can get ready with the right surveillance tools, vaccines and medicines.

這就是為什么一些研究人員說，他們必須把令人擔憂的病毒帶到實驗室，對它們進行改造，以了解這些細菌的能力。這些發(fā)現可以告訴公共衛(wèi)生工作者前方存在哪些潛在危險，以便他們能夠準備好適當的監(jiān)測工具、疫苗和藥物。