August 25, 2006

Scientists back initiative to end bird flu data secrecy

Seventy flu scientists and health officials, including six Nobel laureates, Thursday (Aug 24) backed a plan to end secrecy over avian flu data, the Global Initiative on Sharing Avian Influenza Data (GISAID).

To understand how bird flu viruses spread and evolve--and become pandemic--scientists from different fields of expertise around the world need immediate access to high-quality genetic, clinical and other data from both animal and human outbreaks of the disease.

But data on bird flu outbreaks are usually either restricted by governments or kept private by a small network of researchers linked to international animal and public health agencies.

Many scientists and organisations are also hoarding sequence data, often for years, so that they can be the first to publish in academic journals.

In a letter published online by scientific journal Nature Thursday, experts announce the creation of scheme to encourage scientists and nations to share data rapidly with other scientists worldwide.

The GISAID consortium will be open to all scientists provided they agree to share their own data, credit the use of others' data, analyse findings jointly, and publish the results collaboratively.

The three major publicly available databases participating in the International Nucleotide Sequence Databases Collaboration--the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL), the DNA Data Bank of Japan (DDBJ) and GenBank--will publish data as soon as possible after analysis and validation, and certainly no later than six months after submission.