Is it really necessary to study how to make H5N1, which causes a type of bird flu with an eye-popping mortality rate, more transmissible?

5-1-20   many researchers are frustrated that the US government was not more transparent about which considerations prompted them to fund G-O-F research.  Is it really necessary to study how to make H5N1, which causes a type of bird flu with an eye-popping mortality rate, more transmissible?  Will precautions be in place to make it harder for the virus to escape the lab?  What are the expected benefits from the research, and which hazards did the experts who approved the work consider?

  “The people proposing the work are highly respected virologists,” Inglesby said.  “But laboratory systems are not infallible, and even in the greatest laboratories of the world, there are mistakes.”  What measures are in place to prevent that? Will potentially dangerous results be published to the whole world, where unscrupulous actors could follow the instructions?

These are exactly the questions the review process was supposed to answer but didn’t.

  The reason the subject of gain-of-function research can inspire such heated opposition is because the stakes can be so high.

https://www.vox.com/2020/5/1/21243148/why-some-labs-work-on-making-viruses-deadlier-and-why-they-should-stop