Um…WHY?!!!: Scientists mutate bird flu to make it MORE contagious - but critics claim the 'bioweapon' must be kept secret

• Just five tweaks to H5N1 makes it more contagious
• Contagious version of bird flu could cause pandemic
• Scientists divide over whether findings can be released

The H5N1 bird flu virus has killed 500 people - and outbreaks sparked terror around the world about the possibility of a global pandemic.

So far, the virus has not been contagious enough to pose a threat of a global pandemic. Sick people don't pass it readily to the healthy.

But that might change.

At a flu conference in Malta this September, virologist Ron Fouchier of the Erasmus Medical Centre in the Netherlands made an astounding, and terrifying, announcement.

He found that a few simple genetic tweaks to the virus made it far more infectious among ferrets - a standard animal model used to study how viruses spread among humans.

Fouchier found that a mere five mutations to the virus were sufficient to make it spread far more easily.

His genetic research was part of an international drive to understand H5N1 more fully.

But his discovery caused a storm of controversy.

It's traditional for scientific research to be open - to allow fellow scientists to review the work of others, repeat their methods and learn from them.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2063326/Scientists-mutate-bird-flu-make-MORE-contagious--critics-claim-bioweapon-kept-secret.html