# 6032
Robert Roos, News Editor at CIDRAP has a terrific in-depth piece on an important aspect of the recent H5N1 research controversy (see The Biosecurity Debate On H5N1 Research). He focuses on whether a virulent and easily transmissible H5N1 virus strain in ferrets is necessarily going to behave the same in humans.
Rather than try to summarize this article, I’ll simply step aside and direct you to:
Fears about mutant H5N1 hinge on ferrets as flu model
Robert Roos
News Editor
Dec 23, 2011 (CIDRAP News) – In the influenza literature, it's a given that ferrets are the best animal model for influenza in humans. They show similar clinical signs of disease, such as fever, coughing, and sneezing, and flu viruses that spread among humans usually spread in ferrets as well.
