A little known US government panel has asked two leading scientific journals to censor publication of research on the human to human transmission of the H5N1 avian influenza virus.

The National Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity (http://oba.od.nih.gov/biosecurity/about_nsabb.html) made the request to the authors of the studies and to the journals Science and Nature after reviewing the papers before publication. It recommended “that the general conclusions highlighting the novel outcome be published, but that the manuscripts not include the methodological and other details that could enable replication of …