On January 27, 2012 it was published that the influenza virus research community implemented a 60-day voluntary moratorium on “gain-of-function” experiments related to “highly pathogenic avian influenza H5N1 viruses leading to the generation of viruses that are more transmissible in mammals.”
On October 9, 2012 Anthony Fauci, director of NIAID, and as a key funder of Influenza research, publishes “The Way Forward” for this kind of gain-of-function research. [1]
Fauci wrote “the benefits of such experiments and the resulting knowledge outweigh the risks. It is more likely that a pandemic would occur in nature, and the need to stay ahead of such a threat is a primary reason for performing an experiment that might appear to be risky.”