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The research goal in a number of laboratories is to make highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) viruses contagious to humans via respiratory aerosols. For instance, the H5N1 influenza virus has been made contagious to ferrets (1), the animal model often used as a proxy for humans. Concern over escape from a laboratory of a deadly human-contagious virus (e.g., influenza, severe acute respiratory syndrome [SARS], and Middle East respiratory syndrome [MERS] viruses) prompted the U.S. Government to hold back funding for this research “until a robust and broad deliberative process (2) is completed that results in the adoption of a new USG gain-of-function research policy.” This discussion is now under way in the United States and is to be completed in 2016.In relation to this discussion, mBio published three letters to the editor in a debate between Dr. Ron Fouchier and me. Defending the safety of his work in the first letter (3), Dr. Fouchier calculated that it would likely take more than a million years for an escape from his lab through a laboratory-acquired infection (LAI). Intuitively, this million-year claim seems dubious. I questioned the equation used in the Fouchier calculation and the extremely low probability of escape that he employed in the calculation, and I outlined an alternative approach (4). Fouchier's response to my comments was then published in mBio (5). It is clear that he did not understand my methodology. In calculations of the probability of a community LAI (“ E ”), Dr. Klotz further assumes that transmission studies in the Erasmus MC facility will be performed for a period (“ y ”) of 1 million years. I am hopeful that our research enterprise will have reached solid conclusions on determinants of airborne transmission a bit sooner.Rhetorical quip aside, neither his million-year result nor my questioning …

Danger of Potential-Pandemic-Pathogen Research Enterprises