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Continuing Assistance to the National Institutes of Health on Preparation of Additional Risk Assessments for the Boston University NEIDL, Phase 2 (2010) / Chapter Skim
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ATTACHMENT C Comments on the Report "Expert Consultation on Infectiousness of Organisms Studied in the NEIDL Risk Assessment"
Pages 26-28

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From page 26...
... One major concern is about a lack of a cohesive scientific rationale in the report for "votes" on parameter values, especially those for the human infectivity point estimates, but also for the other elicited parameters. The report introduces a presumption that "extrapolation from animal experiments is risky because of interspecies differences" and concludes that the elicited opinions of experts converged and "differed from fragmentary human, animal, and laboratory data in reasonable ways." No scientific support is presented for this conclusion.
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From page 27...
... The value of the elicited results for predicting human effects is highly uncertain. The metric for eliciting human infectious doses for aerosolized particles including pathogens appears purely hypothetical, and not based on valid scientific studies that measured this parameter.
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From page 28...
... Were opinions from panel members with specific expertise weighted differently than panel members with less expertise? For example, it is unclear if the feedback and discussion session considered specific expertise of the panel member whose study of the outbreak in Kenya of Rift V alley Fever was recently published, or if this expert's elicited parameters were weighted differently than those from experts without direct experience.
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Key Terms

  • human infectivity
  • elicited parameter
  • eliciting human
  • human infective
  • modified delphi

  • valid scientific
  • elicited parameters
  • risk analysis
  • round votes
  • specific expertise

  • purely hypothetical
  • expert panel
  • unknown parameters
  • appears purely
  • merit consideration

  • infective doses
  • predicting human
  • susceptible human
  • exposed human
  • human infectious

  • human inhalation
  • human populations
  • fragmentary human
  • biothreat agents
  • existing scientific

  • central idea
  • illustrative study
  • human primates
  • delphi method
  • considered specific


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