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NYTimes.com Article: Science Panel Urges Review of Research Terrorists Could Use
From: Dave Farber <dave () farber net>
Date: Thu, 09 Oct 2003 08:20:03 -0400
Science Panel Urges Review of Research Terrorists Could Use October 9, 2003 By NICHOLAS WADE Despite scientists' general distaste for any constraints on research, a panel of the National Academy of Sciences yesterday recommended prior review, at the university and federal levels, of experiments that could help terrorists or hostile nations make biological weapons. The panel's work was initiated by the academy, the leading scientific body in the nation, and represents an attempt by biologists to put their own review systems in place before others might do so for them. But Dr. John H. Marburger, science adviser to President Bush, suggested that the report might not go far enough. Though it was "a very positive move by the scientific community, I am sure there are other things that will happen in the future," he said. "So it isn't as if this is a magic bullet that will bring an end to all discussion of the issue," Dr. Marburger said. Asked what further measures might be necessary, he said only that this was the first time biologists had defined areas of concern and that the proposed list of seven fields needed more discussion. Dr. Marburger said the administration had not yet decided whether or how to act on the proposal. Though physicists have long lived with the fact that certain areas of research are classified and cannot be discussed openly, biologists are relatively new to security concerns. Apart from biological defense research, done mostly at military institutions, academic biology is focused on medicine and conducted without security restraints. The academy panel has sought to institute some measure of review of possibly harmful biomedical research without burdening scientific research with onerous controls. Its proposed solution is to reinvigorate a review system put in place after a 1975 conference at which biologists called for a moratorium on certain genetic engineering experiments then becoming possible. Concern about those experiments has long since faded. But the review system remains, with biosafety committees at all leading research universities and the federal Recombinant DNA Advisory Committee, known as the R.A.C. The National Academy of Sciences panel, led by Dr. Gerald Fink of the Whitehead Institute at M.I.T., said research proposals in seven areas of biology should be reviewed by both a scientist's local biosafety committee and by the R.A.C. Local committees could decree that an experiment should not be conducted on their premises, and the federal committee could advise the director of the National Institutes of Health that an experiment should not receive government money. The government has the power to make any research secret and therefore prevent the work from being published, but in practice would not wish to classify large chunks of biomedical research like immunology and virology. Both Dr. Fink and another panel member, Dr. Ronald Atlas of the University of Louisville, said the academy had taken up the security issue on its own initiative, not from government pressure, and had paid for the study. Most academy studies are financed by the government. The time has come when "interaction between the security community and life scientists is extremely important, so that we speak the same language," Dr. Fink said. The panel's work seems likely to be palatable to many scientists, but it remains to be seen if those concerned with national security will be satisfied. A national security expert who served on the panel, Dr. David Franz of the Southern Research Institute, said he expected that "individuals who look carefully at this will see it as a reasonable approach." Dr. Donald Kennedy, editor of Science magazine and former president of Stanford, said his impression of the report was "very favorable." Dr. Kennedy praised the panel for deciding not to second-guess journal editors on what could be published, and for having avoided a step under discussion, that of creating a murky category of research that would be deemed somehow sensitive but not so dangerous as to be classified. A chief ingredient of the panel's ideas is the creation of an advisory committee high in the Department of Health and Human Services where biologists and national security experts could swap ideas and fashion advice for the R.A.C. and local biosafety committees. Such guidance might be in great demand. One practical problem is that neither the R.A.C. nor the local committees have any expertise in bioterrorism or national security. If the administration accepts the panel's ideas, Congressional action could be needed to set up the proposed biological defense advisory committee. Or it could be created by executive order, though Congress would have to approve its budget. The new duties of the R.A.C. and local safety committees, however, could be ordained by the director of the National Institutes of Health through standard regulatory procedures, panel members said. Though the anthrax mailings of fall 2001 demonstrated the havoc that terrorists might wreak with biotechnology, the Fink panel's work began 15 months earlier, stimulated by an Australian effort to enhance the natural potency of a virus, said Dr. Eileen Choffnes, the study director for the panel. To eradicate mice in Australia, the scientists souped up the mousepox virus with a human gene. The enhanced virus killed even mice that were vaccinated against the disease. Both the authors and editors of The Journal of Virology, to which they submitted their work, knew the paper could give terrorists direct ideas about enhancing human pathogens. But realizing that all the components of the research had already been published, the editors decided to publish the article, though after a two-year delay. http://www.nytimes.com/2003/10/09/science/09RESE.html?ex=1066696500&ei=1&en=96937afe8bb4abd9 --------------------------------- Get Home Delivery of The New York Times Newspaper. Imagine reading The New York Times any time & anywhere you like! Leisurely catch up on events & expand your horizons. Enjoy now for 50% off Home Delivery! 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- NYTimes.com Article: Science Panel Urges Review of Research Terrorists Could Use Dave Farber (Oct 09)