Speak No Evil
Should biologists publish work that could be misused?
Science journals are filled with research, done with the best of intentions, that might aid such efforts. Gene therapists who want to use viruses to shuttle disease-fighting DNA into cells are trying to engineer the viruses to evade the immune system--a desirable trait in a bioweapon. Researchers who want to do away with insulin injections are trying to develop new ways of aerosolizing drugs--and fine aerosols make the best weapons, as the anthrax attacks last fall showed. Scientists are trying to find out why the 1918 strain of influenza killed millions, so they'll be ready when the next killer flu emerges--yet few prospects are as terrifying as a deliberate reprise of that pandemic. Virologists interested in understanding viruses like Ebola have devised methods for assembling them from scratch and altering their genes. But that could mean that a bioterrorist would not even have to track down an Ebola outbreak to get the virus.
Recently, public attention has focused on the potential for altering the pox viruses--smallpox and its more benign relatives. In April, British scientists reported that they had compared smallpox's genetic code with that of its closest relative, camelpox. They noted that it "might be unwise" to change genes in camelpox to make them like those in smallpox. And early last year, scientists at an Australian research institute issued a wakeup call about the dangers of designer bioweapons. While trying to turn mousepox into a tool for pest control, the researchers inserted a gene that, to their surprise, made the virus far more deadly to mice and able to overcome vaccines. This finding raised the unsettling possibility that someone could alter smallpox in the same way.
To John Steinbruner, an arms control expert at the University of Maryland, bioengineered diseases pose a threat comparable to that of nuclear weapons--and a far more difficult public-policy challenge. Unlike nuclear physics, born in secrecy and tightly controlled by the government, biotechnology has marched forward unencumbered by security concerns. "You cannot just slap down the restrictive things you'd do with regard to nuclear weapons--the security and classified information," he warns. "It's not the weapons culture; it's basic medical science."
Yet biologists feel that they have to figure out ways to define and control risky technologies. If they don't, the government will. The Department of Defense, which funds basic research in many fields, last month issued a draft policy that would have forced scientists to get approval before publishing work done with military grants. This proposal created a furor, and the department did a quick about-face.
The mere thought of such restrictions puts scientists on edge. Another controversy erupted after a report that the White House asked the American Society for Microbiology to be careful about what it publishes in its 11 scientific journals. Bioweapons expert Ronald Atlas of the University of Louisville, the society's incoming president, says the White House never made the request. But he concedes there have been "lots of discussions" with government officials, and the society has taken action: It created a new policy requiring any submitted papers deemed sensitive to get a special peer review.
advertisement
