Biologists undertake bioterror surveillance

Scientists and journals agree to watch for risky research.
16 February 2003

HELEN PEARSON

Self-regulation could avert governmental control. © DigitalVision

Biologists should shoulder responsibility for censoring research that bioterrorists could misuse, a group of scientists and journal editors declared this weekend.

The announcement was made at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Denver, Colorado. Their statement will be published in several high-profile science journals including Nature and Science over the next few weeks.

The declaration was drawn up in response to fears that some biomedical research could become dangerous if made available to terrorists. Concern has been mounting since the US anthrax attacks in autumn 2001.

The group effectively undertakes to screen and reject work during the peer-review process, if they deem that the risk of misuse outweighs its potential benefit. "It's getting as close to censorship as we can go," says one of the declaration's signatories Ronald Atlas, president of the Association for Microbiology.

But Atlas and others have struggled to define the kind of research that would qualify as dangerous. As an example, he suggests a study that tinkers with a pathogen such as anthrax to make it more deadly. "That begins to approach a cookbook for terrorism," he says. "We won't publish that."

By moving to self-regulate, the scientific community hopes to avert heavy-handed governmental control, which could stifle its freedom to carry out research. Says Eckard Wimmer of the State University of New York at Stony Brook: "We're aware that if we don't police ourselves then Congress may do it for us."

Wimmer's was one of a handful of controversial studies in the past year that crystallized public and political concerns. A storm erupted over his report on how to synthesize poliovirus from off-the-lab-shelf chemicals. Another notorious 2001 study explained how to evade a vaccine to mousepox, a virus similar to smallpox.

Shared responsibility

The director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy, John Marburger supports the scientists' move. "Homeland security...is everyone's responsibility," he says. "The joint statement acknowledges this principle."

Marburger and others pushed scientists and publishers to better regulate unclassified research at a meeting in January at the National Academy of Science. The Denver announcement results from discussion at this meeting.

Many life scientists are oblivious to the potential misuse of their research, believes Gigi Kwik of the Center for Civilian Biodefense Strategies at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland. The statement should at least raise their awareness, she points out.

But Kwik argues that ethical responsibilities should be built into research proposals from the outset, rather than stifling results when it's too late. "We have to think about how to defend ourselves rather than censoring research," she says.

Unlike biologists, mathematicians and physicists are accustomed to secrecy. During the development of atomic weapons in the 1940s Manhattan Project, nuclear physicists were forced to carry out all their work under wraps. But most biological research cannot be suppressed in this way as it has potential benefits to health and biodefence.

Scientists admit that taking on responsibility for surveillance is a heavy burden, because they risk letting seemingly innocent research through the net, which could subsequently be misused. "I wouldn't want to be an editor at this time," says Wimmer.