9 January 2003 17:00 GMT

by Henry Nicholls

Plans by the US government to prevent sensitive biological information falling into the hands of would-be terrorists could be a case of too little too late, warns a British toxin expert. The recent explosion in life-science research and the openness that has traditionally accompanied it have raised concerns that sensitive information is falling into the wrong hands, but those concerns should have been raised years ago, says Mike Lord, head of the University of Warwick's Toxin Research Group.

"Any potentially useful information has been in the public domain for considerable time and will have been accessed by potential terrorists long since," Lord told BioMedNet News.

Lord's research focuses on the mode of action of ricin, the lethal toxin that put UK authorities on alert this week following its discovery at a London home. "I do not think that our published research on ricin ... will have added significantly to the general information already available to potential terrorists," he said.

His views coincide with a meeting held today in Washington D.C. that brought together researchers, security agents, and policy-makers to discuss how current publication policies and practices might be altered to prevent the inadvertent disclosure of "sensitive" information to potential bioterrorists.

"The US is right to take the bioterrorism threat seriously," said Lord, "[but] at this stage, I do not believe that current publication practices are compromising national security." The information is already out there.

Speakers in Washington urged scientists to exert "voluntary restraint" over the details of their research that they publish. "The scientific community must act responsibly to develop self-policing procedures that permit the advancement of science needed for the protection of public health," said Ronald Atlas, president of the American Society for Microbiology.

Similar concerns about the responsibilities of scientists and publishers were raised last year, when it was reported in Science that active, infective polio virus could be produced from an artificially synthesized polio genome.

Bioterrorism presents a new and different threat from chemical terrorism that we are only just beginning to appreciate, says David Franz, a military medical scientist at the Southern Research Institute. Biological agents have a potentially enormous impact that is very difficult to attribute. "It could be some ricin in your sandwich or it could be a pandemic of smallpox," he said.

The need to get to grips with the ethical responsibility of the bioscience community was echoed at the workshop by John H. Marburger, III, director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, who explained that current publication policies, and the mechanisms used to implement them, such as peer review, focus on screening manuscripts for scientific rigor and relevance, but not on screening for sensitive information that could be mis-used.

"There is much in the biomedical literature that would assist anyone wishing to make bioweapons," he told BioMedNet News. "The Administration is working with the scientific community and the homeland security community on how the current lack of policies should be addressed," he said.

However, many agree with Lord that some biological threats, such as this week's discovery of quantities of ricin, have little to do with current publication practices in the biological sciences. "If you can cook and follow a recipe, you can make ricin," said Stephen S. Morse, director of the Center for Public Health Preparedness at Columbia University.

Nevertheless, the National Academy of Sciences and the Center for Strategic and International Studies will co-host additional meetings this year to examine issues related to preserving scientific openness and strengthening national security in the new age of terrorism.

"In a time of heightened threats against America, we must ensure not only that new security requirements do not undermine science - an enterprise vital to national security - but also that advances in science do not unintentionally undermine the enhanced security we seek," said John J. Hamre, president and chief executive officer of the Center for Strategic and International Studies. "If we do not start now with a constructive dialog, it's going to be a nightmare," he told delegates.