The U.S. government set up a special advisory board Thursday to recommend ways to keep legitimate scientific research from being turned to terrorist or warfare uses.
Experts have long warned that vaccine development, genetic engineering and other legitimate areas of research could be easily turned to biological warfare. For instance, the study of influenza to make a better vaccine could also lead to new super-strains of the virus that would kill millions.
This carries the innocuous-sounding name of “dual use” research.
Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson said the government was establishing a National Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity to take up the issue.
“Our nation has been a world leader in life sciences research because of our emphasis on the importance of the free flow of scientific inquiry,” Thompson told a news conference. “Yet sadly, the very same tools developed to better the health and condition of humankind can also be used for its destruction.”
Review of scientific journals
The board will be assigned to come up with ideas for oversight of potential dual use research -- including the potentially ticklish issue of dealing with editors of scientific journals that publish such research.
Until the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on New York and Washington, scientific exchange was unfettered. But since then many scientists have noted the potential abuse of their research and have discussed the possibility some may have to be conducted more in secret than before.
The National Research Council, one of the independent National Academy of Sciences, reported in October that researchers should think more about how their work might be misused but stressed that government regulation would be the wrong way to go.
It called in its report for the creation of the advisory board established Thursday.
“The active participation of the scientific community, here and abroad, will promote a culture of responsibility among researchers in this arena of science, much as we have seen with the field of recombinant DNA (genetic engineering) research,” National Institutes of Health Director Dr. Elias Zerhouni said.
The board will include the office of White House Science Adviser John Marburger, the Departments of HHS, Homeland Security, Veterans Affairs, Defense, State, Commerce, Justice, Interior, and Agriculture, the Environmental Protection Agency, the National Science Foundation, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration and unspecified members of the intelligence community.
