Keeping up with bioterrorism fears

The threat of bioterrorism has had a recent airing in the UK with radio adverts calling for volunteers to test a new anthrax vaccine. But even if the threat is relatively minor in comparison to real and possible natural disasters such as AIDS or influenza, its presence in political and public debate implies that the scientific community has to deal with it in some way. In November 2003, the Wellcome Trust, Britain’s largest research charity and a funder of potentially dangerous research such as sequencing of the Yersinia pestis genome, presented a position statement on the threat of bioterrorism. The paper highlighted the risk management and quality control measures already implemented in the selection processes that precede both funding and publication of research. With growing awareness of ‘dual use’ science and its possible use for bioweapons, funders, editors and peer reviewers should be able to provide efficient control even within the existing framework. The Trust therefore came to the conclusion that the dissemination of scientific information should be self-regulated, and not constrained by governments. This self-regulation requires awareness of bioweapons security within the scientific community. Moreover, politicians and the public need to be convinced that the community is dealing with the issue. Hence, the Trust combined its efforts with those of the Royal Society (Britain's academy of science), to start a process that would both raise awareness and kick-start communication. Last month, the two organisations held a joint one-day discussion meeting under the title ‘Do no harm? Reducing the potential for the misuse of life science research’. Professor Julia Higgins, Vice President of the Royal Society, said that the meeting served to clarify “whether it is possible to monitor the flow of information into the public domain without unduly hindering scientific progress.” Among more than 50 researchers who attended the meeting, both of these concerns, News focus