PANEL: REVIEW BIORESEARCH FOR TERROR CONNEX

“Despite sci­en­tists’ gen­eral dis­taste for any con­straints on research, a panel of the National Academy of Sciences yes­ter­day rec­om­mended prior review, at the uni­ver­sity and fed­eral lev­els, of exper­i­ments that could help ter­ror­ists or hos­tile nations make bio­log­i­cal weapons,” the New York Times reports.

Though physi­cists have long lived with the fact that cer­tain areas of research are clas­si­fied and can­not be dis­cussed openly, biol­o­gists are rel­a­tively new to secu­rity con­cerns. Apart from bio­log­i­cal defense research, done mostly at mil­i­tary insti­tu­tions, aca­d­e­mic biol­ogy is focused on med­i­cine and con­ducted with­out secu­rity restraints…
The panel’s work seems likely to be palat­able to many sci­en­tists, but it remains to be seen if those con­cerned with national secu­rity will be satisfied. 

October 9th, 2003 | Chem-Bio | Comments Off Both comments and pings are currently closed.