"We are in the midst of a revolutionary period in the life sciences," says the National Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity in a statement released by the journals Science and Nature. "However, there is also a growing risk that the same science will be deliberately misused and that the consequences could be catastrophic."
The panel of 22 senior scientists made headlines last month by requesting that the journals Science and Nature withhold details of two bird flu transmission studies from publication. The studies dealt with strains of the deadly flu able to transmit among ferrets, the closest animal models to humans. In the statement, the NSABB explains their decision, made at the request of the federal government:
"Our concern is that publishing these experiments in detail would provide information to some person, organization, or government that would help them to develop similar mammal-adapted influenza A/H5N1 viruses for harmful purposes. We believe that as scientists and as members of the general public, we have a primary responsibility "to do no harm" as well as to act prudently and with some humility as we consider the immense power of the life sciences to create microbes with novel and unusually consequential properties," says the statement.
The heads of the two study teams recently announced a two-month halt to their research for a World Health Organization symposium on the risks and benefits of the research. The NSABB panel compares the current moment in biology to ones faced before by atomic scientists and recombinant DNA researchers in the 1970's.
"The life sciences have reached a crossroads. The direction we choose and the process by which we arrive at this decision must be undertaken as a community and not relegated to small segments of government, the scientific community, or society. Physicists faced a similar situation in the 1940s with nuclear weapons research, and it is inevitable that other scientific disciplines will also do so," said the statement.
In a separate commentary, NSABB chief Paul Keim of Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff, further explained the panel's reasoning, calling for the scientific community as an international endeavor to decide on steps for controlling "dual-use" microbiological research. "What is gratifying and essential is that the debate is occurring; it is occurring on an international stage, and it is occurring rapidly," Keim said, in the statement released by the mBio journal.
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