By AMY HARMON
February 16, 2003
More than 20 leading scientific journals have made a pact to censor articles that they believe could compromise national security, regardless of their scientific merit. The policy, announced yesterday at a scientific meeting in Denver, is one of the first concrete steps to emerge from a fierce debate over how to balance the ethic of openness that has long been the foundation of American science with calls from some government officials for greater secrecy after the anthrax attacks in 2001. "We recognize that on occasion an editor may conclude that the potential harm of publication outweighs the potential societal benefits," reads a statement endorsed by the journals' editors, as well as some scientists and Bush administration officials. "Under such circumstances, the paper should be modified or not be published."
The journals Science, Nature, The Proceedings of the National Academy of Science and several others - which together constitute a primary vehicle for spreading scientific research around the world - plan to publish editorials supporting and explaining the policy this week.
Some prominent scientists called the policy a significant step in the wrong direction. Journal editors, critics argue, have no reliable way to evaluate what information would do more harm than good. Research viewed as dangerous, they say, may be the most likely to stimulate new defenses against biological threats and natural diseases. "I've studied these things for 50 years, and I couldn't make that judgment, and I don't see how editors of journals can either," said Dr. Stanley Falkow, a microbiologist at Stanford University. "The job of journals is to judge the scientific quality of things, not to act as people who censor or make these kind of decisions, which are more political than they are scientific."
Dr. Falkow called bioterrorism a serious threat, but added that agreeing to some restrictions could lead to demands for more. "I'm waiting for someone to say, 'Let's not release any genomic information' on potentially dangerous infectious agents," he said, "because that might help bioterrorists." "Ignorance is not a good defense," he said. "Knowledge is." But journal editors, in announcing the new policy at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, said scientists had to hold themselves accountable for the dissemination of powerful information that can be used for good and evil.
Unlike nuclear physics, where research that is viewed as dangerous is classified, biological research - which focuses on understanding disease - is largely unclassified, the editors point out, so the logical place to restrict information is at the point of publication. "I don't want to be responsible for the deaths of Americans or anyone else," said Dr. Ronald M. Atlas, president of the American Society of Microbiology and one of the strongest proponents of the policy. "I don't want to be the one that publishes 'Here's how to weaponize anthrax' and find someone tomorrow used that and killed hundreds of thousands of people. I want responsibility on the part of the scientific community."
There is little consensus on the practical effects of the new policy. Some scientists said a paper showing how to weaponize anthrax would probably not be published regardless, since it would not be seen as groundbreaking science.
And even editors who advocate the new policy said the paper that prompted much of the discussion that led to it _ one that showed how to synthesize the polio virus from ordinary chemicals _ would not have been withheld, because the benefits of the research far outweighed any risk that it might aid terrorists.
Dr. Robert A. Rich, the editor of The Journal of Immunology, said he could imagine two kinds of terrorists who might be consulting the scientific literature: someone unsophisticated looking for a bioweapon recipe, which no respectable journal would publish in the first place, and a scientist trained in the techniques of modern molecular biology.
The journal editors say it is tricky to determine what kind of research should be shielded from the second category at the expense of adding to the collective scientific knowledge. Several compared the task to recognizing pornography. "I believe when that paper comes along we'll recognize it," said Nicholas Cozarrelli, editor of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science, paraphrasing Justice Potter Stewart's definition of pornography. He said: "I know it when I see it."
Participants said part of the motivation to act even in the absence of a solid example was encouragement from Bush administration officials who attended a Jan. 9 meeting convened by the National Academy of Science and the Center for Strategic and International Studies to discuss "Scientific Openness and National Security."
At the meeting, the White House science adviser, John H. Marburger, endorsed openness, but warned that "society expects its government to take reasonable steps against bioterrorism.'' Others cautioned that in the absence of a self-monitoring plan, Congress could try to legislate one. Several administration officials, including Rachel Levinson from the Office of Science and Technology Policy, attended a private meeting of journal editors the next day, when the policy was first drafted. "We were warned at the conference that if we don't watch out the government could misunderstand our work and put the screws on," said Dr. Eckard Wimmer, a microbiologist of the State University of New York at Stony Brook, who signed the statement. "For this reason I think it is very important that we do something to avoid such damaging action by the government." It was Dr. Wimmer's paper showing how to synthesize the polio virus, published by Science online last July, that prompted criticism in the news media and Congress, helping to catalyze the debate over publishing and censorship. Representative Dave Weldon, Republican of Florida, wrote a resolution calling on scientists and the White House to consider guidelines for publicizing research that could threaten national security. Still, journal editors say Dr. Wimmer's article would not have been censored under the new policy. Nor would another controversial article that showed how to defeat the immune systems of mice by using genetically modified mousepox virus, or a third that used an engineered enzyme produced by the smallpox virus to investigate its ability to evade the human immune system.
Editors said that while these articles theoretically suggested strategies for making biological weapons, they offered valuable insights into how these pathogens work and how the immune systems respond to them, and describe methods that will help scientists understand infectious diseases and develop new treatments for them.
The statement from the coalition of editors stresses the importance of open communication in science. Many said they expected withholding a paper from publication would happen only in extremely rare circumstances. The American Society for Microbiology, whose 11 journals have already instituted such a policy, said only 2 papers out of 14,000 had been flagged since December 2001, and both were likely to be published in modified form.
But critics of the policy say even a hint of censorship could have a chilling effect on researchers whose progress depends on open communication and the ability to test and replicate each other's work. Scientists, they say, are far less likely to start important research on dangerous pathogens if they worry that journal editors might refuse to publish it.
"Encouraging editors to bar publications will do nothing to protect us from the real threats of bioterrorism,'' said Michael B. Eisen, a biologist at Lawrence Berkeley National Lab and co-founder of Public Library of Science, a new venture devoted to open scientific publishing. ``Instead, this could stifle exactly the kinds of research and ideas that are most likely to yield new defenses."
On a broader note, I would worry that the editors described in the article were overly submissive to the government. Moreover, if the government can get its foot in the door today, it may come back tomorrow with still tougher restrictions.
I would guess that much of the research that the biology journals publish
is paid for by the government. If so, then one has to wonder about the
possibility of an implicit threat made by the government--either you agree
to our publication restrictions, or we won't pay for your research any
more. This is not a healthy situation, in my view.
Dick Potthoff
potthoff@duke.edu
March 1, 2003
I wish I knew how I felt. It seems that some restrictions are inevitable
in the life sciences area.
Juliet Shaffer
Shaffer@stat.Berkeley.EDU
March 1, 2003
Excerpts from her report of the AAAS Affiliates Meeting, Feb. 14, 2003
1. After brief opening remarks by Floyd Bloom, current AAAS President, Ron Atlas, President of the American Society of Microbiology, gave a talk "Scientific openness and national security needs in the new age of bioterrorism."
2. Atlas: There is a huge increase in the NIH budget to deal with bioterrorism. Project Bioshield gives unlimited authority to the US President to control and limit the transfer of agents considered dangerous within the country and to require export licenses for export of agents (agents means drugs, bacteria, etc).The project considers the export of information as well. This is new to the life sciences. (As someone in the audience noted, such restrictions have been in place for areas of physics and for cryptology.)
Furthermore, the Patriot Act restricts aliens from some countries from possessing selected agents within the US. It is a criminal offense to provide them.
For such selected agents, possession anywhere must be registered. Names of ANY visitors to labs containing such agents must be reported to the Department of Justice. Labs must be heavily guarded. Clearance and surveillance of everyone involved in the labs, everyone entering, is required. All packages entering and leaving must be inspected. There is a 220 page document from CDC and USDA describing these regulations and their implementation.
Problem: How will all these restrictions affect research? Some fear that microbiologists will leave this field rather than put up with severe restrictions. The government is alarmed by this possibility. Yet, it seems clear that some restrictions, on information as well as agents, will be necessary.
A statement arrived at after a daylong meeting sponsored by the National Academies and the Center for Security and International Studies (CSIS) was issued on Feb. 15, and can be found in the Feb. 21 issue of Science, p. 1149 (see also the editorial by Donald Kennedy on the preceding page). A group of journal editors and authors have agreed to some restrictions of information. There is a feeling that if the scientists themselves don't agree to restrictions, the government will step in, and will be less able to formulate reasonable provisions. There is still a good deal of dissension about this. Go to the AAAS web page (http://www.aaas.org), search on bioterrorism, and there will be much information on the issue. Dr. Atlas also discussed problems connected with trying to restrict preprints, abstracts, posters at meetings, talks at meetings, etc.
Atlas stated that the government has begun to screen participants at bioterrorism conferences, and that participants often don't know about this screening.
(Note: I am on the ASA Committee on Professional Ethics, which has begun debate on this issue and how it could affect information in statistical journals.)