US asks journals not to publish flu virus research to keep info from terrorists
cnbc.com
cnbc.com
the journal was taking the recommendations seriously and would probably withhold some information — but only if the government creates a system to provide the missing information to legitimate scientists worldwide who need it.
I'm concerned with how they might determine who is "legitimate", and who "needs it".
And beyond that, it seems silly to try to protect in this way. I've got to believe that anyone skilled enough to be able to use the information would also be skilled enough to get himself onto the staff of a "legitimate" researcher, thereby getting the information.
The concern is that it is much much easier for those who would cause harm to use this information than for those who would use it to create defenses. With such an asymmetry it makes sense to restrict access.
>I've got to believe that anyone skilled enough to be able to use the information
From what I've gathered from various articles is that the process described doesn't require any high level skills or facilities. Apparently it's frighteningly easy to nudge bird flu to be highly contagious in humans.
Only if the numbers are fairly comparable. If the number of "good" scientists looking to defend is much larger than the number of bad scientists, you're still probably better off publishing.
You have to guarantee 100% effective vaccines with 100% distribution.
This is false. A vaccine can effectively stop a virus with far fewer than 100% actually receiving the vaccination.
First, depending on the type of vaccine, the immunity may be communicated to other people through contact. Other people in the household, work, school, etc. are contaminated with the attenuated virus (in such a vaccination, as with the Salk polio virus).
Second, with a sufficient portion of the population immune, they act as firebreaks interfering with the transmission of the virus through the population. This is called "Herd Immunity" [1]. According to the linked article, for example, smallpox is effectively stopped with 83%-85% of the community vaccinated.
You miss the point that some people can't have the flu vaccine because of auto immune disease susceptibility. Also X percent of the population will not get the vaccination for other reasons.
So this is more like [Sophos|Symantec|Kaspersky] creating a super Windows virus then offering to print the source code in order to "further" research.
Just like with nuclear technology, we can't put this genie back in the bottle.
Just because we can do something, does that always mean we should?
A malicious virologist already knows enough to try to replicate the experiment in his own secret lab so censoring the information will just make it hard for the good researchers to do their job.
No, this is not correct. As I explained elsewhere in the thread where you made the same claim:
A vaccine can effectively stop a virus with far fewer than 100% actually receiving the vaccination.
First, depending on the type of vaccine, the immunity may be communicated to other people through contact. Other people in the household, work, school, etc. are contaminated with the attenuated virus (in such a vaccination, as with the Salk polio virus).
Second, with a sufficient portion of the population immune, they act as firebreaks interfering with the transmission of the virus through the population. This is called "Herd Immunity" [1]. According to the linked article, for example, smallpox is effectively stopped with 83%-85% of the community vaccinated.
The knee-jerk reactions against "censorship" in this case doesn't make sense. From what I've gathered from other articles about this research is that it basically lays out a procedure to take bird flu and turn it into a potential pandemic-causing virus. And we're not talking highly controlled lab experiments here, this is something that a rag-tag group could do in a regular building (again, from what I've inferred).
The potential downside to having this information freely available far outweighs the benefits. Any legitimate research group will surely be able to get their hands on the information.
We aren't talking about a bond villain, here. We're talking about largely uneducated Arab peasants who are perfectly capable of firing an RPG-7 or an AK-47, or strapping on an explosive vest and blowing themselves up, but little else. There's no evidence they're even making their own PETN, which is far easier than engineering a virus. In fact, instructions for the manufacture of PETN, and the constituent components thereof, are freely available.
The rush to ascribe fantastical abilities to terrorists has led to the introduction of some pretty draconian laws. Given that bathtubs kill more Americans than do terrorists, let's lay of the doomsdaying, shall we?
Orwell's timing was wrong but close enough in my book.
Or a rogue government which probably has the ability to reproduce to the research relatively easily from doing so and providing the information to a terrorist group.
If someone wanted to commit an act of viral terrorism they would have done so by now, there are already plenty of dangerous viruses and hybrids in research labs all around the world, most of which have close to zero security.
I think the biggest thing that protects us again viral terrorism is that terrorists aren't crazy enough to use any kind of untargeted weapon.
Probably the most famous act of terrorism in british history - the gunpowder plot of 1605 was stopped because one of the conspirators tipped of a member of their family.
Terrorists don't want to do something that could well kill the supporters of their own cause or their families.
That's right.
Insane people, OTOH, have no such restraints. That's what worries me more than any "terrorist" attack. I think we're paying too much attention to "terrorism", blinded as we are by the glare of media. But it's getting more and more easy for some doomsday cultist, sane enough to be able to perform basic engineering tasks, but insane enough to dream of a DIY Armageddon, to make those dreams (or, rather, nightmares) come true.
Even so, I'm still not sure whether withholding information is always good policy. Maybe it is - maybe a slight delay until defenses are built might be beneficial.
The odds of a random mutation unleashing deadly virus upon the world are probably close to 1.
It's amazing how quickly people have forgotten about the 1918 flu epidemic. It killed around 75 million people and infected more than a quarter of the world's population.
We're going to have another virus epidemic of that proportion, it's a question of when rather than if. We should be building defences because of the risk of random mutations and not because of the risk of engineered viruses.
The U.S. used to be big into researching biological weapons until they found that it was far too easy and cheap to build them compared to other weapons of mass destruction (such as nuclear weapons).
Therefore they nearly stopped all biological weapon research merely because it would be too easy for poorer countries (or terrorists) to make those types of weapons.
That approach was very reasonable: It is in the United State's best interest if the only weapons of mass destruction are very expensive to make. I imagine at least some of the reasoning here is a carryover of this. So I highly doubt when they say:
> For the first time ever, a government advisory board is asking scientific journals not to publish details of certain biomedical experiments, for fear ...
That this is the first time. This is just probably a much more visible (and perhaps more ridiculous than usual) example.
H5N1 in the hands of "bad" people is a matter of weeks or perhaps months (provided they have ferrets and the aviary strain of h5n1).
Refusing to increase funding to biomedical research is a side-long way to slowly kill scientific progress in America. This, on the other hand, is irrational fear leading directly to the stifling of science in America.
I think it's fairly clear now, if it wasn't before, that America has lost its lead in scientific progress. I wonder how most Americans will feel when they finally realize that some other country is more technically advanced? Will the added sense of "safety" have been worth it?
As others note, if they have the virus and the labs to weaponize it, they are probably a government.
Make no mistake, this has nothing to do with terrorists. This is all about trying to keep this information under wraps so they can be the ones who make it a biological weapon that they can hold over the heads of any country who they perceive as threatening.
Terrorist organizations for the most part aren't half as fearsome as the US government want you to believe. Their more akin to street gangs than the organized, resourceful group they want you to imagine. And in the rare case that a terrorist group is capable of weaponizing the flu, some law enforcement agency will most likely have the jump on them before they can execute.
I'm not saying it can't happen, I'm just saying the chances are slim and, more importantly, their reason for pushing secrecy is most likely not the true reason.
Anytime some government agency does something for our own good or "for the kids", run for your lives.
Nobody really complains about that.
Wow. So he thinks that if they don't self-censor, the government will censor for them... And that that makes it not censorship?
Ouch.