I’m getting very sick of this fear mongering performed by our government. United States authorities decided two papers published about bird flu were in need of revision, and when the government says revision they mean censorship:
US authorities have asked the authors of two controversial bird flu studies to redact key details after a government advisory panel suggested the data could be used by terrorists.
The papers show how a bird flu variant can pass easily between ferrets.
Holy shit, the terrorists may learn that bird flu can be used against ferrets! Not ferrets! We love those mischievous cute little critters! Quick demand the report be censored!
Let’s look at this under a more serious light. The United States government must believe Al Qaeda has a team of crack biologists who specialized in virology. That’s the only possible way that they could be in the least bit worried about this information spreading. Were I to read the report my brain would probably collapse in on itself due to complete stupidity regarding viruses. You can just read a research paper and gain a complete understanding of the material unless you also have the requisite prior knowledge on which the paper is based. Does the United States government believe real life is like Fallout where you can pick up a book, use it, and gain an instant +2% to a related stat? If Al Qaeda, the Taliban, or any other such entity had leading virologists I would think we’d have been attacked by some kind of super plague by now. Unfortunately for Al Qaeda and fortunately for us extremely intelligent researchers usually aren’t violent psychopaths.
You can just ignore everything I’ve said though because the government has a solution:
Editors at the journals Science and Nature say they will not agree to the redactions until they are assured the data will be accessible to researchers.
A spokesman for US health authorities said such a system was being prepared.
I’m sure anybody who passes a government background check, meets the government mandated qualifications to be a researcher, and pays an exorbitant licensing fee will have access to this new database system. On the other hand top level researchers in other countries (especially terrorist countries like not American) can just go fuck themselves along with the amateurs. We can completely ignore the fact that some of the world’s greatest scientific breakthroughs were done by amateur researchers who would likely not meed the government’s requirement of the title.
What this censorship will do is make finding a cure or vaccine much more difficult because only those blessed by the divinity of government will be allowed to participate in such research. In other words the potential number of researchers trying to find a cure or create a vaccine will be greatly reduced.
While I agree with you in principle, you picked a really poor example here. Ferrets are considered by virologists to be the closest to humans where disease communicability is concerned (I know weird right?), so it is generally assumed that if a given virus can pass easily between ferrets, it can do so in humans.
Also I’ve read the paper, and it is quite easy to understand. The next logical step from there is simply being able to locate the specific strain of the flu discussed, and a supply of ferrets to induce mutation into the virus.
I’m not a biologist, I took a single college level biology class in the 1990’s (damn I feel old just typing that). They kinda have a point.
Where I disagree with them is the whole idea of trying to control scientific literature.
A much better idea is to require that advisory boards actually investigate the potential impacts of a given study BEFORE it is funded.
Or maybe the journals should weigh the impact of publishing such a study in it’s entirety before it is done.
I believe that there is certain research that should be strictly controlled for access, I just don’t necessarily think that the government is the right entity to provide the controls.
Can you imagine what the world would look like if Oppenheimer had just published all of his research where it was publicly accessible? Georgia would be uninhabitable for the next 10,000 years because Cleetus Jones accidentally the whole warhead.
Now with radiation, the impact is kinda limited (it only spreads so far), but with biologicals the only limit is the R-Naught number of the specific virus, and how quickly we could produce a vaccine. The right virus potentially could kill off most of the world population, if not all of it (or enough of it that we’d be lucky if we only lost 10,000 years of social evolution).
That was mostly a sarcastic statement on my behalf. Basically I was being a bit of a jerk.
I would say finding the specific strain would be very difficult because you’re going to have to test each strain you come across or find an ideal one that seems to have a high level of lethality and transmutability. From there mutations are entirely random unless you have the equipment and knowledge to control the mutations to enhance desired attributes.
The investment in education, equipment, facilities, etc. is very high for most research. Most terrorists are going to weigh the vast expense required to construct such a lab and possible get a viable virus from the endeavor versus building cheap and highly effective explosive devices and find the latter most agreeable. That’s probably why they have tried using a nuclear device, which can be purchased from breakaway Soviet republic. Buying and delivering a nuclear device is very expensive and the chances of getting caught are high because you must introduce third-parties. Advanced medical technology for virus research also involved third-parties who often tightly control the sale of their equipment. Either way it makes far more sense to strap a bomb onto old crazy Jim and send him out to blow himself up and hopefully catch a bunch of people in the explosion than it does sinking tons of time, money, and labor into developing a virus that may or may not do as you wish (and can turn against your own people very easily).