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International Response: Scientific Journal Editors Call For Restraint By Mike Nartker While there is a need for scientific research to be published and distributed, scientists and journal editors must also consider the need to prevent terrorists from acquiring information that could aid them in developing biological weapons, said a statement by the Journal Editors and Authors Group released here Saturday at annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. “There is information, that, although we cannot now capture it with lists or definitions, presents enough risks of use by terrorists that it should not be published,” said the group, consisting of editors from publications such as Science and Nature. “How and by what processes it might be identified will continue to challenge us, because … it is also true that open publications brings benefits not only to public health but also in efforts to combat terrorism,” they added. The group has called on editors from international scientific journals to modify, or even refuse to publish, papers that might contain information useful to terrorists. Scientific papers, however, must also remain of a high quality and contain enough detail to allow for reproducibility — “a requirement for scientific progress,” the group said in its statement. The statement is set to be published this week in several scientific journals, said Ronald Atlas, president of the American Society for Microbiology, who spoke at a press briefing. Atlas said the editors would not act as censors. There are no set qualifications as to what information would be too dangerous to block from publications, Atlas said. He compared the situation to pornography — “You know it when you see it.” Many editors and scientists involved in peer review boards have worked in biological defense and should have the background needed to recognize dangerous information, Atlas said. Almost all of the papers published in the last several years that were considered by the group as they developed their statement would have still been published under the new mindset of restraint, Atlas said. For example, more than 14,000 papers were submitted to journals published by the ASM between 2001 and 2002, according to an ASM press release. Out of those, 224 dealt with “select agents” — biological agents subject to new U.S. regulations because of their potential threat. Of those 224 articles, only two raised security concerns. The articles were modified and are now set to be published, Atlas said. One of the two papers was modified to have the rhetoric in its introduction, describing the dangerousness of the pathogen being studied, toned down, Atlas said. In addition, information in the paper that described how the pathogen could be made more dangerous was removed, he added. The authors of the two papers were not angered by the modifications, Atlas said. Even some articles that raised public concerns when released would still deserve to be published with new security considerations, Atlas said. One such article was a paper published in July of last year that explained how scientists at the State University of New York at Stony Brook was able to recreate the polio virus (see GSN, July 12, 2002). The Los Angeles Times reported at the time that a number of scientists criticized the paper’s publication, calling it irresponsible. Atlas Saturday defended the paper’s publication, saying it was considered at the time to have no new information and posed little security risk. There are types of articles that should be blocked outright from being published and made widely available, Atlas said. For example, there is no need to release information on how to weaponize anthrax, he said. The group developed their statement in a series of meetings held last month. The National Academy of Sciences, at the ASM’s request, held a meeting Jan. 9 with journal editors to consider the balance of open publication with security concerns (see GSN, Jan. 10). On Jan. 10, the ASM hosted a meeting of journal editors, scientists and representatives from various U.S. agencies, such as the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, to determine what measures journals could take to prevent terrorists from obtaining useful information. Although representatives from U.S. agencies took part in the discussions leading to the creation of the group’s statement, there has been no request from the government to become involved in the peer review process, Atlas said. Donald Kennedy, editor of Science, said he doubted any type of legislation on the issue would be proposed, noting that attitudes of the U.S. officials present at the discussions leading to the statement’s creation.
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