Science Panel Recommends Censoring Bird Flu Papers 126
Morty writes "The National Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity (NSABB) has recommended that details of two research papers involving Avian Flu not be published because of security concerns. At least one of the research groups says that their work should be logically reproducible. The NSABB's censorship recommendations do not (currently) have the force of law, but Science and Nature voluntarily delayed publication."
Re: (Score:1)
they did not create anything ... just proved that a virus that shares _one protein_ with the "bird flu" virus can infect mammals ... this is not news and this is not dangerous information ...
Incorrect. (Score:5, Informative)
So what they did was actually create a superflu... one with a high mortality rate in humans and is easily transmissible. Whereas before these experiments, it already had a high mortality rate, but was not easy to transmit.
These were extrememly dangerous experiments that should never have been carried out. The labs where they did this work do make mistakes... we know because they have suffered loss of containment in the past!
If you want to read more about it, just google "H5N1" and "ferret".
Re:Incorrect. (Score:5, Informative)
there was another thread about this same subject a few weeks ago, and there was no "new strain of the virus", just a virus sharing one of the proteins that help the virii attach to cells
while we have lots of resistant bacterias living in our hospitals (and by our mean "all the hospitals in the world"), we're getting hype over this ... not sure any more it's hysterics or histrionics ... maybe Netherlands needs pretexts to wipe out chicken farms somewhere ...
here you go, mandatory link to non-brain-damaged content ... http://www.virology.ws/2011/12/06/ferreting-out-influenza-h5n1/ [virology.ws]
Scientists appear to be responsible for the hype surrounding this experiment. Fouchier called it ‘one of the most dangerous viruses you can make’. Paul Keim, chair of NSABB, ‘can’t think of another pathogenic organism that is as scary as this one’, and Richard Ebright, a molecular biologist at Rutgers University says the experiment should not have been done. Martin Enserink writing in ScienceInsider says that the virus could change world history, and similar proclamations of doom can be found in the popular press.
Passage of viruses in a different host is one strategy for reducing the virulence in humans. This concept is explained in this passage from Principles of Virology:
Less virulent (attenuated) viruses can be selected by growth in cells other than those of the normal host, or by propagation at nonphysiological temperatures. Mutants able to propagate better under these selective conditions arise during viral replication. When such mutants are isolated, purified, and subsequently tested for pathogenicity in appropriate models, some may be less pathogenic than their parent.
The possibility that passage of the H5N1 virus in ferrets will attenuate its virulence in humans has been ignored.
getting tired of this ...
Re:Incorrect. (Score:5, Insightful)
Actually, I was to quick about it and I apologise. Please mod down my parent post as it is nonsense.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I applaud your ability to admit to being potentially or clearly incorrect. Even if you end up being correct, I see far too many ill-informed people that are quick to take a popular view, without questioning sources AND their own judgement. I believe the deepest levels of learning come from questioning everything and evryone, especially yourself, when considering what one accepts to be fact.
That low ID looks to be a bit well-deserved.
Re:Incorrect. (Score:4, Insightful)
there was no "new strain of the virus", .... here you go, mandatory link to non-brain-damaged content ... http://www.virology.ws/2011/12/06/ferreting-out-influenza-h5n1/ [virology.ws]
From your link: "A laboratory in the Netherlands has identified a lethal influenza H5N1 virus strain that is transmitted among ferrets."
The whole argument from your link about it not being as lethal as H5N1 is pure speculation - as he admits, we don't know transmissibility of the strain in humans, because we won't do that experiment. His basic argument is the virulence of the virus in humans is reduced by having the virus be transmitted through non-human hosts. This is not necessarily true - it depends on what species the virus is moving between. If a virus makes the leap from something further from humans (eg fish) to something closer to humans (eg pigs) then it becomes more dangerous to us. His argument may be correct in the case where you have an organism adapted very well to humans and you expose it to non-human transmission selective pressures, then it will probably evolve and become less adapted to humans. But this is not always the situation.
He also says:
Nature is far better at producing viruses that can kill – to think that we can duplicate the enormous diversity and selection pressures that occur in the wild is a severe case of scientific hubris.
Maybe he is right (at the moment) about manually targetted changes - but we are only going to get better at this over time. He has also ignored the practice of laboratory evolution [google.com] (or synthetic evolution), where nature is used in the lab to evolve or enhance certain characteristics of organisms. For a far-out plan, some rogue biologists could expose humans, see which ones are infected and die first, and then infect others with flu samples taken from those bodies. After repeating for some generations, this selective pressure may well produce a highly lethal and highly transmissible variant.
Lethal to ferrets. (Score:2)
The whole argument from your link about it not being as lethal as H5N1 is pure speculation - as he admits, we don't know transmissibility of the strain in humans, because we won't do that experiment.
Right. But the expectation is that the mutations the virus makes, in the process of improving their ability to infect the new non-human host, typically reduce their ability to infect humans. Not necessarily true, of course. But more likely than not.
Even if the new host is "closer to us" on the evolutionary tr
Re: (Score:2)
"Right. But the expectation is that the mutations the virus makes, in the process of improving their ability to infect the new non-human host, typically reduce their ability to infect humans. Not necessarily true, of course. But more likely than not."
The reason that is irrelevant in this case, and the experiments more alarming than many people might think, is because ferret and human transimissibility (and susceptibility) are extremely similar. That is the whole reason WHY ferrets are used in influenza studies.
If it were a fish or a frog or even a dog or gorilla, it would probably be much different (I admit I don't know much about influenza in gorillas). But it wasn't any of those. It was ferrets.
The whole point here is: influenza that transmits a
do you know what's as dangerous as false alarmism? (Score:4, Insightful)
false complacency
are you telling us it is impossible for someone to create something lethal and easily transmissible and release it, by mistake or on purpose?
if you are going to grant it is impossible but unlikely, do you not grant that the consequences are huge?
and giant tsunamis will never strike nuclear plants
and religious fundamentalists will never fly planes into office towers
there's many kinds of ignorant folly in this world
read, and educate yourself as to how your psychology and cognition fails you, and us:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_swan_theory [wikipedia.org]
Re: (Score:1)
I am telling you that the research that was done on N5H1 is misreported
from http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/481443a.html [nature.com] :
viruses possessing a haemagglutinin (HA) protein from highly pathogenic avian H5N1 influenza viruses can become transmissible in ferrets
that is all, viruses with one of the proteins ( a type of largish organic molecule) that H5N1 is using to attack cells can also attack cells ...
this one has more details about how they got viruses with that particular protein http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nature10884.html [nature.com], with my emphasis added
To determine whether H5N1 viruses could be transmitted between humans, my team generated viruses that combined the H5 haemagglutinin (HA) gene with the remaining genes from a pandemic 2009 H1N1 influenza virus. Avian H5N1 and human pandemic 2009 viruses readily exchange genes in experimental settings, and those from a human virus may facilitate replication in mammals. Indeed, we identified a mutant H5 HA/2009 virus that spread between infected and uninfected ferrets (used as models to study the transmission of influenza in mammals) in separate cages via respiratory droplets in the air. Thus viruses possessing an H5 HA protein can transmit between mammals.
Our results also show that not all transmissible H5 HA-possessing viruses are lethal. In ferrets, our mutant H5 HA/2009 virus was no more pathogenic than the pandemic 2009 virus — it did not kill any of the infected animals. And, importantly, current vaccines and antiviral compounds are effective against it.
depressing ... ScyFy (and sci-fi too) sho
Re: (Score:2)
You just completely ignored everything I said. I am fully cognizant of the danger and folly of ignorant false alarmism. I am talking about an equally dangerous folly: false complacency.
So I will spell it out for you: your complacency is not a product of your intellect and your education. It is a product of an emotional bias just as dangerous as the false alarmism we are both aware of, but for some reason, you see only the false alarmism as the danger on this topic. Failure in cognition on your part.
Re: (Score:1)
oh, that was it ... missed the point ... my bad
please add to your list:
- birds leaving bread on electrical transformers serving hi-power installations (such as LHC), causing shorts and needing million €s in repairs
or please remember this, if your reading comprehension is suffering: the methods used by the Dutch researchers cannot be used to create dangerous virii
Re: (Score:2)
I repeat: some of these same labs have had containment breaches before. It can and does happen.
If, as you state, the research is truly needed, then better facilities should be built and better protocols for containment developed.
Re: (Score:2)
According to the article you linked to (the one published on January 25), in one of the labs they did indeed create an H5 HA variant of the H5N1 virus, that was -- quite predictably -- deadly to the ferrets. And again, since ferret susceptibility to influenza is so close to that of humans, it is very likely that it was, indeed, a "superflu" transmissible to humans.
How you missed that is beyond me. It's right there in plain En
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
Many like to use the excuse that others will do it if "we" don't do it, and my reply is it'll at least be later rather than sooner, and it's still a stupid reason to do something, because as our technology improves we may start to have the capability to create the equ
Re: (Score:2)
you can't build such a society. the outliers are natural. for example: schizophrenia. there is zero protection in trying to build a society without malintentioned individuals. there weill always be malintentioned individuals. you suggest a fool's errand
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
So we stop trying? We ignore our ability to gauge probability and costs and do nothing regardless of how cheap and easy some black swans cost to prevent?
The sun occasionally will zap us with enough solar wind/ radiation to induce current in sites that could knock out all power transformers on the northern hemisphere. Probability: very rare. Costs to prevent: low (small advance warning system of a few minutes, auto kick off transformers from long power lines).
Your advice is to do nothing even if the cost is
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Don't read, because there is by definition no education in bullshit. Only brainwashing with aforementioned bullshit.
This "theory" is typical example of philosophical nonsense.
Don't.
Re: (Score:2)
You're a moron. All the link is saying is that surprise rare events have shaped history. Its not fucking complicated, and more importantly, its absolutely right. But I encourage your hatred of philosophy, maybe you'll marry your stated belief with your actions and stop sharing your ideas, to our benefit.
Re: (Score:3)
Extremely dangerous? Sure sounds like it to me.
This kind of research should ne
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
What they actually did was create a NEW strain of the virus, which was physically transmissible. Before they bred this transmissible virus via ferrets, it was not easily transmitted to humans.
Just no. That's totally wrong. Are you deliberately misunderstanding? A mutation found to allow binding of human tissue was developed, but not by infecting ferrets. Subsequently, aerosol transmissibility amongst FERRETS was selected for. Not transmissibility amongst humans.
Don't even bother replying with more incomprehension.
Re: (Score:2)
"Just no. That's totally wrong. Are you deliberately misunderstanding? A mutation found to allow binding of human tissue was developed, but not by infecting ferrets. Subsequently, aerosol transmissibility amongst FERRETS was selected for. Not transmissibility amongst humans."
I will repeat what I wrote to someone else above:
What YOU don't seem to understand is that ferrets are used precisely because their susceptibility to influenza is nearly identical to that of humans. An influenza virus that transmits among ferrets is extremely likely to be transmissible to humans as well. More likely than not, in fact.
Re: (Score:2)
What YOU don't seem to understand is that ferrets are used precisely because their susceptibility to influenza is nearly identical to that of humans.
Except not. As has already been pointed out, passaging through ferrets likely reduces virulence to humans, rather than increasing it. You must know this, unless you only read some of the replies to your posts. I'm tired of responding to you, as are others. You really do deliberately misunderstand.
Re: (Score:2)
"Except not. ..."
Except yes. Where is your evidence? You can "point it out" all you like, but unless you have something to back it up, then it's just so much hot air.
And it is nothing but hot air. I repeat: ferrets are used for influenza studies precisely because their susceptibility and symptoms so closely mirror humans.
Would you like evidence for MY claims? How about these:
"Ferrets are exquisitely susceptible to infection with human influenza viruses and are widely believed to be the ideal small animal model for [sciencedaily.com]
Re: (Score:2)
"Don't even bother replying with more incomprehension."
Just maybe you ought to look into situations a little more thoroughly yourself before you presume to condescend.
Re: (Score:2)
"Just no. That's totally wrong. Are you deliberately misunderstanding? A mutation found to allow binding of human tissue was developed, but not by infecting ferrets."
Except that YOU are wrong. Right here [nature.com] (the same link provided by someone else above), paragraph 5.
That very clearly says that they created a new H5N1 strain with the H5 HA protein, which increased transmissibility. And (as I cite references for in another post below), it was precisely "To determine whether H5N1 viruses could be transmitted between humans..." [paragraph 4 of that same link].
Further as this article, and others, point out [virology.ws], the virus was deliberately selected for transmissibility by infec
FYI (Score:4, Informative)
These people are an official panel of the US Department of Health. From Wikipedia:
It is tasked with recommending policies on such questions as how to prevent published research in biotechnology from aiding terrorism, without slowing scientific progress.
Just in case you've never heard of them (I know I haven't).
Re: (Score:2)
What's the difference between the US Department of Health and National Institute of Health (NIH)? I know the latter is part of the executive branch, but that'sit.
Re:FYI (Score:4, Informative)
Re:FYI (Score:4, Informative)
What's the difference between the US Department of Health and National Institute of Health (NIH)? I know the latter is part of the executive branch, but that'sit.
They're both executive branch. The NIH are formally a part of the DoH, and have responsibility for doing (and coordinating) research for the department. There are similar arrangements in other departments (the DoD has DARPA, the DoE fund a number of national labs, etc.) and it's not very remarkable. In general, it's useful for the departments to have research arms in order to both provide solid scientifically-based advice on policy, and to gently encourage everyone else to do research that benefits the nation as well as themselves.
Re: (Score:2)
Except it's not possible to do that. Science works when the information is not censored and free to anyone with the skills and knowledge to build on it. By preventing stuff from being published like this for fear that someone somewhere 'might' use this in a way that $government doesn't want hinders progress.
One thing that I can think of off the top of my head that somone can use this research for is to make a virus that they can then alter its payload to say deliver gene thearpy with a high success rate.
Re: (Score:2)
Your proposition has been dealt with long ago by ethicists and epistemologists.
Consider the case of R&D for military applications. Frame your argument around the knowledge on how to build effective atomic bombs, for example. Think of arguments for and against publication, including whether publication hinders or promotes progress. Consider whether knowledge is ultimately morals-agnostic or is always permeated with the researcher's moral code at some point.
tl;dr : knowledge isn't always a positive thing.
Re: (Score:2)
Recommending censorship of scientific literature is extremely dangerous ground, and a precedent which could lead to the halt of scientific advancement on earth if the limit is applied (mathematically).
Scientific advancement generally lets us do difficult things more easily. Humans are reasonably resilient to other humans, but still rather delicate and fragile over the spectrum of physical and chemical (biological) forces. Scientific advancement will allow an individual human to apply physical and chemical
Wrong way around (Score:5, Funny)
If they don't want anyone to read the papers, they should print off millions of copies with an official-looking government cover, then send them out all over the country with big letters on the envelope: "Important Information from Your Government".
That guarantees no-one will read it.
Re:Wrong way around (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Wrong way around (Score:5, Funny)
Nobody would read it, and it would pass.
Re: (Score:2)
Nobody would read it, and it would pass.
A leaf blew onto his desk, and he signed it. (Earl Long of Oscar O.K. Allen)
Re: (Score:2)
At this time of year? Everyone is expecting tax returns so your idea would fail hard!
Re: (Score:2)
Quick (Score:2, Offtopic)
Call Dustin Hoffman and tell him Gary Sinese is immune
Re:Quick (Score:5, Funny)
Call Dustin Hoffman and tell him Gary Sinese is immune
It's the supporting cast you have to worry about. From the Washington Post article:
"Fears of bad actors spreading a mutant, highly transmissible virus suffuse the three-page note published by the board."
lol ... why international law? NIH in the US! (Score:1)
Re:lol ... why international law? NIH in the US! (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:lol ... why international law? NIH in the US! (Score:5, Insightful)
[...] but let's say the Stuxnet code was published [...]
Most of it was decompiled and published here [github.com]. You can find all the binaries online if you're really interested. Hiding the results is just security by obscurity. The Dutch scientist didn't perform some magic trick that nobody else can do. Doesn't make it any less scary though.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
The exploits used in stuxnet are already integrated in metasploit and canvas. The script kiddies already have access.
if it's that easy, you can't keep it hidden. (Score:2)
things that are basically obvious to people with ordinary knowledge needed by any industrial worker, well, you cant keep them secret.
nuclear weapons, for example, are not hard to build. the hard part is scraping together enough enriched uranium.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
I am very very glad you put quotes around that. (Score:2)
Legal will? What are you talking about? Go read TFA. It clearly states that the "Science Panel" recommended the papers be published with the methodology removed.
The Slashdot headline implies they are a science panel, but in fact they are a security panel with scientists on it. Their purpose in life, like lawyers, is to be professionally risk averse, error on the side of saying "no", and censoring any and all information that falls into their domain of knowledge which could potentially be used at some point in the future to do anything risky.
We need people like this, but we don't need them to be the judge, jury, and executioner on what science does or does not get
Interesting parallel to I.T. (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
If you are trying to draw parallels with IT you are making the same mistake as those who think theft and copyright infringement are the same or those who want physical retaliation against a "cyberwar". In IT we can have bulletproof defences, but IRL sadly we can't. Biological warfare is a very real threat that could destroy the current nuclear peace we live in. We shouldn't make it easier for the bad guys by doing the research for them. Now if this paper turns out to be unharmful it can always be released l
Re: (Score:2)
In IT we can have bulletproof defences, but IRL sadly we can't.
You don't sound like you're in IT.
All software is vulnerable- "secure" is just a way of saying "has not been proven insecure yet".
Re: (Score:2)
True but you can still have much stronger defenses on a computer. A person is like a computer with a ton of ports open to known-vulnerable services that relies entirely on IDS and antivirus to prevent a complete rooting.
Or to look at it another way, a properly locked-down computer is like a person in a hazmat suit - except that to the computer it isn't a massive PITA.
Re: (Score:2)
Or to look at it another way, a properly locked-down computer is like a person in a hazmat suit - except that to the computer it isn't a massive PITA.
Not a PITA? Tell that to computers who are burdened with a Norton suite installation. :)
But seriously, there's some truth to what you're saying, but the problem is "proper" lockdown isn't common, and certainly not as easy as buying a suit. The average system, and even the average server maintained by a paid "professional", is quite vulnerable. Those who do properly lock-down are still merely (to really beat this analogy to death...) wearing a hazmat suit with a defective zipper. It's never actually secu
Re: (Score:2)
All software is vulnerable- "secure" is just a way of saying "has not been proven insecure yet".
Which is much more than what you can hope for in real life situations.
I think it's no coincidence (Score:5, Funny)
Just look at the fact that the bird flu story is directly after then Angry Birds story. Maybe it's just the fact that I'm waking up at 3am and later about 5-something AM, but I think there's more than just a casual connection here. Look at the facts:
1. Both about birds.
2. Both about people unable to control themselves.
3. One is about a bird virus, the other about birds going viral.
There is something at play here... not sure what it is just yet...
Re: (Score:2)
Re:I think it's no coincidence (Score:5, Funny)
Re:I think it's no coincidence (Score:5, Funny)
I like to imagine that the back-story is: the birds are angry because they are in biological warfare with their piggy enemies. Avian flu... swine flu...
Re: (Score:2)
I hope the two flus don't mix. Imagine - flying pig flu!
Re: (Score:2)
The current security craze... (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
Keeping certain scientific discoveries secret was SOP during the cold war.
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:3)
Worse yet, from what I understand enough information has leaked out so that anyone with the right education can already do this without too much difficulty, so trying to censor it is just whipping up the Streissand Effect.
Oh Great. (Score:4, Insightful)
Perhaps only a matter of time (Score:2)
.. before someone crazy enough to release such a virus is capable of creating one. At least up until now, the people capable tend to have a mind reasonable enough to show restraint about it.
If it gets easier to do, this may no longer be the case, and so there may be only a matter of time. That doesn't mean we have to help it along by publishing the information necessary to create one in public access journals. If censoring these articles delays the inevitable by just a few months, that is either a few month
let peer review determine it (Score:2)
seems to me a collective of respected, well known and conscientous scientists, or even professors, should be the ones determining securuty concerns.
Even terrorists wouldn't release this (Score:5, Insightful)
Since they'd kill their own people and snuff out their cause.
However that still leaves the deranged , which unfortunately there are a lot of on the planet. Though whether they could be deranged enough AND smart enough at the same time to do it is another matter.
Re: (Score:2)
So, your theory is that terrorists aren't deranged?!??
Re: (Score:1)
Of course they aren't deranged. Not the leaders, anyway. The actual suicide bombers tend to suffer from severe depression.
The leaders are businessmen. They are in the business of making money off of insider knowledge ("hey, bad stuff is going to happen on day X, affecting markets Y and Z") and raising money from hatred.
I mean, look down at Mexico and the blood spilled over drugs. You can call them deranged, but they aren't doing it because they love drugs. They're doing it because they can make money.
P
Re: (Score:2)
(brainwashed religious nuts, underwear bomber booking a one-way flight to detroit in the middle of winter with no bags or even a jacket, shoe-bomber, virgins in afterlife...)
Re: (Score:1)
Um, you have heard of "suicide bombers", right?
Re: (Score:2)
You've heard of soliders "going over the top" to certain death to save their buddies right?
Sacrificing yourself for what you think is a greater good is fanatical, usually evil and may ultimately be fruitless but its not deranged.
Re: (Score:2)
You did notice that OBL wasn't on a 911 plane?
Re: (Score:2)
Since they'd kill their own people and snuff out their cause.
Yeah, that's why they never suicide bomb their own neighborhoods or taunt superpowers into invading their countries OH WAIT
Re: (Score:2)
Yep, quite so. They generaly move into another neighbohood, and them bomb that other one.
You can't blame the terrorists for the US modus operant of terrorizing nations that can't protect themselves. But, anyway, last time I saw, the US didn't have a track record of going after the terrorists' nations (Are you talking about the Taliban? They are from Saudi Arabia). They mostly go after who the te
Re: (Score:3)
Great novel 1945 by James Herbet:
OK- complete fiction- but it lays down the scenario. Hitler faced with almost certain defeat releases a virus that kills most people on earth- and of the few survivors- most of them are dying slow deaths. He hoped releasing the virus would deflect his enemies from attacking him.
OK- now that is complete fiction that obviously never happened. However, there could be a scenario where someone feeling there back is against the wall feels that the best solution is to make every
Re: (Score:2)
You forgot my personal favourite:
* Release the virus because there are too many humans to be environmentally healthy for the Earth
That's one heck of a green solution. Reduce the population by a factor of ten and it'll take a few generations to get back up to where it is now (maybe 50-75 years?). Reduce the population by a factor of 100 and it might be twice that. And if some societies collapse, maybe some industrialized activity will slowdown too.
(Okay, that's some pretty whacked out thought, but if you hap
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
It still could be used as a weapon of mutually assured destruction. You either comply with the terrorists' demands or they release the virus. Even worse, if someone could make a cure for the virus, they could release it without fear of getting infected, then become the leaders of the world as anyone who wants the vaccine would have to ask it from them.
Great... (Score:1)
And yet (Score:2)
The important secret is already out. (Score:5, Interesting)
The important atomic bomb secret was that it could be done.
The important secret here is that "university-based scientists in the Netherlands and Wisconsin created a version of the so-called H5N1 influenza virus that is highly lethal and easily transmissible between ferrets."
Assume that there are terrorists out there who wish to develop a virological weapon, and have the smarts and the wherewithal to do so. They now know that the H5N1 virus is a good place to start and that there's a winning combination to be found. Holding back the precise blueprint isn't going to delay things much. You have to assume the terrorists are capable of doing research-quality work. It sounds rather as if researchers in the Netherlands and Wisconsin both found answers indepedently. It's quite possible that the terrorists, working on their own, will find something original and better than either of them.
What suppressing the research might do is make it difficult for other researchers to experiment with protective measures against them.
Re: (Score:2)
"The important atomic bomb secret was that it could be done"
There were also significant successes in espionage.
I claim apples and oranges.
Re: (Score:2)
Knowing that an atomic bomb was possible motivated other governments to develop one (through espionage or R&D). Keeping the technical details of how to make an atomic bomb secret is one of the reasons that small non-government groups have so far not developed one. In this case I think that making it difficult to find out how to create a super-deadly virus will reduce the chances that small groups will try to create one.
I think there is a real anti-correlation between well funded competent organizations
Anyone else thinking... (Score:1)
Streisand effect for would-be bioterrorists?
Re: (Score:2)
This is how locking down DNA starts (Score:2)
Affordable PCR machines, or DIY PCR machines [medgadget.com] are starting to appear, fully sequenced genomes are of course available freely online. Anyone with half a brain can design primers and amplify DNA, anyone with a little patience can make any construct they want.
Re:And so it starts ... (Score:4, Insightful)