DNA Sequence Withheld From New Botulism Paper 182
New submitter rex.clts writes "In the IT security world, it is common practice to withhold specifics when announcing a newly discovered software vulnerability. The exact details regarding a buffer overflow or race condition are typically kept secret until a patch is available, to slow the proliferation of exploits against the hole. For the first time, this practice has been extended to medical publishing. A new form of Botulism has been identified, but its DNA sequence (the genetic code that makes up the toxin) has been withheld, until an antidote has been found. It seems that censorship in the name of "security" is spreading (with DHS involved this comes as no surprise.) Is this the right move?"
Is this the right move? (Score:2, Insightful)
When has with holding information 'ever' been the right move?
Hypocrite. (Score:5, Funny)
"When has with holding information 'ever' been the right move?"
Says the anonymous coward.
How small is your penis and what are your email and password?
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Right, cause "TheMiddleRoad" is the name your parents gave you.
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> Right, cause "TheMiddleRoad" is the name your parents gave you.
They named him after the place he was conceived.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KM02WcvlKn0 [youtube.com]
Re:Hypocrite. (Score:5, Insightful)
Says Ultra64.
If person a makes a claim, that person b calls them on, it doesn't follow that person b is hypocritical for asking person a to do what person a said everybody else should. Got it?
Re:Hypocrite. (Score:5, Insightful)
Not really. The burden of proof is on the person making the claim. Consider another example. Bob says that we should all learn a second language. Alice has mad no attempt to learn a second language, and neither has Bob. Alice has no obligation here, while Bob really should explain why he is exempt.
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That would require hypocrisy or behaviour inconsistent with person b's position. Exactly how do you arrive at that conclusion when person b has made no claims?
Simon's Law (Score:2)
The argument wasn't that he was a hypocrite. That was just for bonus points. The argument was that he did not share private information because that information is very private. Hence, not all things should be shared.
Simon's Law: People who call opposing arguments logical fallacies are incapable of correctly identifying logical fallacies.
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available for your home in 1995, only on nintendo ultra64!
Re:Hypocrite. (Score:5, Insightful)
Mr. MiddleRoad wasn't the one to claim that withholding information is never useful.
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Simon's Law: People who call opposing arguments logical fallacies are incapable of correctly identifying logical fallacies.
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it doesn't matter whether anybody cares about him/her/the person, what matters is the message, which was, that the anonymous coward was withholding his personal information because it was the "right move" to protect the coward from outside intrusion therefore it was a hypocritical statement.
you on the other hand, are just an asshole, I care more about somebody pointing out hypocrisy because they are useful in society, assholes however, aren't really very useful for anything....apart from shitting on things.
Back on topic. (Score:2)
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What a Churchillian response.
I estimate a 1/10 chance you even understand what I just said.
Re:Is this the right move? (Score:5, Insightful)
When has with holding information 'ever' been the right move?
That depends on the kind of withholding, the period of it and the type of information. I withhold information from the public such as my bank card's PIN, my password, and so on.
I think it's at the very least an arguable case as to whether these researchers should withhold this. By releasing it, there would be a non-zero danger that it would be used for harm with little to no positive gain. The exact value of this non-zero danger vs the value of the positive gain is what they likely thought about before making the decision.
Whether you agree or disagree with their decision, surely you must see the merit in this kind of evaluation?
Re:Is this the right move? (Score:5, Insightful)
By releasing it, there would be a non-zero danger that it would be used for harm with little to no positive gain.
If it isn't public that severely limits the number of people who can work on finding an antidote. Even if they are making the information available to "qualified professionals" it still substantially increases the barrier to finding a fix. Hell, for all we know, someone else has already seen the same strain and been working on a cure but they only speak chinese and this extra friction to figuring out if they even have the same strain is enough to keep the two groups from collaborating.
Whether you agree or disagree with their decision, surely you must see the merit in this kind of evaluation?
When the day comes that we start seeing terrorists attacking people with obscure scientific journal data instead of simple bombs then the question might be a reasonable one to ask. Until then the question itself is hype and paranoia.
Re:Is this the right move? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Is this the right move? (Score:5, Insightful)
If it isn't public that severely limits the number of people who can work on finding an antidote. Even if they are making the information available to "qualified professionals" it still substantially increases the barrier to finding a fix.
Perhaps this is the intent behind witholding the sequence. They want to give themselves an advantage in finding the antidote, while still publishing their research.
By witholding the sequence, which they have learned ---- they can use it to give themselves a competitive advantage towards also being the first to find the antidote: while the other researchers have to work blindly, with no genetic code to assist them in finding/isolating the new strain or work on identifying an antidote.
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1. Withhold important scientific information
2. ???
3. Profit
Re: Is this the right move? (Score:2)
The whole Colistidia family is of pretty intensely studied both C botulinus and C diff present significant medical hazards C botulinus is also intensity studied due to the potential bio weapon use. C abc has long been commercially to produce organic solvents like acetone and presently to ferment the bio fuel butanol.
Withholding the sequence will just slow down amateurs.
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No, it will slow down professionals as well.
Without the sequence, what can you do? It's pretty much guaranteed that the new strain produces a toxin with extremely high sequence homology to existing strains, so you know that to make the new toxin you just have to add/delete/exchange a few amino acids, or maybe add an insertion.
But there is no way to know or guess what should be altered. There are ways to create libraries of mutants, but then they will need to be screened, and that will not be a fast, simpl
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Re:Is this the right move? (Score:5, Informative)
The only outcome of censorship, logically, is less of whatever it is you are trying to censor. So yes, if the objective is more science, and you would hope it would be, then you do not want the government interfering with it.
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The only outcome of censorship, logically, is less of whatever it is you are trying to censor.
Less Botulism? Sound good!
So yes, if the objective is more science, and you would hope it would be, then you do not want the government interfering with it.
Ohhhh, you meant less science. Seriously, though, Science isn't the only variable we're concerned about here. You need to think about the idea that one discovery can affect multiple variables in society (not just the one called "science"). It isn't hard to think of ways that stuff can be abused. In general, we've tried to keep other weapon technology under wraps, as well.
Your way of thinking about these issues seems oversimplistic.
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That's hilarious. Sure, why not throw in a a few more of false dichotomies? Banning censorship in science is like mandating that puppies need to be murdered, and candy should be taken away from children. Why not? Right?
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I guess you missed the point that slavery, human experimentation and vivisection have all been done in the pursuit of science while puppies and candy have not.. The creation of weapons of mass destruction is science but it is not a good thing.
Right move (Score:2, Insightful)
Ever since the potential damage of releasing information outweighed the potential utility of releasing said information it has been right and proper to keep information under wraps.
Now how about this case?
As the article states, botulism toxin is the most potent toxin we know (as in smallest lethal dose), and what researchers found was a new variant of it to which there is no antidote as of yet.
With the DNA
Re: Right move (Score:4, Insightful)
Major cities don't keep botulism antidote stockpiles large enough for their entire city nearby, and it stands to reason that if an attack was so trivial, they'd hit many targets at once like they did with airplanes.
That is, withholding or not, we'd be screwed. And there are far more effective ways to cause harm than this if they started being bioterrorists (like reengineering the Spanish Flu from selectively breeding one of several strainst of zoonotic flu floating around).
No, this information was withheld to give the originating scientists lots of time to make more discoveries and papers without competition from peers.
Re:Right move (Score:4, Informative)
With the DNA sequence published, anyone with a simple bacteriological lab can produce it.
Not at all. You would need a lab capable of building genes and inserting them into an organism, and there are only a few of those on the entire planet (most of them governmental). If you want to selectively breed the microbe for increased toxicity you can do that in your garage right now and the DNA sequence would be minimal if any help.
Re:Right move (Score:5, Informative)
You and the previous few generations of comments are both correct and wrong.
The comment 3-up is wrong that anyone can do it: even with the sequence, it would be extremely difficult for even top-level professionals to do it from scratch.
The comment 2-up is wrong to say that it's hard, because if you can get the DNA construct then it's extremely easy. This deserves clarification: nearly everyone here (Slashdot audience, not molecular biologists) is going to assume that there's a magic black box that will turn a sequence into a real physical DNA construct, and they are mistaken. Data/sequence to DNA construct, absent of anything else, is extremely hard.
You are correct about nearly everything, except that it is not simple to just buy big sections of DNA. If you want 5-20 bases, that's not a problem. But this protein is ~450 bases long. You can't just order something like that, and "stitching it together" is possible but would probably take years to get right, even for a pro.
But the idea behind your comment is still valid, because this gene will not be a from-scratch, random sequence. It's going to be 95+% identical to existing sequences, so instead of splicing together 60 synthetic sequences (purchased from a company), you only need to splice together maybe 2-4 big pieces. Those pieces could be purchased, or possibly isolated if you can get the bacteria.
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When has with holding information 'ever' been the right move?
Ever heard of World War 2?
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When has with holding information 'ever' been the right move?
In a perfect world there would be no need for keeping secrets.
In a perfect world a software patch would fix everything when all hell breaks loose.
But it is not a perfect world --- and the geek doesn't have a real solution for every problem, all he has is a meme.
Depends On The Likelihood Of An "Antidote" (Score:5, Insightful)
Unlike software patches, which may take days or weeks, it looks like it could be years for this. While I'm not a big supporter of giving ammunition to terrorists (just for example), I doubt very much this secrecy will get very far. It usually doesn't. So it looks like a false sense of security ("security theater") to me.
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There is botulism antitoxin to the previously known forms of botulism. In an acute accident of intentional exposure it can be administered to prevent the action of the toxin. So in a research facility that works with botulism for instance, acute exposure can be treated with the antitoxin. Also there has been a great deal of work carried out to develop vaccines to the other forms of botulism.
Re:Depends On The Likelihood Of An "Antidote" (Score:4, Informative)
"There is botulism antitoxin to the previously known forms of botulism."
According to Wikipedia, it isn't much of an antitoxin. The best it does is prevent the condition from worsening... it is very far from an "antidote".
Re:Depends On The Likelihood Of An "Antidote" (Score:5, Informative)
That is because of the action of botulism toxin is close to irreversible, taking months for the body to repair the damage to toxin does to the nervous system. It is why Botox (actually stands for botulism toxin, it's just really watered down to make it safe) has a "semipermanent" action of many months.
The antitoxin does prevent further damage and halts the action of the toxin. Which could be the differences between loss of function of an arm for many months, or respiratory failure. The antitoxin works as well as it could be expected.
There is a vaccine against the toxin itself. This is given to people at high-risk of being exposed to the toxin (researchers, personnel trained to deal with potential bioweapons attack). It probably isn't effective against this new toxin type.
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My original statement was that I felt it would be a long time before they officially reveal this "secret" if they're waiting for an "antidote" for this strain of botulism, as OP claimed, because there simply isn't one for currently known strains.
And I don't trust that it will actually remain "secret" for that long. It will be leaked, and if anybody is inclined to do nasty things with it, they will anyway.
Happens all the time with such "secret
Re:Depends On The Likelihood Of An "Antidote" (Score:5, Insightful)
You realize this is about the paper. There is nothing to stop his colleagues - who he happens to know have a suitable lab and skills - from calling up and asking for the info. This just lets him choose who gets this dangerous piece of knowledge
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You realize this is about the paper. There is nothing to stop his colleagues - who he happens to know have a suitable lab and skills - from calling up and asking for the info. This just lets him choose who gets this dangerous piece of knowledge
In turn, there is nothing stopping him from disallowing information to anyone he does not like. How can we know he is not a fraud? Maybe he is only giving access to people that wont rat him out or can't understand a honeypot of nonsense data.
This is not science. There is no peer review. This is faith. I am AC! I am the president! For national security reasons I will only allow people I want to confirm my real identity to confirm my real identity. As for the rest of you, just trust me because I am the presid
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Re: Depends On The Likelihood Of An "Antidote" (Score:2)
An effective antibody to a potential military grade bio-toxin is something likely to get significant funding from DOD and DHS.
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Rather than security theater, I'm going with overabundance of caution. Someone who wants to discover new ways of killing people knows a target exists, but that is hardly helpful. Knowing whether you are getting closer to the goal is very helpful.
Also, my first thought on reading this was "She forgot the attachment. Why send an email without attachment unless censorship? We will never see what was in that attachment."
Every rebuttal applies equally to this situation, including "I really don't care what was in
Terrists (Score:4, Funny)
Good call! Wouldn't want those highly advanced scientists at al-Qaeda to reproduce it at the gene level or anything.
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Yes, because the common ideal that [spiked-online.com] Al Qaeda is a bunch of impoverished religious extremist is so inaccurate.
I couldn't tell if you were being sarcastic or not, but it is true that a lot of terrorist are well educated.
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I don't think it does in any meaningful way. The idea of a terrorist is mostly that it attacks civilian populations instead of governments in order to effect change in governments. That would be like paying attention to the driveling of a mass murder who attacks a school of kids because his pet hamster died or something.
A lot of serial rapist and serial murderers are also educated and intelligent. I can't see myself caring about their corollary on buttered toast or the meaning of life any of them produce. I
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You and I might agree this is stupid, but the schools in my town are putting up "enhanced security" doors at the entrances to prevent someone breaking in to do a school shooting.
Of course, there are still a ton of windows that are at ground level & easy to shoot out & walk through. Better get to work on those iron bars.... :-/
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What, do you mean that there's more to it than just typing over the DNA sequence from a paper and printing the offending protein out on the protein printer?
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How close are we to that, anyway?
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Sorry, that reference doesn't mean what you think it means. GP wants to know what it takes to go from arbitrary data to protein. The Science paper you linked describes what it takes (more than a decade ago) to take existing proteins and deposit them in an organized pattern onto a surface, which is a completely different topic.
I am not current on the data->protein problem, but to the best of my knowledge the current state of the art, at scale, is to engineer an organism to do it for you. All of the vit
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Re: Terrists (Score:2)
Making weapons grade botulinus toxin is more about purification and concentration than it is about acquiring the raw materials. Killing a few people by accident is rather easy, killing twenty or thirty on purpose is quite difficult.
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any tactic that depends upon your enemy being stupid is doomed to backfire
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Bioweapons come in two flavors, contagious and non-contagious. Non-contagious ones, such as anthrax, are similar in effect to chemical weapons. One shot, temporary damage, cleanup may be time consuming and expensive but is possible. They're cheap and easy to produce (if you can brew beer you can grow anthrax), but have a very limited shelf life and are more difficult to deploy effectively than chemical weapons.
Contagious ones are pretty much useless as a weapon as before long your own side ends up as aff
The nut of the question is (Score:3)
How is this different than a software vulnerability and security through obscurity, etc.?
I think to begin with, most software vulnerabilities aren't exploited to cause immediate death of (most likely) innocents. There's also no 'fix' for this (e.g. no software update to everybody's genome, but maybe a vaccine can be developed).
Similar to some other horrible chem/bio/nuke weapon formulas, yes, it should be properly redacted.
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Because human life has more value than computers.
Ignorance (Score:5, Insightful)
So much ignorance here! Here's a working scientist's opinion:
http://pipeline.corante.com/archives/2013/10/16/holding_back_experimental_details_with_reason.php [corante.com]
And Derek Lowe is about as libertarian as scientists get.
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"Until an antitoxin is available, the sequence of this new neurotoxin will not be published,"
So we're going to keep this secret so we can capitalize on it for patent purposes.
"Those studying botulin toxins need to know about this discovery, but given the molecular biology tools available to people, publishing the sequence (or making samples of the organism available) would be asking for potentially major trouble."
GIVE ME A FUCKING BREAK. The people that could actually do anything about this have the equipme
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I think the GP was talking about finding an antidote.
Anyway, your plan does nothing to get the bugs at first place, and changing a related one into the desired bacteria still requires a serious level of equipment (but it's getting cheaper by the day).
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Security or IP? (Score:2)
Maybe they don't want the gene sequence patented by some outside party which could make tests and vaccines harder to access. Prior art wasn't worth shit before, and it's not worth half a shit under the new explicit first-to-file system.
I would simply not end up publishing the paper (Score:2)
Missing critical information? Can't reproduce results? Toss it the fuck away. This will teach them to not be in bed with the government.
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So a quick edit.
See, isn't that much more hysterical? Now you need to learn HOW TO USE THE CAP LOCK KEY.
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It's a national security threat. There are antitoxins to regular botulism. This is something else. Maybe readers will like to see a few million dead? Probably. Readers who think all info should be free are fools.
I see your point, although it is unfair to say that those against censorship on principle will necessarily "like to see a few million dead".
I'm not decided either way on this one, but wanted pointed out that it does work both ways. Withholding this information will also make it less likely for anyone to develop an effective antidote.
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Well... normal C. botulinum is BSL [wikipedia.org]-2, but it's plausible that this is BSL-3 or even 4 since no vaccine is available yet. If it is BSL-4, even just temporarily, then there are only a handful of labs in the world that can actually work on it. and about 30% of them are in the US, so the information can be shared without much security risk and still be well-analysed. I would guess they'd be making the sequences available upon request to anyone they deemed trustworthy.
If it's only BSL-3, there are something like
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If it is BSL-4, even just temporarily, then there are only a handful of labs in the world that can actually work on it. and about 30% of them are in the US
I am not a biologist, so these version numbers are meaningless to me... But that still reads like 70% unused research capacity.
I would guess they'd be making the sequences available upon request to anyone they deemed trustworthy.
I would hope so, but I am not sure who gets to decide trustworthiness.
(Also, points for the Excession sig. A lot of people disfavour it over the others, but it's probably my favourite Culture book.)
Me too, obviously, although it probably shouldn't be the first Culture book to read. RIP, Iain.
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BSL stands for Biosafety Level [wikipedia.org]. What the OP was pointing out is, that especially at level 4 (Ebola type critters) there are very few facilities with that sort of capability and they ain't cheap. Even with Level 3 facilities, the numbers are small. I would wager a guess that any interested researcher who has access to a level 4 lab and many people with access to level 3 labs already have a copy of the sequence. They probably read the preprint.
If they haven't seen the data and are interested, they could
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BSL-3 labs will attract DHS-type attention when they don't follow the rules carefully. Botulinum of any kind is a "select agent": http://www.selectagents.gov/Select%20Agents%20and%20Toxins%20List.html [selectagents.gov]
On the other hand, there are a lot of "loopholes" (maybe not the best term). I've been surprised to see how simple it was to get samples out of BSL-4 and into an unregulated environment, even while following all the rules to the letter.
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I am not a biologist, so these version numbers are meaningless to me... But that still reads like 70% unused research capacity.
Where is it stated that the sequence would only be released to trusted institutes in the US? This also assumes that all research institutes would want to do research on this topic. It would seem to me that every institute working on the same thing would be a lot of duplication.
I would hope so, but I am not sure who gets to decide trustworthiness.
Any decision is better than "we trust everyone in the world".
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BSL = Bio-Safety Level. The higher the BSL number the nastier the organisms you tend to be working with. E. coli, BSL-1, ebola, BSL-4.
What antitoxins are there? (Score:3)
What antitoxins are there? Because they seem to be withheld as well. The only "cure" I personally know to heal people and animals that ingested the bacteria is to keep feeding them sugar water with added salts so you can flush the bacteria out of their digestive tract without dehydrating them. They need constant care and attention and possibly artificial respiration and such for days or weeks, until the poison wears off and they get control of their muscles again.
There are plenty of other toxins and bacteri
Could you use a web search at some point? (Score:2)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heptavalent_botulism_antitoxin [wikipedia.org]
http://www.infantbotulism.org/general/babybig.php [infantbotulism.org]
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21918119 [nih.gov]
http://www.cidrap.umn.edu/news-perspective/2006/02/antitoxin-infant-botulism-slashes-hospital-stays [umn.edu]
The lab that discovered the new strain of botulism is a test center for infant poop. The drugs are terribly expensive so when a baby is suspected of having infant botulism, the hospital sends a sample that gets tested. If it's tested positive, the baby is give
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Yes because terrorists are going to go through all the trouble to use yet another one of a million different biological/chemical attacks they already don't use instead of simple and cheap explosives.
You are so right! (Score:2)
You are totally correct. Terrorists are quite happy to use WMD when they can.
Sarin attack in Tokyo. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarin_gas_attack_on_the_Tokyo_subway [wikipedia.org]
Anthrax attacks. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2001_anthrax_attacks [wikipedia.org]
Oh, I'm sorry, was your post some pitiful attempt at sarcasm that went horribly wrong?
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Anthrax was used by terrorists over 100 years after it was discovered.
If you don't see that as supporting the claim that terrorists don't use newly discovered agents, then frankly I don't know what would. Whilst I'm thinking about that problem, perhaps you could put together a list of citations for terrorist uses of all of the other bio and nerve agents that official research laboratories have invented over the decades. Citing only 2 cases r
It's Cost Benefit Time (Score:3)
It's a national security threat. There are antitoxins to regular botulism.
This guy is right, by keeping the DNA Sequence out of the paper it prevent ye-random-crazy from having a go at synthesizing some. On the other hand, it doesn't stop research into cures, because any legitimate researchers can just email or phone the guy.
For those of you who haven't been in academia; part of your job is knowing who the leading guys in your field are. This new stuff is nasty, so it makes sense to secure it behind a 'have I heard of this guy' and 'what has he done lately' check, if only to ma
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How does that work? "Hi, I'm John Smith and I'm legitimate researcher. Can you send me the DNA sequence please?" - something like that?
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How does that work? "Hi, I'm John Smith and I'm legitimate researcher. Can you send me the DNA sequence please?" - something like that?
More along the lines of "Hi Dr Barash, I'm Dr. Smith. We met at that conference in Florida on terrifyingly deadly diseases last year... No, my colleague Dr Jones was the one who fell in the pool. Anyway, I saw your article on Clostridium botulinum in J. Infect Dis. and have a few ideas; would you be willing to meet and discuss a possible collaboration?".
Re: It's Cost Benefit Time (Score:2)
Have a read of the climategate emails, at the level of competence required everybody knows everybody and everybody talks shop and trash with everybody. If someone needs to know, they know all the front channels and back channels to get what they want.
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It's a national security threat. There are antitoxins to regular botulism. This is something else. Maybe readers will like to see a few million dead? Probably. Readers who think all info should be free are fools.
So, why publish it at all? Seems like the real problem is with the academic system that seems to believe that only published research is useful. Published research that doesn't actually publish anything isn't actually useful for anything but bragging...
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care to give us the lowdown on why it's something else?
easier to spread? easier to manufacture?(considering botox is popular as cowdung that can't be hard to manufacture).
more effective than sarin? does this stuff just grow everywhere when let loose?
if you could spread enough of regular botulism, I wouldn't see that people were going to be prepared with antitoxins on the ready.
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yes, I know you don't need lots of it.
but for some reasons nobody has been using it. it was quoted in the army chem warfare training class though if I remember correctly. is it fast decaying and this new version doesn't? is it feasible to use through distribution through water supply? iirc the old regular one isn't for some reason or another, so it's being crazily effective in killing not being that big of a problem because it's also hard to distribute.
thing with sarin is that it's shit easy to make in larg
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I don't think he's suggesting that shooting civilians is acceptable behavior. He's just pointing out (staying with your metaphor) that withholding the specs for a new bullet won't make much difference in the annual death toll caused by gunshot wounds.
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Ah, but the dictator who has been ejected from his homeland doesn't have the ability to buy 100 votes in Congress like the food speculators that drove up the worldwide price of rice and starved millions, or the currency speculators who crashed the Asian economies and condemned tens of millions to live by scrounging garbage piles. Besides, dictators generally kill some people who actually matter, not just the poor. Speculators only kill what the PTB refer to as "useless eaters".
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Also, according to Wikipedia...
"killing thirteen people, severely injuring fifty and causing temporary vision problems for nearly a thousand others"
Sure, it's ineffective if the be-all and end-all is to kill people. Over a 1000 people affected, to varying levels, and some still psychologically affected today, is far from ineffective. A bunch of people with guns could probably get a higher body count, and would certainly generate a lot of distress. It's just silly though to consider the Tokyo attack as being
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Biological agents are more difficult to disperse adequately than chemical agents, although since many of them are easier to produce they might be able to go with 'quantity over quality'.
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Effectiveness depends on the goals. If the goal was to kill many more then I would agree they were unsuccessful. If the goal were to trigger a revolution I would then say it was indeed ineffective. As things stand, the goal don't seem terribly clear.
Assuming the plan was to overthrow the government, body count isn't necessarily the determining factor. 1000 people crippled for life could be more effective than 10 deaths.
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Tokyo attack was effective, it drew attention to group and their demands. that's what most terrorism has as goal.
Re:Biological warfare (Score:4, Insightful)
yeah since the regular botox is so hard to get.... ....
if the new strand stays active in air, powder laying around for longer then I guess it's a problem.
otherwise it just sounds like they're keeping the toy for themselves.
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Censorship never is.
Neither are knee jerk reactions to complex issues.
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You can still brute force the flu until you get the 1918 variant. Hope you still have credit to buy some ferrets.
Re: FUD: DNA != factory process (Score:2)
Vlad `the impailer` Tepish needs no organisms to terrorize the Muslim invaders.