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Biotech Security United States

US Asks Universities To Flag Risky Pathogen Experiments 39

Posted by samzenpus from the a-little-notice-please dept.
sciencehabit writes 'Academic scientists with federal funding who work with any of 15 dangerous microbes or toxins will soon have to flag specific studies that could potentially be used to cause harm and work with their institutions to reduce risks, according to new U.S. government rules released today. The long-awaited final rule is similar to a February 2013 draft and is "about what we expected," says Carrie Wolinetz, a deputy director of federal relations at the Association of American Universities (AAU) in Washington, D.C., which represents more than 60 major research universities. Those schools see the rules as replicating other federal security and safety rules, Wolinetz says, but will adjust to them. But some observers have concerns, such as that the rules do not apply to other risky biological agents. In a conference call with reporters today, a White House official said the government is open to a "broader discussion" about whether it should expand the list of 15 regulated agents.
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US Asks Universities To Flag Risky Pathogen Experiments More

US Asks Universities To Flag Risky Pathogen Experiments

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  • I call this BS (Score:3)

    by thieh ( 3654731 ) on Wednesday September 24, 2014 @04:16PM (#47988103)
    Any science that can be developed into technology can be used to do harm.
    • If the university has a nuclear science department, it probably has a nuclear research reactor [sfgate.com] in the basement. Although not big enough to trigger a nuclear chain reaction, they still have enough radioactive material for a dirty bomb.

      • By definition a nuclear research reactor is big enough to trigger a chain reaction, as all nuclear reactors do.

        • The professor at San Jose State University who gave my intro chemistry class a tour of the nuclear lab reassured us that a Three Mile Island [wikipedia.org] chain reaction wasn't possible if an earthquake compromised the research reactor.

          • It may not be able to create a runaway reaction that can damage the reactor, but it must, by definition, create a chain reaction.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by mysidia ( 191772 )

            They can make it not possible to have a serious event by restricting and limiting the amount of fissile material, and ensuring the containment procedures will be massively excessive.

            It's different from commercial applications, where the reactor needs to operate at scale and produce electricity at a profit, and the level of safeguards can't be scaled up as efficiently as the resulting impact of an incident would increase.

            • but a certain minimal amount of fissile material is required to have critical configuration (a running reactor), and it's a LOT. The TRIGA reactor is very popular with over 50 installatios (35 in the USA) and it has 110 tons of fuel

          • If true that was a wrong and ignorant statement. Three Mile Island had melting due to coolant system failure. All operating commercial reactors have a "chain reaction" inside. If there is inadequate cooling they can overheat. But there is no notion of some special "chain reaction" going on.

  • Direct Link to DURC (Score:3)

    by Defenestrar ( 1773808 ) on Wednesday September 24, 2014 @04:19PM (#47988121)

    Here's a direct link to the dual use research of concern (DURC) policy [phe.gov].

    My main concerns will be whether it's going to have a chilling effect on research; especially when it's also unclear to me whether this will have any useful impact beyond another layer of red tape. We already have IRBs, biosafety committees, and select agent lists, and I'm unsure that such a "volluntary" system of a PI tagging their own research for extra bureaucracy will make much headway before a problem occurs.

    • For those interested in the list but too lazy to read federal documentation (who isn't?) - here you go:

      a) Avian influenza virus (highly pathogenic)

      b) Bacillus anthracis

      c) Botulinum neurotoxin

      d) Burkholderia mallei

      e) Burkholderia pseudomallei

      f) Ebola virus

      g) Foot-and-mouth disease virus

      h) Francisella tularensis

      i) Marburg virus

      j) Reconstructed 1918 Influenza virus

      k) Rinderpest virus

      l) Toxin-producing strains of Clostridium botulinum

      m) Variola major virus

      n) Variola minor virus

      o) Yersinia pestis

    • It just seems like it's Just One More Federal Agency jumping on the bandwagon. In a sense, this is good news. As has been pointed out, the information is already out there - if the NSA and other mysterious, dark agencies in the US Federal Government actually had their act together, they would already know this. The fact that they're asking suggests that nobody can connect the dots.

      Or perhaps, nobody wants to own up that they can do this, or they're having dominance games over whatever department or agenc

  • I'm so sick of this (Score:3, Insightful)

    by kruach aum ( 1934852 ) on Wednesday September 24, 2014 @04:21PM (#47988139)

    Yes, the number one medical threat facing America right now is research scientists tipping smallpox down the drain. Not, I don't know, THE MASSIVE OVERUSE OF ANTIBIOTICS THAT WILL LITERALLY END IN A NEW FLESH EATING BACTERIA POWERED DARK AGE.

    • This is insightful? Did I miss a funny?

      You guys gotta stop that. It's confusing enough here as it is..

  • Sciarntists is an anagram of tairsts. Well, nearly. Better safe than sorry.

    SHOOT ANYONE WEARING A WHITE COAT

  • Ah yes -- the USA without any scrupules, they want to own your universities and research and whatnot. all in the name oif security (whose?), terrorists (where?) and bad guys in general (except their own). At the same time have a free licence to kill, destabilize, drone, torture, spread nuclear weapons, bio weapons, lie cheat and subert even its own policies, encourage child murder, at the same time yet again be a big mouth on human rights abroad, the CO2 of China, kliings in the Middle East ans so on and s
  • Silly people, don't they know the Zombie Apocalypse begins with an accidental release from a Government lab? It's not from a university lab. Politicians apparently don't watch enough of the right movies.
  • For the love of god, if you are going to post an article about 15 of anything, please do some research and include what the 15 somethings are!! I am tired but even the original article did not list these super dangerous agents. Must be super duper secret! Seems like either the article author or submitter are self-sensoring, or do not give enough credit to the average slashdot reader to understand biological naming conventions.
  • Moving an animal disease lab from an isolated island to within eyesight of a college football stadium: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Bio_and_Agro-Defense_Facility [wikipedia.org]

    This Pat Roberts pork barrel is pathological.

  • Yes, we know that it pisses you off that we've put these 15 things onto the naughty list, and that you have to think in terms of weaponizing your research to cure cancer in order to know whether or not that research could be Used For Evil(tm), not that we'd ever take this list as a handy list of items to keep on hand for future nefarious purposes ourselves, because, after all, we're The Good Guys(tm).

    To show that our heart's in the right place, we're open to discussion about expanding this list to even more

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