Bioethics, Censoring
The world must face two fundamental problems. If these are not addressed soon,
the result will be catastrophic for our species.
First, basic biological research is increasingly granting
fantastic power to humanity - power that can then be quickly applied
to creating doomsday biological agents. For example, researchers
recently constructed a polio virus
from scratch.
Using mail-order
and the internet, they spliced together the required genetic segments,
creating a brand-new polio virus. They then injected the virus into
mice. It worked: the mice died.
Other viruses are more complex, but the technology is there and improving
rapidly. As this
study illustrates it is already it is possible to create simple killer viruses, engineered
precisely in the laboratory. Soon it
will be possible to create more complex ones.
These could be tailored specifically to the task at hand, including
the task of mass-murder.
It doesn't take a trained microbiologist to see
where this is leading. "The world had better be prepared", said Dr. Eckard Wimmer, leader of the
team that assembled the virus.
In another infamous case, Australian researchers working on mouse
contraceptives
inadvertently created an
incurable superpox.
Fortunately the starting benign virus only
infected rodents and so the resulting superpox only killed mice.
But the technology can easily be repurposed to human viruses as well.
Similarly, other researchers have recently published the genetic basis
for antibiotic and antiviral resistance. This is an important topic and
deserves research. Once again, however, it is the proverbial double-edged
sword. For the results of these studies can now be applied to the other
side of the blade: engineering this resistance into pathogens such
as anthrax and smallpox, making them incurable to all known drugs.
All these studies were published in the open literature. The techniques
were instantly broadcast on the internet and reproduced in other labs.
Now, anyone on the planet with sufficient
laboratory skills can take these results and apply them as they desire.
These are just a few examples of a sweeping trend. Around the world, in
countless labs, the basic engineering of life is being laid bare. And there
is very little to prevent this knowledge from being applied for military
and terrorist purposes. Indeed, the only thing that prevents such work is the
good will and ethics of the researcher. And their infallible ability to not make
an unforeseen mistake ...
The second fundamental problem is that of public health.
Particularly in the United States, there is growing resistance to vaccination.
The rights of the individual - and the threat of lawsuits - have eroded the
ability of government to guarantee the overall health
of the public. Without a sufficiently vaccinated
population, adhering to basic standards of public health, history teaches
that epidemics are an eventual certainty.
This situation is exacerbated by "third-worldization", that is,
the overall decline in health standards and enforcement in the west.
Increasingly, large parts of the population can not get effective
medical care. Social and governmental breakdown furthers the negative trend.
For example in some poorly-governed cites, such
as San Francisco, it is now commonplace for people to live freely
on the streets, subject to no health controls or protocol.
This is accepted as normal, and little or no thought is given to
the latent threat this poses to public health.
Eventually western countries will need to rebalance the rights of
the individual and the group, as well as reform their health systems.
The only question is whether this will happen before or after the
coming plague.
Link:
BBC: Bioterror Fears Muzzle Science (Scientific Journals, Editors, Science).
Link:
BioTerror: All The Rules Change (Civil Liberties, Typhoid Mary, Freedom, Vaccination)
Link:
Constructing A Virus (DNA, Genetic Engineering, Polio)
Link:
Recipe for bioterror: censoring science (virus, polio, biodefense)
Link:
New Scientist: Creating The Minimal Organism - Work Halted. (Venter, TIGR, Celera)
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