Science Publishing in the Age of Bioterrorism
Academic science depends on the public circulation of knowledge and research. Do new national security concerns threaten this process?
By Ronald Atlas
Following the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, and the subsequent anthrax bioterrorism mailings, the science community and others worried that technical articles might inadvertently aid those planning acts of terrorism. Some authors asked the American Society for Microbiology (ASM) for permission to withhold critical information from articles submitted to journals published by the ASM because of concern that data could be misappropriated or that scientific findings could be misused.
As president of the ASM, I, along with the association's publications board, feared that if we acceded to these requests, we could alter the fundamental tenets of science by eliminating reproducibility of scientific research and undermining the peer-review process for evaluating scientific merit. We were also concerned that other publishers were, or soon would be, facing similar challenges and that the actions of individual publishers could have broad repercussions for the reliability of scientific communication.
Because changing the standards for scientific publishing could affect science in such important ways, the ASM felt that the National Academy of Sciences was the appropriate venue for discussing the issues facing life sciences publishers worldwide. I therefore asked the National Academy to host a workshop on life sciences publishing and national security concerns. The National Academy agreed to sponsor the workshop with the Center for Strategic and International Studies, whose participation would ensure inclusion of a national security perspective.
The workshop was planned for January 9, 2003, against a backdrop in which biodefense research was expected to expand greatly. This prospect had intensified questions about the secure conduct of scientific inquiry and about the publication of research results. Some had called for scientists and publishers to restrict the release of "sensitive" scientific findings. In addition, the U.S. Office of Management and Budget, working with the Office of Science and Technology Policy, had alerted the science community of an impending policy for regulating "sensitive homeland security information."
Although most people recognize that science holds enormous promise for improving health and protecting the public, many worry that the open publication of scientific information provides opportunities for terrorists to misuse scientific information for deliberate harm. In October 2002, in testimony before the House Science Committee, the ASM expressed support for taking prudent steps to deny scientific and technical information to terrorists. But, at the same time, the ASM cautioned that restraining scientific publication and the international exchange of information could adversely affect public health by inhibiting scientific research and medical progress.
Concerns about the potential misuse of biological information raise a series of questions for researchers, academic institutions, and publishers: (a) Should more research in the life sciences be classified, and should academic institutions perform such research for the national interest? (b) Should publication or other dissemination of biomedical research results be restricted—even when the research is not classified? If so, what criteria should be used, and who should decide? (c) Should some aspects of biotechnological research, such as methods sections or genome sequences, be withheld from publication, and should publishers agree to publish articles with details omitted? (d) Should access to scientific information be managed and, if so, who should be responsible for controlling that access?
These questions capture the fundamental issues that framed the discussions at the January 2003 workshop. Participants considered it critical to explore what might constitute dangerous information and whether to implement procedures to restrict dissemination of scientific information and access to knowledge in the life sciences to ensure security against bioterrorism.
Debates over the public availability of information in the life sciences are not novel. They have occurred in other fields, too, including nuclear physics, engineering, and mathematics-in, for example, computer science and cryptography. In fact, we know that questions of secrecy in science arose in the 1600s, as evidenced by the following quotation from Sir Francis Bacon, who established the scientific method and wrote in his essay, The New Atlantis: "And this we do also: we have consultations, which of the inventions and experiences which we have discovered shall be published, and which not; and take all an oath of secrecy for the concealing of those which we think fit to keep secret; though some of those we do reveal sometime to the State, and some not." So from the inception of modern science, the community of scientists acknowledged that it needed to act responsibly to protect the public against potentially dangerous scientific information.
Discussions about whether to constrain scientific information to protect national security intensified during the Cold War, especially during the Reagan administration. At that time, the National Academy of Sciences organized a special panel to carefully examine the issue. In 1982, the academy issued Scientific Communication and National Security, known informally as the Corson Report in honor of the panel's chair, Dale Corson. The Corson Report concluded that greater security would be achieved by permitting the open pursuit of scientific knowledge than by attempting to increase secrecy or curtail the free exchange of scientific information.
As a direct result of the Corson Report, the Reagan administration in 1985 issued National Security Decision Directive 189, stating: "It is the policy of this Administration that, to the maximum extent possible, the products of fundamental research remain unrestricted. It is also the policy of this Administration that, where the national security requires control, the mechanism for control of information generated during federally funded fundamental research in science, technology and engineering at colleges, universities and laboratories is classification." This directive was issued when the Reagan administration was especially concerned about the flow of information to communist states.
Later, in a 2000 presentation to the National Academy of Sciences, Neal Lane, science adviser during the Clinton administration, proclaimed: "National security requires scientific excellence. . . . [and] Scientific excellence requires openness." Even after September 11, 2001, and the anthrax attacks, Condoleezza Rice, national security adviser to President Bush, affirmed the importance of openness of fundamental research. On November 1, 2001, she wrote to Harold Brown, co-chair of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, that the "key to maintaining U.S. technological preeminence is to encourage open and collaborative basic research. The linkage between the free exchange of ideas and scientific innovation, prosperity, and U.S. national security is undeniable. . . . [T]he policy on the transfer of scientific, technical, and engineering information set forth in National Security Decision Directive 189 shall remain in effect, and we will ensure that this policy is followed."
Yet concern remains that fear of terrorism will lead to new, and possibly counterproductive, government restrictions. The ASM believes that open and collaborative research is key to protecting people from bioterrorism. The best defense against anthrax or any other infectious disease is information in a form that can be used by scientists and public representatives to guide rational and effective actions to ensure public safety. As Abigail Salyers, past president of the ASM, wrote in an April 26, 2001, editorial in Science: "Our need to know the potential risks and consequences associated with bioterrorism agents is vital to the development of effective measures to ensure public safety. Placing new barriers in the path of the free flow of scientific information will ultimately undermine our best defenses against bioterrorism and, ironically, compromise the public health that we are trying to protect."
Salyers notes that censorship of scientific communication provides only a false sense of protection. She points out that eliminating details about critical methods from scientific publications compromises our ability to replicate and validate results, one of the cornerstones of scientific research. Salyers further emphasizes the crucial role of peer review for reducing the likelihood that errors will be perpetuated. I consider these points to be very important. In our war against infectious diseases, and in our quest to find effective defenses against biothreat agents, we cannot afford to go down false roads because of lack of verifiability. I think it safe to say that the scientific community believes that we should recognize that national security is best served by allowing the free flow of scientific and technical information.
On October 18, 2002, the presidents of the National Academies issued the Statement on Science and Security in an Age of Terrorism, expressing support for building "high walls" around a narrowly defined set of information. Like the National Academies presidents, the ASM believes that the government should focus on keeping only critical national security information secret, and that doing so should be done by classification.
We worry that fear could lead to excessive classification and that government constraint of unclassified information could negatively affect the life sciences research on which public health depends. We especially fear that restricting unclassified and ill-defined "sensitive homeland security information" could have a chilling impact on the infectious disease research that is critical for biodefense. In other words, we want to avoid the specter of government censorship. As part of that effort, we need to find the right balance through a better approach.
The ASM believes that scientists and publishers have to take a leadership role to make sure that our work is not misused. Reasoned discussion between the scientific and the national security communities is critical. Yet scientists cannot rely on the government to define the standards and to establish the right framework for conducting science—one that maintains essential communication among scientists as a means to protect public health.
The government should narrowly define, at the outset of funding research, any set of data that it does not want published, and that information should be classified in accordance with National Security Decision Directive 189. Then we, as scientists and life science publishers, could decide what data we consider unethical to publish and not publish them. The remainder, including the full suite of fundamental information upon which science advances, should be published openly.
I realize that such voluntary restraint by scientists and publishers is fraught with danger. Indeed, there is a narrow line between censorship and the ethically responsible steps that scientists and life science publishers can take to avoid publishing "cookbooks for bioterrorists." Recognizing what is dangerous, and hence unethical to publish, is the real problem. There is no clear definition of what constitutes "sensitive homeland security information"—which is what makes government regulation especially problematic for the scientific community.
But unless we begin to define what "sensitive information" means in the life sciences, we may not see the potential for misuse of the information that we publish. Once we define what is dangerous, we must consider how best to protect sensitive information-going beyond classification to ethically responsible citizenship on the part of scientists and publishers.
The closest experience we have in the life sciences for dealing with such issues is the 1975 Asilomar Conference, at which scientists began voluntarily to develop guidelines for conducting research on the then-new technology of recombinant DNA. Today's questions about how to contain sensitive information parallel the questions raised at Asilomar. How can one define what is dangerous? And how can one design a system that contains that danger while allowing legitimate biomedical research to proceed without undue inhibition? In my view, we need to go beyond our discussion at the National Academy workshop, essentially returning to Asilomar, only this time to talk about "dangerous information" rather than "dangerous recombinant organisms."
The day after the National Academy workshop, a group of journal editors, working with scientist-authors, government officials, and others, began that process by holding a separate meeting to explore possible approaches to integrating national security concerns into the peer-review process.
Nearly everyone involved shared the view that there is fundamental information that, although we cannot capture it with lists or definitions, presents enough risk of being used by terrorists that it should not be published. How and by what processes it might be identified will continue to challenge us because—as all present acknowledged—open publication brings benefits not only to public health but also to efforts to combat terrorism. In the end, we rejected a direct role for government and concluded that each life science journal should develop its own procedures for incorporating ethical considerations into the traditional peer review of scientific quality.
The editors and authors group issued a statement of principles that was published simultaneously in several leading scientific journals.
Not surprisingly, the statement has proven controversial. Some view it as a call for censorship and a concession to right-wing government paranoia; others argue that it fails to provide adequate protection against the publication of potentially dangerous information and hence does not sufficiently protect the public. Perhaps the fact that the critics come from both sides of the political divide means the statement achieved the right balance.
It begins with a strong admonition against self-censorship: it asserts that "we must protect the integrity of the scientific process by publishing manuscripts of high quality, in sufficient detail to permit reproducibility." In other words, authors may not self-censor manuscripts in ways that would undermine the defining principles of science. Experiments must be subject to independent verification. As I noted above, we cannot afford to mistakenly accept scientific claims because of lack of verification. If we did so when searching for vaccines and drugs to protect against infectious diseases, people could die.
The statement goes on to say that some information generated in experiments in the life sciences may be dangerous and subject to potential misuse. This assertion represents a radical view to some. Arguing that information can be dangerous admittedly raises the specter of constraint and possible censorship. In essence, while supporting free speech, we say that yelling fire in a crowded theater poses a risk.
The statement further notes that, as authors and editors, we are committed to dealing responsibly and effectively with safety and security issues raised by papers submitted for publication. The statement also expresses our dedication to increasing our capacity to identify such issues as they arise. Thus we are beginning an experiment in how to recognize and deal with potentially dangerous information.
The statement points out the difficulty of precisely defining "dangerous information." I have likened this difficulty to that of defining pornography. Community standards exist for pornography, and people supposedly recognize it, but there is little agreement on an objective definition. To address this problem, the statement by the editors and authors group advises scientists and their journals to consider the appropriate level and design of processes to accomplish effective review of papers that raise security issues. The group felt that the scientific community—not the government—should assume responsibility for defining what constitutes dangerous information. That is, we agreed that it is up to us to establish the ethical standards to be used in the peer-review process, because we are best positioned to recognize hazardous information in the life sciences.
The group recognized that, on occasion, an editor might conclude that the potential harm of publication outweighs the potential societal benefits. The statement says that under such circumstances, a paper should be modified, or not published. This part of the statement has proven to be the most controversial. It does not, however, call for government involvement. Moreover, critics should note that more than half of the manuscripts submitted to life science journals are rejected by peer review, and virtually all are modified extensively to achieve acceptance. Peer review, which is designed to make qualitative judgments about acceptability, should be robust enough to consider ethics and risk.
In my view, the statement aims to protect science simultaneously from excessive secrecy and from the misuse of openly available scientific data to inflict atrocities on humanity. As scientists and publishers, we must work together with the government to balance the need for security with the imperative to pursue vital scientific research and publish information that will provide true protection against the threat of bioterrorism. It is my hope that we can build on the statement of principles to achieve consensus within the scientific community and among scientific publishers on practices that will enhance national security while protecting the critical freedoms that form the cornerstone of science: open inquiry, communication, and publication.
We as scientists have an ethical and a civic responsibility to come together to establish norms for sharing information in the age of biothreats. I therefore look forward to a continuing dialogue, one that I recognize is fraught with potential conflicts between the traditional values of open scientific communication and public fear of terrorism.
Ronald Atlas is immediate past president of the American Society for Microbiology and graduate dean at the University of Louisville, where he is also co-director of the Center for the Deterrence of Bioterrorism and Biowarfare. He regularly advises the U.S. government on policy issues related to the deterrence of bioterrorism.
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