Below are three concepts that illustrate the current challenge presented by biological weapons (BW)…

1. “The dual use dilemma is absolute.” – Kathryn Nixdorff in Verifying Treaty Compliance: Limiting Weapons of Mass Destruction and Monitoring Kyoto Protocol Provisions

At an AAAS panel discussion last week, Senior Bio Advisor of the U.S. National Counterproliferation Center, Dr. Lawrence Kerr, explained that all life science research is dual-use by nature. The very same technologies, techniques, and studies designed to create pharmaceuticals, for instance, can be employed nefariously to manipulate biological agents (pathogens and toxins) and identify exploitable vulnerabilities in the human body.

Dr. Koblentz takes this concept a step further, arguing that the biological dilemma is more accurately described as “multiuse”:

In [Living Weapons], the term “multiuse” is used to highlight the distinct but overlapping applications of biotechnology in civilian, defensive, and offensive domains. The old distinction between military and civilian applications of biological and biotechnology has become more blurred in recent years as more civilian institutions become engaged in defensive research and military organizations become more interested in applying biotechnology in areas of energy, materials science, logistics, medicine, and electronics.

2.    “In the life sciences, proliferation is over.” – Dr. Lawrence Kerr at AAAS panel discussion, 8 December 2009

Techniques and technologies in the most advanced biological fields are already spread across the globe and across populations. The life sciences’ immeasurable potential for legitimate and constructive use, the culturally entrenched value placed on improving human health worldwide, the aforementioned dual-use dilemma, and decreasing costs have made most biological materials and biotechnologies largely uncontainable. And from a global public health perspective, they should not be contained.

It is possible now for amateur biologists to genetically alter or synthesize pathogens out of their own closets. These at-home “biohackers” can “tinker with the building blocks of life in the comfort of their own homes” for a modest price.

Striking the proper balance between reaping the benefits of the life sciences and reducing the risks of technological abuse is extraordinarily tricky. Professor Barry Kellman of the International Security and Biopolicy Institute has called biothreat policy “the most multifaceted, multidimensional, nuanced undertaking in the entire security domain.”

3.    “What do you mean we can’t do this? We’re doing it now.” –Dr. Raymond Zilinskas, quoting the scientific community’s response to an assessment of biotechnological capabilities

The biotechnology industry is moving at a revolutionary pace. Dr. Raymond Zilinskas, Director of the Chemical and Biological Weapons Nonproliferation Program at the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies, co-authored a 2002 report detailing the threat of bioterrorism. According to the Washington Post, the report noted that “some key biotechnologies would be achievable only three to four years from then.” However, by the time the final report was sent out for review by bench scientists, the report’s expert panel learned that some of those technologies had been developed. “It shows how fast the field is moving,” noted Dr. Zilinskas.

From altering biological agents at their most fundamental building blocks to “de novo” synthesis of preexisting or new microbes, the wonders of biotechnology often seem boundless. The risks presented by advances in biotechnology will increasingly demand attention in the future.

Dr. Marie Isabelle Chevrier – Professor at UT-Dallas, member of the Center’s Scientists Working Group on Biological and Chemical Weapons, and Chair of the Board of Directors of the Biological Weapons Prevention Project in Geneva:

Ellen Tauscher’s speech to the Meeting of the States Parties of the Biological Weapons Convention was much anticipated by delegations. Yet there was little excitement or enthusiasm by the delegation following her speech. Delegations and NGO observers welcomed the change in tone from earlier US interventions during the Bush administration, contrasting it, in particular, with the strident address by John Bolton to the 5th Review Conference in 2001. Nevertheless the lack of specificity of proposals in Tauscher’s address was notable. People wondered about the meaning of language in the statement such as “compliance diplomacy” and “robust bilateral compliance discussion.” Optimists greeted the statement with hope that the statement will be followed by real engagement absent the arrogance of the past while pessimists found little if anything in the statement that would lead to real policy changes from the Bush administration. The inclusion of CBMs on an open website was generally welcome, as a small measure of transparency but not something that would likely lead to real confidence in compliance. Many NGOs are looking forward to greater transparency among all stakeholders rather than mere “bilateral…discussions.”

Dr. Amy E. Smithson – Senior Fellow at the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies:

Tauscher tabled a modest, constructive set of proposals, but given the $49 billion in U.S. biodefense spending since 2001, the international community will want more in terms of transparency from Washington than just posting the US confidence-building declarations?already available to all member governments?on the web and inviting one person to Ft. Detrick.   New money earmarked for building international disease surveillance and reporting capacities would have more emphatically conveyed U.S. support for thorough implementation of the International Health Regulations.  If the Obama administration hopes to claim the leadership mantle in the biological nonproliferation arena, they will have to bring something much bolder to the table.  The sooner they do, the better.

Dr. Jonathan Tucker, Senior Fellow at the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies:

Although none of the elements of the U.S. strategy are new, taken together they provide a comprehensive and cooperative approach to the prevention of biological threats, both natural and deliberate. The main disappointment is the strategy’s lack of ambition with regard to strengthening the Biological Weapons Convention, both with respect to the treaty’s institutional deficit and the festering suspicions of non-compliance by a few member states. The measures proposed to address compliance concerns—increased transparency, confidence-building measures, and bilateral diplomacy—appear too weak to make much of a difference.

Legislation to Protect the Homeland

Sen. Lieberman made this comment on September 8^th, during his introduction of S. 1649, the WMD Prevention and Preparedness Act of 2009, which he co-sponsored with Senator Susan Collins (R-ME).  The legislation will implement a wide variety of recommendations from the Graham/Talent Commission to reduce the American homeland’s vulnerability to bioterrorism.  It aims to strengthen and universalize biological and biotechnological research security standards by introducing an integrated set of pathogen risk tiers, implementing risk assessment protocols, overhauling personnel reliability assessments, as well as other measures.  The legislation also lays out new blueprints for preparedness plans, such as networks for communications and access to countermeasures.

Since the FBI’s conclusion in August 2008 that the sole perpetrator of the 2001 anthrax letters was an American microbiologist working in a government facility, the threat of rogue scientists has been a particularly high-profile concern.  On September 22^nd, the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee held a follow-up hearing on the Lieberman-Collins bill. As one of the hearing’s witnesses, Bob Graham indicated that a rogue scientist is the most likely scenario in which a biological weapon attack is carried out.  Later that day, the Senate Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on Terrorism and Homeland Security held a similar hearing, entitled “Strengthening Security and Oversight at Biological Research Laboratories.”  The scheduling of two similar hearings so close to one another may be an important indication of the awareness on the Hill of serious bioterrorist threats.

A recently released National Research Council report assessed this issued, concluding that “there is no ‘silver bullet,’ that is, no single assessment tool that can offer the prospect of effectively screening out every potential terrorist” (9).  Nonetheless, a wide variety of protective measures will drastically reduce that risk.  The NRC report gives nine biosecurity recommendations (see the Executive Summary), which have been largely addressed by the Lieberman-Collins bill.  On top of the NRC report, the GAO has issued two relevant reports recently.  A July report identified gaps in security at high-containment laboratories, while a September report calls for a national strategy for oversight on high-containment laboratories, which would establish “uniform rules governing the planning, construction, accreditation and operation of the nation’s most sensitive biological defense laboratories” (GSN).  According to Global Security Newswire, federal officials and independent experts have been having difficulty determining which agency should take the lead on that agenda.  It is unfortunate that parochial politics and bureaucratic stalling are getting in the way.  Nonetheless, it is reassuring that people are talking about these critical issues.

The U.S. biological research complex has been plagued in the past by problems of security, standardization, and accounting (see here).  The volume of visible activity contributed over the last few months to the U.S. biosecurity establishment is encouraging; it seems that the country is now moving in the right direction to eliminate these vulnerabilities.

Legislation to Protect the World

Domestic legislation and activities aimed at protecting against bioterrorism not only serve to protect individual countries but also support the international movement to fortify the world against nefarious biological threats and proliferation.  An international multilateral treaty, the Biological Weapons Convention (BWC), sits at the center of this movement.  However, the BWC lacks an international implementation body and contains no provisions for monitoring or verifying compliance with the treaty.

As stipulated by Article IV of the treaty, the onus is placed on the honest participation and initiative of individual member nations:

Article IV

Each State Party to this Convention shall, in accordance with its constitutional processes, take any necessary measures to prohibit and prevent the development, production, stockpiling, acquisition, or retention of the agents, toxins, weapons, equipment and means of delivery specified in article I of the Convention, within the territory of such State, under its jurisdiction or under its control anywhere.

In their September 22^nd joint statement to the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, Graham and Talent expressed their faith in the BWC:

While the treaty has some inevitable limitations—particularly the difficulty in detecting violators—it remains a powerful norm: no nation brags about their biological weapons capability. It is our obligation to strengthen this norm, internationally. Right now, the clock is ticking on the BWC—the next BWC review conference, in which every article of the entire treaty is reviewed, takes place in 2011. We must propose a new action plan for achieving universal adherence to the BWC, so that all nations of the world are signatories to this pact. We also need to promote new ideas for how the BWC may be implemented on a national level. This conference presents the United States with an opportunity to showcase the progress we have made here at home in both lab safety and lab security. We will have the opportunity to set the global standards of success.

Just as strategic nuclear reductions and declaratory policies made by individual nations help to solidify the nuclear nonproliferation norm, actions taken by individual nations to ensure the safety, security, and legality of domestic biological research help to solidify the biological nonproliferation norm.  Bills like the recent Lieberman-Collins proposal are vital to transforming the BWC into a robust and healthy international regime.  Sen. Lieberman shared Graham’s and Talent’s broad vision, saying, “We hope that this proposal embracing the recommendations of the Graham-Talent commission will set an international standard for biosecurity.”

Meanwhile, the U.S. is not the only entity contributing to international action.  For example, the Australian Parliament adopted legislation for stricter biosecurity practices this past September.  And yesterday, the UN Headquarters in New York hosted a special event entitled “Resolution 1540: At the Crossroads” that brought together experts from academia, NGOs, and industry to review states’ responsibility under Resolution 1540.  Based on the resolution, “all States shall take and enforce effective measures to establish domestic controls to prevent the proliferation of nuclear, chemical, or biological weapons and their means of delivery, including by establishing appropriate controls over related materials.”  At least three papers were presented that focused exclusively on biological issues.  This included a paper by Dr. Marie Isabelle Chevrier of the BioWeapons Prevention Project, which endorsed greater government and UN engagement with civil society groups for help “in monitoring and raising awareness of the norms against the weaponization of disease.”

Concluding Thoughts

It is in the interest of every nation to pursue a strong set of biosecurity prevention and preparedness measures for two important reasons.  First, as explained above, domestic action on the part of individual nations goes a long way in contributing to the nonproliferation regime, thereby decreasing the risk of an attack occurring in one’s own homeland.  Second, given the modern mobility of people and infectious disease, a biological weapon attack occurring anywhere presents a subsequent threat to the rest of the world.  This renders national and international interests as one and the same—and this applies to both nefarious and natural biological threats.

As previously articulated, the volume of visible activity in the biosecurity movement over the past few months is encouraging.  It may not be at the head, but bio is certainly at the international table of nonproliferation discourse.  Biological threat issues still require a greater influx of creative minds and active awareness.  For this reason, Dr. Chevrier’s paper, and the BioWeapons Prevention Project as a whole, are particularly interesting.  Ultimately, these issues must come to the forefront of public awareness before breakthrough progress can be made.

On Wednesday, Michael E. Ruane of The Washington Post published an article entitled “Flu Trackers Encourage Patients to Blog About It,” describing public health agencies’ growing use of the internet social interactions to track flu outbreaks.  This has been made particularly relevant today as a result of H1N1 fears, but this type of internet monitoring (part of the rubric of “infodemiology”) has not popped up as a result of H1N1.  Ruane’s article is significant in that it is a small step towards popularizing the term “infodemiology” in mainstream consciousness, which could in the future present invaluable assistance to the public health and response system.

However, the infodemiology world could greatly benefit from a slight transformation: it should increasingly promote active citizen participation.

The Rise of Infodemiology

The term “infodemiology” was coined in a 2002 American Journal of Medicine editorial entitled “Infodemiology: The Epidemiology of (Mis)information” by Gunther Eysenbach, MD, a health policy professor at the University of Toronto.

In a later article, Eysenbach more lucidly explains infodemiology:

Dr. Gunther Eysenbach

Infodemiology can be defined as the science of distribution and determinants of information in an electronic medium, specifically the Internet, or in a population, with the ultimate aim to inform public health and public policy.

Potential infodemiology indicators and metrics include automatically aggregated and analyzed data on the prevalence and patterns of information on websites and social media; metrics on the “chatter” in discussion groups, blogs, and microblogs (eg, Twitter); and activities on search engines, etc.

…infodemiology is rooted in the idea that—at least for some areas and applications—there is a relationship between population health on one hand, and information and communication patterns in electronic media on the other, and if it were possible to develop robust metrics or “infodemiology indicators” which reflected these information and communication patterns in real-time, then all kinds of useful public health applications could be developed.

Eysenbach traces infodemiological studies back as far as 1996, but the term has yet to truly enter into mainstream consciousness.

Google’s Flu Trends and Boston-based HealthMap are two examples of current, public-access infodemiological systems.  Flu Trends monitors google search queries (locations and volume) with the assumption that there is a correlation between searches and experience of symptoms.  HealthMap crawls the internet looking for relevant epidemiological information, and consolidates that information into a real-time mapping interface.

Passive Participation

Most infodemiological techniques only involve citizens passively.  They certainly require alertness on the part of citizens, but do not necessarily solicit action on the part of citizens.  Instead, they monitor the public’s web presence looking for signs of increased interest in illness without most individuals actually being aware that this is happening at all.  The Washington Post article quotes Alessandro Vespignani, professor of informatics at Indiana University, explaining the concerns of this type of monitoring:

The Internet has been . . . a major scientific revolution… [With] all huge scientific revolutions there are enormous potential dangers. And confidentiality, privacy, is probably the first major issue at stake here.

Privacy is a contentious concern because of the status of citizens as unknowing (and by extension, perhaps unwilling) in regard to being monitored.

A Screenshot of HealthMap

There is a simple solution that would overcome the privacy problem while, even more importantly, greatly strengthen the efficacy of infodemiology: active and cognizant citizen involvement.  Instead of simply being the objects of monitoring, citizens can also become individual protagonists in helping a vast health network to confront and prepare for threatening epidemics.  As Ruane explains, some infodemiological programs already utilize active citizen help, such as Maryland’s “Resident Influenza Tracking Survey,” which requires citizen volunteers to fill out weekly surveys.  However, as August 2009, only 740 people had signed up in Maryland.

Greater efforts to bring responsible individual citizens actively into the contemporary challenges of infectious diseases will not only contribute to the public health battle against naturally occurring epidemics, but will also help to defend against potential bioterrorist attacks.  Infectious disease tracking is made quite complicated by unpredictable social interactions.  Real-time information provided to a consolidated infodemiological public health network would make tracking and preparedness much more reliable, and could thus save countless lives.  And in the case of a bioterrorist attack, rapid and real-time information would be even more critical to save lives and to maintain social stability.

The Preparedness Campaign

In Biosecurity Interventions: Global Health and Security in Question, sociology professor of UC Berkley Andrew Lakoff  discusses a transformation occurring within national security doctrine.  As Lakoff explains, in contrast to the traditional approach of dealing with preventable risks, U.S. government institutions now increasingly model risk management strategies around a postmodern, ambitious, and formalized agenda of preparing for (and thus mitigating) unavoidable risks.

These unavoidable risks come in two categories.  The first type of risk is man-made.  The power of modern science and technology—most archetypically represented by nuclear physics—has resulted in the simultaneous potential for remedial and destructive effects.  German sociologist Ulrich Beck has coined the term “manufactured risks” to refer to the unintended consequences of modern progress (Ulrich Beck, World Risk Society, 1999). The second type of risk is natural.  These risks, such as environmental disasters and natural disease epidemics, are beyond human control.  The threat of bioterrorism spans across both types of risk.

The agenda of preparedness has become as, if not more, important than the agenda of prevention.  Lakoff refers to this strategy as “vital systems security” and explains that

…this form of security is oriented to a distinctive type of threat: the event whose probability cannot be calculated, but whose consequences are potentially catastrophic. (Lakoff 2008: 403)

These threats cannot be effectively measured, and our means of knowing if and when they will transpire are exceptionally limited.  The justification for expending incredible amounts of time and money to establish preparedness against these risks lies in their “catastrophic” nature.

It is in this vein of preparedness that the Bush administration, in the wake of the September 11^th and consequent anthrax letter attacks, decided to bulk up its spending on biodefense.  On June 12, 2002 during a live televised address, President George W. Bush signed the Public Health Security and Bioterrorism Preparedness and Response Act of 2002 (the Bioterrorism Act), stating:

Bioterrorism is a real threat to our country. It’s a threat to every nation that loves freedom. Terrorist groups seek biological weapons; we know some rogue states already have them…It’s important that we confront these real threats to our country and prepare for future emergencies.

According to a 2008 article from The Washington Post, from 2002 to 2008, over $57 billion was spend on the U.S. biodefense program.  Most of this spending went to preparedness approaches, such as the production and stockpiling of vaccines and drugs (Project BioShield), the establishment of a network of detectors in more than 30 American cities (Project BioWatch), and training for mass infection and casualty response.

It has recently been contended that in contrast to the previous administration, the Obama administration plans to focus more greatly on prevention efforts.  Global Security Newswire reported on a recent White House bioterrorism meeting, in which the focus was on the prevention of biothreats rather than crisis management.

However, this does not mean that the importance of preparedness will be neglected.

Moreover, as evidenced by infodemiological programs, the preparedness culture seems to be spreading into a new realm: public awareness.  Preparedness does not need only include an expensive vaccine production industry, state-of-the-art biomonitoring equipment, and recondite hospital protocols.  Preparedness need not only originate in government programs and related industry.  The preparedness agenda can, perhaps most effectively, benefit from the most abundant and powerful source: individual citizens.

The Role of the Citizen

The most recent report by the Congressional Commission on the Prevention of WMD Proliferation and Terrorism, entitled World at Risk, emphasized the power of importance of citizen involvement:

A well-informed and mobilized citizenry has long been one of the United States’ greatest resources.  While much of this report has focused on what the U.S. government much do to prevent the use of weapons of mass destruction, it is also important to recognize the contribution that all Americans can make in preventing such an attack against our country. (pg. 108)

Although the report does not discuss infodemiology, its tone and recommendations for the “role of the citizen” is directly relevant to infodemiological potential.  The national (or even global) cyber-info community can help to overcome the effects of epidemics, whether naturally or nefariously caused.  Engaged online communities can help to defeat terrorism.  However, at this point, as explained above, infodemiological systems have not fully capitalized on the role of active, engaged citizens; instead, they have focused on the perhaps more convenient route of utilizing the public’s passive web presence.  Both types of engagement must be pursued.

But in order to get to the point where the public can better help the government defend against these types of hazards, many things need to happen to also help the public toward that end.  For example, there must be more public information published that explains the properties of specific threats, what constitutes suspicious activity, and how to inform authorities.  The public and government must more intimately engage each other in an information-sharing partnership.

But Beware of Misinformation and Disinformation

As indicated by the term, infodemiology demands information—real-time information.  This is its source of greatest strength, but also a troubling source of vulnerability.  In a study on the reliability of infodemiological practice for the American Medical Informatics Association, Eysenbach concluded:

Systematically collecting and analyzing health information demand data from the Internet has considerable potential to be used for syndromic surveillance. Tracking web searches on the Internet has the potential to predict population-based events relevant for public health purposes, such as real outbreaks, but may also be confounded by “epidemics of fear”.

Although Eysenbach has identified infodemiology as having “considerable potential,” he also notes that its efficacy can be greatly undermined by misinformation.  As described above, one type of misinformation would be the result of fear, which would confound the vision of infodemiological programs.

Another type of misinformation not covered by Eysenbach could come from intentional interference (disinformation).  Pranksters, hackers, and general rabble-rousers could exploit infodemiological systems as tools of disruption, purposefully inputting false information that would result in mis-diversion of public health resources and attention.

Ruane of The Washington Post quotes Ashley Fowlkes, an epidemiologist with the CDC, saying:

You’re always going to have to have [infodemiological results] verified against a system that’s physician-based.

Cross-referencing of different public health tools such as described by Fowlkes would certainly mitigate the dangers of infodemiological disinformation.  Nonetheless, as infodemiological systems become more powerful and involved, information-reliability safeguards of some sort may have to be built in.

Concluding Thoughts

Moving towards an infodemiological model that incorporates a more active citizenry (as opposed to the currently passive use of citizens) would have several benefits:

1. Infodemiological programs would produce a greater wealth of more reliable information;
2. Individual citizens would be exposed to the importance of responsible involvement in communally defending against infectious disease; and
3. As an extension, individual citizens would be introduced to their own potential in defending against terrorism

Although it is the official job of the government, the citizenry should also try to take more active role in protecting itself.  Through partnerships between citizens, the public health system, and the government, 21^st-century biological threats will be significantly mitigated.  And the lessons learned could be applicable to other types of threats as well.

Another troublesome element of the biological dual-use dilemma, which I did not develop in my earlier post here, is the possibility of dangerous international competition.  National research agendas, aimed at maintaining technological parity or advantages, could push the pace of advancements in the biological sciences at an incredible speed, perhaps thrusting research programs into areas that would otherwise be designated off-limits.

Such a situation is complicated by inconsistencies in international standards for research, which could be the result of two things.  The first would be intentional decisions on the part of individual nations to disregard the terms of the Biological Weapons Convention (BWC), which could prompt other nations to follow suit.  The second is a cultural issue: the lack of global cultural standards on what should and should not be permitted, particularly as advances are made in biotechnology and synthetic biology.  A global scientific culture of responsibility is vital, but it is unclear how consistently such a “culture” manifests itself into standards around the world.  The BWC is somewhat ineffective on many levels because of the vagueness of what exactly is illegal vis-à-vis the dual-use dilemma and the lack of a verification protocol.  These complicated shortcomings in the BWC have led to divisive issues surrounding biodefense programs, and may lead to similar dynamics surrounding biotechnology in the future.

The Biodefense Transparency Problem

In line with the dual-use dilemma, biodefense programs involve many of the same types of technologies and materials that a nefarious biological weapons program would involve.  Biodefense programs study and experiment with dangerous pathogens, sometimes they may genetically alter pathogens, and sometimes they may experiment with aerosolization—these are some of the primary earmarks of an offensive biological weapons program.  However, in biodefense, all of these activities are performed with the final purpose of developing countermeasures and therapeutics.  Nonetheless, it is not necessarily clear to outside observers that these biodefense programs are involved exclusively with biodefense goals.  In fact, the U.S. is suspicious that several countries may be developing offensive biological weapons under the disguise of biodefense, pharmaceutical, or life sciences research programs because of research elements that appear to have pertinence to offensive biological weapons capability.  As articulated by the U.S. Department of State Compliance Report of 2005, the U.S. suspects this may currently, or in the past, be the case with the following countries: China, Cuba, Iran, Iraq, Libya, North Korea, Russia, and Syria.  However, the U.S. itself has the most far-reaching and comprehensive biodefense, pharmaceutical, and life sciences research programs in the entire world.  In an interview on Wednesday with the Nuclear Threat Initiative, independent analyst Gerald Epstein indicated that the U.S. is “by far the most transparent on [bio]defense issues.”  See here.  Nonetheless, the U.S. certainly does have many research elements, such as those described above, that could be considered from the outside as pertinent to an offensive biological weapons program.  Can we expect other countries to not have the very same suspicions of us?

Domestic Suspicions Emerge

On November 25^th, 1969, Richard Nixon’s made an unprecedented announcement, unilaterally renouncing biological weapons and thereby leading to the first ban in history of an entire class of weaponry.  In his speech, Nixon explained:

Biological weapons have massive, unpredictable and potentially uncontrollable consequences. They may produce global epidemics and impair the health of future generations. I have therefore decided that:

• The United States shall renounce the use of lethal biological agents and weapons, and all other methods of biological warfare.
• The United States will confine its biological research to defensive measures such as immunization and safety measures.
• The Department of Defense has been asked to make recommendations as to the disposal of existing stocks of bacteriological weapons.

Prior to Nixon's announcement, Fort Detrick was the center of the U.S. offensive biological weapons program

Nonetheless, despite the U.S. founding and maintaining unflagging commitment to the BWC, suspicions of an offensive biological weapons program continue to exist in our society.  The extent of these suspicions became very clear during my thesis research on the political controversy surrounding a high-containment biodefense laboratory complex recently constructed in Boston—the National Emerging Infectious Diseases Laboratories (NEIDL), operated by the Boston University Medical Center and funded in large part by the National Institutes of Health.

The controversy has become an extremely complicated struggle between different interest groups that straddles a wide variety of political and social dynamics.  However, the foundation of the controversy, its raw fuel, revolves around the hypothetical risk that situating this particular laboratory (a Biosafety Level 4 facility) poses to the surrounding community.  The conceptually precarious nature of the NEIDL’s research agenda, characterized by its uppermost biocontainment classification of Biosafety Level-4 (BSL-4), serves as the primary stimulus for disagreement and dissent over both the hypothetical impact and underlying purpose of the NEIDL.  The beneficence of the NEIDL’s intended research has been questioned.  Discourses and ideas within the NEIDL controversy show that the NEIDL’s research agenda and the BSL-4 status are understood not only within their scientific context but also within a cultural context of connotations, experiences, and beliefs held by members of society.  This interconnected web of meanings has led many within the anti-NEIDL opposition group to contend that the NEIDL will undertake biological weapons research.

In formulating ways to institute an effective biodefense program for the nation, U.S. policy-makers have identified the need to implement a fusion of national defense and public health approaches.  However, this fusion, although seemingly suited to the intricate challenges presented by biological weapon and biosecurity threats, has resulted in its own shortcomings for the biodefense program.  Renowned journalist Laurie Garrett describes the contact between these two different institutional cultures, that of national defense and that of public health, as a “conflict of interest” that jeopardizes society’s trust in the public health system’s openness and beneficence:

But the fear of bioterrorism threatens to destroy that vital social contract, which is not shared by law enforcement and defense officials. The closer a public health system draws to the other two systems, the greater the danger that it will lose credibility in the eyes of the public… Some public health advocates are convinced that no marriage between their profession and law enforcement could ever work and have denounced all efforts to heighten concerns about bioterrorism. (Laurie Garrett, 2001, “The Nightmare of Bioterrorism”, Foreign Affairs 80(1): 76-89.)

In the eyes of the anti-NEIDL community, the NEIDL lacks credibility as a safe and integral component of the public health system—it undermines the “vital social contract” of public health—because of its association with a federal, national defense agenda.  Criticisms of the NEIDL’s development end up going beyond the alleged compromise of openness and transparency.  The NEIDL’s connection to national defense and homeland security, which is represented by both its official mandate and its funding from the NIH through a targeted Homeland Security budget, has incited a pervasive accusatory paranoia about biological weapons research, particularly amongst citizens who are cynical and disdainful of the Bush administration’s record.

In an attempt to understand and mitigate public opposition to the NEIDL, the NIH established a Blue Ribbon Panel.  The following is an excerpt taken directly from the 14 October 2008 Blue Ribbon Panel public community meeting in one of the Boston neighborhoods bordering the NEIDL:

Adel Mahmoud, Chairman of the Blue Ribbon Panel: This question has been on the minds of everybody and in Boston, and I want to respond to it.  And hopefully we are responding according to the laws of the country; we are not making a story.  The development of bioweapons is forbidden by the United States and international law.  This is the law.

Audience members laugh mockingly.

Now you can laugh, and I can laugh back at you, but that’s not the issue.  The issue is, do we live in a country that has got laws that are respected or not?

Audience: No!

You need to give me the courtesy to complete my answer, just as I give you the courtesy to say your questions, ok?  Anyone who develops bioweapons can be subject to criminal prosecution in keeping with those laws and restrictions.

A member of the audience verbally mocks Mahmoud.

I really don’t appreciate that, I really don’t appreciate it.  Boston University has publicly pledged that research on bioweapons will not take place at the NEIDL.  Furthermore, bioweapons research is very different than biodefense research.  Bioweapons research involves the development or production of biological agents or toxins for use as weapons.  Please try to appreciate this definition.  Biodefense, on the other hand, involves the development of protective interventions…I really, really plead with you to try to appreciate the difference between those two because if we continue on the same six years of debate, we’re not going to get anywhere.

The NEIDL in Boston

The pro-NEIDL interest group and many experts on the issue do not believe such accusations to be credible.  But regardless of its level of validity, this argument has become an unyielding element of the NEIDL controversy; that bioweapons research will occur in the NEIDL is a perceived reality for many people observing the NEIDL’s development.  Compliance and noncompliance with the BWC is a matter not only of practice but also of perception.  This is the case for domestic audiences, as well as for foreign nations examining one another.

Fears of a Biological Arms Race

Several experts on the matter have asserted that the biodefense research, with its focus on national defense, creates the precarious possibility of a foreign bioweapons arms race as foreign nations will also perceive biodefense facilities, such as the NEIDL, as bioweapons development facilities.  This includes Boston University School of Public Health Professor Dr. David Ozonoff and medical anthropologist Jeanne Guillemin, both of whom have been very involved in the NEIDL political controversy and in biodefense discourses in general.

Despite controversy surrounding any single particular laboratory, biodefense research will continue in the U.S., whether in university laboratories or government laboratories.  It is difficult to gauge just exactly how real the threat of bioterrorism or use of biological weapons actually is, since we do not have full access to information on the capabilities and intentions of terrorist groups and foreign governments.  However, it is perfectly clear that technically feasible use of biological weapons could result in horrific and catastrophic losses of life and social stability.  Biological weapons could theoretically also be deployed as genocidal weapons.  In this scope, biodefense seems perfectly warranted despite the concerns surrounding it.

Thus, there is a tremendous need for transparency and accountability in biological research programs around the world in order to mitigate mutual suspicions and prevent a competitive, self-perpetuating biological arms race.  The Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation has identified this challenge, expressed in a report (released yesterday) that explains the need for more effective compliance processes.  The report was the result of a “meeting, held in Washington, DC on 25 February 2008, [that aimed] to facilitate information sharing and discussion among a small group of governmental and nongovernmental experts about the processes used by various governments and government agencies to ensure their compliance with the BWC.”  The underling significance of the report is its contributions to the understanding of how to strengthen compliance with and confidence in the BWC.

There are several things about the BWC that are important to keep in mind when considering how to implement compliance:

1. The standards of the BWC may be interpreted vaguely, with intention being extremely important in the determination of what is legal and what is not legal
2. Lack of a verification protocol and lack of clear, automatic consequences of noncompliance has made the BWC a treaty of norms, requiring the building of credibility and confidence between nations, and revolving around perceptions
3. The ultimate intent of biological research programs is impossible to know definitively

The Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation report discusses the compliance procedures in place for several countries as well as delving into the challenges to credibility of the BWC.  The report expressed a general positive consensus among the meeting participants over two particular treaty interpretation principles:

The first principle was that compliance assessments should proceed from the presumption that biodefense activities must be shown to be justified under the terms of the BWC, rather than from the presumption that biodefense activities must be considered compliant unless shown to violate the terms of the Treaty.

and…

Second, it was proposed that in order to justify an activity under Article I.1 of the BWC, the activity should be shown to be both useful and critical for a prophylactic, protective or other peaceful purpose, the more so the greater the compliance concern.

A CDC Vaccine Researcher in a BSL-4 Laboratory

These two principles put the burden on individual countries to demonstrate they are in compliance, rather than putting the burden on others to prove individual countries are not are not in compliance.  There is a push to implement this approach for nuclear activities as well.  Although such an approach is not necessarily fair in terms of domestic civil punishment, this is a strong approach for an international treaty like the BWC, which tends to be based on normative action and mutual confidence and does not result in automatic punishment.  Such an approach promotes greater transparency and positive accountability, which are essential for mitigating the risk of a biological arms race.

A Trickier Future with Biotechnology

The BWC does not cover international competition in biotechnological research that does not deal with pathogens and toxins.  As discussed in my earlier post, the hypothetical threats of biotechnology include social hazards in addition to the physical hazards caused by pathogens.  The social hazards may expand into the international realm, particularly since, as already mentioned, there is a lack of global cultural standards on what should and should not be permitted.  Thus, one nation’s standards, and attempts to prohibit seemingly socially divisive or risky technologies, would not necessarily be followed by other nations.  How would one nation respond to a second nation pursuing cutting-edge biotechnological research that the first nation had decided was too ethically and socially sensitive to pursue, particularly if this research could present some sort of economic or even military advantage over the first nation?  National security, economically and militarily, are topics that often trump all other arguments.  The concept of morality and social stability often seem too abstract and impractical to focus on in the minds of strategic policymakers.  Such a situation could undermine individual nations’ attempts to practice responsible and moderated biotechnological research.

On 19 June 2008, the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, Subcommittee on Terrorism, Nonproliferation and Trade held a meeting entitled “Genetics and Other Human Modification Technologies: Sensible International Regulation or a New Kind of Arms Race?”  One of the expert witnesses called for testimony was Jamie F. Metzl of the Asia Society.  Metzl explained that in the face of a country, corporation, or group moving forward with an aggressive program in a biotechnological field, particularly one that is socially and politically taboo (genetic enhancement, for example), others would have the choice of responding in four ways:

1. Doing nothing and accepting a deteriorating relative position
2. Beginning the same program in order to keep up
3. Working to halt the offending program
4. Seeking to develop a global governance structure to produce uniform conduct and application

Metzl supported the fourth choice.

Concluding Thoughts

Many consider nuclear weapons to be a paramount gauge of international eminence.  As the global disarmament agenda proceeds, and nuclear weapons are hypothetically abolished, what will take the place of nuclear weapons as a measure of international status?  Biotechnological capabilities are certainly a possibility, and it could be a possibility equally as dangerous as nuclear weapons.  The nuclear and biological technologies have many differences and their uses in society include distinct contexts.  Nonetheless, as biotechnology, synthetic biology, nanotechnology, and even robotics continue to advance at an explosive pace, lessons learned from the international nuclear voyage can certainly be applied so that the general challenges and dangers presented by nuclear weapons can be prevented in these other fields of science before they even arise.

(Please note: This piece does not take a take a stance on the legitimacy of the atomic bombings.  It is meant to be provocative but not judgmental.)

In the new ethos, prompted by the atomic bomb and subsequent rise of ‘technoscience’, the scientist no longer practiced a reductionism of self-identity—based on the perceived existence within an isolatable value sphere and unconditional pursuit of its raw, technical objectives—but rather incorporated a new awareness of unavoidably overlapping value spheres into a new ethically, socially, and politically responsible self-identity.

In his famous lecture in 1918 at Munich University, the text of which is entitled “Science as a Vocation,” Max Weber instructed his audience against the use of science to determine ethics and values.  Weber trivialized the overly rational perspective that science could answer humanity’s deep political and philosophical questions, rhetorically asking:

Who—aside from certain big children who are indeed found in the natural sciences—still believes that the findings of astronomy, biology, physics, or chemistry could teach us anything about the meaning of the world? (Weber 1918: 142).

Weber relates the practice of science as a vocation with the task of teaching and warns his audience that “whenever the man of science introduces his personal value judgments, a full understanding of the facts ceases” (146).  For Weber, the scientist, like the teacher, must focus exclusively on his pursuit of technicality, logic, and the full spectrum of objective facts while purposefully neglecting personal and political views, which threaten to defile the purity of science.  According to Weber’s perceived scientific ethos—an ethos passionately devoted to the raw pursuit of technical mastery over the world—science should generate its own types of knowledge and techniques independent from the values of other disciplines and spheres of life: “the tension between the value-spheres of ‘science’ and the sphere of ‘the holy’ is unbridgeable” (154).  J. Robert Oppenheimer, father of the atomic bomb, characterized this Weberian spirit in the contention that:

the true responsibility of a scientist, as we know, is to the integrity and vigor of his science. (Oppenheimer 1947: 91)

J. Robert Oppenheimer

The embracing of this scientific ethos resulted in a reductionist practice of self-identity focused exclusively and unconditionally on the technical function of the modern scientist, a phenomenon that is epitomized by the scientists in the Manhattan Project.  In his lecture entitled “Physics in the Contemporary World,” Oppenheimer situated the traditional value of science in ‘method’, rather than ‘doctrine’, thus implicitly depicting science as an exercise of technique rather than morals, ethics, and value judgments (Oppenheimer 1947: 96-97).  The practice and organization of science described by Oppenheimer indicated that, to a large extent, the popular self-identity of scientists incorporated a robust complacency in ignoring the tough social, political, and ethical questions: “science is disciplined in its rejection of questions that cannot be answered and in its grinding pursuit of methods for answering all that can” (99-100).  The Manhattan Project scientists, it must be noted, certainly engaged in deep discourses on the ethical and social implications of their work in the course of the project.  However, the unconditional focus on the scientist’s technical pursuit suggested a superficiality within these discourses: they were to be discussed and contemplated but not allowed to affect the order and operations of life, which is indicated by the scientists’ unanimous unwillingness to halt their efforts even after V-E Day (Else 1981).  Oppenheimer retrospectively described this technical spirit in his 1954 security hearing testimony:

When you see something that is technically sweet, you go ahead and do it, and you argue about what to do about it only after you have had your technical success. That is the way it was with the atomic bomb. (Oppenheimer 1954)

A sense of patriotism certainly exerted some amount of influence over the Manhattan Project scientists, who sought to ensure the safety of American citizens and military superiority of the U.S.  However, Edward Teller’s spirit in support of the hydrogen bomb, which can be likened to the spirit of the original atomic bomb scientists, demonstrates that it was not patriotism that was responsible for eliminating possible sources of moral dilemma, but rather the self-ascribed, exclusively technical function:

it is not the scientist’s job to determine whether a hydrogen bomb should be constructed, whether it should be used, or how it should be used. This responsibility rests with the American people and with their chosen representatives. (Teller 1950: 71)

As described by Oppenheimer and various other physicists working under him in the Manhattan Project, these scientists had conceptualized scientific knowledge and technique in a totally de-contextualized manner, envisioning scientific knowledge and technique as products to be pursued in and of themselves.  Thus, they established their self-identities within an isolated value sphere, which many would regret having done in the wake of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings.

The rise of a new scientific ethos featuring profound disapproval with the past reductionism of self-identity was implicit within the tremendous guilt felt and described by many of the Manhattan Project scientists.  In his retrospective contemplation of the moral implications of atomic involvement, Oppenheimer could no longer dissociate himself and his discipline from ethics and value judgments:

In some sort of crude sense which no vulgarity, no humor, no overstatement can quite extinguish, the physicists have known sin; and this is a knowledge which they cannot lose. (Oppenheimer 1947: 88)

Manhattan Project physicist Robert Wilson shared Oppenheimer’s overwhelming feeling of guilt (Else 1981).  Fulfilling the self-identity of the traditional scientific ethos depended upon pursuing scientific knowledge and the ‘technically sweet’ with an ethically, politically, and socially neutral perspective.  However, the deep pangs of guilt and conscience crises experienced by many of the Manhattan Project scientists evidenced the rise of a new ethos in which the scientist assumes responsibilities beyond that of the technical.  Robert Wilson alluded to his previously one-tracked, technical consciousness with deep remorse and a new conviction to bridge the Weberian separation between value spheres:

Robert Wilson Breaking Ground at Fermilab in 1967

My reawakening from being completely technically oriented came dramatically on July 16 as I experienced the test explosion of the first nuclear bomb…That which has been an intellectual reality to me for some three years had suddenly become a factual, and existential reality. There is a very great difference. My technical work was done, the race was run, and the full awful magnitude of what we had done came over me. I determined at that moment that, having played even a small role in bringing it about, I would go all out in helping to make it become a positive factor for humanity. (Wilson 1971: 74)

Wilson, like many other scientists in the new atomic age, would no longer sit on the sidelines of political decision-making; he committed himself to the new ethos that inhabited not only the value sphere of science but also those of politics and ethics.  Wilson and Oppenheimer became integral in forming the Association of Los Alamos Scientists, which made political moves in pushing for international control of atomic energy.  Oppenheimer’s and Wilson’s sentiments illustrate how the new, unparalleled intimacy between science (specifically physics) and the ethically and politically significant capability to destroy produced a moral quandary so powerful that science was sucked into Weber’s sphere of ‘the holy’ as well as the spheres of politics, ethics, and social dynamics.  Self-identity in this new scientific ethos is no longer reductionist; rather, it straddles many different value spheres.

The rise of the age of technoscience, the origins of which have strong roots in the Manhattan Project, and its associated forms of scientific organization further illustrate the new intimacy between science and other value spheres.  Beginning with the Manhattan Project, U.S. scientific research and organization moved principally into the realm of state direction.  Political agendas increasingly drove and funded science; science had become intimate on a new level with external industries and institutions seeking to take advantage of it in precise ways for technological applications.  The term technoscience refers to this “end of the bifurcation between science and technology” (Professor Andrew Lakoff).  The fact of state-dominated funding implicitly indicated a de facto unity of mission, a deal-brokering process, between the scientific and political realms.  Organizational trends—specifically, the increase of interdisciplinary cooperation combined with huge mobilizations of scientific personnel—illustrate the increasingly direct orientation of science towards political agendas.

From this perspective, scientists were no longer neutral collectors and explorers of knowledge; other value spheres had extended themselves onto that of science and consequently imbued the scientist with ethical, political, and social responsibility.  Norbert Wiener, the father of cybernetics, acknowledged the importance of technoscience.  Peter Galison described Wiener’s thinking during WWII: “to be useful in the war effort, it was science itself that would have to change, becoming both materially grounded and squarely directed into the world of weapons,” that is, into technological application (Galison 1994: 235).  However, after the use of the atomic bomb, Wiener himself suffered an “acute attack of conscience” resulting from his awareness of the scientist’s multi-sphere role in the technoscientific world:

I think the omens for a third world war are black and I have no intention of letting my services be used in such a conflict. I have seriously considered the possibility of giving up my scientific productive effort because I know no way to publish without letting my inventions go to the wrong hands. (253)

The new scientific ethos and its elaborated form of self-identity have become firmly established within today’s collective consciousness, but this does not mean that every scientist has fully accepted and adopted them.  For this reason, the issue of the scientific ethos continues to have a vivacious presence in public discourses.  For example, within the discourse of the life sciences dual-use dilemma vis-à-vis the obligations established by the Biological Weapons Convention, a large cohort in the international scientific community united with public policy makers and diplomats have in the past decade increasingly voiced a deep concern over irresponsible decision-making on the level of the individual scientist and declared the need to institute a global culture of bioethics.  These advocates recognize the state’s weakening control and industry’s rising control over the life sciences, and worry about the possibility for inadvertent physical, social, or political damage as a result of reckless science—that is, science concerned more with technical and industrial advances than the social and political implications of those advances.  Dr. Jamie Metzl is one such advocate who envisions the frightening possibility of an international genetic arms race as a result of unchecked science.  He proposes a global “Genetic Heritage Safeguard Treaty” which calls on states, institutions, and individual scientists to incorporate a universally accepted set of ethics and standards into their activities in order to mitigate dangerous possibilities (Metzl 2008).  The proponents of a global culture of bioethics, in effect, oppose the reductionist self-identity of the Weberian scientific ethos just as many of the Manhattan Project scientists had come to do.  However, whereas the Manhattan Project scientists retrospectively recognized the predicament of a reductionist self-identity, the scientist proponents of international bioethics are attempting to proliferate the new ethos of moral, political, and social responsibility in advance so that they will not, as Robert Wilson did, have to repent:  “Thinking back to that time, it occurs to me that it would have been an excellent occasion for the conscience of a scientist to have been exercised” (Wilson 1971: 70).

Works Cited

Else, Jon, dir. The Day After Trinity: Oppenheimer & the Atomic Bomb. 88 min. KTEH, 1981.

Metzl, Jamie. “Brave New World War.” Democracy: A Journal of Ideas. Issue #8 (Spring 2008), 50-58.

Oppenheimer, J. Robert. “Physics in the Contemporary World,” in Oppenheimer, The Open  Mind, 81 – 102. 1947.

Oppenheimer, J. Robert. Security Hearing Testimony. 1954.

Teller, Edward. “Back to the Laboratories.” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. 6 (March 1950),  71- 2.

Weber, Max. “Science as a Vocation.” 1918. From Max Weber: Essays in Sociology, 129 – 156. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1958.

Wilson, Robert. “The Conscience of a Physicist.” Alamogordo Plus Twenty-Five Years, ed. Richard S. Lewis and Jane Wilson.  New York: Viking, 1971.

The word dilemma may be too docile to describe the biological and life sciences.  Nuclear physics feature a dual-use dilemma: the fundamental processes required to create nuclear energy are also involved in the production of nuclear weapon fissile material.  However, the dual-use dilemma involved in the biological and life sciences makes that of nuclear physics look like a cakewalk for several reasons:

1. The biological/life sciences are simply more prolific and easier to pursue than nuclear physics.  All countries have the right to research and have better access to research in the biological sciences.  Moreover, the pursuit of understanding and improving human health is culturally more entrenched worldwide.
2. The biological and life sciences are moving forward at a tremendous pace, via biotechnology and nanotechnology, with revolutionary discoveries on the constant verge of breakthrough.
3. The line between constructive and destructive biological research is vaguer than in nuclear research.  In the nuclear realm, the fuel cycle implicates that at a certain point, the science is no longer constructive.  In contrast, the very same techniques and research used to create vaccines and drugs are those required to understand and gain a better handle on the destructiveness of pathogens and exploitable vulnerabilities in human health and physiology.  The “fuel cycle” does not exist clearly in the biological sciences.
4. As a result, monitoring, overseeing, and perhaps managing the biological and life sciences entail not only greater resources but also trickier moral quandaries than does nuclear science.

The second reason described above has made potential dangers in the biological sciences increasingly complex.  Advanced modern biological techniques, in the fields of biotechnology and related nanotechnology, have resulted in a new scientific revolution that began with the birth of genetic engineering.  Through new technologies such as recombinant DNA, this revolution allows for humans to alter the very fundamentals, the coding, of all forms of life: plant life, animal life, human life, and microorganismic life.  Such capabilities present extraordinary potential benefits for human life, and even for global ecological health and development.  However, the tremendous power yielded by such knowledge also carries its own dangers, dangers that are commensurate in scope to the benefits.  Such a situation demands that we proceed with extreme caution and incredible conscientiousness as we seek to increase not only our capacities to employ these technologies but also our understandings of how these technologies could impact societies.

The quandaries presented by the biological and life sciences are not necessarily reflected in U.S. policies, at least not the most visible policies.  Based on U.S. policies expressed in the bulk of the biodefense program, the main threats are reflected in the CDC Category A bioterrorism agent list: Bacillus anthracis (Anthrax), Clostridium botulinum (Botulism), Variola major (Smallpox), Yersinia pestis (Plague), Francisella tularensis (Tularemia), and hemorrhagic fever viruses (Ebola, Marburg, etc).  These threats are certainly worrisome, particularly in the present.  However, the future risks revolving around biotechnology, specifically the growing practice of microorganismic and molecular genetic modification, deserve much greater attention.  Even when used for peaceful and beneficent purposes, progress in these fields may be extraordinarily dangerous.

The Risks and Threats

There are many different hypothetical risks and threats presented by advancements in biotechnology.  I have separated the threats into rough classifications, seen below:

Class I is the most obvious threat.  If you are interested in this topic, then you should pick up the book Biohazard, which is an account of the Soviet biological weapons program in the 1980s written by a man who served in a high-level research and administrative position, Ken Alibek.  His descriptions of the different projects are horrifying, particularly within the scope of biotechnological techniques that were employed to enhance and create new pathogens with unprecedented virulence.   As Alibek explains:

The Soviet government decided that the best agents were those for which there was no known cure.  This shaped the entire course of our program and thrust us into a never-ending race against the medical profession.  Every time a new treatment or vaccine came to light somewhere, we were back in our labs, trying to figure out how to overcome its effects. (Ken Alibek, Biohazard, pg. 18)

Class I threats today are considered by many to be more tied to terrorism than states.

Class II threats are also quite worrying, and such worries are not without precedent.  Well-intentioned research has led to the synthesis of new (and old) pathogens.  For example, the CDC reconstructed the notorious 1918 Spanish flu in 2005, and in 2001 Australian scientists accidentally engineered a modified mousepox strain with 100% lethality and that kills even vaccinated victims.  Results of these activities, and others like them, are usually published on the principle of scientific openness despite the risks of disseminating such knowledge.  The journal Biosecurity and Bioterrorism addresses this dilemma on its article contribution webpage:

Biosecurity and Bioterrorism was created to foster discussion of biosecurity and bioterrorism issues and to promote informed biodefense decision making amongst policymakers, technical experts, and the public.  However, the editors recognize that, in the process of promoting this critical debate, some of the articles published in this journal may contain information, such as public health biodefense preparedness vulnerabilities, biotechnologies, experimental methodologies, and medical response capacities, that could arguably lower the barriers to bioweapons attacks and/or increase the potential consequences of those attacks.  There exists a recognized and important tension between academic freedom and the potential for misapplication of scientific and other knowledge.  Judgments must be made regarding the balancing of risks against the importance of an open, robust debate on these topics.

As indicated above, Class II threats are tied in to Class I threats, as any progress and incidental discoveries made by beneficently oriented research can be seized and manipulated by nefarious agendas.  Class II threats must be mitigated by cautious and responsible scientists working in safeguarded facilities.

In terms of the social threats, the world is not likely to see a “Brave New World” scenario described by Class III anytime soon, or perhaps (and hopefully) ever.  However, social risks resulting from biotechnology need not necessarily come from government abuses.  Many people are adverse to biotechnological developments for their own cultural reasons: they believe some of these techniques represent an attack on the dignity of life or believe the effects of these techniques will lead to new social trends at odds with their own values or ideals.  I am not as concerned about these effects, as I cannot find myself privileging one social or value system over another simply because it is a change.  However, I am worried about some more practical potential effects, Class IV hazards, having to do with social stability.  Social stability is something that is necessary to the overall happiness and health of everyone in a society.

One example of a Class IV hazard would be social destabilization as a result of unequal access to genetic intervention technologies aimed at promoting health.  Examples of genetic intervention technologies are as follows, from least advanced to most advanced: pre-implantation genetic diagnosis (PGD) during in vitro fertilization, germline (inheritable) modification, and direct genome modification.  These techniques, of which only PGD is currently practiced, are different ways of targeting and eliminating genes or alleles known to be responsible for causing specific health defects and illnesses.  Thus, they are incredibly powerful tools for human health improvement.  However, they may also be socially divisive.  Such techniques are likely to be quite expensive, at least initially, and thus available only to the wealthier classes.  This would therefore intensify the wealthy classes’ health advantages over the less wealthy classes beyond the effects of unequal access to health care.  In fact, the health advantages would all of a sudden be more robust: they would be encoded into the genetic material of the wealthy classes—a hypothetical phenomenon that Center for Genetics and Society writer Marcy Darnovsky has referred to as the creation of “genetic castes”. See here.  Not much imagination is required to understand that such a radical intensification of health disparities, established on the most fundamental levels of life, could spark all sorts of pernicious social reactions.  It could intensify socioeconomic class divides to a dangerous level.

Another example is covered by Freeman Dyson in The Scientist as Rebel.  Dyson describes a vision in the not-so-distant future in which advanced societies gain widespread access to a hypothetical technology called computer-aided selection and computer-aided reproduction (CAS-CAR), a genetic offshoot of CAD-CAM technology.  With CAS-CAR software, people would be able to design all attributes for a pet, send their inputs to an artificial fertilization laboratory, and receive their new pet with its exact biological specifications several weeks later.  Dyson points out:

Designing dogs and cats is an ethically dubious business.  It is not as innocent as designing boats [using CAD-CAM].

He states hypothetically:

If our grandchildren are allowed to design their own dogs and cats, the next step will be using the CAS-CAR software to design their own babies. (Freeman Dyson, The Scientist as Rebel, pg. 24)

This type of scenario has been covered by countless science fiction books and films, which almost always culminate in danger and end with a social reawakening.  However, such stories are usually discounted as impossible tales or alarmist depictions; after all, the plots are usually made to be quite fantastical.  Nonetheless, all sorts of scenarios like the one described above are on the verge of becoming technically feasible.  And if there is market demand for them without regulation, it is not unfeasible that they would happen.

For a Brighter Future

Resolutions and ways to deal with the biotechnological dilemmas must come most importantly on the level of the global scientific community.  It is unclear that governments can single-handedly monitor and manage advancements in the biological/life sciences in order to ensure that progress does not become destructive.  Instead, the involvement and awareness of scientific communities around the world is absolutely critical.  The need for improvement in this area first gained great exposure in 1975 at the Asilomar Conference on Recombinant DNA, a conference among the world’s most prominent biologists organized in order to discuss biotechnological hazards and determine standards of regulation within the scientific community.  (This conference was of such significance that Asilomar has become a symbol for responsible, conscientious research—in fact, computer and robotics scientists recently chose Asilomar as their meeting place for an analogous conference.  See here.  Since then, calls for greater responsibility within the scientific community have continued, and they must continue.  Moreover, the biotechnological research landscape has gotten increasingly complex: as technologies get cheaper and knowledge disseminates, a new type of biotechnology research has emerged: the at-home “biohacker.”  A complicated partnership between the government, scientific community, and public is needed—a partnership built on transparency, communication, and a culture of awareness and responsibility—so that societies may continue to reap the benefits of scientific progress without begetting disaster.  Everyone has a stake.