{"id":71930,"date":"2017-08-15T19:22:28","date_gmt":"2017-08-16T02:22:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2017\/08\/the-government-must-review-what-bioresearch-journals-publish"},"modified":"2017-08-15T19:22:28","modified_gmt":"2017-08-16T02:22:28","slug":"the-government-must-review-what-bioresearch-journals-publish","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2017\/08\/the-government-must-review-what-bioresearch-journals-publish","title":{"rendered":"The Government Must Review What Bioresearch Journals Publish"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"padding-right: 20px\"><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/the-government-must-review-what-bioresearch-journals-publish.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s getting too easy to create dangerous viruses. The upcoming national biodefense strategy should ensure that scientific journals don\u2019t help terrorists learn how.<\/p>\n<p><strong>The news that researchers have recreated an <\/strong>extinct cousin to the smallpox virus using only commercially available technology and items purchased over the Internet renews concerns that bioterrorists could do the same if detailed information about the methods were published. Here\u2019s the problem: scientific journals are geared toward publication, often without sufficient understanding of the public-security risks. We need a better system to ensure that information that could help bad actors stays unpublished.<\/p>\n<p>It took David Evans\u2019 team of scientists at the University of Alberta in Edmonton, Canada, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/news\/speaking-of-science\/wp\/2017\/07\/07\/scientists-synthesize-smallpox-cousin-in-ominous-breakthrough\/?utm_term=.79f3befd2fab&wpisrc=al_alert-hse&wpmk=1\">about six months and $100,000<\/a> to recreate the horsepox virus, a close relative of the smallpox virus that killed perhaps <a href=\"http:\/\/www.who.int\/about\/bugs_drugs_smoke_chapter_1_smallpox.pdf\">300 million people<\/a> in the 20th century before it was eradicated in 1980. In a <a href=\"http:\/\/www.who.int\/csr\/resources\/publications\/smallpox\/variola-research-november-2016\/en\/\">summary<\/a> of the research, the World Health Advisory Committee on Variola Virus Research wrote that \u201crecreation of such viral genomes did not require exceptional biochemical knowledge or skills, significant funds, or significant time.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><!-- Link: <a href=\"http:\/\/www.defenseone.com\/ideas\/2017\/08\/government-must-review-what-bioresearch-journals-publish\/139901\/?oref=DefenseOneFB&utm_content=buffer69ac9&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook.com&utm_campaign=buffer\">http:\/\/www.defenseone.com\/ideas\/2017\/08\/government-must-revi...ign=buffer<\/a> --><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It\u2019s getting too easy to create dangerous viruses. The upcoming national biodefense strategy should ensure that scientific journals don\u2019t help terrorists learn how. The news that researchers have recreated an extinct cousin to the smallpox virus using only commercially available technology and items purchased over the Internet renews concerns that bioterrorists could do the same [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":440,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,1490,1495,418,1492,2414],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-71930","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-biotech-medical","category-government","category-health","category-internet","category-security","category-terrorism"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71930","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/440"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=71930"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71930\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=71930"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=71930"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=71930"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}