Is America’s fear of terrorism putting a chill on essential scientific research? For Italy’s La Stampa, columnist Piero Bianucci warns that the White House, in an unprecedented move to prevent terrorists from getting their hands on an even more deadly form of bird flu, has persuaded science journals Science and Nature to censor themselves, undermining the free flow of information that scientific progress depends on.
For La Stampa, Piero Bianucci writes in part:
The long wave of terrorism that began ten years ago with the collapse of the Twin Towers has resulted in damage to a fundamental principle: the free flow of information in the world of scientific research. Science and Nature were unable to accept an invitation to publish the details of experiments that could have led to the production of biological weapons employable by terrorist groups.
The request for the two scientific journals not to publish was made by the National Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity, a body that is an arm of the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH). This happened just weeks after an announcement that American and Dutch laboratories had succeeded in modifying H5N1 avian influenza A, making it extremely aggressive. Four genetic “finishing touches” did the trick. An epidemic caused by this modified virus would become a global tragedy.
This is the first time that a U.S. political authority has asked scientific journals to exercise self-censorship. … The request to practice self-censorship is understandable in a nation as wounded by terrorism as the United States. But it hasn’t failed to stir controversy among scientists themselves. Even if applied, there is doubt as to whether self-censorship actually works. Techniques to modify viruses are widely known and are easily applied by people in unreliable countries like North Korea. What is discovered in the United States today will be found in the Far East tomorrow.
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