Bush moves to tighten security around scientific research

In the wake of the anthrax attacks last October (BMJ 2001;323:942, 951), the Bush administration has been taking measures to improve secrecy about science research, in the hope of keeping biological weapons out of hostile hands.

The move has been criticised by some scientists who think that it will threaten scientific advance and the spread of important information.

“fear feeds on ignorance”

• Download figure
• Open in new tab
• Download powerpoint

Explaining the new policy, Tom Ridge, director of homeland security, said: “We're working hard for a set of guidelines so terrorists can't use information that this country produces against us.” He added that scientists were being closely consulted about any new guidelines.

Last month, the government began to withdraw from circulation nearly 7000 technical documents that dealt mainly with the production of biological and chemical weapons. The documents, some of which were published as far back as the 1940s and '50s, can no longer be purchased from government outlets or ordered on the internet.

The Pentagon's Defence Technical Information Center has custody of many reports, which are available to the public through the Scientific and Technical Information Network. For $50 (£35; €57) a year, the network provides citations to unclassified, unlimited documents.

The US Department of Commerce's National Technical Information Service sells military documents and other kinds of federal documents. A spokeswoman said that 6619 documents had been removed from circulation and that the figure would rise as new candidate documents were identified for security review.

The Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology, representing 19 societies and over 66 000 scientists, was critical of the Bush administration's move. “It comes down to a risk-benefit ratio,” said the federation's president, Robert Rich. “I think the risk of forgone advances is much greater than the information getting into the wrong hands.”

The American Society of Microbiology has over 40 000 members and is the world's largest organisation that performs microbe research. It has been asked by the White House to limit potentially dangerous information in the 11 journals it publishes, which include Infection and Immunity, the Journal of Bacteriology, and the Journal of Virology.

The society's president, Dr Abigail Salyers, in an article to be published in March, wrote, “Terrorism feeds on fear, and fear feeds on ignorance.” The best defence against anthrax or any other infectious disease, Dr Salyers added, was information that can bolster public safety.

But the Sun Sentinel, south Florida's largest newspaper, wrote in a January editorial, “It's just plain stupid to be making this kind of information available.”