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Avian Flu Researcher Backs Down On Plan To Defy Publishing Ban
ananyo writes "Ron Fouchier, a researcher at the Erasmus Medical Center in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, whose work on the H5N1 avian flu virus has been embroiled in controversy, has now agreed to apply for an export permit to submit his work to the journal Science. Fouchier's paper is one of two reporting the creation of forms of the H5N1 virus capable of spreading between mammals. The other, by Yoshihiro Kawaoka of the University of Wisconsin, Madison, and the University of Tokyo, and his colleagues, has already been submitted to Nature. Fouchier had said last week that he intended to defy the government and submit the work to Science without seeking the export permit that the Dutch government says is required."
In related news, renek noted that the U.S. NIH director supports publishing the papers in full.
One of the solutions to the Fermi Paradox is there is some feature of physics that is trivially easy for a disgruntled sentient to misuse and kill everybody.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
Pansy.
For large sets, this will be our guide even unto death, for the LORD will work for each type of data it is applied to...
1. pandemia
2. ???
3. profit!
I was the real korpiq until I woke up clowned.
There's a guy who's in charge of a department devoted to grumbling that things were "not invented here"?
I wonder where that dumb idea came from.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
With each new advance come new powers; with new powers, the ability to commit evils.
When humankind invented the axe, murder got a lot easier.
With the computer, hacking.
With home DNA synthesis, biological warfare.
When we get nuclear reactors for the home, all sorts of bad stuff can be done.
Do we retreat from technology just because there are going to be evils?
Or accept that we're going to take some casualties and move forward?
...NOW how am I supposed to create a ultra-virulent virus capable of making humanity extinct!?!?!!?!
I love the way that headline is phrased. So he's not deciding not to follow the rule about not publishing, eh?
"This algorithm runs in constant time. Come on, 2,147,483,648 is a constant..."
So "the truth" now requires an export permit before we dare speak of it in public?
Well and truly fucked, the lot of us.
Science is now dead.
All science and engineering have "dual uses" - good and evil. Basic science more than anything, because it's done without any practical goals in mind - that's figured out later and we call it the applied sciences.
When a government says you can't publish because "someone might use it for bad things" that means you can't publish anything at all. It doesn't matter. A design for a new kind of architectural brick cannot be published because someone might make one and bash someone's head in.
The people who need their heads bashed in are those pushing the security state.
Welcome to the new dark ages.
--
BMO
Ron is from the same "venture" that convinced the Dutch government to make the tax payers invest millions and millions in useless vaccines. And now somehow they still feel they don't need to be held accountable by the Dutch government. I trust him as far as I can throw him. And I promise I'll make a real good effort....
There's no advantage of releasing the techniques of creating a killer virus. What advantage is there to releasing a serial killer form prison and shooting everyone?
If I find a way to immunize the population against cancer, but the only delivery system is through a modified bird flu virus, it's very helpful to have this information out in public.
I'm all for freedom of information. But in this instance, what reason do we have to release it to people that aren't working at research labs? Why would the hobbyist need access to this? I agree, we need to release this to researchers so we can develop a vaccine. But can a person who's not working at a serious research facility develop a vaccine before the eco-terrorist with basic biology skills develop a weaponized form of the virus? I'm not an SME on the field, but I'd bet that the answer is no.
And for all those saying you guns can kill people or that nuclear technology can kill people. First off, a gun kills a few, maybe tens of people at a time, at most. A weaponized virus will kill millions, tens of millions, or hundreds of millions at a time. And as for nuclear technology, it takes substantial infrastructure to weaponize nuclear technology. It only takes a home lab to weaponize a biological threat. So please, stop comparing apples and oranges.
The government has no reason to prevent this information from getting to legitimate research institutions. In fact, they've already said that they want this to go to legitimate research institutions. They'res just trying to prevent this from getting in the hands of the religious nut that wants to start the second coming of christ or the eco-terrorist that feels humans should be exterminated from this planet.
Good. Some people live like there is no reality and no actors out there but the one they live in and the ones they have lunch with. Glad to see they finally GTFU.
Now it can sit in the back ground until a research who is a bad actor decides to whip some up.
Better to release the info, and make it a priority on vaccine research.
You can't control it from the people who would use it because they have researchers as well.
And if we study it now, if Mother nature tosses it at us, or something similar, we will be prepared.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
It's not black and white like that. It's not "everyone knows or no one can look". It's controlling who looks. Yes that is not democratic and will not lead to the optimum results if your ONLY goal is to study it for defensive purposes- against Mother Nature or terrorists .
But that can't be your only goal. Your goal has to be to minimize the likelihood that terrorists will use it in the first place, or learn from it and do something just as vile against which we have no immediate defense.
So we have an optimization problem. If we secret away and no one looks, we run the risk that terrorist or MN will unleash it and we'll have nothing to defend ourselves with. If we just let it go public, you're HELPING the terrorists as per above.
Like everything else in life there is no silver bullet solution or perfect approach. You have to assign probabilities to outcomes and try to maximize your result.
The way to do that is let's study it in a secure environment. That way, we learn about but the terrorists are shut out.
Is there a scenario whereby Bruce Willis Lone Rouge Researcher secretly studied in his basement and was the only one with an effective vaccine the day the terrorist struck? Are we preventing such a virtuous outcome by following keeping our secrecy in place?
That scenario exists ( in Hollywood especially) but it's much less likely than the alternative where we helped the terrorists inadvertently.
This is a judgement thing.. this is a maturity thing and also an experience thing where experience means roughly, having spent serious time running the scenarios informed by real world and possibly classified information.
People don't just naturally come to the conclusions game theorists do without studying and reasoning with the benefit of informed tested theories. This is something like that. You have to be a specialist to really think through what to do here. Yes that does sort of leave you and me with layman's opinions out of the decision making process. That's what it is to be alive at a time when just everything has been advanced to the point where only specialists really understand shit. It's inherently undemocratic if you think everyone's opinion should count for the same amount in every domain..