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DNA Sequence Withheld From New Botulism Paper
New submitter rex.clts writes "In the IT security world, it is common practice to withhold specifics when announcing a newly discovered software vulnerability. The exact details regarding a buffer overflow or race condition are typically kept secret until a patch is available, to slow the proliferation of exploits against the hole. For the first time, this practice has been extended to medical publishing. A new form of Botulism has been identified, but its DNA sequence (the genetic code that makes up the toxin) has been withheld, until an antidote has been found. It seems that censorship in the name of "security" is spreading (with DHS involved this comes as no surprise.) Is this the right move?"
When has with holding information 'ever' been the right move?
Considering that there is no antidote for regular botulism, my guess is that this "censorship" is doomed to failure.
Unlike software patches, which may take days or weeks, it looks like it could be years for this. While I'm not a big supporter of giving ammunition to terrorists (just for example), I doubt very much this secrecy will get very far. It usually doesn't. So it looks like a false sense of security ("security theater") to me.
it is extremely dangerous, there is no cure. Supposedly it is relatively easy to create once the DNA sequence is revealed. could be drastic consequences. I say, no don't publish it.
Good call! Wouldn't want those highly advanced scientists at al-Qaeda to reproduce it at the gene level or anything.
You can hold down the "B" button for continuous firing.
It's a national security threat. There are antitoxins to regular botulism. This is something else. Maybe readers will like to see a few million dead? Probably. Readers who think all info should be free are fools.
"When has with holding information 'ever' been the right move?"
Says the anonymous coward.
How small is your penis and what are your email and password?
What good would it do if the sequence were released in the paper? Do you really think that your average Joe needs to know it, or would be able to do anything with it? If it's a legitimate research institution that is interested, they can contact those who made the discovery and vet themselves to receive the data.
This fucking nanny state madness needs to stop. Grow a pair of balls people, life is full of risks, live with it you bunch of fucking cowards.
we now have only one that can look for the antidote, and the others start looking for the new botulism, since they know it exists now.
What antitoxins are there? Because they seem to be withheld as well. The only "cure" I personally know to heal people and animals that ingested the bacteria is to keep feeding them sugar water with added salts so you can flush the bacteria out of their digestive tract without dehydrating them. They need constant care and attention and possibly artificial respiration and such for days or weeks, until the poison wears off and they get control of their muscles again.
There are plenty of other toxins and bacteria that are known, easily obtainable and at least as big a threat as Botulism. One more won't really matter on a grand scale of things. If you want people to suffer horrible diseases you already have plenty to choose from. By not allowing a new sports car to get on the road "because it's fast and it could kill people if they had a collision with it" you're not suddenly making the streets any safer than they are. Withholding this information won't make people immune to all other harm, or add a significant new threat to the world. I'm all for keeping dangerous knowledge a secret, but this is ridiculous.
I was promised a flying car. Where is my flying car?
How is this different than a software vulnerability and security through obscurity, etc.?
I think to begin with, most software vulnerabilities aren't exploited to cause immediate death of (most likely) innocents. There's also no 'fix' for this (e.g. no software update to everybody's genome, but maybe a vaccine can be developed).
Similar to some other horrible chem/bio/nuke weapon formulas, yes, it should be properly redacted.
Don't theese Scientists beleeve in the Evilution!? The moral thing to do heer is to releese this super-dooper-botulism thing, let it infeckt everyone everywhyer, and the natoorlly immoon survivors will EVILOVE into teh NEXT EVILUTION of hoomans. Com on it's so ovbious, peeps!!
At least one case of prior art, papers dealing with some variant of the flu or other.
They're withholding the DNA so they can develop the cure first.
FUD. How on earth is having a DNA sequence going to magically enable a terrorist in Transylvania to manufacture the organisms?
It's a national security threat. There are antitoxins to regular botulism.
This guy is right, by keeping the DNA Sequence out of the paper it prevent ye-random-crazy from having a go at synthesizing some. On the other hand, it doesn't stop research into cures, because any legitimate researchers can just email or phone the guy.
For those of you who haven't been in academia; part of your job is knowing who the leading guys in your field are. This new stuff is nasty, so it makes sense to secure it behind a 'have I heard of this guy' and 'what has he done lately' check, if only to make sure you don't have an accidental outbreak.
So much ignorance here! Here's a working scientist's opinion:
http://pipeline.corante.com/archives/2013/10/16/holding_back_experimental_details_with_reason.php
And Derek Lowe is about as libertarian as scientists get.
The cocaine trade makes more and more sophisticated submarines and not all terrorists are stupid. Twisted, demented, ridiculous? Of course. And it only takes one or two. They have engineers that work for them, why not a chemist or a biologist or...?
We are entering an age of easily printed weapons (including biological), and have been in an age of free information. Until we enter the age of non-insanity we're always going to have to weigh security issues. Is this not the very definition of a potential WMD? Someday soon, if not already, it's going to be easier to make and deploy a virus than it is to make a long range missile with a nuclear payload, that is accurate. More of a threat perhaps than nukes if it's weighed on the damage caused / ease of implementation scale (where harder rating # is larger than an easier one, includes cost, ease of access to knowledge,etc).
-Ultimate Stickman Game Developer Infinite World Puzzler
It is the right move.
Ever since the potential damage of releasing information outweighed the potential utility of releasing said information it has been right and proper to keep information under wraps.
Now how about this case?
As the article states, botulism toxin is the most potent toxin we know (as in smallest lethal dose), and what researchers found was a new variant of it to which there is no antidote as of yet.
With the DNA sequence published, anyone with a simple bacteriological lab can produce it. There is a substantial risk that e.g. Al Quaeda (or worse, some home grown terrorist or some disgruntled Harris & Klebold combo or another McVeigh) gets their hands on it and will dump it somewhere in the drinking water supply of a large US city.
What's the risk of suppressing the information? Well, first that it becomes a habit, second that we might delay finding an antidote because we keep the sequence under wraps.
I personally believe that the risk of disclosure is a little too large to allow this particular sequence to be published, and outweighs the risk of suppressing it. So I'm convinced it's better to allow this information to be suppressed than to disallow it to be suppressed.
Let's be thankful that we still have someone able and willing to screen this sort of information and delay or suppress its publication.
Its DNA sequence has been withheld, until an antidote has been found. [...] Is this the right move?
We arrive at the same question as with security and open source software: if the DNA sequence is withheld, doesn't that reduce the probability of an antidote being discovered?
...on whether there is legitimate cause to believe that a specific group or individual is planning on weaponising this shit...
Political debates have me rolling my eyes so much I think I got optical whiplash. I should sue. - Foamy The Squirrel
Maybe they don't want the gene sequence patented by some outside party which could make tests and vaccines harder to access. Prior art wasn't worth shit before, and it's not worth half a shit under the new explicit first-to-file system.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
Censorship never is.
"If any question why we died, Tell them because our fathers lied."
You are totally correct. Terrorists are quite happy to use WMD when they can.
Sarin attack in Tokyo. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarin_gas_attack_on_the_Tokyo_subway
Anthrax attacks. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2001_anthrax_attacks
Oh, I'm sorry, was your post some pitiful attempt at sarcasm that went horribly wrong?
When I first embarked on my undergrad degree in biotech back in 2000, it took a fair amount of work to identify and replicate or insert a sequence of bases into a given segment of DNA. Now it can easily be done in a morning (OK, an afternoon if you're a late riser). Sooner or later the information will become available, but common sense would say that allowing a bit of time to prepare defenses isn't a bad idea.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heptavalent_botulism_antitoxin
http://www.infantbotulism.org/general/babybig.php
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21918119
http://www.cidrap.umn.edu/news-perspective/2006/02/antitoxin-infant-botulism-slashes-hospital-stays
The lab that discovered the new strain of botulism is a test center for infant poop. The drugs are terribly expensive so when a baby is suspected of having infant botulism, the hospital sends a sample that gets tested. If it's tested positive, the baby is given the antitoxin.
Seriously, use a web search. Not that hard.
Here I was, all ready to synthesize botulism from its DNA sequences in my basement. What am I going to do with the million-dollar lab I bought on credit?
The argument wasn't that he was a hypocrite. That was just for bonus points. The argument was that he did not share private information because that information is very private. Hence, not all things should be shared.
Simon's Law: People who call opposing arguments logical fallacies are incapable of correctly identifying logical fallacies.
Bioweapons come in two flavors, contagious and non-contagious. Non-contagious ones, such as anthrax, are similar in effect to chemical weapons. One shot, temporary damage, cleanup may be time consuming and expensive but is possible. They're cheap and easy to produce (if you can brew beer you can grow anthrax), but have a very limited shelf life and are more difficult to deploy effectively than chemical weapons.
Contagious ones are pretty much useless as a weapon as before long your own side ends up as affected as the enemy. Human-constructed organisms also tend to be unstable and mutate, making a vaccine of dubious value. This is why Fort Dugway gave up on Ken Alibek's 'black pox' and the like.
The primary danger in bioweaponry is the trust fund kid who thinks that PETA's agenda isn't radical enough. They tend to be stupid and outspoken though, and have generally terrible management skills. Hopefully this will be enough to keep us safe, because Fatherland Security won't.
"Think about how stupid the average person is. Now, realise that half of them are dumber than that." - George Carlin
By publishing at all, they've basically told the world - good guys and bad guys - "If you want to find the DNA of a supertoxin, research in this area."
If well-funded bad guys want the DNA code for this, they will get it on their own within a few years if not a lot sooner.
In the meantime, the clock is ticking and the researchers working on an antidote know it.
The moral equivalent in software security would be for security researchers to quickly publish enough details that a well-funded adversary could find and exploit the hole within a matter of months, while giving the publisher and White Hat security vendors enough details to improve their products before the bad guys find and use the exploit.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
Missing critical information? Can't reproduce results? Toss it the fuck away. This will teach them to not be in bed with the government.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
If someone figured out how to make a 1 kiloton explosive device by combining parts from an old toaster with those of a microwave oven, I wouldn't want that information "out there," either. Every 1000th house, or so, would become the center of another Hiroshima.
It depends on how long it takes to devlop an antidote, and how long it takes to synthesize this type of botulism into a weapon. If the first is hard and the second is easy, then keep it quiet. If the two are about the same time, then consider publishing earlier, since more people who can develop will develop an antidote faster.