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KurzweilAI.net, Oct. 10, 2005
"The decision by the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services to
publish the full genome of the 1918
influenza virus on the Internet in the
GenBank database is
extremely dangerous and immediate steps should be taken to
remove this data," says inventor and futurist Ray
Kurzweil.
The cause of one of history's most
deadly epidemics was reconstructed and found to be a bird flu
that jumped directly to humans, two teams of federal and
university scientists announced in the October 7, 2005 issue
of Science
Magazine, as the New York Times reported on Thursday,.
Besides the threat of accidental release of the
reconstructed virus from
laboratories, "the other potential threat comes from the
availability of the full genome sequence,
which has been put on the GenBank database," a
condition of the publication of the paper in Science, said Nature in an editorial.
In
addition, Science staff writer Jocelyn Kaiser revealed
that "Both the authors and Science's editors
acknowledge concerns that terrorists could, in theory, use the
information to
reconstruct the 1918 flu virus."
"I am
calling for this genome to be
'un-published,'" Kurzweil proposes. "I realize that this is
like trying to gather the horses back into the barn, but that
is exactly what we should try to do. Yes, there have been
valuable insights that have been gained from recreating this
virus, but those
insights can be published without disclosing the actual DNA sequence.
"The precise genome could
potentially be shared with scientists with a need to know and
who have been cleared by a security investigation and have
signed an agreement not to disclose the information,
with criminal penalties for such disclosure. In addition, I
recommend that the Congress initiate legislation to prohibit
publication of all such sensitive data on virulent
genomes (the exact extent to be defined) on all U.S. government
publicly available Internet sites.
"No responsible scientist would advocate publishing
precise designs for an atomic bomb, and this information is
even more dangerous. As Jonathan Tucker, a policy analyst at
the Center for Nonproliferation Studies in Washington DC, pointed out in Nature, 'Anyone can order DNA to be made to a
certain sequence.'
"We should take immediate steps to
remove this information
from the web and block any further publication of the actual
genetic sequence to prevent its access by would-be
bioterrorists," Kurzweil advises.
References:
Characterization of the Reconstructed 1918
Spanish Influenza Pandemic Virus, Science, Vol 310,
Issue 5745, 77-80, 7 October 2005,
Resurrected Influenza Virus Yields Secrets of
Deadly 1918 Pandemic, Science, Vol 310,
Issue 5745, 28-29, 7 October 2005,
1918 Flu and Responsible Science, Science,
Vol 310, Issue 5745, 17, 7 October 2005 , Nature, Volume 437
Number 794,
Supplementary information to "Large-scale
sequencing of human influenza
reveals the dynamic nature of viral genome evolution," Nature, Volume 437
Number 794, online
Experts Unlock Clues to Spread of 1918 Flu
Virus, New York Times, October 6, 2005,
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