I decided to go on working on my CAJ today, and to be honest, I was quite overwhelmed. Now that I have already talked about the most general things that are to say about Biological Warfare, it was pretty hard to find something that goes more into depth. Most articles I found online were general introductions, but I found barely anything I could use for this blog post.
But now, finally, I think I found something. The thing is that in order to understand BW you have to know a little bit about genetics and biotechnology. The entire concept of sophisticated BW only exists because of the progress men made in genetic engineering. Only because of the fact that we are able to decode genes and manipulate them (at least up to a certain point) is it possible to create efficient biological weapons. Without the help of highly developed lab equipment and a considerable amount of knowledge about genetics BW would not be possible.
The problem with this, however, is about the ethics. Our knowledge of genetics and biotechnology did not come from belligerence (Kampfeslust) and the urge to hurt others, but from the desire to understand even the smallest parts of our universe and from the wish to cure illnesses and facilitate our lives by making for example food production more efficient. Scientists did not conduct research with the aim to fight people but with the noble intention of making our lives better. This virtuous cause, however, was not able to protect improvement and progress from dual-use.
Dual-use describes the phenomenon that something can be used for two different purposes, e.g. military and civilian. Common examples for dual-use are for example GPS that used to be only for military service and is today used for navigation. In our case, dual-use means that an invention or result of research can be used for helping people as well as - in the worst case - killing them.
Dual-use can occur in almost every academic discipline. In atomic physics, soon after the nuclear chain reaction was discovered, scientists realized its potential for mass destruction and discussed whether to keep their findings secret to prevent them from being weaponized or publish them. While they were kept secret at first, other scientists finally published the findings which eventually lead to the atomic bomb.
Another very contentious paper is a study published in 2005 that showed how 400,000 people could be killed by no more than 4g of a toxin dispersed at one dairy plant. While the author only intended to show a way of protection of the U.S. milk supply he was lashed violently from the government because the information could easily be misused. The study was published nevertheless because the journal wanted to raise awareness of the danger.
Another famous example for the controversy of research that can be dual-used is a debate about the alteration of the H5N1virus. Two studies managed to make this lethal virus easier transmissible between mammals, and thus more efficient as a biological weapon. The wish of the performing scientists to publish their findings was followed by a heated discussion. Publishing opponents argued that the studies give exact instructions on how to make the already lethal virus even more fatal while supporters wanted it to be published in order to facilitate future research on H5N1. It was considered to publish the studies but leave out the keypoints necessary to really create this modified version of the virus, but after numerous scientists requested it to be published completely finally one of the two studies was published in Nature. It was pointed out that after all the information was not as dangerous and sensitive as first assumed.
Clearly, many scientific papers can be misused, even if the author had no such intentions. This happened to Arthur Galston, a botany student who published a thesis on chemicals that hasten the development of flowering plants. Military researches read the thesis and used his finding to develop the Agent Orange. This chemical was used in the Vietnam War and has caused severe human health problems.
Because of cases like this some scientific journals have now started to evaluate the papers they intend to publish on their dual-use potential in order to prevent such controversies.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3385452/#r11
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