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By Category: Policy & Initiatives

Research or development? DHS and national labs disagree

(FierceHomelandSecurity) In its research and development efforts at national laboratories, the Homeland Security Department now emphasizes development more than basic or applied research, said Daniel Gerstein, DHS’s deputy undersecretary for science and technology, on April 19. Gerstein spoke at a hearing of the House Homeland Security subcommittee on cybersecurity, infrastructure protection and security technologies. He  Read More »

Congress Has More Questions About NSABB’s H5N1 Decision

(Science Now) A senior Republican in the U.S. House of Representatives is asking more questions about how the U.S. government reviewed two controversial H5N1 avian influenza studies, and how it wrote a new policy for reviewing taxpayer-funded studies that might be used for good and evil. Representative Jim Sensenbrenner (R-WI) today sent a letter to  Read More »

Publication ban on virus research: security or censorship?

(Radio Netherlands) Deputy Minister Bleker has announced that he’s imposing a ban on publication – in the journal, Science – of the research which was carried out at the Erasmus Medical Centre in Rotterdam. He cites the rules laid down in the government’s User Guide on Strategic Goods and Services on the export of sensitive  Read More »

The Latest on the Doomsday Virus

(New York Times) We can worry less that a newly created bird flu virus might kill tens or hundreds of millions of people if it escaped from the laboratory. But there is still some residual danger. And we remain appalled at the slipshod way in which this research was authorized despite its potential dangers to  Read More »

US government recommends publication of bird flu papers

(Los Angeles Times) The U.S. government will support publication of two controversial research papers, officials said Thursday. The studies report details of experiments in which the deadly H5N1 influenza virus was engineered to pass between mammals, officials said Thursday. The decision, released via a statement by Dr. Francis Collins, director of the National Institutes of  Read More »

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