Mike Palij writes:
>I note that you did not actually deal with my question.
namely
>>How should scientists react to having the U.S. government
>>or any government censor ("redact") published scientific reports?It was implicit in my latest response (see below). Since your original email was in the context of nothing more than a reasonable request by a US health agency in regard to scientists and a journal over which the US has no jurisdiction, quoting Esterson: "To make something potentially sinister out of this situation seems to me to be somewhat over the top." Anyway, I must now turn my mind to the more pressing issue of wrapping Christmas presents, an art I have never been able to master. :-) So a merry Xmas to you all! Allen Esterson Former lecturer, Science Department Southwark College, London allenester...@compuserve.com http://www.esterson.org -------------------------------------------- From: Michael Palij <m...@nyu.edu> Subject: Re:What If The Government Were To Censor Scientific Research Reports? Date: Wed, 21 Dec 2011 10:07:10 -0500 On Wed, 21 Dec 2011 01:31:01 -0800, Allen Esterson wrote: >In the context of the claimed discovery that a mutant and highly >dangerous strain of avian flu reportedly "fatal in 60 per cent of human <cases" has been developed by a relatively simple method in a >Netherlands science laboratory, Mike Palij asks: >>How should scientists react to having the U.S. government >>or any government censor ("redact") published scientific reports? I note that you did not actually deal with my question. >In the interests of free speech, I might similarly ask how should >democrats react to any curtailing of the freedom of an individual to >shout "fire" in a crowded theatre. Allen did not provide a citation for the "fire" quote so I don't know whether he is aware of its original context or its original wording. Wikipedia has a brief entry (yadda-yadda) on this saying which was originally made by U.S. Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes; see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shouting_fire_in_a_crowded_theater Quoting from the entry: |Holmes, writing for a unanimous Court, ruled that it was a violation |of the Espionage Act of 1917, (amended with the Sedition Act of 1918), |to distribute flyers opposing the draft during World War I. Holmes |argued this abridgment of free speech was permissible because it |presented a "clear and present danger" to the government's recruitment |efforts for the war. Holmes wrote: | | "The most stringent protection of free speech would not protect |a man falsely shouting fire in a theater and causing a panic." Note that the original wording is "falsely shouting fire" -- truthfully shouting that there is a fire is another thing. It should also be noted that the entry states that Holmes later changed his opinion on whether distributing flyers posed a "clear and present danger" to the government. I also don't see what connection Allen's comment has to my original question. >It is, of course, not only US health authorities who are concerned: > >"EU Commissioner John Dalli told journalists he had received assurances >from Dutch authorities that the virus was secure… 'One of the issues >... is to ensure that any information coming from this research is well >controlled and without sensitive details about mutation being given,' >he said. > http://www.asiaone.com/Health/News/Story/A1Story20111213-316022.html Again, I fail to see Allen's point. The U.S. has a long history of funding secret research that has not been open to peer review or public scrutiny: see the Wikipedia entry (yadda-yadda) on the Strategic Defense Initiative or better known as the "Star Wars" defense system: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strategic_Defense_Initiative This is the kind of waste of money and effort one gets when one engages in secret research for the government (and don't get me started on Cold War efforts on using extrasensory perception against the Russian as reported in the book "The Men Who Stare at Goats"). Finally, given the level of sophistication and technical capability to produce bioweapons, does anyone really think that the "enemy", however defined, doesn't have access to similar resources (e.g., how did Pakistan get nuclear weapons)? Of course, anyone with enough money and the right connections can buy almost anything in the world or the materials to build anything. How would censoring scientific journals prevent that? -Mike Palij New York University m...@nyu.edu ------------------------------------------ From: Allen Esterson <allenester...@compuserve.com> Subject: Re:What If The Government Were To Censor Scientific Research Reports? Date: Thu, 22 Dec 2011 04:16:04 -0500 (EST) According to the Independent, "a group of special scientific advisors to the US Government decided that the details of the two studies into H5N1 bird flu were too sensitive to be published in full and recommended redactions to the manuscripts rather than a complete ban on publication." The US NIH expressed their concerns thus: "While the public health benefits of such research can be important, certain information obtained through such studies has the potential to be misused for harmful purposes," the statement says. "These manuscripts... concluded that the H5N1 virus has greater potential than previously believed to gain a dangerous capacity to be transmitted among mammals, including perhaps humans." http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/us-tells-scientists-to-censor-flu-research-6279888.html In other words, the NIH reported that "the US National Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity, which advises the US Government, recommended that the scientists and the two journals should omit key details of experiments. It does not want the publication of all the scientific methods used in the experiments, nor the genetic sequences of the mutated H5N1 virus, in order to prevent replication of the research 'by those who would seek to do harm'." So the NIH, along with others such as an EU spokesperson, is expressing reasonable concerns and requesting reasonable measures. They have no jurisdiction over the journal Nature, to which the relevant paper has been submitted. To make something potentially sinister out of this situation seems to me to be somewhat over the top. Allen Esterson Former lecturer, Science Department Southwark College, London allenester...@compuserve.com http://www.esterson.org --- You are currently subscribed to tips as: arch...@jab.org. To unsubscribe click here: http://fsulist.frostburg.edu/u?id=13090.68da6e6e5325aa33287ff385b70df5d5&n=T&l=tips&o=15004 or send a blank email to leave-15004-13090.68da6e6e5325aa33287ff385b70df...@fsulist.frostburg.edu
