Why Do Pathogen Researchers Face Less Scrutiny Than Nuclear Scientists?

Oh, yes. A doomsday device that gets preyed upon by every protozoan, yeast, and bacterium in the world. How brilliant. At least that rules out any organization other than a lunatic from employing it!

Why do you think MRSA?by all means a real, legitimate biological threat that isn't the fantasy of a powerhungry politician?is only found in hospitals and factory farms? The metabolic cost of the antibiotic resistance makes it vulnerable to the environment. The more radically efficient a disease is, the worse it is at killing. Even exceptional pathogens are meagre: "during the outbreak the fatality of SARS was less than 1% for people aged 24 or younger, 6% for those 25 to 44, 15% for those 45 to 64, and more than 50% for those over 65."

Furthermore, what would controlling American researchers accomplish? The United States does not have a monopoly on disease research. Surely a much greater threat comes from disease research laboratories in less developed countries with more corrupt governments rather than the exceptional person in a generally healthy, secure, and safe working and living environment. Moreover, despite the lack of a direct oversight mechanism, there is still a great deal of internal review, and it is implausible that an academic would have the resources to work on a project such as this without scrutiny and authorization.

Ultimately, this approach seeks to treat with suspect people who do sensitive work. In less fortunate populations that has been shown very thoroughly to induce criminality. Ivins, the prime suspect of the "Amerithrax" case, was known to be mentally unstable and once saw a counsellor, who was apparently terrified of him. He should have been directed to another therapist, but wasn't.

So there you have it. The only real scenario that has ever occurred, which this policy seeks to prevent, and it was caused by a failure of the psychiatric system. And no one died.

Source: http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdotScience/~3/kyT8IxxRF9g/story01.htm

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